This trip was not my idea; therefore the bad things that happened cannot be blamed on me. It was entirely his fault. My brother, Matthew, said that this trip would be perfect for the two of us to take before we went to college. He was going to the University of Virginia in Charlottesville to study computers. I was headed for Longwood University in Farmville Virginia, because it has a great education program. We took the RV and drove cross country to Longwood and the University of Virginia in three weeks. The moment we left the driveway bad things started to happen. My cat, Gizmo, and her kittens had somehow gotten in the RV and fell asleep in my bed. We then had to turn around and take them back. I said jokingly to Matt, “I guess our cat scanner doesn’t work anymore. We should get that fixed.” The trip would later become a joking matter between the two of us and the rest of the family.

We dropped them off at our house in Colorado Springs and when we made it to our first sleeping destination; we were four hours late and starving. The hotel food sucked and the blankets and pillows were as scratchy as poison ivy. Now that I think about it, I did have a curious rash that spread when I scratched it. Maybe there was poison ivy on the pillows.
The next morning, we got up and went on our way. It seemed that my brother was covered in poison ivy, too. Our next destination was a state away and we were already behind schedule. “At this rate we’ll get to college by the time I’m forty.” I joked. Now we were going to be further behind thanks to having to stop for poison ivy medicine. After we got the medicine, we made a quick visit with our sister, Summer, at the Air Force Academy. She was training to be a pilot.
By the time we got to the campground that night I was ready to call off the whole trip. Since we were late, they gave away our spot. We got stuck next to the woods. As we pulled up, I got a very bad feeling about the place and thought we were going to be in for a long night. Part of me knew something was wrong with the picture when we pulled up and there were no lights or other RVs around.

It turned out that I was right. No sooner than we had parked and settled in for the night, we heard a soft tap on the door. Tap. Tap. It continued until Matthew got up to see who it was. It was a strange thing. It stood about six and a half feet tall, had purple tinted skin, but other than that it looked like a normal human. The face was a distorted, like it had been eaten by a harsh chemical and then healed unevenly. I screamed. Then it pulled out an oddly shaped weapon and pointed it at me. It told us to walk quickly and calmly out of the RV and keep quiet into the clearing in the center of the woods. We complied so that we would not have to find out exactly what the weapon did. (Later we learned it did no harm; it was just to cause fear.)

When we got into the woods, the Thing said a few strange words and we went flying into an alternate universe. I think I lost consciousness about half way between the two universes. When I woke up the thing was in scrubs and a mask. I didn’t really freak out until I looked at my surroundings. I was in a bedroom that was filled with medical equipment: scalpel, scissors, syringe, and a blood pressure monitor. I looked everywhere for my brother, but realized that they probably had him held hostage in another room. That was enough for me to lose consciousness again.

Sometime while I was out I must have fallen out of bed because when I came to a week later, I had a cast on my right leg. A thermometer was jammed in my mouth and some medicine was on the table. They must have been using the medicine to keep nutrients in my body while I was out. One of “them” came into the room just after I woke up and brought me a little food and ice chips in a cup. Then it spoke. It told me that I was getting ready for surgery and that was the only food I could eat until afterwards. When I asked what type of surgery I was to have, he refused to tell me. He said it would be a breach in confidentiality. He had to give me a breathing treatment because I had an asthma attack. Did he really think that I was just going to just let them go on doing what they pleased with my body? As I got up to run away I saw that I was strapped to the bed. It was like I was a prisoner and there was nothing I could do about it. I told them that before they did anything to me they had to read to me from the Bible and then let me pray for my life.

Afterwards, they started to prep me for surgery. They stuck a needle into my finger to make sure my blood was clotting right and that I would not bleed out, then they stuck an I.V. into my arm to knock me out and used a stethoscope to make sure my heart was working well. After that I was too sleepy to remember what they did.

When I woke up, the only sign I had of surgery was a thin line across my belly; they cut me open to see what a humans looked like inside and took some of my blood. I was just a guinea pig. So was Matthew; it turns out that he underwent a surgery too. For him they cut open his shoulder to study human muscles. I guess both of us are lucky that they did not decide to do open heart surgery!
As soon as we recovered, they took us to our RV and it turned out that we were only a day behind schedule. I now had many stories to tell my new friends at Longwood, not that they would believe me or anything. The only reason our parents believed us was because Summer felt that I was in danger that had something to do with my stomach. Twin telepathy can be amazing. Nobody, including us, realized what really happened during that time and what made them choose Matthew and me. If I ever see them again I’ll ask.