"Is it worth it?" Liam muttered to himself. The envy of other treasure hunters haunted him. The map was old, its secrets dangerous. Emily smiled, her eyes bright with excitement. "We're so close. It feels like something unprecedented is waiting for us!"

They arrived at an ancient tree. Beneath it, a stone gesture marked the spot. As they dug, the ground trembled. The treasure was real, hidden deep in the earth. Liam hesitated, feeling a sudden constraint in his chest. Was this what they wanted? A wasteful pursuit of gold? He remembered the stories - the treasure often led to madness.

“We should turn back,” he said, his voice full of solemnity. Emily looked at him, then the hole. "But, we’ve come so far. It’s our chance!" Liam let out a soft guffaw, realising he was being foolish. The treasure could be theirs, but it might also be the last choice they ever made. “Maybe next time,” he said. They turned away, leaving the treasure buried.

As they walked back, Liam knew this was the penultimate decision - the one that mattered more than gold.

I was born in London to 2 loving parents, Cynthia and James Evans. When I was born, my mother would always tell me that when she looked at her daughter for the first time, she felt so much oxytocin she almost fainted (she's a huge science freak).

My father is paralysed from the waist down, due to a severe case of sciatica (spinal compression) and mom is extremely protective over him, it's pitiful to watch to be honest.

 My favourite animals are penguins and I'm very passionate about criminology. I also have a sister named Grace who I hate with a passion. She's got scruffy and damaged hair with a ghoulish look on her face (she scares me). Moreover, she’s better than me in everything (even though she looks like a sewer rat). Every time I see her I feel a rush of envy going through my body.But, it's more than just jealousy, it's hatred at this point. She's also very wasteful, always buying new things when she has perfectly good ones at home.

My favorite sweet is marzipan, although I eat too much of it and then feel sick. I also love stars, and how luminous they are. To me, they’re a metaphor for dreams, so bright and beautiful, but no matter how hard you try, you can’t touch them (how poetic of me to say).

I always lay on the grass and rhapsodise about how beautiful they are.

But this time it was different.

I was laying on the grass as usual but a huge, dark silhouette caught my eye, it looked like it was in a state of solemnity. I couldn’t gauge what it was at first. But before I could process what I had just seen, it dropped into what looked like a chamber. I immediately went to figure out what was going on, and I came across some stairs that led to a basement, and what I saw shook me.

It was a huge, horse/human-like creature in this huge room, and chanting something along the lines of “pardon me master, for I have been sinful”. It then suddenly turned around, and before i could run it took me.

And I was never seen again.

imprisoned by an evil spell: the daughters couldn’t leave the house unless they had permission to talk to anyone but most of all there was no way to escape. One day in the middle in February, one of the three daughters decided she had enough. She finally managed to escape. She got on a little boat and ran away in the river in front of her house.

After a lot of time, she started losing view of her house. She didn't know what to do. She started panicking. She started seeing a lot of posters that said: do not enter. While she was reading the signals, she heard some loud voices coming from behind her. As soon as she turned around, she saw guards running towards her. She didn’t know if she wanted to continue navigating, risking her life or being caught by the guards and having the worst life ever. As soon as she started thinking, she looked behind and the guards were very close to her. They made a creepy gesture and started sailing as fast as a cheetah. At that point, all her energy arose and she started sailing faster than the guards. She entered the property. When she entered, a big bubble opened in front of her. The guards tried to enter but they were pushed 10 meters back. They tried many times but they couldn’t get inside. So they decided to go call reinforcements. The girl was in peace for once. She was so happy. She continued navigating until she found a light brown door. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to open it, but since she was already in the bubble, she wanted to risk it. It was her moment. As soon as she opened the door she found a big marzipan house decorated with candy canes and a lot of shiny sprinkles. She got off her boat and started visiting it. She found so many rooms and different windows that showed different cities around the world. She heard all her family come to the bubble and when her parents came through, they were magically let in as well. She was so happy, and she could finally live in peace with her loved ones.

When their trip began, they started to think how to reach France ,as they live in England, in a city called Birmingham, until Ruby saw a big gauge text that said that you can teleport by using the map, she quickly pointed at the text on the map to others.

When they first arrived there it seemed as if it was an anomaly, because it was so hot outside, while it was -7 degrees in England at that time.

“Pardon,” said Jeremy, when he accidentally crashed into a person on the street.

On the main road, they saw an embattled building as later they found out it was a prison, those people inside looked as they were enslaved but then the group realised that those people were sinful as they had probably slaughtered other people, because of that they got to spend a wasteful amount of their time in jail.Jeremy, Ruby and Andrew immediately paced away from that ghoulish place.

After they walked a bit around the land they started wanting to go back, but when Jeremy asked Andrew where the map was, Andrew seemed slightly worried as he didn’t know where it was, when they started to look for it something luminous began to shine out of his pocket, right away he knew it was the map. 

I missed my friend, called Martina it was since 5th grade when I saw her last, we were quite the highbrow duo, and we had so many reminiscences, I remember after school, we would turn blocks of marzipan into little figures such as princesses and rationalize why our figure was better. It was true that it was a little wasteful, but that helped form our childhood together.

When the school year came to a termination, she gave me the most sad news that I could have ever heard. She told me that she was going to move to another country. She said that she was going to move to Milan, Italy. I slowly felt our friendship's silhouette fade.

One promise that we made was that we solemnly swore to call every week, but she didn't respond within a couple of weeks. She didn't even respond to my texts, which was very strange because she was always the first person to respond to my texts.

But then, on August 9th, she surprised me and came to the park that I would always go to after several years without any contact. But then I looked at her, and I didn't even recognize her, she looked more senile than before, she looked like she was 30, even though we were only 16.

Then we started talking, and things didn't seem right, she seemed to be making a weird gesture when. I was asking her if she remembered things that we did when we were little. I started to look at her and realized that she didn't have the spot that she used to have above her lip. I was wondering whether she maybe lasered it off or put some makeup over it. But then she began to ask me some eerie questions, such as: "When was the last time I saw you?", "Where are you going next week?" "Where do you live?". And then, I just realized that Martina didn't speak like that because she had a lisp, meaning that she pronounced some letters with her tongue, such as the s.

But Then I asked her how she was doing, and she said that she got a new dog. Then I came to a sense that someone else was pretending to be her

because I remember that she told me, that she was allergic to dogs, and she got a really bad rash when she got near one.

So I decided to approach her and ask her who she was and why she was lying about her identity to me. Then she told me that her name was Millie and that she was 25 and was hired to come here, to surprise me, and to act as if she was Martina. But I asked why she was acting like Martina, and she said that she sadly passed away in a car crash a few years ago.

And that Martina's mom hired a person to act like Martina because her only wish was to come and visit me on my 16th birthday. I began to cry on her shoulder and started to wail softly.

But as I cried, I felt the presence of another figure hug me, but then I looked back, and saw no one, meaning that Martina, my friend was trying to comfort me, from heaven.

Since that day, I have written all the things that have happened each day, in a journal, so that Martina could read it, whenever she wanted to, just to inform her what was happening in my life.

thank you for listening to my story.

“Calm down, daughter,” Mom called back. “It’s not the end of the world!”

“Not the end of the world?” I muttered. “She’s so unfair!” All I wanted was to go to Emma’s party. Her house was going to be ablaze with lights, music, and fun. And here I was, stuck at home because Mom thought it was “sinful” to party on a school night.

“Maybe you need to learn some propriety,” Mom had said earlier, like I didn’t already know how to act. Ugh.

I tried to rationalise it. Maybe staying home wasn’t so bad. I had snacks, my phone, and a new show to watch. But nope, my brain was filled with envy, imagining everyone dancing and laughing without me.

I sighed and stared at my wall. My little stuffed penguin sat on the shelf, looking smug. “Don’t judge me,” I told it.

Finally, Mom knocked and opened my door. “You’re not grounded. It’s just one night,” she said with a soft gesture.

“Pardon me, but it’s not just one night. Everyone will remember this party forever,” I said dramatically.

She laughed. “It’s not like missing this is your ticket to perdition, kid.”

“Still,” I muttered, “it feels like such a wasteful way to spend my night.”

Mom shook her head. “Learn to gauge what matters, okay? There’s always another party. Life isn’t about always being there for the penultimate moment.”

Her words kinda made sense, but they still felt annoying. I stared at my luminous phone screen and sighed. Guess tonight was Netflix and snacks after all.

"DAD!" screamed a little girl at the top of her lungs.

Dad came into the room, calm as could be. "What, my angel?" He leaned in. "Can I get you anything?"

"I WANT MOM!" She went from angry to sad in a heartbeat as she stared blankly at her dad. "Where is she?" she whispered.

He hesitated. "Mom is at sea. She's sailing," he corrected himself. "She ate… em… marzipan yesterday."

"She did?" replied the daughter. "Yesterday you said she was studying criminology on the ship. why didn't you tell me she ate marzipan, you know it’s my favourite?"

He scoffed. "You really are smart for a six-year-old."

"You didn't answer my question."

"I forgot," he snapped back, getting defensive. "Ok?"

There was silence.

"Ok," the daughter said, becoming dubious of her dad, but at the end of the day, she was only a six-year-old.

The next day, the daughter went to school and was still wondering about her conversation the day before; staring at the kids with moms who dropped them off with a hint of jealousy or envy in her eyes. 

But in reality, everything was pathetic, even that emotion when she saw the silhouettes of other mothers. She could not help but have her heart feel the loss she had never known. She tried to estimate whether her classmates ever did feel the way she did, but none of them even appeared to notice it.

At lunch, her best friend Emma sat beside her. "You ok?" she asked, noticing just how quiet the little girl was.

"I’m fine," the daughter replied, her lips making a friendly gesture trying to smile. But she wasn't fine. Thoughts of her mother at sea kept floating in her mind.

Later that evening, when she came home, she found her dad sitting at the kitchen table, looking worn-out, a bowl of chips in front of him. She could see his face was pale, as though he hadn't eaten anything healthy in a while, likely a sign of too much cholesterol from stress and bad eating habits. He stared out the window, deep in thought.

"Is Mom back?" she said, trembling all over.

He shook his head, a glint of guilt sidling its way across the planes of his face. "Nah, sweetie, not yet. She's still out."

His daughter frowned. Her sixth sense was telling her something wasn't quite right here, even if the details of such weren't exactly sure yet. In many ways, despite the bond between her and her dad, she didn't believe much that was going down with their situation.

The phone suddenly rang. Her father's face turned serious as he reached to answer. He had spoken very hushed-a little below his usual normal-so what was really faint from reaching her ears: "seven missing. the chamber of the ship. search. not certain".

As soon as he placed the phone down, the girl sensed the feeling: this meant seriously disturbing news.

"Why didn't you tell me the truth, Dad?" she asked softly, her voice firm but full of emotion.

He sighed, pardon in his heart for the lie he had told her. "I wanted to save you from the fear," he whispered, a sinful look coming on his face. "But I think it's time you knew."

Her heart sank, as there was more to the story, something far darker: the missing people at sea, the strangeness surrounding it, her mother's involvement. The truth was closer than she thought.

No one could know the gauge of the things that were about to happen. This was an anomaly, something no one could picture. But now they have no choice, they are enslaved, they must find the ship, this isn’t a hyperbole.

“WAKE UP, THEY DROPPED MUSTARD GAS IN THE TRENCH” My eyes grow wide as a smell invades my nose as I reach for my gas mask. I put it on just in time as my bunkmate does the same. We trudge through the trench as my comrades choke out. My boots are stained with mud and blood as the relentless shellings make my ears ring. We searched the captain's quarters as he lay on the floor with a gas mask, unconscious but alive. We shake him awake and he tells us of a convoy travelling at noon next morning with food and water. It would be our only chance of escape. We leave the small bunker and move forward with our standard luger pistol in hand as we hear a faint uproar. The thick, foggy glass of the captain's gas mask barely shows his gastly expression as it sets in. The Germans were doing a trench raid.

I grab a fallen soldier's Lee-Enfield rifle and aim down sight to see a horde of men charging down no man's land to take our trench. My hands give way and my rifle falls to the ground as I blankly stare at the approaching germans.

I could stay up here all day. There would have been everything you wanted. Beautiful view, you got it! Eat and drink, you got it! Games, you got it! Anything you asked for you would get. That is the best thing about this place. It’s called: All you want! This tree is located in Switzerland and it is a one of a kind. You might encounter a problem though. Unfortunately, there is a limit to what you can ask. If you ask more than the limit, the tree would set ablaze! This could have been a ghoulsih mistake. So, after hearing that I live right next to the tree i went to try it. It was amazing, I then let my sister try, my mum, my dad, my friends daughter and even my penguin all enjoyed it. I went back the next morning but I was too excited and asked for too many things and lets just say the tree became really hot. I was extremely scared and could see the flames engulf me and slay my penguin. That's when I woke up to a bad dream and I thought I was in paradise because my proprietary had exploded. But luckily, it didn’t! I went to my mum and told her the whole story. Pardon me for the fright I gave you.

I could stay up here all day. There would have been everything you wanted. Beautiful view, you got it! Eat and drink, you got it! Games, you got it! Anything you asked for you would get. That is the best thing about this place. It’s called: All you want! This tree is located in Switzerland and it is a one-of-a-kind. You might encounter a problem though. Unfortunately, there is a limit to what you can ask. If you ask more than the limit, the tree would set ablaze! This could have been a ghoulish mistake. So, after hearing that I live right next to the tree I went to try it. It was amazing, I then let my sister try, my mum, my dad, my friend's daughter and even my penguin all enjoyed it. I went back the next morning but I was too excited and asked for too many things and let's just say the tree became really hot. I was extremely scared and could see the flames ablaze, engulfing me and slay my penguin The whole sky was now luminous. That's when I woke up to a bad dream and I thought I was in paradise because my proprietary had exploded. But luckily, it didn’t! I went to my mum and told her the whole story. Pardon me for the fright I gave you.

“Come and have some snacks, I made some marzipan for the both of us!” called the mother from downstairs. “Coming” responded the daughter. Sophia stopped drawing and went downstairs to the dining room. Her mother was sitting down on a chair and was already eating some of the cake. Sophia sat down with her. Sophia said “is your sister still studying criminology?” The mother replied “Yes she is”. Sophia started eating some of the cake that her mother had given her from a separate plate. Her mother looked at her and said “Sophia you look very ghoulish, are you feeling okay?” Sophia responded “not really i am feeling very weak.” At that moment Sophia collapsed to the floor. Her mother slowly walked towards her and with a small gesture with her hand she called someone into the room. 

She picked her up and started taking her downstairs to the basement. Then she gave Sophia to the person. “Ensure  you lock the door after you put it here in the chamber, this sleeping pill does not last long” The person nodded and dragged Sophia into a hidden door that led into a chamber  with a bed, a toilet, a shower and a table with a paper and a pen on it. A few minutes later Sophia woke up with some confusion of where she was. Then she remembered what had happened, her fainting and some person taking her to the basement. She started  screaming her mothers name, for her to let her out. After an hour she finally gave up. She sat down at the desk and started pretending to write a letter with great rhapsodising to her best friend Mia. Upstairs her mother was sitting on the couch showing some senile. Sophie was reading some formative books that her mother had left her in the chamber. She was also reading some story books and feeling rapturous. Suddenly in the middle of one of her stories, the door of the chamber opened. She ran towards the door and saw her mother standing in front of it. “ Why did you lock me in here, what are you going to do?” asked Sophie. Her mother replied “ nothing you are just going to stay here forever, i will give you food and water but you will never come out.”

Sophie’s eyes filled with shock, then she started thinking of a plan of how to get out of the chamber and the house. Sophie started doing a thespian performance, of her holding her neck, choking and falling to the floor. Her mother ran towards her with fear. Sophie quickly jumped up and ran out the door of the chamber and flew out of the house before her mother could catch her. She continued running, making sure her mother was not following her. She spotted a police station and quickened her pace as she ran towards it. As she ran in  she stopped running, it took her a few seconds to regain her breath. She then waited for the next available police. She was then called to the  penultimate stall in the station. She explained everything that had happened to the police officer. She then saw her mother walking into the police officer and looking around for her. She told the police officer “ that’s my mother, she tried to lock me in a chamber in our basement.” The police officer went over to her mother with handcuffs, and told her “ You are under arrest for presumed imprisonment of her own daughter, you will both be taken to court and we will see if you are guilty or not.” The mother looked at her with calm eyes but there was a bit of fear in them as well. She told the police officer “ I am sorry to disturb you but my daughter was going crazy and I had to lock her in there, I was scared she was going to hurt me.” the police officer then responded “well i have two very different stories you will both have to go to court and rationalise your innocence.”

The next day the daughter and her mother were taken to court. The daughter told the judges everything that had happened and also told them that there was a man that had also helped her mother lock her in the chamber. The judge then listened to the mother’s side of the story, which was the false one and was the one that her mother had made up and said that the man had helped control the daughter. The judge then asked the mother “We would like to ask the man who helped you with your daughter to tell us what actually happened. The mother then said “ okay I will call him now”. She called him and the man arrived at the court. The judge asked him “ What did you help her with (the judge pointed at the mother), if you tell the truth then you will not be charged and you will also be paid 1000 euro. But if you lie, and we find out then you will go to jail for the rest of your life. The man said “ I helped bring the daughter to the chamber because her mother had asked me to, the daughter was not out of control, her mother had given her a sleeping pill and was planning on trapping her there for the rest of her life, but then she escaped. 

The judge then looked over to the mother who was wearing a scared and shocked expression on her face.  The judge sentenced her to spend her whole life in jail and the daughter would be given for adoption.