RamWeb

It was a normal day. The normal hassle around my house, the normal cries from my sister, and the everyday online school. It hadn’t always been like this. Once upon a time, I walked to school, I played tag with the kids next door, and I played fetch with my dog. Now, news had shown a virus being spread and the world changed. School was canceled, no one was allowed to go near each other and the outdoors were restricted. If only I could go back to my life before. 

My mother was cleaning the living room that morning. I was sitting at my computer taking an online math test I was sure I’d fail. My sister was eating her dinner. My mother had asked me to run down to the basement to get the vacuum. So I miserably walked downstairs only to see a piece of broken glass. I took the piece and scanned the room trying to find where it came from. My parents didn’t usually keep glass objects in the basement so at first, I was confused. As I searched through all the objects in the basement, I found a glass cutlery cupboard I’d never seen before. When I opened it, I heard a hiss. And next thing I knew, the cupboard sucked me in. 

I woke up and found myself on snow. “Wait,” I’d wondered “I shouldn’t be here. It's not safe. I should be inside giving my mother the vacuum.” As I got up, I realized that I could get a frostbite. Snow was coming down and it could be 20 degrees out here. Looking down, I noticed a small cabin near the woods. I tried to run down the mountain to get to the cabin but I slid against the slippery snow and rolled down. I was colder than ever when I approached the cabin. I steadily tapped the frozen door while I was sinking in a wind of ice. A lady greeted me at the door. I scanned her, unsure of whether to trust her. She was a grey haired lady wearing a silky red dress and a leather overcoat. Pretty unusual for someone to wear on a cold winter day. She’d invited me to come inside. I stepped into the house and was suddenly hit with a warm coat of air. The woman has me sit in front of the fireplace and runs to a tiny closet. She returned with a red, warm, and wool blanket. .; 

She was silent for a few minutes until I spoke up. “Where am I?,” I asked her “I was just at home and suddenly, I went through a cupboard and landed in snow.” She finally looked up. “What planet are you from?”, the woman asks. I looked at her, agitated. “Uhh, Earth”, I told her. She stared at me with fear in her eyes. “You must leave”, she’d told me “This planet isn’t safe for the creatures of Earth.” She walked up and opened up the front door and had given me a stern look. “Please leave before the boss banishes me for keeping an Earthian in my house.” The words she said were swarming in my head. Boss? Banished? Earthians? “You can’t let me go out there”, I told the woman. “I have to”, she answers “try finding your way back to your planet. You’ll be killed here.” I was looking at her shocked. “Please let me stay for at least a day. I have nowhere to go and it’s cold outside. And besides I don’t know which way I should head.” She sighed “You may stay but only tonight. Tomorrow spring will arise and you can set off on your journey.” “Spring?,” I asked confused. She nods. “Here in the planet of Ramweb, every day it’s one season. Today is winter, tomorrow is spring, after that day, summer, and after that fall. You need to make it by winter. There are some camps south of here who will help you. Tomorrow at 2 a.m, your journey begins.” Interesting name: Ramweb. I nodded and took the blanket to the couch. I drifted off to sleep listening to the ongoing blizzard outside. 

I woke up the next morning to a sizzling sound of bacon. I sat up on the couch as the woman handed me my breakfast: eggs with a side of bacon. I munched it away as happy as I was. Once I was done and cleaned my plate, the woman handed me a map, a lamp, some clothes for the winter and fall, a couple sandwiches, and a pocket knife. “Be safe,” she’d told me “and don’t trust anybody before you get to the camps. Anyone can get to you. Remember to head south and stay south. If you keep walking nonstop, you should reach there by summer.” I nodded and headed for the front door. I  thanked her for her doing and started along the path to head south. 

I did as the lady said and continued along the path. I resist the temptation to go into other houses and talk to folks on the streets. I tried to heed her advice and continue walking but after an hour, I needed rest. So I ran off to the trees to start gathering wood for a campfire. I picked up as many pieces of wood as I can and looked for some rocks to start a fire. Once I’d gathered enough wood, I realized that I wandered away from the path. Panicking, I dropped the wood and ran into many different parts of the woods trying to find the path. As the sun began to set, I gave up and decided to camp out here in the woods. Hopefully I’d find the path tomorrow.

I woke up the next morning and realized that I was in a room. In the room, there were specialists fixing broken appliances. I got up and started walking over to one of the specialist. I hadn’t realized that there was glass right there, so I bumped into the glass and fell down. One of the specialists walked over to me. A tall, bearded man with a tie walked behind him. “Sir, this is the human we found in the woods yesterday”,the specialist told the man. The tall man scanned me from top to bottom and nodded. “Well, since we captured this human, let's put the virus on test in its body. Since the other Earthians already caught on to it, might as well give it to this one too.” 

 I sat there silently, their words still trying to register into your mind. Virus? Could they have meant the ongoing virus right now? Suddenly, the top of the tube opened. I looked up. The specialist grabbed my arm and pulled me out of the tube. He had strapped me down to an enormous chair that looked kinda like a reclining chair. The man took out an injector and walked toward me. I’d begun to shake in my seat. “Wait,” I suddenly heard the boss say “do it tomorrow. We need it fresh.” The specialist nodded and ran down the stairwell. He slipped on some tiny remote and fell down. The remote skid across the room and right next to my chair. The specialist got back up and ran down the stairwell. The boss gave me a disgusted look and stomped behind the specialist.

“This is a dream”, I’d told myself “what’s really gonna happen is that I’m gonna wake up at home. There is no such thing as a lab in which vaccines cause viruses instead of destroying them. And no ones on a plot to kill all humans by sending a virus in the first place. What’s really gonna happen is that I’ll wake up, carry the vacuum upstairs and accept this dream like it's nothing else.” I drifted off to sleep with the biggest hope that this is only a dream.

But it wasn’t a dream and I’d only realized that when I woke up in the middle of the night still strapped to the chair. Suddenly, I noticed the remote was barely a hands distance away. With my tiny hand, I tried to reach down only to fall to the side. Well, at least I’d gotten the controller. I pressed the button in the middle to let me out. Next thing I wanted to do was to run out and find the path to the camp, but I couldn’t leave yet. I walked down the stairwell where I’d seen the boss and the specialist walking. I walked into a big room with blue lights and noticed some papers and documents on a tiny desk in the corner. I walked over to the desk and picked up one of the top few documents.The document shows all eight planets of the solar system. When I found Earth, I found a big red circle over it. Unsure of what the circle meant, I picked up the paper below it. The paper was a document that read this: WARNING! Anyone with this virus vaccinated into them can die of serious lung damage. If this virus gets severe, it can be transmitted to those around the infected. I suddenly dropped the paper shocked. I realized that this wasn’t a country’s doing: it was a planet’s doing. The people of this planet wanted to destroy humanity by starting a virus and spread it around till everybody caught it. I scrambled around the desk to find another paper. A paper that could possibly stop this from happening. Luckily I did. The paper had shown a map of the building. It looks normal, a five story building with the usual rooms: rec rooms, lab, kitchen, dining rooms, offices. I scanned my eyes to the map of the fifth floor. There, I found some sort of a core. Below the picture, the description said that the core can be used to go back to where you came from or to kill or destroy something. 

I go back out to where I was strapped and walk up the flights of stairs till I got to the fifth floor - which happened to be the roof. I looked around. “Where is the core?”, I had wondered. I walked all around the roof to try finding it. I opened as many doors as I could. I wasn’t gonna give up, but I was tired from walking up so many flights of stairs. I sat on a nearby stool to rest my legs when I noticed some tiny remote near my foot. I picked up the remote and observed it. I noticed that on the back of the remote, there was a picture of a core. 

I pressed the one and only button of the remote and out comes the core. I said “Destroy the ongoing virus on Earth.” I waited for a few minutes. Eventually I was tired of waiting and started walking away when I saw some pop up in front of my face that read: The Virus Was Destructed. I was immediately joyed. I was so happy that it was finally over. I then said “I wish to destroy this planet.” I got a pop up that said INVALID. Then I sighed. Of course. If this actually could destroy a planet, they could’ve just done that to Earth, but I still needed to stop it. “Spread an infection across this planet. It will kill everyone,” I said. I had suddenly remembered the lady that was kind to me “except for the lady that was so kind earlier. Send her to Earth with her house, belongings and everything.” I waited for a few more minutes before I got another pop up that said: VIRUS STARTED. Then I realized that the people of this planet will use this core to stop the virus and send it to Earth. So I said “Once I make my next wish, destruct yourself.” I waited for another few minutes before getting another popup saying “ACCEPTED.” Now the one I wanted to do the most: “Send me back to Earth.” Right away, I got a pop-up saying “Get ready to teleport.” The core sucked me in, and I was falling down and down and down. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to refrain from screaming. I heard something explode at the top. And the next thing I felt was a thud.

“Honey wake up you’re dreaming.” I opened my eyes and saw a blurred vision of my mother. I sat up and scanned my surroundings. I was back in the basement in front of the cutlery cupboard. “Honey come upstairs, I have a surprise for you.” I rubbed my eyes and followed my mother up the stairs. Immediately I saw a headline on the news saying “VIRUS HAS BEEN DESTROYED. DOCTORS THINK IT'S BECAUSE OF THE LATEST LUNG TREATMENT GIVEN.” I snorted because I knew how the virus stopped, but again, I could’ve been dreaming. I looked at my mother and she smiled. “Go get some fresh air.” she’d told me and so I did.