I wandered listlessly around the inside of the glass jar, running my antennae along the edges of the wall. This glass container had been my home for the past three months and I knew every square inch of it, but rubbing my antennae against the glass gave me at least some sort of stimulation. Provided me with something to do.

(…he felt his heart lift at the thought that there was still one last golden day of peace left to enjoy with Ron and Hermione.) Bernice finished. A shadow was cast inside of the jar, and I could just make out the outline of a feline face hovering outside of the glass. (Were you even fucking listening?)

(Dumbledore is dead, Snape's evil, blah blah horcruxes blah blah.) I responded.

(I'm not going to waste my time reading to you if you can't be bothered to pay attention.) Bernice snapped, and swatted the side of the jar with her paw. I stopped scurrying and settled into one spot as vibrations reverberated through the ground. I thought for a moment that my jar would fall off of the shelf and onto Cassie's bed below it, but then the wobbling stopped and my world stood still once more.

(No, really, I'm sorry.) I said sincerely. Reading and conversing with Bernice were some of the only bright points in my dismal existence. (Can we read that next one now – what's it called?)

(Deathly Hallows.) Bernice sighed. (Maybe we can read some of it tomorrow – I'm a growing kitten and I need some shut eye.)

(What? Is it really that late?)

(Dude. It's four in the morning.) Bernice said. (Cassie's going to be pissed at me for staying up so late again. She says I'm going to stunt my growth or something.)

(Yeah, well…fuck Cassie.) I said vehemently.

(Stop saying that, or I'm going to cover you with chocolate and eat you.) Bernice said. (She's giving us a home, and she did everything she could to save our lives that day-)

(Some life.) I replied bitterly.

(You know, I hate when you get like this.) Bernice growled. (This sucks. Of course it sucks. It sucks giant hairy monkey balls. I don't want to spend my days eating cat nip and shitting in a litter box and having an ant as my best and only friend -)

At that point, any normal, decent human being would have just let the conversation end. Unfortunately, I'm not normal or decent or even human.

(Well, don't worry. Soon you'll only have to be bothered with the first two.) I snapped. (Ants don't live for more than half a year. How long has it been? Three months? And that's not counting the age of the ant before I morphed it – we had that farm in the shop for at least a few weeks. I'll be dead before you know it.)

Bernice bounded off without another word. I felt the beginnings of guilt, but I didn't bother calling after her. I knew she'd be back tomorrow morning to talk again, because she always came back. I was all she had, and she was all I had. There wasn't anything like love in our relationship, but I felt more connected to her than anything else in my tiny world. I was actually glad that I would die first, because I couldn't imagine life without her.

Sure, the Animorphs were all nice to us, especially Cassie – how could they not be? – but they had their own lives and a war to fight. Tobias was the best of them, because he was a fellow Nothlit. It was he who had suggested that Bernice read to me, in order to help us both stay connected with our human side. He knew all too well what it was like to be lost.

Neither Bernice nor Tobias completely understood what I was going through. It wasn't the fact that they had eyes and ears and were more than a millimeter long. Even a yeerk wouldn't understand what I felt like. My week long stint as a mindless drone had robbed me of everything, and the death of the Queen had only barely returned my humanity. I regained my free will, but my sense of self had been suppressed in that souless ant body for so long that my memory – my identity and my individuality – had not returned. I remembered simple stuff like talking and objects and food (which made my existence that much worse, actually), but all of my personal memories were gone. I had to start from scratch, trying to scrape together some sort of meaningful existence from my new brief life inside of my glass jar and whatever scraps of information Bernice could provide to me about my old life.

I don't know who I was, and I'm not sure who I'll be when I die. Maybe my life will amount to the body of an ant, curled up at the bottom of a glass jar, who will only be mourned by a cat.

My name is Nat. I can't tell you my last name.

I don't know what it is.