The Cassandra File

Cookie to who tells me what Gyles means in Greek!

"Sorry, I don't mean to interrupt, but in your dream you were stabbed by your mom's boyfriend? Was it similar to when you close to actually being stabbed by him?" she asked. I sighed. According to the press, no, but that's the power of the mist for you.

"No," I answered. "This is just a dream, just a twisted version in my mind. My mom's boyfriend never stabbed me. But in my dream he did." Andrea nodded thoughtfully.

"Go on," she said.

FLASHBACK

"What in the world are you doing you physcos?" I screamed.

After I had been knocked out in the alleyway, I awoke to find myself in the back of a minivan. If that wasn't weird enough, the minivan was being driven by a sixteen year old guy with flippy brown hair. In the seat next to him was a similar looking person. They had the same flippy hair (although his was sandy blond) and the same sarcastic smile. But the boy in the driver's seat was much younger, and was about my age. In the seat in front of me was someone I knew well…or thought I knew well. It was Gyles, a kid in my seventh grade class. He had poofy-curly brown hair and had a problem walking (which now I see was due to his GOAT FEET), but he was funny enough and people liked him. He had a place in my group of friends, but he wasn't the fall for kind of guy. He was more of the 'hang-out-on-a-Saturday-night-chillin'-at-the-ice-cream-place' kind of person. The kind of guy my friends usually fell for looked more like-

"Cassie, calm down!" Ian screamed. I stared at him and Gyles in disbelief. Here were the kids from school that I hung out wit, kidnapping me!

"What the-"

"Hades," Gyles interrupted me.

"Look, Cassie, we can't explain right now-" Ian started. I wasn't listening. I was too busy screaming at being kidnapped. I thought these people were my friends! I spent every weekend with them downtown and getting ice cream and seeing movies! Now they were kidnapping me!

"Stop screaming, I can't drive while people are yelling!" the driver yelled.

"I'm trying to, Connor, but Cassie won't shut up!" Ian yelled back at him. Connor-the driver-weaved in and out of the cars on the highway, speeding past each and every one of them. He kept checking his rear view mirrors, like something was chasing us.

"I trusted you guys! You've been to my house! And now you kidnap me? Let me out!" I screamed, banging on the windows frantically. Maybe someone in the passing cars would see the kidnapping taking place and get the cops to run us down.

"Cassie! Listen to me! You need to calm down! We're not-well, maybe this can be classified as kidnapping, but you have to listen to us!" Ian exclaimed, fully turned around in his seat.

"We're saving you!" Gyles yelled.

"Saving me! Saving me from what? You're crazy! You're insane!" I accused him. I was shouting so loud that I thought my lungs were going to give out. We were zooming past cars and trucks. I was desperately beating on the windows, trying to get someone's attention. But everyone was so busy with themselves and so stupid not to notice the kidnapping that was taking place.

"Cassie! We're helping you!" he shouted again.

"Oh shut up, Gyles!" I turned to snap at him. "What are you, half deer or something? This is crazy, I don't even want to hear it!" Gyles opened his mouth to answer my first question, thought, went to talk, then thought about it some more.

"I can't win in this conversation, can I?" he asked me. I answered with a hysterical scream and threw a CD I found on the floor at the window. It left a small scratch as the CD bounced off.

"Don't act like we're still friends after this!" I yelled. "Once my mom finds me missing and the police search for me, you'll be blamed for kidnapping and go to jail! I trusted you!" I said again. Who knew my friends would turn against me and kidnap me. What did they want me for? I wasn't amazingly rich! I didn't have some cure for cancer or anything that made me valuable to the world! I wasn't any more special than Ian sitting in the front seat.

And what was up with Gyles? He had goat feet for goodness sakes! Goat feet! This was crazy! I couldn't decide if this was just messed up reality or if it was a crazy dream! First my mom's boyfriend tries to kill me and then-

My mom's boyfriend. What happened to him?

"What about-"

"Ryan Thorn, aka, the manticore?" Gyles asked. I stopped pounding on the windows. What? Manticore, wasn't that mythology? Our history teacher had just told us about it today. It had the head of a man, body of a lion, and the tail of a scorpion or dragon that shot poisoned arrows. How was Ryan a manticore! Manticore's were mythology, nothing more!

"Hey, Gyles, names have power!" the driver-I think it was Connor- yelled back at us, checking the rear view mirrors again.

"Sorry, Connor…" Gyles said sheepishly.

"How much longer 'til we reach camp?" Ian asked, turning to Connor. He looked at the clock.

"Two more hours." Camp? What? I wasn't going to camp. If I didn't ace my history quiz tomorrow, I would fail history. And my mom wouldn't be happy.

"What camp? I'm not going to camp! Turn around and take me back before my mom figures out what happened!" I screamed, pounding on Gyle's head seat. He bent down and let out a nervous laugh. "And what was that?" I screamed. I was in a screaming mood, you can't blame me. A lot had happened in the last- I checked the clock- six hours? How long had I been out? My mom was going to be worried sick! She'd probably already called the police already! Our house was probably still in a mess since crazy manticore whatever Ryan tried to knife me to death, and now I was gone! What was she going to think?

"I'm a satyr! Half goat!" Gyles…bleated. I stared at his furry goat legs. Weird. Manticores, satyrs, camp? These people were crazy! And I just thought that all this time that Gyles was the quiet, silly kid I hung out with and that Ian was another guy I hung out with that liked to be a player (Yeah, at thirteen, you can be a player. Meet Ian.).

"Let me out! Turn around! You're all insane! You belong in an asylum!" I was hoping that either a driver finally noticed what was happening or the window broke-whichever one came first.

"Shut her up! I'm under a lot of pressure!" Connor shouted, swerving to avoid a large, commercial truck. Ian sighed and shook his head.

"Gyles, knock her out again," he said dejectedly. I turned to Gyles.

"You'd better not-"

Gyles raised his fist and brought it down on my head, and for the second time that day, I blacked out.