Willow in Wonderland

Prologue

The sudden buzzing of my phone startled me, causing me to snap out of my useless daydreaming.
I ran over to my desk to pick up my phone. The thunder roared outside, with gloomy clouds neighboring the skies. It was quite the gloomy evening, with no sun whatsoever and darkness all around. I opened my phone to see notifications from Maddi, Ariana, and Myleigh. All of the notifications were from a single group chat besides one notification, a notification from Maddi's Instagram. I unlocked my phone and opened her Instagram page to reveal an image of her in her red, sparkly gown. Her post captioned this:
"So excited for the ball tonight! Who's ready?! Leaving in 10 mins, see you there..."
Her usual platinum blonde, wavy hair was now curled, with her hair half up in a small, low ponytail in the back. She had mascara and lipstick on, maybe even fake eyelashes because her lashes looked so long, and a white, long ribbon tied to her ponytail. She looked... amazing. Her gown was red and sparkly with another big, white ribbon in the back of it, and the end of her gown went to her thighs.
"I swear, she could be a model if she tried," I mumbled to myself. I suddenly realized the caption of her post however, where it said she was leaving in 10 minutes... Wait, 10 minutes?
I looked at my clock to see the time read '6:49pm', and I suddenly realized that I was going to be late. My hair was ready, but I still needed to change and touch up my makeup. I hurriedly ran towards my bathroom, panicking, quickly but carefully changing into my dress and fixing my makeup.
While I was looking at myself in the mirror, I heard a creak at the door. I was a bit frightened when I heard a faint "hellooo..." from the doorway. I turned quickly to see my brother, Wyatt, standing beside me at my bathroom doorway.
"Wyatt, you gave me a fright, goodness..." I scolded him as he laughed a bit.
"You still talk as if we're still in London," he replied back. "Well, news flash, we're in America, specifically in Maine... You don't need such proper grammar. And hey, don't you have a dance that you're supposed to go to in a few minutes? You're gonna be late, y'know."
I continued looking in the mirror. "Yes, I know," I responded. "I need to leave. Right now."
I brushed my arm past him as I walked out the doorway, slipping on my heels. "Hey, I could drive you if you want," he offered. "You won't be late with me driving."
I cleared my throat. "Yeah, I know," I answered. "But why would I wanna ride with you? I'd rather be late than have you drive me to this stupid dance. Also, am I talking like I'm American now, in such an improper manne- I mean, way."
Wyatt laughed. "Come on, sis. I'm driving you. I can't let you be late to your first dance, especially your first homecoming dance." I rolled my eyes and followed him out to the car.
I hopped inside my brother's white Ford Focus, and he turned the car on. We buckled and pulled out of our driveway, driving past other houses in our neighborhood. We reached the main road, and a small gap opened in the trees to where I could see the moon. Although it may have been storming out, the moon was so bright to where I could still see it. It was beautiful and amazing. Even on the darkest of nights, the moon still shined bright.

I've always shown curiosity in astronomy ever since I learned what the sun, moon, and stars were. When I was young, I wanted to be an astronaut. That dream changed when I was six however. The allegedly "first Asian woman to enter space" took off in a spacecraft. It was a huge event, and everything was televised... everything. So when the audience saw the spacecraft blow up when it was only 800 feet in the air, everyone was horrified. I happened to be among the audience, watching the whole thing from my living room couch. When it happened, I stared at the TV for a good 10 seconds before calling my mother.
"Mother," I called. "Something happened." Her footsteps approached the living room. She looked at the TV for a good 10 seconds as well, and her eyes slowly widened.
"Willow darling, a-are you hungry...?" she stuttered. "Come out into the kitchen. I-I'll prepare some soup for you. You didn't eat a good breakfast, a-and it's almost lunchtime anyways."
I was confused, but I still followed her. I didn't understand at that age that the young woman in the spacecraft died, and the whole spacecraft exploded in mid-air.
My brother, who at the time was eight, finally explained to me what happened to that girl. Although he was young as well, he managed to explain everything to me in such a calm, comforting way. When he explained everything to me, I didn't even freak out. His voice was so soothing and calm that it took made me feel safe and comfortable. I felt horrible for the poor astronaut of course. What happened to her was unimaginably unfortunate and sad.
A few weeks after the incident, I made the conclusion that I would not be an astronaut. I decided that I wouldn't be just any astronaut, but the first astronaut to go to Mars. I found out that the girl who died's mission was to make it to Mars. I wanted to accomplish her dream and go to Mars just for her. And now, my dream is still to go to Mars, and I'm going to do it just for her.