Five Years Later
⛓⛓⛓⛓
Kalaya
"You force us to fight and die for you, you drag us out of our homes, you teach your children to hate us, you starve, beat and kill us and yet, WE ARE THE ANIMALS?!?"
Shouts of agreement and anger came from behind me, my people backing me up as I stood on top of a crate, yelling at the humans of the town. We stood where the cage stood that I was trapped in so long ago, that sat in the center of town.
"All Half-Breeds, return to your homes!" The General shouted out, making a gesture of his hand that had a line of guards moving towards us.
"What homes? You mean the tiny shacks you force us to live and die in?!" I dramatically gestured towards the far distance where there was a fence, and we all knew behind the fence were broken down shacks of homes, with dirt as the floors and holes in the tin roofs. The way they made us live was inhumane. Meanwhile, their roads were made of cobblestone and homes two and three stories with shops in walking distance. They had school and pharmacies and stores to buy delicious food and places to repair or buy new clothing.
We had nothing but huts and dirt. So many of us were dying by the day. Not to mention how we were treated by guards.
A guard shoved me back. "You need to get back behind the gates, now!"
"For your protection, or for ours?!" I shouted out for all the hear. The town's people were gathering, watching us with fear and intrigue. This was pure entertainment for them. But this was everything to us. It's been so long since we've stood up to humans. "We're forced to stand in long lines for a decent bathroom, children live in there with no teachings and most times without a parent to watch over them! We never make it to old age because of the living conditions. Do you feel warm? Do you not feel guilt?!" I scanned the crowd of humans to see if anyone had empathy for our plight. But it was hard to tell. Mostly defiant eyes narrowed at me. I could read on their expressions what they thought.
That we should be grateful they even allowed us to live. But there were a couple of them who looked sympathetic. Like the young lady with a child. Or one elderly couple.
My people were shoving the guards back from touching me, my words giving them enough anger that they didn't care about the punishment.
"Just let us go! We want to be free!"
We only wanted freedom. If they weren't going to treat us like people, then why couldn't we just leave? We could build our own houses; make our own away from this community, outside of the gates. They kept us for the sole purpose of using us as slaves for free labor. They beat on us. Were afraid to allow us to leave in case we overpowered them in numbers and came back.
"So you can just come back after growing strong to kill us all? I don't think so!" Shouted out the General, confirming what we all knew about their fears and paranoia. "Let's not forget how humans were hunted by shapeshifters until we took them out! You're greedy beings who lust and sin and nothing else!"
I rolled my eyes, yeah right, like any of us would ever want to come back to this hell hole. "We just want peace! We want to be free from this torment! Are we not half of you? Where's your morals?"
The man's lips pressed together as his brown eyes flashes in anger. The muscles on his midnight dark arm flexed as he reached for the wooden made bat at his side.
I knew this was a risk when I gathered everyone from up and down my street and marched us over here, knocking out the few guards that were supposed to be keeping watch of the gate that divided us from the humans . They had gotten so used to us never rebelling it had been as easy as snatching up a rat in the night.
We were just lucky he was grabbing the bat that was as the size of half his arm, rather than grabbing the large knife at his side or the sword strapped to his back.
They weren't willing to kill us in front of the town's people. One place had made that mistake years ago, in the town over and after seeing the murder, the towns people actually got angry, wanting the half-breeds, or like my kind liked to call ourselves, shifted, treated better. It had been ruined though when they framed a shapeshifted for murder days later, causing fear and panic among the humans once again.
My father had been that shapeshifter and not even being able to say goodbye, Momma and I were moved here, sold like cattle.
If only they could see, if only everyone would be forced to walk around in our homes, through our streets. If only they understood that we were made to farm for them, fetch water for them, fight their wars whenever there was an attack on the town. And our payment was being able to live like animals trapped behind bars.
If only they were each forced to live a day in our shoes - those of us that had shoes. My bare toes curled at the thought, my toe claws digging into the ground underneath me. It was hard to find a good pair of shoes with my sharp black claws for toe nails.
"Return to your homes and you won't be punished! Fellow humans please evacuate the area until it's safe!" Guards started forming a barrier between the towns people and us. And with that they started swinging out their bats, one guard got me upside the head before I dropped kicked him in the stomach.
We were good fighters compared to the slow, weak humans, but in the end there were too many, as I saw so many of us fall, bloody and beaten, I knew it was time to go back and regroup, just glad to have told my part to these people, knowing I would be around often as my words had to reach even just one human. I only needed to plant the seeds of doubt inside their minds and watch them grow.
"We're leaving!" I shouted out, knowing the shifted wouldn't stop fighting until possible death. It's not like any of us have much or anything to lose.
The guards stopped fighting us, backing up slowly, putting away their bats and moving back forward to shove us along back towards the dreaded gate.
Helping along an injured friend, a blonde girl my age, Sail, who had fins sticking out on either side of her head and webbed hands and feet with scales going down one side of her body. Her nose was bleeding, she was cradling one arm and as I walked, she limped.
Turning my head, I saw the General smirking at me. His shadow now stretched out as if towards me, he was way too tall, even blocking the sun from my view.
One day, I knew, I would kill that man.
Before turning away, I saw a flash of kinky curly dark hair.
Taking a better look, I saw it was a girl my age and she looked familiar.
Ah, how could I forget? Every once in a while I would dream about that girl, the one I met years ago, She ended up being as kind and friendly as she looked.
Our eyes met briefly – her wide honey colored eyes – and even in the serious situation, somehow we both smiled at each other as if we both shared a private joke that even neither of us understood. Relief flooded me, I've always thought she hated me from what I had done. But it was obvious she also felt that same relief as she looked at me.
Not wanting anyone to catch me smiling in this moment, I turned away, instead focusing on getting poor Sail back home.
After cleaning and bandaging up those who were hurt and placing them into their homes, those of us who weren't injured all too badly, met up at the only bar we had. We had made it ourselves, taking two houses that were next to each other, knocking down one wall, clearing it out and two large tables, and one round on in the middle that I was now sitting on top of, with two other people sitting around it.
The people who took care of this place, made the alcohol. They usually give each person one free drink a week, but after that we had to pay in food or any tradable item.
Today though, free drinks were going all around.
"It was a good start," Matter said, his sharp teeth poking out as he smiled at me, pouring me another drink. His lip was bruised from the fight and other than a few cuts, he looked fine. He was white as a ghost but that was normal for him. "But the humans didn't even look bothered when they started beating on us. Just looked on as if it were free entertainment."
"We planted the seeds of doubt, made them see us for the first time in a long time, that's all that matters, for now," I sighed, gulping down the strong drink that felt like fire going down my throat. It made my belly feel warm and tingly after a moment.
"You'll think of something."
I sighed. "Why can't all you bastards help me in thinking for once?" I jumped down off the table and turned to accuse the rest of them. "I've only been alive nineteen years now. You old folks should chip in on ideas before I get us all killed," I grumbled.
The dirty faces of men and women stared back at me for a moment before they were busting out laughing.
"You're the one who gives a shit girly, we wouldn't even bother if you didn't go around bullying us and preaching like in those churches they have," Matters spoke the truth. Everyone would just live and die as they were if I wasn't always posted up in the bar hyping them up to care. It was incredibly frustrating. But it was unfair to judge a bunch of adults who only recently started to learn to read and write.
We've just recently made ourselves a shack that was for school and had an older couple teaching. It had been made for the children, but I started sitting in the back and slowly more people my age and even older were joining in, wanting to learn. The General banned books, probably not wanting us to get any ideas. But we were learning and getting there.
And still, we've always found a way. I had a small collection and I always got lost in the novels of heroines who helped her people rise up against the enemy. It made me want more from life. If these child hero's in these books could save the whole world, surly I could save my people from this one town.
Later on; and extremely drunk, I walked out of the bar and down the dirt road towards my home, I thought over another plan. We could gather more people and rush by the guards, trampling them if we had to and then make a run for the main gate; the ones humans used to come and go from the village. They couldn't very well kill us all. But no, there was too many with children and old people who would all die first. Maybe if we had something on wheels, bigger than a barrel to transport the weak....
Going up to my hut that was squished in between two others and walking up, I grabbed the wooden door. Darkness greeted me as I stepped inside and placed the wood door back in spot.
Reaching for my handy stones, I went to work lighting a small fire before using it to light candles, careful to keep it small. Around here if a fire started and broke out, the whole street would be taken out as all our houses down each road were right up next to each other, a bug couldn't even pass in between the houses.
So we all had to be extra careful when lighting anything. Since moving here at the age of ten, my hut had to be rebuilt five times.
The hut was just one small room. I was lucky though, since my house was so tiny, more than most, I got it all to myself. If you had a bigger hut around here - big was really stretching it - then they made a lot more people room with you. They once told me two to five people could fit in here. But luckily, no one needed a desperate place to stay thanks to how many we die on daily. I would gladly offer my home to those who needed it, but still, I was happy that it didn't come to that. Kind of. The sad part of it reminded me my kind would be killed off from horrible treatment of humans in a matter of years.
There was enough room for two thin mats that I had next to each other with two thin yellow and white blankets, a little fire pit with a pot next to it where I cooked, a wooden chair that I built myself in the corner and a crate that I used to store some belonging like books, two tan shirts that was once white, a pair of black pants, a black ribbon for my hair, three rags and a water jug. There was a small box next to it where I stored my bread, dried fruit and salt. It seemed rats and most bugs stayed clear of our little shifter village, as if they knew we would eat anything available. Probably ate the rats in the area to near extinction.
The floor used to be dirt, but after my mother died from getting sick, I needed something to do or I'd have gone crazy. That's how I ended up getting into building. After making a floor and then a chair, I started doing bigger projects, like helping building the shack for school and chairs to go in it.
We were all trying to rebuilt and make this place a better place to live in, but we were gated in so we had limited access to trees and slowly we were chopping them all down, but we had no choice.
It wasn't like they were giving us anything to work with either.
Sitting down on my little mat, I didn't even feel hungry. It's why I liked to drink. Whenever I was starving, I'd just drink some alcohol and it wouldn't matter because I would feel too light headed and giddy to care about things like hunger.
Rolling over and covering myself with the two blankets, I closed my eyes to rest. I really needed a clear mind to think up of what to do next in my plan to get us free. I felt so simple minded even trying to think of anything, what hadn't already been tried before?
Maybe if we ended up being more of a nuisance they'd just let us go. If we refused to work and do everything for them, we'd be no use to them.
But I knew they'd rather kill us all than set us free.
Not all of them were like that, I had to remind myself. Mom always told me to never judge the humans so harshly until they showed me their true colors. She said how could I expect them not to judge me when they didn't even know me while I was sitting around judging them?
So I didn't hate them all, but the ones I've met so far proved to be cruel and horrible beings.
All but one, there was the girl with the curly hair, button nose and wide honey eyes...
There was a knock at my door. Before I could reply, Sail was slipping inside.
"My little mermaid," I joked as she came right over and sat on me, her thighs on either side of my legs as she placed her hands on either side of my head and dropped her lips low to mine.
"I still don't understand that," she said. I read a book once about a mermaid in a dark and creepy book and got an idea for the nickname. It had been burned in a pile up the guards had rounded up during a random search. So I couldn't even show it to Sail.
I opened my mouth to ask her how she was feeling, but she was already slanting her mouth over mine. Sail and I had a simple relationship. Being we had no other relationship other than getting lost in each other's bodies, trying to chase away reality with pleasure.
With a moan, I reached up and wrapped her hair around one hand as I pulled her head back and with the other hand, I stilled her hips that were grinding on me. "Sail," I groaned out as she arched her back as I sat up and started kissing her neck like she liked. I had planned on telling her I wasn't in the mood but she made a desperate noise at the back of her throat so I rolled us over and looked down into her ocean blue eyes.
"Don't stop Kalaya, please," her small webbed hands came up to touch either side of my face as she pulled me back down. I gave in despite how tired I was, I kissed her with all I had as we started to shed our clothes. "Make me feel something. Make me forget," she whispered into my ear and I obliged as I kissed and touched my way down her body.
When we both found release, without a word, Sail got dressed, flipped her blonde hair over her shoulder and left without another word. As the door closed, so did my eyes.