The new room was about as contrary to the first as you could get. The walls and floors sparkled a light blue. A fancy crystal chandelier hung above, casting pleasant shadowy designs everywhere. There was no furniture, but mirrors with intricate silver frames were placed on the walls about every four feet. In these, I could see how my hair had somehow been blown around and was now a total mess. Normally I would’ve cared, and fixed it before anyone could see. Right now I had bigger problems, and that was enough to scare me.
The real scare came when I heard a voice come from one of the mirrors. Or, I thought I came from the mirror.
“Welcome. Please state name and intent.”
It was a women’s voice, but obviously computerized. The strange thing was, there wasn’t any sign of technology here, and there hadn’t been anywhere else that I’d seen. Now I was truly confused, and walked toward where I thought the sound had come from. As I did, it repeated itself.
“Welcome. Please state name and intent.”
This time there was no doubt about it; the voice was coming from a mirror to my right. I walked up to it and look around. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary there. I couldn’t see any speakers or wires or anything that even looked like it belonged in the 21st century.
“Welcome. Please state name and intent.”
It continued giving its request, and I finally decided to try and respond.
“I’m Liz Moore, and… I want to go home?”
“Welcome Liz,” replied the voice, to my complete dismay. Things only got weirder from there.
All of a sudden, the mirror I had been inspecting swung out from the wall. I couldn’t believe it, but there were tiny hinges along the edge that somehow I had missed. The space left by the open mirror held the most unexpected thing; a computer screen. As I stared in astonishment, a keyboard slowly slid out underneath the screen. It wasn’t by any means a fancy computer. In fact, it looked like it had come out of the eighties. A small green line blinked on the black background of the eight-inch wide screen, as if waiting for words to be entered. Before I could touch anything, one word appeared by itself: Name.
Not sure what to make of any of this, I typed in my name: Elizabeth Moore. Nothing happened. I pressed enter. Then the flashing green bar jumped to the next line and began to type:
Elizabeth Anne Moore
Birth date: August 10
Age: 15
Hometown: Thousand Oaks, California, USA, Earth
Parents: Samuel J. and Margaret N.
Currently residing: Rocky Mountains, Colorado, USA, Earth
Residing with: Timothy Moore
Sarah Moore
Kimberly Moore
Nicole Nobel
Jakob Nobel
Kristyn Jacobson
Baylee Jacobson
Levi Jacobson
Logan Littleton
Zachary Littleton
Date arrived at Shandery: April 10
I caught my breath. This was my life. Someone had all these facts about me written up on a computer. It wasn’t just me, either. All of my friends and family were here. Whoever was so interested in me was probably just as interested in them. I had never been so scared as I was in that moment. One thing did puzzle me, though. What was the Shandery?
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