Chapter 1
I lie in the grass. I do not remember a single thing. A figure walks up to me. I shut my eyes. I wake up in a bed. 20 people are looking at me. A strong, bald guy helps me out of bed and then asks how I got here.
I say, “I don’t know.”
He says, “I am Jake, leader of the crystal world.” He has big pointy ears.
I ask, “Are you an elf?”
He says, “Yes, we all are. You are the only human.”
He takes me outside and we end up in a stone box. The walls are 100 feet high.
I ask, “Where am I?”
He says, “The crystal world, I already told you.”
I say, “Can we go to the desert biome?”
“No we can’t. They are all locked,” Jake says.
“Why not? How are they all locked?”
“You’ll catch up on everything, Newbie.”
“Who’s Newbie?”
“You’re Newbie. That’s what we call the new people,” says Jake.
Next, I meet a guy named Oliver.
He says, “Aren’t you the new Newbie everyone’s talking about?”
“That’s not my name,” I say.
“Why? What is your name then?”
“That’s weird. I can’t remember.”
“Yep, we think we get brainwashed when we come here.”
“What do you mean, come here?”
“The Over People bring us here. Also, tomorrow is your lucky day. You get to become an elf and learn how to fly!”
We hear a loud horn.
I ask, “What is that?”
“It’s Jake calling a ceremony to see what your name is going to be.”
“But I already have a name,” I say.
“Remember? You got brainwashed!” Oliver says.
“Come on, we gotta go, or else we’ll lose points”
“What are points?” I ask.
“You ask a lot of questions,” he says. “You have five points when you come into the box. When you lose all of your points by doing bad things, they’ll burn you at the stake. Six people have already been burned.”
When we get there, the Jake guy says to us, “Hey Oliver, looks like you’ve already made friends with the Newbie.”
“That’s not my name,” I say. “Oh wait, it is my name.”
They ask me to light a bonfire. Since I am going to be in the Orange Elf Cabin, they are going to name me Josh.
“Hurray, you’re going to be with me,” says Oliver.
“Oh, thank God,” I say.
While we’re walking back to the Orange Cabin, everyone starts high fiving me, elf-smacking me on the back, and congratulating me.
“What’s the difference between the Blue Elf Cabin, the Pink Elf Cabin, and the Orange Elf Cabin?” I ask.
“Well, the Blue Elf Cabin can teleport anywhere inside the box, the Pink Elf Cabin can run more than 120 miles an hour, and the Orange Elf Cabin can fly up to 50 feet in the air. Tomorrow when you wake up, you will be an Orange Elf. Then you’ll have flying training. Good night.”
The next morning, I wake up and find myself levitating in bed. Then, everyone else wakes up.
“Hey, you’ve already got the hang of it!” Oliver says.
I go outside after breakfast and start to walk around. I look at each biome three times and meet Rick.
I ask, “Who are you? I think I recognize you.”
“Well, you should, because I am the leader of the Orange Elf Cabin,” Rick says.
A Pink Elf walks up to me and starts cracking jokes about me being a Newbie. Then this Rick guy gets fed up and a laser gun appears in his hand.
“Back off, or there will be a hole right through you in three seconds.”
“Don’t you remember? I can outrun that lazer. I’m a Pink Elf. I can run more than 120 miles an hour.”
“Well, if I tell Jake, your last point will be gone, and you will be burned at the stake.”
The Pink Elf backs off.
“That’s how you deal with bad guys here,” Rick says.
“I have one question for you. Who am I?”
“Nobody knows.”
“Not even I know who I am?” I ask.
“Not even you,” Rick says.
“Wow, this place is weird,” I say.
“Yup, sure is,” Rick says.
I ask him, “How long have you been here?”
Rick says it’s hard to tell because time moves differently in the crystal world.
I ask, “Have you opened any of the biomes yet?”
“Nope, we still can’t find the password or figure out how more and more people get here.”
Then, we turn into elves. I remember that I am an elf and sigh.
Oliver comes to tell Rick and me that it’s time for dinner.
The next morning, I go to my flying lesson. I am surprised to see that Rick and Oliver are the teachers. It goes on for what feels like a year, and then we get called in for lunch. I am starting to get used to the schedule. When I look at the board, I still have 5 points, not that I thought I lost any.
After lunch, a girl elf comes up to me and tells me her name. I was going to tell her mine, but she was at the bonfire. We chat like normal people or elves, and then I see that she has blue eyes. It is odd because everyone else has green eyes. I ask, and she says she doesn’t know why. She says that they had tried to figure it out, but it never worked. I ask how we unlock the biomes, and she says that we need a password. We try to find out the password but can’t.
At dinner, there is a food fight with the Blue Elves and the Pink Elves. I sit next to Oliver, Rick, and Mia the girl elf. We talk and try to ignore the fight. Then, I have a headache, and the numbers 2-4-1-9 pop into my head. I go to the forest biome. I put in the numbers and it opens.
Chapter 2: Biomes in the Open
Everyone is in shock. I stumble into the forest, and there I fall.
The next day, they have a meeting to see if it is safe to escape. They tell me that I now have 305 points for opening a biome. In the afternoon, ten elves go searching for the biome: three Pinks, one Orange, and six Blues. The Orange Elf flies up but bumps into a tree branch. The Pink Elves start running and trip over some tree roots. The Blue Elves try to teleport, but they can only teleport to places inside the box. The Blue Elves carry the rest of the injured elves to the Red Cross Elves.
After dinner, I am really curious to see what is inside, so Oliver, Mia, Rick, this guy named Chris, and I go out. We explore for a few hours until we hear a rumbling noise. Then, it starts getting closer and sounds like growling. When we all sprint back to the box, it has stopped following us. When we look to see if everyone is sleeping, they aren’t. The Pink Elf that was picking on me for being a Newbie is being burned.
“Well there goes number seven,” Oliver says.
We join the bonfire. That’s when it gets out of hand. The grass starts to burn and there is a massive fire. It burns down the Blue Elf Cabin. Then, everyone hears a loud boom. A normal human with a megaphone with a bunch of guys wearing backward helmets appears and says “We are the Over People and we are here to put the fire out!”
They start spraying water at the fire. “I think they’re called fire fighters,” Oliver says.
But the elves do not want them to fight the fire. They want answers. All the elves go into the chamber of weapons. Orange Elves take laser blasters, Blue Elves take nunchucks, and the Pink Elves take swords. First, Pink Elves run towards the Over People, distracting them so the Blue Elves can teleport behind them. The Orange Elves fly up above and start shooting at them.
“Enough! We are going to call a meeting, and after that, maybe, just maybe, we’ll let you go. Only if you can unlock all the biomes,” say the Over People.
Everyone looks at me. Suddenly, the Over People disappear.
Chapter 3: The Struggle to Escape
For the next two weeks, everyone is getting ready to escape, and they are all counting on me. We all start to pack our things. The Blue Elves are getting ready to say goodbye to their teleportation providers. Only Jake isn’t packing. Everyone is very confused. He is going to stay.
We all set off to the forest that I unlocked. That’s when I get another headache. The numbers 1-8-6-3 pop into my head, and I fly to the desert biome. I put in the numbers, and my headache stops. It unlocks. Everybody looks at me and the biome. Jake is smiling.
“Blue and Orange go into the desert, Pink go into the forest biome. But be careful, Pinks, there are a lot of roots,” Jake says.
As we are walking, I hear a weird noise in front of me.
“Rattlesnake! Josh, look out!” Mia yells.
I take off flying. But in three seconds, while I am 40 feet in the air, I fall back onto the rattlesnakes and feel something wet.
“Eeewww, you have rattlesnake blood all over your back,” Mia says.
“Good thing I have a change of shirts.”
I put on my second shirt out of five. Then, we see something shiny. It looks like 78 motorcycles, one for each of us. Mia has to ride on the back of Oliver’s since her’s broke. Oliver, as usual, complains.
“She’s your friend.”
My motorcycle breaks and I fall off. I land on Rick’s motorcycle. I backflip over him, grab onto the back of the seat, and get in position. I leave my motorcycle behind. We crash, sending us over the invisible barrier. That’s when we see the Over People. I see the guy that was holding the megaphone earlier and punch him in the face. We get in line and take turns punching him in the face, 78 times in total.
“Alright, you already broke my nose!” he screams. “Ok, just stop punching me, and I will give you your freedom!”
The rest of the elves keep on punching him until he is knocked out. We leave the building and enter a strange world. A sign reads New York City.
“Wait, I think I got my memory back!” we all say.
“I think my name is Ravi. I have an older brother named Neel who looks exactly like Rick.”
“I think my name is Neel and my brother is Ravi. We live near the cathedral school in Apartment—wait, that’s classified,” Rick says.
Just then, Mia turns into a kitten. Oliver and a Blue Elf turn into my mom and dad.
Chapter 4: Back to Normal
“Why is everyone wearing masks?” Oliver asks.
“Meow meow meow,” says Mia.
We call a taxi and say goodbye to everyone we’ve met.
“So, are you guys new here?” the taxi driver asks.
“No, we live here.”
“Aren’t you guys from that TV show, Biomes Out of the Box?”
“Wait, what?!”
We walk into our home and start watching the TV show.
“How did you get that laser gun in your hands?” I ask Neel.
“I don’t know,” he says.
We fell asleep later that night. Suddenly, the police barge into our house and take us to a different movie set.
“Not this again,” we all say. They don’t erase our memories this time or turn us into different people. They just interview us.
“Where’s that Mia fella?”
“Oh I’ll get her,” I say.
They put us into a James Bond movie. Then we get put in a maze and turn back to our other-selves. We learn that the name of my mom’s elf persona is Michelle.
Suddenly, we all fall asleep and I wake up back in my cabin. It turns out none of that happened. I try to go back to the biome that I thought I unlocked, but I guess I never actually knew how to.
A plane crashes into the box. That’s when we realize this is how the Over People bring people into this place.
Rick was brought in by a car crash that made him lose his memory, and I was brought in by crashing my motorcycle. Then I go to the desert biome and put in a passcode to try and open it: Car Crash, Motorcycle Crash, Plane Crash. Surprisingly, it opens. I check to see if I’m dreaming.
Everyone sprints out, leaving everything behind. I realize Oliver is actually not my dad, Mia is just an elf, Rick is a friend, and Michelle isn’t even real.
Oliver catches up to me.
“Nice job, dude,” he says.
For the first twenty minutes, everything is normal. Then, the sun starts beaming on us. Since the Pink Elves run way too fast, they run into quicksand. Then, there’s a sandstorm, and in the middle of it, Jake realizes that we will have to stop for the night.
At night, we hear something that sounds like laughter. When we go outside, there is a pack of hyenas trying to eat our sandwiches. Then, we set off in the middle of the night. Jake knows that it would be more dangerous and tough to get through this. When it gets really dark, we still keep moving. Then, we meet different elves. They look exactly like us.
Jake asks their leader, “Who are you?”
“We came from a box with ten biomes,” they say.
“Wait, but we’re coming from a box too,” Jake replies.
“So there’s two boxes?” everyone says.
“Our elves can fly, can run more than 120 miles an hour, and the elves used to be able to teleport,” the leader says.
“No way! Same for us.”
Then we realize that if we keep on walking straight, each group will end up in each other’s boxes. So we turn the other way. We see something in the distance. We get closer and find a third box.
“There must be a million boxes!” I say.
Then, we hear a voice that sounds like the Over People. The voice says, “Yes, this is the Over People. We have come here to trap you elves because you have all caught a virus. It is called ‘Elfatopia.’ It makes you turn into an elf so we trapped you. If you were in the real world, you would have lived with humans and a war would have started between you.”
Chapter 5
We walk for what feels like a trillion years. Then, we think we see something. We aren’t very surprised because we’ve already seen, like, fifty boxes. This is different. It is a shiny black building that looks like a lab.
We slam on the door three times and yell, “FBI, open up!!!”
The door opens and we all barge through, breaking every single thing they have. We go out the front door.
“Looks like we’re here,” Jake says.
“Well, I guess we’re elves forever,” Mia says.
THE END