Welcome readers, and a special hello to fellow Tobias fans! Guess who's narrating this chapter? I won't spoil it any further, though you'll know by reading the first sentence.
Right now I'm just re-doing book one (sort of), getting all the Animorphs together and such. After that, I might start doing other books in the series in this style. If there's a particular book you'd like me to write in this style, please let me know and I'll try my best to do it.
I do not own Animorphs.
My name is Tobias.
I can't tell you my last name, couldn't, even if I knew what it was, which I don't. You see, I'm an orphan. I think. My parents aren't here, and that's what matters. My mom never bothered telling the woman working the front desk of the orphanage what my last name was when she dropped me off, so I never knew it.
But even if I did, I couldn't tell you. If you knew, if anyone reading this found out who I was . . . it would be worse for humanity than the plague ever was. All I can say for now is that if they found me - found us - humanity would be done for.
Pretty big deal, right?
A week ago, I never would have expected to be dealing with anything as important as that. Life was simple, easy. Everything was laid out, planned ahead of time, every day predictable. Wake up, go to school, work at the greenhouse, go back to the orphanage, go to sleep, repeat.
Just between you and me, I kind of like how unpredictable things have become. There's only so much routine a person can take. Though, to be fair, I kind of owe the new way of life to the routine of the old.
Ironic, right?
But really, the minute my life changed, I was following my routine, walking back to the orphanage from a long shift at the greenhouse. My mind was wandering, and I guess my eyes were too, because I saw something that I'd never seen before.
In the middle of the busy street, doing her best not to be crushed by the people walking by her on either side, was a short girl with dark skin begging passerby for help.
"Please, sir, I need help. My friend - " she said, but by then, the man she was talking to had passed. She tried again, on a woman this time.
"Please help me, please come with me, my friend is dying - "
But the woman ignored her too.
I could understand why they ignored her. People have enough problems around here without stopping to deal with someone else's. That was why I'd never seen someone begging like this before - people knew it was pointless, so why try? Still, I'd been the one being ignored enough times that I decided to walk over to the girl and see what kind of help she needed. As I walked up to her, her eyes latched onto mine and I saw a desperate hope in them.
"Please," she said. "Please come with me. My friend is trapped and I can't get her out by myself."
"Where's she trapped?" I asked, curious. There's not exactly a ton of places in the Safe Zone where someone could be trapped. But, of course, her friend wasn't in the Safe Zone.
"In the Deadlands," the girl said, her voice soft, pleading, afraid I'd walk away.
That was it. The moment my life changed, because I decided that I would help this girl. There were no fireworks, no flash of lightning, no anything. The swarms of people around me continued shoving me and jabbering away, their voices mixing into one big indistinguishable chattering flow of noise, and the girl and I stood there, not talking for a moment.
"I'll help you," I said. Her face lit up with a mixture of shock and joy.
"Okay," she said. "Okay, come with me."
Her hand grabbed my wrist, locked on tight, like she was afraid I'd change my mind and leave her. She wove through the crowds of people and tangled streets. After a few minutes, the crowd thinned, and we came to one of the Safe Zone's exits, though I'd never been to this one before. It was out of the way, which I guess was a good thing, for a few reasons. One of them was that the door had only one guard - most have two, and convincing two people to let us out would have been a lot harder than just convincing one. It turned out, though, that we didn't have to convince the guard anyway. He merely glanced at us, then climbed down from his post to unlock the door.
As he was fitting keys into locks, I realized that I knew this guard, from school. It was Jake. I'd had him in a couple classes and we'd never really been close, but he was a pretty decent guy. He'd stopped some guys from beating me up once or twice. I wasn't surprised he was guarding the door - he'd always been at the top of any class that covered some aspect of guarding. I was surprised when he pulled the door open and gestured for us to go, though - that was something guards weren't trained to do, and Jake always followed his training.
"Good luck," he said to the girl as she exited. If he recognized me, he didn't let on.
I followed the girl out the door, which shut behind us, and into the Deadlands. I was nervous about being out in the Deadlands without the protection of a gun or even a surgical mask to prevent me from getting the plague, but there was something exhilarating about it as well. I was doing the forbidden; I was outside the walls; I was free, for the first time I could remember. Instead of working for hours and following a schedule, orders, anyone with more authority than me, I was in charge of myself, and I liked it. For a while neither of us talked and we just made our way through the rubble that litters most of the Deadlands. We walked far enough that the Safe Zone shrunk to an outline on the horizon, and my exhilaration dissolved into worry as I wondered just how far out this "friend" was.
"How much farther?" I asked the girl.
"Not very far," the girl said.
"I'm sorry, but I don't know your name," I said. It felt wrong to keep thinking of her as "the girl" at this point - I felt like I should know the name of the person who'd led me out of the Safe Zone and into freedom.
"I'm Cassie," she said.
"I'm Tobias," I said.
"Well, Tobias, it's nice to meet you, and thank you so much for helping me," Cassie said. "My friend's right over - oh no."
She had climbed over the crest of the latest pile of rubble a bit ahead of me, so at first all I could see was Cassie running down the other side. I sped up, climbing to the top of the pile, and I saw what had made Cassie so alarmed.
Cassie's friend lay on the ground, her left leg clearly pinned under a huge chunk of brick wall. Her short blonde hair lay fanned out around her head like a halo - the kind you'd see around an angel's head in a History textbook. Her skin was pale, and her chest rose and fell rapidly with her breathing. She looked unconscious until her eyes flickered open as Cassie ran over to her - I got the feeling Cassie had left her friend in much better condition. They talked for a moment in hushed tones while I stood there, feeling useless, then Cassie spoke up.
"You move the wall," she said. "Just sort of pull it - it almost rolls. Once it's off her foot, I'll pull her out."
"Okay," I said, and moved around to get the best grip on the wall. I grabbed it, trying to find handholds that wouldn't break off. Eventually I had a solid grip.
"Ready?" Cassie asked.
"Ready," I said, and I pulled on the wall. It was heavier than anything I'd ever had to lift - but it did roll a bit. I pulled it back, rolling it off of the girl's leg. Sweat broke out on my forehead and the back of my neck.
"More!" Cassie shouted. I strained to pull the wall back farther. I leaned backwards. I dug my feet into the ground and pulled. I overworked every muscle in my body, trying to pull the hunk of bricks back far enough to free the girl. Slowly, the chunk rolled back farther, and I could hear Cassie pulling her friend out against the smaller chunks of rubble. I held the wall in place until I heard Cassie call, "She's out!", and only then did I release it. It fell back into its original position with a heavy thump.
I walked around the wall chunk to find Cassie kneeling on the ground next to the other girl, who was now sitting propped up against another pile of rubble, looking around with unfocused eyes. The tight pants she wore let me see her left shin bending sideways, broken. The light blue fabric was stained bright red with blood, and suddenly I saw the red blood everywhere - on the ground, on Cassie's hands as she tried to staunch the flow, oozing out from under the bricks that had crushed the girl's leg. It still oozed from her leg, trickling down the gray rubble, staining the dust and spreading into a puddle on the ground.
So much red.
"She needs a doctor," I said, stating the obvious. "Someone needs to stop the bleeding, and then she needs a cast for that leg."
"I know, I know," Cassie said. "But the only doctor would be in the Safe Zone, and she can't go there."
"Why not?" I asked.
"She's a Deadlander," Cassie said. "We both are. I'm lucky the guard let me in to get help for her at all, there's no way I'll find someone to let her in to be treated. And even if someone would let us in, she can't walk that far."
"I'll carry her," I said. "I'll vouch for her, too. I've got an ID, they'll have to let us in."
I'm not really sure why I said it, but then again, I'm not really sure about anything I did that day. I just looked at the girl on the ground and knew I needed to help her, so I did. And, thankfully, I did actually have my ID in my pocket, so getting back into the Safe Zone, at least, could be done.
"Are you sure?" Cassie asked, clearly hoping I wouldn't change my mind.
In response, I knelt and picked the girl up off the ground, trying not to worsen her injuries and cause her any more pain. One of my hands went under her knees, the other behind her shoulders. She wasn't hard to carry - she was tall, but not heavy. Her blue eyes drifted, not looking at any one thing for long. Her blonde hair shone through the dirt covering it. She was beautiful. She was dying.
"I'm sure," I said.
The walk back to the Safe Zone seemed to take much longer than the walk from it had. It might have been because I was carrying the girl, and that slowed me down. More likely it was because I knew that if we didn't get her back to the Safe Zone fast enough, she would die. That knowledge alone made every second into an eternity, and I could only hope that the girl I was carrying wouldn't come to her senses and have to deal with that knowledge as well. Halfway through the journey, her eyes fluttered shut, and I worried that she'd died, but her chest continued to rise and fall with her breathing.
I could see the path we had walked marked by the trail of red that dripped from the girl's leg, her life flowing over her legs, my arm, onto the ground, gone forever. Irreplaceable.
I stopped only once, to rip some fabric off my pants and tie it over the wound, hoping it would slow the flow of blood.
We arrived back at the same door we'd left through and found that Jake was still the only guard. As soon as he saw us, he stiffened. Once he spotted the girl in my arms, his eyes widened in alarm, he froze for a moment, and then he bolted down the ladder and quickly opened the door.
"Hurry up!" he said, his voice low and urgent. "The next shift takes over in only a couple minutes!"
Cassie ran through the door, and I followed, moving as fast as I could with the girl in my arms. As soon as I was inside, Jake slammed the door shut and frantically locked it.
"Go!" he hissed through his teeth, jerking his head toward the streets leading away from the door, surrounded by tall apartment buildings. Cassie darted into one of them and I followed, turning to the door just in time to see Jake resume his post and two other guards show up. The guards talked to Jake for a minute, joking and laughing, then traded spots. Jake climbed down the ladder back to the ground and walked over to the street where Cassie and I stood, hiding in the shadows. He was acting casual, I assumed for the benefit of the new guards. Once we were out of their sight, he grabbed Cassie's shoulder.
"My friend needs to go to the hospital," Cassie said before Jake could say anything. Jake looked at the girl in my arms, nodded, and said, "Fine. Follow me. I know the way."
Jake led us through several streets, making turns and trying to avoid the biggest throngs of people. When we did encounter people, most of them saw Jake in his guard uniform and me carrying an unconscious girl with blood pouring from a broken leg and got out of the way. Unfortunately, that didn't last.
Only a dozen or so blocks from the hospital, I heard a voice from behind me.
"Hey, Jake, wait up!" someone called. I turned my head and saw another kid I recognized. Sort of. It was Marco, Jake's best friend, running to catch up with us.
At that time, I didn't know Marco too well. All I knew about him was that he liked to tell jokes, did pretty well in class, and hung out with Jake a lot. He slowed down when he was next to Jake, resting his hand on Jake's shoulder, and said, "Hey man, I thought you were going to wait for me!"
Jake rolled his eyes. "I did, or don't the three hours on shift without you count?"
On shift without you? Marco must have been assigned to guard the door with Jake and taken off. Good thing for us he did, otherwise we probably would have been stuck in the Deadlands. I don't know how Cassie convinced Jake to let her in, but convincing two guards would have been near impossible.
"Anyway, I'm bringing them to the hospital," Jake said, nodding his head towards me and Cassie. Marco looked at us, saw the girl in my arms, and said, "Whoa! Who's the hot girl?"
"That's Rachel," Cassie said.
Rachel. I looked down at her face. Even though when she woke up, she'd be in pain, even though her life was slowly seeping out of her leg in the form of blood, even though she still might die in the next few hours, right now she looked peaceful, serene.
Rachel. The name was pretty, with a bit of a bite to it. It suited her.
Jake pushed open the doors to the hospital and held them open as I carried Rachel inside, with Cassie following and Marco trailing behind. Jake led me to a counter of sorts where patients were admitted. A grumpy woman in her forties with graying hair sat behind it, and she did not look at all pleased to see Rachel.
"Who's this?" she asked before Jake could say anything.
"That's Rachel. I'm pretty sure her leg's broken, she'll need it to be set," Jake said.
"She's lost a lot of blood," I added.
The woman thought for a moment, then said, "No."
"Why not?" Cassie cried.
"Because," the woman said. "We're practically overflowing, and I've never seen this girl before. She might be a Deadlander for all I know."
Cassie swallowed hard, and I could see her straining to maintain a neutral face.
"She's not," Jake said to the woman. I was impressed that he could lie so well, and that he would lie to save the life of a Deadlander girl.
"Well, how do you know? This is probably some girl who stumbled up to the wall and claimed to need medical attention just to get inside. Maybe she got mauled by a mutant. Maybe her gang injured her on purpose. I don't know, I don't care, and I won't treat her," the woman said.
"No, she's not a gang member, she's not some random girl," Jake said, then he paused, thinking of some way to prove it.
"She's my cousin," he said. "She doesn't come around here a lot, mostly works in the greenhouses. But she knocked a table of plants onto her leg and broke it."
The woman sat there for a moment, thinking. Deciding if she believed what Jake told her, which I knew was a lie but she didn't. Deciding if Rachel would live or die. I could see her eyes lingering on Jake's guard uniform - would his job be enough to make her believe him?
"Your cousin?" she asked, and Jake nodded.
"Fine," she said. "Fine. I'll admit your cousin Rachel. You know that if you're found to be lying you'll lose your position?"
"Good thing I'm not lying, then," Jake said, showing no sign that he was.
"Bring her this way," the woman told me. I followed the woman down a hallway and into a tiny hospital room. There were two small beds, each with about two feet of space around it in all directions. Both were empty. The woman gestured to the bed on the left, and I set Rachel down on it, gently.
"I'll be right back with a doctor," the woman said, leaving the room.
As my arms were out from under Rachel, free for the first time in hours, I noticed that they were aching.
But Rachel was there on the hospital bed, about to be treated. She would live.
I decided the pain didn't matter.