Searing Raven

Chapter 1: A bat flaps its wings

Katherine remembers the day she learned to fly. It was a mild day with not a cloud to be seen and the sun shone bright in the crystal clean sky. Katherine was sitting in her room playing with her dolls as any five year old child might while her nurse snoozed off in the rocking chair. Walking over to the twin doors Katherine knew lead out onto the balcony she had with the small marble pillars a bit taller than her. Looking over her parent majestic gardens she gawked at how big the world was outside her room. Laughing and dancing in the sun she danced and spun when she stumbled and headed straight to a gap between the pillars acting as a fence around the balcony and she fell! As She fell Katherine couldn't help but to notice how nice the view was from where she was falling not entirely realizing her immediate squashing. As she fell Katherine felt a whoosh of wind and noticed the fall slowing and gently stopping so she landed smoothly on the ground. She looked behind her to see a huge pair of wings fluffed out sprouted from her back. As the gardener was making his shift later that day he saw the girl flapping and gentle gliding across the sky. He excitedly ran to the manor to tell mrs Stanrinvell the good news. For a manner of years after word Katherine would fly for hours never tiring of all the things she could do as her mother and father watched from the ground proud of there daughter and there success that had let her fly. The family having made million with different investments mostly travel were on the cutting edge of what most people referred to as modifications or just mods. As humans had expanded there reach past the stars they had also looked home on how to improve. This began the popular use of adding characteristics of animals via genetic engineering to humans to allow them to be better, faster and stronger to deal with the challenges the universe threw at humanity. Not everyone got the same treatment though, as people tried to keep up but with out the funds to properly run these machines the class difference became more and more severe where the rich used there power to create more and more wealth and the poor having to cash all of the money on the cheapest of mods simply to keep there jobs on the table. As these occurred eventually it became almost an insult to refer to someone as a human. And the remaining humans were sold in the now predominate slave market as everyone quested for more power.