Chapter 6

I wanted to do something. I wanted to get to my feet and start punching and kicking the Hork-Bajir until I got to the monster, and then start beating it as well. I wanted to pop open each and every one of those slimy Taxxons. I wanted to put my own life at risk, just to have a chance at preventing what I knew was about to happen.

Unconsciously I'd risen so that I nearly stood above the fence. Blue had grabbed the neck of my shirt and was holding me back. She looked up at me, eyes wide, and I realized she was soundlessly mouthing the word 'no' over and over, trying to get me to stop. She'd realized with more clarity that I had: after this, we were the only ones left. If we died too, it was game over.

I watched as the beast opened its mouth wide–wider than any crevice I'd ever seen. I watched as the tentacle released the Andalite, and gravity dragged him down into that mouth. And then I couldn't watch any more. I averted my eyes, unable to watch what his thought-spoken screams meant, unable to watch his body shredded by the teeth, unable to watch as life finally left him, and his dying scream went silent.

Another sound filled the air. A strange huffing noise. I wasn't sure what was making it at first, but then I risked a glance over the fence. It was the Hork-Bajir. They looked like they were convulsing with the noise, but I knew what it was. There was only one reaction a creature as evil as a Yeerk could have when its leader defeated one of its kind's greatest enemies: laughter. They were laughing at Elfangor's death.

A Taxxon gobbled up something from the ground. I hoped it wasn't what I suspected it was, but I knew better. The Visser's morph was a messy eater. The Taxxon was slurping up the leftovers.

It was too much for Green to watch. He covered his eyes with both hands, shrinking further down the dirt slope. Yellow was now crying, still moving her mouth in the same petrified phrase, "Oh God, oh God, oh God..." but now voicelessly.

Then I heard a sound that made my spine go cold, because it was so familiar. The Hork-Bajir were huffing, the Taxxons were screeching, but the humans... the humans were laughing. Normal human laughs. But not normal, because it wasn't actually them. It was the Yeerks in their brains forcing them to make that noise, forcing the helpless hosts to laugh at such an atrocity. One of those laughs sounded familiar, but I couldn't place it.

Visser Three morphed and melded himself back into his Andalite body, limbs and organs squishing and creaking their way back in place. «Ah,» he thought-spoke. «Nothing like an Antarean Bogg morph for... taking a bite out of your enemies.»

More laughter. More human laughter I couldn't quite place.

Then, Silver's stomach decided it had had enough, and he started to empty it on the ground next to us, making a considerable amount of noise. The sound was enough to finally attract the attention of the Hork-Bajir nearest to us. His head snapped around, weak eyes focused directly on our hiding place.

We might have been able to keep hidden if we'd just stayed quiet and perfectly still. But that didn't happen, because one of us–I don't know who–panicked, and then in a matter of milliseconds we were running as fast as our legs could carry us.

The Hork-Bajir shouted to his fellows. I heard heavy, bounding footsteps. They would be on top of us in a matter of seconds.

"Split up!" I shouted. "They can't follow all of us!"

Each of us turned, heading in five different directions that were generally away from where the Visser and his ships sat.

I leaped over a short fence about my height, landing hard on my stomach and scrambling to my feet. Realizing I was the most athletic of the group, I decided that I needed to distract the aliens to give the others a chance to escape. I stood up behind the fence and started waving my arms and shouting at the Hork-Bajir. "Hey! Come at me, you jerks!" I yelled, and then let loose a string of obscenities I'd learned and hadn't had the chance to use yet.

For better or worse, I got their attention, and the largest clump of the bladed aliens bounded after me, faster than I could run. Muttering another one of those obscenities under my breath, I whirled and continued running, hoping that if I dodged and weaved through the dilapidated architecture enough I'd be able to lose them.

I hurdled over a stone barrier, darted in between several wooden beams, and dove under a broken concrete wall. All the while the Hork-Bajir leaped after me, breathing hard and every so often firing a red Dracon beam, incinerating something near me to ashes. I was gaining ground, but slowly, and their aim kept getting better.

Soon I came to a dead end, save for a large concrete pipe. I hesitated for a second, not wanting to blindly plunge in, since there could be another Hork-Bajir waiting on the other side, but a Dracon beam sizzling the dirt inches from my foot convinced me that I had to move.

I launched myself into the pipe, which was just large enough for me to run through if I bent down. Halfway through the pipe, I collided with something soft, fleshy. I looked down and saw that it was a homeless man with a scraggly gray beard and angry eyes. A half-burnt cigarette stuck out of his scowling mouth.

"Get outta here, kid! I don't got anything for ya to steal!" he snarled.

"Sorry, I–" I started, hoping to be able to warn him about the Hork-Bajir, but a Dracon beam laced into the pipe and hit the man's hand. He screamed as his flesh burnt and dissipated. "Sorry," I said again, and scrambled past the guy. I didn't look back.

Just as I exited the other end of the pipe, relieved to see the coast was clear, I heard the Hork Bajir speaking in a strange mix of languages, alien and English, combined into one. "Ghafrash! Enemy here! Hit!"

I really hoped the guy got away. The scream I heard as I leaped the chain link fence that marked the perimeter of the construction site didn't bode well, but I still held on to the hope that he'd had a chance.

I ran as fast as I could. The ground blurred beneath my feet, grass mixing with sidewalk mixing with asphalt. My lungs burned, my muscles ached, and my mind reeled, but I kept running. I ran for as long as I could, and then I ran some more.

And I hoped, beyond all hope, that this was all just a nightmare.