A World Apart

Chapter 1

I quickly stepped out of the shower, wrapping a beige towel around my waist and stared at my reflection in the mirror. Pitiful, no doubt. I despised the soft, tawny, orange striped ears that stood up from my head. It wasn’t normal. Neither were the unusually large sky blue eyes with the telltale cat iris. I dragged down a small bag from a nearby shelf and raked through its components, finally finding what I needed. The sharp, metal tweezers were held between my slim fingers as I stared at the small hairs jutting out from my face. They were whiskers and I was going to get rid of them, as usual.

I was a cat, but not any normal kind of cat. No, I had to be half human, half feline. I was a mutant, created by evolution. I began pulling at the small hairs on my face, gladly ridding myself of one of my more prominent cat features. It was painful, but worth it - anything to look normal.

When I finished I found the tan barrettes that I keep hidden in the cabinet. I pulled them out, ran my hand over my ears and forced them flat onto my head. I ran the barrettes through part of my sandy blonde hair, which almost completely covered any evidence of my having ears. I put my usual baseball cap onto my head and began dressing.

I pulled on my boxers and then my jeans, careful to tuck my long, shorthaired tail into the pants leg of my jeans. At first glance you wouldn’t think I was a cat…maybe strange looking, but not a cat.

Humans dominated the town I lived in. Only a small amount of the population was described as “other”. I was part of that small population. I finally opened the creaky door of my bathroom and stepped outside. The room was dark and I let my eyes adjust to the change of lighting - another cat feature, I may add. I moved through the room, stopping directly in front of a figure in front of me.

“What the hell are you doing?” I asked, before running into my brother.

“I believe the question is more of what you are doing,” Rhea said with a wide grin, his blue cat eyes searching mine in the dark.

I shook my head and stepped over to the lamp, switching the light on.

“You going out? It’s late,” He said, running a hand through short blonde hair, idly stopping to scratch his left ear.

“No kidding,” I remarked and brushed past him to my room.

I could feel his gaze on me as I moved into my room, pulled a shirt out of the closet and began to button it up.

“What do you want?”

He shrugged,” Doesn’t it hurt when you pin your ears down like that?”

I sneered at him, but he only grinned even wider.

“I don’t know why you do it, Rave. It’s stupid. It’s not like you can hide what you are. Whether it’s your round nose or slanted eyes that people notice first, they can tell.”

“People can’t tell when they’re drunk,” I shot back.

“You’d be surprised,” He replied.

His golden tail twitched a bit before he turned and walked out of my room. Rhea’s only two years younger than me, but naturally, he thinks he knows it all. I grabbed my leather jacket from a nearby chair and pulled it on. I finished the outfit with my boots and headed out of my room and upstairs to the main floor of our home. The house was quiet and everyone was already in bed.

I locked the front door and then closed it behind me. I put my helmet on before getting myself situated on my Harley. I revved it up a little. I didn’t care what the neighbors thought. Finally I pulled out of the drive, eager to get to the usual bar, where I reside most of the evenings.

I parked along a row of other bikes and stuffed the key in my pocket. I glanced in the mirror of the bike, adjusted my baseball cap, before stepping inside. Smoke entered my nostrils the moment I entered. Music could be heard from a radio not far away. I waved at some of the other usual customers before having a seat at the bar.

“What’ll it be, Raven?”

“The usual, Jon,” I replied.

He reached into the cooler and extracted a nice and cold Bud Light. I watched him open the bottle and set it in front of me. I took a big swig and then set it down on the granite countertop. Jon knew I was a regular. I’m sure he knew I was a cat too. I had been in enough times for him to figure it out. The good thing about bars is that my eyes tend to dilate to see better, so they look more round like humans, instead of contract like cat eyes in the light. I turned around in the stool to see who else was around.

A certain redhead caught my eye immediately. She was seated at one of the tables nearby with a group of girls. She offered me an inviting smile and ran her finger around the rim of the glass. I leaned back against the bar, trying to appear available and cool. The other girls had noticed me too and were talking to the redhead. However, her gaze did not leave my eyes and I found myself spellbound by the light gray eyes.

I moved towards her slowly and she met me halfway.

“Hey,” I said,” Are you new here?”

She nodded slowly, brushing her hand across her chest in an alluring way, “My name’s Jessica, and yours?”

“Raven,” I replied and nodded towards the bar again,” Care if I buy you a drink?”

She only smiled again, so I allowed her to go before me and began walking up front. Suddenly a big man appeared out of nowhere and stood in front of me.

“What do you think your doing with my lady, bitch?” He slurred.

Instead of the girl standing up for herself, like I had expected, she only allowed him to continue. The man in front of me was big, much bigger than myself. Then it occurred to me. This was no man. There was a reason I was labeled in the “other” category. It was because there were more than cats - there were dogs too.

His stature was tall with broad shoulders. I could smell alcohol on his breath already.

“She obviously ain’t your girl,” I said, feeling the need to argue.

I should have expected his next move, but I didn’t. He pushed me and I lost my footing and fell back onto a vacant table. He was much stronger than I had expected. I didn’t think that that little push could send me falling backwards onto a table. I noticed a few heads turned our way, but still Jessica said nothing.

I felt his big hands pull me up by my leather jacket and that’s when I noticed his ears. I had only seen a few dogs before, but had never been this close to the canine/human race. His ears were dark and pointy, much the opposite of my own. He shook me and I spit in his face.

Stupid idea. I have to say so myself. His hand shot across my face an instant later. That’s when I got really angry and went into a full-fledged attack, aiming for his head.

“Take it outside!” I heard Jon yell from behind the bar.

So we did just that. The bastard pushed me out the door. Strangely, no one followed. No one likes to get involved in fights, especially when they’re between a human and someone in the “other” category. I fisted my hand and his him square in the jaw. We were in the ally now and he shot back at me, hitting me in the chest, which resulted in me being pushed into an old wire fence. Then something bad happened.

My hat toppled off my head and my ginger colored ears popped up. The other man stared for a moment as if trying to comprehend the situation at hand.

“You’re a cat!” He stated.

He whistled suddenly, while still holding me against the wire fence. I watched as several more canines emerged from the shadows. Damn, this just wasn’t my day.

There were three more of them. They were burly and big and I knew I didn’t have much of a chance against three men, let alone three canine men. Defiantly not my day…

The one who had dragged me out of the bar laughed loudly in a deep voice and grabbed my arm, pulling me away from the fence.

“Look at what we’ve got here, boys. It’s a little kitty! What kind of fun can we have with a kitty tonight?”

“Get your hands off me you bastard!” I yelled, and struggled against the strong grip.

The man held strong and I could only watch as the others neared. One in a flannel jacket came the closest to me and punched me in the face. I felt pain a moment later, briefly wondering if he had broke my nose. Blood began to filter down my face and I shook my head, trying to get the pain to disappear.

Before I even realized what I was doing, my instincts took over and I hissed at him. The man paused a moment before laughing once again.

“Did we hurt the kitty?” He asked in a mocking voice.

I was suddenly pushed out of the arms and rammed into the fence once again,” Your kind shouldn’t be around here.” One of the men said.

“Likewise,” I shot back.

The guy from the bar growled at me and pressed his hands against my chest, forcing me even farther back onto the metal fencing. My head hit a loose metal wire and I knew I had a wide gash on the back of my skull. I was forced down on the ground and felt a rough boot kick me in the chest. I hissed again and tried to get up, but felt an intense, sharp pain in my chest.

Two sets of arms picked me up and dragged me down the concrete road. I was dropped a few minutes later inside a dark building. I hadn’t realized they’d be so strong, but they were. My head hit the hard ground with a thump and I winced. My leather jacket was stripped off me and thrown to the side for easier leverage. I felt a knife against my neck a second later. That’s when I began to get genuinely frightened.

“Should we finish him?” The one in the flannel jacket asked.

One shook his head, “It could get too dirty. Let’s tie him up and leave him.”

I watched with wide eyes as strong ropes were extracted from somewhere inside the building. I was held down with one foot against my already sore chest as they wrapped the ropes around my wrists.

“Let me go, asshole!” I yelled, pulling against my restraints.

They ignored me all together. The one from the bar held up a shiny blade and showed it to the others,” Should we leave a mark?” They all agreed and then leaned over. I wasn’t sure what they were going to do or what they were aiming for. However, I didn’t expect to get bit and cut by the knife at the same time.

I screamed and felt a hand clamp over my mouth. The knife had pressed into my shoulder of my left arm at the same time I felt teeth tear a chunk out of my right ear. I tried to fight and get away, but it was useless. I was losing blood from my head and shoulder and they were just too strong.

A while later they decided to leave after cutting me up some more. I was left to die in some old abandoned warehouse, where I was sure no one would ever find me.