Odret Culathesh did not think that it was possible, but he was now starting to regret ever becoming a human.

Odret Culathesh had not been born a human; in fact, he hadn't come into being into this universe in the sense that a human would understand. That was because Odret was a Yeerk, and his original name had been Odret One-Seven-Seven of the Culat Hesh Pool, before it had been changed into its current form by the human authorities following the defeat of the Yeerk invasion of Earth at the hands of five human teenagers and one Andalite aristh. Odret had barely been on Earth (an Earth year at the most) and had only recently received his first human host when the invasion force unilaterally surrendered following the venting of the Yeerks' Pool ship by the leader of the human resistance, Jake Berenson. The victorious Andalites, as part of their peace terms with the invasion force, had given the Yeerks the chance to acquire the morphing technology, on one condition: that they would take on either a human or animal form, and then remain in that form for more than two Earth hours, effectively turning them into nothlits, formerly morph-capable beings who were now stuck in the body of their latest morph.

Odret had chosen to become a human nothlit, as did the vast majority of his fellow Yeerks in the invasion force, at least the ones who were allowed the choice in the first place. Some of the other Yeerks, mostly their officers the Vissers and Sub-vissers, were not given the choice at all and were either forced to become animal nothlits, or were imprisoned in specially constructed Pools where they were only able to receive the bare minimum amount of Kandrona rays needed to sustain them every three Earth days. The process of a Yeerk becoming a human nothlit usually involved the Yeerk being placed on the Escafil device, a blue box-like device more popularly known as the "morphing cube". Once the Yeerk had acquired the morphing power, it was placed in the hands of three randomly selected individual humans where it was told to acquire their DNA. Once the DNA had been acquired, the Yeerk was instructed on how to combine these three DNA samples, a procedure referred to by the Andalites as "Frolis Maneuver", and then the Yeerk was told to morph into that new human amalgamation, and then wait for at least two hours and fifteen minutes, to ensure that the Yeerk would remain locked in their new nothlit form. Any Yeerk who tried to demorph before the time limit had elapsed was immediately executed; the risk of even a single Yeerk possessing the morphing power was simply too much for the Andalites to even consider.

But for those Yeerks who stayed in human morph up to the two hours and fifteen minutes time limit, there was one more step before they were officially declared as nothlits: the Yeerk would be told to attempt to demorph back into its original Yeerk body, in the off chance that the morphing technology had allowed for even just one subject to be able to retain morphing capabilities beyond the stated two Earth hours. But no such instance was ever recorded, and when the last Yeerk on Earth who had chosen to become a nothlit passed the test, the "human" population on Earth had just increased by fifty thousand.

The problem now lay in housing these fifty thousand prisoners of war, for that was what they were, prisoners on a planet that they had tried, and failed, to conquer. For that, the American government repurposed facilities and lands in the Southwest that had once been used to house and intern Japanese Americans during the Second World War and constructed new "internment camps" to house these fifty thousand prisoners. Odret and twelve hundred other nothlits had been brought to one of these camps in Arizona, named "Camp Kojima" by the humans after a Japanese human whose contributions were mostly in the video game sector of the human industry for unknown reasons. The nothlits were divided into groups of twenty and placed in pre-fabricated buildings that had been erected inside the camp.

The nothlits were treated well inside the camps. They were fed three times a day, the human equivalent to a Yeerk feeding on Kandrona rays once every three Earth days. The nothlits were allowed to grow their own gardens, form organizations of their liking, play sports and athletics, and every two days there were arts and crafts classes where the nothlits were taught how to paint, sculpt, create pottery and glassworks and perform other crafts that the humans could then sell to their fellow humans as a roundabout form of "war reparations", goods and cash given by the vanquished to the victors to compensate for the losses and damages inflicted on the winning side during the war. But, as a general rule, the nothlits who had known each other from during the invasion could not be housed in the same barracks, so Odret barely knew any of his fellow barracks mates when he had first been sent to Camp Kojima.

That being said, Odret eventually managed to find a few of his Pool-mates in the camp: Melor Six-Seven-Zero-One, and Kanron Eight-Seven-Seven-Six-Five, both also of the Culat Hesh Pool. As the eldest and most experienced member of their little trio, Odret had immediately assumed the mantle of the group's big brother, leading and mentoring the other two and making sure that they didn't get into any trouble with either the camp guards or the other Yeerks. Odret was also the only one among them who had been given a human host during the invasion, and therefore he was also responsible for teaching Melor and Kanron about the human body, what to expect and what they could and couldn't do with it.

"We were young for a couple of Yeerks, even back then," Melor recalled. "Kanron and I were both only three cycles old when we had been assigned to Earth. We both hadn't even finished infestation training yet, and then we surrendered. Kanron and I had chosen to become human nothlits because everyone else in our Pool who had been given the choice chose that morph. Odret also recommended that we should get human morphs because he had had a human host before the invasion force surrendered, and he promised us that he would teach us how to handle our morphs. When I first morphed into a human, I was surprised, overwhelmed even, by the colors and smells and other senses that this wonderful new body had, and even today I am still not used to being bombarded with these sights and smells, not even after fifteen years."

The nothlits remained in the internment camps for three years following the defeat of the Yeerk invasion of Earth, and it is entirely possible that the nothlits could have remained imprisoned for many more years had the United States not decided to invade Iraq in 2003 following reports of the Middle Eastern country's despotic dictator Saddam Hussein stockpiling weapons of mass destruction for use against either his neighbors Iran and/or Saudi Arabia or even the United States itself, reports which were of course proven false in the years since. But the nothlits didn't know about that at the time, and in truth it could be said that some of them were already accepting the possibility that they could be kept in their camps for the rest of their lives.

But eventually, the cost of running and maintaining the internment camps while at the same time pouring money into two battlefronts (in Iraq and Afghanistan) became too much for the American government, and it was decided that it was time for the nothlits to be integrated into the greater population. News of this came to Camp Kojima in the first week of June 2003, a little more than a month after the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom. For the occupants of Camp Kojima, that day had begun like every other day they had spent in the camp since they had first arrived there: wake-up and roll call at six in the morning, calisthenics at seven, then breakfast at eight before the inmates were then allowed to do whatever they wanted. They managed to eat lunch at noon and had spent about an hour and thirty minutes lounging around before they were all summoned to the camp's central courtyard for what they had assumed was a surprise roll call.

"Well, that was what the vast majority of us thought of it at the time," Melor Culathesh recounted. "A few of them, like Odret, thought that the human guards had asked us to gather at the square because they were going to execute us all. Odret said that he had seen it before in a human film, where the prisoners were lined up in the middle of the courtyard and then they were shot by the guards. I couldn't have known it at the time, but Odret was really afraid that he was going to die that day, and he admitted to me that it wasn't until the human who was in charge of the camp and its guards took out a sheet of paper and not a gun that he finally felt safe."

"Today, the government of the United States of America has decided that the members of the species known as the Yeerks who had chosen to become trapped in human form as nothlits, are now ready to be integrated into American society." So began the speech that the commanding officer of Camp Kojima, as well as the commanders of the other nothlit internment camps in the American Southwest, gave to their detainees on that fateful June day. "Three years have passed since the Yeerks' invasion force was defeated right here on Earth. The government believes that that is enough time for the collective physical, mental, and emotional scars that that invasion has inflicted onto the American public to have healed. The president of the United States has signed a comprehensive peace treaty with the Andalites and the Yeerks on behalf of humanity, and part of that peace treaty requires that all nothlits on sovereign American soil is to be treated like a citizen of the United States of America, and be afforded the same rights and freedoms of an American citizen. My nothlit friends, I stand here before you to tell you that you are now free. You are now free of any obligations or duties to the Yeerk Empire, and you are now free of any and all restrictions that have been imposed upon you in this camp. You are now all free men and free women, and you are now all Americans." The rest of the speech then consisted of the commanding officers explaining to the nothlits what they should expect to experience once they were back out in the real world, along with the documents that they were to receive on their freedom to prove that they had been released by the government of the United States on good faith and had not escaped from their camps.

Following the speech, the nothlits were then made to form queues in front of soldiers who had been assigned with handing out the aforementioned documents that would prove that the nothlits were being released by the government. These documents consisted of an identification card bearing a picture of the nothlit bearer and some basic information about him or her, along with the seal of the Department of Homeland Security. The nothlits were also given food, travel, and housing vouchers that they could use at certain participating restaurants and transportation companies, as well as the housing projects in twenty-five cities across the United States that had been built by the government using nothlit labor, another part of Yeerkish war reparations to the US. The vouchers were there because the nothlits were not expected to have any money on them once they were released from the camps.

"Name?" the soldier sitting behind the desk where Odret and his friends had queued up asked him when it was Odret's turn.

"Odret One-Seven-Seven of the Culat Hesh Pool," he replied.

"Yeah, about that," the soldier said as he rummaged through the various folders on his desk. "The government's given you a new name now. From now on, your name is Odret Culathesh. Easier on the mouth and tongue and all that. All right, Odret, here you go," he said as he finally found the appropriate folder. "Your ID and your vouchers."

"Thank you," Odret said, more out of habit than any actual gratitude on his part. He had already turned his back to the soldier and was about to walk away from the queue when he heard his name being called. "Where was you gonna go again?" the soldier asked Odret.

"I was the one right next in line behind him when the soldier called out to him," Melor Six-Seven-Zero-One recalled. "I could see that the question had caught him by surprise. Probably was fair to say that he hadn't thought about the answer to that question at all. Though he wouldn't confirm nor deny it, I think it's fair to say that Odret was one of those Yeerks who had come to accept that we nothlits were all going to be kept in these internment camps for the rest of our human bodies' lifespans. But since that was not the case, we now had to think of another place where we were going to stay for the rest of our lives instead."

"Santa Barbara," Odret replied to the soldier's question. It was, according to Melor, the first place that had come to Odret's mind.

"Santa Barbara, eh?" the soldier repeated even as he nodded his head. "If you're looking for a place to stay, I recommend that you look for and visit the Applegate Towers. That's the designated nothlit housing district in Santa Barbara." The designated nothlit housing districts were, for lack of a better term, the buildings and houses that had been constructed on nothlit labor on orders from the American government.

Before Odret was finally able to leave the queue, the soldier called out to him again. "Good luck out there, man," the soldier told Odret. "You're gonna need it."

Years later, Odret would confide to Melor that it wasn't until many years had passed before he had finally grasped the meaning and significance of the soldier's parting words to him. Back in the present day of 2003, Melor and Kanron had followed Odret's lead in declaring their intention to live in the Santa Barbara area. Once the ID cards and vouchers had finally been distributed to all of the nothlit inmates in the camp, they were made to board buses hired and requisitioned by the US Army to transport the nothlits to the twenty-five cities with designated nothlit housing districts, Santa Barbara being one of them. That small coastal Californian town proved to be a popular destination for many of the nothlits in Camp Kojima, which was unsurprising given that many of the Yeerks had once been based in the Yeerk Pool underneath the town, which was to become famous as the main setting (with certain changes to the surroundings) for the upcoming Animorphs book series. The Animorphs book series purported to tell the story of the Animorphs, a small group of five morph-capable human teenagers and an Andalite aristh (a rank roughly equivalent in meaning if not actual level to cadet) led by Jake Berenson who attempted to sabotage the Yeerk invasion of Earth by any means possible and necessary. But despite the possibility of mature and disturbing content in the stories themselves, the books were marketed as children's and young adult literature, and they proved to be an instant bestseller even despite the accusations of many former and current voluntary Controllers (beings, mostly humans, who have agreed to host a Yeerk inside their heads) that the series was merely human and Andalite propaganda and the Animorphs' own admissions that many of the stories in the books were embellished versions of their "missions".

But before Santa Barbara rose to fame thanks to the Animorphs series, it was a sleepy little town with a designated nothlit housing district right on the edge of its limits. The district itself was surrounded by ten-foot-high brick walls, seemingly matching the towers and buildings inside, and there were only a few heavily guarded entry and exit points in and out of the district. Odret, Melor, and Kanron were just three of the many nothlits who had been dropped off at the Applegate Towers, and like all of their fellows, they didn't know what they were supposed to do next.

"What are we supposed to do now, Odret?" Kanron asked. Because of the very high numerical designator in his Yeerk name as well as his general naiveté, Kanron was considered by the trio as their "little brother", the one who was innocent and clueless about the "real world". "We're here, in the housing district," he continued. "What now?"

"The humans said something about the instructions for what to do next being on the vouchers," Melor replied. "I think that's where we should look next."

"And how, in the name of the Kandrona, did you know about that, Melor?" a nothlit who had approached their trio in hopes of learning the same thing that Kanron wanted to know asked.

"I happened to be listening to what the humans were saying about our future on this planet, Milkor," Melor replied. This caused Milkor, the eavesdropping nothlit, to walk away from their group, but not before calling Melor, "Ottak-Kedd."

Odret ignored all of this and took out one of the vouchers that the soldier had given him back in the camp. It was a rectangular piece of thick red cardboard paper, and on it were printed the words THIS VOUCHER ENTITLES THE HOLDER TO ONE (1) FREE APARTMENT IN THE DESIGNATED NOTHLIT HOUSING DISTRICT IN WHICH IT WAS REDEEMED. "I think I have an idea, my friends," he told Melor and Kanron, and he headed for the nearest tower and went inside. Melor and Kanron had no choice but to follow him in. Inside, there appeared to be a lobby painted in grayish green-white, and in the middle of that lobby was a desk, behind which sat a human with a thin but curled mustache. "How may I help you, sir?" the human asked as Odret approached him.

"I wish to redeem the one free apartment to which I am entitled, according to this piece of paper," Odret told him, handing him the red voucher.

"Ah, I see," the human replied as he took the voucher. "And what about your, er, friends?"

"Get your vouchers out, nafumet," Odret hissed at the others, and Melor and Kanron hastily took out their red vouchers as well.

"Very well," the human said. "Do you wish to stay in three separate apartments or would the three of you like to stay in one large apartment?"

Odret, Melor, and Kanron looked at each other and nodded. "We would like to stay together, if possible," Odret replied for the three of them.

"As you wish," the human nodded. "Follow me, please." The concierge then led the three nothlits into an elevator, which took them up to the topmost floor of the building; the "penthouse," as the concierge jokingly called it. The concierge then took the three nothlits into a particularly large "suite" with a spacious living room with a large window that gave them an excellent view of the ocean, a well-stocked kitchen with all the latest appliances, and three bedrooms which were each as large as the whole of the apartment where Odret's former host had lived.

"It's huge!" Kanron exclaimed as he saw the living room and marveled at the space. "And the sea! I can see the sea!" he said as he ran over to the large window. "Are we going to be staying here, Odret? Are we going to stay here? Please tell me we are staying here!"

"I take it that this is all free, of course," Odret asked the concierge. "There will be no rent involved, I take it?"

"Yes, you are correct," the concierge nodded. "All this is free. These vouchers have already taken care of everything for you."

"Thank you very much, sir," Odret said, this time truly meaning it.

"But of course," the concierge replied. As he turned to leave, Odret called out to him. "Is there anywhere near here where men like us can find honest work?"

"I know a few places, sir," the concierge said. "But I do recommend this restaurant just a couple of blocks from the district walls. I hear they are looking for workers willing to work minimum wage."

"We will look into it," Odret said. "As long as it is honest work, I believe we will all gladly accept it."

A/N: A short glossary for some Yeerkish expressions used in this chapter.

Ottak-Kedd – A Yeerkish expression which literally means "You have the brain of a Gedd" but, when used as an insult, translates in English to "shit for brains". Considered as a mild and friendly insult, but can be made into a serious insult with enough gravity and emotion in the speaker's voice.

Nafumet – Yeerkish. Plural of nafum, which literally means "fool". Usually used as a term of affection and/or endearment for one's friend/s when they have done something they shouldn't have done or not done something they should have done.

Also, if you could just take a little time to write a review/comment telling me what you think of my story, I would really appreciate it!