She ran fast, faster. Her legs had gone numb, her lungs stung and tears rolled down her face. She wanted to stop but could not, not now after all she had been through. She was so close. She glanced back to make sure Jamie was still there.

It was a nice sunny day in Florida and the bell had just dismissed the students for the weekend. Charlotte, who had short light brown hair, blue eyes and tanned skin, craned her neck to see if she could find her best friend Jamie over the mob of students leaving for the weekend.

‘Over here!’ shouted Jamie, waving over the crowd of people with her long brown hair, brown eyes and tanned skin.

‘Finally!’ exclaimed Charlotte, ‘it took you long enough.’

‘Sorry. Anyway, let’s go to my house. I want to show you something.’

The two girls trudged to Jamie’s house. They were best friends and had known each other since kindergarten. Before the bear accident that had led Jamie's mother missing an arm and unable to walk, the girls had spent almost every day together after school at her house. It was harder now, as Jamie's mom tended to avoid company.

    Meanwhile, Dr.Douglas was in his science lab trying to make a parasite to suck up carbon dioxide, because  climate change was becoming a big problem. He had been working on this project for a while and this is as close as he had ever been to succeeding.

‘I'm so close, I can feel it! I think just one or two more generations and the mutation will be complete. This little parasite might just save the world!' he said to himself . ‘Maybe if I just let it sit overnight it will settle and it will be ready in the morning. Then I will be able to show it to the world!"

Dr.Douglas  left his lab for the night and drove away in his Toyota minivan towards his house on the outskirts of town.

'Oh', he thought 'I forgot to seal the lid to my experiment. I should probably go and close that. On second thought, it is probably fine,' and he continued on his way. Dr. Douglas was kind of a misfit in this town. All the other scientists were trying to find a cure for cancer or researching the Big Bang theory. But he was only interested in solving one problem: how to create a parasite that ate carbon dioxide.

Charlotte sat on Jamie’s bed.

‘What do you want to do this weekend?’ asked Jamie.

' I have soccer practice today, but let's go for a hike in the woods tomorrow.'

‘Sure’ replied Jamie, ‘but let’s go from my place. The trails are better behind my house.’

'Sounds good. See you tomorrow!'

'See you. Have a good soccer practice!' called Jamie, as she pulled her homework out of her bag.

Jamie settled down to do her homework and Charlotte went home to get ready for soccer practice.

The next morning, Dr.Douglas walked into his lab hoping that the mutations had gone as planned and that the parasites were ready for testing. To Dr.Douglas's horror, when he looked down at the container he saw oozing, slimy green goo.

‘Oh no! What happened?' he exclaimed. 'Something has gone terribly wrong! I have to get rid of this, it could be very dangerous.'

 He quickly went to the door that went into a different dimension. He had made this about a year ago, when he had made another mistake in one of his experiments and had to hide it where no one would ever find it.

Dr. Douglas grabbed the map he had sketched of the dimension through the door, the key to the door and the container of toxic-looking goo. He ran through the door into the portal and the strange world beyond. A cold gust of wind rustled the wispy hair on his almost bald head. He put the parasite down. Another gust of wind blew his map and key out of his bag and out of sight. Fortunately, he knew where he was and could easily get back to his own dimension. He ran back to the door, slammed it shut and locked it with the extra key in his office.

Charlotte walked over to Jamie's house with a big bag full of ropes, some food and water and an extra coat. She knocked at the door. Jamie answered.

‘Hi Charlotte!' Jamie exclaimed. ‘Why did you bring so much stuff? We're just going to the woods for the day.’

 ‘Well I wanted to be prepared for any occasion.’

 ‘Whatever, let’s go.’

 The two girls walked out the back of Jamie's house and into the woods.

It was almost five o'clock now and the girls had been walking for several hours.

 ‘We should probably head back now, it's getting late.’

 ‘Can we just keep going a little bit more?’ asked Jamie. ‘Hey look , what's that?’

 ‘You always manage to find something interesting. Let's see.’

 The girls ran further down the trail to investigate. It was a well. It was short and small and made of stone, and was a rope ladder leading down into the dark well.

 ‘Hey look!’ exclaimed Jamie ‘there’s something shiny at the bottom and it doesn't look that deep.’

 ‘I don’t know, it seems a little bit dangerous.’

 ‘Don’t be a baby, let’s go.’

 ‘Fine, but you go first.'

Jamie took off her bag and walked over to the ladder. She started to climb down into the well, and Charlotte followed close behind.

 ‘I don’t think we should go on the ladder together,’ Jami called back.

 ‘I don’t want to be here alone.’

 Suddenly, the ladder snapped and the two girls plummeted down into darkness. Charlotte and Jamie braced themselves. A weird, cold feeling went through their bodies and with a thump, they hit the ground. 

Wearily, Charlotte got up and looked around her. The sky was an orange brown color, the ground was dry and cracked and the endless plain was dotted with weird, dead-looking trees or plants of some sort. She helped Jamie up.

 ‘Where are we?’ Jamie sounded bewildered .

 ‘I don’t know.’

 They both looked worriedly around them. There teeth chattered because of the cold and crisp wind. A long howl sent a shiver down their spines.

 ‘What was that?’ cried Jamie, who had a helpless fear of bears. She couldn't get the image of her maimed mother out of her head.

 ‘It was just the wind, don’t worry. We'll find a way to get out of here.'

They had been walking for a while when the ground began to shake underneath their feet. Instinctively, they ran behind a nearby tree and held their breaths.

 Anxiously, Jamie peeked around the tree and stifled a scream. Tears rolled down her cheeks. All she could do was close her eyes and hope that the creature would not see her.

 Charlotte looked around the tree and to her horror she saw a massive creature. It was almost a bear but it was at least seven feet tall on all fours. Teeth where jutting out of its mouth and spines protruded from it’s back. It had a long tail and at the end there was a huge ball like a rock covered in razor sharp spines.

The creature lumbered past the tree, then stopped and raised its big snout up to the sky and sniffed the air.

 'Don’t move,’ whispered Jamie hoarsely.

 Charlotte clapped her hands over her mouth. The creature continued walking past the tree, letting out a frightful roar. The two girls waited until the bear was out of sight. They sprinted out from behind the tree.

 ‘What do we do now, Charlotte?'

 ‘I don’t know.’

‘Let’s just keep walking and see if there is water or something to eat,’ Jamie said, while wiping tears from her face.

 ‘Ok, let’s go.’

     The girls nervously walked on.

 ‘Oh my gosh look!’ exclaimed Charlotte, 'Footprints!’

 Sure enough, there were faint footprints in the dust that coated the dry, cracked ground.

 ‘Let’s go see were they lead. Maybe they'll lead us out of here.’ 

The girls follow the footprints, staying close to each other. Eerie sounds echoed around the place which made the girls shiver uneasily.

 The footprints continued for what seemed like miles until they abruptly stopped in front of a cluster of trees. They heard a faint crying and started to run.

 ‘Wait,’ whispered Charlotte, ‘we don’t want to make too much noise. I don't want to see that thing again. Let’s just walk slowly and keep a lookout for monsters or whatever else might be here.’

 ‘Ok, but stay close we can’t risk losing each other.'

They crept towards the sound cautiously trying to make as little noise as possible.

 They came around the trees, and to their astonishment, there was another person sitting there, curled in a tight ball, all alone. He was shivering and had a small bag beside him. His red hair was dirty and when he looked up his big green eyes looked like they had been crying for days.

‘Hello?’ questioned Charlotte nervously.

 ‘H-hi my name is Percy.’ 

‘How long have you been here?’ Jamie asked sympathetically. 

‘I don’t know. It feels like I've been here forever.’ He sounded breathless. 

‘Well, how did you get down here? Where are we, anyway?’ demanded Charlotte.

Percy seemed reluctant to tell the two girls but he felt he had no choice, maybe they would know how to escape. 

‘I ran away from my school because there were two people chasing me.

They always made fun of me and locked me outside. I got fed up so I left, but they followed me. I started running, but then I tripped and fell into some well I'd never seen before, and now here I am. Then you guys came.’

 ‘Wow, that is quite the story. You should come with us. We can stick together and that way it will be easier to find a way out,’ said Charlotte.

 ‘If there is a way out.’

 Jamie, Charlotte and Percy started on their way. There was another gust of the icy wind that kept blowing, and something hit Percy on the back of his head. 

The ground began to shake and growling came from behind.

 ‘Go, go we have to run, now!’ whispered Jamie. |Her voice sounded urgent and scared.

 They ran. Quickly, Charlotte turned around grabbed the thing that had hit Percy in the head and sprinted to catch up with the others. The creature followed close behind, letting out a roar that shook the ground, causing Jamie to fall.

 ‘Help!’ Jamie sobbed, tears streaming down her face.

 Percy ran back to help her up and continued to run.

 ‘Do you have any food left in your bag? It might distract him long enough to get away,’ Charlotte called back, choking back tears as they ran. 

‘Good idea, I'll throw it now!