Hi.
I'm new to the RAF forum, although a couple of you might have read some of my animorphs fanfiction (if you have, I am so sorry. I was such a terrible writer back then). I have been playing around with some ideas for Animorphs stories recently and have been writing a few down. I plan on posting them eventually. The one I am working on now is called Animorphs: The Resistance, and is an AU where the Yeerks started an open invasion before the Animorphs met Elfangor. Any constructive criticism would be greatly appreciated, especially if you see any holes in logic. I'm trying to make it sort of echo the first chapter of the original series, but I'm not sure if I'm doing a good job of it. Anyways, here it is:
My name is Jake.
I won’t tell you my last name. There’s not really a point to that anymore. My family and friends…almost everything I ever knew or cared about has been destroyed by the Yeerks. I won’t tell you where I’m from either. It doesn’t really exist anymore, at least, not the way I remember it, so why bother.
I’m writing this down so that people, both Controllers and Free, will know the truth. That there is hope. That there is some possibility, however slim, that the human race can survive until the Andalites return and rescue us, as they promised they would.
Hopefully.
My life used to be pretty normal. Normal, that is, until the Yeerk invasion became public. I, like almost everyone in the beginning, thought it was some sort of elaborate hoax or that our president had gone crazy. That is, until my own older brother Tom tried to have me infested. I somehow managed to escape, but the rest of my family, I don’t think they made it. I haven’t seen them since that day.
Civilization as I once knew it has pretty much collapsed since then. There were some resistance groups that managed to fight back for a little while, but they’ve all fallen since then. Since the Yeerk invasion started about two years or so ago, humanity has fought a losing battle. Now there are just a handful of us left who are free, who have never been Controllers, like my best friend Marco and I.
We were in the remains of what used to be the mall. At one point, when the Yeerk invasion had still been a silent one, there had been multiple secret entrances here and an underground cavern underneath most of it that had spanned a good portion of the city. One of the resistance groups managed to plant explosions, causing most of the mall to collapse into the Yeerk’s secret hideout. There wasn’t much left, and even the Yeerks don’t like to come here.
But Marco and I were desperate. We were running low on food, and we needed supplies. The mall was a long shot, and it had probably been picked clean by now, but like I said, we were both desperate.
We were in the remains of the food court. It was almost unrecognizable, save for half of a Cinnabon sign, the sorry remains of the salad bar, and some broken tables. I was standing guard, carrying a rifle I had gotten off of a dead soldier a while back.
Marco sighed as he crawled out from the rubble of what had once been a massive pantry. “Nothing. It’s been picked pretty clean Jake.”
I let out a string of curses. If my mom were around, she would have flayed me alive. “I thought there’d at least still be something here.”
Marco got up and dusted himself off, not that it did too much good. “Well this was a waste of time.”
I rolled my eyes. “Not like anything else to do.” We probably should search the place for supplies, but neither of us wanted to stay here any longer than necessary.
Marco and I were just getting ready to leave when we heard the faint sound, like a pebble getting kicked. We both jumped to attention immediately, and Marco quickly pulled a pistol from the back of his pants and clicked the safety off.
There was silence as we both searched for any indication that a patrol had spotted us. Slowly, very slowly, a boy about our age came out from behind the corner pointing his own weapon at us.
I looked him over and realized immediately that the chances of him being a Controller were slim. Slim but not impossible. Yeerks were masters of deception and disguise, being able to read the memories of their hosts and control their bodies perfectly. But with most of the population being a Controller now, most didn’t bother pretending to be their hosts anymore.
If he were a Controller, the boy would look much healthier and better cared for. Instead, this guy looked just as bad off as we were, with stringy hair and jaded brown eyes. His clothes were completely tattered, except for maybe his jacket which might have been scavenged from somewhere in the mall. What troubled me was that the weapon he was carrying was clearly Yeerk design.
We all stared at each other for a minute. Finally, I broke the silence. “Who are you?”
“Tobias.” He said, not once lowering his weapon.
“Charmed.” Marco sneered. “Now, give us a reason not to blow your head off, Yeerk.”
“Because I’m not a Controller. I’m here for the same reason you both are.” He answered.
“And why should we believe you? You’re the one with the Yeerk weapon.” Marco asked.
“Because if I were a Controller, I wouldn’t be patrolling alone and you’d both be dead by now.”
His logic made sense. I slowly lowered the barrel of my rifle away. Tobias nodded and slowly pocketed his weapon. Marco kept his gun trained on Tobias for another moment before relenting and putting his pistol back.
It was clear Marco didn’t trust the situation at all. I didn’t blame him, but at the same time thought that he was being overly paranoid in this case. I nodded. “I’m Jake. And this is Marco.”
“I know.” He said. This took me by surprise and I almost pointed my gun at him again, but restrained myself. Marco had no such reservations.
“We went to school together.” Tobias quickly explained. “We walked home together a couple of times.” That did sound vaguely familiar, but a little weird that he remembered that. I barely remember what my parents look like anymore, much less a classmate I rarely hung out with.
Marco reluctant lowered his weapon again and used it to gesture towards the exit. “We’re leaving. It’s getting dark out.”
Tobias nodded, understanding the unspoken invitation. In a way, I was kind of glad he was coming. Whether it was because it was nice to have company other than Marco for a change or because Tobias would be obligated to share some of his food with us, I couldn't say.
We headed towards the exit, where I could already see the sun beginning to set. We spotted two people I was able to recognize a little bit more readily near the exit: Rachel and Cassie. Rachel was actually my cousin, and I remember her being very clean and wholesome looking. She still looked a little like I remembered, but she had a long scar across her cheek and the same jaded eyes as everyone else who still remains free has. Those eyes told me both that she had seen many terrible things and that she was willing to do terrible things in order to survive.
I used to have a crush on Cassie, but I’m ashamed to admit that I haven’t thought about her much since the open invasion started. Now she was thin, dangerously so. There was no mistaking her for a Controller. And since Cassie was definitely free, that probably meant Rachel was too.
Rachel pointed her gun at me as soon as she saw us. Marco and Tobias reached for theirs, but I put up a hand to stop them. Cassie reached over and slowly pushed down the barrel of the sawed-off shotgun Rachel was holding.
“Jake.” She said. I saw the faint traces of a smile on her face. Her eyes were hard though. That was a shame. Cassie used to be such a caring individual, someone who could read other people easily. Now it seemed as if a part of her had died.
“Cassie. Rachel.” I said. Rachel nodded and gave back the shotgun to Cassie. It kind of surprised me that it was Cassie's.
Rachel looked at us carefully. “Nothing left?”
I nodded. “Picked clean.” I didn’t voice that Tobias might have been the one to do it, with his suspiciously full backpack. No need to start a mutiny here. “We’re heading out and setting up camp for the night. Want to come with us?”
Rachel looked ready to protest but Cassie interrupted. “Yeah. Better safety in numbers, right?”
Actually, that wasn’t true. There was a careful balance you needed to maintain when scavenging and evading Yeerks like we did. One person, and you could never sleep a wink. Two to three people, and you could at least take turns with watch and keep reasonable track of each other. Any more than that though, and you risked having too large of a group to hide easily, which usually meant capture. Also, there was also the risk of a mutiny, where one person would try to steal your food and supplies as you slept, one reason Marco and I usually don't stick around with others like us unless in dire circumstances. But I could tell Cassie was trying to keep the peace, so I nodded in agreement.
Rachel looked like she was having an internal debate with herself before she sighed and asked me. “Where are you guys heading?”
Marco and I had already picked out a reasonably hidden and defensible location for the night. “Remember the abandoned construction site?”
Rachel seemed happy with this, so the two girls joined our group. We found an abandoned building that was reasonable intact save for the upper half of the wall missing and made camp. No one had the nerve to start a fire this close to what had once been a hotspot for Yeerks. I fished out a can of beans and passed it around our makeshift circle while Cassie handed out pieces of old granola bar to everyone. Tobias found an old unopened beer bottle and we each took turns taking swigs from it. Probably not the best thing to do when partially dehydrated but it made us all feel better.
I knew it was going to be a long and stressful night. No one was comfortable sleeping here and none of us really trusted each other, despite the fact that we were all pretty certain that none of us were Controllers. Still, I suspected none of us would sleep peacefully, half waiting for any noise that would indicate someone was wandering off to report us.
So there we were, five teenagers who had all managed to evade the Yeerks. All of us felt downtrodden and beaten. Ready to give up and accept death, whether by thirst, starvation, or by our own weapons even. Just five teenagers trying to delay the inevitable.
“Look!” Tobias shouted. I turned and saw him standing and pointing at the night sky. Marco scrambled over to pull him back down before anybody saw him. I turned and saw lights in the darkness.
“A Yeerk fighter?” Rachel asked.
“No.” Tobias said. He was wearing a excited grin on his face. “Andalites!”
So..yeah. Any constructive crit is greatly appreciated. Thanks!
