By: Forlay

"Oh, my God!"

"What? What is it?"

"Over here!" Rachel signaled for her boyfriend, Tobias, to where she was standing, knee deep in snow. Her jeans were soaked through, but she hardly noticed.

When Tobias found her, he couldn't speak for a moment. "Oh, my…is that…"

Rachel nodded. "Two little boys. Come on, we need to go get the police."

"We found them over here, officer," Tobias said as he led the police contingent over the snow covered sledding hill in the woods.

"I see," the sergeant said absently, thinking this was a prank. They lived in a small town; there wasn't much for two 16 year olds to do in the winter.

"Over there," Rachel pointed to a small lump in the snow.

The sergeant walked over to the lump and squatted down to brush the light dusting of snow off it, expecting a pile of clothes, maybe logs.

"Geez!" he said, jumping back. "It's a kid!"

"Two of them," Rachel corrected softly. She was normally a strong, brave girl, but the sight of the two bodies; boys roughly the ages of her younger sisters, had unnerved her.

Sergeant Chapman was feeling pretty unnerved himself. "Uh, we'll have to go back to the station and get the proper equipment to bring them back to Elsemeer with us. You two will have to come with us," he added to Rachel and Tobias. They nodded. "Follow me, then."

Cassie, Elsemeer's lone, and rarely needed, mortician, snapped off her rubber gloves as she left the examining room to report her findings to the sergeant and the two kids. What were their names again? Oh, Tobias and Rachel. Cassie was new to Elsemeer, fresh out of school and wanted to work in a small town, a stark contrast to the Detroit she'd grown up in. So, unlike everyone else in this town where everyone knew everyone by their first name, she still struggled.

"They're definitely not from around here," she told Chapman, Rachel and Tobias. "If I didn't know better, I'd say they weren't even humans as we know them. The baby isn't, at least."

"What do you mean?" Chapman asked.

"The baby's eyes can't see color. Not at all. And I don't mean like he's color blind, you can't tell about that from a non-invasive posthumous exam. I mean, his eyes seem to have evolved to not see color."

"And the older boy?"

"Similar. But he seems to have adapted to see color."

"Sounds like they're from that freaky cult," Tobias murmured.

"What freaky cult?" Cassie asked.

"About 50 miles away is this cult, Sameness, all the people there are descended from genetically engineered people from about 100 years ago. The founders wanted everyone to look exactly the same; dark brown hair, brown eyes, fair complexion. Allegedly, the people have absolutely no individual freedoms. They don't even choose to have their own families."

"Order to the extreme," Rachel supplied.

"These two had pale blue eyes though," Cassie said.

"During genetic engineering, it's practically impossible to isolate all the genes that cause certain attributes. In the boys' case, its blue eyes," Rachel explained. "There are probably green eyes in the cult, too. Who knows, maybe even some blonds and red heads."

"How do you know so much about the cult and genetic engineering?" Chapman asked. He knew all about the cult-everyone in Elsemeer did-but not this genetic engineering nonsense. Where had the kids learned about everyone in the cult being the same?
"The spy planes have learned a lot more about Sameness since you were in school, Sergeant Chapman," Tobias said.

"And the genetic engineering thing, I've been studying that for ages," Rachel said. "I plan to major in it in college. If I can get out of this dump of a town, anyway."

"All right," Chapman said. "You two can go on home now. Thanks for your cooperation."

"No problem, Sergeant," Tobias said. He took Rachel's hand in his and together they walked out of the station.

"They an item?" Cassie asked as they watched the pair leave.

"Item?"

"You know, a couple."

"Oh yeah. Probably will end up getting married, too. That's the way things go here in Elsemeer."

Cassie looked back towards her examining room and said more to herself than the sergeant, "And how would things have gone for them?"

Author's Note: Isn't it wonderful when you can write fan fiction for school??? I got to write this for my Government class after we read 'The Giver'. Out of all the choices for projects (Drawing the Community, acting out a scene, etc.) I decided to choose Write a New Ending (or continue on), since that's basically what our fan fic is, right?

And yes, all you Animorphs people, I was feeling a serious lack of creativity when I was writing this (The day it was due during Seminar!!!) so I just sorta grabbed Animorph names ~grin~