Allie, Nick and Lief reached the abandoned pickle factory, just like Skully said. The first thing that they noticed was that there were many things that the Haunter had taken from the living world, including gormet food. There, they met the Haunter and asked him to teach them how to influence the living world. The Haunter gave them a test: to pick up a stone that was from the living world. Of course, because they were afterlights, Nick and Lief both failed to pick up the stone. The Haunter then said that he can't teach, you only have the skill or you don't. When Nick and Lief failed to move the stone, the Haunter's goons grabed them and nailed them into barrels of pickled juice. This horrified Allie, and she was told to move the stone. She nearly failed, but she managed to shift it a tiny bit. As a reward, the Haunter threw her out of the pickle factory, telling her to come back when she was ready to learn. However, Allie only thought of rescuing her friends. She returned to Mary and tried to ask her for help. However, Mary refused, saying she wouldn't risk any other children in a rescue mission. Allie, furious, left the World Trade Center, determined never to go back. Shortly thereafter, Allie learned that she in fact did have a skill: She could do something called Body Surfing: she could read the minds of and even influence real-world people. However, she still needed allies, so she when to the only other people she knew: Johnnie-O's gang. Johnnie-O was skeptical at first, but he finally decided to help Allie when she told him about the food in the Haunter's hideout. They staged an attack on the Haunter's hideout but they were in for a surprise: The place was deserted, except for one single barrel and all the food. The gang fell upon the food immedietly, but Allie focused on the barrel. After a bit of investigation, Allie found that the Haunter was the one trapped in the barrel. He said that the McGill had raided his hideout and that he took everything to his ship in the harbor. He begged to be let out, but Allie wouldn't allow it. She asked the gang to help track down the McGill, but they wouldn't risk it. So Allie left them and headed towards the harbor. Meanwhile, Nick and Lief were chilling in their barrels, which had now been seized by the McGill. Lief had adapted pretty well to his new situation: he had attained some state of Nirvana. Nick however, was miserable. On his ship, the McGill was openning his barrels one by one. Only three of them were filled: Nick, Lief and a kid who never stopped screaming. The McGill decided to have them all chimed, and Nick is very apprehensive.

If I were an afterlight, or Allie, and I had to rescue, my friends, it would have been in a similar manner that Allie did. I would have gone back to ask Mary for help, and when she refused, I'd have too been furious. However, I wouldn't just leave. I would have stuck around for a while and tried to absorb any other useful information from the gathering of afterlights in the Global Trade Center. Once I did that, I'd have left to go find help elsewhere.

Everlost chapters 6-10 2nd Post

Allie and Nick are now on the road and learning fast about this strange new world. For example, even though they don't need to, the two kids want to rest and sleep. But finding a safe place to lie down where you won't sink into the ground was difficult. The only places where they can do so are places they call "dead spots", a place where someone in the living world had died. There, they could rest on the ground as long as they pleased. After three uneventful days of traveling, Nick and Allie got jumped by a gang. Their leader, Johnnie-O, claimed that Allie and Nick had crossed into his territory and he wanted payment. They searched Nick and Allie's pockets and they only thing that they came up with was Nick's piece of gum, which they took. However, they took an instant disliking to Allie and tried to push her into the gound, to sink her under the ground. However, just before they succeeded, Johnnie-O and his friends took off after hearing the scream of the McGill. However, it was really Lief who had fooled them into running away. Lief had left his forest to join them in their journey. He and Nick pulled Allie back out and together, they kept moving, keeping a lookout for Johnnie-O's gang. But they never saw them again. They kept moving on, and finally they reached New York. However, it was a sort of patchwork. For one thing, there were ice age glaciers around it and the two towers of the World Trade Center were still standing. They entered NYC and found a sort of community of Everlost kids, the one that Mary runs. She invited the three travalers to stay with them in their community and they accept, at least for a while. While they stay there, they learn a lot about Everlost, since Mary wrote so many books about it. Nick has become very attached to Mary (to the extream displeasure of Mary's companion Vari) and Lief to a Pac-Man arcade machine. However, Allie thinks that there's something wrong and she turns out to be right. While she's observing everything that is happening around the community, she realizes that the same exact thing happens every day. For example in the kick ball game out in the courtyard every day, the same team always loses seven to nine. Allie is afraid that she too will become part of the endless loop of life in Everlost if she doens't try to fight it. Nick and Lief have started to sink into this routine too, but Allie hatches a plan. Always in the mindframe of finding a way out of Everlost, she asks around and a kind named Skully who tells her that a kid who lives in a pickle factory a ways away can teach her what she wants to know. So, Allie grabs Lief and Nick and leaves the community to go find this kid. However, they don't know that Skully had sent them away because Vari, hating how Mary gave Nick attention, bribed him with food to send them away.

If I were a child who had been trapped in Everlost, I would have the exact same mindset as Allie. I would be questioning everything, especially the new weird laws of physics that cause the kids to do the exact same thing day after day. However, I may not have been so eager to leave Mary's community so fast. I would have wondered why Skully was willing to help me and find out what's up. Also, I would loath to leave a pac-man arcade machine that let you play free of charge. In the situation with Johnnie-O, I'd have run for it. Kids acting so hostile would do me no good, so I'd just bull through them and run for it. However, I can understand why Nick and Allie felt obliged to help each other out, and not run away individualy when they had the chance. They were a team. I'd have also been happy to have Lief come along: anyone with experience in this world would be very helpful. Finally, I wouldn't have gotten close to Mary the way Nick did. I would be very careful with how I interacted with other kids in Everlost. Overall, I would be very careful and calculating, using every opportunity to learn something.

Everlost ch. 1-5

Everlost is about a girl named Allie and a boy named Nick. While on their way to a wedding, the driver crashes and everyone in the car is killed... sort of. When Allie and Nick awake, they find that they are in a forest. Shortly afterwards, they meet a boy who tells them that they are in a realm called Everlost, a sort of dimension between life and death, where children in the living world who have died sometimes arrive, instead going on to where people usually go when they die. The boy, whom Allie and Nick decide to call Lief because he couldn't remember his old, living name, became a sort of guide for the two new arrivals. It turns out that Everlost has it's own rules of physics. For example, breathing is not required, you cannot feel pain, and if you stand too long in one spot, you sink into the ground, never to be seen again. Also, a monster known as the McGill is always trying to attack children in Everlost. Finally, it is impossible to leave Everlost. Once you arrive, you're there to stay. However, the forest where Nick, Allie and Lief are is sort of special. As long as you remain in the forest, you won't sink into the ground and the McGill will never find you, which is why Lief made it his home. Nick and Allie however, don't want to stay in the forest. They want to explore this new world and maybe, just maybe find an exit. Lief is strongly against this, not only because he thinks it's pointless, but he cares for the Nick and Allie. He doesn't want them to get caught by the McGill, nor sink into the ground. But the biggest reason that he wants them to stay is because he is lonely. But Nick and Allie decide to go anyway. In another part of Everlost, there is a leader who calls herself Mary Hightower, because she can't remember her living name either. She is a leader for several reasons, such as that she is one of the oldest at fifteen years old and she has done extensive research about Everlost and therefore is very knowledgeable. She has established a sort of community of children.

If I were one of the kids who had stumbled into Everlost, I would have a very mixed bag of feelings. I'd be shocked, miserable, amazed and curious all at the same time. The shock would be from the knowledge that I was no longer alive (but not dead either) and that I was cut off from everything I'd known, perhaps forever. The misery would be because I was separated from my friends and family. Amazement would stem from the fact that Everlost existed at all and that there was something beyond life and death. Finally, I'd be curious to find out as much as I could about this new dimension called Everlost. Like Nick and Allie, I would not have decided to stay with Lief in the forest, no matter how much danger there was outside of it. I would simply have to know what Everlost was and if there was a way to get back to the world of the living. I would have grilled Lief for all of the information that he had, and then set out to find something, anything, that could have helped me understand and come to accept Everlost.

Kit's Wilderness: Last Post, Pgs 190-229

Kit and Askew are still in the cave. Kit keeps trying to get Askew to come back to civilization, telling him that his family needs him, but Askew just tells Kit that he's been dreaming of killing his father. Then Askew cuts his own thumb and Kit's and they press them together in order to become "blood brothers". Suddenly, Kit see Askew holding the baby from the story of Lak, and Askew asks Kit to tell him the story, so Kit does. As he does, Askew says that he will be able to draw a picture for the story and as Kit drones on, the two of them see a vision of Lak's mother, asking Kit to bring him home. Lak manages to survive by killing deer and feeding himself, his sister and the dog on them. Finally he finds his family again and there is a joyful reunion. Eventually, Askew falls asleep and Kit does too. When they wake up, Allie has found them and is telling them that both that their parents and the whole town are worried sick for them. Then the three of them leave to go back into the world of light. Things are now back to normal. Kit is in school again, and even Askew is readmitted. Allie became a big hit in the play and all three were in the newspaper. However, Kit's grandfather finally died. But Kit still talks to him sometimes when he is dreaming.

If I were Kit, I'd have done everything almost exactly the same as he did. I'd have reasoned that if I had gone so far to try and get Askew to come back, I'd keep going until I succeeded or I failed. I wouldn't quit in the middle. However, I would have been a little annoyed about the newspaper article, because then I'd be afraid that people would look at me and reconize me and start to interrogate me about the night in the mine, which would just ruin my day. I would't like lots of publicity. I'd also have a feeling of success; I'd gotten Askew back, my new story about Lak was also widely appreciated and my life would be back to normal after all the worries of the past. I would be happy. However, I'd also be a bit miserable about grandpa dying. I've had some of my real-life grand parents and aunts and uncles die, and I'm always somewhat depressed for a while. But overall, I would be content with what I got and I'd go on, knowing that the future would bring good things.