[ Whatever Stiles' world is like, whatever danger he's got back home, Rachel is pretty convinced that none of it could possibly match up to her situation. It's hard to imagine anything could.
She tries to figure out how to start. Where do you start with this kind of thing? She moves to sit down on the couch, but then she gets up again, pacing almost nervously. Not that she'd ever admit to being nervous. No, she just needs to think on her feet, that's all. She looks at Stiles, all of the cute teen girl levity gone from her voice. ]
There are these things called Yeerks. They're basically big slugs, right? Big, ugly, alien slugs. Deaf and dumb and blind, pretty much. They're almost totally harmless. Unless you get one in you. If one of those things decides to crawl into your ear, flatten itself around your brain, that's it. You belong to the Yeerk, now. You're a Controller. You don't so much as breathe or blink unless that slug in your head decides it wants to. Not even your thoughts are safe. It can open up your brain like a book, page through all your memories, every wonderful or embarrassing thing that ever happened to you. And it can be you just as well as you can, and nobody will ever even know the difference.
[ She stops to take a breath, tries to keep her voice from shaking. God, she hates those things. She can't help but think of that time not so long ago that her own cousin Jake had been infested, when they'd had to lock him up for three days to starve the slug out of his head. She trudges on ahead, determined not to stop talking. She's not sure what'll happen if she does. ]
Back on their own planet, Yeerks couldn't get around much. The only hosts for them there were big and slow and stupid. They couldn't do much of anything. Until some sentimental idiot decided he felt sorry for them, and gave them a way off their planet. Because there are never enough hosts for the Yeerks, not even after they destroyed and enslaved an entire race of peaceful creatures just because they thought their bodies would make good weapons. And now they've come for Earth. They came to enslave us, they're doing it right now, and nobody even knows they're here.
[ She clenches her hands into fists, staring past Stiles at the wall. If she had laser vision, there'd be two smoking holes where she's staring. ]
Except for us. Just me and my friends. We're the only ones fighting them.
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She tries to figure out how to start. Where do you start with this kind of thing? She moves to sit down on the couch, but then she gets up again, pacing almost nervously. Not that she'd ever admit to being nervous. No, she just needs to think on her feet, that's all. She looks at Stiles, all of the cute teen girl levity gone from her voice. ]
There are these things called Yeerks. They're basically big slugs, right? Big, ugly, alien slugs. Deaf and dumb and blind, pretty much. They're almost totally harmless. Unless you get one in you. If one of those things decides to crawl into your ear, flatten itself around your brain, that's it. You belong to the Yeerk, now. You're a Controller. You don't so much as breathe or blink unless that slug in your head decides it wants to. Not even your thoughts are safe. It can open up your brain like a book, page through all your memories, every wonderful or embarrassing thing that ever happened to you. And it can be you just as well as you can, and nobody will ever even know the difference.
[ She stops to take a breath, tries to keep her voice from shaking. God, she hates those things. She can't help but think of that time not so long ago that her own cousin Jake had been infested, when they'd had to lock him up for three days to starve the slug out of his head. She trudges on ahead, determined not to stop talking. She's not sure what'll happen if she does. ]
Back on their own planet, Yeerks couldn't get around much. The only hosts for them there were big and slow and stupid. They couldn't do much of anything. Until some sentimental idiot decided he felt sorry for them, and gave them a way off their planet. Because there are never enough hosts for the Yeerks, not even after they destroyed and enslaved an entire race of peaceful creatures just because they thought their bodies would make good weapons. And now they've come for Earth. They came to enslave us, they're doing it right now, and nobody even knows they're here.
[ She clenches her hands into fists, staring past Stiles at the wall. If she had laser vision, there'd be two smoking holes where she's staring. ]
Except for us. Just me and my friends. We're the only ones fighting them.