3.

"They are called Yeerks," Jake said.

We were in Cassie's barn, among the caged, wounded animals. Amidst the smells of hay, medicine, and animal poop.

I had been here once before, with Rachel. Cassie had been helping her parents cure animals and Rachel had been determined to drag her out with us. Rachel had won and dragged both of us to the mall.

How long ago had that been?

Had they both been doing this and just needed an alibi that day?

David was sitting on a bale of hay, rubbing his jaw. I was next to him while the others stood around us. Rachel wouldn't really meet my eyes. She kept looking away, at the ground, at David or one of the others, but not me.

"They are a parasitic race from another planet. They are not much more than gray slugs, really. But they enter your brain and reduce you to slavery. Those big, seven-foot-tall creatures that were in the house? Those are Hork-Bajir. They have Yeerks in their brains. An entire species already enslaved by the Yeerks."

"And now they're after the human race," Cassie said. "There are thousands of humans who've been made into Controllers. That's what you call a creature who's controlled by a Yeerk."

"My brother is one," Jake said.

Rachel finally looked at me, and I noticed that she was trying very, very hard to not show emotions. "So are your parents, Melissa," she said quietly.

Very quietly and full of pain and grief. I hadn't seen her like this, so confused and scared and pained since... since her parents had been getting a divorce. Things had been different then, my parents hadn't been so cold and distant. They had allowed me to have friends home, had done things like normal families did. Before the Sharing and everything changed. Rachel would come to my house to get away from the arguing and shouting in hers, bringing her sisters sometimes.

My parents had joked that they had four children, but the house had been full of noise and laughter and the smell of barbecue.

And the pain of my best friend as we'd sit in my room and I would listen and hold her and wonder why things like this happened to good people like Rachel.

That look made me know that this wasn't a joke. This wasn't a lie. As insane as this all sounded, this wasn't a joke or something for television.

They were serious.

"And by now, David, so are your mother and your father," Marco said.

Cassie shot him an angry, disapproving look. Jake obviously agreed with her. Marco shrugged. "He needs to know what's happening," I said. "He needs to know this isn't just some game."

"What about my mom and dad?" David asked him directly.

He sighed. "Look, it's all about that blue box you found. The Yeerks want it. The guy who turned into the big purple pile driver? That's Visser Three. He's the leader of the Yeerks here on Earth. He's running the invasion, okay? As you may have noticed, he wants the box. And he allowed your father, and your mom, too, I guess, to see the truth. To see him. And that's a no-no. The Yeerks don't want people knowing what's happening, not yet. So he's going to keep your mom and dad quiet. Plus, he's going to find out what they know about the box."

David shook his head, not understanding. "Are you saying he'll torture them or something?"

"Man," Marco muttered before he walked over and stood right in front of David. "Listen to me. By now your parents have been taken to a secret, underground facility called a Yeerk pool. It's not a nice place. Picture a sludgy cesspool of a pond the color of molten lead. There are two steel piers leading out over the pond. Hork-Bajir warriors will drag your parents out to the end of one of those piers. They will -"

"Marco!" Cassie said angrily.

"They will drag them out to the end of that pier and they will kick their legs out from under them and force their heads down into the sludge. And while they are kicking and screaming and calling for help, a Yeerk slug will swim over and it will squeeze into one ear. And it will flatten itself out and squeeze and burrow and dig its way into their skulls, where it will spread around and into their brains. And the Hork-Bajir will yank them up out of the sludge, and they will start to feel that they cannot control their own arms or legs. Cannot open their own mouths or move their own eyes. The Yeerk will open their memories like a person opening a book. They will be slaves. The most total slaves in all of history because even their own minds won't be theirs anymore. Are you getting the picture?"

I had listened as well, feeling sick.

My parents had taken that walk, hadn't they?

Why was the room blurry?

Oh. I was crying. An arm was placed around me, "I'm sorry, Melissa," Rachel whispered. "I'm so sorry."

"My mom is one," Marco said flatly, knowing we were still listening. "She's a Controller."

"There's a lot to tell you guys," Jake said quietly. "But Marco's right. You need to know this isn't a game. This is life and death. This is the future of the whole human race. It's too late to help your parents." He looked as if he didn't want to say the next bit, but he did. "And as of now... David, you have no home and you can't go back to school. You do, they'll find you. And it'll be you taking that long walk down the steel pier."

I saw the expression in David's eyes darken further still. It's not every day someone tells you your life is over.

"This is stupid," David said. "I mean . . . it's not right. Can't be. This is all some kind of trick."

"You saw what went down at your house," Rachel said, still sitting next to me.

"That could have been guys dressed up in costumes," David argued.

"You saw Visser Three morph," Cassie said.

"What's a Kisser Three?"

"Visser Three. With a 'v,"' Jake said. "The one who looked like a deer with a scorpion tail. You saw him morph into that purple pile-driver monster."

David looked sullen. "It's all a trick." He looked at me. "You don't believe this, do you?"

I looked at him and back at my oldest friend.

Rachel said nothing. All she did was look at me.

"They're not lying," I said quietly before I turned to look at the others. "But... Jake, why did you specify David's life is over and not mine?"

"We didn't know it was you," He answered quietly. "Not until we got you into that alley and took off your hood. If we didn't know, as close as we were, the Yeerks didn't. But David we saw and we know for a fact the Yeerks did."

"Seriously?" David said. "This is a joke or something. It has to be. Melissa, you saw the same thing, it can't be real."

"Ax," Jake said sharply, reminding me of a military leader. "Demorph."

The rather pretty boy nodded his head. "I would be glad to. It is very disturbing being without my tail. Diss-ter-BING."

"David, watch Ax. Watch him closely." Jake looked at me and said, in a bit of a nicer tone, "I think you should watch too, Melissa, but thank you for trusting us without proof."

I blushed at that, but couldn't help but look over at the boy Jake had called Ax. And then... he began to change. Hooves began to grow on his feet. His arms became thinner and weaker. Extra fingers emerged on his hands. His lips were sealed together, and then faded to the color of the surrounding skin, and finally disappeared altogether. His front legs began to emerge, growing straight out of his chest.

"Aaaahhh! Aaaahhh!" David cried. He jumped back, stumbled, and started to run.

Lucky him. I was too busy wondering if I had really lost my mind and gaping.

Definitely a deer in the headlights moment for me.

Rachel had quickly gotten up and grabbed David. "It's okay, you'll get used to it," she said. She turned him around and pushed him back toward the hay bale I was sitting on.

There was a slight slurping sound as Ax's tail began to appear. Ax fell forward on all fours. The stalks grew from the top of his head and then - pop! pop! - eyes appeared on the ends of the stalks.

"See?" Jake said. "No trick. This is Aximili-Esgarrouth-lsthill. We call him 'Ax' for short. He's an Andalite. The Andalites are the good guys of the galaxy."

I was too busy staring at Ax to really notice anything else going on.

"Visser Three has an Andalite body. But he's a Yeerk underneath it all. He has just stolen and enslaved an Andalite."

David was shaking, I felt it. I took his hand and clutched it, tight. He didn't complain, opting to just return the favor.

Neither of us said anything. What could we say to all of this?

"There is one nice thing about all this," Cassie said. "There is a compensation for all the danger and all the fear."

We just looked at her. Nice? What could be nice about learning my parents and now David's were slaves? That David hadn't even had time to begin a life in this town and it had been snatched away?

"You know the wild animals who were fighting the Yeerks today? You know the birds who tried to steal the blue box before that?" Marco said. "Us. That was us. See, Visser Three and Ax aren't the only ones who can morph. So can we. And now that we have this," He lifted up the blue box, "so can you."

"Any animal you can touch, you can become," Cassie said. "A dolphin, a skunk, a wolf."

"An elephant or a grizzly bear," Rachel said.

"A gorilla. A shark," Marco said.

"A tiger, a fly, a cockroach," Jake said. "Any animal. Any size. But only for two hours at a time. You can never stay in morph for more than two hours."

"Why?" David wondered aloud, but I was thinking it.

"Meet the final member of the Animorphs," Marco said. "Tobias."

A bird flapped down from the rafters of the barn. I blinked for a few seconds and said, curious, "You're the bird that was outside our homeroom this morning."

~Sorry about that,~Tobias answered. ~I thought it'd be a good idea to keep an eye on the kid with the morphing cube. It was how we learned about that e-mail that would have been sent out.~

"A bird," David said dully.

~A red-tailed hawk, to be precise.~

I just shook my head, wondering how on earth I would be able to deal with all of this. "I can't face my parents after this," I said quietly.

"Well, it's not a school night, they'll buy it."

"Yeah. I told my dad I was hanging with a friend. I didn't say which one." I looked at Rachel, "We'll say we were practicing a routine and came here so that Cassie could be our spotter."

"And me?" David inquired flatly.

I thought of an answer for that surprisingly quickly, "We can tell a little bit of the truth. You can be related to me or Rachel, and something happened to your family's house. Your parents didn't think it was fair to make you stay in a hotel with them while things get sorted out and our parents thought it'd be good for you to meet people your age."

"Even though you're all girls?" David said, but I could see him warming to the idea a little bit.

"Most teenage guys would jump at that," I said, giving him a teasing smile. We noticed everyone was looking at us. "... What?"

"That works," Rachel said slowly. "If our parents say yes."

The others left, while we went inside of Cassie's house. Her parents must have been surprised their daughter had brought three friends over but they accepted it with good grace, giving us dinner and just talking.

I hadn't really had that kind of meal, one with laughter and talking and people actually caring. It was after the dinner and after we finished our homework, even David. I made him do it.

"It doesn't make sense," he protested quietly. "What's the point? I can't go back to school."

"It's something normal," I said back. "I can bring you the stuff and tutor you. You're not stupid and neither am I. And one day... maybe one day things will be normal again. Do you really want to be some idiot because of this?"

He rolled his eyes but complied.

After that, Rachel called her mom and gave her the cover story I used. After a little lecture of unexpected plans, she was given the okay.

I called home.

"Hello?"

"Hey Mom," I said into the phone. "I'm at Cassie's house. Rachel's friend? I told Dad I'd be hanging out."

"Okay." Her voice was dull, flat.

"Is it okay if I stay over? It's just that it's getting a little late and everything."

"Sure sweetheart, have fun." The phone was hung up before I could say goodbye.

"It's not her," Rachel said quietly, making me look at her. "If that helps any, just remember, that's not really her."

"Yeah," I muttered. That might be true, but it still hurt. I had thought it was them for years and one night of the truth wouldn't change that. "Where are we sleeping?"