Sorry for being a little late. Thanks to the guys who reviewed and to the others who add it on story alerts. It makes me all warm and fuzzy inside. =D So here you guys go.

Superstitions Chapter One: Roni

In the darkness- slowly diminishing by dawn's light- bright, feline amber eyes followed the hunters and their revealing lights. This was not a new event to the creature behind the eyes, this hunting party. Several had come after Roni when her mutations had manifested.

Radona "Roni" Leavitt was a mutant. A few months ago, Roni had started to grow a soft, dark under coat of fur, much the color of her bluish- black hair. Her ears had started to grow and become pointed. Her spine seemed to be growing a few extra vertebrae, as well, down towards the tail bone. But most of the people in her small town, her parents included, tolerated the changes, though it was apparent that most forced themselves to do so.

About a month after the manifestation of Roni's X-gene, Roni's body under went a drastic change. Roni was out playing with her friends' like most twelve-year-olds do in the fall afternoons. She was chasing after a ball when she suddenly doubled over and let out a horrid scream. Both her parents rushed out of their home toward their screaming child, asking the obvious questions of "Are you okay?" and "where does it hurt?" to the sobbing girl.

But Roni was not listening. Her mutation had finally fully manifested and it had decided that exact moment would do just fine. Her soft undercoat of fur took on a darker, rougher top coat. Her ears became almost bigger and more feline. Roni's beautiful jade eyes had changed to a soft golden amber, pupils narrowing into slits. A long, winding tail had sprouted from her lower back. Her feet and legs had morphed into the hind legs of a cat; elongated, bent, and standing on the balls of her feet. Her hands grew padded; her nails turning into claws. In a matter of minutes, Roni had taken on the form of a humanoid cat creature.

Roni's parents and friends all just starred in disbelief. They had all thought that the fur was her mutation. Nothing this extreme had ever crossed their collective minds. Some would have called the transformation demonic while others would have thought her a beauty to behold. At that moment, Roni's parents were just trying to get a response.

Her mutation, as graceful and seamless as it had appeared, had been beyond painful for little Roni. The physical change had been so excruciating, that Roni had nearly lost her sane mind. And while she had almost lost her sanity, a new being had set up residence in her mind; a very real, very feral conscious. A being that embraced all she had been taught was wrong and uncivilized but brought forth wondrous new feelings and sensations. Like she was seeing the world for the first time or really smelling the world. The bus three blocks away seemed to be passing right by her and the birds several feet away practically in her head. Roni turned to face her mother, tears starting to stream down her softly furred checks.

"Mommy? What's happening?" she asked, clueless as to what really was going on. The pain had blocked out most everything.

But all her mother could do was stare with eyes rounded with horror. She looked up to her husband, who had shot up and was backing away. His hands were out in front of him, trying to 'protect' himself should Roni chose to 'attack' them.

"You are no child of mine!" he exclaimed, beckoning his wife and child's mother toward him, away from the creature that now sat before them. Roni could only gaze with terror as her family rejected her. When her 'parents' had walked into what had once been her home and her 'friends' had all run to their respective houses had reality finally set in.

She was alone and on one would help her.

A few very short hours later the town had driven Radona out, exiling a small child with an odd gene to fend for herself. She walked to the next town, some 30-odd miles away, starving and cold. But this town was no different with its reaction. 'Monster!' and 'Devil!' they would shout while running little Roni out, sometimes with loaded guns. She had been shot a few times, just grazes and nicks. The cuts had healed up really fast, but Roni never noticed. Eventually little Roni learned to stick to the forests. No one rejected her there. But 12-year-old Roni did not know how to survive out in the wilds of the Northern New York forests.

But the new being in her mind did. Roni had experimented with it a little, letting a bit out to see what it could do. But it frightened her so she always shut it away before it could get out of control. Now it was in control. Now the feral was the only being inhabiting Roni's body. Roni certainly wasn't there.

But none of that mattered to the wild part. Only the here and now did. Only the desire to survive drove that now dominate part. And right now that part was trying to get the bullet that had found the lower part of her left shoulder out. The hunter had gotten on a lucky shot and the bullet was buried in her soft flesh beyond her reach.

The feral part knew that it had to come out. So far the only injuries it had sustained were just cuts and scrapes, things like running into a bush or falling out of a tree. The few bullet wounds were only grazes. The creatures had never really been hit by a bullet, let alone have one buried in its shoulder.

The creature clawed at the wound in a futile attempt to reach the bullet. It hissed and whimpered as the blood trickled down its arm matting the dingy, knotted fur. It clutched the injured shoulder, arm hanging limp and useless at its side, and trudged forward in the high snow. The light that filtered through the trees lit up the snow like water droplets, illuminating the soft pink and deep red patches on the pristine ground. The creature was leaving a distinct trail for anything to find, be it hare of hunter.

But the creature did not care. It just wanted to be some where dry and somewhat warm to curl up in and heal from the wound. But no such luck for it today. The creature stood erect and turned its attention off toward the right as a new scent assaulted its sensitive nose.

It was a woody scent but mixed with the smell of man. Not like the hunters from before; this smell belonged to the forest. The natural scent of pines and earth overpowered the pure scent of man. Much like its own scent but not as potent or powerful.

The feral creature let out a low rumbling growl to warn off this intruder to her territory while it sifted through the new information provided by the smell. The scent was getting increasingly stronger, getting closer to the feral creature. It backed up and crouched down between some tree roots, trying to hide itself from the threat at hand. Its growling reduced to a very low rumble that the human ear would not hear when the new smell continued forward.

Had it not been for the slowly growing pink in the pristine white snow the feral child might have been able to hide herself from another predator let alone a normal human.

But it was no normal human who had stumbled upon Roni.