It’s Friday afternoon, and Amber and Drake were hanging out at Amber’s house talking. As Drake was watching TV, Amber was going through the internet. Suddenly, she came across a website…untolduptown.com. Amber tilted her head and raised her eyebrows.
“What is this?” she asked. She clicked on the link, and the home page showed up. “What this? Never heard of this.”
Amber scrolled through the page and thought nothing of it, but this bright blue light appeared as she looked away. Amber’s eyes widened as she saw Drake glowing white. “Drake! Why are you glowing white?”
Drake smirked. “What are you talking about, Amber? Are you daydreaming again?”
Amber got up and walked toward Drake, and once she placed a hand on his shoulder, a message appeared on the computer screen.
“Discover the untold stories of the Uptown.”
That’s when the white light glowed brighter on Drake and Amber. Amber realized they were both turning into static, and then they were zapped into the website.
Silence……
Drake groaned, placing a hand on his head. “Whoa, what happened?” As he sat up, he noticed Amber standing nearby. “Amber? What happened?”
Amber ran over and helped him up. “I don’t know,” she said. “There was this weird light on us, then we turned into static, and now I think we’re in the website I was looking at.”
Drake gave Amber a weird look before looking around. “Okay…so then how do we escape?”
Amber shook her head and shrugged. “I have no idea.”
Drake’s eyes then widened as he pointed behind Amber. Amber turned around just in time to see blue static forming into a person. Then a woman appeared with glasses and her hair in a ponytail. They both approached the woman and calmly asked, “Who are you?”
“Hello, my name is Dorkys, and welcome to the Uptown.”
Amber and Drake looked at each other with confusion, and then at Dorkys. “What do you mean? What are you talking about?”
Dorkys smiled and walked away. “Well, you two, you have a lot to learn about this place. I suggest you start exploring our world.” As Dorkys started walking, letters from the page began moving towards her to form a set of stairs. Dorkys started walking up those stairs, which began glowing the same color as she, blue. Amber and Drake tried to follow her, but as they stepped onto the first letter, a domino effect took hold and each letter began falling away one by one. As this was happening, Dorkys reached the top and then disappeared into that blue static.
“Now what?” Drake asked. “The only person who can give us answers is now gone.”
“I don’t know,” Amber said. “We need a way to get out of here, but the question is how?”
“Well, we can’t just stand here and do nothing. Let’s follow her!” Drake began climbing the sentence and with each letter he grabbed, the sentence started to slowly fade. Amber followed him, and once they were at the top, they looked around to see where to go next.
Then….
“Hey, over here!” a voice said.
Drake and Amber looked around. “Who said that?”
Amber looked up and noticed a hand pop out of one of the categories.
“Hey, I can help?” the voice asked. “You can follow me.”
Amber started walking toward the voice, but Drake grabbed her hand. “Hold on! How do we know if we can trust the person?”
Amber swapped her hand away. “Look, we have no other choice. Now come on.” Then, Amber climbed into the category and disappeared. Drake sighed and followed her in.
Once they were through, their eyes widened as they saw a bunch of stories. Drake took a good look around. “So where is the voice that led us here?”
As soon as he spoke those words, a pink static appeared in front of them. “Hi, what’s up?” it asked. “You two seem lost.”
“Yeah, we are,” Amber replied. “We got transported here.”
The voice giggled, “There is a reason for that.”
“And that is…?” Drake asked.
The voice opened her mouth, but immediately closed it. “I’m not going to tell you!”
“And why is that?” Amber asked.
“Because then you will understand the purpose of this place.”
Drake and Amber looked at each other confused, and then back at the voice. “What do you mean?” Drake asked.
The voice giggled again. “Look around to see if there’s anything odd here. Goodbye!” And then the voice disappeared.
Sigh, “come on, Drake. Let’s look around. Maybe it will give us a clue as to what she meant.”
As they climb down, Amber stopped at one of the stories and Drake checked out another. Each story was glowing. They looked at each other and nodded as they both hopped into their stories.
When they landed, Amber went face-first onto a controller. “Ow!! Damn that hurt! Hey, it’s a game controller.” Amber look down to notice a few of the sentences in this article. There were different colors, including green, red, blue, and yellow…colors you would see on a game controller. As she crouched down to get a closer look, she noticed one letter in each paragraph that wasn’t in color like the rest. Once she reached the bottom of the page, she noticed that those letters spelled something.
“S…h…a…r…e…Share!” she said. “But share what? What does that mean?”
That’s when a familiar voice spoke, “Hey there, you figured out the clue. Nice job! Let’s see if your friend can guess his clue.”
Meanwhile, when entering his article, Drake fell into a painting and got covered in paint from head to toe. When removing the paint off him, it got into the paragraph, which made it hard to read.
“Hey! You’re ruining my article and that is not cool!” said a different voice.
As orange static in the form of a person appeared, Drake defended himself. “Hey, don’t blame me! I got dumped into the paint.”
The voice giggled. “Alright, that’s fine. I guess you’re here to figure out the secret of our home.”
Drake nodded. “Can you at least give me a hint?”
“Sure. The hint I can give is the location of these stories.”
Drake raised his eyebrow. “Alright,” he said. Then, he noticed some of the paragraphs were in the shape of something. He took a closer look at each one. The first one was a pizza, the second was a very tall building, and the third was multiple lines of specific transportation. Unfortunately, the paint covered this last clue. After discovering these clues, Drake looked around to notice the person disappeared, but not before leaving a message: “We all have a story to share.”
After finding their clues, a white door appeared for both Drake and Amber. Then they both walked through the door and met up. They smiled as they saw each other.
“Drake, you’re okay!”
“Yeah, I’m okay,” he replied.
“Did you find anything?” Amber asked. “I found a clue.”
“I did, too. There were three images.”
“Alright,” Amber said. “Mine were five letters that spelled share.”
“Great,” Drake said. “I think we need to find more clues before we start solving the mystery.”
Amber nodded. “I agree. Now, where do we go next?”
Amber noticed a picture of a brain with the world’s mental health so she grabbed Drake’s hand and headed there. They worked through the images. Once through, they noticed that this story wasn’t as long as the others, but noticed the young adult’s color. That’s when a purple static appears. “Hello,” it said. “I see you found my story.”
“Okay, so what’s with your story?” Drake asked. “How does it connect to the others?”
The purple static pointed to the image of people of color. “Our story is for people like them to have a voice.”
Amber looked at the picture and said, “Alright, thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” replied the purple static. “You’re almost there in figuring out our secret.”
Drake smiled and thanked the purple static, but as he and Amber began to leave, something grabbed their hand, and took them away. Both screamed for help until they noticed the static. This static color was light blue so they relaxed. Once they were put down, another static appeared in black. “Art is a form of expression that means a lot to the people of our home and us,” the two static lights said. They then returned Amber and Drake back to the central hub of the site.
Once they were returned to the hub, Drake noticed and pointed to an image with a fist and the word “rights” on it. They looked at each other. They walked through the image and once they were through, they felt something was odd. They looked down and saw nothing. Suddenly, they began falling, screaming, and trying to do anything to get help.
Two more static people appeared in red and yellow lights, and they grabbed Amber and Drake before they reached the bottom. Both static lights brought them back to where they were.
“What happened?” Amber asked. “Why is it blank?”
“Because we haven’t told our story,” the red static said.
Drake crossed his arms. “So now what?”
The yellow static began to explain. “The clues we can give is that our story gives voice to young people like us.”
The red one continued, “Have you two figure it out? Look at all your clues…” And then they disappeared.
Drake and Amber looked at each other as they returned to the central hub.
“Let’s look at the clues we have,” Amber said.
“Right. Well, I got the image of a pizza, a tall building, and transportation that is accessible in all parts of the area,” Drake said.
“We also know that these stories give a voice to young people like us,” Amber added. “Also, two of them said our story is for people like them to have a voice.”
“Yeah, and the other two said art is a form of expression that means a lot to the people of our home and us. Alright, so what does all this mean?”
Amber eyes widened. “Wait a minute! I think they’re referring to New York! And they are the youth! And they are sharing stories that people like them want and should hear, which connects them to each other. This place is for the young minority that live in New York to have their two cents be heard and shared by others!”
As Amber said this, the eight static people appeared around them. “Good job,” they said. “You figure out. Now please share what you learn, so more people know about us.”
Drake and Amber nodded and smiled. “We will,” they said.
Then the static people revealed a door for Drake and Amber to walk through. And then, the statics disappeared.
Amber and Drake appeared back in Amber’s room. They looked at each other before noticing a message on the computer screen.
“Share your story and let your voice be heard.”
They then began to call everyone they know to tell them what happened and lead them all to this site, a place where everyone can share their stories.
Untold Uptown 