I do not own animorphs. They belong to the yeerk empire... I mean scholastic

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Even if I could speak, I would not have been able to say anything; I was speechless. My body tightened as it hovered in the air, I could feel movement for a while. I was helpless in the grasp of someone, but I was too shocked to care. Eventually my body was lowered into a liquid, thicker than water this time. Not only was it thicker, but it seemed to have some taste that my body could sense; A sort of oily richness that my body seemed to enjoy, like enjoying a greasy hamburger or pizza. It was only then I realised in some way I was hungry and now I could "eat", only I absorbed whatever was in this liquid through my skin rather than any mouth. I could also feel some sort of warmth from some source like sunlight through the liquid that I felt tempted to relax and soak in.

Kandrona. I was in the yeerk pool.

I was a yeerk.

A yeerk.

I floated there and I could feel several objects brush by me. Again, I found I could use some kind of sonar and sensed what the objects were. Obviously, other yeerks. Somehow, in a perverse way, it felt reassuring. I was among my brother and sister yeerks, I felt like I was returning home.

Wait, what?

These were yeerks! I was not at home! My home was… is a building, a house, where I lived with my family… When they were free. I was Jake! Jake the animorph!

I gave trying to morph to human a try, trying to focus on the shape of my body. Not that it would of worked; even if it was a morph I was in, I had obviously been in this form over the two hour time limit.

What was I going to do?

I had to find the others, the other animorphs. Maybe they could help…

Only...

Tobias warned me not to look for them. Did he know? Did all of them know? Of course, they saw me as a yeerk, controlling Jake, using him to find them, betray them. They no longer trusted me.

But I wouldn't betray them! I was one of them.

I was Jake!

((My name is Jake!)) I found that I could squeak out some words. None of the other yeerks seemed to pay me any mind.

I just sat, floating in the liquid, the warmth –the kandrona- pulsing through it, energising my body. I was a human boy trapped in the body of an alien enemy, a helpless slug, a yeerk. I couldn't morph out either, there was no escaping this world I was trapped.

Well there was one escape, but I refused to think any further on it.

((So this is my end.)) I said aloud, miserable. It could have been worse, it wasn't as if I was in any pain. It could have been better, though; I wished I could have gone out fighting against the yeerks.

At least the other animorphs were safe, at least I hoped so. They could carry on the fight I was no longer part of. Would they one day blow up the yeerk pool, including me? I didn't care. I didn't care if I died. Would they rescue me? No, I was a yeerk, the enemy. They might rescue Jake… whatever happened to him. But me? I was a lost cause. I might as well live the rest of my days here, in this pool.

Nothing mattered anymore.

For a long time I hovered there, lost in my own misery, slowly sinking to the bottom. It was some time before another yeerk approached me and touched me with his palps.

((Eslin 107 you are to report to the infestation pier at once.))

The yeerk who delivered the message swam away, and I would have gaped if I had a mouth.

Infestation pier?

I was expected to infest someone.

My stomach, if it was still present, would have made a flip. They couldn't expect me to do that, could they?

Of course, the yeerk empire would expect that. Those who didn't obey were punished horribly.

But I didn't care. I wouldn't do that to another person. I couldn't. It was wrong!

((No.)) I said aloud. I refused to move, and continued to float in the spot I was in. There was no way I would act like a yeerk.

It wasn't long before a yeerk –I wasn't sure if it was the same one from before or another- came to me and repeated the message in a more urgent tone.

((No.)) I told him more firmly.

((Eslin… You have to…))

((I don't care what your stupid empire wants. I'm not doing it. I'm not infesting anyone.)) I protested.

((You do realise you might be punished for this?)) The other yeerk warned.

((I don't care. I don't care if Visser three himself tortures the hell out of me…))

((Visser three is dead.)) The yeerk replied.

That cut me out of my thoughts. ((…what?))

((If you want further information, you had best infest your awaiting host.))

Interest piqued as it was, it wasn't enough to sway me.

((No.))

((Have it your way, Eslin)) The yeerk said somewhat sadly and swam away.

I hovered there some more and waited for my fate.

Not too long after, something large came and grabbed me out of the pool, something mechanical this time from what I could sense with sonar. I was placed again into a box with water, and I touched one side and could "see" once more from some device.

"You're not making this easy for us, are you Eslin?" The doctor from before smiled sadly.

"You can't do this. I am not one of you." I protested.

"But you are. Just look at you. You're one of us; A yeerk."

"Only in body." I said quietly. "Inside, I am still human."

"Still Jake?" The doctor pointed a pen towards a body lying as if asleep on a table. Jake.

Seeing that body again had me reeling all over once more. Again I was faced with this new reality; I was not Jake.

Jake was…

"What happened to him?" I dared to ask. "To me?"

The doctor for once put down his clipboard, sat down and sighed.

"Jake Berenson was an animorph, a morph capable human fighting against the yeerk empire. We originally thought they were andalite bandits. That was until one night, his brother, who was being controlled by one of us, began to suspect him."

With his explanation starting, the doctor reached over and pointed to a remote aimed at whatever device I was sitting in, and I could view two scenes at once; the doctor's lab and what seemed to be some old footage of what happened. I saw an image of Jake in the same table I was in before, restrained, cringing in horror as a yeerk was brought to his ear.

"This was little things over time, mind you. Eventually he decided to have his hosts' brother infested. He thought it was just another human who somehow knew about the yeerks. Imagine our surprise when we found out he was morph capable. Visser Three was delighted."

I gave a rude snort. That bastard Visser three would take advantage. I saw an image of Jake, now a controller, grinning and morphing a tiger, a seagull and a lizard in front of a surprised andalite controller. The doctor pressed on.

"The yeerk who had the honour of infesting Jake was you; Eslin 107. You wasted no time and gave the names and addresses of the other animorphs, trying to explain what you could. You didn't have too much time, mind you. We had to plan the capture of the other animorphs, after all."

The footage showed controller Jake with an entourage of hork-bajir and armed men breaking down the door to Rachel's home, only to find it vacant with nobody in sight. Another image showed Jake's mother, now a controller, clutching the phone angrily as she tried to find where her sister took her family.

"Unfortunately they somehow caught wind of Jake's infestation and had fled along with their immediate families to an undisclosed location we had hoped you would inform us of."

I could imagine someone… be it the Chee or the peace movement, telling the other animorphs, their horror and shock when the realised their leader, Jake, had been taken. The hurry to get their families out of harm's way. Their relief when they escaped, and their loss when it sunk in that their team-mate, their friend was lost. Maybe they got together and planned Jake's rescue… from me.

"Indeed, you seemed ready to plan our next move to find them, when it turned out your host, Jake, had been consuming an unspecified amount of maple and ginger instant oatmeal over an unknown amount of time. Apparently they were planning to use it against us in a previous attack, but had decided otherwise and used the surplus of the oatmeal as food."

Of course! How had I… or Jake.. not realised! All that oatmeal Marco had brought that we had been eating was in our… their bodies and would affect any yeerk that would infest them.

"It was soon apparent that you were going insane from the effect of the oatmeal, an effect we recognised too well but already too late; you had lost your mind. We didn't dare to infest Jake again and allow another yeerk to be contaminated. Besides, we need to get you out of that head first. But at the same time, we needed Jake to inform us on where the other animorphs were, how to attack."

An image of Jake, restrained once more, this time rambling and struggling against his bonds as the doctor moved towards him with a syringe filled with a glowing purple liquid and injected Jake with it.

"Fortunately, or unfortunately, however you look at it, we had been developing an antidote to the instant maple and ginger oatmeal's effect on the yeerk. It was all experimental, of course, my design, in fact. We were still in the testing stages, and the antidote hadn't been perfected yet…" The doctor rambled on a tangent for a moment. He seemed guilty, ashamed.

"But Visser Three demanded that this new antidote be used on you and Jake. He was furious, he wanted the animorphs captured for once and for all, or killed. I had no choice, Visser Three wouldn't listen. So I treated you with the experimental antidote. But while it gave back your need for kandrona, albeit you don't seem to need as often as other yeerks… your mind was forever changed.

"You suffered some sort of amnesia, where you thought you were your host, Jake Berenson, the animorph. Meanwhile your host, Jake… His mind became blank. His body is alive, but vegetative, only useful to a yeerk."

I stared at Jake through the pixelated screen. His face seemed so calm, was the real Jake lost for good? What did the other animorphs do?

The image showed next was of the yeerk pool, and a battle raged. A gorilla, Marco, was throwing hork-bajir like they were rag dolls. Ax in his original andalite body slicing limbs off of his attackers in a flurry of movement. A red tailed hawk pivoted in the air and swooped down to attack a taxxon's jelly eyes. A massive elephant trumpeted and began charging towards a waiting Visser three, already morphing something large from who-knows-what-planet, something large and pale yellow, covered with tentacles with eyes at the end, and a flower-like head.

"Of course, the other animorphs arranged a counterstrike; an attack on the yeerkpool we assume was to rescue your host Jake. There was a battle, only they too realised Jake was no longer cognizant once they reached him. One of them, an elephant, was particularly enraged. Visser Three took to taunting them, and one of them snapped and fought with Visser Three in one of his morphs until Visser Three was killed."

If I still had a mouth I would have hidden a smile. Rachel was not known for pulling her punches, and realising Jake was lost, there would have been hell to pay. Or was it Rachel? Cassie, too, had an elephant morph, and cared a lot for Jake as well.

The final images showed the animorphs, not running out but walking back up the stairs, demorphing. Rachel hugged Cassie who was holding her face in her hand as she cried. Ax's tail hung low as he trudged up the stairs slowly, and Marco, still a gorilla, brought up the rear. He stopped to turn and face the yeerks with a look of pure rage that his gorilla morph managed to pull off, before following the others, Tobias flying ahead.

"Once Visser Three was dead, the other animorphs just left, as if they had nothing more to fight for, at least in that battle. They left Jake, still a vegetable, with us, while they went to hide wherever they are hidden. Since then we have worked hard to undo the damage done to both you and Jake so that we may find the other animorphs and defeat them once and for all.

"We dare not infest Jake with another yeerk still, afraid of contamination. It was fortunate you seemed capable of un-infesting and re-infesting hosts, even if you do so only subconsciously. While the host is morph capable, now the only morph capable host we have, the mind still blank and we cannot gather any information from him. But you hold all his memories, and with that it is up to you to inform us how to deal with the remaining animorphs so that we can finally take control of earth.

I could only sit there, watching the doctor, taking all the information in. After an expectant pause, I spoke up softly.

"I can't do what you ask of me. What you, the yeerks, are doing is wrong. Stealing bodies, taking over the Earth. Whether I'm Jake or not, there's no way I can take part in that."

"Is that so?" I looked further off and spotted Tom leaning against a wall with his arms crossed. How long had he been there?

"I'd have thought, midget, that you'd know the yeerks well enough to know that we don't give up that easily." He pushed off the wall and walked over to the device I was in.

"After all, there's still plenty of ways to skin a cat… Or should I say tiger?" Tom reached out, pushed something on the device, and once again, for a long time, I could see nothing.