Fear
Chapter Five
Disclaimer: I don't own Animorphs. Period. So don't sue.
When I was in middle school, I saw a news report once about two Siamese sisters who were joined at the head. They were 28 at the time and had spent 28 years permanently stuck together; not able to look at each other, but always together. I remember thinking, 'What do they do if they get in a fight?' I never expected to find the answer.
It was the day before my English final. I'd badgered Arnie into going to bed early. My body was still my body; getting no sleep meant neither of us would be capable of thinking. At 2 in the morning, 2 in the morning, the phone rang. And rang. And rang. The caller got kicked to voice mail and called back three times before Arnie finally got out of bed and answered.
"Hullo?" he asked in a 'what the hell do you want' voice. Very un-me. I would have said something rude.
"Good morning. I need to speak to Camtol 4531."
They didn't say please, I observed.
Arnie ignored me and went to wake up Camtol. He was just as annoyingly simple and cheerful at 2 am as he was in the day.
As I was about to fall asleep again, Camtol woke us up again and told Arnie to go to the phone.
What do they want now? he grumbled as we trudged down the hall.
I dunno. Just make it quick. I'm tired.
On the phone, Arnie was asked a bunch of questions about a group of my classmates. One of them was Jared, who I'd been close to before he started hanging out with a shady group of people. Strangely, I didn't much care. I just wanted them to shut up so I could go back to sleep. My thoughts were fuzzy and seemed stuck on vocabulary definitions.
Around 5 in the morning, Arnie put down the phone and yawned.
Alright. Bed time.
Hardly. Didn't you listen to any of that?
Not really. I was trying to fall asleep.
Yeah, I know. Have to go in to the office.
Huh? But my English final!!!!!!!
Calm down. We'll get to school in time for your beloved final.
Promise?
Shut up.
Arnie went to the office. He talked to people. He filled out papers. He answered questions. He basically helped plan the downfall of several of my classmates and the establishment of a new area of the Sharing. A help center for troubled teens and people with substance abuse problems. And through it all, the only thing I could think about was my English final. Not the hundreds of defenseless people about to be taken advantage of, my English final.
The English final I failed. Failed, because we didn't take it. We didn't make it to school on time. In fact, we were lucky to get to school at all that day. Only managed to show up to one exam: chemistry. Yea.
I CAN'T BELIVE YOU MADE ME FAIL MY FINAL!!!!!
Would you come off it? I'll get it fixed. You can have any grade you want.
I DON'T WANT YOUR PENCIL WHIPPED GRADE, YOU CHEATING SCUM! I WANT MY ENGLISH GRADE! MY HONEST TO GOD ENGLISH GRADE THAT I'VE TOILED OVER ALL YEAR THAT YOU RUINED!!!!!
Arnie sighed and flopped down on the living room couch. We'd argued all the way home from school. Well, I yelled and he tried to clam me down. Without much success.
Shut up already. I thought you couldn't get mad.
I- I stopped. I thought. I'm not mad. I sounded like I was discovering this fact, not stating it. I wasn't mad. All the little things that happen when you get mad weren't there. But I already knew that. I'd been trying to deal with the fact of it for six months. I guess, somehow, my mind managed to overcome physical barriers. There's only so long a person can go under these conditions without...without...oh, whatever. I know I should feel mad, so I'll just act mad.
You're just as irrational as a mad woman.
So? I was irrational. Irrational and...and angry. Infuriated really. It had nothing to do with my body or my hormones or anything physical at all. For the first time I stopped being preoccupied with my lack of physical feeling and realized there was plenty of emotion left to me. That the two things were completely different. That I could know anger without ever feeling angry. It was...strange. And very clear. My thoughts had that mad speed and chased each other around and around in my mind, but they lacked that hormonal befuddlement. Rather than focus on my feelings, all my energy focused on my thoughts, which were quickly getting violent.
Why are you so upset over a stupid grade?
Because it's the only thing I have left.
What the hell are you talking about?
You took my life, my family, my friends, everything. The only thing I'm good at is that English class, and literature is the one thing I love that you can't take from me. But you've ruined it. You've ruined the last thing I had. And I saw it. I saw everything clearly. I saw how my anger was at once irrational and justified. How that grade was such a stupid thing to fight over but how important stupid things can become to people. How the whole situation had screwed up my priories and made me become unreasonably attached to the most ordinary things. But who wouldn't become attached to the ordinary, when everything ordinary was being stripped away. I saw it, because I could think with all the emotion charging my thoughts and no feelings to confuse me. And for a brief moment, I saw everything with absolute clarity.
So did Arnie.
You haven't lost it. You're still the best in the class and if you want we can change the grade to show that. Besides, it's not the only thing your good at.
He sounded so tired.
My thoughts slowed to a more reasonable level. I told you I don't want that kind of grade.
What does it matter anyway? Your grades will be meaningless in a few months anyway.
Oh, you really know how to cheer someone up.
He told me to do something that was physically impossible.
------------
Arnie was irritable for the next few days. He snapped at people for saying hello to us and stomped about, moping. Everyone one knew he was mad at someone, but only I knew who. And I didn't really care.
I treated Arnie with something like indifference. I was angry at him, but it wasn't one of those 'makes-my-blood-boil-just-looking-at-you' kind of things. I simply couldn't forgive or forget what he'd done. I showed that by ignoring him as completely as I could. I didn't talk to him, even to argue. I didn't fight him, or joke with him, or tease him. To completely ignore him was impossible, but I came fairly close.
After two days of the silent game, we were both glad when it was time for Arnie to feed. We both looked forward to a much needed few hours apart.
In the holding cages, I didn't even bother with my bi-weekly 'ritual.' I just seethed and stewed and snapped at anyone who came near me. Amanda did her best to drag me out of my funk, but I would have anything to do with her. She wandered away, muttering something about childish, petulant people.
'I'm not childish,' I tried to assure myself.
'Yes you are.'
'Oh great. My conscience sounds like Arnie.'
When the guards came to get me I was in no mood to have to deal with Arnie again. I thought about fighting them, just for the sake of it, but decided I liked my limbs too much. The Hork-Bajar aren't supposed to kill hosts, but let's face it, sometimes they can't help it.
By the end of the pier I was a bit more resigned, but no happier. At least they didn't have to hold my head down as Arnie slithered back in to my ear.
A voice, in my head, screaming, begging to be allowed to die.
Another voice, different, howling, making no words at all, just thoughts of despair.
Standing over a slain Hork-Bajar.
Running through trees, chasing someone, slashing at anything in my way.
Standing in a dark room, facing a desk with a single lit lamp, giving a report.
A thin, almost silent wailing.
What the fck!!!!
I fell over, unable to stand up strait, and another human controller helped me to my feet. My head was still spinning madly from the rush of images. It was just like the first time Arnie Controlled me. But it had never happened since then. So why...
Arnie
Shut up, human.
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Nasha 0647 acted like I always imagined a parasite should. She ignored me, never answering any of my questions or responding to me in any way, until I finally learned to shut up. That's not to say she didn't know everything I was thinking. She was in every part of mind, all day, every day. Arnie had at least left me some small corner to brood in.
Arnie. Arnashik 6324 had been promoted to a low ranking sub-Visser somewhere in the 300's. The promotion had been sudden and surprising for both of us. His new host was a banker somewhere.
I thought about him every day. Mostly because he was so different from Nasha. He was funny, cynical, and rather blasé where as she was cold, quiet and a workaholic. Traits which she couldn't quite keep from sneaking into my life.
"Hey, Connie," Jenni called from across the school's main hall. Or rather, Lumkin 9837 called. Stupid name. Sounded like Pumpkin.
"Hi Jenni." Nasha smiled at her and shoved the history book back into my bag.
"Studying?" Pumpkin asked.
"Yeah. That civil war stuff is fascinating." Defiantly Nasha speaking there. History never was, nor will it ever be, my forte. "So are you going to the Sharing meeting tonight?"
"Oh, I'd love to, but I can't. My dad's parents are coming into town today and we're all going to dinner. Can you tell Chris I'm sorry for flaking out?"
"Sure. I doubt he'll even care. There's nothing going on today."
"Kay. Thanks." Pumpkin gave us a hug and then hurried away. She was always running here or there, in a hurry to get somewhere. Very un-like Jenni, who would stop and talk to everyone she knew in the halls. She'd have to run after that, but she always stopped to say hello.
Do we know a Chris?
Nasha didn't answer me.
I'd asked out of habit. Of course we didn't know a Chris. Pumpkin was just asking us to make her excuses to their boss.
Nasha was about to pull her book out again when the 5 minute bell rang for class. So instead of reading in the hall, she moved to the History classroom and pulled out her book there.
"Studying again?" asked Rachel, one of my classmates.
"Yeah, we have a quiz today, don't we? At least, I think we do. Did you read the homework schedule?"
Rachel laughed. "Yeah, there's a quiz over Ch. 12."
"Crap. I was hoping I was wrong."
"Didn't study last night?"
"What? And miss out on all the fun of my childhood?" A more me-like statement. Finally.
Rachel laughed a bit more, then abruptly stopped and sat down. She'd been having social/non-social mood swings a lot lately. I wondered if it had something to do with her boyfriend. The latest rumors were that she was dating someone from a private school. All boys. Lucky dog.
I slept all thought history class. My body was still and doing stuff, courtesy of Nasha, but I was in that sleepy, 'I don't have to think so I won't' kind of state.
After class the teacher called me up to his desk.
"Miss Browning, your grades have improved a lot lately. Keep up the good work."
"Thank you, sir."
Mr. Alan wasn't the only teacher to notice my improved grades, and only Mrs. Waters complained about it. I was still making an A in her class, but she said my writing was getting worse.
"Is there anything wrong, Miss Browning?"
"No, ma'am."
"Then why the sudden change in your writing style?"
I love you Mrs. Waters!
Nasha just shrugged. "Lots of stuff going on."
"Are you still dating that boy?"
At first I thought of Arnie for some reason, but she meant Brian.
Nasha latched on to this easy explanation and my hopes were squashed. "No, we broke up about a week ago."
That night, we really did beak up.
Good riddance.
------------
The first time Nasha went to feed, I acted rather normal. I complained to Amanda, joked with a few of the more downtrodden hosts, and managed to make a fool out my self in front of several people. No, I won't say how.
But by the end of the first week, I was exhausted in every way possible. Amanda found me in the far corner with my head in my hands, too tired to even feel. My very bones felt like they were trying to sink through the floor.
"Hey girl. You seem down today," Amanda said as she sank down next to me.
"Nurg."
"Wanna talk about it?"
I shook my head.
"Are you sure?"
"I can't do this 'Manda." My voice sounded like it was coming from miles away, even to me. It didn't sound like my voice. It sounded like Nasha.
"Can't do what?"
"This," I whispered, too tired to explain.
I was empty, on verge of collapsing in on myself. My skin was held up by nothing and threatened every moment to fold up into nothingness. But it was heavy skin. Skin that seemed to want to collapse into nothingness. And I was too tired to even try to move.
Amanda scooted closer, put her arms around me, and pulled me to her. I collapsed against her and something deep in me stirred a little bit. Something that might have been sad, but it was too far away to tell.
"Tell me," she whispered.
"I just... I can't... It's like, I'm not even there. I keep yelling and screaming and no one's there to hear me. I...I... It's like I've died, but they won't let me leave."
I waited for her to say something but she didn't. She just held me against her.
"I don't know. It's just... I feel like... Well, I don't feel. Or I don't think I do. And no matter what I do, nothing happens. Amanda?"
"I'm here. I'm listening to you."
At those words I was no longer empty. Slowly, bit by bit, I came back. My fears, my sorrow, my hopelessness, everything came back and filled me until I thought I would burst.
"I just... She's a black hole! I keep pouring out my thoughts and my feelings and she just sucks them up never says a word. Never. No one says anything to ME. I'm... I'm not there. I'm not. I don't matter. I can't live like that, but I can't die either and I'd rather die than just be a... a thing."
Amanda squeezed me tighter and I knew she was listening to me. She cared for me. But I was coming back, becoming more and more human with each word and the more I spoke the more I felt and the more I felt the more I wanted to return to the emptiness. Blood was rushing through my veins, pounding through my ears, making it almost impossible for me to even hear myself. My head throbbed with pain and confusion made my vision spin. I shivered, not from any kind of cold, but from so much, so suddenly.
"And she never stops. I'm so tired but she just keeps going and going. She keeps doing stuff and I can't make her stop because I'm nothing. Nothing. She's just going to wear me out and move on to a new host and do the some thing all over again. They can't be stopped. They'll kill everyone and I just want to die."
I stopped, took a deep breath, and completely lost it. I turned my face into Amanda's chest and cried. Not loud, wailing sobs; I just cried. I held her as close as I could shook and wept and thought nothing but felt everything. An utter hopelessness that threatened to consume me. Not swallow me, consume me. Tear me apart.
Amanda held me hesitantly. She didn't know what to do any more than I did. No one did. What could we do? We were completely helpless in the face of such a menace.
After a while my sobs slowed, then stopped. I was exhausted, but I felt more alive than I had in days. Like I'd just run a marathon and the feeling of being alive, of having done something, was beautiful. Even if the something had been pointless.
"You can't give up," Amanda finally whispered. "You have to keep fighting."
I saw the guards coming. They caught my eye and I knew it was time to go. "I don't want to fight."
She stared strait into my eyes and fixed me with an expression that was almost furious. "Fine. Then don't. I'll fight for you."
The guards were shoving past hosts who weren't fast enough to move out of their way. I just looked at Amanda, not quite sure what to say.
"I love you. Your family loves you. No matter what, we always will."
The guards walked me back to the pier. Amanda's words stayed with me as I left. They all very nice and pretty, but what good did romantic thoughts like that do me in the face of such brutal reality. They were nothing but words.
