Chimera

Chapter Three: Camila

It was early in the morning and the rising sun was barely visible in the sky. Nonetheless, Camila Rodriguez was awake. She was in the kitchen, eating breakfast with her parents.

"This is really good," she said, feeding a tamale into her mouth.

"Thanks," her mother said, "I'll try to make it more."

Camila licked her plate clean with gusto, while her mother glared at her for her 'less than sufficient table etiquette'.

"Well, I've got to go now and build stuff 'for the good of the village'," Camila said, rolling her eyes.

"I know that you would rather be working outside the wall, but it's illegal and you know you'll never be allowed out. Plus, you need to work on your tone. It makes you seem overly sarcastic," her mother reprimanded.

"I will definitely do that," Camila said.

"Why you little..." her mother growled, half-serious and half-joking. She rounded on Camila, her skin rippling into fur as she transformed into a wildcat. Black fur dappled with chestnut patches, piercing feline eyes, sharply curving claws.

"Gotta go!" Camila exclaimed, pushing her chair away from the table. She dodged away, narrowly avoided her mother's claws and dashed off into her room, still smiling. Some people might not like her habit of sarcasm, but it was an integral part of her personality. Being cynical and snarky was being who she was... it was being Camila.

Of course, that didn't mean she didn't have good personality traits. She prided herself on being resourceful and inventive. After all, she was one of the mechanics of Las Lagos and those traits were necessary for the job. She loved engineering and innovating, creating machines that would make life easier for everyone.

Ironically, she was working on a weapon that could potentially kill.

Yes, that's right, she thought to herself, you're totally helping people.

She was fixing up a rifle, probably one that had been used in the early 21st century. It was rare to find ancient artifacts like rifles within the confines of the wall. There were treasure troves of ancient tech beyond the walls, but no-one could access them because of the stupid wall laws. Instead, the city only had only one dump with usable items from before the Great Deterioration.

Before the world fell apart and the Chimera Mutation was released, even ordinary people had easy access to amazing, powerful technology such as guns. She had managed to scavenge five rifles from the dump. They were firearms, machines that could shoot tiny bits of metal at enough speed to go through flesh and bone and into the heart.

Well, that was according to all the stories. Camila had no way to know for certain, but if the legends were true and rifles were as crazily powerful as people made them out to be, her invention would be a great asset to the defense of Las Lagos. The sentries could use it to snipe down invading raiders, or hunters could use them to kill deer or feral pigs.

Once she had fixed up the actual mechanics of the gun, she could move on to the next step. To actually make the gun function, Camila needed gunpowder. She had memorised the components of the substance: charcoal powder, sulfur powder and potassium nitrate. Now she just needed to smash them together, filling the pores in the charcoal with sulfur powder.

As she worked, Camila thought. She thought of the world outside the wall. She wanted to go out there... no, she needed to. But it was illegal! Even speaking about it wasn't allowed. She understood why Mayor Norwood wanted it like this: they'd had peace for decades now, tucked away behind the walls. But that could change at any moment. How could the citizens of Las Lagos ever be safe if they turned away from what was really happening outside the wall? And now the whole city was in a dry spell, bathed in sweltering heat that was devouring their lakes. Everyday, they had less and less water. They needed resources, and the only place left to find them was beyond the wall. Without water, how could her family, her friends, the people she loved... how could they survive?

When Umbra Norwood's father had run for Mayor almost forty years ago, his main objective was to build a wall to defend Las Lagos. At the time, the city was constantly under attack. Thieves and bandits were common, as well as the occasional group of conquerors. There were animals that had been irradiated, mutated or genetically spliced-and-diced by the Chimera Mutation, turning them into deadly, strange hybrids. Because he offered a defense against these assailants, Umbra's father won by a landslide. When he was officially in office, he began to construct the wall. Once it had surrounded the city, he declared that nothing would ever come inside... and that no-one could go outside, either.

Most people were fine with these new laws. They were still grateful for salvation and they just wanted a simple, peaceful life. They were too busy being happy with the present that they didn't even think about the future. Eventually, Umbra's father died and she ran for Mayor, following in his footsteps. Because of her father's good image in the public eye, she won easily.

Camila knew that deep down, Umbra was a good person and she loved the people of Las Lagos. But she wasn't making the right decision. She wasn't protecting them, she was imprisoning them and making them blind to the reality of the world beyond their cage.

But why would she want to do that? Camila thought as she continued modifying her rifle. Does she think that keeping old laws will make the Las Lagos citizens willingly follow her?

Then, suddenly, Camila understood. Mayor Norwood and the wall laws weren't separated into human and regulation. They came together. It was simple, really: the only reason Mayor Norwood was Mayor was because she continued her father's legacy. And she did this by keeping everyone inside the wall. If the laws changed to let people venture outside the wall, the entire way of life in Las Lagos would change. And when life would change, laws would too. Nobody would support Umbra and her old laws anymore. She would fall out of favour and lose her position as Mayor. And just like that, all of her power would be gone.

It was a game, really. It was all a twisting, tricky game. The laws and rules themselves really meant nothing, the taboo on the outside world wasn't there for a good reason... it was for power.

Camila sighed, frustrated. She could be out there now, searching the ruins for ancient technology. Then she could bring the tech back home, modify it and then use it to help everyone in the city. But just because of a nametag that said Mayor Norwood, and the power that position held, she would never be able to do any of that.

Eventually, Camila finished constructing the first rifle. She pushed the door open and stepped out back into her garden, beige brick walls shifting into vibrant green. She raised the trigger slowly, and then cautiously gave the trigger a squeeze.

What happened next was amazing. Camila was thrown by the recoil, stumbling backwards. She couldn't even see the bullet, so she thought that the gun hadn't worked. But a millisecond later, a pumpkin in her garden exploded into a million pieces and she realised it had been moving too fast for her eyes to see properly. What a weapon! And to think the people from before the Great Deterioration had utilized mechanical marvels like this on a daily basis. Camila had no idea how they could have invented them.

Camila put down her rifle on the grass. She knew that she would have to give it to the hunters or the sentries. But Camila wanted to use it out in the desert, defending herself as she journeyed through the outside world, making discoveries that could improve life in Los Lagos.

Camila sighed again. On the bright side, she was old enough for her Chimera transformation to occur any day now. Then she would have more strength that she could use to defend herself out in the desert!

That is, if she ever went into the desert...

Camila growled deep in her throat. Her dreams were out there, rotting away when they could be used to help everyone, like decaying fruit that could've been given when they were fresh and sweet to hungry children. She kicked at the wall, her elbow swinging back as her shoe hit the brick. A searing pain stabbed into her elbow and shot through her arm. She groaned, biting her lip to avoid yelling. There was a wire stuck in her arm, from one of her devices.

Dear readers: Hello, Sylver here! I'm new to Wattpad and this is my first story. If you like it, don't forget to vote, comment and add it to your reading lists. I will be adding a new chapter every day. If you have any tips for how I can improve my writing, please feel free to tell me (in a nice manner). Thanks so much for reading my story!