Zoe picked up another box from the cold, dusty ground. As she lifted it she felt another rush of unhappiness flow through her body. Try as she might, she could not forget the reason she was helping her Mother and Father move boxes out of her Grandpa’s garage. It had been two weeks since Bertram Sasaki, Zoe’s Grandpa, had died. It wasn’t a fatal illness, nor was it a sudden, unexpected death. Bertram knew he was going to die, as did his family, and they were content with it. He had led an exciting life, though nobody other than him really knew all the details, and it was accepted amongst the family and the surrounding community. Only one person, Zoe Sasaki, felt his passing was too soon.

She had been best friends with her Grandpa; when Zoe was younger Bertram would tell her stories of adventures he had in distant lands and on alien worlds. Zoe, being the gullible child she was at the time, believed it all, and thoroughly enjoyed games where she fought off hordes of imps or went on dates with pasta-loving skeletons just like her Grandpa had supposedly done. However, Zoe was fifteen now, and she was sure that it was all make-believe, stories her Grandpa had made up as entertainment for her younger self.

Zoe was alone; her parents had gone off to take another carload of rubbish to the dump and had left her to search through the remaining boxes. She sat cross-legged on the ground, took her hands out of her black hoodie and started sorting the junk. The boxes mostly contained old clothes and tattered books. Zoe picked up box after box after box, sorting out what could and couldn’t be recycled, what could be given to other family members and what would only be useful to the scrap-yard-dwelling rats. She continued the monotonous cycle over and over; then she stopped. Zoe looked into what must have been at least the fortieth box of the hour. She gazed downward, amazed at what she was seeing. At the bottom of the box was a small, shiny, metal object.

It was painted black, with silver hazard stripes on each side, and at the top stood a large glass dome. Inside the dome Zoe could see an ominous, purple mist. It floated around inside the dome in a mesmerising fashion; it was strange, and made Zoe feel isolated in the small garage, but it also comforted her. In a way, it reminded her of her Grandpa.

Zoe reached her hand into the box and grasped the object. She lifted it out of the box and, due to the room’s low light level, held it up to the window as to see it better. The purple fog was now moving in its glass prison at a slightly faster pace than before, swirling and spiralling around; Zoe found it hard for her eyes to keep up. Then, slowly at first, the object began to move; it squirmed around as if it were trying to escape her grasp. Zoe stood up in an attempt to gain control over the situation, but with a violent jerk, the object flew out of her hands and onto the floor. The glass dome shattered and shards flew everywhere. Zoe retreated out of the garage door but the mist that was once encased in the dome was now free. It grew larger and larger; soon it covered most of the garage that Zoe was now a good five metres away from. Then the mist began to spread; it reached out like a pair of sinister arms. Zoe tried to escape but it was too late; she was surrounded by the fog.

By now the mist has trapped Zoe entirely; all she could see of the outside world was the grey concrete driveway that she stood on. The purple fog began to close in on her; Zoe wanted to scream and shout for help but was too afraid. All she could do was stand and watch as the mist buzzed around her feet and brushed against her turquoise hair. Suddenly she felt all sense weight and gravity leave her body. Her feet lifted off the ground and her fringe floated out of her eyes. Zoe now felt less afraid; she didn’t feel endangered but was still unsure of what was to come. The mist spun around as she felt a pleasant breeze rush by her. She was clearly being taken somewhere; she could tell she was moving by the way her limbs were sloped back and swayed in time with the mist. Then, as suddenly as it appeared out if the glass dome, the mist vanished. It was pitch black and Zoe assumed she had reached her destination. Then she looked down; she couldn’t see anything other than her own hair flailing around in front of her eyes. That’s was she realised; she was falling.