Finally
I was eating dinner with my family. My mom and dad were talking about what they should do for their anniversary. Tom was eating, not really paying attention to anything. Me, I was eating, and paying attention to everything. It's a useful trait I have picked up over the four or so years I have been battling the yeerks. If you know everything that's going on around you, there's less chance for a slip-up, or an attack that could leave you dead, or worse. God-willing though, that war would soon be over. About two weeks ago, the rest of the group and I placed a virus in the yeerk pool, unknown to them of course. The virus works slowly, hopefully giving enough time for the infected yeerks to transfer it to other pools and other yeerks and so on. Hypothetically it causes the yeerk to lose control of its host and forces the yeerk to leave the host brain, Hypothetically. We had been watching for signs that it was working with no succes, I watched Tom out of the corner of my eye. He looked as he always did, the yeerk played his role flawlessly. I looked at the clock, 7:30.
"I have to go," I said standing up with my dishes. They barely noticed, I dropped the dishes in the kitchen and went out the door. I was going to meet Cassie. No one knew about us outside the Animorphs. I rarely went to her house anymore and she never came to mine, we didn't talk at school, a lot of people there think that we don't like each other at all because we were close and then, nothing. In fact her parents think that she is dating someone that they just haven't had the chance to meet, which is partly true. We all figured that the less chance we stayed together, the less we could bring suspicion to one another. So no one knew about us.
They thought we disliked each other, but nothing could be further from the truth, I love Cassie with every fiber of my being, and she loved me back, and that's what matters. Not that we spent every moment together, we couldn't. But these sweet interludes would stay with me forever. I hurried to our meeting spot, a special place on a cliff overlooking the ocean, we were the only ones that went there, at least I had never seen anyone else there. She was sitting at the edge of the cliff, overlooking the water. I snuck behind her soundlessly and kissed the back of her neck gently as I sat behind her, wrapping her tightly in my arms from behind. She jumped, then recognizing my touch leaned back against my chest.
"Hey," she said.
"Hey," I replied. Sometimes we don't speak at all, we don't need to, we must have sat there twenty minutes before anything else was said.
"I'm scared Jake," she said.
"Of what?" I questioned.
"Of everything," she said. "Of the war never ending, of never knowing what it's like to feel safe in the world again, of dying and not being able to get older, get married and have children, of something happening to you and being alone, and of always being scared." she said softly.
I held her tightly and leant down to whispered in her ear. "Cassie, I'm scared too but the war will end, and even if you can't feel safe in the world, you will always be safe with me, and I pray we will both be alive to get older and get married and have kids, together. Even if something happens to me, you will never be alone, I will always be with you, and as long as you are with me, there is no need to be scared, I would do anything to keep you safe." I said.
She turned to look at me, tears glistening in her eyes.
"Have I ever told you, just how much I love you?" she said fiercly.
"I love you too," I said and kissed her. She reached up and tangled her hands in my hair and held my mouth to hers. I brought my hand up to open her mouth and deepen the kiss. She moaned and I answered passionately. I ran my hand down her back and over her thigh. She untangled one hand from my hair and ran it down the side of my face onto my chest. Then she pulled back.
"We should stop." She gasped. I nodded and rested my forehead against hers for a moment, then let her go. "I should be heading back," she said.
"Me too," I responded and stood up. I gave her one last lingering kiss then we parted ways for the night. I walked home slowly, caught between emotions. Part of me wanted to run home and tell my parents, and yes, brother, about this wonderful girl I had fallen in love with, and part of me wanted to keep it a secret, to be cherished and kept. I eventually reached my house. I looked at it a moment, then went inside. My mom and dad were sitting on the couch, watching television.
"Where have you been?" my mom asked when I walked in. I didn't say anything for a moment.
"Nowhere," I replied and slowly walked up to my room. I passed Tom's room on the way to mine, he was laying on his bed doing homework, I watched him for a moment then continued on. I went into my room and sat down to do my homework, I tried to study for an hour to no avail, finally I gave up and went to sleep.
Surprisingly I went to sleep quickly and woke up the next morning feeling refreshed, somehting was going to happen, I could feel it in my bones. I got ready quickly and left for school. I said hi to the guys, nodded to the girls and smiled at the girls. I hurried to first hour and sat in my iusual spot, people filed in and talked and laughed and waited for the bell to ring. Mr Hewley rushed in a few seconds after the bell rang. He looked harried and tired and he was sweating. He put his briefcase down and addressed the class.
"Class, I haven't been feeling well, so if you will all take out your textbooks I will give you and assignment to work quietly on." He said. We grabbed our books and worked until the bell rang signaling the class was over. I grabbed my backpack and headed towards second hour. The class went normally, some of the kids were acting strange, confused, unfocused and snappy. My inutition that something was going to happen was reinforced. The bell rang and I went next door where my nest class was. It wasn't ten minutes into the class before it happened.
The girl next to me screamed and grabbed her head. The teacher fell to his knees holding his ears. I could hear yelling coming from other classes, yes, I thought, it was working and the timing device was perfect! I grabbed the girl, Michelle as she slid from her chair and laid her on the floor. The class was gathering around Michelle and Ms. Watrud. Michelle's face was pained, I knew the yeerk was dying, so I leaned down and whispered to her.
"Hang on, the yeerk is dying, it will be over soon. Her eyes snapped to mine.
"Andalite," the yeerk whispered, the last word it would ever speak with the stolen mouth of my classmate. A gray slug slithered out of her ear onto the ground and dissapeared into dust. Some of the class screamed and backed up and some just stared. Michelle's eyes filled with tears as she looked at me.
"Th-thank you," she sobbed. "Oh god, thank you, thank you, thank you." I heard something coming from the front of the class, the yeerk was leaving the teacher as well. I took one last look and left the class. The hall was absolute pandemonium. Kids were yelling and running and teachers were trying to establish control, controllers were convulsing in places and freed controllers were sobbing on the ground or yelling and screaming with joy.
I pushed through the people towards Cassie's class. I opened the door and ran in, about half the class was still there. Cassie was knealing next to a girl named Alisha who was crying on the floor. Cassie smiled and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear comfortingly. Then she took a tissue and dried to tears off her face. The girl wasn't sobbing, but tears were quietly running down her face.
"Everything will be all right now, your free." Cassie said. The girl nodded.
"I know, I prayed all the time, that something like this would happen, and it has. Thank you, you can't know how much I thank you." the girl said. Then she stood up shakily and began to walk around. She laughed and spun around. She lifted her arms into the air and spun. "You have no idea," she said. Cassie's eyes met with mine. She stood up and walked over to me.
"You know, just seeing something like this, the joy and the hope. It makes it all seem more worth it, like we did something." she said. I watched the girl laugh and spin while the class looked at her like she was crazy and nodded.
"It does," I said. Then Cassie laughed and flung her arms around my neck and I spun her around the room along with Alisha who was still dancing with happiness. That's how Rachel and Marco found us, laughing and spinning around the room.
"They've snapped, call the men in the white coats, they're gone." Marco said drily, but I could her the joy in his voice. I let Cassie down, and we walked toward them. Rachel hugged me, Cassie hugged Marco and pretty soon we were laughing and crying, unable to believe what was happening.
"What do you say we go home?" I asked. I wanted to see Tom, and finally, I wanted to tell my parents. Rachel and Marco nodded.
"I'll call Tobias and Ax." Rachel said, and we looked on last time at each other, warriors together, finally able to hope for the ultimate victory and left. Rachel and Marco split ways with us.
"Maybe we should tell them together, I don't know if I can do it alone." Cassie said. I nodded.
"Yeah, let's call your parents and tell them to come to my house and I'll call mine and try to get them to come home." I said.
"Ok," she said, we practically ran to my house. It was chaos outside as well. Cars were crashed, people were yelling wanting to know what was going on and some were obviously freed controllers. We tried to ignore the people and slipped inside my house. We went into the kitchen so Cassie and I could call our parents, my mom was sitting at the table ringing her hands.
"Mom, what are you doing home?" I asked.
"Jake!" she cried and jumped out of her chair to grab and hug me, then Cassie.
"Have you seen what's happening? It's going on everywhere, I came home as soon as it began. Your father's on his way back, it's chaos. Have you found anything out? Oh what is this, it's terrible!" she said frantically. I grabbed my mom by the arms and sat her in the chair and Cassie called her parents.
"Mom, this is not terrible, its great, its absolutely wonderful and in a little while we'll be able to explain everything." I said.
"What? What are you talking about? Tell me now! Jake?!" she exclaimed.
"Mom, Dad is going to want to her to, so just hang on." I told her. Cassie was just hanging up with her parents.
"They're confused, but they're on their way." she said. We waited a half hour until all the parents were there. We sat them on the couch in the living room.
"Now, we have something to tell you, about what's going on." I said. "You see, what's happening outside, we caused that. Us and some friends of ours." I said. Before I could continue they interuppted me.
"What? How could you? You're just a kid." My mom said.
"Why in the world would you do something so horrible?" Cassie's mom yelled.
"Oh it's not horrible, it's wonderful, don't you see, they're free, the hosts are free." she said.
"You see earth has been being invaded, by aliens, for years now..." I said. Two hours later. Our parents sat in the living room, stunned, absolutely floored. My mom's eyes filled with tears.
"Oh my god," she said. They stared at us, uncomprehending that ones so young could do what we did.
"Jake, I-I have no idea what to say, except that I am so proud of you, so proud. Of both of you, all of you." My dad said. Cassie's hand reached over and clasped mine. I looked over at her. We hadn't told them everything, there were still things that we couldn't speak of, maybe someday, but not yet.
"I can't believe it's over," Cassie said.
"Hey, didn't I promise you?" I whispered. She smiled tenderley and squeezed my hand.
"Do you two have something else to tell us?" Cassie's dad inmteruppted. Cassie and I looked at eachother and laughed, it was over, it was really over, Finally.
~Fini~