ANOTHER PLACE, ANOTHER TIME

Yoni Weiss
10-17-19

Another Place, Another Time

Chapter 1: Fears & Nightmares...

Alice E. has a big imagination. She has weird dreams about strange things
nobody really thinks about. Like good being bad and vice versa. She also
dreams of a strange place that’s always in her dreams. It’s black and white like
an old movie. It has lots of good things but in her case, bad things.

Horrifying, bloody, dark dreams. Why would such terrifying things in her
dreams? She’d always keep these things to herself because she was afraid of
one thing, doctors.

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She remembers the incident with grampa that brought her fear to life. They
try to help him but nothing ever works. She can’t end up like grampa. With the
doctors and their experiments, She remembers the screams, violence,
bloodshed, and horror. She never really wrote her dreams down in a book or
anything, but she did have a name for the place in her dreams, ZO.

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Chapter 2: Alice...

Even though she has many fears and nightmares, Alice E. is a calm thinker.
She never raises her voice and never gets mad at anyone for anything. She’s
also shy and always acting carefully. She cries herself to sleep every night
because she’s worried that her parents will divorce. They fight so much that she
feels weird when their not.

The fighting reminds her of Grampa. Once a month she’d get a letter from
grandpa but every now and then, she won’t. That brings out all her worries. She

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remembers the incident. She was walking with her friend, Dorthy when it
happened.

She shook her head in fear and quickly grabbed her pills from her medicine
cabinet. It helped her forget. “Never had, never will.” said mother in the past.
“Now take your pills.” She gulped them down and started looking through the
letters she got from people years ago that never bothered to read. She found
one weird note:

Dear Alice,

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You are invited to a house, unlike any other one. This house knows your
hopes and dreams and wants to make them come true. Only a handful of kids
have been invited to this house and you're one of the lucky ones. We hope you
come.

Sincerely,
The House On Maple Street

Alice crumbled it up and threw it away. Like it was that important. She got
dressed, brushed her teeth and went downstairs.

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Chapter 3: A Ray Of Sunshine...

“Good Morning sweetie.” Said mother in a condescending voice.
“Goodmorning mom.” sighed Alice. “Your father and Dorthy are at the docks
waiting for you!” Said mom trying to act cheerful. Alice ran to the docks as fast
as she could with delight in her eyes. Like a ray of sunshine on a cloudy day.

When she got there she noticed Dorthy’s younger brothers, Bill, and Will
there. The ray of sunlight in her started to fade inside her. “Alice, Alice, Alice!”

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Screamed Bill and Will at the top of their lungs. Alice would always call them the
annoying duo in her head. “Hey.” Said, Dorthy with a smile.

“Hey, kiddo,” Said Dad in a VERY condescending voice. Alice sighed.
“Hey, dad,” “Great day for fishing eh?” He said with a smirk. It was never a
great day for fishing. Always cloudy, never sunny.

They started fishing. No one got anything. “I’m gonna go get us some
PB&J.” He said with a big smile on his face. Dad was always smiling. Well,
except when he was fighting with mom.

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All of a sudden Dorthy, the annoying duo and Alice noticed some sort of a
boat but it had wheels on the bottom. Then, a ray of sunlight reflected off the
water onto the docks. A train track appeared, going beyond the horizon. “Let’s
go!” said Dorthy. “Let’s go beyond the horizon!”

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Chapter 4: The Beginning Of The End...

The wind in their hair. The sun on their faces. It was truly magical.
Well, it WAS magical. “Alice! Look” Said Dorthy pointing to the mountains.
“Some sort of castle?” “We should go there!” Yelled the annoying duo.

All of a sudden, the train track shifted to the direction of the castle. “Whoa!”
Said everyone as it slowly approached the castle. Something about this was

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familiar to Alice. But not in a bad way or for Alice, not in a good way. They
climbed up the mountain as the sound of waves crashed beneath them.

They got to the top and found the gates to the castle wide open. Strange
really but when they got inside, they found a ton of people walking around.
“HELLO!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Yelled the annoying duo. Everyone froze. Then, the people
started charging towards Alice and the others.

The people grabbed them in all kinds of places. Dorthy fought back and
helped Alice and the annoying duo escape. They ran and ran, not looking back
as they hid in a cornfield.

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Dorthy put her hands over her brother’s mouths, so no one heard their cries.
Suddenly, Dorthy felt two hands grab her shoulders. She screamed. They ran
out of the cornfield as a scarecrow chased them. Running and running and
running and running.

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Chapter 5: Strange & Scarry...
After a while, they stopped. They found themselves in the middle of a large
forest. They used twigs and leaves as bedding. No one could sleep well that
night.
Alice fell asleep but woke up to a small light all around her. Fireflies were
everywhere. She looked behind her and saw that Dorthy and Will weren’t there.

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“Dorthy! Will!” Yelled Alice. “They’re not in this dream within a dream.
Neither in the dream, you were just in.” Said a quiet voice. Alice looked behind
her and saw a small grey cat with eyes as black as night. “Walk with me, Alice.”
Said the cat. “It’s a nice night for a stroll.”

They started walking through the forest. “What’s your name?” Asked Alice.
“Call me by what I am.” Answered the cat. “Where are we?” Asked Alice.
“Where do you think?” Asked the cat. Alice started remembering her terrifying
nightmares.

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“Now do you know where we are?” Asked the cat with a big smile. Alice
froze with fear. “We’re in ZO.” She said quietly. “You are correct.” Uttered the
cat. They continued walking. “Now...” Said the cat. “Tell me about your
grandfather?”

Alice froze again. “My gr-grampa?” Asked Alice with fear in her voice.
“Yes, absolutely, indeed, a-” “Stop Talking!” She yelled cutting off the cat. “Oh,
Alice…” said the cat in a smooth voice.

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“Sometimes you need to open up to someone every now and then or else
you’ll be depressed.” Said the cat. “FINE!” Alice yelled with anger. “I was
walking in the park with grampa and my friend, Dorthy when he yelled all of a
sudden. He started punching a woman.”

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Chapter 6: A Chat With A Cat…

“See Alice, it feels good, to tell the truth,” said the cat with a grin. “I have a
question,” said Alice as she wiped away her tears. “And I have an answer,”
said the cat. “Are you real?” asked Alice. “I’m as real as your shadow. I can
talk because I want to talk, not because I’m make-believe. Cats choose not to
talk, but I’m not like the others. I always have a feeling that this is some kind of
story and millions of eyes are watching me, but not all at once,” said the cat
getting philosophical. “I feel like there’s a line that no one can cross. Like there’s
some kind of limit to everything everyone does anywhere. Alice. you are

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dreaming in a dream. When you wake up from this dream, you’ll still be in this
nightmare you call ZO. When you are awake, run towards the horizon without
looking back. Don’t tell the others, don’t make a sound and once you get there,
this nightmare will be over.”

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Chapter 7: The End?

As the sun arose Alice jumped up and started running. She ran through the
cornfield were a moaning sound filled the air. The scarecrow chased her.

She ran and ran to the place where the gates are. She slid down the
mountain as the scarecrow just stood there as if it wanted her to escape. She
got to the water and saw the horizon. A ray of sunshine blinded her. She then
found herself lying in bed. That was all just a dream.

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Don’t go past the sky, because it is the limit.

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