Disclaimer: I don't own Animorphs. They belong to Scholastic and KAA. No copyright infringements intended. Please don't sue.

I do own Jareth 572 and Jason. If you want to use them, please ask me in advance. I won't sell them, but I am willing to let people borrow these characters under certain conditions.

Spoilers for #19. This takes place before #29 (The Sickness) came out.

It was a dark and stormy night when I joined the Sharing.

Actually, it was during the day. But it was dark, and it was stormy.

My name is Jason. I'm fourteen years old. I'm relatively normal. I have a mom, a dad, a sister, and a brother. We also have a dog, but he's really old and I seriously think he's going to die soon. But that's not important.

When I joined the Sharing, I thought it was just a coed club like the boy scouts or the girl scouts. It seemed to be family oriented, but my family was busy with their own lives and didn't get involved. It was one of the teachers at my school who told me about the Sharing. Mr. Tidwell.

I went to a few of the meetings, and it looked like fun, so I decided to try and become a full member. When they mentioned that there would be an alien living inside of my brain, I didn't freak out. I guess I'm weird, but I have heard of worse things than an alien slug living inside your head.

Besides, it would probably be fun. Like living with a roommate in college, except I was in eighth grade and this roommate would be sharing my brain as well as my room.

I also didn't think that the Sharing would take no for an answer.

So I shrugged it off, agreed to become a Controller, and waited patiently as the Yeerk crawled into my head and began to take over. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but I guess I assumed that the Yeerk would be happy that I was voluntary and would become a friend. This sort of needed to happen, since we would be living together for an indefinite amount of time.

The Yeerk had other plans.

Hi, I greeted. My name is Jason.

Shut up. I have no desire for you to speak. If I want information from you, I will extract it from your brain, and I will do so painfully. I am your master, and you are my slave. You are a mindless puppet. I will crush you so thoroughly that you will be unable to rebel against me after the first feeding.

I tried to lighten the mood. Someone needs a nap.

Silence!

He opened his memories to me and showed violent images. Weird aliens dying, lots of strange guns being used. Lots of blood.

I may be a boy, but I can't stand the sight of blood.

He knew that.

He replayed these images for about ten minutes. He only stopped when I started to grow faint.

If you address me in such a disrespectful way again, he threatened, that will seem very pleasant compared to what I will put you through. Do you understand?

Yes, I whispered. What had just happened to me? Why was there this grumpy sadist living inside my head? Surely all Yeerks couldn't be this bad.

Silence! he shouted again. I know all of your thoughts. You can keep nothing from me. You will pay, severely, for any disobedient thought that crosses your mind for even a hundredth of a second.

I tried to keep my mind blank.

My name is Jareth 572, he told me. You will fall to your knees in agony whenever you hear this name. I will torture you, and I will break you. You will no longer exist after a few weeks. You may not even last that long.

I tried to keep my mind blank.