"I powered over to the girl whose head was in the water. A Yeerk was just about to enter her ear. I shoved it out of the way and slithered in myself...This girl-she was a voluntary host. A collaborator. I couldn't let her get anything from me. No thoughts. No emotions. Nothing even the tiniest bit Cassie. My feet slammed against the metal pier as I launched myself at him. The only thing my host girl was going to get from me was commands like (Run. Now. Fast. Go.) I rammed into Visser Three as hard as I could. He spun toward me, tail blade raised. But he was too shocked and amazed to react. I snatched at Aftran...Aftran dropped. I snatched her out of midair and ran. Ran with nowhere to run. I did the only thing I could do. I dove back into the Yeerk pool."-The Sickness, pages 118-120.
My name is Rachel Horvath. I live in southern California, which is where I grew up and where I live to this day. I don't think I will ever leave. The weather alone makes the cost of living there worthwhile.
I was twenty years old when I joined The Sharing. Since you're reading this, you already know how everything turned out, or at least, what the Animorphs want you to know. The books that were published after the war ended were memoirs, which means that they added and withdrew events from them as they saw fit. When my Yeerk and I read them, mainly out of curiosity, we laughed at some of the things the supposed saviors of the human race included. We were annoyed, but not entirely surprised, with what had been left out.
I was shocked when I read the book that contained a portion of my story.
Hallit was not, but Yeerks have always been more logical than humans. As she pointed out, while it would have been possible to tell the story of the rescue of Aftran without including Cassie's brief forced infestation of another human at the Yeerk Pool, sometimes it was easier to tell the real story.
So, unnamed, I had a few lines in the Animorphs memoirs, but like most voluntary hosts, I went unnamed. Dismissed as a vehicle, because even Cassie didn't want to spend the time telling the story of a truly voluntary host.
I wasn't planning to tell the story, but Sorren thinks I should, and even though she would not force me to do so, she can be incredibly insistent.
Also, having lived with me for the better part of a decade at this point, it's safe to say that she knows me reasonably well.
The first thing I should clarify, since you probably assumed all Yeerks became nothlits at the conclusion of the war (except, of course, for Visser Three), is that The Sharing is still very much alive. Oh, it exists under another name, and it mostly consists of already existing voluntary humans who, like me, did not wish to leave their Yeerks after the end of the war. The true purpose of the war, to defeat the Yeerk Empire and eliminate involuntary infestation, was successful. Maybe it was easier to believe that no one would fight to stay with their Yeerk, or worse, no new humans would seek out Yeerk companionship after a war had been fought against the alien race.
But both are true. Maybe the Animorphs didn't know. But given the help that Cassie provided, her assistance in allowing this to happen, it's more likely that they simply didn't want to include that part in their memoirs.
Given all that Cassie did for the Yeerks, I probably should let go of my anger and hurt that she briefly infested me and nearly got me killed.
She was fighting a war for humanity's survival, after all.
Maybe, writing this will help me to forgive her completely.
Anyway, I was twenty when I joined The Sharing. I was one of those that The Sharing attracted. Growing up, I had been physically and emotionally abused by both of my parents, and sexually abused by an older cousin. I had an older sister who went through the same abuse as I did-at least, with our parents-and she became a sort of surrogate mother to me. Leah. She was seven years older than I was, and tried to protect me, but after she left to go to college, there was not much she could do when she was no longer living at home.
I think that, maybe, she tried to obtain custody of me, but my parents wouldn't hear of it. It would look too bad. Since they were respected members of the community, people tended to turn a blind eye to that sort of thing.
Unlike Leah, my grades had never been very good, and my parents hadn't wanted-as they put it on numerous occasions-to waste their money sending me to college. I moved out of the house when I was eighteen, living with Leah in her apartment while I looked for a job so I could, if not live on my own, at least help pay the bills.
Everything went well enough until Leah got engaged a year later. She let me stay with her until she got married and moved in with Mark, her now husband. He's really nice, and I was glad that she had found someone.
I had saved up enough money to move into a cheap but safe apartment a few miles away from their house, but I was lonely. Depressed, even. My jobs in retail didn't exactly give me a lot of happiness, and aside from Leah, I didn't have any friends. We had both kept away from people, growing up, in order to protect ourselves. Now, I guessed that I was paying the price for my anti-social behavior.
I casually mentioned to Jill, my manager at work, that my sister had just gotten married and I was feeling lonely by myself. We weren't exactly friends, especially since she was my boss, but it seemed like the kind of thing it was not inappropriate to tell someone. At least, not as long as it wasn't all you talked about. At the time, I didn't know why I had even said anything. I guessed I half expected her to joke about meeting a guy at a bar, but, instead, she told to see her after my shift ended. Then, she handed me a flier for this new group called The Sharing.
"I've been going for a few weeks," she told me. "It's really fun. All ages. Great for families, but also for people like you. Why don't you check it out?"
I accepted the flier and decided to give it a try. While I found the formal meetings to be a little boring, the social events were fun, and, most importantly, it got me out of my apartment when I didn't have a shift at work. I considered telling Leah about it, but decided against it. She and Mark were busy being newlyweds, and besides, I liked having something of my own. So, I quietly continued to go to the meetings, and after a month or so, a full member asked me if I wanted to become one as well.
I didn't know, exactly, what the difference between associate members (like myself) and full members were. But I was concerned that if I said no, I would be asked to leave completely. That maybe being an associate member was just a step to becoming a full member, and if you said no to that, they didn't want you wasting their time.
Not that they told me this, but there are some things you don't need to ask to know the answers to.
I agreed, and that afternoon, a couple of people took me into a separate room. They gave me a brief description of Yeerks, and told me that becoming a full member would mean allowing one to live inside my head.
"For the rest of my life?" I asked.
One of them-a tall blonde whose name I had already forgotten-nodded. "They have to leave your head every three days to feed, but otherwise, they're there."
"Feed?"
"They receive their nutrients by swimming in a pool for a few hours. They have to leave your body in order to do that. While they're feeding, you go to a lounge nearby and watch TV, get something to eat, read a book...that kind of thing. When they're finished feeding, you'll hear your name in the intercom, and you go back to the pool."
I tried to digest this, but it seemed like something I wouldn't understand fully until I had experienced it.
"So, the Yeerk is there when I'm sleeping, or going to the bathroom?"
The same blonde smiled at me. It wasn't a fake smile. "I know, it seems weird, but most people get used to it pretty quickly. Most Yeerks don't start out with humans, and virtually every species has to rest and relieve themselves-er, eliminate their waste products. It's completely normal for them, and it will soon feel that way to you."
I had some doubts about that, but not enough to want to run away in the opposite direction. Besides, a new concern had entered my mind...
"Do I..." I paused, running a finger through my hair. "Can it hear my thoughts? Can I talk to it?"
The other one, a red haired girl who was probably a teenager, answered this. "It will hear your thoughts, and you can certainly talk to it. Lots of people find them to be good company." She paused for a minute before adding, "My own host likes to tell me that I know what she's thinking before she can even say it."
I nodded, trying to digest this. "What about my memories?"
"Your Yeerk can see all of them," the redhead told me. "But we don't look at things the way humans do, so even if there's something that you've done that you're ashamed or embarrassed by-"
"-And really, that's pretty much everyone," the blonde interrupted, smiling at me.
"Right. It's not like it's going to judge you the way a human would. In fact, seeing the memory in context will help the Yeerk better understand you," the redhead finished.
"That's...kind of reassuring," I said.
I'd always believed in God. A being who was omniscient, omnipotent. Someone who saw everything, and knew everything. It had been reassuring, when I was a kid. And while I could tell that Yeerks were nowhere near that in their level of power, their ability to view all of my memories and know me completely was, as I said, reassuring. Comforting.
I remember that I asked a few more questions before agreeing to become a full member. Since I'd been voluntary, I later learned, they hadn't needed to use the handcuffs that were in the same room. The redhead held my head gently, since first timers were likely to get startled and jump as soon as the Yeerk touched their ear, but they didn't use any force.
"You'll feel a little pain at first," the blonde told me, as she held my Yeerk in her hand. "But it goes away as soon as the Yeerk releases the painkiller. You just have to remember to hold still, so that your Yeerk can make the connections to your brain more easily."
"How long does it take?" I asked, now starting to feel a little nervous.
The redhead stroked my head. "The first time's the longest, especially if they never had a human host before. So...maybe five minutes? Just try to relax, and hold still. It's scary, at first, but it gets easier once you know what to expect."
I nodded. "Okay. I'm ready."
I felt, rather than saw, the blonde put the Yeerk to my ear.
I jumped as I felt the Yeerk touch my ear, and was glad for the redhead's hands keeping my head steady.
"Sorry!" I apologized.
She just laughed. "Don't worry-it happens to almost all new human hosts."
As soon as she had finished speaking, I felt a sharp pain, and flinched, but as soon as I did, the pain ceased. I let out a deep breath.
"Yeah, I know. But the worst part is over," the blonde reassured me, taking my hand in hers. "Just try to relax while your Yeerk connects with your brain."
"Okay," I managed, taking another deep breath.
I didn't feel any loss of control, yet, but I knew that I would, soon. I hoped that by the time I lost control of my lungs, my Yeerk would be connected enough to my brain to take over. But that had to happen, because otherwise, I would die, and the Yeerks didn't want a dead human to worry about.
Too much paperwork, I thought sardonically, and tried not to laugh.
The loss of control came slowly, as they had told me. It seemed to be completely random, too. Like, it wasn't one arm, and then another. More like, one arm, my left eye, my right foot, my neck. That kind of thing.
But I'd felt a loss of control in so many other ways before, and at least I was prepared for this.
And suddenly, I was powerless. I fought the urge to panic, because really, what good would that do? Only show my Yeerk that I was uncooperative. I didn't know if the Yeerk would leave my head and I'd be expelled from The Sharing, if that happened, so I just fought to keep a hold on my mind.
(Hello?) I asked, unsure if the Yeerk had connected enough to my mind to hear me.
(Hello,) came the response. I could feel a sense of unease as the Yeerk answered, but the voice felt like it was coming from far away.
(Are you all right?) I asked. (Is anything wrong?)
(No. It's just that...I'm not fully connected to your mind yet...if you could just give me a minute?)
(Oh, okay. Sorry.)
I waited, wishing I could take a deep breath or drum my fingers on my chair or something. Not being able to move at all made the waiting feel much longer. But it was probably less than a minute later, that the voice spoke again, stronger. (My name is Hallit five-six-two. You can call me Hallit.)
(Um, hi, Hallit,) I said, a little shyly.
I felt her access my memory. Not that she opened everything then and there, but-as I would later learn-just opening the surface memories to see who I was and what had transpired in the time shortly before she had infested me.
I could feel her relief that I had agreed to infestation.
(You're a voluntary host, then,) Hallit commented. (That's good.)
(Uh-what's that?)
(You agreed to my living in your head,) she explained. (They didn't have to take you against your will.)
I felt a spark of fear at this new information. (They do that?)
(They have to. Can you imagine what would happen if we let every human go, just because they didn't agree to infestation in the beginning? Your government would completely massacre our race. It would go beyond mere genocide. It would mean the extinction of an entire sentient species,) Hallit explained. (And we need to have hosts in order to defend ourselves against those who would kill us.)
She sent me an image of what looked like a blue horse, except it had four eyes and a deadly looking blade on its tail.
(Andalites,) she explained, before I could ask. (And they're far more intelligent than human horses. They don't live on our planet, or at least, they didn't originally. But they found us, and after giving us technology in order to explore space, they promptly decided that we were too dangerous to exist, and decided we must be destroyed.)
I let out a mental shudder. (And you can't exactly defend yourself without a host. I mean, I saw you before you entered my head, and...)
I didn't want to say it, but Hallit knew what I was thinking.
(Yes. We greatly resemble your Earth slugs. We're vastly more intelligent than they are, of course, but that hardly matters if we can't defend ourselves.)
I let this all sink in. Clearly, the other Yeerks (well, Controllers, as I learned later) hadn't told me everything. Still, Hallit seemed nice enough, and as I had already agreed to become a Controller, I didn't think now was a good time to decide to resist.
It seemed awful to think that Yeerks like Hallit lived in the constant threat of being destroyed by Andalites. Especially without host bodies.
I resolved to cooperate with Hallit, and we quickly became friends.