I was spammed and I didn't even know it till now. Whoops. So I re-uploaded this. And this story belongs to me, but the characters do not. I wrote this a looong time ago, when there were no fics like it that I knew of, so if it sounds like something you wrote, well, sorry. This is really short. And...that's all. Beware of typos. The typos I fixed the first time I uploaded it are gone, so...there are probably some in here, k? That's all.

If They Lose, Will They Win?

Part IV

The End

So don't go away,

Say what you say,

But say that you'll stay

Forever and a day…

In the time of my life

Cos I need more time,

Yes I need more time,

Just to make things right.-Oasis

I didn't die, unlike so many others. I woke up with a killer headache, but I woke up.

The virus malfunctioned. It not only attacked Yeerks, but also people with weak immune systems. The bombs destroyed many buildings, causing mass destruction all over the world. People were killed in the blasts.

My family had been some of those people. Ironic, eh? They had been in a building that blew up, killing everyone in it. I include my father in that, too, though he was in a different building.

Cassie had been in one too. She was gone too. My life seemed to have ended right then and there, but somehow I managed to go on. Like I said, I'm not quitter.

I'm sitting here in my cozy cottage in the woods, writing all of this down. I became a hermit, but I went on. People called me the crazy old lady in the woods. Children who were ignorant to what I had to see.

Haley had come by shortly after the bombs and the end of the world as it had been. She gave me a notebook. I'd looked at her questioningly, but she'd just smiled sadly and shook her head, saying, "You're a legacy, Rachel. Don't let that die."

I didn't open the notebook till tonight, which happens to be my birthday. I turned one hundred. I'm an old woman.

Inside the notebook were pages of writing. On them was a story that began with, "Some people say life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get."

It was Tobias writing the story of what had happened to us, how the Animorphs had ended. But he was cut off abruptly, so I continued it.

I knew I had to complete it. There was a nagging part of my brain that kept going, "You're a legacy, Rachel. You're a legacy."

So I'm completing what Tobias started. I think he wrote it in the alley that night because it had blood on it.

That didn't stop me.

I don't know why I told myself I had to write it all tonight. I don't know why I couldn't write it tomorrow night.

Maybe I'm dying.

But I want you all to know what I went through. I don't want to be forgotten, even if I never allowed anyone to know who I was during my lifetime. I want them know now.

You know now. I hope you never forget it. I hope you remember it the rest of your life.

Because I don't want to die being known as an insane old woman who lived in the woods in a rundown shack.

Who would?

People may consider this all a story so I would be remembered a something. That's true, but so is my story.

So please don't let the story of how the Animorphs die be a story lost and forgotten.

Because if it wasn't for us, you wouldn't be free to move your arm or blink your eyes, or cry, for that matter.

If it wasn't for us, maybe you wouldn't be free enough to read this.

Maybe we wouldn't even exist.

Or maybe we would.

Epilogue:

Rachel died the morning of January 30, 2084. It is said she was sitting in a chair, pen in her hand, looking at peace. Someone found her and her, and she is no longer the crazy woman living in the woods. She is a legacy that will never die…

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up

Like a raisin in the sun?

Maybe it just sags

Like a heavy load.

Or does it explode? --Langston Hughes

THE END… Or, at least, I hope it is…