CHAPTER 8
Human beings, with our size, take the world for granted. Trees may vary in size, and grass is a shade of solid green. Our sense of smell doesn't allow us to pick up on the subtle aromas of the world around us. Our vision is actually quite good compared to most creatures. But when you're a cockroach less than an inch long, with six legs and two antennae waving around, the world looks a whole lot different – and bigger. Trees are towering skyscrapers. Grass is not a solid shade of green, but rather, it's a wonderful translucent color with dew stuck to the side of each blade as if defying gravity. A cockroach's sense of smell isn't as good as, say, a dog's, but I could smell so much more than I could as a human. I smelled the water on the grass. I smelled the grass itself. I smelled the musky putridness of cat excrement – I knew it was a cat because Rachel said that the Chapman's had a cat, whom she had morphed once. I smelled the sweet aroma of garlic roasted chicken coming from the kitchen. See, you may not know this – and I didn't know it until we got to the Chapmans' house and morphed – but a cockroach has an incredible sense of smell. Vision wasn't that good, but the insect compensated for that with its sense of smell.
A sense of smell that I was constantly reminded of as we sat in the Chapmans' front yard in cockroach morph. We had been there for close to forty-five minutes. Tobias was perched in the nearby tree, watching the house, waiting for Chapman to come out. I was starting to get impatient; wasn't he ever going to leave? Unless you were actually in my shoes, you have no idea just how badly I wanted to get this over with.
I guess Cassie could sense my impatience, given what she said.
Calm down, Penny. I'm sure he'll leave any moment.
I hope so, I said. How much longer do we have before the two hours are up?
Just over an hour, Tobias said. He's bound to leave some time soon.
We just sat there in silence for a few more moments. Until Marco broke the silence by singing some stupid song.
I know a song that gets on everybody's nerves –
It already is, Rachel growled. Now shut up.
All of you be quiet, Tobias said. Chapman's coming out.
I couldn't hear anything, but I knew that Chapman was walking across the yard – I could tell from the vibrations I felt on the ground. His feet – which were massive in comparison to our small size – went past us, each footstep like a massive earthquake. One step came dangerously close to coming down on top of Rachel.
He's heading for his car, Tobias reported. And…he's gone. He flapped down to the ground. All aboard the Hawk Express!
We crawled up Tobias's leg and onto his back, and before I knew it, we were flying through the air. I heard the wind whistle past, though just barely, as cockroaches don't exactly have ears. The tiny, microscopic claws on the cockroach's legs dug into Tobias's feathers as we went.
After a few moments, we stopped moving. We're here, Tobias said. Every roach watch your step as you depart, we're sitting on a power wire.
Let's get to ground level and find some place private to dimorph, Jake said. We've been in morph for about an hour and a half, so we have to be quick about this.
We crawled off of Tobias's back, along the wire, and down the pole to the ground. Scurrying as fast as we could, we made our way across the ground, dodging the massive feet of the patrons and going around the trash on the ground. After what felt like an eternity, we made our way to a maintenance shed and began to demorph. As soon as we were demorphed, Ax quickly morphed human while we searched for the duffle bag we had stashed here earlier. The bag was full of the clothes we would change into after arriving; we'd stashed it here so that we wouldn't be walking around half-naked – that would be a little difficult to explain.
"So, what now?" I asked.
"This is the Ferris wheel maintenance shed," Cassie said. "The roller coaster maintenance shed should be nearby. I know the way, just follow me. Oh, and – someone keep an eye on Ax."
"Why?" I asked.
I got my answer as we went. Ax kept wandering off to the many concession stands we passed, asking for one of everything and enunciating his words in an extremely forced manner. Jake and Marco kept having to drag him away and back to our little group.
I'll be honest, I found it kind of amusing, but the others weren't chuckling. I guess after a while it got a little annoying.
We made it to the maintenance shed that Cassie was talking about, just in time to see Mr. Chapman shut the door as he went inside.
"This is it," Jake said. "Stay close, everyone."
"Quick question," I said. "What exactly can we expect to see down there?"
"Nothing like you've ever seen before," Jake said, his tone suddenly very serious. "Just try to picture every description of hell you've ever heard or read. No, there's no fire or lava or brimstone, but just try to imagine all the torment and torture that everyone down there is going through. There will be humans, Hork-Bajir, Taxxons, and God knows what else down there. I'd tell you to prepare yourself, but even for people like us who have been down there before, nothing will prepare you. So let's go."
The others went ahead of me. I stood frozen in place, Jake's words sinking in. I was suddenly so frightened now. Knowing that my family was down there, suffering who knew what sort of atrocities at the hands of the Yeerks – if they even had hands, being slugs and all – made my heart sink. My stomach was swirling with butterflies and a chill was running up and down my spine.
But I had to go. I had to follow them down into the abyss.
Taking a deep breath, I started walking.
Jake and Marco had managed to move a large section of the wall, revealing a stone staircase leading down, down, deep underground, growing darker and darker to the point where all I could see was a faint magenta light. The musty scent of the caverns wafted up into the room. And though it was barely audible, I could hear what sounded like people screaming.
My fear was starting to grow. But we had to go down there.
I had to go down there.
Ax turned to Jake. "Prince Jake, should I return to my Andalite form? I have only been in morph for twenty-five of your minutes, but I think it would be best if I were ready for battle."
"Not just yet, Ax," Jake said. He turned to me. "Are you ready for this?"
"No," I said. "But it's not like I have a choice, right?"
Cassie put an arm on my shoulder. "Penny, look, I know you're scared. We all are. But your family may be down there. Stay close to us and you'll be fine."
I just smiled at her. "Thanks, Cassie. Jake, lead the way."
We started walking.
By the time we were halfway down the staircase, visibility had become so poor that I could barely make out anything, and the magenta light seemed to make things worse.
Oh, but it gets better.
The poor visibility was nothing compared to the sounds. Earlier, I mentioned hearing screams. That wasn't so bad; it freaked me out a little bit, but that was about it. But now, being so far underground, things were getting much worse. The screams grew in volume until they were all that I could hear. There were so many screams – screams of pain, of anger, of fear, of sorrow, a cacophony of pain and suffering filling my ears and my mind. I pressed my hands against my ears, trying – and failing – to drown out the horrible sounds.
And as we exited the stairwell, I saw something…horrifying.
It was a massive chamber, large enough to fill an entire football stadium – maybe two. There was a large open hole in the cavern roof, probably for some sort of aircraft to come and go. I saw people in cages, clamoring to get out, some crying in the corners of the cages, and I'm pretty sure I saw someone charge at one of the lizard creatures, the Hork-Bajir, only to get cut down in a horribly gruesome way. There were other creatures scurrying around, like large centipedes, two of them quickly hurrying over and devouring the poor man's corpse, tearing him apart like a pack of rabid wolves. It took everything I had to keep the vomit down.
Some people were hunched over the massive pool in the center of the room, a pool filled with a bubbling magenta liquid that was the source of the light illuminating the chamber. Some of the people got up and calmly walked away, others were forcefully pulled away and thrown into cages.
All the while, the screaming continued.
Rachel nudged me, urging me to hide behind what looked like a large power generator. We ducked down, trying to keep out of sight.
"Okay, Penny," Jake whispered. I could barely hear him over the constant screaming echoing throughout the chamber. "You know what your mom and dad and brother look like. So, do you see them anywhere?"
I shook my head. "Hard to tell. There's too many people. Wait a minute." I spotted someone familiar in the line of people being forced into one of the cages. It was a little boy, about eight years old.
It was my little brother.
"Jonah."
"Didn't you say that was the name of your kid brother?" Marco asked.
"Yes."
I forgot about the terrible sounds filling the chamber, forgot that I was surrounded by humans and alien monsters with tiny alien slugs controlling their every thought and action, I just felt anger rising inside me. My little brother, the most important person in my life, in a cage like an animal, waiting to be harvested like a farm animal.
In my anger, I didn't even notice that I was starting to change. Not until I felt the powerful, muscular tail of a Komodo dragon grow out of the base of my spine.
"Penny, what are you doing?" Rachel asked, her voice a hissed whisper.
My clothes fell off of me as I shrank. My skin became hard and scaly, my teeth got sharper, my face protruded into a pointed snout. I felt my tongue split into a forked shape and my hair melted into the top of my head. Claws grew out of my fingers and toes, sharp claws that dug into the stone floor. My tongue flicked in and out of my mouth, catching the scents in the air, and I tasted the scents on the top of my mouth as my tongue came back in. Thick, bacteria-filled saliva dripped from my powerful predatory jaws.
"Penny, no!" Jake hissed. "Morph back! Now!"
I turned to Jake and hissed at him. The lizard part of my brain wanted to attack him, but I managed to hold myself back – though just barely. I charged at him, but it was only a mock-charge.
Jake, my brother's down there. I have to get him out of that cage!
Without waiting for anyone to say anything, I turned and hurried off.
