Lobster

It was a big lobster tank, fortunately. I hoisted myself up the side and climbed in. Jake was right behind me. We each grabbed a lobster and threw one to Ax.

It was not easy "acquiring" the lobster. It took concentration. And all I could think was that there were an awful lot of cops outside the store, probably getting ready to rush in. And they would all have guns.

The lobster went limp and passive, the way animals do when you acquire them.

I dropped him back in the water. We stripped off our outer clothes and shoes and stuffed them, along with the Radio Shack bag, in a trash can.

Ax had already begun to morph. Jake and I waited till he had shrunk a little and then hauled him into the tank with us.

He was already hard, like armor, and his arms had begun to split open and swell.

Then I began the morph.

I've been afraid a lot since we became Animorphs. But I have not gotten used to it. And I can tell you, I was so scared my bones were rattling.

At any second they were going to rush in.

At any moment they were going to catch us half-morphed.

I looked over at Jake. His eyes were gone, replaced by little black BBs.

"Ewww."

As I watched, eight spindly, blue, insectlike legs erupted from his chest.

"Aaaaahhh!" I yelped in shock.

Jake's face seemed to open up, to split open into a complex mess of valves. I think I would have thrown up, seeing that. Except that I, also, no longer had a mouth.

At that very moment, I felt antennae explode from my forehead like impossibly long spears.

I was shrinking as I morphed, falling, falling, falling down into the water which had been around my thighs and was now around my neck.

I had the terrifying sensation of knowing that all the bones inside my body were dissolving, as a hard, fingernail-like crust covered me all over.

My human body was melting away.

My human vision was fading. I could no longer see the way a human sees.

Which was a good thing. Because I really did not want to see what I was becoming.

I think I might have just started screaming and never stopped. But I no longer had a mouth, or throat, or vocal cords capable of making sounds.

I had four sets of legs. I had two huge pincers. I could see them, kind of. They were a fractured image in my lobster eyes. I couldn't see much of the rest of me. But I could see other lobsters in the water.

I was very frightened.

Eat.

Eat.

Kill and eat.

The lobster brain surfaced suddenly, bubbling up within my human awareness. It had two thoughts.

Eat.

Eat.

Kill and eat.

I was getting input from senses I couldn't begin to understand. My extraordinarily long antennae felt water temperature, and water current, and vibration. But I didn't know what any of it meant.

My eyes were almost useless at first. They showed fractured, incredible images, with none of the colors I knew.

I could see my pincers out in front of me. I could see my antennae. And behind me I could see a curved, brownish-blue surface, with humps and bumps on it.

My body! I realized with a sickening sensation. That was my back. My hard shell.

I could not look down and see my belly, or the hairy swimmerets scurrying away, back beneath my tail. I could not see my eight spiderlike legs, but I could feel as they propelled me suddenly, scrabbling along the glass bottom of the tank.

<Jake?> I called out.

<Yeah. I'm here,> he said. He sounded shaky. Which was fine, because I was on the verge of crying. If lobsters could cry.

<You okay?>

<Yeah. This is not my favorite morph, though.>