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ONE
My desperate hope for a violent aerial intervention went unanswered the entire flight back to civilization.
Aftran remorphed twice before nightfall. Both times I fervently wished for one of my friends to find me, see the shifting mass of flesh or feathers and attack. I hoped, prayed that someone was nearby. Begged silently for any of them to notice and injure the owl in the tree enough for capture.
But I was far from Tobias's territory. None of the others would have any idea what birds nested where. Twice I had seen one of my teammates fly by, unaware or dismissive of a native owl sleeping the day away.
What yeerk would waste precious hours towards starvation when she could be trying to escape as a wolf, or a skunk, or a squirrel? As the day wore on, I stopped seeing or hearing uncommonly active raptors as they fanned out, turning towards town.
I didn't speak to Aftran. I turned inward, curled up in a tiny pocket of my brain. I ignored her while she accessed my memory hundreds of times. Ignored her as she went over past planning and battles and studied how the group interacted.
I pretended it wasn't happening, pretended I wasn't watching her study everyone's behavior and make comparisons about the carefree kids we'd been and the warriors we'd turned ourselves into.
I said nothing as she remorphed a final time and took off as an owl. Nothing as she carefully scanned the horizon the whole flight into town, alert for suspiciously familiar birds of prey. Nothing as each searching arc the yeerk made took me farther away from the forest.
I silently begged and prayed for one of my friends to notice me. Take me out.
It wasn't until she was silently gliding downward over a subdivision of houses that I admitted it to myself: help wasn't coming. A yeerk had taken an animorph for a host and gotten away with it.
I'd doomed my entire team. The entire planet.
«Stop being dramatic.» Aftran commanded, swooping low. If I'd had any control, I'd have jumped. «This is exactly why I didn't want another female human child for a host. The histrionics are exhausting.»
She'd gotten the word "histrionics" from me. Pulled it straight out of my brain. It made me overwhelmingly resentful, a small upset I could cling to amid the ongoing slow horror that was the last several hours.
She landed in tall grass, in a backyard I recognized. My temper snapped.
«You have stolen my body and misused my goodwill.» I bit out, utterly furious and sick with stress. «I know you are fully aware of how terrified I am. You're fully cognizant of what today has been like for me, what you have put me through. None of what I am feeling is histrionics.»
Feathers began shedding into my skin. Over the next two minutes a tiny human-shaped Cassie with an owl's head emerged. I watched myself make almost every other change before finally shooting up to normal height.
I felt afraid. Resigned. And even more afraid in a never-ending loop because of the resignation.
«This is a conversation for later.» Aftran said after a moment, distracted. «Be quiet.»
«Don't tell me to—»
«Be silent.» She snapped, irritated, and gravity and pressure changed. I plunged down, squeezed into a crevice of my mind. Compressed and compacted into a space too small for me to really fit. Everything from Aftran felt further away, like I was observing it through a wall of thick pillow stuffing. I tried to press through. I could feel her distant relief, her unease, uncomfortable anticipation for when I became more present again.
It was like trying to listen to a radio station in the car right at the edge of the signal range. The pressure grew, more and more, until I was overwhelmed. I retreated downward and it eased.
She stood there a moment with my body, just breathing. She closed my eyes, opened them again. Deliberately took big, deep breaths and let them out. She'd also gotten this from me, straight out of my brain. Using what I knew about my own body to calm me down.
We both took in the quiet, cool night. The grass was cold and prickly against my toes.
I resented that it worked. Resented that I appreciated the calm, the relief.
I heard the sound of a sliding door opening like it was from a long distance away. Heard a familiar voice. "Cassie?"
"Hey, Erek." My voice said. My eyes found his. My face smiled. "Sorry to just drop by. I need to talk about some stuff with you."
"… Of course." Erek said, sounding exactly like a normal confused-but-polite teen boy. He stood back from the door, hand on the handle. "Come on inside and I'll see if I can help."
My body moved forward. I watched, transfixed. Alarmed. Disbelieving. Was it really this easy? He could tell, couldn't he? Erek had to notice this wasn't me. He had to!
«What are you doing?» I demanded. She didn't answer. «Why come here?»
She stepped inside the house. Erek shut the door after her and showed her to the kitchen. Offered her a sandwich.
Aftran accepted. She frowned at the expiration date on the package he handed over.
"It's still good." He said easily, following my eyes and indicating the fridge. "This isn't a full stasis generator, but it's close enough that the food we do keep takes decades to expire."
Aftran nodded, unwrapped the cellophane. Erek leaned on the counter— he projected the image of a boy leaning on the counter— and looked at me with a friendly smile.
He waited until the yeerk had taken a giant bite of egg salad to ask "...and who is it I have the pleasure of currently speaking with?"