I ran.
My heart pounding in my chest and fear mixed with adrenaline rushing through my system, I swung myself around the concrete doorframe and kept going, my wet feet slapping loudly against the dirty cement floor.
My name is Kyle Blake, and I’m running for my life. Behind me are at least a dozen Hork-Bajir controllers, maybe more. Doesn’t matter, far too many for me anyway. I could hear them behind me, bounding through the halls and gaining on me with each passing moment.
We had failed, and we had suffered horribly for our failure. Five of the best friends I could have ever wanted lay dead behind me, ripped to shreds by Hork-Bajir blades. Two more were knocked down and dragged away screaming and crying. God, I can still hear them crying.
I rounded another door, no point in shutting it so I just kept running. I was tired, my breathing was ragged and a horrible stitch was growing in my side. Where was the exit, they said it was done the north-eastern hall, had I taken a wrong turn?
It was supposed to be simple, what a lie. Attacking the Yeerk Pool is never simple, and retribution was inevitable. So when we’d dropped a bag full of white arsenic into the pool, the Yeerk slugs absorb nutrients through their skin you see, all hell had broken loose.
The few of us with guns were supposed to give cover fire, but we fell apart into a disorganized mob shooting in panic, the Yeerks cut us down with ease. And when they jumped on the others, the unarmed guys and began slicing them to pieces I’d started running. And when they dragged Carlos and Devon off, I ran even harder.
I know what happens to those poor people who get taken by the Yeerks. They’ll both get a Yeerk slug shoved in their brain and lose their free will. The filthy parasite will take control of the person, making him into a controller like a grotesque puppet on a string. And it will have full access to all your memories, all your thoughts. You could lead your very best friends to their deaths, smiling and joking while you did it.
So I ran, I ran away from that evil place and the scene of pure misery that it bathed in. I ran through doors and under shelves, desperately looking for a way out, a way to escape. Wheeling around through another door, I saw only a blank wall lined with shelves. Terror rose in me, wrong way! I turned on my heels and bolted across the hall for the other room. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the spiky dragon-like shape of a Hork-Bajir controller, the Yeerk’s shock troopers.
Instinctively my hand dropped to my belt for my .357 revolver, I had it half out of the holster when I was hit.
From the Yeerks at the end of the hall there was a flash of red light, the flash of a dracon beam. Immediately a burning pain stabbed at me through my chest, I dropped the gun which clattered to the floor as I staggered into the room.
The pain faded soon, almost as quick as it had came. But the sensation that came after was far worse than any mere pain. My muscles had all clenched up when the beam hit me, sending me to the floor of the room with a hard thud. My face hit the cold concrete hard, but I couldn’t do anything about it as my body jerked and convulsed spastically.
Cold terror hit me like a bucket of ice water, oh God they’d stunned me! They had shot me with a low-level blast which had locked my body up, I couldn’t move! I was helpless; they would come and collect me. I would be unable to resist, completely helpless as they shoved my head into the sludgy grey liquid of the Yeerk Pool, helpless as a Yeerk slug squirmed through my ear into my brain and wrapped itself around it.
No, no, no! This couldn’t happen to me! Fear gripped my heart with an icy hand, they would turn me into a controller oh God no! Short, gasping sobbing noises erupted from my mouth, no, no, no.
Through the haze of my terror a single though occurred to me. The grenade on my chest, the one they gave everyone who knew important things about the resistance. I could pull the pin, take myself, and not let them get me.
I started sobbing again; I couldn’t even reach the damned thing! It pressed against my chest, cruelly taunting at my weakness. My key to salvation, to freedom was right there and I couldn’t get it, damn it!
No, no I would do it. They wouldn’t take me, not alive! Not kicking and screaming into that cesspool! With all my strength I reached for the grenade, just two feet from my right hand. My arm jerked and seized up again with a jolt of pain. I clenched my teeth and closed my eyes, then tried again.
Blinking away tears of pain, I saw my arm had moved! Half-way there, half-way to freedom. But now I could hear the Hork-Bajir’s foot steps as they tromped down the long hall to me, they would be here in seconds! I braced myself and tried again, this time adrenaline fueling me.
There! My hand splayed over onto my chest, collapsing onto the metal sphere. Fingers closed in around the pin, tightening and ready to pull myself away to freedom.
But they wouldn’t! Horror slowly filled me; I hadn’t the strength to even pull the pin! Just then the Yeerks entered, a big Hork-Bajir covered in natural blades roughly grabbed me by my arm to hall me away. And as I flew into the air, I watched in rising delight as my hand was jerked away, carrying the pin with it.
The level flew off and hit the floor with a metallic ping, one that went unnoticed by the Yeerks all around me. But as the five last seconds of my life counted down, I rolled my head up as we departed the room to see a window. A window full of sunlight. A smile floated across my face, I was about to be free.
I was still gazing out the window when the grenade detonated and set me free at last
