One year after the tragedy, Cassie’s mother got engaged to one Trevor Hills, the therapist that helped the remaining Dents go through that calamity without going insane.
They were getting along very well, and even if Cassie didn’t think he could possibly think of him as her father, he started to grow on her.
The first signs of psionic abilities appeared by the time she was sixteen, more specific, on her sixteenth birthday. In the midst of the party, when she was in the kitchen getting a glass of soda, she accidentally knocked over a vase. Cassie tried desperately to reach to it and prevent it from falling, but instead of falling on the ground and shattering, it started levitating about 10 centimeters above the ground. Cassie was startled by the sight and as soon as she lost her focus, the vase was done for. Returning to the rest of her guests, she was sure that it was just because the adrenaline that made her feel like the time slowed down until she could see the vase in mid air and nothing more. She wasn’t going to give it another thought. But when she returned to the guest room where everyone else was, she was struck by a dreadful headache, and she felt like everyone was talking at the same time but there were twice as many persons in the room. She cried out to them to shut up. Everyone stopped talking and started looking at her; they all knew something wasn’t right… Cassie looked at each and every one of them and burst out crying. Their lips weren’t moving and yet she was hearing so many words, so many voices! She felt that she couldn’t take it anymore and she passed out cold.
Half a day later, she woke up in her bed. She hoped that it was all just a weird dream. A nightmare at that. She felt really thirsty so she went to the kitchen to get a glass of water. Her mother was cleaning up after the party. She noticed that Cass was awake, and told her that they needed to talk.
-”Mom, I’m scared…” “Why?” “I speak to two of you!” “What do you mean?” “Mom! You have two voices! What is going on??!” “I don’t know, honey, but everything will be fine…” “No it won’t be, you just said that you feared this day… well… your second voice said it”- Lara convinces herself of Cassie’s psionic abilities
Later that night, Cassie could hear her mother crying and occasionally saying “They will take her from me now…”.
Cassie got so scared by that that, unconsciously, she made all the lightbulbs in her room explode and she passed out again till morning, when she, her mother, and Dr. Hills were woken up by three unexpected sharp thuds on the front door. Her mother told her to hide under the bed and not to make a sound. She was desperate, and wasn’t even considering giving up her child. Another three thuds on the door. Next thing they knew, the door was hurled across the room, something came flying in. A blinding light; a deafening sound; then nothing…