Chapter 1

Artemis Prime was gorgeous. With her hair as dark as midnight and her big eyes as dark as the night, she was every boy's fantasy and every girl's jealousy. She ruled Betsy Hall Prep, and she didn't even know it.

Outside, she was the cool, confident girl everyone wants to get and wants to be, but inside, there was turmoil in her, like there's something missing from her system. Ever since Artemis turned 15 last autumn, she had that awful feeling inside her, like there was an incomplete part of her that she doesn't know about. And that made her extremely uncomfortable and absolutely terrified.

"Artemis, keep up! You're lagging behind," cried out Artemis's homeroom teacher, Mrs Finnegan, an old, wrinkly woman with graying hair. Artemis jogged back towards her classmates from the case with a snake, tugging her white Juicy handbag securely on her small right shoulder. They were at the Central Park Zoo, New York, for their yearly school field trip.

Annabeth George, a tall, lanky blonde and blue-eyed beauty tapped Artemis's shoulder. Artemis had to look up to look at her best friend. Artemis was petite, which she insisted was because of her dad's genes. It was the only thing she and her dad had in common: their height. Her mother died while giving birth to her so Artemis did not know what she looked like.

"Why on Earth were you staring at the snake like that?" Annabeth whispered.

"I don't know," Artemis lied. The truth was she couldn't help it. It was like there was a pull between the snake and her, as though it was trying to communicate with her. She felt that pull every time she was near an animal. Artemis couldn't understand it, but she had a feeling it was going to bother her for the rest of the day.

Mrs Finnegan dismissed them at the McDonalds restaurant nearby to get their lunch. Annabeth and Artemis took a seat near the door. Annabeth went to queue up for the food, while Artemis took out her lunch box, filled with delicious salad. She was a vegetarian. She tucked in quickly, being careful not to stain her white top.

After lunch, Artemis and her classmates went to check out the horses, reptiles and then came the deer. The deer always intrigued Artemis. They were such delicate creatures and she felt like touching them. It has been a while since she had gone to the zoo and visited the beautiful animals, but when she came to the zoo that day, she felt weird. With a jolt, she realized the deer looked extremely sad.

Her mind began to go fuzzy, and then, like a radio, other noises faded away and the deer talked to her. They talked to her with their own language, but Artemis understood perfectly.

'Oh, please save us. Let us go back to our homes. Oh please. Oh Lady Artemis. Oh great huntress. Free us.'

The 4 deer bowed low to Artemis, as though she was a queen. Artemis looked around, but her other classmates were listening to their iPods, using their phones or were just sitting on the floor, looking bored. Annabeth was busy talking to her other friends and Mrs Finnegan was reading a newspaper.

She knew she needed to do something, no matter how crazy she already thought she had become. How could a normal person understand what a deer was saying? People would capture her and put her in a mental hospital. But, in her heart, she knew what she heard was real and what she saw was the truth, waiting for her to say, "Aha!"

Artemis didn't say anything, but touched the glass case with a perfectly manicured finger. She closed her eyes and did something weird. She imagined the glass case disappearing and leading the deer out. She opened her eyes and lifted her finger away. At first, nothing happened. The deer were just staring at her curiously, their dewy brown eyes questioning. And then, with a burst of silver light, the glass disappeared and the 4 elegant deer slipped out, thanked Artemis with another bow, and left.

The whole zoo erupted in chaos. But nobody could figure out how the deer escaped. Artemis stood rooted to the ground, shocked. Nothing like this had happened to her before so she doesn't know what to think. She tried her best to look innocent to let the guards know that she had nothing to do with it, but turns out she didn't have to. After all, she was just a mere human. How unusual would those escaping deer looked? So the security guards did what they think was right: they apologized for their bad security and fragile glass.

When Artemis got home after the exhausting day, she couldn't help thinking of the deer. It was just so weird.

What is really happening to her?