A/N: Sorry I've been MIA guys! I've been completely engrossed in the Twilight series and then when I found out about the Host I had to read that too, just because of how similar it is to the Animorphs series. Seriously, have any of you read it? Do! It's SOOOOOO good. But enough of my endorsements P I should be posting regularly now, for this story and Becoming Mary Sue. Thanks for your patience!

Chapter 2

My name is Sarah.

Jennifer sat only a few meters away, a raven.

Now I know what you're thinking: she's nuts. She thinks that dead people are still alive as animals. Yeah, definitely a wacko.

Actually, I'm about to start sounding way crazier. See, there's this alien invasion going on that nobody knows about yet. Nobody, that is except my friends and I.

Well, I suppose they're my friends now. Cassidy and Danielle hardly qualified for my acquaintances before this whole thing happened, but now we've all been trusted with the fate of the world.

Go figure.

It was only last Saturday when Jennifer and I went to the park for a walk. We had no idea what was coming. Or maybe she had some idea, but I had absolutely none. Anyway, it was there that we met Cassidy and Danielle and went for a walk with them. We stumbled upon a piece of alien technology that looked like a simple blue cube. We didn't know that when we touched it, it would give us the power to shapeshift.

Yeah, you heard me right, shapeshift.

Then, to add to the weirdness, we watched a dying centaur-scorpion alien get a slug pushed into its head.

That was our first time seeing an andalite or a yeerk. The andalite being the centaur thing and the yeerk being the slug.

Then there were also the hork-bajir. They were the scariest. Tall, raptor-like things except with longer arms and blades shooting out of every possible place you could think of. We barely escaped with our lives.

Then the strangest thing of all happened. Jennifer, who is both deaf and blind, had a dream that told her that she could shapeshift because of the cube. What she didn't know was that it would restore her ability to see.

Yeerks are parasites. They get inside your brain and suddenly you have no control over yourself at all. They act like you and nobody can even tell the difference.

Yeerks are the reason that Jennifer had to fake suicide. Her little 'miracle' of being able to see again wouldn't go unnoticed for long, and we couldn't risk the yeerks showing interest in that, especially because they seemed to be hanging out around the hospital where Jennifer lived. So Jennifer insisted that she pretend to die so no one would look for her and she could help us spying on people with yeerks in their heads.

I know, stupid, right? That's what I said.

That brings me to the point where I'm talking to a raven.

((What happened?)) she asked again.

"Andrew happened," I grumbled. Of course, I signed too out of habit. Even in the past few days when Jennifer wasn't with me I had been signing. It wasn't a part of the act, but it sure added to the effect of the poor girl missing her other half.

((I hate that guy,)) she said. ((No matter. By the looks of it he got what he deserved.))

She was looking at me. I looked down and I noticed that my sweater had flecks of blood on it. I had never heard Jennifer approve of my fighting, but I suppose that she was a bit bitter about being treated so rudely after her 'death.'

'Well you'd be right,' I signed, now deciding that speaking aloud probably wasn't such a good idea in case someone overheard.

((Today's the day,)) she said, changing the subject.

'Petting zoo.'

The four of us had decided that it was time to get some real ammunition. You see, the way our shapeshifting worked, we had to touch an animal before we could actually become it. So far all we had used were a couple of rats, a dog and a cat. We were seriously unprepared for anything that was probably going to happen.

((You know what you're going to take?)) she asked.

'No. You?' I was walking away from the school and towards the road out of town. It was going to take me a while to get all the way to Danielle's farm by foot. I marveled at the idea that it wouldn't be long before I would be able to fly there and it would take half the time. But for now at least, I had to walk.

((I already got one,)) she said proudly. ((A caribou. I went earlier today.))

I almost resented that she could do anything she wanted without me now. In a way, she had been bound to me by her disabilities. I was her only chance at a nearly normal life, and she had taken the chance without hesitation. Jennifer had been my only friend, and I had been fine with that.

But now, with nothing keeping her tied to me, I was beginning to wonder if we had ever been real friends.

"Cool," I said a bit shortly. There was a long silence.

I considered which animal I would take for fighting. It had to be something powerful. Something that nobody would expect to see flying at them. But it still had to be agile enough to avoid attacks and guns. Nothing too bulky would do.

((I'm sorry you've had to go through this,)) Jennifer said. Her voice was sympathetic. I was so tired of sympathy.

I said the line that I had rehearsed so many times in front of my mirror. "It's okay. As long as you're safe."

She seemed to buy it.

((Thanks. By the way, I can't wait to show you this place. I know you've been busy all week what with councilors and beating up jerks like Andrew and all, but I've been really excited to show you.))

She was talking about a treehouse on Danielle's property. Apparently her parents never disturbed it, so it was an ideal place for Jennifer to live now that she was supposed to be long gone down a river.

"Really?" I asked, only half-interested.

((It's beautiful. Like something out of a fairy tale. I think you'd love it.))

I was silent, now caught up in my little grudge toward Jennifer for possibly using me all these years just so she could live normally. Maybe she was lying all along and didn't even see me as a friend at all, but a tool.

Once on our little walk/fly, she landed off in the woods to change back to human and then to raven again, because we're not allowed to stay as an animal for more than two hours at a time. None of us knows why, of course. It's a rule Jennifer was given in her dream, and considering how real the rest of her dream had been, we figured that it'd be a bad idea to break the rules.

After a long time we arrived at Danielle's house. We didn't go right up the driveway, because that would have been stupid. Jennifer was supposed to be dead, and dead people walking up your driveway is definitely cause for suspicion. Instead, we cut through the woods and I followed a raven—a real raven, mind you—through the woods. A very strange feeling came over me, as if I were a princess in a fairy tale that could talk to animals. It should have made me feel better, but instead I felt sick.

((Home sweet home,)) said the raven.

I had to admit, it was sweet. The treehouse that stood before me was nothing like what I had expected. If I had stood underneath it and reached up, I couldn't have touched the boards that made up the first floor unless I grew at least two feet taller.

Yes, I said first floor. There were only two, but the bottom was at the very least the size of my living room, and I have a really big living room. There was a door at one side of the house where the spiral staircase met the first floor, and another door on the opposite side where the staircase met further on. I'm talking a real, swinging-on-a-hinge door here. Plus, there were windows on the sides. Plexiglass windows. The outside was a sort of stained brown, like the colour of a log cabin. I swear I was so jealous at that moment that I felt like I was five again.

"Whoa."

((No kidding. Wait until you see the inside.)) At this, she landed on the stairs where it met the first door and started to change back to human. I waited patiently as she grew and feathers were sucked into her skin. Trust me, not pretty. Really not pretty. She was fast, but that didn't mean that it was any more sensible than mine was. One of her legs suddenly withered into her body and began to grow anew, but the damage had been done. Thrown off balance, she tumbled off the stairs and towards the ground.

I yelled. I lunged to try to catch her, but the only result involved getting kicked in the face by her one good leg as she struggled to right herself in midair. She landed in a heap on the ground and I was clutching my cheek and trying to see through the stars exploding in my face to make sure she was okay.

"Jennifer," I said/signed, "are you okay?"

She nodded, wheezing. She looked okay. Aside from gasping for breath, there didn't seem to be anything wrong with her. When she had caught her breath, she signed, 'I just got the wind knocked out of me.' She laughed lightly and stood up.

'Don't do that again,' I signed.

'Thanks. I'll remember that.'