I woke up screaming and sweaty. I had had the same nightmare for the last month. It was about a scientist that created a dangerous serum, and then a shadow took it and caused the end of the world. But I knew a potion that powerful wouldn’t exist. I opened my eyes. I couldn’t see anything. Wait. I could have sworn I saw two big, red eyes on my wall. I was probably just seeing things.

“John, are you awake?” My mother calls from down the hall. When my mom comes in, I pretend to be asleep, but it didn’t fool her. She was a lie detector. “Same dream as always?”

“I feel like it’s more than a dream. A vision. You know how magic works in mysterious ways like that, plus, dad’s a seer.”

“That doesn’t mean that you are too. Now get to sleep before your sister wakes up.”

“Okay.” I respond. She walks out of the room and I wait thirty seconds. Twenty eight, twenty nine, thirty!

I walk over to my bookshelf and took out a book. It was called How to create simple potions to play tricks! But that was a fake book. One of those ones with a compartment inside. I opened it up to the real book, How to become a seer. I open it up to a page about visions. I read aloud. “‘If you have a dream over and over again, anybody could guess that it isn’t just an ordinary dream. It’s a vision. If you have one and you want to know what type of vision it is, read the diagram below.’” I look at the diagram.

If your vision:

Ends with a flash of light:

It’s either a dark vision or a good vision

Ends before midnight:

It’s a past vision

Ends at midnight:

It’s a present vision

Ends after midnight:

It’s a future vision

I check the clock. 12:09. At midnight. And it ended with a dark flash, so it must be a dark vision of the past. I look at the bottom of the page. I see something I didn’t notice before. It’s a handwritten note from the author. I read it aloud, remembering to be quiet. “I must warn you, I have seen something myself, too. I know it’s important. If your name is John Bentley Corduroy, take out a pen and write the following script in the back of the book.

I grabbed a pen and flipped to the last page of the book. It was creepy. It read:

John, if it is you, you must listen. There is something terrible at stake. Oh, by the way, I am Dr. Michel Paul Lanic. You may have heard of me. Let me just tell you something. I’m not, I repeat NOT, a dream. The corruption serum is real and the world is being corrupted. I should be able to survive until that tree in your backyard fully corrupts. Stop the corruption. Here’s how:

But then it stopped. I wrote what it told me to and it told me the ingredients for the light solution, which is the only way to stop the corruption. It need the corruption serum and the light solution. I made the corruption serum in school, because it was harmless and we needed to make a potion. I have everything I need for the light solution. Except for one thing: One day of the positive plains’ sun and moon. That means I need to travel to another dimension.

I need to get to the library. And that won’t be easy. It’s half past midnight now, and the library closes at 5:00 and opens at 10:00. Oh well. I guess the world will end. But another voice sounded in the back of my mind. I can’t let that happen. I’m going in. It was my mind. It made me think and do things. It just made me think that this is a good idea and it’s making me go. I run downstairs to the closet and get my flashlight.

I get a good look at the library. It was a big, two story building made out of brick and wood. It had large, tall windows installed on the second floor which only made it look more like a medieval castle and less like a library. I lug my heavy backpack along, walking towards the library. It contained five things. A flashlight, gloves, water, two wood blocks with a piece of cloth attached to the bottom and top, and a grappling hook I found at the top of the closet. I was wearing the blackest cloths I could find, which include an Under Armour shirt, a black hat pulled down over my face, and some Polo pants, which were very dark blue.

When I get to the library, I walk around it to see if I can get up to the second floor. I find a fire escape area. Easy. I’ll throw up my grappling hook, yank down the ladder, and climb up to the second floor. Only one problem. There are only windows on the front of the building.

Once I get up, I decide it will be easier to climb to the roof first. I continue climbing. The roof is large, with brown shingles. It’s really steep, so it’s hard to climb around on. I know how unstable gutters are, so I decide I want to climb to the tip. I throw my grappling hook up, but it takes a few tries to cling on.

Suddenly, the gutter snaps! I know that I can’t scream, or I’ll go to jail for a long time. I cling tight to the rope. I didn’t see if the hook attached to the roof or not. But I found out. I suddenly stopped falling, all of my weight on my hands. I quickly climb up to the top of the roof without looking down.

I got to the top and looked around. I was holding on to a metal rod. Then, it started raining. And thundering. If there’s thunder, then there has to be — BOOM!!! Lightning!!! It was just then that I realized two things. One, the library was the tallest thing for miles by far. BOOM!!! And that the metal rod I depended on was a lightning rod!

I could feel all of the hair on my body stand up. I knew it was coming. Then I had an idea. I put the hook on the lightning rod and run for the front of the building. I jumped off the steep incline half way of the way down, flying into the air. I looked back.

The lightning struck. It was enormous! And bright. It launched me forward, messing up my calculations of where to land. I went way past the edge of the roof and finally started falling. I held onto the grappling gun and pulled the trigger.

It began pulling me closer to the wall. I wouldn’t hit the ground! But I would hit the front of the building. Really hard. I closed my eyes and braced myself for impact. But it never came. I could feel myself swinging upward. I opened my eyes and looked around.

I was in the library. And my friend, Ariana, was standing by the open window, looking at me. She was a tall girl with a pink dress, golden hair, and a perfect structure. Her teeth were straight and white, and her smile was perfect.

The library was large and filled with books. There was a wall in the middle of the library, dividing it in half. The first floor was just rows and rows of shelves of books. The second floor was a walkway about ten feet wide, circling the library, overlooking the bottom floor. There were bookshelves lining the walls. The roof was really high up. By the front windows, there were comfortable chairs and sofas.

Once I got down on the second floor, I reeled up the grappling hook and closed the window.

“How did you—”

“Key under the welcome mat. Also, we need to hurry. The garbage truck is coming.” She ran off to the back of the library. I just decided to follow her, because she’s never been wrong about anything. Not that I know of, anyway.

When we got to the back of the library, we went out the back door. It was sunrise, and we could hear a garbage truck a few blocks away.

“The library is its next stop. We have to hurry.” She went over to the dumpster and started to climb in. “What are you waiting for? Come on!”

I went over and followed her for some reason. “You owe me an explanation.”

“I had the same vision. About the corruption. And another one, too. It was you. It told me that you were in this too. That’s how I know about the key, and when to open the window, and where we’re headed. But the vision told me to only tell you this much for now. Oh, and below this dumpster is a secret passage. But it closes up if the dumpster is lifted. So we have to go through it.” We jumped in and started digging for the bottom. We got in just in time, because the garbage truck was driving towards the library.

We found the way to the secret passage. It was just a hole in the ground and dumpster. Since the lid was closed, though, it was hard to tell. Then we heard it. On both sides of the dumpster, we heard a metallic clank. The hole in the ground turned into just ground, and so did the one in the dumpster. We could feel ourselves being lifted up. I found a ventilation hole and looked out of it. The dumpster was being picked up by the garbage truck. Then the dumpster started to tip. The lid swung open. The bags of trash began to fall out.

Along with the two kids.

They wanted to scream, but they knew that if they did, they would be noticed. So they didn’t. They fell into the stinky, half filled garbage truck. The sides were green and tall, and we knew that there was no escape until later, when it filled up. As the truck pulled away, I hauled bags to the walls of the truck and made a hill of trash.

“Good thinking.” We worked for awhile until a bunch of really heavy trash bags rained down on us.

“OW!” They yelled in unison. But they quickly recovered and kept working. Hours and hours passed as they built a hill with fresh trash bags. At about sundown, they were finally done.

“I can’t believe how long we’ve worked. Our parents must be worried.”

“Yeah. I’m gonna climb up and see where we are.” He quickly climbed up and got his answer… in a way.

“So? Where are we?”

“Really high up. I’ve never realized how tall these things are until now.”

“I’ll see if I can find a safe way down” As she began climbing up, the whole truck began shaking. Then it began to tilt in one direction. Then the back opened up.

“Exactly where are we?” Ariana said in a panicky voice.

“AT THE DUMP!!!” I yelled back. It tipped more and more. She held onto the wall tightly, but I didn’t have anything to grab onto. I slipped.

“AAAAAAAAHHHH!” I screamed. I was falling into a landfill. I couldn’t even believe it. I managed to grab onto the edge just in time. I looked down. It was at least 25 feet until I hit the ground, which I would sink into very deep.

Then the bags came. All of the hundreds of trash bags from the truck came down on me. It took about fifteen seconds before it ended. But I couldn’t hold on any longer.

So I let go. I fell and fell. And just as I suspected, I sank several feet into all those trash bags. I could barely move.

Meanwhile, Ariana was in the truck. It stopped tipping, but she was on the top of the wall of the truck. She had no choice but to let go and fall.

So she did. It was crazy. She fell at least 35 feet into the landfill before sinking into the bags of trash. She couldn’t move. But as she was falling she watched the sun's final rays of light disappear. It was dark now.

Then I remembered something I’d read about dumps. At the end of the day, a big truck would come by and plow two layers of protective material over all that trash, so that all the harmful gasses are trapped under there. He knew if he didn’t get out of the five feet of trash soon, he would suffocate. Well, we tried. We tried to figure out how to stop the corruption, then the light serum came to mind, and then I travel to another dimension. I don’t know why I was so blind to the fact that saving the world would be so hard. Now I’m here, about to suffocate from methane. And with that, any indication of hope disappeared.

Then Ariana spoke up. “Why do I hear a truck in the landfill?”