A/N (Out of Character)
I was grounded. :( still am. Will update when I can.
Shadow of the Beast
Prologue
When people mention hybrid rights I remember was when I was in elementary school. I knew this girl who had become a big sister recently. We were friends. The little baby, named Giselle, was cute. She had the most beautiful green eyes. When Giselle turned a year old though, she started to change. As it turned out, she was a half blood, something between hybrid and human. I never saw Giselle again. When I asked my friend about it, she said that Giselle died of an illness. When I asked what illness, she replied plainly hybrid.
I lived in the big city, if the reader recalled that from my first little journal series. I lived there all my life. No hybrids lived in the city. I always thought it was because none of them liked it. It wasn't that reason. It was because they were disrespected there. It seemed no one in the city wanted them there. I still can't image why. Ashley and I, we never saw a hybrid before the Sky Army. I still know I was baffled by the sight of Jerome and Quentin. They were so strange to a city girl like me.
After the events of a month or so ago, after the whole Peterson thing, I started thinking about hybrids. I remember what Jerome told me about his past. He had no rights. He still doesn't. He explained it that people saw him as a dog. To these people, he was nothing more than an animal. He could've been killed and the murder would be treated as an animal abuser or a hunter. I could hardly believe it. That's when I thought about others.
How did Cliff get here? She wasn't much younger than me but still. Where were her parents? Did they know what she was doing out here? I never bothered to ask. She never bothered to bring it up. And as I thought about her, suddenly Husky came to mind. That lovable little amphibian. How did he get here? He was much older than Cliff, slightly older than Jerome. He didn't talk much about his past, about as much as Jerome and Mitch used to I guess.
It couldn't be that he had as bad a backstory as Jerome, right?
Fourteen Years ago
It was raining. Storming in fact. The rain was light but the thunder and lightning were plentiful. It was near midnight as the couple arrived in the shadows of the fortress. Even in the night, the fortress had a great shadow that stretched far. The couple entered the shadow, stopping in front of a little old man. The old man grinned.
"Honey, please…no," whispered the wife, tightening her grip on the hand of her son.
"No!" the husband hissed, taking hold of the boy.
The boy screamed. The mother wept, reaching out for him. The husband backhanded her.
"How could you love this…this animal!? He's no son of ours!" the husband shouted.
"He's my son! My old son! Howard please…please…" whimpered the mother.
"Enough!" ordered the husband.
The husband shoved the boy into the arms of the old man. The child whimpered, sobbing hard. The old man gripped the child's hand tight. The boy sobbed harder.
"He's our…boy…" sobbed the wife.
"I have no son!" shouted the husband, dragging his wife to her feet.
"No!" cried the wife as the husband dragged her off. "Quentin! No! My boy!"
The child watched his parents fade into the shadows. They were coming back, right? His mother loved him. She would come back. Right? The old man grinned, revealing sharpened teeth. He looked down at the boy. Lightning flashed, revealing the boy to be less than human.
"Quentin, yes?" the old man hissed.
"Yes, sir."
"How old are you?"
"Nine, sir."
"Nine? Ha!"
The old man dragged the boy into the fortress. The iron bars crashed down behind them. The thunder was muffled. The lightning's glare was dimmed. Nothing entered the fortress. Nothing entered and nothing left.