¨Alvah!¨ I scream.”Wait for me.” We always race home after school and then run to the ball field to play.
¨Paizlee, you have to run so that we can get to the field in time for the game!¨ Alvah screams back. 
Today is special, our favorite team is coming to play and we had to get seats right behind the dugout. Baseball is the only thing that reminds us of our brother Cahyo. He passed away in the war against the hippocampuses. He would always take us to play baseball. We love baseball and we have ever since we were little.
As I race up from behind Alvah, I see the pale full moon appear from behind the clouds. The cool misty breeze causes my long silver hair to cover my face. Once I pull my hair out of my face, I see the last thing I would want to see. My brother is entangled in the long bleached mane of a unicorn.
“Someone Help Him!” I scream running towards my brother. Everyone looks at me as if I am insane. “Please!” I beg.”Somebody, save my brother!” I am getting closer and now the unicorn knows that I can see it. He leaps off of the ground and two other unicorns come out from behind the fog. I sprint to the top of the bleachers screaming, but it is too late. He is gone. I fall to the ground wailing. “My brother, my brother, he disappeared, how did nobody see that?”
“ Honey, where are your parents?” An older lady, with wrinkles to show her age, asks me.
“They are at home.” I try to explain but my breath is too heavy and it feels as if my heart is a weight that I am unable to lift. “ My parents are at home but are you not at all worried about my brother?” I am raising my voice now and she can tell that I am upset.
“She must have hit her head pretty hard when she fell.” she murmurs to a younger woman to her right. She looks about the age to be her daughter.
“I did not!” I reply defiantly.” The problem is that my brother was just stolen by unicorns!”
Her daughter giggles and tries to help me up but I pull my hand away and pick myself up. They drag me into their car and make me tell my parents that I am delusional even though that is the opposite of the truth. I saw a unicorn steal my brother. And I can’t unsee it.
I struggle to fall asleep. I keep hearing Alvah’s beautiful voice in my head. I can hear the sound of him playing his ukelele, he was working on a song to play on our birthday. I can see him lightly strumming his fingers through the stiff strings. Sleep took over me and the soft sound of his music fills my head.

“Paizlee! Come down here right now!” I wake up to my mother Neha calling me. I jump out of bed and stumble down the stairs. “Honey, do you remember anything about last night?” She knew. She knew that Alvah was taken and that I did nothing about it.
“Not really, I was just at the game with Alvah and th-”
“Alwuh? Who is that?”
“Not Alwuh.” I try to explain.”Alvah. You know, my twin brother.”
“That lady was right,” She mumbles under her breath. “Honey you must have hit your head pretty hard last night. You don’t have a brother and you know that. I know that you miss Cahyo but there is something wrong if you think you have another brother.”
How could she forget about him? He’s only been gone for a few hours. I don’t get but I know who will.
My friend Araceli is a genius. She has read every book on our planet and since she has photographic memory, she remembers it all. I climb up into her second floor window and she is laying on her bed reading a book that she already has read five times.
“Araceli,” I say trying not to scare her. “can you do me a favor?” I explain to her what happened. She remembered reading something about this but wasn’t sure if it was true since the book was thousands of years old.
Her older brother Jajuan opens her bedroom door and slams it shut behind him.
“What was that for?” Araceli asks seeming upset.
“You need to hide me from mom. Don’t tell her that I’m in here.”
Araceli pauses to think. Her brother is just as smart as her maybe even smarter so she can tell that he could help us. “I won’t tell mom that you are in here as long as you do me a favor.”
“What do you want? I’ll do it! I just can’t get in trouble again.”
Araceli explains my problem and we all decide that we need to try to defeat the unicorns so that this won’t happen again. Araceli and Jajuan think of a plan while I sit there doing nothing. They are smart and will think of a safe plan but I feel like I should be doing something since it’s my brother that we are trying to save.

“There are four main groups of rings, one for each neighborhood. Each group has seven rings, one for each day of the week which mean four boys go missing each night.” Araceli explains to me. She knows so much and it makes me jealous that she knows all of this.”We will have to make our way past the first ring during the day and the other three in the night so th-”
“But,” I cut her off. “we need to go to all of the rings during the day because that’s when the unicorns sleep. If we go at night when they are hungry, they will surely kill us.”
“You guys don’t get it. The unicorns don’t kill unless they are on the last ring. All of the other rings have unicorns on them but they have different animals guarding them.”  Jajuan tries to explain.”If we take on the first three rings during the night, we will be fine and then we will have all day for the last one.”

So apparently we are leaving for the rings early tomorrow morning and getting there that night. We just need to figure out how to steal dad’s space traveler and bring it to the coordinates where we would be able to take off. We need to sneak by the security guards at the launcher and the people in the control room but that isn’t my first worry. I am worried about saving my brother. Is he even alive? If he is, and I mess up, I would have to watch him get eaten and watch his small body burn in the ustor ad animarum (burner of souls). That would mean no more early morning walks to go see the rings. No more racing home from school that day, throwing our bags on the porch. No more crawling into his bed when I had had a nightmare. No more hugging him goodbye as he leaves for work. And no more crying on his shoulder when I had been bullied. Alvah had always been there for me and now it was time for his sister to be there for him.

I wake up to the sound of a tapping on my window. It’s Jajuan. I jump out of bed, grab my backpack and climb out of the window. We get to the launch site and see that there is a launch about to go off. Once that launch goes off, all of the guards won’t be watching so we will be able to sneak past. Hook up the space traveler and blast off without anyone noticing.
Woosh, we are in the sky and our world is getting smaller every second. The rings are getting closer and it seems as if we are almost there but really, we are hours away.
As we slowly descend on the beautiful terrain, I see unicorns leaping around and strange looking zebras standing guard. They are rainbow. Those are the animals that we will have to get past.
The air on the rings is much cleaner and crisper than the air on saturn. It has an eerie feeling that makes me nervous. We start walking. We walk past a few zebras falling asleep and baby unicorns playfully galloping when all of a sudden, an alarm goes off and a deep voice plays over the loudspeaker.
“Attack!”
The zebras jump up  and start coming towards us we run and luckily I could see the beautiful class bridge that would take us to the next ring.
“C'mon guys! I can see the bridge. We only have about one hundred yards left!” We race to the bridge, zebras getting closer but we make it. My breath is heavy and I have to sit down. We all sit on the side of the bridge letting our feet hang off of the side.
The next two rings were harder than the first. We had to get past a mighty pegasus and a gnarling manticore.

The final bridge is made out of solid gold and has a thick layer of clouds at the end. It is hard to see through but I can see the glowing horns of unicorns.
“They are waiting for us” Araceli whispers with urgency.
In the distance, I can see a big brown building with a fence surrounding it. There is only one reason for it to be there; To hide the boys. We make a run for it sprinting down the path made of gold stones. The unicorns are chasing us with their glowing horns. They are gaining on us but we are almost there. Once we get there we will be able to find a hiding spot among the boys inside. We reach the big steel door but the handle is too high to reach. The unicorns are charging at us. Slam! I am afraid to open my eyes but then I hear the sweet voice of my brother telling me that I will be ok. I can feel his hand in mine and I believe him but then, when I open my eyes, I realize that maybe I shouldn’t have. I am hanging off of the ring. Below me, I see nothingness. There is nothing but space. Space that I would be lost in forever.  I reach my other hand up into the air and Jajuan grabs onto it. He and my brother pull as hard as they can but my grip is slipping. I try to scream but nothing comes out. I look up at the face of my brother who is very alive. If he is safe, I have accomplished my mission but the over him, I see a unicorn. Its long silky mane, suddenly doesn’t look beautiful anymore. I try to warn Alvah but it is too late, The horn of the unicorn is inside of my brother and his limp body falls off the edge next to me. I am still holding onto him and wouldn’t dare let go. My grip on Jajuan loosens and I fall into never ending space.