Prologue
Once upon a time there lived a rat. Literally and figuratively. The rat made some
bad choices and became the literal rat.
I'm David. And I'm a rat. I won't lie to you. I was a horrible person. I made bad
choices. I was filled with greed and was horribly selfish. Maybe you should know
something, though, before you judge me.
You see it wasn't just me doing all that horrible stuff. I had some help from my
only friend. Some friend he turned out to be.
He made me call him Drandy but that wasn't his real name. No, he was a horrible
liar. But I believed him of course. I was a fool. He made a fool of me. The animorphs
made a fool of me. I guess I'm a fool, huh?
Drandy, he told me how horrible the animorphs were. He said they were hypocrites.
They thought they could kill as long as the person had a yeerk inside of them.
Drandy said that if that was so then killing them as an animal wouldn't
be bad either.
I believed him. I was stupid and naive. I was just a toy in his giant game.
But they won and I lost.
You have to understand that wasn't me. Nope. That wasn't me.
Please understand. Please?
Damn you Drandy, or should I say, DRODE.
Chapter 1
I hate my life. It's horrible. I'm the ugly one. I'm not glamorous or beautiful.
I don't look like I just jumped out of a beauty magazine. I guess you might say,
well no one looks like that. I can deny that though. Just look at Rachel,
I guess I sound whiny. Maybe I am, but things have gotten so unbearable
lately. I can't take it anymore. Between my sister's withdrawal, my lack of
friends, and especially my parent's divorce, things have just gotten out of hand.
My only real release from the pressure of life was the water. I felt safe in
the water. All alone. I'm on the swim team and everything. I've gotten really
good. It's kind of nice to have that little something to fall back on.
I guess that was one of the reasons this whole thing started. I had a huge
swim meet. My Mom had promised to go. It would be my chance to show her
that I'm good at something.
After all that anticipation, she had to cancel. It ends up Rachel had made
into the finals in the local gymnastics competition.
"This is a big day for her honey." She had said. What about me! All this
time training for the meet for nothing. Thanks a lot Mom.
The meet went great of course. I won first prize. No one to share it with
though. No friends, no mom, nothing at all. Well, fun fun.
So here I am in the middle of December swimming in freezing cold water to
I die. Just swimming in the wonderfully cold water.
I'll die soon. Thank god.
{Help!} I heard a voice call. What the...? Someone else crazy enough to
try swimming in the middle of winter?
I stopped for a minute. Maybe I'd be lifted out of my suicidal depressing
if I saved this poor soul's life.
I climbed onto a small island covered with various varmints
(don't you love that word?). It was such a relief to be out of that horribly cold water.
It was bittersweet because the shockingly cold breeze shocked me.
I sighed as I dried myself out on the rock. I could almost feel ice beginning
to form on my water ridden arms. I surveyed the surrounding waters, looking for
the poor soul who had yelled Help!
{Help!} I heard again. My head spun around, trying to see where this sound
had come from. Suddenly realization hit. I hadn't "heard" the voices. Yet the words
had been there, as if suddenly appearing in my mind.
"Who's there?" I yelled into the chilly breeze.
{Hello? Dear God, salvation at last!}
"Huh?" I asked stupidly and almost instantly kicked myself. I sounded like such
an idiot. Not that I should care what a complete stranger thought of me but I had suddenly
felt a premonition. This quick flash from my intuition told me that this mysterious voice
would play a great role in my life.
{You! You have come to save me!} The voice yelled. He had an aire of superiority
to him, and I couldn't help feeling a bit belittled.
"I will help you." I said meekly.
{Yes, Yes, good good!} The voice cried in my head. He sounded a bit too
excited. Realizing this he quickly calmed down his tone. {So you will carry me
off this God forsaken island?}
"Yes," I murmured. Maybe helping him would cheer me up. Maybe, I doubt
it. Personally he seemed a bit mean to me but yet I had a real urge to like him.
He was like me, rejected and forsaken. Just like me.
{I am being cruel again. Just like before....oh what a fool I was before! but
I was young and impressionable, such a fool, such a terrible terrible fool.} For a
minute his high and mighty aire seemed to drop and his "voice" dropped to an almost
crying state. {Have you ever wanted to cry but couldn't?} The mysterious creature
asked me suddenly.
"I come from a family where crying is frowned upon." I said, feeling myself
slip back into my already deep depression.
{That's not what I mean. I literally can't cry.}
"Why....why not?" I asked slightly shocked.
{You wouldn't understand.}
"Yes," I said. Then as I was completing what he had just said I realized I
couldn't even see whoever I was talking to.
"Where are you!?" I shouted burrowing the harsh tones of my cruel
sister. "Show yourself!" I ordered.
{You would never believe it.} He said.
"The hell I wouldn't!" I said and, in my anger, I kicked one of the many
roaming rodents.
{Ow! Don't kick me!} He said. I stood confused for a moment then
realizing the implications of what he had just said, fainted.
***
David-
{Wake up! Oh God wake up!} I cried for what seemed like the hundredths time.
{Please! Please! Don't die! Your the only person I've talked to for 5 years!
Please don't die!} I yelled my voice on the verge of hysteria.
"Dying?" The beautiful girl mumbled as she groggily sat up. "Who's dying?"
If I were human I would have been grinning ear to ear. So nice to have
human company....so very nice. I stared at her with my weak rat eyes.
How pretty she was. Even with these dim eyes I could see the beauty
of the blond highlights in her dirty blond hair. Pretty blue eyes shined
at me with an amazing curiosity. The eyes so similar to a wicked girl
I had once known, only the adorable twinkle replaced the other girl's cruel glare.
"Who are you?" She asked me. And so, regretfully I told her.
***
The girl
The white rat told me his story. He told me how he had been betrayed.
And yet though he could have quite easily, he didn't ask for my pity.
He didn't ask for me to have pity on him. He simply stated the facts and hung his head low.
"You poor dear. you were tricked. It wasn't you being bad." I said
sympathetically. I spoke in a voice very unique to me. The rest of my
family were cruel and bloodthirsty, but not me. I spoke gently and
softly as if to a small child.
He cocked his rat head up and stared at me. He look very closely
right into my eyes, and, as I felt it to be, right into my soul. He look
through me. Examined me and then he seemed to grin.
{No pity on me dear. I deserve none.} I stared at his rat grin. So sad.
I could almost feel tears welling up in my eyes. So very sad....
I looked up at the overcast sky. I became suddenly aware of the freezing
on my arms. So cold, so very cold. And so very tired....
***
David-
The beautiful girl fell asleep. Passed out perhaps. I rubbed my rat body
against her cold body hoping to warm her. No such luck. I glared at her. She
was a good person. So very pretty and so very nice. I loved her already.
She didn't deserve me though. No one deserved a rat like me. No one...
But could she love me. Maybe, oh please God let her love me!
*No one will ever love you* Said the voice I dreaded most.
{Go away!} I screamed. The drode. "Drandy" my former friend.
Hahahahaha. Super funny.
* I will I will. But I'll be back.*
***
The girl-
I woke up, quickly blinking my eyes. I was literally covered in ass.
So cold, so very cold. No way to get home. Not in this weather. I'd die....Ha
ain't that ironic. I came here to die. I came here to commit suicide. Yet now,
after meeting the enigma of David, I just couldn't.
I didn't know why. Meeting this poor soul shouldn't change my mind
about anything. Yet the way he looked at me....could it be that....no, no boy
had ever liked me.
"I have to go." I said as I mentally went over my way out.
{NO! I mean, oh please don't leave yet. So little company.}
"I have to go. I'll come back."
{It's okay I don't want to burden you.}
"No burden." I said as I begin to swim away. Silently I thanked
God that I lived in one of the warmer states where even winter water
wasn't *that * fatal.
***
David-
She swam away and quietly so that she couldn't hear I mumbled, {I love you.}
***
The girl-
I came in dripping wet.
"Swimming run late?" My mother asked, trying to be polite.
"Yeah," I mumbled through gritted teeth. Swimming would have ended
hours ago. She should have known that.
"Guess what!" Mom yelled as I hurried up the stairs.
"What?" I said trying to sound sincere. That was pretty hard.
"Rachel took second place in the competition!"
"Well, Yi-freaking-pee!"
"Jordan!"
"Don't you care how my day went! Guess what! I won first
freaking prize! Better then Rachel! Not that you'd care!"
"I do so!" She yelled enraged that I accuse my own mother of such a thing.
"You don't! You never did! It was always about Rachel! She's your golden child!"
"I don't favor..."
"My ass you don't!"
"Jordan!"
"What can't face the bitter truth!?"
I ran upstairs quickly in a silent rage. I could almost feel the anger
forming in me. i was ma, I was enraged, I was...starting to cry.
"No!" i screamed at myself. I couldn't cry. We don't cry in my family.
"Are you okay?" Asked my sister. She had that strained smile on her face again.
"I'm just dandy." I replied sarcastically
Her false mask of happiness dropped. "Bitch," She murmured.
I had to get away. Tomorrow I could escape to the island with David.
***
Jordan-
"David!" I yelled with a bit of excitement. I climbed out of my boat.
Much better choice then swimming.
{Your back!} He said just as excited as he was shocked. I grinned at
the small rat-boy and picked him up in my hands. Wow, I'm falling for a rat, this just great!
I told him about my life and as I told him about my horrible sister his rat
ears flew up in an almost comical fashion.
"What?" I asked, obviously confused.
{Remember how I told you about the blond haired girl in the group.}
I nodded. He hadn't used names probably because he couldn't remember them.
Or perhaps he didn't want to.
"Yes,. What about her?" I asked. He looked up at me sadly.
{I think you had better leave now.}
"David please!"
{LEAVE! Get away from me! Get the hell away from me while you still can.}
"It's wasn't your fault. You told me! You were tricked." I shouted filled of
emotion. My face turned red and my breathing started to double into a quick sudden panting.
{Leave!} And so I did. Questioning whether I should ever return.
***
David-
I couldn't hurt her. She was Rachel's sister. That evil girl. No not evil,
I'm the evil one. She did what she had to do.
I began to indulge in self pity again when I once again heard the horrible voice
of my so-called "friend"
*I have a deal for you, buddy....*
***
Jordan-
Home life is a horrible horrible thing. So here I am in my rowboat heading towards
the island that houses Rat-boy. I can't bear to think of him all alone on that island.
Plus I need his company. I miss him. Hell, I think I may love him.
I headed to that rat-covered island and called his name. Yet when I looked up
I saw something amazingly shocking.
I jumped out of the boat as fast as possible and ran up to the boy. It was
him. I don't know how I knew but it was him.
I ran toward him. "David!" I exclaimed. I put my arms around him spun him
around and kissed him. "David!" I yelled again.
I looked at his face. How sad he looked. Why? Everything was perfect.
"I made a deal with the devil." He said sadly. "And like all deals, there's a catch." I looked at him for a moment and then down at his hands. A gun, he had a gun.
He pulled it up. "I'm so sorry, Jordan. I'm so sorry. I have to be human. I have to."
I felt a cry escape me. "I..." I stuttered for a moment, "I understand. I came here to die those few days ago. You were my almost reason to live anyway."
He looked at me. His eyes almost slipped a tear but he couldn't quite do it. He couldn't cry. After all those years as a rat he had forgotten how to cry.
"Oh sweet understanding Jordan. Do you understand that I must be human or I might as well die." I saw a lightbulb go off above his head for just a split second. "I'm so sorry Jordan, goodbye."
He leaned forward and kissed me. It would be our last kiss.
"Goodbye. I love you. Goodbye." He whispered one last time. With that he began to raise his gun.
With a quick twist of his hand he spun the gun toward him and quickly pulled the trigger.
"Better to die then be a rat..." He mumbled as he fell into a deathly pose. "Love..."
And with those final words he died drifting off gently. I smiled sadly knowing he would be in heaven. I picked up the now blood-covered oars and began to row away.
He had fallen in love. Just like me...
Once upon a time there lived a rat. Literally and figuratively. The rat made some
bad choices and became the literal rat.
I'm David. And I'm a rat. I won't lie to you. I was a horrible person. I made bad
choices. I was filled with greed and was horribly selfish. Maybe you should know
something, though, before you judge me.
You see it wasn't just me doing all that horrible stuff. I had some help from my
only friend. Some friend he turned out to be.
He made me call him Drandy but that wasn't his real name. No, he was a horrible
liar. But I believed him of course. I was a fool. He made a fool of me. The animorphs
made a fool of me. I guess I'm a fool, huh?
Drandy, he told me how horrible the animorphs were. He said they were hypocrites.
They thought they could kill as long as the person had a yeerk inside of them.
Drandy said that if that was so then killing them as an animal wouldn't
be bad either.
I believed him. I was stupid and naive. I was just a toy in his giant game.
But they won and I lost.
You have to understand that wasn't me. Nope. That wasn't me.
Please understand. Please?
Damn you Drandy, or should I say, DRODE.
Chapter 1
I hate my life. It's horrible. I'm the ugly one. I'm not glamorous or beautiful.
I don't look like I just jumped out of a beauty magazine. I guess you might say,
well no one looks like that. I can deny that though. Just look at Rachel,
I guess I sound whiny. Maybe I am, but things have gotten so unbearable
lately. I can't take it anymore. Between my sister's withdrawal, my lack of
friends, and especially my parent's divorce, things have just gotten out of hand.
My only real release from the pressure of life was the water. I felt safe in
the water. All alone. I'm on the swim team and everything. I've gotten really
good. It's kind of nice to have that little something to fall back on.
I guess that was one of the reasons this whole thing started. I had a huge
swim meet. My Mom had promised to go. It would be my chance to show her
that I'm good at something.
After all that anticipation, she had to cancel. It ends up Rachel had made
into the finals in the local gymnastics competition.
"This is a big day for her honey." She had said. What about me! All this
time training for the meet for nothing. Thanks a lot Mom.
The meet went great of course. I won first prize. No one to share it with
though. No friends, no mom, nothing at all. Well, fun fun.
So here I am in the middle of December swimming in freezing cold water to
I die. Just swimming in the wonderfully cold water.
I'll die soon. Thank god.
{Help!} I heard a voice call. What the...? Someone else crazy enough to
try swimming in the middle of winter?
I stopped for a minute. Maybe I'd be lifted out of my suicidal depressing
if I saved this poor soul's life.
I climbed onto a small island covered with various varmints
(don't you love that word?). It was such a relief to be out of that horribly cold water.
It was bittersweet because the shockingly cold breeze shocked me.
I sighed as I dried myself out on the rock. I could almost feel ice beginning
to form on my water ridden arms. I surveyed the surrounding waters, looking for
the poor soul who had yelled Help!
{Help!} I heard again. My head spun around, trying to see where this sound
had come from. Suddenly realization hit. I hadn't "heard" the voices. Yet the words
had been there, as if suddenly appearing in my mind.
"Who's there?" I yelled into the chilly breeze.
{Hello? Dear God, salvation at last!}
"Huh?" I asked stupidly and almost instantly kicked myself. I sounded like such
an idiot. Not that I should care what a complete stranger thought of me but I had suddenly
felt a premonition. This quick flash from my intuition told me that this mysterious voice
would play a great role in my life.
{You! You have come to save me!} The voice yelled. He had an aire of superiority
to him, and I couldn't help feeling a bit belittled.
"I will help you." I said meekly.
{Yes, Yes, good good!} The voice cried in my head. He sounded a bit too
excited. Realizing this he quickly calmed down his tone. {So you will carry me
off this God forsaken island?}
"Yes," I murmured. Maybe helping him would cheer me up. Maybe, I doubt
it. Personally he seemed a bit mean to me but yet I had a real urge to like him.
He was like me, rejected and forsaken. Just like me.
{I am being cruel again. Just like before....oh what a fool I was before! but
I was young and impressionable, such a fool, such a terrible terrible fool.} For a
minute his high and mighty aire seemed to drop and his "voice" dropped to an almost
crying state. {Have you ever wanted to cry but couldn't?} The mysterious creature
asked me suddenly.
"I come from a family where crying is frowned upon." I said, feeling myself
slip back into my already deep depression.
{That's not what I mean. I literally can't cry.}
"Why....why not?" I asked slightly shocked.
{You wouldn't understand.}
"Yes," I said. Then as I was completing what he had just said I realized I
couldn't even see whoever I was talking to.
"Where are you!?" I shouted burrowing the harsh tones of my cruel
sister. "Show yourself!" I ordered.
{You would never believe it.} He said.
"The hell I wouldn't!" I said and, in my anger, I kicked one of the many
roaming rodents.
{Ow! Don't kick me!} He said. I stood confused for a moment then
realizing the implications of what he had just said, fainted.
***
David-
{Wake up! Oh God wake up!} I cried for what seemed like the hundredths time.
{Please! Please! Don't die! Your the only person I've talked to for 5 years!
Please don't die!} I yelled my voice on the verge of hysteria.
"Dying?" The beautiful girl mumbled as she groggily sat up. "Who's dying?"
If I were human I would have been grinning ear to ear. So nice to have
human company....so very nice. I stared at her with my weak rat eyes.
How pretty she was. Even with these dim eyes I could see the beauty
of the blond highlights in her dirty blond hair. Pretty blue eyes shined
at me with an amazing curiosity. The eyes so similar to a wicked girl
I had once known, only the adorable twinkle replaced the other girl's cruel glare.
"Who are you?" She asked me. And so, regretfully I told her.
***
The girl
The white rat told me his story. He told me how he had been betrayed.
And yet though he could have quite easily, he didn't ask for my pity.
He didn't ask for me to have pity on him. He simply stated the facts and hung his head low.
"You poor dear. you were tricked. It wasn't you being bad." I said
sympathetically. I spoke in a voice very unique to me. The rest of my
family were cruel and bloodthirsty, but not me. I spoke gently and
softly as if to a small child.
He cocked his rat head up and stared at me. He look very closely
right into my eyes, and, as I felt it to be, right into my soul. He look
through me. Examined me and then he seemed to grin.
{No pity on me dear. I deserve none.} I stared at his rat grin. So sad.
I could almost feel tears welling up in my eyes. So very sad....
I looked up at the overcast sky. I became suddenly aware of the freezing
on my arms. So cold, so very cold. And so very tired....
***
David-
The beautiful girl fell asleep. Passed out perhaps. I rubbed my rat body
against her cold body hoping to warm her. No such luck. I glared at her. She
was a good person. So very pretty and so very nice. I loved her already.
She didn't deserve me though. No one deserved a rat like me. No one...
But could she love me. Maybe, oh please God let her love me!
*No one will ever love you* Said the voice I dreaded most.
{Go away!} I screamed. The drode. "Drandy" my former friend.
Hahahahaha. Super funny.
* I will I will. But I'll be back.*
***
The girl-
I woke up, quickly blinking my eyes. I was literally covered in ass.
So cold, so very cold. No way to get home. Not in this weather. I'd die....Ha
ain't that ironic. I came here to die. I came here to commit suicide. Yet now,
after meeting the enigma of David, I just couldn't.
I didn't know why. Meeting this poor soul shouldn't change my mind
about anything. Yet the way he looked at me....could it be that....no, no boy
had ever liked me.
"I have to go." I said as I mentally went over my way out.
{NO! I mean, oh please don't leave yet. So little company.}
"I have to go. I'll come back."
{It's okay I don't want to burden you.}
"No burden." I said as I begin to swim away. Silently I thanked
God that I lived in one of the warmer states where even winter water
wasn't *that * fatal.
***
David-
She swam away and quietly so that she couldn't hear I mumbled, {I love you.}
***
The girl-
I came in dripping wet.
"Swimming run late?" My mother asked, trying to be polite.
"Yeah," I mumbled through gritted teeth. Swimming would have ended
hours ago. She should have known that.
"Guess what!" Mom yelled as I hurried up the stairs.
"What?" I said trying to sound sincere. That was pretty hard.
"Rachel took second place in the competition!"
"Well, Yi-freaking-pee!"
"Jordan!"
"Don't you care how my day went! Guess what! I won first
freaking prize! Better then Rachel! Not that you'd care!"
"I do so!" She yelled enraged that I accuse my own mother of such a thing.
"You don't! You never did! It was always about Rachel! She's your golden child!"
"I don't favor..."
"My ass you don't!"
"Jordan!"
"What can't face the bitter truth!?"
I ran upstairs quickly in a silent rage. I could almost feel the anger
forming in me. i was ma, I was enraged, I was...starting to cry.
"No!" i screamed at myself. I couldn't cry. We don't cry in my family.
"Are you okay?" Asked my sister. She had that strained smile on her face again.
"I'm just dandy." I replied sarcastically
Her false mask of happiness dropped. "Bitch," She murmured.
I had to get away. Tomorrow I could escape to the island with David.
***
Jordan-
"David!" I yelled with a bit of excitement. I climbed out of my boat.
Much better choice then swimming.
{Your back!} He said just as excited as he was shocked. I grinned at
the small rat-boy and picked him up in my hands. Wow, I'm falling for a rat, this just great!
I told him about my life and as I told him about my horrible sister his rat
ears flew up in an almost comical fashion.
"What?" I asked, obviously confused.
{Remember how I told you about the blond haired girl in the group.}
I nodded. He hadn't used names probably because he couldn't remember them.
Or perhaps he didn't want to.
"Yes,. What about her?" I asked. He looked up at me sadly.
{I think you had better leave now.}
"David please!"
{LEAVE! Get away from me! Get the hell away from me while you still can.}
"It's wasn't your fault. You told me! You were tricked." I shouted filled of
emotion. My face turned red and my breathing started to double into a quick sudden panting.
{Leave!} And so I did. Questioning whether I should ever return.
***
David-
I couldn't hurt her. She was Rachel's sister. That evil girl. No not evil,
I'm the evil one. She did what she had to do.
I began to indulge in self pity again when I once again heard the horrible voice
of my so-called "friend"
*I have a deal for you, buddy....*
***
Jordan-
Home life is a horrible horrible thing. So here I am in my rowboat heading towards
the island that houses Rat-boy. I can't bear to think of him all alone on that island.
Plus I need his company. I miss him. Hell, I think I may love him.
I headed to that rat-covered island and called his name. Yet when I looked up
I saw something amazingly shocking.
I jumped out of the boat as fast as possible and ran up to the boy. It was
him. I don't know how I knew but it was him.
I ran toward him. "David!" I exclaimed. I put my arms around him spun him
around and kissed him. "David!" I yelled again.
I looked at his face. How sad he looked. Why? Everything was perfect.
"I made a deal with the devil." He said sadly. "And like all deals, there's a catch." I looked at him for a moment and then down at his hands. A gun, he had a gun.
He pulled it up. "I'm so sorry, Jordan. I'm so sorry. I have to be human. I have to."
I felt a cry escape me. "I..." I stuttered for a moment, "I understand. I came here to die those few days ago. You were my almost reason to live anyway."
He looked at me. His eyes almost slipped a tear but he couldn't quite do it. He couldn't cry. After all those years as a rat he had forgotten how to cry.
"Oh sweet understanding Jordan. Do you understand that I must be human or I might as well die." I saw a lightbulb go off above his head for just a split second. "I'm so sorry Jordan, goodbye."
He leaned forward and kissed me. It would be our last kiss.
"Goodbye. I love you. Goodbye." He whispered one last time. With that he began to raise his gun.
With a quick twist of his hand he spun the gun toward him and quickly pulled the trigger.
"Better to die then be a rat..." He mumbled as he fell into a deathly pose. "Love..."
And with those final words he died drifting off gently. I smiled sadly knowing he would be in heaven. I picked up the now blood-covered oars and began to row away.
He had fallen in love. Just like me...