Tobias

Another cold, lonely night in the woods. I fluffed my feathers, huddled against the tree trunk, and shivered. Damn.

This is my life. I had morphed a hawk. I overshot the two-hour morphing limit. I was trapped. Trapped in the body of a red-tailed hawk, trapped in a world where birds are dangerous enemies, trapped in a world where I kill to eat, trapped in a world where I sleep on cold branches instead of between warm sheets.

I had once heard a saying, "Life's a bitch, and then you die". I laughed ruefully to myself. That pretty much summed up our situation. Six kids and an alien cadet who can turn into animals like bad CG and fight against one of the biggest and baddest military conquerors the galaxy's seen.

See, there are these dudes called the Yeerks. A race of slugs, really. But diabolical slugs, slugs that are cold and calculating. But most importantly, parasitic slugs. They enter in your ear. Creepy, huh? But that's not it. They enter through your ear, and then they squeeze themselves out like a rag and wrap themselves around your brain.

They take control of your body. Complete and utter domination.

Your eyes don't look where you want them to. You don't choose when to breathe, what to say, where to put your feet, nothing. All you can do is curl up in a portion of your mind and cry, because you know you'll never be free again.

Life's a bitch, and then you die.

Ain't that the truth?

A light snap broke me out of my musings. Some woodland animal or other was out there, rustling around. If I had a human mouth, it would be watering. I hadn't eaten for a few days. A mouse or rabbit sounded pretty tasty to me right now.

I looked. Focused my binocular eyes. Nothing. And then…A green glow. A flash of red. A momentary glimpse, filtered through treetops and branches. My curiosity abated as the whatever-it-was changed direction and stepped into the meadow, bathed in moonlight.

THAT was no woodland animal.

First off, it was an alien. But like no alien I'd seen before, and believe me, I've seen quite a few. This guy was massive. Huge. Stood at something like seven feet tall, like a Hork-Bajir. Powerful reverse-jointed legs that looked capable of gigantic bounds and lethal kicks in combat. Dusky-red scales. An almost-human torso, except for a weird sort of bony plate on the upper portion. Thick arms, ending in long three-fingered hands that were toughened like a carpenter's. A positively massive tail, thick and sinewy, probably as long as he was tall, writhed with a triangular blade capping it like a one-sided mushroom. A head that looked almost like an Andalite, except when you noted the weirdly ridged ears, the four nostrils, and mostly a gigantic cranial plate like a skull cap, extending from where a human nose would be, along the back of the head and neck, where it merged with the collarbone. Two eyestalks weaved aimlessly above the top of his head. His slit-pupiled eyes literally glowed, a creepy sort of luminescent green. All in all, something that looked not too far off from what we always thought Satan looked like. A creepy nightmarish thing, out for a midnight stroll.

One thing's for sure, this bad boy was totally not from around here.

I froze on my branch. Hoped he wouldn't notice me. My mind raced. I knew I had to get this thing back to Jake and the others, pronto. What the hell WAS it? The head looked a lot like an Andalite's, but I had no clue what that might mean. Maybe a distant cousin, like the Garatron we had witnessed a few weeks ago? Some new host body for the Yeerks? For all I knew, there were hundreds of the things. Heck, with that tail they could give a Hork-Bajir a run for his money.

The thing, whatever he was, didn't appear to notice me. He sort of glanced from side to side hesitantly, like this was new territory. Keeping his eyestalks constantly on the alert, the guy stalked further forward into the clearing. The legs moved weirdly. Like a blend of a chicken and a velociraptor. A jerking yet weirdly fluid gait that bespoke barely-restrained speed. I noted that down on my list of Things To Watch Out For.

Having reached a suitable boulder, he sort of perched on the edge with his legs splayed out. Cupping his chin in his scaly hand, his broad shoulders heaved with a sigh. The surprisingly-human pose looked a lot like that statue The Thinker, but with a bizarre twist.

I relaxed a hair. Just a hair. Whoever this guy was, he came alone. Looks like he'd been alone for a good while, too. But whoever this guy was, he was an unknown quantity. Could be a Yeerk scout, for all I knew. But if it was a Yeerk, then there would be more of them, and what's more we would have seen it.

Too many questions, not enough answers. I hated when stuff turned out like that.

In the meantime, this stargazer from Planet Bizarro heaved another sigh. Reached down with his tail and fiddled with the grass, poking it and idly slicing a few blades. Squashed an ant with a slightly bulbously-tipped scaly finger. Drummed his long fingers against his cheek. The guy looked bored out of his skull.

In the end, that cinched it for me. Yeerks don't stargaze, sit down and play Tiddly Winks with grass blades or whatever. But if he wasn't Yeerk, what was he? And more importantly, did he believe in magic talking animals?

Only one way to find out. Swooping from my branch that was really too chilly for sleep anyway, I landed on a small bush near him. He tensed up and began to turn his head, then revolved his eyestalks instead and watched me. No real malice or anything, just sort of surprise and curiosity. Like a hiker would watch a bald eagle they just noticed about 10 feet away. Sort of wistful, too.

He watched me for a while, but never said a word. I could feel his gaze raking me up and down, curiously but not calculatingly. Weird guy.

I took a deep breath. It was now or never. Hello, I offered, trying to be nonchalant. He reacted instantly, even as the first syllable escaped my skull. He sort of reared back in surprise, his main eyes widening and his eyestalks stretching out to their limits almost comically. He actually scooted back for a split second, then seemed to remember something and brought his sinuous tail upright, ready to strike if need be.

But again, no malice. Even when confronted with the Amazing Talking Bird, he stayed pretty low-key. He looked at me anew, but with confusion and bewilderment.

What…? he asked almost rhetorically, sounding dazed. Shook himself slightly. What the hell?

I blinked. Not your typical reaction I'd come to expect from alien types. Hello? I repeated stupidly, like I was on the phone or something.

He blinked all four eyes for a moment, then let out a thought-speak moan and cupped his head in his hands again. Dammit, he mumbled. Knew I'd lose it eventually…

I was getting kind of creeped, not to mention slightly confused. Did he think I was a hallucination? That he was crazy or something? Oh, well. Might as well make the best of it, anything I said would probably be blown off.

Look, who are you? I asked bluntly. You're not from around here, that's for sure.

Sure as hell ain't this thing, he retorted with a surprising flare of bitterness. A three-fingered gesture encompassed his body. Friggin' alien or something.

I was getting totally lost. This was WAY off the mark from what I had assumed. Uhhh….

Aah, what's the use? He resettled himself in his Thinker pose. Nobody said hallucinations had to make sense, eh? Freakin'…. He sighed. Whatever. I used to be this guy, you know? Sophomore at the high school down there, video gamer, computer nut, the whole nine yards and all that shit.

But then, like, he continued morosely, staring into thin air like I didn't exist, there was a thing. A blue thing that let me do stuff and turn into other stuff, you know?

My heart froze. The blue box!

Then I was in this weird place. Like some sort of, like, alien world, ya know? With ecosystems and all that shit. Crazy natives. Was with some other guys, turned into native dudes, but couldn't turn back. Majorly lame.

"Majorly lame"? I hadn't heard that phrase for years. I did the only thing I could do, and kept listening.

Convinced I was a figment of his imagination, the guy felt like he was in a mood to talk. Okay, I could do that.

Got back here, sure as hell ain't gonna go to the authorities or whatever. X-files and all. He waved a hand in the air aimlessly. Been holding up Seven-Eleven's and stuff like it's an early Halloween costume, but I can only keep that up for so long, you know?

He gave a bitter, barking laugh. But what really sucks, is that someday pretty damn soon I'm going to run out of places to hit or animals to catch and just sorta starve. His pseudo-voice took on a slightly deeper, parodying tone, which probably was some exhausted attempt at humor with himself. They find the body, they're all, "the hell's this?" you know? Study it for years and all, damn government shit or whatever…

His main eyes drooped, and his head began to nod onto his chest as he continued to ramble. After a few more minutes of mostly disjointed meanderings, he dropped off to sleep.

My mind whirled. It was too much to take in. A human? A nothlit, like me? But in one of the most bizarre things imaginable. At least I could hunt for food or accompany my friends whenever they did things near civilization. But this creature before me….

This guy had no one. Nobody.

A loner.

Like me.

I shook myself slightly and lifted into the air, thinking furiously. If he was holed up in my woods, why hadn't I seen him before? How long had he been like this? Why hadn't the Yeerks noticed him yet?

And how the heck was I going to explain this to the rest of the Animorphs?