ILLUSION?

Arya gives free rides

The thing about having a friendly dog is, it can get too friendly. And that was how Arya ended up sitting on the chair next to me in the public library. I had managed to get Arya across the entrance table only because the librarian was on a sick day leave and sitting on the front desk was a teenager who had his head glued to the phone and was typing vigorously.

As I explained the dream to Eddy and Terra, Arya checked the children's section and scared off the kids. A few braver kids plucked up the courage to pet her and ended up getting rides on her back.

"So you spoke to yourself?", asked Terra.

"Yes, I mean no", I stuttered, "See I didn't say anything but he understood"

"That means you read your own thoughts", added Eddy

"No!", I was infuriated, "You don't get it!"

"It could also be that you were actually talking or thinking out loud to yourself but because you were dreaming you can't remember if it was you or someone else", argued Terra, "and come to think of it, how can you remember your dream so well? Normally people can only remember bits and pieces of a dream"

I had no words. Till this moment I hadn't considered the dream as a dream. I had mostly thought of it as some kind of message – a call for help. And it was quite bizarre that I remembered everything from the dream, right down to the contents on the table.

"Hey man, do you need a doctor's appointment?", Eddy asked very seriously.

"Shut up", I said, "Maybe what Terra's saying is right, but...it can't be nothing. The things I – sorry – he said were really messed up. I mean he sounded like he was scared of something... or someone"

"Well...what exactly did he say?", queried Terra.

"He said that they were making him do things, he sounded like he was scared of them. Also, in a previous dream I saw him running from a big shadow", I informed.

"But you said that he looked like you, right?", asked Terra, "How are you sure that you aren't just seeing yourself and that it's not just a bad dream?"

"I'm pretty sure that it's not me because he has blond hair...", Eddy and Terra groaned and Eddy smacked his palm against his face, "...and that the dreams are always in a third person view; like I'm watching a movie...except for the last one"

There was a moment of silence in which we just sat there looking at each other and I thought, Man I must sound like such a fool to these guys, how are they still here?

"Where exactly was he in your last dream?", asked Eddy. I was starting to feel that he actually believed me.

"I dunno, even he seemed like he didn't know", I said

"No, I mean where were you in the dream", Terra asked

"Like I said, I was in a cell, the place wasn't that bad and he had a good bed and books and crayons and it felt like 'they' were trying to keep him there", and just as I said that, Terra got up and bolted behind a bookshelf.

Eddy and I exchanged surprised looks and went after her. The library was quiet big but only a quarter of the books were in English and a quarter of those were novels - the kind of books we read, while the rest were in the native tounge. After looking around for a while, we found her in the newspaper section.

The aisle was bigger than the others – the shelves were about fifteen feet apart – and there were drawers instead of stacks of newspaper. Tall ladders with horizontal wheels lined shelves.

At the end of aisle - where the shelves ended - I saw Terra sitting in front of a PC monitor and typing something away. "What are you doing?", I asked.

"He told you to help him, didn't he? Well we're gonna do exactly that"

I was taken aback by the intensity of her actions. I was the one called for help but she took the initiative while I was fighting a war with myself.

"But how are you going to do that?", asked Eddy, who seemed quite in control of himself.

"Easy...", Terra said, which was quite odd because finding him was going to be anything but easy – we didn't know where he was, who he was or even where to begin looking – but she looked quite confident, "...we check the newspapers for recent vanishing of kids between the ages of eleven to fourteen, did he tell you his age?", she asked me

"No", I said with a gaping mouth, My God, what is this girl?, I thought.

"Okay then we'll just have search for all ages...and he said that he knew that you were close, I don't know how he knew that, but it's something to go on. Okay then we'll just have to stick with it, get a computer both of you, we have a long afternoon ahead of us", she said and we followed the instructions.

It wasn't until my mom called at four in the evening that we stopped our search. We hadn't found much, whenever we found a case which mirrored our own quite well, we ended up with either the child being found alive, dead or the file turning out to be cold case.

I found Arya surrounded by three kids who were petting her and just simply gawking at her thinking they had tamed this animal.

Arya reluctantly followed us out of the library. I had to bribe her with chicken bits. The kids were in a solemn mood as we left.

We agreed that we would come back tomorrow to resume our search, but I doubted that we would be successful. Though I had to admit I was astonished by Terra's intelligence and quick thinking back at the library.

"Terra", I asked, "How – exactly – did you find a way around that roadblock?"

"Well...", she blushed

"Let me guess – you read it in a book", suggested Eddy

Terra grinned wide, agreeing with Eddy and adjusted her round glasses as she had the habit of doing so when she was right. We reached her home, bid her goodbye and went on our way

"Thanks man", said Eddy, out of nowhere

"For what?", I was taken aback for a moment

"For not being a complete moron"

I punched him on the shoulder and said, "Shut up!"

He smirked. I had reached my house. I checked the time; it was 4:52. Eddy pet Arya on the head and said goodbye. We hi-fived and I turned to walk through the front gate.