Shifted

Five years later 🐾

​Five Years Later
​⛓⛓⛓⛓
Kalaya

​"You force us to fight and die for you,  you drag us out of our homes, you teach your children to hate us,  you starve, beat and kill us and yet, WE ARE THE ANIMALS?!?"
​Shouts of agreement and anger came from behind me, my people backing me up as I stood on top of a crate, yelling at the humans of the town. We stood where the cage stood that I was trapped in so long ago, that sat in the center of town.
​"All Half-Breeds, return to your homes!" The General shouted out, making a gesture of his hand that had a line of guards moving towards us.
​"What homes? You mean the tiny shacks you force us to live and die in?!" I dramatically gestured towards the far distance where there was a fence, and we all knew behind the fence were broken down shacks of homes, with dirt as the floors and holes in the tin roofs. The way they made us live was inhumane. Meanwhile, their roads were made of cobblestone and homes two and three stories with shops in walking distance. They had school and pharmacies and stores to buy delicious food and places to repair or buy new clothing.
We had nothing but huts and dirt. So many of us were dying by the day. Not to mention how we were treated by guards.
​A guard shoved me back. "You need to get back behind the gates, now!"
​"For your protection, or for ours?!" I shouted out for all the hear. The town's people were gathering, watching us with fear and intrigue. This was pure entertainment for them. But this was everything to us. It's been so long since we've stood up to humans. "We're forced to stand in long lines for a decent bathroom, children live in there with no teachings and most times without a parent to watch over them! We never make it to old age because of the living conditions. Do you feel warm? Do you not feel guilt?!" I scanned the crowd of humans to see if anyone had empathy for our plight. But it was hard to tell. Mostly defiant eyes narrowed at me. I could read on their expressions what they thought.
That we should be grateful they even allowed us to live. But there were a couple of them who looked sympathetic. Like the young lady with a child. Or one elderly couple.
​My people were shoving the guards back from touching me, my words giving them enough anger that they didn't care about the punishment.
"Just let us go! We want to be free!"
​We only wanted freedom. If they weren't going to treat us like people, then why couldn't we just leave? We could build our own houses; make our own away from this community, outside of the gates. They kept us for the sole purpose of using us as slaves for free labor. They beat on us. Were afraid to allow us to leave in case we overpowered them in numbers and came back.
​"So you can just come back after growing strong to kill us all? I don't think so!" Shouted out the General, confirming what we all knew about their fears and paranoia. "Let's not forget how humans were hunted by shapeshifters until we took them out! You're greedy beings who lust and sin and nothing else!"
​I rolled my eyes, yeah right, like any of us would ever want to come back to this hell hole.  "We just want peace! We want to be free from this torment! Are we not half of you? Where's your morals?"
​The man's lips pressed together as his brown eyes flashes in anger. The muscles on his midnight dark arm flexed as he reached for the wooden made bat at his side.
​I knew this was a risk when I gathered everyone from up and down my street and marched us over here, knocking out the few guards that were supposed to be keeping watch of the gate that divided us from the humans . They had gotten so used to us never rebelling it had been as easy as snatching up a rat in the night.
​We were just lucky he was grabbing the bat that was as the size of half his arm, rather than grabbing the large knife at his side or the sword strapped to his back.
​They weren't willing to kill us in front of the town's people. One place had made that mistake years ago, in the town over and after seeing the murder, the towns people actually got angry, wanting the half-breeds, or like my kind liked to call ourselves, shifted, treated better. It had been ruined though when they framed a shapeshifted for murder days later, causing fear and panic among the humans once again.
​My father had been that shapeshifter and not even being able to say goodbye, Momma and I were moved here, sold like cattle.
​If only they could see, if only everyone would be forced to walk around in our homes, through our streets. If only they understood that we were made to farm for them, fetch water for them, fight their wars whenever there was an attack on the town. And our payment was being able to live like animals trapped behind bars.
​If only they were each forced to live a day in our shoes - those of us that had shoes. My bare toes curled at the thought, my toe claws digging into the ground underneath me. It was hard to find a good pair of shoes with my sharp black claws for toe nails.
​"Return to your homes and you won't be punished! Fellow humans please evacuate the area until it's safe!" Guards started forming a barrier between the towns people and us. And with that they started swinging out their bats, one guard got me upside the head before I dropped kicked him in the stomach.
​We were good fighters compared to the slow, weak humans, but in the end there were too many, as I saw so many of us fall, bloody and beaten, I knew it was time to go back and regroup, just glad to have told my part to these people, knowing I would be around often as my words had to reach even just one human. I only needed to plant the seeds of doubt inside their minds and watch them grow.
​"We're leaving!" I shouted out, knowing the shifted wouldn't stop fighting until possible death. It's not like any of us have much or anything to lose.
The guards stopped fighting us, backing up slowly, putting away their bats and moving back forward to shove us along back towards the dreaded gate.
​Helping along an injured friend, a blonde girl my age, Sail, who had fins sticking out on either side of her head and webbed hands and feet with scales going down one side of her body. Her nose was bleeding, she was cradling one arm and as I walked, she limped.
​Turning my head, I saw the General smirking at me. His shadow now stretched out as if towards me, he was way too tall, even blocking the sun from my view.
One day, I knew, I would kill that man.
​Before turning away, I saw a flash of kinky curly dark hair.
​Taking a better look, I saw it was a girl my age and she looked familiar.
​Ah, how could I forget? Every once in a while I would dream about that girl, the one I met years ago, She ended up being as kind and friendly as she looked.
​Our eyes met briefly – her wide honey colored eyes – and even in the serious situation, somehow we both smiled at each other as if we both shared a private joke that even neither of us understood. Relief flooded me, I've always thought she hated me from what I had done. But it was obvious she also felt that same relief as she looked at me.
​Not wanting anyone to catch me smiling in this moment, I turned away, instead focusing on getting poor Sail back home.