(eng) K. A. Applegate - Animorphs 33 by The Illusion

Author:The Illusion [Illusion, The]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

The darkness was complete.

Total.

And I heard nothing. No sound save my own irregular breathing.

Sensation started to return and I realized I'd been stuffed into a box half my size. A straitjacket that pinned my wings against my body. Jammed the vestigial Andalite tail up into my neck.

The hawk in me tensed every muscle. No room! In a panic, it pressed against the walls of the seamless steel box. Terrified. Confined. I fought to control the bird. But I was losing the struggle. The human me was frightened, too.

Rachel! Oh, Rachel. Could she escape this underground network? Somehow survive?

She would. Sure she would. She had to. She was Rachel, after all. Rachel!

Where was she? All I could think of was a paralyzed fly, helpless and vulnerable on the floor. Someone would step on her. She wouldn't be able to get out of the way, and someone would kill her.

Better than the alternative. Life as a fly. Trapped, like me. But so not like me. I could see, soar . . .

And the plan? Rachel was supposed to have seen where they took me, then lead the others in. First prove the Anti-Morphing Ray didn't work, then, in the rescue, destroy the thing for good measure.

It was crazy! Inconceivable arrogance on our parts. We had underestimated our foe. A fatal error.

Fatal.

The hawk brain, the animal part that still, even now, lived apart from me, untouched by human reason, began a low, defeated moan. A death moan.

So hot in the box. Like an oven. Warmer, and warmer still. How much more oxygen could there be? Were they trying to suffocate me? Was that it?

Interminable!

The only external input were the wobbles and bobs as the holder of the box hit me against his leg. The ride continued.

No space to morph or demorph.

<I'll be trapped. As a horrific, half-morphed creature,> I pronounced slowly. <That will be my fate. I bet Andalites don't even have a word for that tragedy.>

That's it. Keep talking, Tobias. Keep talking. Stay sane. Hold on. Don't think . . .

Zeeewooozeeewooo.

All six walls of the box began to buzz. Vibrate. And then: Poosh!

Like a camera flash, steel walls vaporized. Dazzling light flooded my eyes. Blinded me. Rods and cones shot to hell. I saw nothing but white.

I blinked a few times. Then, no. No, my eyes were adjusting.

I was in another box. But a completely different kind. A cube of glass. Larger. Maybe four feet square. Big enough for me to move about. Brightly illuminated, with several spotlights directed at me. I demorphed immediately. Back to hawk.

I blinked again. And as I rose to my feet, I realized I was suspended. The cube hung in the center of a much larger room. I strained to look beyond the glass. Through the glare from the lights to the dimness beyond.

"There's no way out." It was Taylor's voice. Sub-Visser Fifty-one. Cold and casual. "There's no point in looking around."

She sat alone at a long table near the door of the large, gloomy, windowless room.

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