My name is Jake.
I live in a normal American city, in a normal American state.
I love my mom and my dad. I even love my big brother, Tom. I like basketball and hate math and get a little own down when it rains for more than one day. I think those little Audi TT's are cool but if I had the money, and was old enough, I'd probably drive a Jeep.
I live on burgers and fries and have never voluntarily consumed a brussels sprout.
My room is a mess. My homework is late. My class notes are so disorganized they cannot be read by anyone except Marco, who has been living off my notes for five years or more, and sometimes has to interpret them for me.
I cried the day Michael Jordan retired. And I can still tell you what time it was, what day, week, month, hour, minute, and second, what I was wearing and what I was eating when Marc McGwire banged his record homer.
I'm a kid. A kid with a dog and parents and teachers and friends. Just a kid.
I have these nightmares. Sometimes I'm a termite, trapped inside a piece of wood, can't get out and the clock is ticking, ticktock, ticktock, can't escape, wooden walls and blackness around me, pressing me tight.
Sometimes I'm falling. Flying and my wings just aren't there and I'm a mile up in the sky, falling, and thinking, I can't fly! I can't fly!
Sometimes still, even now, I see the dark red eye of Crayak and feel his malice reaching for me all across the millions of light-years.
But the worst dream is just me and Cassie. And we're standing in the forest somewhere. She's outlined in light. You know, like there's a bright light hidden behind her. And it's almost like she's shining. And there's this cave. And I'm telling her to go in, and she's looking at me with trust in her eyes, looking at me and loving me and believing in me and trusting me and I'm telling her to go into the cave.
I'm the leader of the Animorphs. I don't know how that happened. It was some doom pronounced by Marco. Why me? Because, Marco said. Because it has to be.
We were five kids taking a shortcut home from the mall at night. There was a ship. There was an alien. There was the destructive worm of knowledge: You are not alone. You are not safe. Nothing is what it seems. No one is who they seem to be.
The knowledge of betrayal and terror. The awareness of evil.
And then, the power.
The power made us responsible, see. Without the power the knowledge would have just been a worm of fear eating up our insides.
Bad enough. But it was the power that turned fear into obligation, that laid the weight on our unready shoulders.
We could become any animal we touched, the Andalite told us.
Power enough to win? No. Power enough to fight? Ah, yes. Just enough, little Jake, here is just enough power to imprison you in a cage of duty, to make you fight.
"Help me. I'm cold."
Another battle. Another horror.
Couldn't anything make it end? Was there no way out? Was I trapped, fighting, fighting till one by one my friends died or went nuts?
I lay on my bed. Stared up at the ceiling.
"Help me. Please. I'm cold."
Into the cave, Cassie.
All for what? For nothing. To delay the Yeerks, but never to win. And someday, to lose.
Was there no way out?
"There will always be a way out, Jake the Mighty," a voice said. "My lord Crayak holds out his omnipotent hand to you, Jake the Yeerk Killer. Jake the Ellimist's tool."
I sat up. I knew the voice.
The Drode stood by my desk. It wasn't large. It perched forward like one of those small dinosaurs. It had mean, smart eyes in a humanoid head. It was wrinkled, dark green or purple maybe. So dark it was almost black. The mocking mouth was lined with green.
The Drode was Crayak's creature, his emissary, his tool. Crayak was... Crayak was evil. A power so vast, so complete that only the Ellimist could keep him in check. A balance of terror: evil and good checking each other, limiting each other, making deals that affected the survival of entire solar systems.
"Go away," I said to the Drode.
"But you called me."
"Go back to Crayak. Leave me alone."
The Drode smiled. He got up and moved closer. Closer till his face was only inches from my own.
"There is a way out," the Drode whispered. "Say the word and it never was, Jake. Say the word, Jake, and you never walked through the construction site. Say the word and you know nothing. No weight on your shoulders. Say the word."
"Go away," I said through gritted teeth.
"How long till your cousin Rachel loses her grip? You know the darkness is growing inside her. How long till Tobias dies, a bird, a bird! How can he ever be happy? How long till Marco is forced to destroy his own Controller mother? Will he survive that, do you think? How long, Jake, till you kill Tom? Then what dreams will come, Jake the Yeerk Killer?"
"Get out of here. Crawl back under your rock."
"It will happen, Jake. You know that. The cave. The day will come. You know that the cave is, Jake. You know what it means, that dark cave. You know death is within. When she dies, when Cassie dies, it will be at your word, Jake."
I covered my face with my hands.
"My master Crayak offers you an escape. In his compassion Great Crayak has struck a deal with that meddling nitwit Ellimist. Crayak would free you, Jake. Crayak would free you all. All will be as it would have been if you had simply taken a different path home."
I saw that moment again. At the mall. Deciding whether to take the safe, well-lit, sensible way home. Or the route that would take us through the construction site, and to a meeting that would change everything.
Undo it. Undo it all. No more war. No more pain and fear and guilt?
"Just one word, Jake," the Drode whispered. "No... no, two, I think. One must not sacrifice good manners. Two words and it never was. Two words and you know nothing, have no power, no responsibility."
"What words?"
"One is Crayak. The other is please."
I wanted to say no.
I wanted to say no...
I wanted...