The Animorphs books and its characters do not belong to me. All rights go to their respective owners.
Warnings: Spoilers for the end of the series.
This was an attempt to write a 500 word drabble with no dialogue. Obviously, only one of those restrictions was followed through.
There was never all that much excited movement from him. It had surprised the Chee. The Android had thought the nothlit would take every advantage of his newfound senses. Constant running, talking, watching. There were limits, but he thought those limits would be stretched against. This apathy, this defeated stillness, it startled him. That much was easily admitted.
Erek had gone in soon after the alerts went out over the news. No matter how sour he felt towards the Animorphs, the people that had forced a rather hurried relocation, Erek couldn't let the opportunity be wasted. Given more than two, three days at most to stretch the suspension of belief, to enter into the system with his "Erek King" the controller alibi and the chance would be gone. And the Yeerk would be stuck in his head indefinitely, unable to die as long as Erek was unable to kill.
All it had taken were a few creative usages of his holograms and a rather disoriented, overworked staff at the center where the Andalite's had allowed an Escafil device to be. And then returning back to the rest of the Chee with a now-morph-capable parasite. Now Erek could erase the identity he had been enjoying before the Animorphs had ended the war and their friendship with the Chee in one fell swoop.
He had strongly considered a dog. It didn't happen. For one, it still was an unpleasant thought for the Chee to give a creature like a Yeerk the body of a canine. Two, dogs, after all, couldn't speak. Not a language understood by other biological sentients at least. And speaking was too important for this particular nothlit. That much, Erek assumed without having ever communicated with the creature.
In the end, it was human DNA in the form of easily sampled blood tests and skin that he selected. Still harder to get in order than if he had chose dog. It took patience to introduce the small parasite body to the samples and wait for at least one of them to be acquired. Then a longer wait for the process of morphing to go from there. The Chee were a patient people.
It was too much to ask for a Frolis Maneuver to have been used with no instructions. That didn't matter, in all actuality. It didn't matter if the body was one identical to some living human boy. It wasn't like they could let the nothlit leave. The Chee knew that full well even when he had gone in to get the parasite out of his head. Whatever the former Yeerk could have said out there still would have been a possible threat to the security of the Chee's secret existence, no matter how lacking on details.
Maybe that was why the movement was so apathetic. Why the nothlit seemed so uninvolved. He was still in a prison.
Able to move and see and hear, yes. Able to speak and eat and drink, yes. Able to pet cheerful dogs and walk on grass in those hours out of the small room he spent his days in, yes.
All of which meant this imprisonment should have seemed a paradise compared to the last prison. To years with none of those options. Of constant Kandrona to the point of numbness. Of zero mental or physical stimulation. Certainly, Erek didn't doubt that the nothlit preferred this current state of existence to the former.
Still, there was nothing to do. Eat, watch TV, eat, pet dogs, eat, sleep, repeat. No talking with anyone but Chee. No other Yeerks, nothlits or not. No other humans, since that was what the nothlit technically was now.
Just a life trapped in the same routine with only the company of the beings who put him through total sensory deprivation for years.
Erek knew quite a bit about Akdor 935. None of that knowledge shared with him willingly.
None of the Chee "controllers" felt particularly bad about that fact. It was after the events that ended the war that the guilt actually set in for Erek. After watching thousands of the parasites flushed into space, watching the atrocity be defended by Cassie of all people, of having his own actions be responsible for the death of the Animorph on the Blade Ship, etc by every painful etc.
Maybe that was what had fueled this entire venture. This unrewarding venture.
As a human, Akdor didn't tell him much. Erek had been somewhat surprised. After all, having that voice and an ability to communicate back was the main reason he had found human samples. Then the minor feeling of insult faded. The new human just didn't seem to have the ability to talk much. He liked sounds. Very much. In fact, monitoring proved that it was rare for those sounds to stop and silence to descend. Whether it be little tickings, or humming, or clicking his tongue. It was amazing how many little distinct noises could be made just by having a working mouth.
Maybe the lack of communication wasn't all grounded in absolute hatred towards Erek, the Chee sometimes considered somewhat hopefully.
And then the Chee would catch those looks of both fright and abhorrence the blue eyes sent his way when he was in the room. Not to mention, Akdor sharing anything about himself was rather redundant at this point. Afterall, his mind, mannerisms, and history had already been gleaned by the Android. Any complaining about his situation would be pointless. The Chee were not ones to give on anything they had already determined. No amount of complaints or pleading would give freedom outside the bounds already set; no others to speak to, no sky to see, nothing that couldn't be put in their over-sized underground dog park.
Maybe hate was a factor in the silence.
Adjustment had been difficult for the new human. Erek was an android. He didn't need food, water, hygiene, clothes; any of those biological necessities. And yet he was the one to try to explain them all. To lead the disoriented human adolescent through different steps and actions.
Akdor got caught up in the smallest things. When Erek had tried to get him to drink, just a little bit of water from one of those tiny paper bathroom cups so that it would stay settled inside him, the nothlit just stared at it. Watched the light moving as it was reflected off tiny ripples as if that was the most fascinating sight in reality. Hot water, poured into a bath, was supposed to be more comforting than the alternative shower. A bath was more similar to the sludge of a Yeerk pool than the confusion of a shower. But instead, the nothlit was caught up in the sensation of feeling the water. The boy had knelt by the tub, dipping a hand in and out, feeling the liquid and temperature, for twenty minutes before Erek gave up on him completing the next step on his own and stepped in for intervention.
The first time eating had been attempted hadn't been pleasant for anyone involved. Apparently Akdor's short time spent in one Gedd host did little to prepare for chewing, swallowing, keeping that food swallowed- the normal requirements that made up eating. The nothlit was already distressed enough. About, well, everything. It had not been any less stressing to discover how the new body purged. The next few meals occurred with smaller portions and simpler food than the beautiful egg and donut breakfast Erek had prepared day 1.
Lights, it was discovered, had to stay low but absolutely not off. Erek had expected that darkness would be banned, but admitted surprise on the poor reaction to brightness. Over the weeks this seemed to fade until Akdor could stay in his room with the lights on all the way or get mandatory exercise in the park area without hunching away from the light, hand over eyes.
Sound, also not surprising, had to be a constant. Just like light, it couldn't be too loud. That was agonizing to the Akdor at first, one of the few things he managed to communicate to his custodian with words as well as twisting his head under the covers of his bed to block his ears. This, just like light, wore off over time. Going from absolute silence to too many loud noises was something akin to physical pain for the nothlit and something exposure eased. Dim white noise had to be present at all times in the room, to fill any possible silences when Akdor wasn't making his own sounds or listening to a device that did. Silence and darkness combined were a good way to start a wordless screaming episode, something else discovered the first night.
Sleep hadn't been hard to adjust to, although getting Akdor to shut his eyes to the night light and try to drift off away from conscious thought without moving some small appendage continuously was. Too familiar to the wire trap in the Chee's head, Erek assumed. Hygiene was something that had to be enforced since the nothlit didn't seem interested in instigating it. Overall, however, adjustments to a human body didn't take that long. Adjustments to every returned and new human sense was a more difficult story.
After the adjustment period wrought with much frustration came the complete routine. Where Erek's only real role left was to ensure routine meals and baths, so he was left to just observe.
He'd watch Akdor rock minutely in a hunched up crouch, moving his fingers through blonde hairs repeatedly- over skin, over clothing and blankets- all the while the television the Chee installed in the room played on quietly. The small shifting was the most constant movement of the nothlit. While he didn't seem active, didn't run, pace, jump, whine about lack of space, or the like, he didn't sit still. Something was always moving. Fingers, feet, eyes. Rocking, shifting, stretching. The Chee theorized it was a reminder movements were an option now.
He'd watch the small nothlit try to draw while music from a large gray CD player played. Erek noticed Akdor did have the television play often, even when he himself looked more engaged in scratching at the texture of the bed comforter or making some new noise. The Chee noticed the nothlit seemed fascinated in the different soaps used during mandatory baths. He'd sniff the bars or his own hands after the foamy residue had been left behind. Different foods were likewise subjected to similar smelling. The conversations tended to be short. Whether from Akdor's apparent concentration problems or his loathing towards the Chee that had subjected him to years of, however much deserved, hell. Erek's attempts at providing reading material tended to be less successful than bringing in a new VHS.
A thick sheet wrapped around the mind was the description delivered by the nothlit once on the experience in the Chee's head. Erek was discovering that "sheet" wasn't completely lifted no matter what senses had been returned and what new body the Escafil had given the parasite. It should have been freedom in comparison to the old existence. It should have.
The Escafil had only liberated the Yeerks' subjugated body. Mental resistance to the Chee's continued imprisonment had been quelled and, day after day, gave no sign of being released.
The series finale left so many loose ends unaddressed, something incredibly frustrating after all the time a reader had to devote to get to the final book. What happened to all the Yeerks stuck in the Chee was just one minor of loose end, but it was the one I ended up deciding to try my hand on.
Thank you for your time!