THE SALVATION

RACHEL

I awoke on a hard bed in a darkened hospital room that smelled like antiseptic, hooked up to machines that presumably monitored my – Melissa's, that is - heart rate, blood pressure, and other vitals. Intravenous tubes supplied nutrients and liquids...

...and I had a tube in my throat.

I started gagging reflexively, over and over again. I could hear my heart rate spike on the monitor to my left. Two nurses rushed into the room. One of them held me down while another one jabbed me with a needle. A sedative, I guess, since my gagging stopped and my muscles began to relax.

A day later I was sitting up in the hospital bed and talking to the doctor about being discharged.

"Your recovery is, quite frankly, remarkable," he said. "We had never expected you to regain consciousness, but here you are, healthy as you were before you were admitted."

I smiled at the man. "I guess God just likes me or something," I said. "Will you need to do any follow-ups?"

"Standard practice says yes," the doctor replied. "Even though you seem to be fit as a fiddle, you should come back every few weeks or so just so that we can make sure there's nothing going on that we can't detect. It's completely up to you, though."

"I'll consider it," I said.

I was discharged the next day, and I walked out of the hospital with no intention of ever going back. Logic told me that an omnipotent being wouldn't screw up my resurrection, especially when he was going to get something out of the bargain.

Melissa had only had one set of clothes when she was admitted – the clothing she was wearing. The rest had been destroyed in the razing of our hometown by the Yeerks as a landing area for the Pool Ship. They had been cleaned and mended by the hospital staff, so I wasn't in dire need of shopping just yet, though the urge was tempting. I was in Santa Clarisa, about 130 miles from my old hometown, and the doctor had been kind enough to give me enough money to get back there on the bus and maybe get something to eat.

While I was on the bus, a thought struck me. I made my way into the bathroom at the back, locked the door, and stripped down to my underwear. Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes and focused on an image of a bald eagle.

After a few minutes of concentration, absolutely nothing had happened. I sighed and put my clothes back on. I guess it wasn't surprising that I couldn't morph – Melissa couldn't, after all – but I had hoped that this superhuman being would tweak reality a bit to give me my abilities. Oh well. So much for benevolence.

I gazed out of the bus window as we drove through my hometown a couple hours later. It was amazing how much had been rebuilt since the war. Here and there were still obviously unfinished neighborhoods, but for the most part it almost looked as though it had never been destroyed. When it came right down to it, humanity was amazing at recovering from disaster.

The bus pulled into a station across from a huge park. I disembarked and strolled across the street to try and get my bearings. I looked briefly at the sign near the entrance of the park and stopped in my tracks.

Rachel Berenson Memorial Park
Rachel Berenson gave her life fighting
alongside the Animorphs in the final battle
against the Yeerks. This park is dedicated
to her so that her name will endure for the
rest of history.

My eyes teared up and I felt a lump rising in my throat. They'd dedicated this entire park to me. I walked in, looking around. Trees, grass, flowers everywhere. A play area, covered with kids. Teenagers over at a skate area. Adults all over the place. This seemed to have become the hangout area in town. All of these people, coming to this place named in my memory. My emotions threatened to overwhelm me, and I sat down on a bench, taking deep breaths. I couldn't lose it. I was in public. People would stare.

"Melissa?"

My head jerked instinctively towards the sound of my younger sister's voice. "Sara?" I spotted her skateboarding over to me from the skate area and my emotions threatened me even more. She was an adult now. How on earth had that happened? Had I really been gone so long?

She hopped off the skateboard and flipped it up into her hand. "Hi! I haven't seen you in ages! Where have you been?"

I cleared my throat, willing the lump to go away. "Oh, you know, around," I said casually. "I've been living up in Santa Clarisa since the war." I gestured. "This place is just so full of memories, you know?"

Sara's eyes clouded. "Yeah." She sat down next to me and draped her arm around my shoulders, pulling me close. It took all of my inner strength to keep from bursting into sobs right there and telling her who I was. They've moved on, I told myself sternly. Instead, I hugged her back.

"Hey," she said after we'd sat that way a while. "My mother's here. She'll want to see you, I bet."

I couldn't trust myself to see my mother just yet. One more assault on my emotions would just be too much. "I actually have some stuff to do," I said, rising from the bench. "You know what, though, give me your address and I'll come visit soon."

"That'd be nice." She smiled, then pulled a pen and scrap of paper out of her pocket and scrawled the address down for me.

"Thanks." I tucked the paper into my pocket and gave her another hug. "I'll see you around, okay?"

"Definitely," Sara replied. She hopped back on her skateboard and headed back towards the half-pipe.

I took a deep breath. First things first. I needed to go see Tobias now. I made my way out of the park and started the long walk out to Cassie's old farm.