Animorphs 54.1 The comedown
My name is Jake, and even though I could tell you my name now, I still won't. Don't think that I'm being some international man of mystery or something, that's Marco's job, its just that I've spent three years fighting the yeerks now, having to constantly examine what I'm saying, how I'm acting, knowing that one slip would mean the end of the world. I probably wouldn't have died, no, the reality was much worse. You'll probably know about the yeerks, 'because every other special on TV seems to be about the war, and my friends part in it, so I won't bore with the details. Let's just say that trust doesn't come easily to me anymore.
We won the war, saved the galaxy and introduced advanced civilizations to cinnamon bun. I should be ecstatic. Against all odds, five teenagers and a young alien cadet brought down a mighty empire that threatened the earth. We succeeded.
But the cost was so high; the lives we lost in the process will never be replaced. I remember every name of every warrior that died fighting for me: Collette, Craig, James, Erica, Jesse, Ray. And of course, Rachel.
I wasn't supposed to survive. I thought I knew early on that I would die. I wasn't suicidal or anything, but I could count. I could count the enemy and I could count the near death battles and I could count the friends that I had lost during the war, and the totals say, whatever way that I look at the, I should be dead.
Maybe I should have. The war has changed me. I'm no longer the amusing basketball playing kid who looked up to his brother. For the last few years all I have known is death and violence and terror and mistrust. Now there not even that. I was a leader, I didn't ask to be, but I was, and I failed. My own cousin died, Tobias got trapped in the body of a hawk in our very first battle, Ax doesn't fit in with humans or Andalites anymore, the free Hork Bajir were decimated, the auxiliary Animorphs wiped out, and Cassie, the only girl that I ever loved, I drove away. Of all the mistakes that I've made since we met Elfangor, that was the worst.
We saved the world, and the yeerks lost.
So did we.