Euphoria:

I walked out into the muggy summer air again and had to run to catch up with Mason.

"HEY!" I yelled.

He turned around, "What?"

"What was that back there?"

"He's a nut job Euphoria!"

"Oh yeah?" I said. "Well you sure didn't look like you thought he was a nut job while he was telling the story."

"Well the story was interesting I have to admit…"

"HA!" I said.

"But there's no proof! That's just mythology. I mean seriously, Euphoria gods? There are no such thing as gods, okay? And think about where he said it was. A different planet. Don't you think scientists would have discovered it by now?"

"Yeah but have you even considered that it could be in a different galaxy? A different universe? It could exist Mason but you're just too stubborn to even let yourself think that it could be possible."

"Glad to know that you're on his side. Should I be shipping you off to Bellevue too?"

"I cannot believe you just said that Mason," I said. "I thought you trust me, I trust you, you know that whole thing! I thought we were friends. We are friends, Mason and now you want to send me off to some insane asylum in New York City? We live in Ballantine Montana for crying out loud!"

"Nice to see that you recognize a joke when you hear one Euphoria," He said then turned on his heel and stormed inside the house.

I walked in after him fuming. Our foster mom, Samantha, looked up at the table and looked at me with a concerned expression.

"Mason just came in but all he did was storm upstairs. Did everything go okay at Robert's?"

"Yeah," I said flatly, not bothering to even try and force a smile. "Everything went just fine."

Then, without another word, I went upstairs thinking about how I had to go into the same room as Mason to think things over. When I got to our room I didn't bother to knock and just walked inside. I saw that Mason was turned to face the opposite wall, had his Ipod headphones in, and had the music blasting at full volume.

I grimaced and went to lay down on my bed. Once there, I stared around at everything in our room, something I hadn't had the chance to do in a while.

We must have had every piece of clothing we owned thrown on the floor, but luckily we separated it by closet so we didn't accidentally grab the other's shirt or something. Then of course we had all of our personal belongings piled around our beds. For me it was books, for Mason it was all of his CDs and Sports magazines. On the walls by his bed he had football posters and posters of his favorite bands. On my wall though I had a poster of a puppy and my favorite movie posters from my favorite books that they made into movies.

Pretty soon I got really tired from staring around our room that I fell asleep and slipped into a dream much like the one from before but this one was different, more vivid somehow.

In the dream, I was hiding in a cave. It wasn't dark, so I realized that I must be close to the mouth of it. I moved along the cave wall slowly because something told me that I had to keep quiet and undetected. There was a roaring sound nearby and it was growing louder with my every step. Then I rounded a corner and came face to face with the mouth of the cave and saw where all the roaring was coming from. Directly in front of the cave was a waterfall.

Good job, I thought, praising myself. This is the perfect hiding place and they won't think to find me here.

I didn't know what the heck I was praising myself for and I had no idea why I needed a hiding place, I just knew that I needed to keep hidden. And who was this "they" I was hiding from? And why was I praising myself if I didn't know what was going on in the first place?

Wait, I thought. Who's that? Reflected in the waterfall?

I walked forward peering into the waterfall trying to see who was reflected in it. With each step I took towards it, the figure took one too. It looked about five. It looked like a five year old version of me.

I looked harder trying to decipher where I was. If there was a five year old reflected, why wasn't I there too? This was all very confusing. Then something occurred to me. I looked away from the waterfall, and instead looked around me. There was no five year old girl standing anywhere near me. I looked back into the waterfall to see that she was still there but her expression had turned from confusion into shocked alarm.

Hmm…. There was still something I hadn't tried yet.

I raised my hand, the reflection did the same. I waved, so did it. Then I almost touched the waterfall but didn't (afraid that the rushing water would sting my finger) and the reflection did the same thing. Then realization dawned on me. The five year old girl didn't just look like a younger version of me, she was the younger version. Right then, at that moment, I was five again.

"Impossible," I whispered, noticing that my voice was an octave higher than it usually was (another way of proving that I was five again).

But if this really was a reflection of my childhood, then shouldn't I have known what this place was? I had no memory of this place or any other place like it. I considered looking around the edge of the waterfall—just to see— but every one of my instincts screamed against the idea. I didn't get the chance to anyway because there came a voice from behind me and I saw a man approaching in the reflected image.

I whipped around, muscles tense and ready to attack if I had to, but the expression on his face radiated kindness so I let my muscles relax.

"Good day, my goddess," he said, bowing,

At first, I thought that I couldn't possibly know this man but then I realized… this was without a doubt a younger and more energized version of Robert. Minus the wheelchair.

"Robert," I said, my little five year old voice was so strong that it was much louder than the roar of the waterfall and he could hear me clearly.

"H-how do you know my name?" He asked, confusion visible in his eyes.

"But, I know you. We're friends," I insisted but he didn't look convinced. "Don't you know who I am?"

"Of course, your highness, you're Euphoria," He said, still staring at me as if I'd lost my marbles.

"Yes. Euphoria, your friend," I said.

"No," He said, shaking his head. "Euphoria the ruler of Eusebeia… this world," he said when he saw my blank look.

"Look, you're the goddess who is the first in history to lose her parents at the age of five and your parents just died, okay? I've come to rescue you and take you to earth."

He came over and took my hand and said, "To earth."

There was a strange sensation of being pushed forward by a giant hand and being thrown down onto the ground. When it was done, I looked up and saw the familiar surroundings of Ballantine Montana. We were on the street of the orphanage and Robert was on the ground moaning in pain. I didn't know what was wrong with him but I crawled over anyway to see. As for me, I just had a couple minor cuts and bruises but three serious cuts in lines on top of one another on my arm but they were already healing from the drops of water dripping from my hair. My hair had gotten soaked from the access mist from standing too close to the waterfall. Instead of three deep cuts, I now had three white, shiny scars. Gross.

After seeing how the water worked on me, I decided to try it on Robert to see if he would heal. I let a whole flood of droplets fall from my hair onto him and saw immediately that it had worked. Almost. I could tell that he was paralyzed from the waist down, and he would be like that forever.

When I told him this he wasn't surprised and he just said, "Yeah, it's only supposed to be gods who do that."

He gave me a small bottle of something to drink.

"What is it?" I asked.

"It's brainwashing potion," he replied and in response to my horrified look he said, "It's for now when you get used to living regularly. When you're fifteen, I promise to tell you the story of Eusebeia and its history and you will remember. You'll have to remember. It's your destiny to save your people. Don't worry, I'll keep watch over you. I'll take you to this orphanage where you will meet my son, Mason and have him as a best friend. Then I will take the both of you to a foster home across from the place I bought and we'll all be fine. He already drank the potion when he got here—he must have stolen it from me— and now you have to. It will all be okay. I promise."

There was so much sincerity in his words that I had to trust him.

"Okay," I agreed and without hesitating any longer, swallowed the potion. Within seconds I was passed out. Then I had flashes of when Robert took me to the orphanage, meeting Mason, the foster home, all the way up to the story of Eusebeia.

Then I woke up for real, my throat raw like I had been yelling something. I saw Mason looking down at me, his face clouded with concern. I got up immediately and started to put my sneakers on and saw-on a glance- three white scars on my arm.

"Where are you going?" Mason asked.

"Robert's," I replied

"Why?"

"I need answers. And I need them now. Oh, and you might want to come," and with that, I turned on my heel and quietly stepped out into the night, shocked that I had really slept that long, and headed across the street.