Chapter 1:

Everytime it is your birthday, people always ask you one question when you blow our your candles, “What did you wish for?” And you never tell them because that is bad luck.Well I wish people would ask me that question more often. I live in a small town with a population of 107, I live in Gerlach, Nevada. When it comes to a small town, everybody knows everything about you, AND I MEAN EVERYTHING! Living in a small town can not be so good at times. Whenever something happens to you, everyone in town will know in 5 minutes or less. That is why I have always wanted to live in the middle of the woods all by myself. I have always been the introvert in my family. I never liked going to Sunday church, nor Wednesday night with the small youth group, but I still did it for my family. I have many siblings, everyone in this town does! I have two sisters and four brothers, and yes they are very protective of me.  Lia is the oldest and my rock. She is really the only sibling I can tolerate at most times, she also gets me for who I am, next in line is Evan, he moved out a while ago, and we don’t talk as much but he is still my most handsome brother. My next brother is Dean, Dean is a little like me with being an introvert, but I am more of one than he is. He is also still great but we don’t talk much. Then there is Derek and Lydia, they are twins and just moved out a year ago, I am also really close with them, and Lydia calls me almost every night to gossip with me. Then there is Liam, Liam is something else. He is a senior in highschool right now and is the only sibling with me in the house, and he always works, and I mean always. The only time I ever see him is at school all the way on the other side of the lunchroom with his fake popular friends. But that is enough about Liam, now let’s talk about my parents. They grew up in another town not far from where we live today. They didn’t meet till they were in college, and my mom’s sister Sue introduced them, and then you get the story, falling in love… getting married…. And having all these kids. Now we are in the present day, and it isn’t all that lovey dubby stuff anymore. My mom and dad were gonna be getting a divorce soon, but then tragedy struck, and my dad disappeared. Just like that, it was a normal day then poof, he was just gone, and we don’t know where…

Chapter 2:

It has been a couple months since then, and now I have to live with my mom, and to be honest I don’t really like it and I really miss my dad. Sure we fought a lot, but that was out of love; And now it is just silent around the house. I am always alone in it as well as everyone is at work. I have my two cats, but that is my only company. I can hear the clock on the wall ticking 24/7; I never heard the clock tick when my dad was still here. I think I am starting to become mental! I don’t know what to do? It is like I am in a tank that is slowly filling up with water, and I can’t breathe!!! I don’t know how to get out of this mental state. I cry every night, and have nightmares about why my dad left. Last night I didn’t even sleep, and my family didn’t even notice. Every day I start to lose even more sleep than the last night. Till I don’t sleep at all. Will it be like this every night now, since my dad, my rock is gone and out of my life?

I wake up the next morning only getting 4 hours of sleep. I still can’t sleep well, and everyone in my family is starting to notice. I have to wear makeup everyday to school so I seem like I got enough sleep as well. Today felt different though. As if I didn’t want to wear makeup to school, you know what I am not even gonna go to school today. What is my mom gonna do? Drag me out of bed? No, I won't let her. I will just say that I am going to walk to school early then skip it. After I tell my family I am gonna walk to school I start to head outside. Then when I reach the corner of our street, I head into the woods, straight on the other side of the road. Nobody quite knows how far the woods go, cause whenever people try to go and explore it, they always end up missing. But I have  nothing to lose anymore, so I am gonna go in the woods for today, just hopefully I don't get lost.

I ditch my phone in the bottom of a tree where there is a tiny hole, then I get out the paper map I stuffed in my bookbag, with all the water and food I will need till I get out of these woods. I also grabbed my dad’s old pocket knife, as my only weapon. Why did I tell myself it is ok to go into these woods? Nobody will be able to find me? I will be lost here forever!!! I start to breathe really heavily, and I am about to faint. Everything goes black.  As my hearing starts to go away, and I start to fall I hear a voice saying there is a girl over here! I can’t help but wonder if I have just died, or if I am dreaming…

Chapter 3:

When I awake I am in some kind of tent. I can tell by how it is made, that it is homemade, so whoever made it knows what they were doing. I knew I had been out for a while because it was dark, and I heard the crackling noise from a fire nearby. As I am about to sit up someone comes in and tells me that I am still too weak to sit up and that I would get lightheaded again. So I lie there for a while till she tells me that I should be good now. She helps me get some new clothes, since mine are ruined, and are covered in dirt and sweat. Then she takes me outside to meet the camp. Everyone there is around my age, and all seem normal to me, but why are they in the middle of the woods? Did they get lost here too? And then did they all find each other? I have so many questions….Right when I am about to ask all these questions, they tell me all of them. They are all my age and they too ran away when they found they could time travel. So they all probably felt like how  I did in my town. They told me that they have an adult that lives in the camp too, and he is the oldest time traveler. They said he would be the one with all my questions about my powers, and that he can help me learn how to control it as well. The only thing is that he is always out time traveling, trying to figure out answers too. The kids told me that he would be coming here soon, since he found out he has just gotten a new student, and that he is very excited to meet me for the first time.

After 2 hours I start to wonder, where is this teacher? Is he ever gonna come meet me? Is he ever gonna teach me about my power? At least he can show up soon!!! Finally he shows up and doesn’t even acknowledge me first, and that kinda was my last straw. So I stood up and started to yell at him; “first you guys brought me to this weird camp, said this guy would help me, he doesn’t show up for 2 hours and now he is acting like I am not even here! Who are you guys?” The nameless tall elderly man stands up, and calmly starts to say; “I am sorry my child, I knew you were her, I just wanted to give you some time for everything to sink in first.” My mad face turns into a sorrowful face, I feel so bad that I just yelled at the only person that can help me with my problem, and yet he is still calm with me. I say; “I am sorry about that, I just want to get down to business and fast, cause I want to know where some is” The elderly man strokes his long white beard then begins to ask me a question; “Who is the person you are trying to find?” “My father..” I say dropping my head to the ground, as I feel a tear run down my face. The elderly man sees I am starting to cry, and takes me to a more private area, so we can talk more about everything. Then I ask the elderly man a question; “What do they call you around here anyway?” “They call me their father” The elderly man says; “but you can call me Gregory”

Chapter 4:

A couple days have passed, and Gregory has shown me so much about my power. We have gone to Paris, Egypt, Italy and China! I have had such a fun time seeing all these places and learning how to use my power. Gregory said it isn’t always happy where you travel too, but the places he has shown me says something different. I just can’t help but wonder how my family is doing right now. They know I am missing now and probably have a search party for me right now. “WHAT IF THEY COME INTO THE WOODS!” I scream in my head! I don’t want them to find out about us, about me! I know the only thing I can do is talk to Gregory about this and make sure we are safe, and Gregory tells me, “ My child nobody can find this place, unless you have the power of time travel, you cannot find your place here.” That calms me down for a little bit, but then 

I wonder…. “If I know how to use my power now, then that means I can time travel back in time to find out what happened to my father!” This will be my first time time traveling alone, but I think I am ready for it! And so I close my eyes and think about what happened to my father, and then poof…. I am  in some weird ally way I have never been before.. It looks like one in my town though, I just can’t tell which one. My father comes running in and he looks scared. He was never scared in his whole life, he was always a soldier, so that must mean something he knows he can’t outrun is coming to get him! Then I see my own mother and the sheriff… together and they say, “Your time is up” . Then as they are about to shoot my father I go to run after him, but then something is holding me back. It is Gregory holding me back! He wont let me go save my father, but I don’t know why? I don’t even try to hold back my tears, since I know my own mother killed my father, and the town sheriff was in on it. Gregory takes me back to the camp. As we time travel I feel as if everything we do is longer. I don’t speak to him when we are back, I just go to bed. 

Chapter 5:

It has been weeks since I found out what happened to my father yet I still haven’t gotten out of my bed. Gregory passes by my tent every now and then, but never says anything. All he ever does is have a sad face when he looks at me, then he leaves. I just can’t help but wonder why would my own mother do that? I thought she loved my father, and all of her kids, but now everything she has ever done for me I am starting to rethink it… That crash we got in 3 years ago, was she trying to get rid of me then?... I still cannot believe my mother and the town sheriff would do that. Who else in the town knew about this? I just can’t even think of my mother the same way now, I don’t even think I will ever be able to speak to her ever again either. It has been a couple more weeks, and I am starting to learn a little bit at a time about my time travel powers. Everyone still seems like they are walking on eggshells around me, even though I am fine… I AM REALLY FINE!... Am I fine now? I have been thinking about going back to my town and just asking my mom when she did do that? But then I think about this place, what if I can never find it again? And plus I don’t want to leave this place behind…Maybe I should ask Gregory first cause I don’t want to mess anything up like I almost did last time…

I walked into the open area, where I once was when I first came to the camp, but this time it was light and no fire was lit. I see Gregory over in the flower field, as I go to approach him, he starts to say something… “I knew you would come and find me today Esme.” I am astonished that he knows that already, but I continue to listen to what he tells me, “ You have questions, I don’t know what ones, but I know I am sure to help you find them!” Then I asked him the question I wanted to ask him, “What happens if I go back home, will I ever be able to find this place ever again?” Gregory pauses then says something, “Once you find this place you can only find it once, and once you leave you will never be able to come back. It is for our safety that you would forget everything.” I look down at my hands, and think of my options. I either stay here, and learn more about my power, even though it will be hard to ever time travel again, since I saw my dad was murdered. Or I go back home, get my mother and the sheriff in prison, for killing my father, and see my siblings again! But each option will be very hard, and both are not better than the other. Do I choose my family or do I choose to learn more….

“I don’t know which one I want,” I say to Gregory. Each one I am saying goodbye to something I love! 

Chapter 6:

It’s the next morning and I was tossing and turning on who I should choose all last night… I still don’t know my answer and I know I should tell Gregory fast since the longer it takes, the harder it gets to choose. I try to think about what would happen if I didn’t go back home; my family would be heartbroken, they wouldn't know the truth about what happened to my father, and I wouldn't be able to put my mother and sheriff behind bars for life! Then there is staying here, I will never be able to learn about time traveling and I will lose my whole memory about me having it in the first place’ the thing that made me, me….. I know I have to make my decision today, it is the least I can do, since everyone has taken so much time here to help me… and it won't be nice to tell them ahead of time what my decision was. I think I know what I want to do but I just want to wait till the end of the day to finally decide which path I will take.

TWO YEARS LATER

It has been two years since I made the decision that I decided to do… two years, and in those two years I have done mostly everything I wanted to do. I sometimes think about what if I made the other choice, like how I would be now. If I would have been any happier than I am right now. But then I see the people I love all around me, and I know I made the right choice, I have let go of people I love and I have made new friends. The thing is when I came back home I didn’t know where I went. The doctors think I hit my head while I was in the woods… But I still feel like something is off, like that I remember something I did, but I don’t quite remember it as well. Maybe someday it will come back to me, but right now I am gonna enjoy what I have right now with my family. Ever since we moved from the small town, we have all gotten closer. It is gonna be sad to leave them here soon when I go to college, but I know I am ready for this next adventure, and I know my dad would be proud of me today, wherever he is…

The End...For now!!!!