I woke up, and I looked around blearily. “Where am I?” I said, confused. I looked around to see my sister, Opal, and my father laying next to me. I walk towards them. “Wake up! Wake up!” I yelled. “What? Where are we?” my dad said. “We are in this weird room, and there are these weird wriggling worm things.” We all took a while to absorb our surroundings. There was a cave-like ceiling, and it was decorated with blood red paint. We were standing on a curved surface that had thick pinkish tubes that wriggled like snakes. There were some thin blue and red tubes that tangled around it. In the right corner, just where the floor dipped, there was a stopwatch that read 2:00:00.  “Hey, it looks like there’s a timer, we have about two hours left.” “What happens at the end of the timer?” Opal questioned. “I don’t kn-” I was cut off by a blinding light. “AARRGGHH!” we all yell in surprise. We all see the same sight. “Wait… Daddy, this is your and mom’s room?” I exclaim, bewildered. All of a sudden, we saw all around the room, and then we saw the closet, and then we entered the kitchen. Through this vision we saw my bedroom, and a note on my empty bed. It said, “Your kids and husband will be back soon. They will be in control for two hours starting now.”  “Wait...that means this is the time that was foretold in the future. You know, the one in which the future ‘me’ came and told us that we would be in control of the powerhouse!” I said. “This is epic!” my sister yelled. “Yeah right!” my dad says, “I don’t believe that would ever happen. I was just dreaming that time. No future you came and told us anything. We all had the same dream then, that’s all.” “Well, then where are we?” I challenged. We each took a minute to ponder this. “Fine,” my dad broke the silence. “So let’s go make breakfast for mom.”  There was a huge silence.Then my sister and I collapsed on the floor of the power house, and laughed our stomachs out. “What?!” I spluttered. “As if!” my sister laughed. “Wha- What do you mean?” my dad stuttered. “We mean that if we get to control the power room for two hours, we need to make the most out of it!” my sister said. “Heck, yeah!” I shouted. “What about mom’s breakfast?” Dad said. “You’d let your mom go without breakfast?!” “Ignore dad.” Opal whispered to me. “Dad, she can just eat breakfast later.” “Because right now, we’re going to Best Buy!” I said. “Nope,” my dad says. Opal and I completely disregarded this. We didn’t know how, but we were inside Best Buy the next second. “That was way cool!” I said. “Yep, but what do we buy?” my sister asked. “Oh that’s so sweet, you came here to get an electric toothbrush for your father,” he exclaimed. My sister and I exchanged disbelieving glances. Our expressions said everything. We just chose to ignore that. Next thing I knew, we were heading to the I-Mac section, and unloading three of them in the cart. “Oh, I also want a few I-Macs!” “Sure thing, sis!” I unloaded three more in the cart. “How about this, first I’ll control the power room, get everything I want, and then you go?” I proposed. “I’m cool with that,” Opal replied. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, back it up!” my dad said, “We are not going to spend thousands of dollars on some silly electronics!” “Parents.” I muttered to myself. “They’re not silly,” Opal explained. “They can be educational.” “Regardless, we are not spending thousands on these devices!” Dad said. “He needs to go,” I said. “Yes, he does,” my sister agrees. “Go where?” my dad questions. I made mom eject dad out, but dad came plummeting back again, but this time he did not say anything, or move. “Why is he like that?” I asked. “Probably just because mom ejected him, I think he is unconscious,” she observed. “He will wake up soon, I don’t see any damage.” “OK.” I replied.   “Well, let’s get going, we have stuff to buy!” my sister said. We went to the LED lights aisle, the iphone aisle, the ipad aisle, the chargers aisle, and the junk food aisle. Our cart was halfway full. We got done pretty quick, because since I had imagined getting everything I wanted so many times, I knew just what to get. “Well, Opal, I have everything I want!” I said. “It’s your turn!” Opal browsed through the aisles, and picked up a drawing kit. “This is pretty cool,” she said. “Yeah!” I said back. She picks up a ton of art supplies, and she gets a new Ipad Pro, Macbook Pro, stuffed animals, and other toys. We reached the snack aisle, and she just shoveled up the whole Takis section in the cart. Well, the part of the section I hadn’t taken. Takis are our favorite snack, and we’ve gotta do what we’ve gotta do. That was when we started to get some funny looks. I don’t really blame anyone, it’s not everyday that some lady walks around with the whole store in her cart!  “Do you want to go to the checkout now? I asked. “I mean we can’t make mom and dad go broke.” “Yeah, we got enough, we shouldn’t spend all their money,” she agreed. “But we don’t know where Mom keeps her credit card,” I said. “Well most people keep it in their purse, so let me check in there,” she said. We saw the inside of mom’s purse, and it has the usual stuff, a wallet, sunscreen, glasses, spare change, tissues, and most importantly she had a very rare object. Hand sanitizer! “Got it!” my sister exclaimed, after a long search. “Ok, let’s go!” I said. Mom walked to the checkout counter, and the cashier took a long look at her cart. “Are you sure you want to buy all of that?” she asked sceptically. “It’s going to cost you over ten thousand dollars.” Wait … we could hear now! I guess we could hear things when we needed to. We couldn’t hear before.  “Yep, I’m sure!” mom exclaims excitedly. “Okay…” the cashier said. She laid down each item one by one, and scanned them. “Well, who are you shopping for?” the cashier questioned friendly. “Oh, I’m just getting these I-Macs for my daughters.” I said. “They are such good daughters.” “Yes, I’m sure they are!” the cashier agreed. “Yeah, well Mom won’t think we’re such good daughters once she sees what we did,” Opal said nervously. “Yes, well she kind of has to agree, because I am selecting the no refund box on the receipt!” I exclaimed happily. “What’s that?” Opal asked. “Oh, well it’s just that if I select the no refund box, that means Mom won’t be able to refund these things we bought! “Wow, you’re a genius!” Opal exclaimed. “Oh, no, let’s check the timer! Maybe we can go to another store!” Opal suddenly exclaimed. We both glance at the timer. “Oh no, there’s only 5 minutes left!” I exclaimed unhappily. “Wait...Mom is going to regain control of the power house soon!” Opal realized. “That means we won’t get to drive home with these toys, and mom will kill us. We won’t even get to keep what we bought!” “But she can’t return them,” I recalled. “Remember, I selected the no refund box!” “Ok, all done!” The cashier finished loading the toys into the cart. “By the way, where did you get your nails done, they look really nic-” She was rudely cut off. “I’m sorry, I can’t talk, I have to get going!” I said, as I ran off to the car. “Tanya, that was so rude!” Opal scolded. “Well, desperate times call for desperate measures.” I told her wisely. “Whatever.” Opal said. “At least we have the stuff we bought.” “Well, the stuff that mom bought.” I added. “Quick, let’s get into the car!” Opal panicked. “Okay, lets go!” I yelled. “Control the power house and drive the car!” I screamed. Before, Opal and I could easily control what the powerhouse did and said, and we didn’t even know how. It just came naturally. Now, it was getting harder to control. “Let’s just wait, we don’t want to get into an accident.” I said dejectedly. “Oh my goodness, we forgot about Dad!” my sister yelled. “Umm… no, you did, I’ve been checking on him ever since he got knocked out." I said. “He’s fine.” “Oh, what a relief.” Opal sighed. “Wait, look, he’s waking up!” I said.   We both ran to Dad, and he looked up at us. “We’re still inside the power house, aren’t we?” Dad asked sadly. “Yeah, but don’t worry, we’re coming out in …,” I glanced at the timer. “Two minutes.” “Yep.” Opal agreed. “What happened?” Dad questioned us. “Oh, well you weren’t letting us buy our stuff in peace, so we ejected you using the powerhouse.” I said. “But sadly, you came back.” Opal added. “And luckily you were knocked out, and you didn’t disturb us anymore.” I said. “But of course, I kept checking on you!” I added hurriedly. Then we all started to get a tingling feeling, and we felt like we were plummeting down a roller coaster at top speed. “AAARRRGGGHHH!” we all screamed in unison. Thump, Thump, Thump. We all landed hard in our car seats. “What happened?!” my mom questioned. “Well, a few weeks back, a future version of myself came back in time and told us that Opal, Dad, and I will have control of your brain for two hours. Well, she called it a powerhouse. She said we’ll just shrink, and wake up inside it, and you won’t have a clue. We all thought that was a joke, but then we slowly realized that it was true the moment we woke up in your brain. So basically we had control of your brain for two hours straight. We just woke up, and we were stuck in your brain. Then we started to see through your eyes. It was kind of creepy,” I explained. “But how did you control me?” my mom asked. “I knew you were in there, but I wasn’t really aware of anything else that was happening.” “Wait… you believe us?!” I asked, surprised. “Well, yeah. I felt you guys in there, but I wasn’t really aware of anything else. It felt weird.” “Oh,” Opal said. “But you asked how we controlled you? Well it was sort of like we control ourselves. It just happens.You can’t really explain it. It’s sort of like when you move your arm, you can’t really explain how you did it.” I said. “Except we were controlling someone else. It’s sort of the same thing.” Opal injected. “But it took us a while to believe it ourselves, but eventually, we accepted it. I mean, it sure looked like we were inside a brain. I guess we really did shrink to fit in there.” I laughed. “Oh, also we—well, you bought some stuff. Dad wasn’t letting us, so we made you eject him, but he came back. He was unconscious the whole time, but still in the brain,” Opal said. “Well, what did you buy?” Mom questioned us suspiciously. “Well, nothing much, we just got a-” I was cut off by a grumble from Mom’s stomach. “Well maybe you should eat first, and we’ll tell you later.” I suggested nervously. “Fine,” Mom happily agrees. We all got into the car, and drove back home. An hour later, mom was all ready to see what we got. Opal and my hearts were beating furiously inside our chests. “Ummmm… I think I should maybe go work on some homework.” I said nervously. “Yep, yeah I agree,” Opal said. We both tried to back out of the room, but we were stopped. “You two will bring out what you brought this instant,” Mom said sternly. “Okay,” we both said, more scared than ever. We carried one I-Mac into the family room, and Mom gasped in shock. “YOU DIDN’T,” she screeches frighteningly. “Well, it was on a 50% off sale.” I muttered meekly. “We’ll just get the rest.” Opal ran out. “THE REST?!” Mom screamed angrily. I sprinted out of there. Opal carried two I-Macs, and I carried three. Dad got the other things out of a shopping bag. A huge shopping bag. “ OH. MY. GOODNESS!” Mom yelled. “Did you just buy all of this with MY money?” she said in a scary voice. Dad left the room. Long story short, we were grounded for a year, and had to do extra homework. It was the worst year in my life. Even worse than COVID-19. And that’s saying something. Oh, and no, we did not get to keep the I-Macs. Mom couldn’t refund them, but that did not stop her from selling all our newly gained stuff on Ebay. Leave it to her to find a way to preserve money. But seriously, you do not want to hear the story. It was not fun for Opal, nor me. I still get nightmares.

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