Prologue
“Mom, are we there yet” asked Lily.
“Not yet sweetie, why don’t you play with your brother Lily” said Lily’s mom.
“I don’t want to play with-”
“We’re here” exclaimed Lily’s dad.

They all piled out of the car and grabbed their bags. They checked in and as soon as they got to their room Lily grabbed her swimsuit and went to the pool. Like at most hotels there was no lifeguard and instead there was a “SWIM AT YOUR OWN RISK” sign. The pool room had a large pool with a deep end and a shallow end. The room also had a hot tub and a small arcade attached to the pool room. Lily went into the bathroom and changed into her pink and green swimsuit. Lily never wanted to come to California, summer vacation was supposed to be her chance to spend more time with her new boyfriend, Alan, but instead her family dragged her all the way to California for three weeks. Lily spread her towel across the lawn chair and laid down hoping to get a tan from the artificial sun in the pool room. After a while she got bored and jumped into the pool. She swam to the diving board and climbed the ladder. She jumped another time. The third time she tried to do a flip, but instead of landing in the water she landed head first on the diving board and scraped up her back on the tread of the diving board. Lily blacked out. Her little witnessed everything from across the room. He had walked in to swim. He immediately started screaming and a security guard ran in. The guard then noticed Lily laying motionless and bleeding on the diving board and radioed for someone to call 911. Lily’s brother sprinted back to the hotel room crying and then finally managed to tell his parents what he had seen. Lily’s dad picked up her brother and rushed to the pool with her mom. They got there just in time to jump into the ambulance before it sped to the hospital. In the ambulance Lily slipped into a coma and dreamt.

Chapter 1
Lily was getting tired. She had been trudging through a dark cave for nearly three hours. She didn’t know how she got there or where she was. All she knew was that she woke up on the hard, cold and damp floor of what seemed to be an abandoned mine.
Now she could here water rushing and being a Wilderness girl for eight years she knew exactly what to do. She was running now, her feet barely touching the ground, and then, Lily could see the bridge! Lily suddenly stopped at the foot of the bridge. She noticed that crossing the bridge could be dangerous; there were rails but what if one of the boards broke or was loose? She had no choice; she would have to risk it. So Lily grasped the rails and very, very carefully she walked across the bridge. After seven minutes of agonizing worry she finally made it to the other side of the bridge. Lily was so excited for she could see sunlight! The exit was only 100 feet away! Lily found herself running again at an even faster pace than last time. As soon as she found herself outside of the cave she screamed at the top of her lungs. She screamed out of joy and fear. She was happy to be out of the cave, but when she got out she found herself in the middle of a desert.
Lily turned around in a circle and noticed that on the side of the cave there was a staircase of stone. Lily followed the stairs, cautious of scorpions and snakes, and found that it led up to an oasis that had been made into a small town. In the town Lily found many roads full of houses, stores, a hotel and a small doctor’s office. Lily, noticing that the town was deserted, looked for a place to sleep. It didn’t take very long for Lily to find a nice small cottage that was only missing a door and two of eight windows. Judging by the sun Lily could tell that it was around 5:00 pm. She searched the cupboards and found three spiders and a can of peas. She was too tired to on the stove for heating the peas, not that she knew if it worked anyways, so she just found a spoon and ate half the can; she wanted to save the rest for breakfast and then she went to bed.






Chapter 2
When Lily woke up she expected to find herself back in the hotel, but she didn’t. Instead she found herself sitting on a torn mattress inside the broken down cottage. She found her stomach growling loudly and then she found herself devouring what little peas she had left. When she opened the cupboard to find more food she noticed a rat’s nest. She peeked inside and found that no one was home so she left it alone and, just in case, she threw out the rest of the food. She had seen a grocery store on her walk to the small cottage so she decided to go and find it. She retraced her steps unit she found it. It was large and mostly still intact but she kicked the walls just to make sure it wouldn’t crumble on top of her. After seeing that the store was stable she walked inside.
Inside the store Lily found many food items, half of them rotted. She found 50 cans of green beans, 6 cans of black beans, 100 cans of soup and, most surprisingly, six months worth of freeze dried food. Inside the now broken fridge Lily found a cube of moldy cheese, two peach preservatives and half rotted corn seeds. She took the good food back to the cottage and put it in the cupboards. Now that it was broad daylight Lily could see all the details of the cottage she had inhabited. The couch was faded but she could still see that it was a rich blue with decorative white lace pillows. Next to the couch was a small table with scratch marks. She guessed that the people who lived here before had had a cat. About 20 feet away from the couch was a large television.






Chapter 3
As Lily walked from room to room she noticed many details that she had never discovered. The old rusty car in the garage was so much different from the flying cars from where she was from. She remembered seeing car tires in a pile at the dump but she never knew what they were for. The date on the car read 2015. That was 30 years before she was born! Lily wondered if anything in the town still worked. The car seemed to be all electric so she tried to turn it on. The car made a small spark and then the engine roared on. Lily drove the car to look for the appliance store that she passed the first day she got to the town. It was on a street called Sycamore next to a fancy looking restaurant. She went inside and looked at all the appliances that didn’t have to be plugged in. There was a wash machine, a microwave oven, a food processor, a television, and amazingly, a computer. Lily couldn’t believe her luck. She took “home” the food processor, the computer, and the microwave one. She decided to leave the rest at the store because it wouldn’t have fit in the car anyways. When Lily got back to the cottage she put the stuff away were she felt it should go and then she went on the computer. When she got on the computer she went to her E-Mail and sent her parents a message saying:
Hi mom and dad,
I’m a little scared right now. What’s going on? I’m in a desert and I found an oasis. Don’t worry I have plenty of food. There is a 2015 car with wheels in the garage so I’m guessing that this town is pretty old. There is no one here but here but me. Hope to see you soon.
Love,

























Lily

Lily wiped her tears as she tried to figure out what to do next. She quickly sent the E-Mail and started to cook a small meal for herself. Halfway through her meal Lily realized that she hadn’t had anything to drink in two days. She got up from the mahogany table and walked over to the sink. She filled a large cup with water and put it in the microwave oven for eight minutes. She had read in a book that dirty water can cause cholera, so it had to be boiled to kill the germs. After the water cooled she gulped it down in seconds. After she finished eating she took several dishes, including the ones she just used, to the appliance store for washing. She also wanted to see if there was a working stove so she could boil water more easily. Luckily, she found two stove/ovens, enough to boil eight pots of water at a time. Much to her surprise Lily also found out that multiple chickens had inhabited the restaurant next door and they had somehow miraculously survived, so she decided to try and catch one and attempt to make her mother’s ““famous” chicken a la mode”. After short bath and washing her sweat soaked clothes she drove back to the cottage. Lily was tired from a long day so she crawled inside her scratchy, flat bed and fell asleep.













Chapter 4

That morning Lily was startled awake by a loud clap of thunder. Lily turned on the light and noticed that multiple puddles were accumulating on the tile and carpeting of the cottage. Lily frowned and then stood up to find something she could catch the water in. In a rather large cabinet she found several plates, cups, bowls, and pots. She placed a bowl under each leak. It took her about 15 minutes to find all the leaks. She decided to cook a breakfast with freeze dried cereal, along with bacon and a small bowl of peach preservative.
After eating her rather delicious breakfast she searched the cottage for an umbrella. When she couldn’t find an umbrella she tried the basement. It took her a while to find the switch and when she flipped it to turn on the light but no lights came on. Lily got quite frustrated and finally decided to just feel around for an umbrella. As Lily was cautiously looking for an umbrella she cut her palm on the sharp dirty brick. She raced upstairs to look for something to cover it and something to wash it with or it could get infected. She used her hand to cover the cut and she raced to the clinic in hopes of finding a clean bandage. When she got to the clinic she found a whole cabinet full of bandages. She grabbed a handful and the jogged back “home”, being careful to keep pressure on the cut.
When Lily got to the cottage she poured clean water on the cut. When the most of the blood was rinsed away Lily noticed that the cut was only about an inch or two long. She put on the bandage and started to cry. She was mad herself for being stupid enough to search a dirty basement with no light whatsoever and she was upset because she was scared. “What if something worse happens? What if I break a bone?” Lily stood there scolding herself and worrying about what could have happened when she finally calmed down. It was raining pretty hard and Lily was soaked. That night Lily got a piercing pain on her back. It felt like a cat scratched her skin off. Everything started going blurry and fading away. Lily got scared. Was she dying? Then she started hearing distant voices.


Chapter 5

“She’s awake!”

“Oh, my darling baby!”

Lily woke up in a haze. Everyone’s face was blurry. She mostly slept in the hospital and when she was awake she was told stories of what had happened while she was gone. Lily had been in a coma for two weeks. She told everyone about her adventurous dream and they all said that what she dreamed could never be real, but Lily still wondered if that cave was real. She decided to look for look for it when she was older.