Chapter 4: The Anomaly
I knew that I had said goodbye to Jake forever. Those thoughts lingered within my mind for the next six months as I pretended everything was fine. As I tried to stay normal and not break down in sobs every moment I thought of them.
Toby had ended up telling Jake where Tobias was, Tobias deserved to be there, deserved to try to save his shorm but long ago I had made a promise to someone. A promise that I intended to keep…
"Cassie." I turned around and saw Rachel running up to me from the limited, so I slowed down and smiled as she walked up to me.
"How many credit cards did you max out today?" I teased. She had 3 bags hanging in various points on each arm.
We walked over to the food court and sat down at an empty table. Good old, safe food court. The same place where we had often come when we were kids still fighting in the yeerk war.
"Only two." She replied swiftly as she put all of her bags down. Something here wasn't right…but I couldn't place it. Something was here that I wasn't used to, something that had been gone for a long time.
I looked at Rachel fidgeting in her seat, twisting her engagement ring around her finger while frowning for some unknown reason. I looked at the ring, it was beautiful, and Tobias had good taste for a guy. The ring was silver with a small diamond shaped as a heart placed in the center of the ring.
I looked around the food court and couldn't get the feeling that something was wrong. I gazed down at the spot on the table in front of me and I saw my driver's license. "What's this doing out?" I asked myself as I picked it up and looked at it. "Name: Cassie Berenson…" My heart stopped as I looked at Rachel in front of my license and then me again.
"Promise me you'll protect him Cassie…" Rachel whispered as everything began to fade and I was once again in my living room talking to Ronnie Chambers. Her words stayed in my head as Ronnie stopped talking and looked at me.
"Are you okay Cassie?"
"No…" I replied quietly, talking to myself more than Ronnie. That dream, that was the same dream that I had been having since Jake left. But over the past week it had progressed so that I would blank out while in the middle of doing something and the next thing I knew I was in the mall with Rachel again. Why was this happening to me?
"Do you want something to drink?" I ignored Ronnie as I looked out the sliding doors.
"Full emergency power to the engines." Jake said. "Ram the blade ship."
`Anomaly…` Another voice entered my head as I saw Jake, Marco, and Tobias plummet towards their deaths "Goodbye Cassie…" Jake mouthed as the image disappeared and I was left wondering.
`Join us Anomaly.` the voice continued to haunt me as Ronnie reached out to tap me in the shoulder.
"Cass?" Ronnie asked, he was worried, I could tell by the tone in his voice as I looked at him. Ronnie, sweet, safe Ronnie I thought as I looked at him, then back at the window where the image of Jake was still bright in my mind.
"Jake…" I whispered.
"Cass, are you sure your okay?" Jake made Ronnie nervous, whenever I said his name I could smell the fear that Ronnie would become over come with.
"They need me…" I whispered to myself as everything started to twist and turn white. The next thing I knew, I was lying on a field, and had my face down in the dirt.
"Yo, weren't we just on The Rachel crashing to our slow painful death?" Marco groaned. I quickly got up and looked around, I was in a vast meadow with luscious green grass and beautiful flowers that some people would have given their right arm for. But what amazed me more than the landscape were Marco, Tobias, Ax, and Jake. Jake was still getting up; he looked around and whispered something to himself. His eyes swept over me but a second later, his head snapped back and he looked at me amazed.
"Hi…" I said quietly. How long had I secretly been dreaming of this? How long had I hoped that we were to see each other again?
I wanted to run to him, have him wrap his arms around me and hug me, kiss me, be mine once again. How much did I want to be with him…
"Hey, is there someone up there?" Marco asked as he shielded his eyes from the sun and looked at the hill in front of us. Emerging from the hill was the outline of a human body, as it came closer I recognized her. She stumbled over the rocks and holes in the ground until she finally made it down. Her golden blonde hair swept over her body and freely flowed with the wind as she looked at everyone, uncertain at first. "Hello Rachel." I thought happily.
`One Andalite, five humans, those are our champions. We have chosen the Animorphs.` The voice repeated in my mind as she made her way towards us.
