I looked around, nobody was anywhere near. Desperately, I yelled, hoping someone would hear. After a few minutes, my hand grew tired and I screamed in frustration. I looked around and realized that there was a ‘pull for emergency’ lever in a glass case. I smashed the glass to pieces with my cast and pulled the lever with all of my might. Numerous red lights started flashing, and a voice came over the intercom.

“What is your problem?” The light Greek accent and calm voice,

“CRYSTAL! Berry is trapped under a pile of rubble! Kevin escaped! Come quick!”

“Okay I’m coming.” Crystal disconnected from the intercom and I paced back and forth, waiting for people to come. After what felt like forever, Crystal raced down the hallway with Stephanie in her tow.

“Crystal started using water to push and pull the rubble off Berry. After a while we finally saw Berry’s face, bruised and battered. Crystal fell back, exhausted. Her face was soaked in sweat. Now that the adrenaline wore off, Stephanie and Crystal lifted pieces of rubble off until Berry was slowly uncovered. We pulled Berry out and Stephanie started patching her up until she looked like a bandaid mummy.

I was going to go chase after Kevin but the cut on my ribs had started bleeding again. Crystal put me and Berry to bed rest. She assured us that Zoe was after Kevin and to not worry about it but that just made me worry more. What if she got trapped like Berry had been. If Kevin was strong enough to do that then what else could he do? How had he gotten out? So many questions but no answers. After tossing and turning for hours, I finally fell into a light sleep.

I dreamt that I was a hawk, flying high above the earth. My eyesight was incredible, I could see every little small thing, like a chipmunk scurrying from one tree to another, or a mouse falling into a drain. It looks so delicious. No! Stop thinking about eating animals. You're still a human. I focused on a human wearing orange. I zoomed in closer and tried to remain inconspicuous. Kevin took off his shirt and put on a black jacket. He hurried into a small house. I followed and sat behind the shades on a window sill. I heard Kevin talking with another voice.

“Are you ready.” The new voice said.

“Yes.” Kevin replied.

“The Cassandra time will start in one week. If you can be ready and over throw them puny little ‘heroes’.” The man sneered.

“Which shouldn’t be a problem. Then you can become king with half profit to me.” “Sounds like a plan.” Kevin moved some things around and left the house.

I woke up and sat up.

“We need to- fast hurry! One week! He’s coming!” I tried to speak and got all over myself.

“Whao! Slow you horses!” Stephanie was sitting in a chair watching me and Berry. Berry started stirring from her sleep.

“Kevin! He’s coming! The deal!”

“Okay, okay, slow down, what’s going on.”

“Okay so…” I explained to Stephanie what I had seen in my dream.

“That is not good. I thought that the Cassandra time would not happen for years. The fact that it is so close and that Kevin is working with another thing is terrible.”

“What do you mean, ‘another thing’? Is it not a human?”

“Of course it could be a human but it is most likely a god or other massive power source. I mean for it to know so much is not very achievable for a human.”

I nodded.

“But another problem is what if Kevin does not give the other thing half of the profit? Also does the thing mean profit as in money, or power or land or something else?”

“I don’t know, but it is probably power. Maybe the thing has been forced to only use a portion of its power? It could have been restrained by a hero. That happens sometimes.”

I perked up.

“Really!? Maybe we could restrain Kevin! Could we do that?”

“We could keep him prisoner but we can’t prevent his power as we could if he was a monster.”

I deflated, I had no better plans and everything was going wrong. Just then, Zoe ran past the room. She went into slow motion and I could see that something was terribly wrong.

“HEY! OVER HERE!” I shouted to get the attention of Zoe but accidentally woke Berry up with a start. Zoe did a u-turn and ran into the room. She was dirty and battered, and one of her pant legs was ripped and stained with blood.

“Monster, Cassandra time!” Zoe gasped for breath and only then did she see the condition Berry was in.

“Oh gods! What happened to you!?”

“Kevin happened.” Berry replied gloomily.

“The real question is what happened to you?”

“Oh it’s fine, just some minor scratches and scrapes.”

“Oh no you don’t!” Stephanie made Zoe sit down and started cleaning her leg.

“Okay so I’ll explain. I was alerted that Kevin had escaped so I chased after him. He tried to lose me and trick me but I managed to keep on. Oh, my leg? He threw a little ninja star at me and it was the choice of being hurt or losing him. I really didn’t want to lose him so I got hit but pretended to lose him. I tracked him to a little house and he met up with a monster. It was a ball shaped thing. I think it was made of light gray and pink metal. His arms can retract into his body, so can his head, and legs.

It spoke in a very normal voice surprisingly, and he talked about Cassandra time and all these weird things.”

“Yes I heard those too.” I briefly explained to Zoe about my dreams and getting Berry out of the rubble and being a hawk.

“So you were a hawk?”

“Yes I don’t know if he could have seen me or I would have just passed right through him but I wanted to eat mice so…”

“Anyways, if what you guys heard is right, then we have one week before something huge happens and we might get overpowered by Kevin and his people. Also, we should probably get Crystal and explain everything to her as well.”

“I’ll go,” I said, and before she could argue, I got out of bed and raced down the hallway. I slowed down as I got towards the room that Crystal should have been in.

“Hey Crystal?” There was no reply.

“CRYSTAL!” Finally there was a muffled ‘help’ from somewhere in the room.

I pushed the door but it wouldn’t budge. It was cold, like there was ice behind it. I kicked the door open a crack with all of my might in time to see Crystal being pulled out of the room from an open window. She was hanging on to the window frame with her legs but she was slowly slipping. I ran over and grabbed her legs. The thing outside the window kept pulling and I could literally see Crystal growing longer and longer.

“Ow ow ow ow ow.” Crystal muttered under her breath. The thing pulling her was not letting go and if I kept on pulling the Crystal would be split in two! I let go of Crystal slightly and tried to think quickly. I looked out the window and saw that it was a huge hawk, maybe even 3 times the size of a normal hawk. I racked my brain for ideas and a brilliant one popped into my mind. I closed my eyes and will with all of my strength that I was a hawk, like the one I had been in my dream. I thought

“Big hawk, big hawk, big hawk,” until I felt my body start to change until I was a huge hawk, just as big is the one outside. I crammed myself through the now small window and screeched at the other hawk. I startled and let go of Crystal. Crystal, being unprepared as well, was not holding on to the window, she tumbled out of the window and fell on the grass garden just a few feet below her. Crystal got up and ran around the corner and disappeared from sight.

I turned my attention back to the other hawk and screeched again. He screeched back in reply and I was surprised that I could actually understand what it was saying.

“I have to or my family dies.”

“I’m sorry but Crystal stays here.”

“What about anybody else? We already have Dave, I thought they were a couple.”

I hadn’t thought about Dave in so long, no wonder he wasn’t anywhere helping. But on the other hand I couldn’t just let this hawk’s family die. I just couldn’t.

“Take me.”

“Are you sure?” The other hawk tilted his head and looked at me quizzically.

“Yes.” I grabbed the window sill and morphed back into a human. The hawk can over and scooped me up, I could sense that he was trying to be gentle. And just like that, I was turning myself in to Kevin.