The Beginning (Animorphs #54) by K. A. Applegate

Author:K. A. Applegate [Applegate, K. A.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2017-09-26T00:00:00+00:00

Jake

I woke up falling.

“Aaaahhhh!”

Not a long fall, but it was into water, into waves, into dark gray waves topped with foam.

I hit facedown and sank maybe ten feet down.

Salt water in my mouth, down my throat. It was freezing. Brutal cold, shocking cold. I wasn’t groggy anymore, I was wide-awake, but disoriented. Which way was up?

Sunlight. Cold and far, far away. I kicked madly, moved with painful slowness. Could I even reach the surface? I was a slug. My clothing billowed and knotted around me, twisted me, hampered my movements. Shoes full of water, like lead weights.

I kicked hard and started to rise. I ripped off my shirt, buttons twirling away in the water. I took my shoes off. I was going to freeze to death.

Then, air!

I sucked in deep, spit water, breathed again. A wave crashed over me, buried me, turned me upside down. Then, air again. But air wasn’t enough. I was freezing. I couldn’t see anything down in the valley between waves. No boat, no shore, no plane. How had I ended up here?

Already couldn’t feel my fingers. Thought slowing.

Dolphin. That was it, dolphin. I reached for the DNA that still flowed through my veins.

I felt the changes begin. My skin was as gray as a corpse’s. My hair was gone. My numb fingers were melting together, webbing, then stretching out to form fins.

My legs twined together like two strands of overcooked spaghetti. The flesh melted, painlessly. I heard the interior sounds of bones shifting, the gloopy sound of organs disappearing or being replaced, relocated.

My mouth and nose pushed out and out, ridiculously far. All at once a hole grew in the back of my neck.

I was no longer cold. I was definitely mad.

I kicked my tail hard, trying to lift my dolphin body high enough to see over the wave tops. Not enough. I would have to jump.

I sucked air through my blowhole and dove down deep. Ten feet, twenty feet, thirty. Down into darkness. I fired a series of clicks and the ultrasonic waves bounced back in patterns that revealed a school of fish behind me at about my same depth. And a hint of something larger at a greater distance.

At thirty feet or so I twisted and began powering toward the surface.

Up like a rocket. Speed was so easy. So easy to kick my tail and fly straight up through the water.

Faster and faster and the bright barrier between sea and sky was right there, shimmering above me, and I blew through it!

I burst from the water and sailed high and for a perfect moment I held sea and sky within me, all encompassed within my brain.

I flew, and I completely forgot to look around.

I splashed down and reminded myself sternly that I had a job. I had to see where I was, figure it out, try and make sense of it all.

Down and down, and up, up, up, into the sky!

<Aaaahhh!>

Again!

Down and up, so fast, as fast as I could go. As high as I could fly.

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