💤 The Portal in my Closet 👚

         Every night, until I go to sleep, I stare at my closet. Every night, there’s this glowing light in my closet. Lately, I’ve wanted to get my butt out of bed to check it out. It wasn’t until tonight did I finally get the courage and will to do so.

         Getting out of bed, I made sure I was quiet; I didn’t want my sister in the bed next to me to wake up. I tiptoed to my closet, stepping painfully on loose toys on the ground.

         Lately, I’ve been watching kid shows about a random person finding a portal to another world and saving said world numerous times. Or, I’ve been watching something like magical fairies, and they save the world, too. Now that I think about it, all the shows that I watch are about someone who saves the world; huh.

         Once I got to the closet, I stuffed my hand into the glow. The glow was in a basket, and after a minute, nothing happened. But then, my room started to fade away, and I started seeing a ton of colors whooshing all around me. I swear, as I fell, every color was passing by me. Mostly light colors, but every once in a while a darker color would show itself; such as brown, black, gray, etc.

         This weird magical dust went all around me as I fell, and my outfit changed. Instead of wearing my pajamas, I was wearing a short dress, and I had strange horns on my head. A mirror appeared in front of me, and I could see that the horns didn’t look like evil horns; they were like nature-ish horns. I also noticed my hair turned green, and I had… high heels! But, why heels? I’m like ten years old! Why am I wearing heels? Well, at least I’ll have practice for when I finally grow up.

         After this series of events, I landed on the ground with a painful “oof!”

         The grass was yellow, but not the “dead” yellow type. It felt soft and alive. You could see some dirt on the grass since yellow was such a light color.

         I stood up, almost falling from dizziness and from the high heels. The sky was pink, the trees were rainbow, and you could see tiny gingerbread houses and little gingerbread people all around from far away. The tops of the trees were almost like cotton candy, but some looked like clouds.

         “Where am I?” I breathed.

         “Well, hello there, human!” A squeaky voice asked.

         I jumped at the voice and looked around. I saw no one in sight. Finally looking down, I saw the little chipmunk at my feet. A few turtles were gathering as well, along with some birds, who had appeared with a woosh above my head.

         “Oh, hello. Who might you be?” I wondered.

        

         “Hey! I’m sure slow, but I’m not deaf!” the turtle shouted.

         Chuckling I asked, “What is this place?”

         “Why, this is the realm of dreams, of course. You came here from the mortal world, and now you’re here. Time is a lot slower here than in that mortal world. One day here equals twenty minutes in the mortal world,” Chip explained.

         “Oh, wow. Are there portals that lead here in everyone’s closet?” I wondered.

         All the animals around me exchanged confused looks but didn’t say anything.

         “Okay. Well, what now?” I questioned.

         “Now, we go have fun!” The birds chirped happily.

For the rest of the day, we ran around, hung out, and they gave me a tour of the place. When we passed by an area with dead grass and burnt gingerbread houses, Chip and Moderatal told me that there was this evil bear king that likes to burn stuff.

“Oh my. Is someone taking action against this guy?” I wondered, remembering a T.V show I was currently watching that had another monopoly dude who wanted evil to reign.

“Well, no one is brave enough to counter him so, no. But we have made a solution of running away. Every time someone’s home gets destroyed, they relocate to a special location where they regroup with fellow people who have lost their house then create a solution to the problem together. Some people rebuild their houses in a safer location and others offer their homes to others. It’s an excellent system,” Chip replied.

“That’s a good start, but that’s not enough. What’s going to happen when their new homes get destroyed? Their home after that? They can’t just keep relocating. If this keeps happening, then there won’t be any place to relocate to,” I objected.

“So then what do we do?” he asked.

“I say we fight. Do you guys have an army?” I queried.

“Yes, actually. We have army men, but their greatest fear is anyone who opposes them, so they are terrible when actually facing other people,” Moderatal responded.

“Some army that is. Well, since I’m here, I mind as well help,” I smiled.

“How? You just got here, and you’re just a kid,” Chip commented.

“A kid who found this place,” I added.

“A point there; show us what you got,” Moderatal said.

“Woah, hold on a sec. ‘Show us what you got,’? I’m not going to fight, per say. I’m going to fight indirectly,” I replied.

“Then how’re you going to stop him?” Chip wondered.

“You’ll see,” I replied.

I had them show me to the evil bear’s castle, which took a day or two of travel. The things we saw on the way were both amazingly cool and pretty, but some of it was sad. We’ve seen waterfalls with fish streaming down it, other animals, some different colors, we’ve seen talking trees and grass, and many other plants and things. Once, we passed by a large field with pigs, cows, horses, chickens, the usual farm animals, except they had tons of eyes and more legs than you could count. The thing was, though, it wasn’t creepy. It actually looked pretty cool.

Once we started getting closer to the castle, there were more dead things, more burned buildings, more dead grass, and more eerie quietness.

“This is really sad. Why hasn’t anyone confronted him before?” I wondered.

“Well, someone has. Once. Years ago, this place was a lot more colorful, and there used to be more animals and even cities that looked like human cities but with animals. But then he started attacking, a little girl, who had only found this place a year before, confronted him. Let’s just say it didn’t go so well,” Chip explained.

I gasped. “She died! Or did he lock her in the dungeons!”

“No, no, no. He just banished her from this realm for all eternity,” he replied.

“Oh, that’s not too bad,” I sighed. I would hate to have been banished, though. This seems like a pretty cool place.

Once we got there, his castle was a lot more sad and creepier than the dead grass. From just approaching, there was fire everywhere, but it was not burning anything. There were those horses with all those eyes and legs, except they had fire going all along their backs, and when they looked at us with all their eyes, the look was not of innocent wonder or curiosity; it was of hate, hunger, and longing. His castle was made of black brick, and I could swear the windows were broken, but they didn’t look broken if you looked at it a certain way.

Tall spikes were reaching out to hurt any birds who tried to sit on the roof. There was a fountain of blood in the courtyard, and there were many dead flowers.

“This place looks… charming,” I commented.

“This used to be the castle of the old king and queen. But, alas, the evil bear king destroyed them with his forces and redecorated,” Chip told.

As we approached the door, it creaked open for us. Looking around, no one opened the door. There was no one, so we went inside. As we did so, the doors slammed shut, and we heard it lock in place.

“No turning back now,” Moderatal whimpered.

The inside was much like the outside, but it was twenty thousand times more creepy. I don’t even want to explain it.

We walked down the horror halls, all the way to the throne room. The throne room was filled with heads of what looked like different animals, and the throne was made of what looked like burned straw. I could only see this from a small amount of light shining on the throne, but most of it was covered in shadow.

“Who goes there? Why are you visiting the bear king?” the voice shook the walls and floor so much; I thought the ceiling would fall on us.

“I am a human girl, and my name is Addison. I’ve come to end your reign of terror,” I replied.

“Yeah, right. You’re what, ten years old?” a dark shadow scoffed, moving from the throne towards us.

I could feel my face heat up. “Um… yes. So?” 

“The last person to question me was older than you, and she’s gone!” the bear chuckled.

“Hey, ugly face! Won’t you stop being mean to everyone?” I demanded.

“My face is not ugly! You’re the one who’s being mean to everyone!” the bear king shouted.

“What are you doing!” Chip whispered.

“It usually works on my brother. I’ll try something else,” I whispered back. “Sorry about the hurtful comment! I was just telling it like it is! Burning everyone’s homes… some king you are!” I shouted.

“You’re gonna regret that,” he responded.

“Yeah, probably. But it’s the truth. I mean, I’m sure you’ll make a great king if you didn’t burn people’s houses down,” I commented.

“What else am I supposed to do? Everyone bullies me!” The king slumped back onto his throne.

For a moment, we just stood there, his words echoing in the great chamber. “Tell me more.”

“Well, it all started when…when I was left alone during hibernation one day. I did have someone there to protect me, but they left. I was all alone. That someone was from the king and queen. I told them my situation, and they sent one of their butlers to protect me. But when I found out he had left, I got angry at the king and queen. So, I threw them in my new dungeon and took over their castle,” the bear king said.

“Wait a minute. I thought you killed the queen and king!” Chip shouted.

“Oh, of course I didn’t. I locked them up with everyone else. I just led all the peasants to believe that, so they have no hope of saving them,” he replied.

“We could save them,” Chip whispered in my ear.

“Just one minute. I wanna try something,” I replied, “King bear…”

“Actually, it’s king Jeffery,” he corrected.

“King Jeffery, I will let you be, and I will make sure the king and queen will protect you during hibernation season if you release them,” I proposed.

He snorted. “Why would I do that?”

“Because you are the only person in this castle. When hibernation season comes, no one would be able to protect you anyway,” I reasoned.

“But… my castle would keep the baddies away,” he replied.

“It didn’t keep us away, did it?” I queried.

“Uh… I guess not. But how could I trust that they’ll keep their word? That you’ll keep yours?” He questioned.

“By trusting me. I know the last time you trusted someone, they backstabbed you, but I am not the backstabbing type. I would never, in my wildest dreams backstab someone. I don’t do the same for my sister, who sleeps in the bed next to me every night. It all starts with trust, and faith,” I said.

“Alright fine. I suppose I will trust you. You seem… more truthful than that other girl who tried a similar thing. Follow me,” he said.

He freed the queen and king and as promised, they sent him someone who would protect him during hibernation season. Just as Chip, Moderatal, and I were leaving, something happened.

I awoke with a start, finding myself in my closet, eyes feeling all groggy. Looking at the window, I saw that the sun was almost ready to start rising.

“I’ve fallen asleep,” I thought.

I looked up into my closet to see the glow of the “portal” still there. Getting up, I touched the glow once more and pulled it out. It was some sort of medical thing for my sister. My heart sank. That whole adventure I just had, was fake. It was a dream. I sighed. This happened a few times; hopefully, now that I know it’s not actually a portal to another, better world, maybe I’ll stop obsessing over it. Perhaps I should stop watching those t.v shows. Perhaps I should instead make these imaginations real, through expression of writing.