[Warning: While this story is relatively tame, with only a bit of violence, the story I plan to write in response to this might contain all sorts of freaky stuff, not the least of which is M/M, BDSM, perhaps some ageplay and diaper stuff. Nothing like that in this story, just a few hints. My aim with this series is to make it as realistic as possible considering the subject matter.

...also, written in a two hour frenzy at 3 am with no caffeine. Please critique with this in mind. My first post here, too! ~t]



[continued here: After Dark: Chapter 1]

It's always been easier for me to be brave after dark. I don't know why. Normally, you'd think the opposite was true. But for me, all my monsters walked around in the daytime. At night, I was in my world, where my rules applied, the monsters I saw during the day faced me on my turf, if they dared to at all.

I guess it's part of growing up different. The group turns on you because they have to turn on someone. if it wasn't you, it would be someone else. Maybe the kid in the corner who's parent's can't afford whatever crap the other kids decreed was the thing they must wear, or perhaps it's the kid who wears glasses that are slightly thicker than the norm. Maybe it would be the kid that laughs slower at a joke than the rest, but all of them are safe, because you're there.

I begged and pleaded with my guardian for a different school, one that catered to my little peculiarity. But no. I was an orphan, a ward of the state, and in to the public school system I was thrust like some stray sock in with a load of jeans. "Not economically feasible." They'd say. "It's a private school. You can't expect the taxpayer to spring for that." So instead, I got to spend five years of my life with a target painted on my back.

There were six or seven of us at our school. It wasn't as rare as it once was, and the government programs had reduced the stigma a little bit. The freak accident that caused us to be created was traced down to a simple computer malfunction. A door that was supposed to shut and hermetically seal, only shut, didn't, and a few guards were exposed to a virus, and then went home and shared it with their families, and they with theirs, and they with theirs.

The virus was hellishly opportunistic, and completely silent. I mean, it attacked only a few genes. After all, humans and apes are 96 percent genetically compatible, and in utero, it's so hard to differentiate animal fetuses from humans, especially if you're not looking for it. When babies began being born with fur, though, you bet they noticed.

At first we were treated like freaks. Stuffed in special institutions, kept away from our parents, until they realized the scope of what was happening and started returning us home. we're now one in ten, with a forecasted one in four in the next twenty years. The alterations are permanent, and the birth rate dropped considerably when people realized just how likely it was for them to throw a pup or a kitten instead of the human baby they so longed for.

The abortion rate got so high that a law was passed forbidding mosaic babies from being aborted. The virus was sneaky, and the only test they could come up with that didn't take nine months to mature was so unreliable that you could test positive for it if you had HPV, or herpes, or you could test negative for it, and still throw one of us. How it happened was, during the first few days after conception, the virus would propagate some feelers out and start to find some donor DNA... it could be as little as one cell, of a compatible mammalian candidate, and incorporate it into the DNA of the fetus, blending the two and making a perfect hybrid.

Amusingly enough, my parents went to the zoo after conceiving me.

Nine months later, I was born, a rarity amongst rarities. By the time I was eight, there were three known Mosaic kids of my species, and none on this continent. I was recognizable by name from several blocks away. I took to wearing a hoodie out of self defense, but it didn't help all that much. There were a bunch of Mosaic kids in my town, but even to them, I was an oddity.

When I turned twelve, both my parents were killed in a car crash. I wish I could say I was more sad than I was at the time, but my parents were strangers to me. My mother tried, occasionally, to bond with her little striped child, but she couldn't. I can't blame her, in some ways. I didn't bond to her very much either. We were separate species living together out of a simple mistake. I was placed in a few foster homes, but nobody could stand me for very long. I was too strange even for those used to dealing with strange. I went to a human orphanage, where I got a room to myself and meals served in my room. I saw the other kids occasionally, but they left me alone for the most part.

Not so those at school.

Nobody ever touched me. The Mosaic virus seemed to have a way to pick the strongest traits from both sides of the blending. Well, for the most part. We all had a few quirks. I was, however, strong enough that when my friend Jacob's truck blew a tire, we didn't need a jack. I can bite hard enough to crack bone without even really feeling resistance. I have a claw on the end of each finger that's sharp enough to use as a craft knife.

So the abuse was verbal and emotional... but mostly it was the stares that got to me.

What bothered me even more was how often I looked down.

Next week, that all changes, for me, I turn eighteen and am leaving my cozy little den here, and I get to go to college on a special Mosaic scholarship, where I'll be in a dorm full of Mosaic kids. Won't that be fun?

This is Issac Green, the date is Wednesday, January Thirteen, Twenty twenty four, signing off.

---

Issac turned off the webcam, watching the program bring up the few words it couldn't decypher properly for correction. With a few taps and a flourish, he saved the file and closed it. No way would he use an online diary system... audio recordings seemed better somehow. Typing was okay, but he had difficulty keeping keyboards in one piece, and pencils and paper did not work for him very well.

He grunted, and looked at the clock, two am, perfect timing. He grabbed his hooded rain jacket and threw it on. At least the thing didn't attract as much attention in the winter. He grabbed his wallet, keycard, cigarettes and phone, walking out and locking the door behind him. He trudged down the darkened hallways to the exit, where he nodded to the security guard, who boredly buzzed him out.

On to the streets, the rain had stopped falling, leaving the city with a wet earthy smell. The temperature was probably below freezing, but that never bothered him. He walked to the end of the block, then broke in to a jog, then a run. Exercise was important for body and mind, his floor supervisor told him, and the voice echoed in his head as he covered the ten blocks to the seven eleven. He slowed down as he got close, a police cruiser pulling up to one side. He flashed them a smile, and they moved on.

The door chimed as he walked through, a cheerful little noise that made the bored teenage clerk look up, then smile at him softly. She seemed to like him, but she was always too shy to say much more than "Here's your change." Or so he liked to think, anyway. He snagged two boxes of red bull and a few bags of spicy beef jerky, and a small bottle of baby powder, walking to the counter and looking briefly at the magazines proclaiming that Bat Boy was projected to win a special award from the UN for being an ambassador to the blended people, earning a small chuckle. The door chimed again, and he turned his face away as the two heavy thugs walked in, wandering towards the wine and beer fridge.

He walked over to the clerk with his few items, grabbing the tabloid for good measure. The door chimed a third time, though he didn't pay attention to that, just wanting to pay for his things and go. The clerk smiled at him as usual, and counted out his change from the fifty his uncle had given him the week before, before looking up and going deathly pale. Issac sighed, and the idiot cocked the old fashioned revolver, leveling it at the clerk. "No problems, right? We just get the cash from the drawer and walk out." The taller of the two thugs, who wasn't holding the weapon, said. Issac froze. How fast was he? Could he turn around and slap the gun out of the thug's hand in time? The thoughts raced through his mind, his ears flattening under the hood.

The thug with the gun caught the movement, and immediately pointed the gun at the back of Issac's head. "Hands in the fucking air, freak, don't make a move or I'll blow your fucking ears off." he said, through a sneer. "He's one of them freaks, Joey." the older one swore. "Don't use my name, idiot!" he said, and in the split second that the idiot's attention wavered, Issac turned and smacked the gun out of his hand, the impact jarring the gun enough to make the hammer slip.

The blast deafened the tiger, and as the two made their escape, he fell to his knees, his ears in as much pain as his side. He clamped his arms down against himself, feeling the blood start to pool under him. The clerk and the other customer rushed to his side, and the last thing that Issac saw before his eyes closed was the muzzle of a wolf looking down at him with worry, a phone pressed to his ear as his other hand pressed to the tiger's side...

everything went dark for a mo-...

~to be continued~

[continued here: After Dark: Chapter 1]