A/N: This story bumped the rating up to "T," so there's your warning. Dark themes ahead.
Disclaimer: I do not in any way own Animorphs.

Arbron waits anxiously as the low-atmosphere spaceship nears its final destination. His pincers grab at the manual controls, although he knows that he cannot change the ship's programming. There is no need to anyways; they have already devised the perfect solution. The Taxxons are comfortable enough in their new forms, and now they don't have to deal with the maddening, insatiable hunger. Still, no humans or Andalites were willing to ride in the spaceship with a nothlit Taxxon and thousands of giant snakes. Without a purpose, he walks back and forth in the control room aimlessly. Bored, worried, and eager, an indescribable feeling gnawing uncomfortably at his stomach.

He feels a sharp pang of hunger. Slowly and reluctantly, he drags himself to the supply room to eat another meal. In the halls, he sees a lounging boa constrictor. An easy meal, his stomach thinks, taunting and coaxing him to rush at the motionless reptile. No danger here. Eat, eat. Hunger. Meal. Eat. The snake eyes him curiously. Its upper body uncoils and it raises itself into the air, waving back and forth in a mesmerizing pattern. Its tongue flicks out and tastes its surroundings; it senses Arbron's hunger, the hunger of a monstrous creature.

"Haithssss, ssssrrriyaaah." The constrictor gives a harsh, raspy hiss, warning him to stay away. ((Leader Arbron. Control hunger. I am Hive-companion.))

His Taxxon mind disregards these meaningless messages. What importance does anything have compared to the all-consuming hunger of his stomach? Eat, eat! it cries. His claws tap the floor in impatience. He imagines himself opening his drooling mouth ringed with razor-sharp teeth, wrapping the snake in his long tongue, listening to its furious sputters and hisses as it tries to escape the ravenous maw of the Taxxon.

Stop, his mind commands him. ((My apologies,)) Arbron mutters embarrassingly to the snake before continuing his journey to the supply room. It has been nearly twenty Earth years since his nothlitism. Why can he still not control the hunger? His brain tries to rationalize this thought, but it is too difficult to concentrate on anything for long when desperate cries are coming from his starved stomach. He orders the computer to prepare him a meal, the fifteenth of the day, which he greedily devours. He stays in the supply room for the rest of the trip. No use going anywhere else, he thinks.

The spaceship reaches the Amazon Rainforest without any further difficulties and begins to unload its passengers. He watches as thousands of snakes languidly slither down the ramp and into the dense thicket of trees and bushes. He himself steps out into the wilderness, examining his surroundings through the broken vision of his compound eyes. He turns around, watching the spaceship as is rises above the canopy and fades into the fractured greenish-blue sky. He feels another pang of hunger.

He heads into the woods to see where the other Taxxons have gone, except now they aren't Taxxons. They are snakes. They have the body of snakes. They share their minds with snakes. When they reproduce, their offspring will be snakes, not burdened by any sort of sentience. He is the only Taxxon in this insignificant region of space for several parsecs. An overwhelming feeling of isolation sweeps over him, engulfing him, swallowing him whole.

His days are uneventful, filled with nothing but hunting for another meal. His stomach is unsatisfied though, and forever shrieks and writhes in agony. More food. Eat, eat. The torturous cries are unbearable. Why should he continue to suffer in this living hell? The Taxxon resistance has prevailed. The Yeerks were defeated. And with that, he realizes that his life has no purpose anymore.

He does try it a few times. He finds a river where he knows the piranhas could devour him in seconds. But before he does, a python slithers out from underneath a bed of leaves and watches him closely. He looks down at the river, back to the python, and walks away from the waterside.

Another time, he finds a steep precipice, a strange sight in a lush, dense forest. He stands on the edge, balancing precariously with his multitude of legs. His brain wills him to take one more step forward. His sense of self-preservation kicks in, refusing to let him continue. He turns around, scuttling away from the cliff, looking for another meal.

One day he hears voices. A loud crunching of leaves and cracking of branches that make their way through the rainforest; obviously the sound of humans. He eavesdrops on them until his universal translator is able to decode their speech. "I've set up five traps in this area and loaded them with bait. The sooner we catch her, the sooner we can sell the fur. I've heard that the prices have doubled since last month."

Poachers, he thinks. They would be armed with their primitive projectile weapons- crude, but efficient. They probably have never seen a creature like him before, a mutated, twisted centipede the size of a bull. They would try to protect themselves from this monster that exists only in their nightmares. Self-preservation is a useful tool, he thinks to himself dryly.

He watches carefully as the two humans sit down on a fallen log and prepare their meals. Eat, eat, his stomach urges. His mind does not try to suppress these feelings; there is no need. Drops of drool begin to gather at the edge of his mouth. He raises his legs in anticipation and charges through the undergrowth.

The humans, startled by the sudden sound of the terrifying creature behind them, jump up in surprise. They spin around, looks of horror etched into their faces. One of them quickly reaches for his gun and aims it at him.

((Please…)) Arbron manages to say.

The human looks surprised, but does not hesitate. A deafening gunshot echoes through the forest.