• By Cassidy Petroccione (she/her)
  • Art “Planetscape” by Vicente Valle (he/him)

Jack and Annie were two peas in a pod growing up. They always created their own games in the backyard to escape into a fantasy world. One day, their minds took them to a bizarre and beautiful world that can only be told through their imagination. They arrived in a strange city. Everyone, including the two of them, carried a pickaxe and a blue jar. They each walked strangely, almost as if they were in a video game. Their eyes were the same color, but their appearances were all different. The two of them were brother and sister, one with blonde hair and the other with brown. They looked like twins, if you asked me, but he was two years older than she was.

The city they flew into had four different environments split evenly.

It was odd. It smelled like pepperoni pizza.

“Why is everyone carrying a pickaxe and a potion?” She asked her brother as they walked into the forest. He just shrugged his shoulders and continued walking. Around them were tall trees and a dirt path that went on for miles. The air smelled fresh and the sky was clear. They continued to walk and look for any sort of resources because they were starting to get hungry. The only way to find resources was to break chests with their axes until they found what they needed—food, water, and shelter. Their legs were starting to get tired because they did not plan on walking this much.

They were almost at the end of the forest when they came upon a house. It had wood shutters, a red door, and a white picket fence surrounding the house. As they got closer, they noticed a rocking chair on the porch, which made them stop in their tracks. They looked at one another and noticed they had seen this chair before. But they cannot remember where, because this city is all they know.

There was a chest next to the rocking chair, which made them excited because they had never seen anything like it before; the chest was glowing. Her brother swung his axe high into the air and split it open.

Another blue jar bounced out of the chest, along with two glowing broomsticks, and a box of pepperoni pizza that smelt like heaven. She immediately opened the pizza box and devoured a couple of slices as her brother chugged one of the jars and started to glisten blue. “Alright, you ready to go to Frenzy Fields?” Her brother asked as he gestured to the sign pointing towards the open fields of grass. “I bet they have more pizza because someone ate it all,” he said as he rolled his eyes. His sister burped as she was chugging one of the jars and nodded, following his footsteps.

“Jack and Annie, pizza is ready,” their mother called from the kitchen.

“We are coming,” they both shouted from the backyard as they let go of their sticks and plastic cups. ▲