Am I the Enemy?
My name is Julie. I'm a Controller. Someone with a Yeerk in their head. I'm sure you've heard of the Yeerks. Or probably not… But you will…
"Controller". How I hate that word. I never would have believed that one word could mean so much. So much pain. So much….loneliness. Of course, I'm not alone. The yeerk is there almost all the time. That smug, evil, little thing. Only for a short while, every three days, I can be alone in my own head. I'm alone now. And still, I'm not. I'm in a cage with a dozen other Controllers. No one I know.
I've been a Controller for almost a year now. Most of my family has been infested. "Most of my family" can be misleading. There's only me, my mother and my sister. My little sister. I can see her now, in a cage not far away. She's screaming. Of course she's screaming. She's only been infested for three day. I would be screaming too, if I hadn't given up. I remember her little face when the Hork-Bajir pushed her head under water. I wasn't really there, but my yeerk was. He made sure I got to see aaaall his memories of it. Then he laughed. And I screamed, for the first time in six months.
It's my fault my sister is here. I should have fought harder, screamed more, when the yeerk told me she was next. I should have done something! But I couldn't. And now it's too late, and I've wrecked her life forever. And it's going to be a very long life. She's only eight!
You'd think they tried to take the parents first, but they don't. The kids go first, so that they can talk their parents into joining. It always works. I know cous it's working with my mum. MY mum!
I still go to school of course. I live my life perfectly like normal. Well, I don't, but the yeerk do. Yesterday, a girl in my class came over to talk to me after school. About homework. Her name is Rachel, and we used to be good friends before I joined The Sharing, and got "too busy". I tried all the time to get control, let her know something was wrong. My yeerk was weak after days without cadrona rays, and I managed to draw a circle with a cross in it, on a piece of paper. When Rachel and I were kids, that was our sign for danger. I think she saw it, but my yeerk took it almost right away. Rachel had a funny look in her eyes, but it was probably nothing. It's always nothing…
My biggest fear used to be turning into one of those Controllers who didn't scream after the yeerk had crept out. The ones that had given up. Now I've given up. I don't scream anymore, I don't fight anymore. I want to, but I can't. Now my biggest hope is that the next time the Andalites come to destroy the yeerk pool, they'll manage to do it. Or that I'll get killed when they try. I don't want to live anymore, with all the thing I've seen. I don't know how anyone could.
So I ask you, am I the Enemy?