A/N: I'M FREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! FREE AT LAST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yeah… I was officially dismissed for spring break exactly thirty-six minutes ago! Spring break is nice… Spring break equals sleep… Goodness knows I need it… Last night, I got three hours, forty-five minutes of sleep. The night before, I got two hours, fifteen minutes of sleep. I AM SO EXHAUSTED! Trigonometry projects, English papers, and history notes are EVIL! Oh, well, it's over now, so it's all good. Now I just need to go home and do a bunch of web authoring homework due today at 8:00 P.M. But that's okay, because after that, I can sleep! *Ax smiles happily, and closes her eyes. She starts snoring quietly.* And can you believe it? Out of all Anifics updated in about the last six months, this fic has the most reviews! This fic also holds the title as the continuation of the series with the most reviews, as well as having the sixth most reviews out of all the Anifics on the entire site! If you guys are kind enough to give me 261 reviews total, this fic will have the most reviews of any Anific on FFN. Please, you wonderful reviewers you, it's only 100 more reviews! And I love you all for allowing me to get as many as I have already… I love all of you… Yeah, okay, I'll shut up now and let you read the next chapter, because you probably want to know who died…
Chapter 16
It was over. Thank God, the battle was over.
My tail hung by only a few tendons, but other than that, it was almost completely severed. I could not use my front left leg. Blood from zillions of cuts stained my fur a deep burgundy. I could not see out of my right eye.
Looking around, I could tell that almost everybody had fared just as badly, or worse, than me. I was infinitely grateful to Indi for getting the other Hork-Bajir to come help when he did. We owed him and the rest of the Hork-Bajir our lives.
I started to demorph, and the rest of my friends soon followed. There was Cassie, Marco, Rachel, Tobias, Ax, Yahal, Jeanne, Tom, Toby, Leenear, Raikon, and Miaker.
Santorelli. Santorelli was missing.
As soon as Cassie became fully human, she made a beeline towards some short shrubs. I followed her, but I was a bit slower, because my joints were still reversing and reshaping.
"Uh… Just a second," Marco said, excusing himself from the large group and chasing after us.
"Yeah. What he said." Rachel jerked a thumb at Marco, and then she followed us too. Ax trotted behind them, and Tobias soared overhead.
Cassie stopped and turned around, her eyes as big as saucers. I reached her, and looked in front of me. I turned around and retched.
Marco, Rachel, and Ax came up just then.
"Oh. Oh, man," Marco said, going pale. Rachel, Ax and Tobias, who was circling in the air above us, were quiet.
In front of us was a rhinoceros, but it was barely recognizable as one. Somehow, a Garatron had gotten its razor-sharp tail blade to Santorelli's, because that was who the rhino was, vulnerable stomach. His entire body was split down the center, the wound growing narrower and shallower on his rib cage, but going extremely deep on his throat. His entire stomach was a mess of red goo, and his body lay in a pool of blood.
"Oh, my God," I heard myself say. "Santorelli. Santorelli, demorph. Come on, demorph!"
Cassie took my hand and squeezed it. "He's dead, Jake," she whispered.
Beside me, Marco, Rachel, and Ax lowered their heads. Tobias swooped down and landed on Rachel's shoulder.
"No, he can't be!" I said desperately. In my head, I was reliving the final battle with the Yeerks, again. Rachel killing Tom, the polar bear in turn killing Rachel, Jara Hamee's death…
I looked down and noticed that my arms were shaking, and I had a cold sweat dripping off my brow. Santorelli could not be dead. He could not.
I knelt down, and put my fingers on Santorelli's decimated throat. I guess I thought that I could feel for a pulse, although I don't know why I though that, considering that rhinoceros anatomy is slightly different than human anatomy.
Examining his body, I knew for certain: There was no way possible that he could have survived. He was dead.
Cassie bent over and helped me to my feet. My morphing outfit was filthy, soaked in the rhino's blood.
"Come on, buddy, it'll be okay," Marco said quietly. Rachel nodded.
"He died a warrior, fighting, with honor," Ax added.
Jeanne, Tom, Yahal, Toby, the Murkra, and Indi with the other Hork-Bajir came up just then.
"Is that…" Jeanne said, her voice trailing off. "Is that Sergeant Santorelli?"
I nodded, unable to speak. He was my student, one of the people I was responsible for. And I let him die.
A tear trickled down from Jeanne's cheek, and she buried her face in Tom's shoulder. She had, after all, known Santorelli better than the rest of us, because they had been students together. Tom awkwardly patted Jeanne on the back.
I felt sick. He was dead, and there was nothing I could do about it. Everybody probably hated me, for getting Santorelli killed. I knew it. I just knew it.
"I… I'm sorry," I said weakly.
Rachel looked up sharply. "For what? Because Santorelli died? No. That was not your fault. It was not your fault, just like Tom and my deaths were not your fault. Stop blaming yourself."
Was she a mind reader, or what? I cast my eyes down.
Cassie squeezed my hand, giving me what comfort she could right then. I held her hand tightly. It was the only thing I had, then. The only real thing that I knew that I could hang on to.
After a few minutes silence, Marco spoke. "What should we do with his body?"
No one said anything for another minute or so, but finally Tobias broke the silence. I guess… I suppose we could bury him, or something.
I listened to the slow conversation numbly, not understanding much of it until later. I still could not get over the one fact that Santorelli was dead. I noticed that I had a tear in my eye, clouding my vision. Angrily, I wiped it away, not wanting anybody to know my weakness.
"Dead Hork-Bajir go to Father Deep," Indi offered.
Rachel raised her eyebrows at him. "Huh?"
Toby answered. "It is a Hork-Bajir tradition that we give the dead down to Father Deep, and so we throw them over the edge."
There was more silence. If only somebody would say something, anything…
Finally, Tobias said, Well, I guess it's better to fall and burn than to be buried for eternity… He fluffed his wings.
No one moved.
Cassie looked at me, stood on her toes, and whispered into my ear, "Jake, they need you. You are their leader. We just suffered a terrible loss, and now we need direction."
I said nothing. There was too much nothing going on.
"I guess we should do that, then," I finally said, trying to shake myself out of my daze. The people with me nodded, slowly, one by one.
"Should we say something? A prayer, maybe?" Cassie questioned.
"Yeah," I said, "um, probably…"
We were quiet, again, but then Jeanne broke the silence by saying a few things about what she knew about Santorelli. Cassie said a short prayer. Jeanne started to sing, and, one by one, we joined her.
"Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me!"
I felt my throat tightening, and then tears did come. I looked around, and saw that everybody, even Rachel, also had wet, glinting eyes. Ax and Yahal had their stalk eyes cast down, and their tails lowered as far as possible. Toby stood at attention, and the three Murkra kept most of their eyes open.
"I once was lost, but now am found. Was blind, but now, I see."
We stopped, not knowing the rest of the song well enough. Ax, Yahal, Toby, and the Murkra, who did not know the song, stood quietly. There were quite a few sniffles as people dried their eyes.
Rachel began to morph to elephant. She soon completed it, and quietly pushed Santorelli's torn, bloody body toward the cliff. We followed her.
There was a sickening tearing sound, and I turned to see the three Murkra short one leg. The three they had torn off lay in a pile. It was their way of mourning for the dead, the Mercora had told us when we met them sixty-five million years ago.
We paused for a moment at the top of the cliff, and then Jeanne spoke. "God bless, Sergeant Santorelli."
With that, Rachel pushed the mutilated body off the edge, and it hurtled slowly into the poisonous mists below.
A/N: There, you didn't actually believe that I could kill one of the Animorphs, did you? Okay, well, maybe you did…. And I still might… But not yet! And thank you, some of you, for going and reviewing Lady Lupin's fic! Because of you, she got her five reviews, and she only had to wait for me to finish this chapter for her to post!
Also, to WAZZUP GIRL, I would love it if you linked your site to this fic and The Contact. It would make me very happy! Also, if you could please give me the link to your site, I would love to visit it.