If it says 'Lek' at the start of a section, it means its in Leks' POV. If it says 'Tani' at the start of a section it means its in Tanis' POV.


Crocodile Shoes.

Chapter One

Lek.

I crawled slowly along the lake bed, extra eyelid shut, holding my breath.

Here fishy, fishy, fishy, I thought, looking slowly around, Come to mama. I caught a flash of silver out of the corner of my eye and flicked my feet, sending my floating lazily through the water. You may think that I should move faster, so I don't drown. But let me let you in on a little secret. I don't need to breathe as often as you do. And moving slower disturbs the water less, so prey don't know I'm coming.

The silver flash was an arms length away. I slowly drifted towards it, extending a clawed hand. The fish turned in the water and saw me. It darted away in a blind panic, but I was quicker. I grabbed it, surged up to the surface of the water and snapped its spine. I heard clapping from the shore.

"Nice catch, Lek. That's a big one." It was Tani. My fellow mutant and only friend in the world. I grinned at her, shaking the water out of my hair. Then I swam quickly to the shore and slapped the fish on the bank. It flopped feebly once or twice, then lay still. Now, this next bit is a little ugly, so, if you're squeamish, then skip down a few lines.

I climbed out of the water and picked up the fish with one hand, pressing a claw against its belly with the other. I then slit the creature open, spilling fish guts all over my hand. Then I gut the fish, and cleaned it in the lake. I kept the guts for myself - personally I think they're the best bit - and gave the meat to Tani.

Oh, I'm being rude. Sorry about that. I haven't had much experience with the real world. My name's Lek, and I'm a human-crocodile hybrid. I don't know what kind. I do know a lot of other stuff though, thanks to some kind campers at lake Mead 'giving' us their laptop. It had a full battery too! So me and Tani looked up all the info we could find - at this point we must have been about, oh, nine or ten.

Can you believe it? Nine years old, and we didn't know anything. The only speech we knew was the little we'd picked up from campers, and inherited memory.

Sorry, got a little sidetracked there. I expect you want to know what I look like. Well, I'm quite tall, probably about five foot six, and I have short - really short - brown hair. My skin is mostly covered in dark green, lumpy scales. I have them all down my back, around my front, except for a long stripe down my belly with it white and leathery. They're also down the outside of my arms and legs, and at the edge of my face. My palms are human skin, but tougher than normal. Same with my feet.

My eyes are yellow with a black slit pupil, and, as I mentioned when I was hunting, I have an extra eyelid that's see through. Their like built in goggles. My nose is long and turns up at the end, and the nostrils are flared and incredibly sensitive. My ears are small, and also very sensitive. My teeth are overlong and sharper than a humans.

On the ends of my fingers and toes I don't have nails. I have claws. Long, sharp claws that can kill. The webbing between the digits is thin and light green.

And by the way, no, I don't have a tail. Just wanted to clear that up before anyone mentions it.

So, you see, I'm not really very human. So, even if Tani and I wanted to leave the lake, we couldn't, 'cause we'd be rounded up as freaks straight away. Unless we joined a circus or something.

I guess I'll tell you a little about Tani now. She's my best and only friend. My sister in every way but blood. She's part snake, black mamba to be precise. She has small light grey scales all over her body, including her face. The rest of her body is normal, except for the fact that she's incredibly skinny. But she's not bony, just very...snake like, for want of a better description. She moves very gracefully.

Her eyes are grey, with black centres, and she sees everything. And I mean everything. Somehow when they mixed her DNA with a snake, it unlocked something inside, and now she can see when a person is lying, what they're feeling. She see's the future as well, sometimes. And the past and the present. And she can spot an intruder a hundred feet away in the pitch dark.

Her face is prettier than mine, with slim features that are perfectly balanced. Her nose is just two slits though, and very sensitive. Her ears are small like mine, and just as sensitive. She has long black hair, that she always begs me to cut, because it annoys her. I won;t though, because it's so pretty.

Her tongue isn't forked, in case you're wondering, though she does have fangs, and black mamba nerve-paralyzing poison.

I'm not entirely clear on how the teeth work. They're thin and hollow, hidden just behind her canines. She has a...venom gland or something in the roof of her mouth, and she can force poison from the gland through her teeth. She's immune to it. I'm not, and it was only my thick skin that saved me when she bit me when we were younger.

Now she's older, and can control the gland, so if she bites, it's just in fun. But enough about what we look like. Now it's time for the whole world to hear our story. To hear what our crazy mutant lives through at us, and how we coped. Now it's time to tell you the tales behind each scar. I'm Lek, and my friend with the fish over there is Tani. And this is where our story begins.