Chapter 2: Remember
"Full emergency power to the engines." Jake said. "Ram the blade ship."
Mendorash quickly followed Jake's orders and hit a few buttons on the control panel and the next thing I knew, we were locked in a collision course with the blade ship. "Now they're definitely going to have to cancel my show." Marco said under a gulp, tears were in his eyes. He was scared, so was I, everyone was but this was what I had signed up for the second I didn't fly away, I sealed my fate when I asked Jake, "What about ax?" Looking back on it now, I still knew I had made the right decision, I still believed that I was supposed to be here, Ax was my shorm, I wasn't going to abandon him now, not after everything we had gone through in our past.
But as we approached the blade ship, as death's grasp came closer and closer to us, all I could think about was her. All I could think about was her blue eyes, her smooth skin, and her golden blonde hair. I felt selfish…I had been ready to accept death since that day on the pool ship. I had spent the past four years playing the scene over and over in my had, only thinking "what if?" What if I had found out before we entered the pool ship, what if I had gone with her? I couldn't help but think that I deserved to die more than she did. But none of that mattered now as the blade ship charged its dracon beams and sped up toward us.
I looked at Jake, tears swelled up in his eyes as he stared at the view screen. "Goodbye Cassie…" He moved his lips without making a sound, but I saw, I saw that he to had accepted death, had been waiting for it to relieve him of the misery that all of us had gone through ever since we walked through the abandoned construction site that day that seemed like a million years ago.
Jake had to carry more burden than any of us; he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders as I had often heard Marco saying. He still carried the death of the auxiliary Animorphs, of Rachel, of Tom. He had gone through hell and back and had probably been re-experiencing it everyday like I did, I still remember the way she looked at me, the way our eyes met as told me she loved me.
I looked out the view screen. I'll see everyone on the other side. I said quietly. I saw the blade ship hit our ship but everything went into slow motion. I saw Mendorash be knocked over, and fall back and fall limp behind his chair. I saw Santorelli and Jeanne get thrown back against the back wall and fall. With all of this going on, Marco, Jake and I seemed untouchable when a sudden white light surpassed everything and completely covered our surroundings.
Next thing I knew, I was face down in the dirt…with a human face.
