Excerpt:

One day there was a young girl who wanted to be somewhere, or even someone else. She spent all of her time day dreaming but there was not one particular thing she dreamed of doing or being. Her imagination was wild, creating new personalities and new places to live constantly.

Today, it was October 31st, Halloween, so appropriately enough for the occasion, she dreamed of being a witch, a witch with psychic and healing abilities.

“Pay attention Claire!” shouted her English teacher. Claire blinked, her drifting must have been obvious. “Sorry Miss. Webb.” she replied, warily, this happened all too often. Her school reports were full of the same remark from different teachers. “Claire often seems to be in her own dream world.”

Claire was sure one day that she would show them all, she was certain she was destined to be something amazing, and not end up in a boring nine to five job stacking shelves, that was for losers. There was no way she was a loser. Her parents told her off for this all the time, they told her she should have more realistic expectations in life and that she would have to earn money for herself somehow one day, no matter how menial the job might have to be. “Amazing opportunities do not just fall into your lap.” They would say. “It takes a lot of hard work and graft for people to be successful.” Chloe did not believe them at all, she knew she had star quality, she just had to discover exactly what it was she had star quality in.

The bell rang and the English class was over, it was time to go home. As Claire was walking home, a group of girls who did not normally talk to her, walked over to her and stopped her. They were not bullies or anything like that, or even the spoilt popular girls, but they were a bit different. They always seemed to dress in black, and were always dying their hair wild colours. Claire was not sure if they were meant to be goths or emos, she did not really not what the difference was meant to be.

“Yeah?” she asked casually to the black clothed group, wondering what they could want. “It is OK, no need to be defensive.” said the apparent leader of the group, a girl called Sasha. “We just wanted to invite you to a Halloween party tonight.” “Really?” asked Claire, a little suspiciously. Why would these girls that had never spoken to her before suddenly want to invite her to a Halloween party? “Yeah really. We have not really spoken before, so we thought it would be a good opportunity to get to know each other at last.” Sasha said, she sounded genuine. “Okay, well I suppose I could make an appearance at this party.” Claire replied, it was not like she had any plans for the evening anyway. She did not really have any friends, as far as she was concerned friends could prevent her mission in life. “Okay great.” Sasha said, “Remember to dress up and we will see you tonight.” she quickly scribbled on a bit of paper and handed it to Claire. “Here is the address of where the party is. See you later Claire.” and the black clothed brigade of girls went on their way.

Claire tried to think if she had anything she could wear for the Halloween fancy dress party that night. She did not think she did, but had no money on her, so would have to go home first and ask her mum to give her some money.

Claire did not live that far from her school, so ten minutes later, she was turning her key in the front door. “Hi mum.” she called out. Her mum was in the kitchen, preparing dinner. “Hi dear.” her mum replied. “Mum I need some money please?” asked Claire, coming into the kitchen doorway. “Is that how you greet your mother these days, with demands for money? What do you need it for?” her mother asked her. “I have been invited to a Halloween party tonight. I need to buy a fancy dress costume.” Claire explained. Claire's mum looked surprised. “Who invited you? I have never known you to be invited to any kind of party before.” “I know.” Claire said, a little annoyed. “Some girls at my school asked me on the way home, maybe they need to make up the numbers or something.” “Do not be so paranoid Claire, perhaps they want to be your friends.” Claire's mum replied and looked in her purse that was sitting on the kitchen table. She pulled out a crisp £5 note. “Go on, pop to the shops before they shut, you can have your dinner when you get back.” “Thank you mum.” Claire said and gave her mum a kiss on the cheek. “See you in a bit.”

Claire set off out to the high street, which was only five minutes away. She had a look in a couple of card shops which had their Halloween displays out, but she was not that impressed. She wanted to look good. It would have to be a costume from a proper fancy dress shop. She walked further up the high street to where the only fancy dress shop was. She had often walked past it and admired the displays in the window but had never actually been inside of it. The shop had an interesting name, “Your Secret Identity”. The shop name really appealed to Claire's imagination. She opened the door and it made an eerie creaking sound. “Cool!” Claire thought, they had obviously made a lot of effort to do the shop up for Halloween. She felt something slide across her head. They had put up fake cob webs and mus have had a wind machine some where as they were swinging around a bit and it was rather chilly in the shop despite it being full of people obviously doing last minute Halloween preparation as well.

Claire started to rummage through the racks and racks of costumes. She did not think it was possible to have so many different fancy dress costumes, but this shop really did, they had any fancy dress costume you could possibly think of and more. As amazing as the costumes were, they were all too expensive for Claire, most of them were at least £20, so her £5 was never going to be enough for these fancy dress costumes.

Just as she was about to give up and walk back out of the door, Claire realised the shop was even bigger than she thought. There was like a hall way that led to some where else in the shop. She did not really see anyone going over there, but she figured people did not realise it was there or they all had more money than her so were finding the task of finding a fancy dress costume a lot easier than she was.

This did not deter the determined Claire in the slightest, she would find a suitable fancy dress costume she could afford! She walked over the short distance across the shop to the hallway like area. As she got closer, it made her feel a little strange, but she could not understand why, so chose to ignore it rather than try to question it. The hallway turned out to be a lot longer than she thought it was. She started to hope it was actually part of the shop. But then again, it was wide open with no signs so anyone could just walk through it at any time.

Claire looked at her pink digital watch, it was getting late, her mum would probably be wondering where she was. She stopped for a moment and pulled her mobile phone out of her pocket. She was going to send her mum a text but there was no reception on her phone. “Strange.” she commented to herself and shrugged, and just put the mobile phone back in her pocket, she was sure she would not be much longer. She hummed to herself as she carried on walking down the long hallway, surely it must end soon? There were gold framed photographs on the wall, she figured they were people dressed in fancy dress costumes from the shop, there was certainly something eerie about them though. It was almost like they were watching her. But Claire was no scaredy cat and was sure it was just her crazy imagination running wild again.

“I would not be too sure about that little girl..” A creepy male voice said from out of nowhere. Claire looked about but could not figure out where the creepy male voice was coming from. Inside, she felt a bit scared, it was like he had known what she was thinking, but there was no way she would admit she was feeling scared, so she did her best not to show her true feelings in her body language on in her voice, instead aiming for a cocky, confident air.

“I am not your little girl.” she replied indigently, and then asked, “Does this hallway ever actually end? I just want to find a cheaper fancy dress costume than what is out there?” She waited for a reply from the creepy male voice but none appeared to be coming so she carried on walking down this really long hallway in the fancy dress shop. “I know you are scared, there is no point trying to pretend you are not scared.” said the creepy male voice, appearing once again. Just as Claire was about to open her mouth to say something, a blood curdling scream came out instead. The reason for the blood curdling scream was because she must have blinked for just a moment, and as she had opened her eyes, there were two yellow eyes staring right back at her, right at face level. “I knew you were scared.” The creepy male voice said as the strange yellow eyes moved away from Claire's face. The voice belonged to the face with the yellow eyes. It turned out to be a tall man who was dressed like a stereotypical vampire, with a long black cape and an old fashioned ruffled white shirt and black trousers. “I am not scared!” declared Claire, not exactly convincingly, there was a slight tremble in her voice as she had said it. “Now you have decided to show yourself, can you please tell me if there are some cheaper costumes down this long hallway or am I just wasting my time?” She was sure that the apparent vampire in front of her was just a member of staff in fancy dress, after all they did sell coloured contact lenses as well. “I think you would be surprised...err surprised at our other range of costumes, at a budget price for nice young ladies like yourself.” he said and put an arm around her shoulder. “Come this way.” he said and Claire shivered, his arm felt freezing.

They walked a little further and finally came to the end of the long hallway, where three doors in a row were. The vampire like man let go of Claire and stepped back. “Well which door do I need to go through then?” Claire asked with curiosity, it seemed rather odd for a shop, and there was no indication whatsoever of what lied behind each individual door. “I am sure you will find what you are looking for, whatever choice you decide to make.” the vampire man said and smiled, showing his fangs, then promptly seemed to disappear into thin air just as quickly as he had arrived. “Okay...” Claire said out loud, for such a simple task, this was turning out to be the weirdest thing that had ever happened to her!

She looked again at her pink digital watch on her wrist. There was now nothing on the screen. She undid the strap from her wrist and gave it a shake. Still the screen was blank, the battery must have died on her. Claire started to think she might as well as give up and just go home, her mum would probably be going bonkers with worry and at this rate she would be late for the fancy dress Halloween party as well. Claire turned around, ready to walk away, but all there was behind her was a brick wall. “What the Hell?” she yelped. She would have no choice but to go through one of the three closed doors in front of her. She hesitated, she hoped there was another way out of the shop once she went through one of the three doors. She looked at each door individually, desperately hoping they would all ultimately lead her to another part of the shop and she could just get herself out of there. But considering how things were going so far, anything could be behind those three doors! She put her ear to each door in turn to try and get a hint of what was behind, but there was no audible sounds at all. “You must make a choice!” a loud voice boomed out as if it were coming from a nearby speaker, although Claire could not see any speakers anywhere at all. She took a deep breath and walked through the first of the three doors.

While Claire had been searching a fancy dress shop in England, across the sea in the USA, it had been another typical day for Zoe. Slightly older than Claire, Zoe was at college. She studied modern art, but was realistic enough to think she probably would find art difficult to make a reasonable living out of, so she also had a part time job in a local supermarket.

The bell rang for lunch time, so Claire picked up her bag and made her way outside to grab some food to eat for lunch. Her cell phone rang, it was her best friend Christine. “Hi Chris, what's up?” she said as she picked up the phone. “Oh not much.” Christine replied on the other end of the line. “Are you lunching?” she asked Zoe. “I certainly am.” she replied. “That is great! Meet me on the corner of Brooklyn street, I noticed earlier today there is a new coffee house down there, we should go and check it out.” “Sure, sounds totally awesome. I will be there in five minutes.” Zoe replied and put the phone down and back into her shoulder bag. She had not been down Brooklyn street for a long time, but there was not an awful lot down there to do. Perhaps that was the reason why they had put a new coffee house down there, to attract students from the local college, drinking coffee was one of their favourite activities after all, or at least for most of the students Zoe knew anyway.

Zoe walked the five minutes or so to Brooklyn street and found Christine already standing there waiting for her to arrive. “Hey!” she said and they gave each other a hug. “Lets go get some good coffee!” The two girls walked down the road, until they got to the newly opened coffee house. It was not very big, but looked cosy inside. It was called, “A Taste of Another World.” “Some name huh?” Christine commented, “it sure better be some good coffee they have got in there!” “I have just got to go to the ladies room.” Zoe said to Christine, looking in her purse for some change, “I will have a tall latte with vanilla syrup please, I will be back in a jiffy.” and Zoe walked towards where the arrow on the wall saying “Ladies” was.

It was very strange, because even though the new coffee house looked small from the outside, it seemed a lot bigger once you got inside, a bit like Dr. Who's tardis if you can imagine that in coffee house form. It seemed to be an awful long walk to the ladies toilets in the coffee house, but Zoe was fairly positive she had followed the arrow on the wall correctly. “Hello?” she called out, expecting someone to answer, but no answer was forthcoming. She went to turn back around, but she was stopped in her tracks. “Where do you think you are going?” A female asked rather aggressively, Zoe thought, but she decided to ignore it thinking the woman could be a member of staff who could help her. “I am just trying to find the ladies room, am I going in the right direction? The arrow was way back there somewhere so I thought maybe I missed it.” There was something strange about the woman, it was almost like she had an eerie red glint in her eyes that almost seemed to burn into your soul.

“Yes, yes of course you are going in the right direction, I will show you the way as it can be a bit confusing.” The strange woman said and started to lead Zoe further forward. Zoe followed the strange woman further down and around several corners until they got to a dead end. At the dead end, there were three doors in a row, but no indication whatsoever of what lied behind them. “So, which one is the ladies then? There is no sign..” Zoe asked, but the strange woman with the red eyes seemed to have disappeared completely without Zoe even seeing her leave. She turned around to see if she was behind her, but now all that was behind was a brick wall and no way out. She was going to have to go through one of the three doors anyway. Zoe freaked out by the disappearance of the strange red eyed woman and the way out, ran as quick as she could through the second door without stopping for even a second to think about it, or even checking what lied behind each of the three doors.

Elsewhere in the world, in Portugal, another girl was having a pretty average day. She had finished work for the day, so she was winding down by relaxing on the beach. She spent all day in an office, surrounded by busy people, so it was nice just to go to the beach on her own for a bit and just forget about the stress and worries of the day. With her long blonde hair and dazzling blue eyes, Sandy was never short of attention. In fact, at that moment she could feel some ones eyes looking at her as she relaxed on the beautiful beach. A silky smooth male voice said to her, “Hi there.” Sandy lifted her sunglasses from her eyes, a rather handsome guy was standing in front of her. His eyes seemed to sparkle in an almost supernatural way. But she was not interested in talking to him right now. “Do you mind, I am trying to relax in peace.” she said to the handsome guy. “Are you always this rude?” he asked, a little hurt. “I just wanted to ask you if you knew where the nearest cash point is?” “Oh sorry..” Sandy said, a little embarrassed at herself. “There is a cash point not too far away from here at all. I will walk you over there to make up for my rudeness,” and she started to get up from her spot on the beach. “Oh thank you so much.” The handsome stranger replied. Sandy started to lead the way to the cash point which was a few minutes away just down the road from where they were.

“Here you go, a cash point.” she said, and pointed towards the cash point. The man smiled and all of a sudden Sandy was no longer in front of the cash point with him but standing somewhere indoors with three closed doors in front of her. “What the hell!” she yelled, but there was no one there to yell to. She had no idea where she was, how she had got there or what lied behind any of the three closed doors. She froze with fright. A loud voice boomed out seemingly from nowhere, “Pick a door or never go back..” So Sandy shook herself out of it and walked through the third door.

The bolshy English schoolgirl Claire had opened the first door. As soon as she had walked through it, the door had disappeared into thin air. Claire had started to think she was dreaming, the last few hours had just been too weird to be real life. The only thing was, she could not seem to wake up and escape this weird dream. She looked in front of her to see what she had walked into, it looked like some sort of television studio. There was bright lights and lots of cameras lined up, perhaps the dream was not so bad after all!

Claire moved towards the lights and cameras, she would be a TV star, well in her dreams at least! There turned out to be lots of people waiting around in the studio, of all ages and backgrounds by the looks of it. Exploring the studio further, Claire felt herself getting more and more excited as she started to recognise faces and the sets. She had begun to recognise the set. She was on the set of The X Factor and Simon Cowell was only a few feet away from her! Claire gave herself a hard pinch. “Ow!” she cried and several people looked disdainfully in her direction. She had only done it to herself to try and see again if she was dreaming. She had really felt it, it was painful, so it seemed that perhaps it was not a dream and actually somehow real...Claire got a little thrill, perhaps her destiny really had fell in her lap! Her mother had been wrong all along, she did not need some boring nine to five job after all!

The American girl Zoe had gone through the second door in the new coffee house down Brooklyn Street so what lied in store for her? One thing was for sure, she certainly had not walked into a ladies room. In fact, she was definitely not in the new coffee house down Brooklyn street at all. She was not even indoors, she was outside in the fresh open air with a cool breeze blowing on her face. Zoe seemed to be in a forest. “What the Hell!” she exclaimed, looking around at the tall trees around her, wondering how she had gone from some new coffee house in Brooklyn street to some sort of a forest in less than a minute.

Zoe dug in her shoulder bag for her cell phone. Christine had surely tried to phone her by now, wondering where she had gone. But when she looked at her phone, it was switched off. “That is weird.” she said to herself and tried to switch the cell phone on, but it would not switch on no matter how hard she pressed the button. “Damn it!” she said annoyed, and threw the cell phone down onto the hard ground.

She had no idea where she was and had no way of getting in touch with anyone, at least until she found other people here in the forest, so she tried to calm herself down and take a walk through the forest she had somehow got to. The strange thing about it was that Zoe had always wanted to visit a forest, she lived in a busy American city that never slept, and had never been to anywhere like this before, where the leaves on the trees seemed to glisten and you could hear nothing but bird song. She might as well enjoy it while she was here, no matter how unexpected and weird it was.

Meanwhile, the blonde girl who lived in Portugal, Sandy, had gone through the third closed door which had materialised from nowhere when she had shown the handsome stranger where the cash point was near the beach. But where had she ended up? Claire in England had somehow walked into the X Factor T.V studio, Zoe in America had ended up in a lush forest, so what was through Sandy's door in Portugal?

Sandy had walked through the door into an office building, it was not her work though, she did not recognise this place at all. It looked like a manager's office, there were no other people present in this room and there was a very large desk with a chair and rather posh looking computer. Sandy looked on the desk in front of her, there was a little sign on there with a name printed on it. On closer inspection, Sandy realised it was in fact, her name! Sandy had to look at the printed sign again to make sure, but it definitely did have her name printed on the little sign.

Sandy decided to look further into this strange office. She opened the door of this room and it led into a bigger open office that was full of busy people using computers, typing away.