Silent Heroes: Wildcat

Chapter 14: The Silent Heroes Movement

The village had appeared pretty much normal sized from high up, but down at ground level it became apparent that everything here was built on an unusually large scale.  The roads, though they were clearly meant for walking, were about as wide across as a two-lane highway.  The huge trees, creating mossy green corridors along every street, barely reached out far enough for the very tips of their branches to brush up against each other.  The wooden buildings were all wide and spacious and so tall I had to crane my neck to see past the tops.

Even the various animals walking past seemed to have some form of gigantism.  There were wolves the size of African lions, the males sporting thick manes along the back of their necks which made them appear even larger.  The smallest of the big cats were probably not much larger than a Bengal tiger.  But the biggest of them—like Shane—would easily stand shoulder-to-shoulder with a small horse.

A sound like thunder suddenly began to rumble through the ground and the road began to tremble under my feet.

"Out of the way, Eve," Deanna grabbed me and pulled me aside as a pair of gleaming, muscular horses the size of Asian Elephants trampled past, the earth vibrating every time one of their gigantic hooves struck the ground.

"Horse shifters," Shane explained, while I stared, wide-eyed, after them.  "You don't want to mess with one of those."

Once the monstrous horses were out of sight, we resumed walking.  I had this question nagging at the back of my mind, and the sight of those beasts had just increased my curiosity about a hundred times. 

"Hey, guys, can I ask you something?"

"Of course," Deanna said.

"Hit me," Shane agreed.

"Well, the other day, you talked about people who can turn into normal animals like dogs and cats and wolves and things like that.  But... you guys don't exactly look like any big cat I've ever seen.  And those," I gestured ahead of us, "were definitely not normal horses."

"Oh, that," Shane said.  "Well, you see, Eve, there's a few different kinds of shifters out there.  The vast majority—upwards of eighty-five percent—change into regular animals.  We call those level one shifters."

"Okay," I said.

"Now, level two shifters like us, we turn into bigger, more exaggerated versions of regular animals.  Like those horses you just saw back there."

"Level two shifters are significantly harder to come by," Deanna said.  "And we have our own specific talents and skills.  That's why we brought you here.  Our kind only have two villages on this continent, and this one if by far the easiest to reach."

"Where's the other one?"

"Greenland."

I was quiet for a moment, absorbing this new information.  Okay so, not only could I change into a big cat.  I could transform into this huge, fantasy like creature that most average humans had never laid eyes on before.

I thought of Shane and Deanna in cat-form.  Their exaggerated size.  Shane's huge russet mane.  Deanna's mosaic of silver, white and grey.  And the way their human forms seemed to echo the animals they became.

Absently, I reached up and twirled an electric blond curl around my finger, examining the brilliant, golden colour and wondering...

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Deanna and Shane led me through the beautiful, sun-dappled streets and toward the huge, circular building I had noticed earlier.  On closer inspection, I realized it wasn't quite as perfectly round as I had first thought.  It was more oval-shaped.  Slightly longer than it was wide.  The roof dipped down at the center and peaked at either end.  It almost reminded me of a birds nest.