Bloody Branch (on Hold)

Bloody Branch

Prologue 

I'm told there was a time when no one knew the "shifters", as we've come to coin them, existed. They were just a fairy tale, or nightmare, whatever your preference, but they hadn't lived among us in reality. There was a time when you could go to about your business and not fear an attack, or play in the woods with your childhood friends without the threat of crossing territory or being run through by a branch. That time, however, has passed. 

We call them shifters for lack of any other name. They are not werewolves, for they don't transform into only a wolf. But they are not fae, vampire, or even dragons. These creatures were unheard of. They never appeared in those fairy tales or nightmares, they weren't even thought of. 

Shifters were the creations of imagination. They had a human form which we true humans rarely saw. They tend to not speak with us and we know not how they live when we aren't around. 

They could shift into either a giant ten foot timber wolf with a hunger for flesh, or a leave-less Aspen tree with a thirst for blood. The wolves have their teeth and their claws yes, but the trees are worse. When in tree form they can stand almost fifty feet tall and will run you through with their stake-like branches. Their roots will carry them almost as fast as your feet and they entangle themselves around your limbs.  

They are the rendition of monster. 

Now the shifters have taken over. Many years before I was born a group of their leaders forced the government to bow down to them. Cities were burned to the ground in order to start over, Species Zealots were murdered in order to keep the general population, what was left of it, under control. The shifters had a plan, and it worked, for the most part. 

At the beginning people resisted the change. They refused to leave their homes for the Burning, but the shifters gave them a choice. Stay and burn, or leave and live, most chose the latter. I wish I could say it was ninety percent as the most, but it was more like fifty-one. So that alone dropped almost half the world population, but it wasn't enough.  Nothing ever was.

The lead shifters decided that our world had been tainted with technology, pollution, and even humans. They wanted fresh air to breathe, understandable considering their shifts, so they destroyed anything that may corrupt the human mind. The study of science was made illegal, history as well. Only literature remained and even that was regulated to certain books the shifters thought safe. 

After the hardship passed the humans began to rebuild. Once the ash faded into the soil, and the soil grew grass, wooden huts were built. This time around humans built up. They avoided wooded areas, for obvious reasons, and erected towers as houses. First were wooden stilts, then after fifteen feet, wooden platforms, walls, then the next floor and so on. The towers were narrow so there could be room for more houses in a smaller area. Most homes even built a watch tower on their roofs equipped with bells in case of attack. 

You see, even though shifters had what they wanted, they were still beasts. They'd ravage villages and take anything with a body for a dinner if the need be. However they still had humanity and urges, so normally the males would take the most attractive females just to take pleasure in seeing their beautiful faces contort in pain as their limbs are ripped off and their lungs stabbed. It was a sadistic game they played I guess, who could find the prettiest and make her scream the loudest, has that always been the way a males mind works? 

Never the less, when a gorgeous girl is born she is harbored and hidden away. Parents fear having beautiful girls in case they are taken from them. Girls weren't alone in the despair, boys had it rough too. Male and female shifters alike targeted strong boys for the challenge of the kill. Of course there was never any challenge, a shifter was a monster, it could kill a human the same way a human could kill an ant. 

After years of attacking villages the people started to give in. They no longer knew the meaning of "safe" so they tried to appease the shifters that would pillage their homeland. Some villages, avowed as Trade Places, would pray for beautiful children just to give them to the shifters in a form of penance for living on their land. Other villages, known as Safe Zones, kept the way of hiding the pretties, but those were far and few, numbers dwindling fast.  

That's where I come in. It had been seventy-five years since the burning when I was born. My family was fortunate to have lived in a Safe Zone with strong defenses up until the day before my birth. That day the shifters came at the village, Moondawn, full force. They held nothing back and left a massacre in their wake. That night, after a day of attacks, the village elders decided to convert to a Trade Place in order to save the lives of any living villagers left. 

Just after the moon passed for midnight my father returned home from the medic to find my mother bleeding out. He knew she was too far gone but his only hope was to get her to the hospital to save the precious baby in her womb. I was delivered mere hours after the declaration of becoming a Trade Place, making me an eligible trade at the age of fifteen.  

"Any child born ensuing this report is to be brought forth at the age of fifteen for examination by our superiors, the shifters, and shall become their property to do with as they wish if they do so desire. May the Maker have mercy on your souls and bless you all my children." Were the exact words that sealed my fate. Those words were uttered from the mouth of First Elder Edmund, a kind man whom I grew to care for deeply while I lived in the Moondawn. Had he known then what his words would cause, I can only hope he wouldn't have released them.  

For the first fourteen years of my life I was raised by my father, he kept me sheltered from any prying eyes. I knew only my father and Edmund while growing up. My father trained me to fight at a young age. I was lethal with any blade but my preference was a longsword and a dagger. I could also use a bow and slingshot, but preferred close combat. 

Father only allowed Edmund close because Edmund had practically raised him, therefore Father knew he could trust him. Edmund taught me to read and write until I was a good as he, then he taught me every last bit of knowledge he could. Sword and word play were drilled into my skull so deep I would be woken up by Father telling me my stance was wrong while I was fighting in my sleep. 

I had no idea why they put so much faith in me. Why they would risk everything by teaching me how to fight, there was no need? I didn't know that while I was being trained to kill, other kids were going to school and playing tag in the gardens below their homes. That parents would look at their kids sleeping and smile knowing that because their nose was a bit bulbous and their lips too thin, they would be safe. 

When I looked in the mirror and saw my pale complexion paired with hair almost as white as the clouds, it didn't mark me as ugly or pretty. It marked me as completely unique. But my eyes were the most startling black. The whites of my eyes were matched against a black iris followed by a black pupil. I was not pretty, I was the opposite of perfection, but I was different. 

When I looked in that mirror I had no idea that what I saw was a death sentence.

A/N Yet another project. C'mon people this ones really different than anything I've ever read! Please give it a chance and show your love! <3