A/N: In return for the few-weeks hiatus, here goes two chapters! Hope you all enjoy (:

CHAPTER NINETEEN

::Jake::

I slammed the bedroom door behind me and dove into my covers. I was shaking – shaking with anger, fear, bitterness, confusion...

What had happened to my friends? Who were these people? Why were they so unfamiliar to me? What game were they trying to play – let's face it, this isn't funny at all, okay?

"This isn't funny at all!" I yelled into my pillow.

"Midget?"

The muffled voice on the other side of the door made me spring up from my bed.

Who are you?

"Midget, are you okay? You and your friend seemed kinda out of sorts today."

I tidied up my hair a little before I opened the door and saw Tom staring at me with concern.

Or maybe, it was the Yeerk in his head faking that concern.

I gave myself a mental slap. No, Jake, you're not falling for all of that crap Marco and Cassie have been feeding you. It's all just a dream. A freaking stupid, horrible dream.

"I guess he was just uncomfortable with the way your guys handled him. He's a bit – eccentric. Like he's been homeschooled and all for quite a bit," I said, hastily.

I was speaking up for a guy I hardly knew, against my brother who had been my backing for the last sixteen years.

Tom raised his eyebrows. "Oh, okay."

"Sorry about that."

"Nah, it's cool. Say, what'd you say if you come along again next time to The Sharing? I mean, without your friend, since he's obviously not feeling cosy with us. I could tell you were having a lot of fun with the kids and the barbecue and all that."

"Well, Tom, I –"

Just then, the phone rang. Immediately, Tom had shot across the hallway to his room to answer it. He spoke one-word answers before he hung up, and came back to me with a strange smile on his face.

Strange – what? Jake? Hello? You're suspecting your brother of being up to something?

"Hey, actually..." Tom winced a little. "I think Cam, Matt and I were a bit too harsh on that Tobias kid. I mean, the Sharing is about acceptance and I haven't really walked the talk. We should call him over too, find out what's bothering him and making him so uneasy and stuff like that. I think he could do with more friends."

Before I could try to make sense of his turnaround, my mother yelled from downstairs,

"TOM! WHAT HAPPENED TO MOWING THE LAWN! ANOTHER TEN SECONDS, AND IT'S DOWN BY A BUCK!"

Tom rolled his eyes. "COMING, MOM!"

Then he looked back at me and gave me a fist bump. "See you later, kid. Remember to bring Tobias along the next time. Maybe this Saturday."

For a fleeting moment, I thought I saw his eyes flicker with something, but he had turned around quickly to head downstairs.

I backed into my room slowly, then locked the door. I came face-to-face with my mirror, and then I scanned myself up and down.

I was Jake Berenson, sixteen years old, a normal kid.

I closed my eyes. I remembered what Cassie had told me.

"Think of a tiger. Orange, black stripes, with a white underside. Think of you turning into that tiger."

The familiar itching sensation behind the back of my hand came back. I opened my eyes to see tufts of orange fur on my skin.

"Damn it!" I hissed, trying to pull at the orange fur, but god damn, it hurt!

"Argh!" I sat down on my bed, heaving. This wasn't supposed to be happening. How could I be able to morph – into a tiger, no less – when I hadn't been blessed with any kind of morphing capabilities? Tobias had said something about a blue box, and I'd never seen or heard of anything like that in my entire life. So how could I...

I stared at the orange fur, then slowly, I fingered it.

How could this happen –

Unless I had been from the same reality as the rest?

"But you don't remember anything," I whispered, turning my hand over to see a slight shade of orange on my palm. I concentrated again, and the orange receded into pink skin.

"I'm going mad."

I sat back on my bed again and stared at the mirror. There was no denying this was happening anymore. The feeling of the fur on my skin had been too real to ignore.

I could feel my lips trembling. This wasn't supposed to involve me. It wasn't supposed to involve Tom.

They – they had mentioned something about how if it came down to the wire, we would have to...

All of a sudden, an image floated into my mind. Within a second, it disappeared.

I blinked. Where had I seen that before?

Then I remembered. When I was at The Sharing touring around with Tom, in one of the rooms, I had caught sight of something on the wall. It was a poster filled with bright colours encouraging people to join The Sharing. It shouldn't have struck any other person, but somehow the feeling of déja vu when I saw it was so overwhelming. The later events at The Sharing had erased it from the front of my mind, but now, it had suddenly resurfaced – in a very strange apparition sort of way.

The poster was about an event three years ago. Three years ago, I had seen this poster somewhere else. But not in a bright space. It was in a dimly lit place.

I ran to my bathroom and bent over the sink. Nothing.

I clutched at my chest. What was that? I had been perfectly fine the entire day, and just thinking of that poster in a dark place made me feel like bile was pushing its way through my throat. I was getting goosebumps.

I splashed water on my face. This was no game. This felt like somebody was messing around with my mind, and I definitely wasn't liking it one bit.

‹Prince Jake?›

I grabbed a towel to wipe my face as I dashed out of the bedroom, scanning wildly for the voice.

‹Prince Jake, it's me. Outside your window!›

I opened the window. "Philip?"

‹...yes. I –›

"Oh, uhh, sorry, Ax..."

‹Prince Jake, we must hurry. Cassie is in trouble.›

I jerked. "What?" Cassie? In trouble?

‹I will explain on the way. I need you to morph peregrine falcon now. Please hurry!

"Okay, uhh, what does a peregrine..." I quickly switched on my desktop. "Sorry, this will take a while to start up..." I bent down to fiddle with the modem.

Within seconds, there was somebody standing next to me. I nearly started upon seeing Phil – no, Ax – fiddling with the computer keyboard like he was some sort of – well, Philip had always been a computer geek, but I'd never known he could...

"Wow, you just hit the Yahoo page without having to dial in."

"I have reconfigured the network with the keyboard," said Ax, a little haughtily. Then he keyed in 'peregrine falcon' in the search engine. "Can you picture this?"

I stared at the picture of the falcon. "I can become that?"

Ax was starting to shapeshift, so I figured there was no time to lose. If Cassie was in trouble, I had to save her.

I concentrated hard, and began to feel a strange itch ripple through my skin. Imprints of feathers were beginning to form, and my face was starting to protrude. I nearly wanted to reverse the morph, but then I thought of Cassie and that she might be in those Yeerks' hands, and in no time, I was duck-waddling across my room, many times smaller my original size.

‹This is... cool. I can – see. I mean, I could see before, but this is – whoa...›

‹Prince Jake, we must leave now.›

I snapped myself out of my daze. Ax flapped his way out of the window, and I spread my wings and lifted myself off the ground. I could not believe that I was flying, but the fear in me was now cancelling out any kind of awe.

‹First things first, can you – not call me 'Prince'? It sounds totally weird.›

‹Yes, Prince Jake.›

‹Ookay. Now what the hell has happened to Cassie?›