Two Worlds (Written by a 10-year-old author, 62,000 words, 72 chapters)

Chapter 1: A school catastrophe

Ding! The lunch bell rang and fifteen-year-old Lily Claire headed back to her classroom. She grabbed her iPad from her backpack before walking to her desk. As Lily sat down in her seat their teacher, Ms. Anne, tapped her ruler on the whiteboard. "Okay, class!" she said. "Log on to your iPad and we'll begin our lesson." Lily turned on her tablet and typed in her password: Schoolgirl72. The password bar turned red. Access denied was placed over it.

Access denied? She'd been using that password for one and a half years! Her iPad never did that. More words formed next to the password bar. iPad blocked. What was going on? "Uh ... Ms. Anne?" Lily called. Her teacher appeared not to have heard. In fact, none of Lily's class seemed to be moving. Hands hovered over tablets. Someone who decided to jump into their seat was frozen in mid-air, his feet half a foot from the ground. Only Lily could move properly.

But wait! More words had appeared on her iPad. Override password initiated, it read. Lily blinked. "Huh?" The tablet screen turned neon gray and the light wrapped Lily in a cocoon of energy. "What's going on?" she muttered as the gray light around her suddenly turned blindingly bright. Lily was knocked unconscious.

Two seconds after Lily closed her eyes, a young woman entered the room. A taller cloaked man around the same age followed closely behind. Both had pointed ears. "Are you sure she is the right one?" the man asked. The lady turned to face him. "Jake, she must be the right one, otherwise, we wouldn't have spent two years searching, would we?" The woman briskly snapped her fingers and Lily vanished in a flash of more intense neon gray light. Around the man and woman, teenagers began to move in slow motion, gradually returning to normal. "Tara, we should go," Jake said. "The time freeze is wearing off." Tara and Jake quickly exited the classroom.

***

Lily woke up on a slab of cold hard stone and groaned. She opened her eyes and ... wait a second. This was definitely not her school.

Blinding white walls surrounded her. Lily was alone.

"Uh...hello?" she called.

"Hello!" a high-pitched voice answered.

A hidden door opened to reveal a small child, no more than five years old. She had an adorable face, with short auburn hair curling around the sides of her head. "Follow me!" she said. Lily got up and followed the girl out of the room.

The little girl led Lily down a long hallway to a stone door. "In here," she said. The child rippled into a group of rapidly vanishing pixels. A hologram?

Lily blinked in confusion. "Hello?" her voice echoed down the empty corridor. Perplexed, she pushed open the stone door. She entered a cavernous room with colossal windows. The one piece of furniture inside was a small table with a variety of weapons - swords, blasters, and buttons - covering it. Lily reached out to touch a pink button. "A voice behind her said, "Careful."

Lily turned and spotted the tall cloaked figure of a man. He made no attempt to move. "I wouldn't touch those buttons if I were you. They're smart bombs activated by touch. You would go BOOM!" he explained. Lily winced. "Who are you?" she asked. "I am Jake," he said. "You must be Lily."

Lily snapped back to her senses. "Where am I?" she demanded. "Are ... are you aliens?"

(Yeah, whatever, that was a stupid question.)

Jake sniffed indignantly. "I am not an alien," he said. "We are part of a planet similar to Earth, and we don't have any differences to humans except for our pointed ears, so if you wouldn't terribly mind, call us elves." He sounded like a college professor, just without the English accent.

(Technically, elves are aliens, but that's not the point of the story!)

Lily tried to think of something polite to say. She couldn't.

Jake smiled. "Our kind is ... the most intelligent version of humans. But if you please, I do not wish to be called an alien ever again." He said the word alien as though it were a slimy rat, wrinkling his nose in disgust. The expression froze on Jake's face.

For a while, Lily stared at Jake. The elf (what else could she call him?) finally seemed to notice that Lily was looking at him like he was a madman. Embarrassed, he cleared his throat - cough! - and shifted his facial features to a friendly smile. "Uh ... Let's start with a tour!" he said.

Turns out an elf tour meant going to the P.O.O.P.

The first time Jake had mentioned the acronym Lily had considered him an "exceedingly rude person", as her mother would say. Then Jake said: "P.O.O.P means the Post Office for Oversized Packages, not including dwarves (long story). Did you know that our people made a peace treaty with the dwarves thousands of years ago? Anyway, this service includes transportation of vehicles, ships, airplanes and of course, the occasional prisoner (no food or drinks are allowed). Also, packages are ... WATCH OUT!" He said that last part because Lily nearly stepped on a puddle of 'intergalactic slime' as Jake proclaimed. "Hazardous material," Jake explained. Ugh, Lily thought with a shudder.

The two finally arrived at a P.O.O.P station. A deserted booth with a button on top stood in front of a cube-shaped elevator. "Where is everyone?" Lily asked. "They were evacuated to the main city because they thought you were a Fighter," Jake said. "Not that you are," he added. "What's a Fighter?" Lily asked. "Somebody who brings doom to all elfin people by fighting and other kinds of violence," Jake said, as though it were obvious. "Are you actually an alien ... er, elf?" Lily asked. Jake gave her an irritated look like well, duh! He reached out and tapped the button.

A hidden door slid open on the elevator box. Jake promptly shoved a confused Lily into the container before jumping in himself. The door slammed shut. Nothing happened. After five minutes of total silence, Lily was just about to ask Jake if the elevator had broken down when the door in front of them opened. The two climbed out to a nearly pitch-black area. "Uh ... where are we, exactly?" Lily asked. Her voice echoed eerily off what seemed to be walls. Next to Lily, Jake shifted uncomfortably. "Darn it. Must be nighttime," he muttered. Suddenly, someone grabbed Lily and stabbed a needle into her arm. Nearby, she heard Jake fall to the ground with a yell of surprise, out for the count. I hate getting knocked out, Lily thought as she slumped to the floor.

***

"Hello?" Lily's eyes groggily opened to find a lady alien (oh, dang it, elf) looking at her. She had auburn hair - like that little girl who first met her - that tumbled down her shoulders. Lily was lying down on another hard slab, only with comfy cushions.

Lily tried to say something. "Unnngh." Whoops. Apparently, her voice wasn't working. The woman frowned. "Hmm," she said. "The sleeping potion hasn't worn off yet. But just so you know, when your voice comes back, you may call me Tara." Lily tried to talk again. "Um ... I can talk now." Tara smiled. "Excellent!" she said. "Welcome to the Special Infirmary. Do you have any questions?" In fact, Lily had a million things to ask Tara, like why am I not totally freaking out right now? But one question stood out from the rest. "I am starving. Do you have any food in this place?"