Shifted

30. Kalaya

Taking over the school was as easy as I thought. The bottom floor was completely empty with only two sets of doors. And only one set of stairs that lead upwards.
"We need to force everyone downstairs so we can man these doors and not get trapped upstairs," I whispered after we barred one door. "Someone stay with the back door." It opened outwards and didn't even have a lock. It lead to a grassy area that had an unfinished tiny wooden house with two layers no walls but a pointy roof, that had stairs attached to one side and a net attached to the other. It looked whimsical and not ideal to live in but who was I to judge?
The hardest part was bursting into the large open space with a bunch of children who immediately started screaming their heads off when they saw us. Monster. Halfbreed demons. The kids sure knew a lot of rude terms. There were two sides and so our group had to slit. I had to trust one side to deal with their own situation.
"Get out!" "Someone help!" Screamed the two teachers. They were both frail and older looking and i knew it would be no hardship. This could be easier than I thought. But i had to get them to stop screaming. I knew it would alert anyone within hearing distance. And I didn't want it to be known just yet. Not until we got everyone downstairs.
So I lunged for the closest teacher. Greying hair and skinny wrists body covered in yellow. "Shut up or the teacher get it!" I hissed putting a knife to their throat.
There was a moment of silence in which I almost breathed a sigh of relief. But then all around they started letting out such a loud whail it caused me to loosen my grip on the teacher. I noticed Matters grabbed the other teacher and shook them. "Make it stop or I throw them out the window one by one." He threatened and the teacher sniffed and weakly tried to call over the children's crying to get them to stop.
The teacher in my arms started to fight. "Ru-" she nearly called out but I slapped a hand over her mouth.
"I'll kill every child who tries to run or who screams so you better get them to calm down." Muffled cries and some screams came from the other side of the building but it seemed they were handling it better over there than my team was. "This building is full of shifted, so don't fuck with us," I hissed, hating the words coming out of my mouth. "You have three seconds to shut these brats up," I said close to her ear. "Everyone gets out alive today if you do as we say."
I let go and hoped for the best. They sucked in a breath.
"Children!" She called out and the kids started to quiet down. Something they didn't even do for the other teacher which made me believe she might be head honcho here. "Ok today we invited the halfbreeds here as a prank!" She clapped with her hands. Some bright faced snotty nose children started sniffling but for the most part they were a lot quieter. "See! It's like we tell you, they are part animals. At any moment animals can turn on you, like when your dog bit you Naya, remember? Your nice pet suddenly got angry when you took away its food?"
The little girl in question with tied up black hair nodded her little head.
"So yes," she clapped her hands together again and they were shaky. "They are usually really nice but if we do something to upset them they can bite. So why don't we all be good and listen to them ok?"
My eye rolled at her words. Humans loved to think they weren't also apart of nature and animals to their core. Group two walked by with a small group of children in tow with only one teacher.
They shot me a nod.
More proof I was horrible at this leader role thrusted onto me. I couldn't even get a bunch of children and two frail adults to cooperate.
"We need to get downstairs now," I told the teacher.
With a shaky breath they smiled at the children. "We are going downstairs now. We will wait with these halfbreeds until your parents come pick you up, ok?"
"Ok Mrs. Henry," they all said as one and it made me flinch. My eyes found Matters and he shrugged. Were these children or soldiers?
"Stand," she indicated and again as one they stood up. Very easy to control, these human children.
We lead them downstairs to a large room and put them all in it.
"Ok, everyone stay quiet until your parents come and all will be fine." I told the scared group. Empathy and guilt wanted to raise inside of me but I shoved it down with images of my own people. Of our school that we'd be killed for having. Of the dirt and blood covering us of working at a young age until death in our youth. Of never growing too old of never being able to get too sick or we'd die. With most of us not even having parents. We lived like the cattle they kept.

I turned my back on them and set three shifted up in the room. It was the only one with no windows. Or even desks. Everyone sat on the floors huddled together. With whimpers and sniffles here and there. "I wanna go home," I kept hearing. I grabbed the frailest looking teacher.
"What are you doing with her- where is she going?"
"She's ok, she's going to go bring your parents here."
I brought her to the back door and indicated to Dox. "Escort her down the road. You know what to do after that. Be safe."
Dox clasped me on the shoulder before slipping away.
Now it was up to the rest of the shifted to get away. We've done what we could.
Soon the guards and parents would rush here in a panic. Hopefully all too drunk to figure out this was a decoy. It was extremely risky and it might all be for nothing.
But for once, I had hope. Not for me or anyone here. But for the rest of the shifted.
One day a shifted child would be born free. Outside of these wretched human villages.