The Journey

by snowygirl814

What happens when a prophecy from another planet gets mixed up? Elisa's story tells it all.

The Journey

By, Breanna Fallon

Prelude-

My name is Elisa Barnett, and I am a semi- perfectly normal teenager. I'm fifteen years old and live in a small town called Canaan. I'm sure you have no idea where that is, but trust me, it's a real town. Most people would describe me as being quiet, a daydreamer and sometimes an introvert which is totally ridiculous. I talk to people! … Most of the time. Oh, and a lot of people call me a nerd which is completely untrue. I'm very attractive, I mean sure I am really smart and all but doesn't the definition of "nerd" mean that you have to look "nerdy" also? Well, definitely not me. I have long red hair always straightened and brushed perfectly. I have a smooth face, acne free! Unlike most of the girls in my school. Especially Rebecca Eisner. She looks like she was bobbing for french fries in hot oil. (Whoops, don't tell her I said that! Wait, you don't even know who she is. Never mind!) Anyways, I am really tall too. Five feet eight inches to be exact. Or I could give you it in just inches... or centimeters. But you probably don't care, just accidentally adding onto my "nerdiness." Anyways, as you read on in the story of a big part of my life which hopefully if you care enough you will, you'll go through the strangest, most interesting, and even the most awesome story ever!

It all started on a Tuesday morning. I was at school, sitting in class, just like any other normal day. I looked at the clock hung up on the bland white-painted wall. It read 9:00. Not even close to 2:30 when my school day ends. I sat with a pencil and an open notebook, daydreaming and writing another story while I payed little attention to the English teacher. Hey, I'm sure I'm not the only one not paying attention in class. You probably do the same thing. Anyways, technically, I WAS doing English work, I was writing anyways. "Elisa, would you care to put away the notebook and pay attention to the class." My teacher Mrs. Buberd said. Haha, that's coming from the teacher who's name is "Bub", I am doing English work. I thought but I did as she said and put my notebook away.

Mrs. Buberd wrote on the chalk board the words, personification, irony, and pun. "I'd like everyone to take out a blank sheet of lined paper and write the definition for these three words." Hmmm, lets see... I thought and I wrote down the answers. (Personification- adding human characteristics to an object, place or animal. Irony- There are three types, Dramatic, Situational, and Verbal. Irony is basically when something really means something completely different. Pun- A pun is a play on words, usually having a humorous effect.) I then handed my paper into my teacher. She read it over nodding her head. "Very nice Elisa." She said and handed it back to me.

For the next ten minutes of complete and utter boringness, I sat in my of course front row seat resting my head on the table as I waited for everyone to finish writing. I honestly don't know why people take so long to write three definitions! Wow, I guess I really am a nerd. I decided to take out another paper when Mrs. Buberd wasn't looking and I started writing a note to my friend Julie who sits behind me. This is close enough to what it said. Hey Julie, I'm bored. What are you doing after school today? I passed it back to her. In a minute she poked my back and I reached back to take it. Me too. And I am just going home to do stupid homework and then maybe going on my computer. How bout you? She wrote back. I smiled. Homework IS stupid. I replied telling her that I was basically doing the same thing. The class resumed after she finished reading it, so our little chat session had to end.

Throughout the class, we talked about those three words, read a little more of the story "Of Mice and Men" And worked on our homework until the class ended. Yeah, I got sick of writing all the details for you so I just summed up the rest of it.

If I am boring you at the moment, trust me, it gets way better. But I had to put my English class in here because... it's the last normal thing that happened to me.

ONE

Have you ever woken up in the morning feeling like P- Diddy? Nah just kidding, I mean getting a feeling that something is going to happen that day? Well if you have, then you know exactly what I'm feeling. That exact thing happened to me two periods later after English! I was just sitting at the computer doing my assignment during Computer Apps class and BOOM! I get this really weird feeling. Of course I didn't really think about it until that thing actually happened but... it was weird. So I'm sitting there like "what the heck is wrong with my stomach" and it was very annoying. Soon it went away and I forgot about it.
So I just went through the rest of my day like I normally do. Being bored in class because it's all too easy, eating lunch with my friends, watching videos in Health class and then jumping out of my seat when the 2:30 bell rings. I grab my backpack that I packed up a half hour ago when I finished my work and was the first out of the door.

It all seems normal right? WRONG! I walk out of the main doors and my head bursts with every color imaginable. I stumble out into the parking lot, attempting to find my bus within shades of the rainbow. And here's the weirder part-

A cute boy with blond hair who seemed to be about 16 was staring at me.

I start hearing really loud music play that seemed like it was coming from my head.

Now everyone was staring at me.

I start singing to the song!

It's bad enough having everyone stare at you, but singing to a song that you can't control at the exact same time is just plain scary! The weird part was that I actually sounded pretty good, and now people were clapping to my music. In a few seconds I realized that I was singing the song "Everytime We Touch" By Cascada.

Here's how it went...

"I still hear your voice when you sleep next to me, I still feel your touch in my dreams. Forgive me my weakness but I don't know why, without you it's hard to survive..." Everyone in the parking lot and buses are staring, none of the buses move.

"Cause everytime we touch I get this feeling and everytime we kiss I swear I could fly. Can't you feel my heart beat fast, I want this to last. I need you by my side. Cause everytime we touch I feel the static and everytime we kiss I reach for the sky. Can't you feel my heart beat slow I can't let you go. I want you in my life."

Then just the music plays and everyone is cheering me on. I start to get pretty scared and then that boy I mentioned earlier comes up to me. "It'll be okay, why don't you come with me." He said, touching my shoulder. I looked at him like he was crazy, and I started getting pretty mad. There's no way I was going with him! "I'm not going anywhere with you! I don't even know who you are!" I replied releasing myself from his grip. I started walked away, and headed towards my bus. "You can't escape your destiny, wherever you go I'll be there. And every time this same thing will happen to you!" He called out to me before I got on the bus. "What a loser, I think he needs to check into a psycho ward or something." I mumbled to myself as I struggled to a seat. Before the song had a chance to continue, the bus drove off and it stopped.

Talk about crazy! I thought as I pulled my mp3 player out of my pocket book. I turned it on, attempting to ignore the eyes watching me on the bus. I scrolled through my mp3, looking for a song. Honestly, at the time I would be happy listening to any song but "Everytime We Touch". Finally I just clicked the song "Telephone" by Beyonce and Lady Gaga. About halfway through the song, one of the girls on my bus got out of her seat and sat next to me. I slowly turned my head to look at her and she of course, stared at me. I paused my song, took out my ear buds and stared back at her. "I thought you sang really good today. I'm Sophie." She said. "Elisa, and thanks I guess. I didn't really mean to sing though, it just kinda happened." I shrugged. "Well, if you ever think about doing some singing, give me a call and we could do something together. I'm pretty good too." Sophie handed out a piece of paper with her telephone number on it. I didn't care, but I took it anyways to be nice. "Um, thanks? But I don't think I'll be singing anymore for a long time." "Okay, but if you change your mind, you have my number." Sophie got up and sat back in her seat. Relieved she decided to leave me be, I continued listening to my song.

A half hour later, I walked up my long driveway to my tiny little house. I hated where I lived, it was right next to the main road, so I really never got peace and quiet. I never get enough sleep either. You know, it's hard to fall asleep every night when a big mother of a truck goes down the road. Plus, I have two little brothers who always annoy me. Mike, who is eight likes to call me names all the time, Joshua is seven and plays tricks on me. I never know if one night I'll wake up with half my hair shaved off or something. One time, my brother Joshua snuck into my room and drew on my face with permanent marker! I'll spare you and not go into details on exactly what it was he drew. Try going to school the next day with that on your face. Talk about embarrassing! That day, nobody would want to be near me.

But the worst part of it all is, my parents are divorced. I was forced to live with my dad and my two younger brothers because my mom left when I was nine. A month later my dad got the divorce papers in the mail and a letter saying that he needed to take full custody of us. We were just beginning to get over that fact that she left, and then that came in the mail! It tore us apart. My brothers never used to be trouble, it all started when that happened. Really not fun being the only girl in the house. This means taking a thousand times more responsibility than girls who have a mother or a sister. I have to cook dinner and breakfast for all of us because my dad certainly can't cook, and I have to do almost all of the chores because half the time, my dad doesn't even get home from work until almost eleven o'clock sometimes. Not like I actually enjoy taking care of my bratty little brothers. But it's something I need to do. Sometimes I wish I could just get out of there and find my mom you know? Maybe she's changed and would want me back. But I guess I'll have to live with this situation for a few more years.

Well, back to my current story. So I unlocked the door to my house and walked in. My brothers don't get off the school bus for another hour so I get a bit of time to do my homework in peace. If you count noisy cars within the peace. Okay, I sat down at my desk in my room and pulled out my math binder and text book. Blah, homework on dividing polynomials. It's pretty easy but takes forever. Yes, I was in the ninth grade and in Honors Algebra two. By the way, it's the highest math class available for freshmen. Yay me! I also "needed" to study for my final exams taking place the next week. Total waste of my time. Too bad I didn't know then that it wasn't even close to necessary. You'll read why later.

I open my text book and guess what? There was no math in it. Just a bunch of strange symbols I had no idea what they meant. Confused out of my mind, I shut the book and set it aside. I take out my science text book and the same thing happened. Actually, that same thing happened to all of my books. Sitting at my desk, I stared at the books wondering how I'm going to do my homework. That was probably the last thing I should have been worrying about. Looking back, I realized I should have tried to decode them, but I didn't. Bad choice. I decided to put them away and come back to it later. I then flew onto my bed and took a nice long nap.

I woke up an hour and a half later to the sound of my dad's booming voice. "Elisa, wake up!" He shouted at me. I quickly opened my eyes and sat up. "What is it dad? Why are you home so early?" I asked groggily. "I got a call from your brothers' school. Turns out that the bus driver couldn't drop them off because nobody was home." I slapped my hand to my forehead. I completely forgot about my brothers. "I'm sorry dad, I must have slept too long." I replied sadly. "Right, you know what happens when I don't get a full day of work? I lose the pay I made for the whole day." "I know! I'm sorry! Maybe if you were here half the time and I didn't need to do all the work things would be easier!" I exclaimed at him. Surprised at myself, I slumped back down on the bed. My dad was shocked. "What? So you believe that I need to quit work and make no money so that I can be here and do the work for you? Remember that you don't have a mother like everyone else to do this stuff so you need to step up and take that responsibility!" Now I started getting angry. "I'm fourteen dad! I can't be doing all this stuff when I need to be concentrating on my own life! I don't have the time and maturity to handle taking care of this whole house right now! Mom never should have left!" I started to break down and cry so I turned away from my dad. Then, my dad sat down next to me on my bed. "You're right. If your mom was here it would be better." He started saying in a very calmed voice. "But you know that isn't going to happen. I'm sorry I can't be home to help. I need to work as much as possible to support this family. And you are doing a great job so far. Don't bail on my now okay?" He gave me a hug and kissed my forehead. Then I simply nodded.

Just then, I remembered my homework. "Dad, there's something I want you to see." I said and led him over to my text books. "Look at this." I quickly opened my math book revealing only... math. "What, you think I could help you with... graphing polynomials? Not gonna happen, sorry!" He laughed and walked away. "But, earlier there was- ugh, never mind."

I was really confused then, plenty of confusion for one day. I thought I was either hallucinating or maybe dreaming. But somehow deep inside me, I knew it had to be connected to the incident earlier.

I spent the rest of the afternoon working on my homework. My dad took the hint that I needed time alone, so he took my brothers to the store. So glad I stayed home!

On the contrary, there were a few things that were also pretty weird about staying home. I didn't really realize until I turned my computer on how familiar the day seemed. Yeah, sounds odd doesn't it? Well that's when it hit me, my eyes grew wide as I remembered. Quickly opening my "Stuff" folder, I searched through my sub folder called "Stories".

There it was, the connection to my strange day and my upcoming strange future. Inside the folder was a Microsoft Word document titled "The Journey."

Three years ago, my brother Mike got me into outer space and the unknown. The story was about me as a fourteen year old who meets an alien. Unfortunately, I never finished it. So far, everything is turning out just like the story.

Now I had two theories. Either I somehow knew this would happen in the future and wrote it down, or the stories I write come true. Both ways seemed completely impossible, and I never did figure out that answer.

I printed out the unfinished story and placed it on my desk in plain sight so I wouldn't forget it for school the next day. I thought that if I was right about this being true, then I want to refer to it later on. Good thing I did.

After that, I really was not in the mood to play games or chat with anyone so I turned my T.V on and flipped through the channels. Of course, nothing good was on at this time so instead I popped in a random CD from season one of my favorite show, Fringe. Not that I minded watching reruns, man I love that show. That reminds me, I gotta catch up on my missed episodes from when I was... never mind. I'll get back to that later.

My brothers and dad came back by the time I was already sleeping. I slept too well that night. Good thing though, I needed it.

TWO

I woke up the next morning wanting to go back to bed. Not that I wasn't fully awake, I just wanted it to go by a lot slower. I got up anyways and did my usual morning routine. You know, get dressed, brush my teeth, yada yada. Not very exciting. The bus for my school comes at 7:30 so that means I have to be up by seven at the latest. Jeez, seven in the morning feels like five in the morning, seriously. Why can't the bus come at like... nine or something. Even eight would be better.

Today was Wednesday and PE day. Joy joy. By the time I was done packing up my backpack, the bus was waiting by my driveway. A few times it actually drove off on me. But it waited so I was glad for that. A few streets later, my most bestest best friend in the whole world, Krista got on. I'm sorry, not very good grammar. I lugged my humongous backpack onto my lap so she could sit next to me. "Hey Elisa, how was yesterday? I didn't get a chance to talk to you because I was picked up from school." Krista said as she pulled out her mp3 player. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you." I replied. "Of course I would! Go on, tell!" So I told her about the weird singing incident and then the text books. "Well, I believe you but that's some wacky stuff going on there! Wish I was there to see that!" "Yeah, right. I was pretty scared that's for sure." We talked about nonsense for the rest of the ride to school. Neither of us actually listened to any music. That happens all the time when she's on the bus.

The bus finally pulled into the school parking lot. Half an hour seems like forever when you're on a bumpy bus. When I sat down in the main lobby with my friends, I took out the story again for like, the five thousandth time to read it over. Julie saw me reading so she then stole it out of my hands. She always does that when I read something. It kinda bothers me but in a way it's funny. "Whatcha reading?" She asked me, skimming over it. "It's nothing." I said back and tried to snatch it, failing at the attempt. "It doesn't look like nothing. It's a story that you wrote! Hey, it has that singing thing you did yesterday. Are you going to work on it in school today? It must have taken you forever to write that last night." I laughed a bit when she said that, she must have thought I was psycho or something. Probably not as much as when I told her the next thing. "Well, the thing is, I typed it about 5 years ago." I replied, making her quickly stare at me. "Really? That's crazy!" She exclaimed and gave me my story back. "Yeah, I don't quite know what to make of it." We didn't say anything else about it and we had to go to our homeroom.

You know, I hate my homeroom. It really sucks. I don't like the people in it, they tend to be so annoying. I have it with my art teacher, Mrs. Valletta. She's cool though. This time though, my homeroom wasn't bothering me. I just kept staring at the clock, waiting for it to hit 8:30. School doesn't start until 8:35, but something else was going to happen at 8:30.

Finally, it turned to the time and I stared at the door. Just as I thought, the whole room froze. Yes, that's what I said, FROZE as in time stopped. But I was still moving. I smiled and looked around the room. I still had a minute to mess around a bit. My enemy Teresa Mackenzie sat frozen in her chair. So I walked over and slapped her across the face. Yeah, I know, I'm evil. But it was fun. Too bad I wasn't going to be there to see her when time resumes.

I kept standing up, but I stood in front of the classroom. In the middle of the room, the boy with blond hair teleported in front of me. Yes, he TELEPORTED. He was a bit shocked to see that I wasn't surprised. "Hey, hows it going?" He said awkwardly. "Pretty good, you?" I replied trying to sound like I had no idea he would be there. "Great, well, now anyways. I'm Leo by the way, Leoskylar Montago. I also think you should know that my birthday is November 20th. I didn't get a chance to introduce myself yesterday. You kinda ran off."
He smiled a bit. "Yeah, uh sorry about that. I was pretty confused. So, um what is it exactly that you want from me?" I asked him suspiciously. "I need your help." He replied with a shrug.
"My help? Why would you need MY help?" I asked, stretching out the second my. "Because your the only one who can. Just like you were the only one who could see me yesterday. That's how I knew you were the one." I gave him a suspicious look. "Nobody else could see you?" "Nope, people from Earth normally can't see me, but you can." "Huh. That's cool!" He nodded and held out his hand. "Have you ever seen a UFO?" He asked and I walked over to him. "Maybe, but I wouldn't really have thought about it." "Well, now you really do. Take my hand and we'll teleport up to it. It's actually floating right above the school." I grabbed his hand and gasped as I saw my homeroom disappear.

Next thing I knew, I was on the spaceship. That was officially where my normal life ended and a new, exciting, and dangerous one began.

I appeared into a gigantic room, complete with a TV, couches, chairs, and a control center. Oh yeah, and it also had a mini kitchen. Everything was so high tech it was awesome! You should have seen what the TV looked like. "So what do you think?" Leo asked me, still holding onto my hand. I let go feeling kinda awkward. "It's amazing, too bad I didn't have this technology at my house." I replied, still shocked from the ship. Leo laughed. "Come and sit down over here, we only have 30 more seconds until time resumes, so we have to go." He exclaimed, pulling me over to the control center. I sat down in the seat next to him. It was unbelievably comfortable! "So, where is it exactly that we're going?" I asked as he started the... engine thing. "Back to my planet. You're gonna love it there!" He replied enthusiastically. A seat belt appeared over me and I was held against my seat as we blasted off into space.

When the ship stabilized and we we were zooming through space, the seat belt came off and I sat forward in my chair. "So is this thing like, traveling at light speed?" I asked and he laughed at my question. "Light speed? Of course not, that's only science fiction! But we are going very very fast. About half the speed of light." He replied, showing my the speed gauge. "We should arrive to planet Skylar in about 3 hours. That gives you enough time to get ready." "What do you mean by get ready?" Leo pushed a button on the ship and stood up. "Follow me, I'll show you." We walked over to where the sitting area was. On the coffee table was a big blue button that read "Transform". And Leo pushed it.

Have you ever played The Sims 3? If you have, then do you know that body morpher thing where you can change yourself from fat to skinny or add more muscles to your sims? Then imagine that coming out of the floor in a UFO. Then, imagine my face when I saw that. I was pretty freaked.

Leo motioned me to walk up to it, and I did. Cautiously of course. "What is it?" I asked, looking over the machine. "When we get to my planet, you wouldn't be able to survive in your human form. Just like I couldn't survive in my form on Earth. So you need to transform into a new body that looks like my people." He explained. Seeing the scared expression on my face, he continued. "Don't worry though, you can still keep your human body. Think of it as a costume. Oh yeah, and you acquire a couple skills. You might call them "powers" but they come in very handy on Skylar." Leo comforted me a bit by saying how I can keep my human body. I really wish I thought this through more at the time. But I was curious, I always did wonder what kind of planets and life is out in space humans didn't know about. So I got in the machine.

It was actually by far the coolest thing I have ever seen. It's like create-a-sim, but ten times more powerful. I could actually choose what I would look like. Leo's people are the same exact size of humans, and actually look very similar to the Na'vi people from the movie Avatar. There are some major differences though. Girls have purple skin and guys have green skin. Unlike in Avatar where they are all the same. Leo's people don't have tails either. And they aren't like natives or something. They are very much like humans, but more advanced of course.

At first it was very dark in there, but then a light turned on above me and a touch screen pulled out in front. On screen were little boxes that had a "step one" "step two" thing going until it reached step five. A robotic woman's voice sounded around my head that said please press step one to begin transformation. So I pushed the button that said step one. The screen inflated to be the exact size of my body, and a red laser scanned me at the same time. For a few seconds the screen said loading and then I appeared in front of myself, similar to a mirror. The screen gave me a choice for how tall I would get to be and different shades of purple for my skin. I didn't want to change my height so I left it five eight. I then chose lilac for my skin.

Next was step 2. In this step, the screen got smaller to show only the top part of my body from my waist up. Like in The Sims, I could edit the shape of my body. Although I didn't really want to change what I looked like, I skipped through step 2. Step 3 was the bottom half, so I skipped that step also. Step 4 was probably my favorite. I got to choose two "powers" for my character to have. There was a huge list with over 100 different choices. Of course there were different categories that separated them and made it easier. Each power was like a bundle, because there were some other things that you can do with them. The screen didn't tell me that though, so I ended up having to figure them out for myself. I ended up choosing pyrokinesis and invisibility. They ended up coming very handy.

The last step was to choose clothing. I'm not exactly sure how to describe what the choices to wear were, because you would never have heard of such a thing before. Imagine a cross between Lady Gaga, Old Navy, and some weird space clothing you might have seen in movies. If you imagine right, you would get the point. Anyway, my outfit was a dress thing and boots. The dress was pink and boots were black. That's about all I can describe of it. I also chose the style for my hair. That's the part I wanted to change. I didn't like my hair. It was too... red. So I changed the color to a reddish brown and made it a little shorter with bangs.

Once I chose my options for step 5, I had to push "Finish". To be honest, I was afraid changing would hurt! I was so glad it didn't. Instead, I was put asleep while it happened.

I woke up 3 hours later feeling amazing. Nothing hurt at all like I thought it would. And I felt really powerful. Of course, that's because I was- err, am. No need to brag or anything.

As soon as I was awake, the door opened. I didn't realize how bright the lights on the ship were until I walked out. I was blinded for at least 3 minutes! Good thing Leo was there to help me to a chair. "So what do you think?" I asked as my eyes began adjusting to the light. "You look great! I guess I should change back to normal too." He replied. I was vaguely able to make out glimmering coming from Leo and he changed into one of his kind. His skin was like a lime green and he had the same hair. His clothing was actually easy to describe. He had a long black shirt on and pants that looked like jeans. They were made with different material though.

My eyes finished adjusting and the space ship started slowing down. "We're almost there!" He exclaimed and rushed back over to the controls. I followed him over and looked out of the main window. In like, ten seconds a giant planet appeared. Besides Earth, it was beautiful. To the left of it was a similar planet with 3 moons. Skylar had 4 moons surrounding it. "Wow, its beautiful! What's that one over there?" I said and pointed to the other planet. "That's my younger brother's planet Mydar." He said almost disapprovingly. "Wait, so he owns that planet?" I asked, and once again, Leo laughed. "Of course, I own Skylar too! I thought you knew that. Sit down we gotta enter the atmosphere." My mouth dropped open and I sat down. "You rule a whole planet!" I asked in awe and he nodded.

The seat belts came on and once again, I was held back in my chair from the force. The planet rushed by and finally came to a stop in a gigantic city.

THREE

The seat belts came off again and I stood up. Outside of the ship, thousands of people surrounded us. "Um, why is everyone surrounding us?" I asked as we headed towards the doors. "They were expecting us." He replied. Leo pushed a button on the wall and the door started opening. He grabbed my hand and I thought okay then as we walked out.

When we stepped off of the ship, people crowded around us like bees in a hive. The weird thing was though, everyone was wearing the exact same clothing. They had a navy blue jumpsuit type thing on with a star-shaped logo on the front of it. And none of them were smiling. They all just stared me down like I was a criminal or something. On top of that, they weren't like blocking our path, they pushed aside as we walked through. I tried smiling and nodding to them but they just glared at me even more. To be honest, I was kind of freaked. "Leo, what are your powers?" I asked, suddenly remembering to ask him. "I have control over water." He replied. "And.." "And what?" "I thought you said you are supposed to have two powers." "I... I wasn't born with a second one." "I'm... sorry. That must be horrible for you." "I deal with it." That was a very awkward conversation.

Eventually we walked up to a billboard the size of a small house. As you can imagine, it was huge! It also had the same strange writing on it that was in my textbooks the day before. "What's this all about?" I asked, still feeling strange from the mean looks everyone gave me. "It's the prophecy. Remember when I told you that I needed your help, this is why." I stared at him waiting for him to continue, but he didn't say anything. "Okay, why do you need my help?" I finally asked. "Oh, you can't read it?" I shook my head. "Hmm, that's strange. Anyway, this says that you need to help me defeat my younger brother and rule both planets with me." "Um, I don't think I can do all that stuff. I'm just a girl from Earth, I don't even know anything about your planet!" "That's why I'm going to teach you, and also about Evo's planet so you know what your up against." He explained.

Leo told me all about the prophecy. He explained that he needed me to help him rule his planet and defeat his evil younger brother Evo. But that was basically what he told me earlier, just this time in more detail. I couldn't help thinking that something was odd about what he told me. I just figured at the time that I felt that way because of the new planet.

Later on, after flying around in the ship for a tour of the planet, we got to his castle. Remember watching those movies about fairy tales as little kids? And then seeing the big castles that princes and queens and kings lived it? Imagine those but then triple it in size and make it 10,000 times more beautiful. That would probably explain Leo's castle.

I noticed that I tend to describe things by relating it to something else. I guess that's just easier when describing stuff from an Alien planet.

Leo and I walked into the castle. I couldn't help feeling like I was in the renaissance times on Earth. After a while I got used to it though. It was pretty cool staying in a castle.

Leo and I walked through a bunch of hallways, I tried to remember how to get back to the exit in case I needed to. "Let me show you your room." He said after a long period of silence. At the end of the gigantic hallway were a set of big double doors painted red. "This is it." He said pointing to the doors. "Okay, thanks!" I replied opening the door. I should have known what was beyond it, but I was surprised anyway.

That one room was double the size of my old house, and it was decorated with what I would call the most modern items you would find on Earth. The bed was the size of three queen beds put together with a canopy above it and the walls were painted purple, my favorite color. It was perfectly equipped with a telephone, television and some sort of touch screen computer like the one in the transforming machine. There were a bunch of other electronic items too, but I wasn't too sure what they were. I never actually got the chance to use any of them.

I plopped down on my new bed and just laid there for a few seconds with my eyes closed, believing this was all a dream. Leo came over and laid down next to me. That kind of startled me a bit. "So, I have a few more questions..." I started asking him and he nodded. "When we first met, you said that the same thing, the singing thing would happen again. Why didn't it happen today when I saw you again?" I asked. "I didn't get the chance to mention that it happens every 24 hours you go without being within 20 feet of me. It was less than a day ago you last saw me." "Okay." I replied, trying to remember my other question. "My other one, how come all of your people looked at me like I was evil or something when we arrived?" Leo glanced at me with a look I distinguished as him being a bit scared of my question, but he answered anyway. "They aren't used to you. They know you are from Earth and they are afraid of you. Give them a chance to adjust. They'll learn to like you." He replied with the utmost certainty I forgot about his look earlier. Although I did manage to catch the part where he said they'll learn to like me, and I couldn't help wondering what the "learn" was supposed to mean. He said it in a weird way I didn't know how to interpret.

Leo rolled over on his side to look at me and I did the same, but awkwardly of course. "Anymore questions you wanna ask?" He said and I shook my head. "Good, then that's over with. Come on," Leo sat up and held out his hand again. Looking from him to his hand I took it and he helped me up. "There's someone you need to meet." He continued as we walked back out of the door.

FOUR

The castle as you know is very big, so it took about five minutes just to get from my room to the entrance. That was a big enough time frame for Leo to sing me a song. It was pretty nice of him though.

As soon as we stepped out of my room Leo started the song from his head, just like I was able to in the school parking lot. "So Elisa, here's a song I'd like to sing to you." He said. It's pretty funny though how every song you will hear in this story comes from Earth. I suppose it's the best type of song to get their true feelings through, including me. I admit I was pretty annoyed by the sudden playing of music, until he started singing...

"I don't know but, I think I may be falling for you. Dropping so quickly maybe I should keep this to myself waiting till I know you better. I am trying not to tell you, but I want to, I'm scared of what you'll say. So I'm hiding, what I'm feeling, But I'm tired of holding this inside my head." He sang. This I recognized as Fallin' For You By Colbie Caillat. I happened to like this song so I decided what the heck and I sang the chorus with him.

"I've been spending all my time just thinking bout ya, I don't know what to do, I think I'm fallin' for you. I've been waiting all my life and now I've found you, I don't know what to do, I think I'm fallin' for you." And then I finished it up myself with, "I'm fallin' for you." I have to say, it was fun singing with Leo.

Then just like the next part of the song says, Leo pulls me in and starts dancing with me. And of course we continued singing at the same time though. I sang the beginning of this next part. "As I'm standing here and you hold my hand pull me towards you, and we start to dance. All around us, I see nobody here in silence, it's just you and me." I sang happily and Leo sang the next part again. "I am trying not to tell you, but I want to, I'm scared of what you'll say. So I'm hiding, what I'm feeling, But I'm tired of holding this inside my head."

Again we sang the chorus together, stopping the dancing and resuming to walking out of the castle. For effects of the story, I'm gonna repeat the chorus in here again in case you wanna follow along or something.

"I've been spending all my time just thinking bout ya, I don't know what to do, I think I'm fallin' for you. I've been waiting all my life and now I've found you, I don't know what to do, I think I'm fallin' for you. I'm falling for you."

I sang this next part which I gotta admit, was pretty fun. Now that I know I can sing and all. "Oh I just can't take it, my heart is racing. Emotions keep spilling out." And we both sang...

"I've been spending all my time just thinking bout ya, I don't know what to do, I think I'm fallin' for you. I've been waiting all my life and now I've found you, I don't know what to do, I think I'm fallin' for you." Leo insisted on singing the ending so I let him. "I'm falling for you. Oh, oh no no, oh oh I'm fallin' for ya." The song ceased down and I hugged Leo. It was my turn to startle him that time. I didn't realize he wasn't used to being hugged like that. "Thanks Leo, that was really sweet." I said and he smiled at me, releasing himself from my grip.

In about another minute of walking, we were finally outside of the castle. "You should meet a good friend of mine, and second-in-command. His name is General Higglens and I think you will like him." Leo explained finally. I've been wondering who we would be meeting for a long time now. "Okay, cool." I replied. We walked around to the right side of the castle. I realized as we approached it that it was a garage filled with cars.

I felt as if we were in a giant car dealer there were so many in there. The cars ranged from red to black including the colors pink, orange and all the others in between. The cars looked like Lamborghini, Corvette, Viper, Camaro, Ferrari, and a lot of the other top brands of cars on Earth. These were all a type of hybrid too. Leo told me that they can run on anything that has energy. Including fruit, vegetables, gasoline of course, and some can run on solar energy. For example, one of the Viper-looking cars can travel fifty miles on only five apples! So that's like, ten miles per apple! I'd say it be great to have that kind of technology back home.

"So, which one do you wanna take?" Leo asked me, smiling when he saw my face as I looked over the cars. "How about this?" I asked enthusiastically as I pointed to a dark blue Lamborghini. He nodded and I ran over to it, climbing into the passenger seat. Leo sat in the driver's seat and pressed his thumb to a scanner near the steering wheel. Then, the car started up. Welcome back Leo! Please fasten your seat belts and choose your destination on the touch pad. Thank you. The car said in a similar robotic voice from the transformer. Leo pressed a button on the pad that said "New Driver" And a thumb scanner appeared on the screen. "Put your thumb onto that scanner and you should be able to access any of these cars from now on." Leo said and I did. Please state your name. The car said and I said my name like it told me. Thank you Elisa. Enjoy your time in Revelon cars. /I guess the brand of these cars are called "Revelon." Kinda catchy. I thought and Leo finished saying where we were headed. Apparently we were going to a building on a street called "General Avenue." I didn't catch the name of the building though.

As we drove off, Leo explained to me how to use the cars. "So, tomorrow is going to be the day where you need to get accustomed to living on Skylar." He said and I nodded. I was wondering exactly how long I was going to be staying on the planet. The way he said it was like I would be there for the rest of my life. "You would need to use a car to drive around the city and get ready. All you need to do is scan your thumb on the scanner here and say where it is you're headed. If you aren't sure, then there's a directory in the touch pad that can tell you every building on the whole planet. Of course there's ways to narrow it down, but that's not hard at all to figure out. Just choose a category like "Food" or "Clothing store" and then choose the town. Very simple. Then, just say the name of the place and the street and you are on your way." He finished explaining. "Huh, that's easy." I replied.

"Do you have any music or anything?" I asked and he laughed. "Of course, so do you. Remember that you have the ability to play any music you want from your head." "Yeah, but I don't know how to access it." "It's really amazingly easy. All you need to do is think of the song you want and start playing it in your head." "Okay..." I tried to think of a good song to listen to and I decided on my favorite song, "Airplanes" by B.O.B. and Hayley Williams. I tried to remember how it starts and I did, starting to play it in my head. To my never ending list of surprises, it played out loud. As soon as it started, I didn't have to think about it and I could just listen. "How can I make it stop? Or even turn the volume down?" "Just visualize the volume getting lower like on an mp3 player, and to make it stop think "Stop" and it will. Again, easy." It was a bit too loud for me so visualized it turning down a bit. That power comes in really handy. I bet a lot of people would want to be able to do that. It's like a built in mp3 player but a lot easier to use.

If only you wonderful readers could have been here with me so that you can see this planet! It's really amazing. The plants are totally different but a lot more beautiful. The buildings, the clothing, the food is all different from Earth. It's really cool in a way because it's new and exciting. I do really miss the stuff on Earth though.

Well, back to my story. Leo and I sat silently in the car as it drove us to what was known as the "Shield and Defense Military Base." Or that's what Leo said the name was. Remember, I can't read the writing there. "What are we doing at a military base?" I asked as we started walking inside. "The General works here." He replied and I nodded.

Inside the base was actually exactly like one you would see on Earth, because it was nothing like the rest of Skylar. It was completely bland and ugly on the inside. Boring white walls and wide open spaces with tanks and gunships and other boring military equipment. I guess we just happened to walk into the hangar or something. Through a bunch more of short narrow hallways was another big room lined with soldiers. Instead of glaring at me like the other people when we came off of the UFO, they all nodded at me with approval. What's the difference between these soldiers and the people before? Are they bipolar or something?

"Leo! Welcome back. And I see you have found your... partner. Excellent, now we can really get started on our project." "General Higglens, her name is Elisa. Have you been able to handle all this by yourself? And have they been... acceptable?" Leo replied, putting his arm around my waist.

"It's been very easy. I know will you enjoy my latest revisions and additions to this wonderful government of yours." "I hope I will." What the heck? Revisions and additions? That's a weird way to put it. Maybe they don't want me to know what exactly they're talking about. It was also weird of him to say I was his "partner". Hmm. I thought.

"Well, why don't you have one of your men show Elisa around the base while we talk about what's to come." Leo said and General Higglens motioned over one of his soldiers. "Cadet Mandril, you show her around." The General said and Mandril nodded. They have funny names there. I guess they would think the same about Earth though so it wasn't my place to make fun of them. Mandril walked over to me and nodded so I smiled back.

We walked through the base and Mandril pointed out a few of the tools and machines they use. He also named the different rooms and explained their meaning. We were about halfway through the tour when he started having actual conversations with me. "So, you're going to be our new queen. I hope you're ready." He said and I looked at him for a minute, trying to decide how to reply. "Aren't you supposed to get married to become a queen or something?" "Yes." "So, you're saying that I have to marry Leo?" "Yes... I'm surprised you don't know that already miss." "It turns out that I don't know barely anything. He never mentioned that to me." Mandril glanced at me and pulled me into a room in the hallway. "Hey! What's that for?" I demanded as he closed the door. "How much of the government do you know?" He asked me and I eyed him suspiciously. "I don't know anything at all. I don't even know where to buy clothes around here so how would I know anything about your government?" I replied trying to see where I was but it was too dark. "You know, he would destroy me for telling you this, but you need to get out of here quick." He whispered. "Why would I want to leave? I just got here!" I whispered back but I guess I wasn't quiet enough because he hushed me even more. "This world isn't what it seems like. Sure it looks all pretty and it seems like a dream but it's all fake. He's playing you Elisa. Once he gets you to marry him this fantasy will all be over. After that you're brainwashed and stuck here forever." "And how do I know you aren't just saying that to scare me away?" "Stay and you'll find out the truth for yourself! Oh no, shush!" Mandril pushed me to the wall on the side of the door and covered my mouth. I could barely make out Leo and the General's voices coming from the hallway, but I couldn't quite make out what they were saying.

When they passed Mandril lifted his hand from my mouth. "I was perfectly capable of keeping myself quiet thanks. And I still can't believe I have to marry Leo! I barely even know him." I said and he nodded. "You don't have to. You still have time to escape out of here. Before he gets the tracker on you and finds you again. But you have to move away from where you were living. Somewhere far away." "I still don't think I'm buying this whole thing. Leo seems really nice." "That's what he wants you to think! Fine, if you don't believe me then stay. See for yourself the truth." "I'm gonna find out for myself." "Okay. Be careful. And don't tell anyone that I spoke to you." I nodded and he opened the door.

FIVE

I gasped when I walked outside of the room, because Leo was standing right in front of the door. "Whoa Leo! Don't sneak up on me like that ha ha." I said and tried to laugh a bit at the end. But I ended up sounding like a complete idiot. "Hey, what were you guys talking about in there?" He asked and I tried to think of a better answer. "Oh, we were just..." "I was showing her the new glow in the dark tools. I thought it would be easier to show her in the dark so we went in there to see them." Mandril said for me. That was a pretty good answer.

Leo nodded but eyed Mandril suspiciously. I didn't know they had glow in the dark tools. That's really cool. "Okay Cadet Mandril, that will be all. You're free to go." Leo said. Mandril nodded at him and then he glanced at me and walked away.

General Higglens arrived right after Mandril left the hallway. "I look forward to working with you very soon Elisa." He said and patted my shoulder. "Um, you too." I replied as nicely as I could. "You guys get going, you have a big occasion to get ready for. It'll take all of tomorrow to get ready so you need your sleep!" Higglens said and I smiled. Wondering if that was the "wedding" Mandril told me about.

We said goodbye to Higglens and Leo led me back out of the base and into the car. "So, there's one more place I wanna take you before we head back home." He said and told the car where we were going. If someone just heard that part of this story where I said "and told the care where we were going," it would sound very odd. But since you all know me and what happened so far, you understand.

In another half hour of driving, we came up onto a large hill. Leo stopped the car and we walked up to the very top of it where I saw the most beautiful sunset ever. There were two chairs set up there and we sat down in them. Usually just sitting in chairs is boring but when you see a sunset like that you can't help but stare at it until it sets.

Leo took my hand and pulled me back out of my chair a few seconds after we sat down. Not much for relaxing I suppose. "I seem to have forgotten to mention to you that in order to complete the prophecy, we need to get married." He said and I gulped not really wanting to think about that because I'm still trying to process being on a new planet. "But you don't need to worry. I won't rush you. We have all the time we need. I just want you to know that you don't need to be afraid." He continued and he played another song. This time it was "Forever" by Chris Brown. We started dancing and Leo started singing.

"It's you and me moving at the speed of light into eternity. Tonight is the night to join me in the middle of ecstasy. Feel the melody in the rhythm of the music around you, around you. I'm gonna take you there, I'm gonna take you there, so don't be scared, I'm right here baby.
We can go anywhere, go anywhere. But first it's your chance, take my hand come with me."

I love how these songs all match so well with how we feel. It's almost like the people who wrote these songs new my whole story and wrote them especially for me! It's really amazing. So here goes the chorus that Leo sang to me in the most wonderful voice I ever heard.

"It's like I've waited my whole life for this one night. It's gonna be me you and the dance floor. Cause we've only got one night. Double your pleasure, double your fun and dance forever. Forever on the dance floor."

Man, I really like this song. Leo and I continued dancing, perfectly in time with the music. I couldn't help but feel so fantastic when we were singing and dancing together. For a while I completely forgot all about the new plans and everything. All I could think about was how much fun I was having, how amazing Leo was, and how beautiful the sunset was.

"Feels like we're on another level. Feels like our loves intertwined. We can be two rebels, breaking the rules, me and you, you and I. All you got to do is watch me, look what I can do with my feet. Baby feel the beat inside. I'm driving you can take the front seat, just need you to trust me. Oh ah oh. It's like!" He sang and then he sang the chorus again. After the chorus he sang the rest of the song. But instead he skipped out on singing the ending chorus.

"It's a long way down, we're so high off the ground. Sending for an angel to bring me your heart. Girl, where did you come from? Got me so undone, gazing in your eyes got me singing what a beautiful lady. No "if"s, "and"s or "maybe"s. I'm releasing my heart and it's feeling amazing. There's no one else that matters, you love me and I won't let you fall girl, let you fall girl oh. I won't let you fall, let you fall, let you fall oh oh."

Leo stopped the song and we stopped dancing. "I just need you to trust me. After this is all finished, we can do anything." He said and leaned in to kiss me. But I wasn't ready yet. So I pulled away. "I just need more time to get used to all this." I said quietly and hugged him instead. Leo smiled and nodded. "Okay, if that's what you need. I won't rush you." To be nice I held his hand as we walked back to the car.

SIX

Leo and I walked back into my room. On the clock next to my new bed, it said 8:00 pm. It felt a lot later than that though, because I was really tired. It's gonna take a while to get used to the new time change. "So, if you need me I'll be in the room at the end of the hallway." Leo said before he walked out.

I looked around the room trying to figure out where I could find some pajamas. But there weren't any dressers in my room or anything. I didn't want to bother Leo though. Finally I found a button on the wall and I thought what the heck so I pushed it. Right after I pushed it, the wall came apart and rows and rows of clothes, shoes, and purses hung on racks that spread all the way to the other side of the room. Most of the clothes were for the daytime but on the other side was nightgowns and pajamas, along with other stuff I don't wanna name off. I wasn't really in the mood to look through all of it at the time because I was too tired. I just blindly pulled off a cute set of pajamas and climbed into bed. Although now I had to figure out how to shut the lights off. I looked around the room for a light switch but I didn't see any. I then got a silly idea and clapped my hands. I thought maybe it was maybe one of those clapper lights. Well I guess it wasn't stupid of me because the lights turned off. See I can figure stuff out by myself, I don't need Leo to babysit me all the time. I thought and closed my eyes and went to sleep.

The next day I woke up, I thought I was in my bed and I was dreaming. Until I looked at my room and saw it wasn't my house. It was Leo's. The funny thing was though, a minute after I woke up Leo's voice came from a loudspeaker telling me to get dressed and walk down the hallway, take a left and go into the big open room to my right because he made breakfast.

So I got out of my bed feeling completely recharged and pushed the button on the wall again. As I looked through it I found a normal-looking short-sleeved dress with a kind of floral print and white ballet flats to put on.

Once I was dressed I put my clothes from yesterday into the clothes hamper thing and walked down the hallway to the room Leo instructed. Once I was outside my door I already smelled delicious food. "Elisa, welcome back! I thought you might like an omelet. How did you sleep?" Leo asked and we sat down at the table. He had his own breakfast in front of him. It was some kind of cereal.

I didn't realize until then that I haven't eaten since yesterday morning, and I was starving. "I slwept great! Whare deed you find the aggs fawr the ohmelette?" I replied still stuffing my face with the sweet tasting BLUE eggs. I didn't care what they looked like at the time, I was too hungry to care. "I had my personal chef pick them up for me this morning and make you these eggs. He left back to his quarters already." "Oh. Okay." Once I finished eating my omelet, I excused myself and went back to my room to use the bathroom.

Leo was waiting for me in my room when I walked out, holding a present in his hands. "What's this?" I asked him, looking at the perfectly wrapped box. "I thought you might want this to get a hold of me if we aren't together." He replied and handed me the box. Once I opened it, I saw a gold and diamond bracelet with a screen about 2 square inches on the top. "Oh my gosh Leo! It's beautiful." I said and hooked it onto my wrist. "Just touch the screen and say my name, then you'll be able to talk to me or anyone else from anywhere." He said. And showed me his bracelet also. Although his was a plain silver one.

I hugged Leo again and that time I kissed his cheek. I thought I was actually starting to like him a lot more. Despite what Mandril told me, I just couldn't bring myself to believe him.

"Okay Elisa, there's going to be a lot of work for you to do today. First, I have to get someone to train you with your powers. Then I'm going to teach you how to drive one of my ships. And later today, you are going to pay a visit to my brother." Leo said as we started to walk back through to the entrance of the castle. "Wow, that is a lot to do. And what do you mean by me having to see your brother. Aren't you going with me?" I replied, so afraid of having to go by myself. "I'm not allowed on his planet, just like he isn't allowed on mine. We each set up special satellites orbiting around our planets that will recognize my signal if I try to enter his planet. That's why I'm teaching you to fly the ship, so you can go without me." "But what if something happens? What if I get trapped there or something?" "That's what the bracelet is for. Keep it on the whole time and I'll be watching through that to make sure nothing happens." I nodded. "Okay, fine." "Now lets go and get you used to your powers." Leo instructed me that I have to go by myself for the training because he had other business to attend to. He gave me the address and I jumped into a pink Camaro.

It really takes a long time to drive around here. The roads were paved with some sort of yellow concrete, and I couldn't help but relate it to the yellow brick road from the Wizard of Oz. It was already 2:00 when I arrived to a large green field. A man was waiting for me on the side of the road. "Hello Elisa, my name is Pihloe. I'm going to be training you to use your powers today." I almost laughed when I heard his name. It sounded exactly like pillow!

I nodded and followed him to the middle of the field. When he turned around, I saw that he had a black tail! He was a big muscular guy with dark sunglasses and steel toe boots and he happened to have a tail! That I found very interesting. "So, what are your powers?" I asked, and I couldn't help staring at the long thing protruding from his back. "I can shape shift into animals and I can turn invisible." Well that probably explains the tail. "Mine are also invisibility and pyrokinesis." I replied. "Well, we better get started then."

Pihloe told me basically all powers have to do with visualization. Turning invisible takes a lot of focus because you constantly need to think about being invisible. If just once letting your mind wander, you lose control of it. "I want you first to concentrate on being invisible. Slowly let yourself disappear until you are completely unseen." He instructed. I closed my eyes and imagined myself disappearing by getting erased by an eraser. I then visualized myself gone off of the piece of paper like you would when erasing words. When I opened my eyes and looked at my hands, they were gone. But as soon as I lost the visual of the paper, they appeared again. "Nice job, but you need to remember to keep visualizing yourself being invisible." Pihloe also told me that invisibility can turn into force fields that can protect me or help me reach high places. But he said there wasn't enough time to learn all of that in one day.

Then it was time to try out my pyrokinesis power. I had to visualize fire forming in my hands and then throw it at a target Pihloe set up. At first it wasn't easy, I only managed to make a small flame. But as I kept trying I finally made a fireball about the size of a tennis ball and threw it at the target, barely hitting the edge. So much for my aim. After three more times of not hitting the target at all, Pihloe decided to switch to a different approach on using fire.

Now I had to try and shoot a whole stream of fire at the target. I invisioned it like I was holding a gun and when it fired, long bursts of fire came out. Like the other times, it was only a spark jumping off my hand.

Finally I managed to shoot a whole burst of fire at the target which destroyed it completely. I have to say, I was pretty proud of myself. "Yay!" I said and clapped my hands. "Remember, there's a lot of other things you can do with this power. But that's it for your training today. I want you to come back to this field and practice once every day." Pihloe said and I nodded. I did need a lot more training.

I said goodbye and climbed back in to my car. Then I pressed the screen on my bracelet and called Leo. His face appeared as a small hologram coming out of the bracelet. Almost like that thing from Star Wars. "Hey Elisa! Did you finish your training?" He asked and I said yes. Next thing I know I'm on my way to another site. This time it was the Leoskylar Main Space Station. There were at least ten different space stations on the planet,but this was the biggest one. It literally took up twice the space of the castle. Including the garage. When I did the math later on, I found that Leoskylar was exactly 1.8 times the size of Earth. And it was all one piece of land surrounded by water. Kind of like the main Earth continent Pangea before it split up and there was a bunch of continental drift. I sounded very smart there...

I guessed that the cars were the easiest ways other than ships to travel around the planet because of the one big piece of land. There wasn't any need for boats or ships really on the planet because of that. Even if it did take longer to get someplace by car. That I know for sure.

What I found pretty cool was that everybody already knew who I was. There were a lot of security devices at the station, and the guards automatically waved me through. Its like I had the ultimate permission slip.

The car drove inside the gate and parked in the first parking spot closest to the building. A guard stood near the doorway and led me inside to a giant room called "Terminal D." There was a big cylinder shaped room in the middle and mini ship like Leo's was parked in the center of it. The shape of the room reminded me of a fishbowl, because the very middle of the ceiling where the cylinder was opened up and allowed the ship to fly right out of the station.

I assumed the reason that I got a smaller sized ship was because they thought I would do too much damage with a normal one. Knowing me I would probably do quite a bit of damage with this too.

The guard brought me right up to the ship, and the door opened, revealing Mandril. Thank goodness I had someone familiar to help me with this. I couldn't stand a new person with another funny name. I would have died of laughter and loneliness. I wondered why the guard never said anything to me. Maybe only a few of them knew how to speak English.

I wondered if I would have to learn their language. Although that's a dumb question because if I were to be "queen," (yes I felt the quotes were necessary) then I would have to be able to talk to the people and therefore, learn their language.

That was basically all I thought about as I waited for Mandril to finish pushing buttons. Then he walked off of the mini platform and helped me onto the ship.

The inside was basically the same as the first one I was on. Although it kept out the transformer, the couches and the mini fridge. This one was obviously not for leisure. "So, how have you been since yesterday?" Mandril asked, obviously hint-asking me if anything was odd about Leo. "Actually it was pretty nice. It's hard to believe what you told me." I replied, joining him in the second main control seat. "Has he tried kissing you yet?" He suddenly asked, catching me by surprise. "Uh, yeah actually. Is that a problem?" I replied, sounding annoyed. "Interesting." He said after a long pause. Mandril obviously knew something more and I wanted to know. No matter how crazy I thought he was, there was always a slight possibility he could be telling the truth. And I wanted to be ready if he was.

"So... anything else you'd like to share with me?" I asked, but not until he finished checking the controls did he look up at me and answer. "You said yourself that you wanted to find out alone. So I wont share any more of my information with you. I'd rather not risk myself getting killed any further." Mandril replied and that made me very angry. But he was right. I did say I wanted to go it alone. So that was what I would do. I let Mandril explain the controls to me and I paid attention. I had to admit what he said to me made be a bit paranoid. And I wanted to learn this so I could escape if I needed to.

At this time Mandril and I switched seats and I did everything he said. Switched on the engines, set pressure to 500, turned off the brakes, and pushed the lever. That was by far the coolest thing I have ever done. Driving one of these babies was better than flying in an airplane. I would know, I've actually had flying lessons before. Even though these controls were somewhat similar, it was a lot harder to control.

I'm actually completely surprised I managed to avoid any densely populated areas. If I happened to go there it might have been accidentally destroyed. Oh, but there was that flower field I managed to burn up... It was in the middle of nowhere so nobody would miss it anyways. Good thing...

Once I got the controls down pat, I flew us back to the station (kinda) before it went into autopilot and landed itself in the spot where we took off.

Finally, I thanked Mandril for the lesson and shot him a look before I was escorted back to my car.

Since that was it for the day and the sun was again setting, it was time to head back to Leo where I would get the extreme pleasure (sarcasm) of meeting his brother. Although my easy trip "home" was halted when I found two little girls picking up trash at an abandoned building.

SEVEN

I decided to stop the car and ask them what they were doing there all alone. I just hoped they understood my English. "Hey girls, what are you doing?" I asked. They just glanced at me and ran away, continuing picking up trash elsewhere. I decided a different approach to them. "Um, hello! My name is Elisa. What's your names?" I asked as I started walking back towards them, but sure to keep my distance. They walked a little closer to me but looked questioningly. Apparently they didn't understand. So I pointed to my chest and said my name again. One of the girls smiled and ran up to me. "Sparcke." She replied pointing to her chest like I did to mine. Then she pointed to her sister. "Narcee." She said, obviously referring to her sister's name. I then pointed to myself and the garbage, silently asking if I could help them clean up. They both smiled at me. I wanted to get it done for them so they could get back home.

Although I didn't really want to spend time picking everything up, because I wanted to get back to Leo. That's when I sparked an idea. I just wondered if I could pull it off. But I decided it would be a lot easier to try than to the alternative.

So I concentrated really hard on the garbage, which I have to admit is not a very easy task. Then I imagined it bursting into flames and disintegrating. Focusing every piece of energy I had in my body on the flames, bit by bit all of the trash caught on fire. I did take a matter of five minutes just to get the first of them on fire, but the girls' smiles was reward enough. I always loved little kids. Everything was so much simpler for them.

Giggling with enjoyment, they ran over to me and gave me a hug. "Where do you live?" I tried asking them, and they actually understood. "Mini red house." Sparcke replied and pointed toward the city in the distance. Since it was directly on my route back to Leo's castle, it would be easier to give them a ride home. So I motioned them towards my car and they climbed into the back. I then looked on my world wide GPS/Address book for the name of the city. The first sign I saw before I started driving into the city wrote टूटे सपनों के शहर. In English, it was translated to The City of Broken Dreams. When I arrived, I found out why.

Every building in this city was clumped together, and there was dirt and garbage everywhere. The taller factory-type buildings were crumpled and colorless, and the houses were tiny and falling apart. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to find their house among this mess, but it stuck out from the rest near it. So far, this house was in better shape than the others. It also helped that the girls pointed it out as we came closer to it. I told the car to stop and we pulled over.

Hoping that the family spoke more English than the girls, I walked with them up to the door. I also wanted to see if they had any more information for me.

To my surprise, a man opened the door. But he was wearing the same uniform as the group of people who "greeted" Leo and I when I first arrived. And his expression was no different. Once he saw the girls he smiled and picked them up to hug them. But when he set them down again, his gaze returned to me. "What you doing here?" He demanded and his intense glare made me a bit uneasy. "I saw your girls picking up trash back there." I started saying and pointed in the direction we came. "So I got rid of the rest of the trash and brought them back here." I said and his eyes lightened up a bit. "Why you do that?" He asked again and I cast him a confused look and answered. "I was worried for them. I didn't want them out there all alone." Then, the man nodded and let me inside.

The house was as small inside as it looked outside with all items at least ten generations older than the stuff I had in my room. I was then invited to sit down on the couch, along with the girls and a woman. That's when the man spoke again. "My name Benlio. You know Sparcke and Narcee. This my wife Rosalla." He said pulling out a type of video cassette and putting it into the TV. "Nice to meet you all." I replied, before the movie started playing. The first part of the movie showed a beautiful land full of color, with the people living peacefully. Benlio then paused it. "This was Skylar before Leo, when his father ruled." He said and then fast forwarded the tape, showing a city similar to the one I was in, and the people looked very sad, wearing the uniforms and working in harsh conditions. "This is Skylar now, while Leo rules." Benlio added, leaving me to stare at the screen as if it were a giant spider. "Why would Leo do such a thing?" I asked and Rosalla answered. "Leo was consumed with power. He wanted nothing but control and the most comfortable living possible. He put us to work and suffer to make himself have an easier life. He killed his own father to achieve that." When she finished explaining, I got a large surge of hatred towards Leo. He tricked me into thinking he was good and nice and perfect. "I'll do everything I can to help." I said, but my voice was strained by tears that I didn't expect to fall.

Rosalla, sitting next to me put her arm around me, and tried to comfort me despite the fact that she knew I had without knowing planned for her misery. "I'm so sorry this happened to you, and I'm sorry I believed Leo." I said and she shook her head. "There wasn't a way for you to know. But there is only one way to stop him, and that's to get inside and find out what he's planning first. You must pays close attention to Leo. Find out what he is planning to do, and figure out his weakness. But be careful!" Benlio said. I brushed the tears out of my eyes and thanked the family. Although before I walked out, Rosalla stopped me. "There's one more thing I want you to know. Whatever Leo says, he is very dangerous. He took away our powers so that we couldn't stop him ourselves. Make sure he doesn't know that you found out." I nodded and headed back to the castle. There was one thing I promised myself on the way. I would never let Leo have control over me, or this planet ever again. But first, I have to get training.

It didn't really take long to get back to Leo's castle. Maybe about a half hour or so. It was enough time to get my mind straight. I had to make sure that Leo still thought I was into him. At least until I can find away to stop him from ruling Skylar.

Leo was outside the castle waiting for me when I arrived. I parked the car and walked over to him. "Hey, what took you so long?" He asked, which was expected. I thought up a new answer on the way so it would be easier to lie. "I was on my way back when I decided to do a little bit of sightseeing. I kinda got off track though, sorry about that." I said. "It's okay. Follow me, it's time to go meet Evo."

I followed Leo around to the other side of the castle where his ship was parked. He led me to the controls and punched in the coordinates to Evo's planet. "The ship will autopilot until it enters the atmosphere of his planet. Then you would have to drive yourself. This control pad already has Evo's signal on it, so you can follow the red blinking light on the map when you get off of autopilot." Leo explained and I nodded, sitting in the control seat.

Leo wished me luck and got off the ship. Then I started it and I was on my way to Evo's planet. As soon as I entered his atmosphere, I heard music. And I recognized it right away. I was taken by complete surprise when I heard the song, and it was one of my favorites.

As I headed towards the red blinking light, the music got louder, and I saw exactly what was happening. Evo was giving his people a concert. But not just any concert, one consisting entirely of him. And the song he sang was Touch My Hand by David Archuleta.

After I quietly landed the ship well away from the people, I focused my invisibility and walked to the middle of the crowd. As soon as I looked at Evo, my heart sped up. His brown hair shone in the spotlights, and his eyes showed all the kindness you could imagine. And then there was his smile... I couldn't concentrate on keeping my invisibility up at all. Thank goodness the people didn't notice a person flashing around them. Evo was a little past the middle of the song. "Saw you from a distance. Saw you from the stage. Something about the look in your eyes, something about your beautiful face." He sang where the ending of this got a bit high pitched. And then, he saw me. It was like he froze in space, couldn't move, couldn't sing. He just stared at me, and then he smiled and continued his song. But at the same time, walking towards me.

Right after he took a few steps, it happened again. My headache and the song playing thing. Nobody noticed my song because Evo's was even louder, and I didn't recognize it either. And Evo continued to sing, right until the very end. "Can't let the music stop, until I touch your hand. Cause if I do it'll all be over, I'll never get the chance again. I'll never get the chance again. Trying to reach out to you, touch my hand. Reach out as far as you can. Only me, only you, and the band. Trying to reach out to you, touch my hand." And just as the song ended, he reached his hand out and I took it. Right then I figured everything out. I realized that since Leo lied about himself, that made him the evil one. Evo wasn't bad at all. He was good. And Evo was the one I was supposed to be with. Evo stopped my headache, ended the song and made me feel something I haven't felt since before my mother left. Safe.

EIGHT

Every fiber in my body wanted to destroy the bracelet Leo gave me and stay here with Evo. But I remembered the promise I made to myself and to Benlio and his family. At this time, everyone was staring at us. They had no idea what was going on. And that made me feel a bit awkward. Somehow, Evo was able to talk to me without everyone hearing. "Elisa, we are meant to be together. And you now know that. What were you doing over there with my brother?" He asked me inside my head. "Leo tricked me into thinking that he was good and you were evil, but I found out anyway. He wanted me to come and meet you to "know what I'm dealing with." What is up with this mind talking anyway?" I replied. I didn't really need to ask how to do the mind thing, I just figured I had to think it and he would hear. I was right, that was simple enough. "We have a connection. We can talk to each other like this, it's just one of the benefits I guess. What are we going to do? Have you figured anything out about Leo yet?" "No, not much. I'm trying to teach myself to maintain my invisibility so I can follow Leo around and get more information. Right now all I know is that he wants to take over both worlds." "That's not good. You get more information and send a mental message out to me whenever you can. In the meantime I will try and find a way to stop him. But that will first require me to get onto that planet. I'll be waiting, and be very careful. If anything happens to you, I can't stop him alone." I smiled at Evo and nodded. "And one more thing," He added. "Don't let him kiss you, it will bond you to him and take away all of your memory." "Okay, I wasn't planning on it anyways. Haha." We both laughed and Evo kissed my cheek. He nodded to me and I slowly backed away from him, not wanting to leave. With one last look of my destined lover, I walked back to my ship, and he continued the concert. I hoped that I would get to see Evo again soon.

Flying back was a lot easier than before, I was just starting to get used to it. Although I did have a bit of a hard time walking back inside the castle because I was completely exhausted. What a long day that was. But I did feel better about myself because I had somebody else on my side working to stop Leo. I just didn't want to stay on this planet for too much longer. I also then needed to think of something to say to Leo about Evo. I guess I could start by telling most of the truth. And he was right in my room when I walked in. I had a feeling he would be. "So, how was it?" He asked and I sat down. "It was interesting, he was doing a concert for his people. Man am I tired." I replied pushing my hair back out of my face and laid down on the bed. "Yeah, sometimes he does that to make his people think a little better of him. But I'll save the rest for the morning, you look like you need your sleep." He said and touched my face.

I then remembered how Mandril told me everything right from the beginning. And I didn't trust him. Next time I see him I would have to apologize. I felt so bad.

Leo got up from my bed and walked out of the room. I clapped my lights off and went to sleep, not caring about putting pajamas on. But I only slept for a couple hours. Then I got up and walked to my door, listening for any sounds.- It was time to follow Leo and see how he planned to take over both the worlds.

I heard nothing but I concentrated on my invisibility just to be safe. Once I had it up, I opened the door. There was a dim light on in the hallway, but Leo wasn't there. That's when I heard a car starting in the distance. I attempted to run silently outside to the garage. I made it just in time to hear Leo say the address of where he was headed. "18 Mason Street, in Klepsie." He said to the car and it drove off. I wanted to follow him, but I wasn't sure how. I didn't want anyone to see me, so I decided what the heck and climbed into a random car anyway. Then, the car turned invisible. I found out then that whatever I touch while invisible turns invisible also. So now me and the car were both able to drive off without being seen.

I arrived at the destination later on, and I tried not to fall asleep on the way.

I didn't even realize that it was just about sunrise. The place was a fairly big house, about three stories high. But it was also the only building within about a mile. Way to live in the middle of nowhere. There was a garage next to the house and I parked my car on the side of it, just so that it's hidden. I got out and focused all my attention to my invisibility. I was getting pretty good at that invisibility maintaining thing.

Instead of taking the obvious front door, I took the back way in. Nobody was around thank goodness. I tried walking upstairs but there was nothing there either. When I tried the third floor same thing. So I walked back to ground level and looked everywhere for a type of entrance to a basement or something. When I decided to give up, I started to walk back out of the house. Next I remember falling face first onto the floor. I wasn't watching where I was going and I tripped over the leg of a chair in the kitchen. It made a loud noise and alarms went off all around me. Quickly, I got up and focused on invisibility again, running behind one of the curtains to hide.

In a few seconds, Leo and General Higglens walked into the kitchen from the hallway and looked around. When they didn't see anything they went back the way they came. And I followed them. I kept my distance in case I messed up and couldn't keep my invisibility. When they got to the end of the hallway, they kept going, and walked right through the wall. There's gotta be some sort of door here. I thought but there was nothing. I reached out and touched the wall. My hand went right through. The wall was just a hologram put there to make people think this was the end of the hallway. And I walked through.

The inside of it was a laboratory, with multiple people holding test tubes and liquids and microscopes. I saw a bulletin board on the wall to my right and walked over to it. There were mainly weird papers with numbers on it, but two big signs were written in English. They said,
"Power Enhancing Project" and "Time Freeze Enhancer." Under them they both wrote that they had to be due by 9/30/10. That's just four days from now!

Completely baffled as to what they meant, I went to find Leo again. Through another set of big glass doors there was another room, much like an office. I wondered how I could get through them without someone seeing. Instead I just waited a few minutes until someone went in, or someone came out. But I listened to see what I could hear.

The voices were muffled but I could definitely tell it was Leo and General Higglens. "Projects coming nicely, should be done soon." Higglens said. "Soon? They need to be done by a specific time! Or else it won't work. I can't take over the worlds if things aren't done on schedule." Leo replied, and I heard a loud bang. "We're doing all that we can sir!" "Well it's not good enough! They better be done by that date!" Leo yelled at Higglens, and then there was a long moment of silence. "Now come, it's time for the execution. I left Elisa a note telling her to go to her training which is the opposite way. In a day or so I should get her to trust me enough so I can brainwash her. I really don't want to force it onto her. Which is why I need that project to be done." Leo and Higglens came out of the doors, and the General had a worried look on his face. I don't blame him.

Realizing that this was all the information I would get, I sent the message out to Evo. "Evo, I hope you can hear this. I just heard Leo talking about two projects that need to be done in three days. The first is something about a power booster, and the second is a time-freeze enhancer. I hope you can finish what you're working on fast, because we only have until September 30th to stop him. I miss you, hope everything's well."

On my way back out, I remembered them talking about an execution. At the road, I decided to head back to the castle and go the opposite way of my training. Hopefully if I get there, I could stop it from happening.

Back at the castle, I knew that I had to keep going straight, because on my way back, I saw the field I used for my training.

About fifteen minutes after I passed the castle, there was a large group of people gathered in front of a stage on my right. When I had the car parked behind the nearest building, I started toward the crowd. Who I saw on the stage made my heart stop beating.

Leo stood with a microphone next to five people; Mandril, Benlio, Rosalla, Sparcke and Narcee. All five of them helped me to realize the kind of person Leo really was, and some how, he found out.

They stood there with their hands tied behind their backs, and Higglens stood in front of them with a gun. Sparcke and Narcee were crying and their parents were trying to be strong and comfort them. Mandril had no expression except maybe of dignity.

Leo started talking, and this time I was sprinting to the stage. "Citizens of Skylar," He said. "These five people have given information about me to the queen. This is where they ended up. Please be aware that if any of you should do the same, this will be your fate." Leo nodded to Higglens and he pointed the gun at Mandril.

The bang of the gun echoed throughout the whole field. Mandril slumped down to the ground, while all I could hear in my head was "no" repeating over and over. How could something like this happen to a person so brave and so good?

I made it up to the stage, still invisible. The ground where he lay was covered in blood, but he was still breathing. "Mandril, I'm so sorry!" I whispered, tears falling down my cheeks.

"Elisa, it's okay, I don't mind dying. At least I know that you know the truth." He whispered back, coughing up more blood at the end. "Just help the others, and promise me one thing." He continued and I held his head up. "Save Skylar." I nodded and Mandril's breathing got slower. In a few seconds, he stopped breathing all together, and his head slumped back in my arms. I carefully put him back down and stood up.

Just then, my heart that was full of sadness switched to anger. I put myself in front of Benlio, since he was next in line. I then concentrated on the fire within me. Hoping this would work, I tried sending a giant burst of flames from my body, and it did work perfectly.

The fire was a massive explosion sending Leo and General Higglens flying backwards. The sight of that actually made me smile a bit, until I looked back and saw Mandril lying dead on the stage. "Benlio, I'm going to try and get you guys out of here." I said to him and he nodded. I quickly untied their hands and told them to hold my hands. Sparcke grabbed my left hand, and Narcee grabbed my right. Benlio and Rosalla took theirs and I raced them back to my car.

It was easier to escape while invisible that's for sure. Too bad I didn't have this kind of power earlier, back when I was still on Earth. Speaking of invisibility, I couldn't believe how good I was at staying that way. When I was first practicing it was hard for me to concentrate enough, but now it's so simple. So far I've been able to stay like that since I walked out of my room that morning.

While in the car, I realized there was only one place to go where they would be safe, Planet Mydar. There were so many of us in the car though, and I couldn't keep the whole thing invisible.

Leo and Higglens got into their car, and they chased us. Unfortunately there was only one main road going across the whole planet, unless there was a side road for a few houses or stores or something. Pretty soon there were at least five other cars chasing us down the street as well. This whole scene made me think of those action movies with the car chasing. Yes I know, I have a wild imagination while in the midst of running for my life. But it happens you know?

The cars were gaining on us, and I wasn't sure how to make the car speed up. I didn't see any speed gauges, so I figured that it can only go one speed. I realized that I would have to speed it up on my own.

"Okay, Benlio, you sit in the drivers seat and try to control the car as much as possible on our way back to the castle. The rest of you duck down." I explained and they nodded. I opened the back window of the car, closed my eyes, and stuck my arms out. "Ready?" I yelled. "Ready!" They yelled back and I forced powerful streams of fire from my hands.

The car sped forward, the fire from my hands acted as a perfect turbo boost. In a few seconds, the cars in pursuit of us vanished from sight. "Yeah!" I exclaimed and we arrived at the castle. "Okay guys, we gotta get into the ship." I explained and we ran over to it. "Uh, do you know how to open it?" I asked, staring blankly at the door. "There should be a keypad with a code." Rosalla replied, and I started to hear the cars coming from a distance. "Okay, we need to be invisible again." I said and they took my hand.

I wondered what the code would be. It could be a time, a date, or some random number even. Although I would think that Leo would have the code mean something. The first code I could think of was the date of the project. What was that? I thought and punched in 09-30-10. But the ship didn't open. "Darn!" I exclaimed and the first car pulled in to the castle. It was Leo and General Higglens. "If they're invisible, we obviously won't be able to find them. We need to wait for some kind of sign." Leo said as we walked dreadfully close to where we were. I held my breath until they walked inside.

Seeing Leo also reminded me of another date. When we first met, he insisted on telling me his birthday. But what was it? I knew it was sometime in November. "November... 20th?" I asked myself quietly and typed in 11-20-94. It worked! The ship opened.

When the ship opened, it made a very loud noise, and Leo and General Higglens ran out of the castle. "There!" Higglens yelled and we ran into the ship.

Leo stood a little ways from the door and put his hands out. I was just about to close the door when I looked back and saw a giant wave of water hurdling toward us.

NINE

I was forced to the ground by the water, not being able to breathe. As I struggled to get up, water made its way into my mouth and my nose. But I was helpless. The water kept pummeling down, and I was starting to lose consciousness. All I could think about was to find a way to protect myself from the water. And I imagined a type of force field surrounding myself. I had to try something.. And it actually worked! Although after I started to breathe again, I had a minor flashback of Pihloe telling me that if I kept training, my powers would be able to protect me. I guessed this was what he meant. I coughed up some water that made it to my lungs, and hurried over to shut the door.

Leo saw that I was moving, and the water receded. Instead, he tried pummeling me with powerful bursts of water, but my force field was too strong. I finally reached the switch and pulled it, the door quickly closed. I ran to the controls and started the engine, not caring about checking everything. The ship took off, and only then did I realize that the only people on the ship was me, Rosalla, and Narcee. Sparcke and Benlio were left behind.

There was no time to turn back, so I switched it into auto-pilot and went to check on Rosalla and Narcee. They were just starting to sit up, coughing up water. "We should be on Mydar in a few minutes." I said and they looked around. "Where's dad and sister?" Narcee asked and I frowned. "They, didn't make it." I replied sadly, trying not to look at them. "What?" They screamed at once, and they stood up and desperately searched the room again. "We have to go back for them! We can't leave them there!" Rosalla exclaimed and ran to the controls. "We can't go back! It would be too late anyways. I'm sorry, they must have been wiped out of the ship before I was able to close the door." I replied, putting a force field in front of the controls so she couldn't touch them.

Rosalla pounded at the force field, but she couldn't get through. Instead, she broke into tears and sat on the ground. Narcee went over and tried comforting her. "Daddy gonna be okay, and sissy too." She said, easing her mother's pain by a little bit.

They were still crying when we reached Mydar, which only took like ten minutes to get there.