If I can make it to Arduo

Prologue

It began with abomination. That's what the righteous called it. They called it every name in the book that could convey disgust, but no one would claim it. The racists blamed other races. The religious blamed other religions. The straight-edger's blamed the liberals and the northerners blamed the south. But no one could explain why when everywhere in the world, babies were being born with horns.

That was almost thirty years ago, give or take, and the government was as strained over the issue as a bow string ready to snap. The politicians debated constantly over horned children's right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness but never got anywhere. And not a single one of them had horns. Chimes, that's what they called them. Short for "chimera", it was a bad nickname that stuck.

All of the different political parties got involved but never came up with a public decision. But their intentions were clear once it was put into action. As far as the government was concerned, the Chimes were just the same as everyone else. That's what they claimed on the surface, but everyone knew that the moment they made the tiniest mistake they were done for. Life in prison for jaywalking, lethal injections for loitering, firing squads instead of minor fines, and the Chimes were helpless against it. So many of them were executed or thrown in cages that they couldn't even put together a group to protest how they were treated. Some hippie types lobbied for Chime Rights sometimes but they were just labeled sympathizers and stifled like the rest. The world had a new minority, and a helpless scapegoat to blame for everything.

Of course there were a few of us here and there that felt sorry for them, and many actually saw them as people, but social pressures didn't allow for much friendliness. My town was the same as every other, we had a few Chimes in town that everyone avoided or ignored. In kindergarten no one would touch them, in middle school people spread rumors about them, and in high school people forgot about them. If they lived that long.