Beyond Our Stars

Okay well this is how it started. My sister Lena and I were in this Egyptian museum. We were there with our dad, Carter. Our dad is an archeologist. He loves to travel around the world, even though it's Christmas Eve. My sister and I would love to go back to our grandparents flat in London, but no! I don't understand! Dad's been a little off lately, taking us out of school. Home schooling us not letting us go to our friends houses!

Meanwhile this is happening- Dad sent us to look at some old dead decomposed thing called a mummy. While we're looking at "dead people" Dad is talking about this weird artifact. What was it called? The Turkbuttnose stone? I don't know. I ask my sister what it was named. "What was that stone that dad was talking about?" I ask stupidly "It's called the Rosetta Stone, Miss.Stupid." Well sorry for asking. " You mean like the commercial, right?" Lena doesn't answer she just shakes her head. We continue to make our way to the mummies.

My sister seems to get into trouble. She brings it to herself. When I say that she turns into nut-house killer. Just kidding. "Belle Lisa Jane Clare , let me tell you something. I will not put up with this behavior young lady. Do not tease me or else .... you'll regret it." My sister is a big suck up to dad. She tattles that I told her off about something. Then my dad tells me "She's just trying to be a big sister. You just make it harder than the average sibling rate." She's only a year older than me. I mean its funny to tease her that I'm a head taller than her I tell her most of the time she's a midget to me. Secretly I hope I'm older than her.

Sometimes she's so curious I can't stand it. She touches something she's not to touch and almost loses a limb or a life. Like the time when in 4 th grade went to a meat factory company for a field trip. She almost sliced her arm off with a knife.

We walk up to a random sarcophagus covered neatly with swift writing called Egyptian hieroglyphics. I turn to find Lena is gone probably trying to trick me into whatever bloody trick she has up her sleeve. "Lena where'd did you go" I call. I wander around to find her, hypnotized by a golden tablet out of the glass case. I'm also stupid enough to touch it. We reach desperately to touch the golden tablet.

My vision dissolves into another world or dimension. It forms into a land of dusty land with red rusty dirt in a village with several sod houses and other homes. Inside through one of the windows I see human shaped bodies, with the tiny exception of the horns shaped like a reindeers horns. I look around the village and find strange forms carrying what looks like trees and décor for Christmas. An alien form appears in front of us. "Hello are you foreigners?" I was definitely surprised the forms were human and the antlers were fake. The only thing that stood out was their eyes- they were an unnatural nonhuman eye color they were deep mauve. A color you'd never see in human characteristics. " Ummm where the heck are we?!" I stand there dumbfounded wondering if this is some kind of knockoff prank. "Well hello. You can stay in my home while we celebrate Christmas ..."says the form. The voice is feminine. "You celebrate Christmas? Who do you celebrate? Why are you human? What planet are we on? What the...." I had interrupted the lady that had already welcomed us in her home. " Yes, we do celebrate Christmas. We celebrate like you do except with Egyptian gods. We are on Mars. We are not fully human. This is a human body. We occupy human bodies like in the legends of the Egyptian gods occupying human hosts. Is that a good explanation?"she asked. " Umm I think that is a good explanation but how do we get back to Earth?"

She told us her name was Anna. She also told us there was a way home. Anna led us across the red dirt to an identical copy of the tablet and told us to touch it at the same time. We did. My vision dissolved and we were in the museum. Time hadn't passed since we had been gone. Which, felt like a million years. I will never forget that there is a world beyond ours. And in that I know there's a world beyond our stars.