My name is Tracey and I live in a world where you are stuck at home and can only leave the house for emergencies. I don’t know why no one could leave their houses. No one would ever tell us why we couldn’t leave the house. All we had was social media, we didn’t have a life outside of our houses. I ask my parents all the time why no one can leave, and they just sit there and act like I am not there. There are so many kids who fake emergencies just to be able to get outside and enjoy the fresh air. 

If you are ever seen outside of the house, and it is not an emergency, you can get into big trouble. Today I am going to try and see if somehow I can figure out why no one is allowed to leave. I was determined to get this done today with no exceptions. There was not a good enough reason for us not to be allowed to leave. My dad works for the government, so I have an easy advantage. He keeps all his working stuff locked away in a spare room we have at the house. I walked to my parents room to see if I could find the key to the room, and in his closet on the top shelf, there lies a safe. I hope the key is in there so I can figure this out, I call my best friend Patrica for help, and she tells me to look for tools to open it with. I was looking everywhere I couldn’t find anything

I finally looked under the bed, and there it was, a hammer. I grabbed the hammer and walked over to the safe, picked it up, and ran to my room. Once I got into my room, I started hitting the lock to get it open, but it wasn’t breaking. I didn’t know what else to do. I needed to get into that safe. I go to bed after trying for hours, I was trying to think of any other way to get it open. I called one of my friends to see if they had any ideas, but all they said was what if  I tried to see if I could trick my dad into opening it. I went and tried to find my dad, but when I got to my mom, she said he was in his office. I knocked on his door, and I got no answer, so I´m assuming that whatever it is, it has to be important. I rested my head against the door to see if I could hear what they were talking about, but all I heard was muffled talking. 

I got tired of standing there, so I went and asked my mom what it was all about, but she just said that it wasn´t any of my business, and I just needed to go to my room. I heard his door open halfway up the steps, so I stopped and went to listen to see if he would say anything. He was talking very quietly, so I could barely hear what he was saying. I heard footsteps coming my way, so I ran up the stairs as quickly and quietly as I could. I stopped once I got around the corner at the top step and peeked around the corner. They didn’t come all my way, but they came close enough.

I´m standing there waiting impatiently, I heard my dad say this is going to be for the rest of our lives, and my mom started crying. I ran back down there and asked my mom why she was crying. She hurried up and wiped her face, acting like she wasn´t. Dad told me not to worry about it and let’s go eat dinner together. I was the quietest our dinner table has ever been. No one said a word, not until dad said dinner was delicious. Mom didn’t do anything different to the food, I could tell she did the same as she always does. 

After I got done eating, I walked up to my room and just went to bed. I was tired of running around all day and not finding a single thing. The next morning I was determined to get into that safe even if it was going to be the death of me. I got up, went downstairs to eat breakfast and no one was there. I leaned my head against his door,  and I heard a sound coming from there. I tried to open the door, thinking it was locked. As I turned the knob, I heard my mom coming down the steps. I hurried up and ran back into the kitchen. I ate a bowl of cereal, something quick and easy so I had plenty of time to figure this out. My mind is racing. I don’t know what to do or if I will ever find out, but I have too. I walk to my dad’s door and I still knock, absolutely no answer.I wait to see if he answers eventually, but he doesn’t. I am getting tired of waiting and no one answering me or ignoring me. I finally just walked up and begged my dad to tell me what was going on and why we couldn’t leave. As I walked to my dad, he was walking to his room, and I started charging before he could close the door. I busted through his arms and hit the door so hard I fell into the room. 

I jumped up and started looking around for literally any clues I could get. He tried stopping me, but I pulled away. It was time I knew what was going on. I walked over to his desk drawer, and who would have guessed? It was locked. I looked at my dad and told him to open it, and he slowly made his way over. I could tell he did not want to open it, but he knew I wasn’t taking no for an answer. He grabbed his key out of his pocket, and my heart started racing. I was nervous to finally find out why after so long. As he twisted the key, I yanked that drawer open, and there it was the paper that had all the important information in it. I was so nervous to read the paper, I was scared to actually see what was on it. 

I started looking at the paper and reading it,  and there it was, why we couldn’t leave our houses. I could not believe my eyes. There was a virus going around, the name of it was CoronaVirus or as some like to call it, Covid 19. We couldn’t leave our house because of some stupid virus. I could not enjoy my life because of this. This is so stupid. This lasted for years, and when people realized why we were stuck in our houses everyone stopped following the rules and did what they wanted. After that it was just a thing we had to deal with and not overreact about. Thank God it wasn’t a big deal anymore. We were tired of dealing with it.