The Path

His footsteps echoed on the mud path to nowhere. Moss clung to the felled, damp trees on either side of the road. Wooden signs were built onto metal posts, clanging noisily against each other in the unmerciful wind. The bitter wind whipped against his face, and a faint scream of pain was heard, screeching somewhere far off. The twigs pricked his bare feet, but he was determined to reach his destination, that even he did not know. He slowly opened the creaking wrought iron gate, and took a step in. No sooner had he stepped in had the door closed behind him with the wind. A thick fog now blanketed a deserted town, and the air seemed denser. And, although it could barely be heard, the sound of his footsteps echoed on the mud path, to nowhere.

The Wooden Chest

On one school morning in Ashburn, Virginia, a little boy was getting ready for his first day of fifth grade. His name was Reeder, and even though he was in fifth grade, he did not know how to read! His teacher, Miss Colac, realized this on the first day of school. She decided to do something about it.

The next day, Miss Colac brought an old, wooden chest to school. Suggestions quickly arose from the class about where the chest came from, who owned it previously, and what its use is. Amidst all this curiosity, Reeder noticed two things. One thing was that “COLAC” was engraved in fine print on the chest. The second thing was that Miss Colac had mysteriously disappeared from the classroom.

Reeder opened the classroom door, and walked out of the classroom to find Miss Colac. But when Reeder walked out of the hallway and took a good look around, Miss Colac was nowhere to be found. All that Reeder could find was a red, velvety diary inside of the chest.

As Reeder opened the diary, the words on the page disappeared, and pictures took their place! Not just ordinary pictures, but beautiful, dancing pictures! It was like a movie! But what Reeder thought was a “movie” was actually just himself reading!

In the “movie”, Reeder saw a little girl, around 10 or 11 years old, hiding behind a bush. She was spying on a middle-aged man. The man was holding a wooden chest with “COLAC” engraved on it. Could that chest be the same chest Miss Colac had brought to school?

The man in the diary proudly held out the chest for everyone to look at. Every time someone saw the chest, their eyes filled with envy. Reeder could see that the girl had a hint of jealousy in her eyes too. Actually, she was very jealous.

Reeder knew what was going to happen next, so he closed the diary. When Reeder looked up from the diary, he saw Miss Colac grinning at him. Miss Colac took Reeder to the lounge to “talk”.

“You can read, Reeder, and you are very good at it too!” exclaimed Miss Colac.

Reeder was awestruck. So that is how good it feels to read!, he thought.

“But I am still curious about a couple things,” Reeder told Miss Colac.

“Exactly!” Miss Colac said “And I am glad that you are!”

“Huh? Can you please just tell me what is going on?” Reeder asked, ever more confused and curious than he was before.

“Sure!” replied Miss Colac “You see, I was the girl who wrote that diary, and my dad was the man with the chest. When my dad found the chest with his last name on it, he took it as his, thinking that there were jewels inside it. I was very jealous, so I was about to steal it from him, when one night he just threw it out the window."

“Why did he throw it away?” Reeder asked.

“Well, he was disappointed because when he opened the box, there were no jewels, but something even more valuable that a lot of people don’t even care about. Inside of the box was a note that read, Chest of Learning and Curiosity – COLAC - For teachers and students only.

Then, I knew what I had to do. I became a teacher, and this box has never failed to spark curiosity and knowledge in children’s minds, one way or another. This time all you had to do was look at the letters COLAC, and then you had the confidence and curiosity every good reader needs to have!”

When Miss Colac and Reeder walked back into the classroom, the kids were still curious. They both grinned.

The Withazoria Museum

Chapter 1 – Bravery

I am stuck in a place,
That makes spooky critters weep.
I feel cramped, alone, and desperate,
And then upon me it will creep.

It will take over my body,
My mind and spirits too.
And just when you think it can't get any worse,
It will stick to me like glue.

Bravery.

I looked at this poem – which I had written so long ago – over and over again. Yes, I thought. It was bravery. I was too brave. But, I am glad that I was. Being brave had lead to a museum – where I became what I am today. You probably have no clue what I am talking about. You are also most likely wondering where I am. Well, I will tell you.

I am at the Withazoria Museum of Science. You may have gone to a museum for a field trip, as an adult, or just to have fun. Well, I went to the Withazoria Museum of Science because I had to. I was forced to. I needed to. I needed to go as badly as you would need to go and have a drink of water after 47 days in a desert!

Why I needed to go to a museum so badly, may be what you are wondering. Well, it was because I was brave - Too brave. So brave that I felt that I just had to go into a museum that nobody ever went into. You see, it was a very eerie museum. Nobody who went in ever came out. So, you see, I just had to go in, for better worse. You are probably very curious how I survived. Well, I will tell you.

Chapter 2 – The Museum Nights

When I was about 25 years old, I heard that there was an apartment space available next to the Withazoria Museum of Science! I was as excited as a boy who had just gotten his first bike! I had heard that it was a haunted museum, and I really wanted to go because I loved going on dangerous missions! But when I came to the museum, I was extremely disappointed. There were no million year-old cobwebs, or dinosaur fossils that come to life and eat you! It looked like an ordinary museum!

Then, it happened. The doors to the museum slammed behind me. I was the only living creature in the museum-or at least that's what I thought. Something didn't feel right. Whether it was that a 10 year-old science textbook was floating in mid-air or that I was getting out the paper and pen without even knowing it, I do not know. Then, the science textbook opened itself up to page 1. I, somehow, knew what I had to do. I answered all of the questions. When I finished, some of the questions that I had answered on my paper vanished, so I figured out that the Museum must be trying to tell me that I got them incorrect.

When I was hungry, I ate "dates" and "Sundays" off of the prehistoric calendar, and drank from the springs in the specially preserved 4,000 year old mattress.

Each day I had to go through the same process-until all of the questions were answered correctly. Then, I flipped the paper over and wrote a poem. It felt like torture – all of that learning. But, all of the time I was doing this, I felt that the animals around me in the museum were helping me answer the question correctly.

Chapter 3 - The Scientist

As I became smarter and smarter each day, I realized that the animals and the museum were not torturing me, they were actually helping me! When I finished answering all of the questions on day, I decided to have a look around the museum. I saw the polar bear who helped me with my problems on exhibit 6A, the hippo who helped me with homework on 5C, and the lion who helped me learn about lasers on 3B.

"Thank you!" I whispered to them. I turned to walk away.

"No problem!" They called back after me.

I rubbed my eyes and looked back at the exhibits. Everything looked like the way it had been before. I turned back around.

"Great scientists were here once, you know." I heard someone, or something say behind me.

I looked back, and all of the animals were all waving at me! WAVING AT ME! I waved back, and then I disappeared from the museum.

When I opened my eyes and found myself in my apartment, I knew was I was going to do. I don't know exactly how it happened, but I became a well-known poet, and a well-known scientist. Stories about my nights at the museum were published, even though people thought them to be fiction. To this day I don't know whether my nights at the museum was just a bad (or good!) dream, or reality. But what I do know is that those museum nights made me, well, me - Albert Einstein!

Each Lost Soul... :-(

After school was done for the day, a little boy named Jackie, no more than 7 years old, was walking home from school. His home was 10 blocks from his school, so he was tired, trudging along with his backpack on a hot day. On his way home, he spotted a stranger in a car. The stranger was motioning for the little boy to come near her.

"You look tired! Hop into my car. I will give you a ride home."

Jackie neared the strange woman, slowly and carefully. Then, the boy came to an abrupt stop. He remembered what his mother had told him before school started that day. Jackie yelled out to the woman.

“I can’t talk to strangers!” Then then the little boy whipped around and started to walk home again, although it was tempting to just relax in a car on the way home.

“Wait!” The strange woman called after him. “If you cannot talk to strangers, then how exactly did you just say that to me?”

Jackie pondered this for a moment before replying.

"Yes, I suppose I did just talk to you."

"And I wouldn't be a stranger anymore if I told you who I was, now would I?" The stranger asked.

"I guess not," said Jackie.

"Ok then, it's settled. Hop on in my car and I will tell you the story of who I am. I will give you a ride home." the stranger said.

The boy, who did not really understand what was happening at this point, happily got into the cool, air-conditioned car, and relaxed.

The stranger began her story.

"My name is Eve L. Helper. My ancestors sailed on the Titanic..."

Young Jackie was so engaged in the stranger's story that he did not notice that the car was not going to the little boy's house. In fact, the boy was so clueless and so quickly pulled into the car that he had never stopped to think about how the stranger would even know where his house was. He was being driven to a strange place. It looked like a completely deserted area.

"Anyways, when the ship crashed into a jutting-out rock from an island, the ship sank, but only the people who were locked in, and the musicians playing last requests, died. Everyone else on board swam to the island." Eve said.

"How did they survive on the island?" The boy asked with curiosity.

"It was Old Man Miracle, as we used to call him. He took every single dead thing on the island and turned its energy into a feast of all kinds (rice, fruit, meat) for 1,000 people to enjoy for 1 whole year! But that is not all. Old Man Miracle also did a very queer thing with the corpse.

"What?" Jackie was bursting with curiosity and excitement, but also a little bit freaked out by the mention of corpses.

The stranger replied.

"He lifted the corpse and himself in the air, without touching the corpse at all, and placed the feet of the corpse on the island, and left the rest of the corpse jutting out into the ocean."

This sent a chill down Jackie's spine.

Eve continued.
"Miraculously, the corpse hardened into land - one step closer to connecting to America! Old Man Miracle is immortal, so he has been living all this time.

I was born on the island, with a special talent. I could swim as far as I wished, and anywhere I wished. When I swam back to America and told people that the survivors of the Titanic were waiting to be rescued, nobody believed me. They all thought that the survivors went on another ship and were brought to America. I had to think of another plan. But, I could not carry fully-grown people on my back to America. And if I had children on my back, whatever would they do without their mothers? But, I could help build the bridge between the island and America. I could bring children on my back to the island!"

Jackie had a feeling that something dreadful would happen.

"So," Eve continued. "We are on the verge of escaping to America. We just have one tiny little problem."

Jackie gulped.

"And what would that be?" Jackie said, already knowing the answer.

"We need more corpses." Eve stared at Jackie with a dead-cold icy glare...

The "Unbeatable" Villain of Destruction! (OR IS IT?)

Oh No! Erif Fire, The "Unbeatable" Villain of Destruction is at it again. Destroying Ygrene Energy and Rettam Matter! Or is he?

Erif attempts to burn down the entire continent of North America! He wants the entire continent to be weightless, for reasons nobody yet knows. After the continent had been reduced to nothing but a pile of ash and rubble, the continent still weighed exactly as it had before! A failed attempt to destroy Matter.

Next, Erif attempts to destroy Energy. A car is zooming along the road, Erif sets himself in front of the car and so it stops. But the energy has not been destroyed. It has merely been changed from kinetic energy to potential energy! A failed attempt to destroy energy.

Will Erif ever defeat his Nemesis's - Ygrene Energy and Rettam Matter? The answer is no. Erif has failed to destroy Energy and Matter once again!