Hybrid By Elliot James
Preface
Pain? Oh yeah. I have felt it. I feel it every day. Why is life so difficult? Why is it unfair? Why are we alone? Why why why? That is all anyone ever seems to ask. Me? I don't care. I am constantly consumed by pain and confusion.
I was adopted, along with my fraternal twin brother and younger sister on October 1, at age fifteen. We had been jumping from foster home to foster home for years, until finally Grace and Kevin adopted all three of us.
Well, it was not like that originally.
I had gotten news of my younger sister Luna's adoption, and told her to pack, that she was leaving. She obeyed, and as much as it hurt me to do it, I hugged her and said goodbye, then handed her over to her new parents. When she asked if I was coming with I told her no, that I was not allowed. Without a pause in her tiny stride she walked up to the tall frowning man, kicked him hard in the shin and screamed that she would only go with him if her big brother and sister got to come with.
A few months later, the couple came back and adopted all three of us. Luna was so happy, her thirteen-year-old face shining with victory.
It was not until I was sixteen that I realized what was wrong. Not with my foster family, but with me. It had started at sixteen, a year after we were taken. I felt sharp stabbing pains in my stomach at random intervals throughout the weeks. It was sometime later I realized the pattern to the pain in my stomach.
Every time I began to hurt, someone had either fell and scraped a knee, bit his or her lip, scratched a mosquito bite, or gotten into a fistfight. What is in common with all of those cases and many more? Blood. It was as if blood caused me physical pain, so I began avoiding people. My brother Jason confided his pains with me, and we soon began searching for a cause.
At age seventeen, the headaches began. I walked around with a headache all day, only at night would they finally subside, or in dim lighting. I decided to tell my foster parents everything, hoping that maybe it was not some genetic deformity, or cancer. As soon as I told them, they just stared at me, and then explained everything.
At age eighteen my brother and I felt the tingling our foster parents had described, and prepared ourselves for the journey ahead.
The weeklong coma we fell into would soon awaken our inner senses. It would transform us, turn us into monsters with no morals, and make us want to kill. We are Hybrids.
Chapter one
A hybrid, is a mix of two or more creatures. In my family's case, we are all different. We share the same mother, but different fathers. We all share one similar gene. Sirens. Our mother is a siren, a mermaid who gets to become human only once every four years, twice if they are lucky. They all come to shore on the night of the eclipse. Once on land they have a choice, they can either do their own thing, or breed. The sirens, who chose to breed, would hopefully become pregnant, and nine months later become human again to deliver.
Most Sirens have half children, (half human and half Siren). Once a siren child matures as a human, they will return to water to live out the rest of their lives, and breed.
Our mother it seems was trying to experiment with us. My brother and I are part Siren, part Banshee, and part Amarok. Our younger sister Luna is part siren, and part Lamia.
When Luna matures, she will have a choice. She can return to the sea, and feed off of the lust of men, spend her life drowning sailors with her beautiful voice, or she can go to her father in the caves. If Luna chooses to go to the caves, she will spend her life there waiting for her mate, and she will shift into a half human half serpent on full moons to feast on humans.
My brother and I do not get a choice. As soon as we turn twenty-one we will be taken to a remote location in the woods, and if we are lucky no one will know about us.
Hybrids are not allowed to exist, they soil the bloodlines. Our father was part wolf, part banshee, thanks to his mother and father. Our mother just added siren to the fathers' side of our gene pool.
There are only two signs that we are Hybrids, our eyes and the burns on our hands. The burns are identical pieces of art gifted to us by the Council when we turned twelve. Both my brother and I had long intricate swirls of healed skin intertwining with different shapes. The design was truly beautiful, and I proudly sport it. I only wish I had it for a different reason.
Luna's burn is a simple symbol. Just a circle with a cross running through it on the inside of her wrist.
The branding was done while a witch recited a spell. The spell cast a curse over each of us that would ultimately kill us if we defied the Council and their rules.
Our first ten years of life were spent with our father. I can remember almost everything. He was kind, generous, and did not want to let us go. He even loved Luna as though she were his own. Luna is not much younger than my twin and I. She is only turning eighteen next month while we will be twenty-one soon. Luna had been given to her biological father at first, but the council took her away a few days before they took us. The council had preferred the Hybrids to live as humans instead of as super naturals. They did not want us developing our power or risk escape.
The Council is a group of seven beings. They are the first of each of the seven blood lines, and the most powerful people on earth. Or so they think.
The Council consists of four men and three women, all of whom believe they can do what they want, and kill who they want.
So that leads up to now, I am twenty years old, I teach history at a private school, and after school I cut and style people's hair or nails. I would say I am happy with what I do, I make a sufficient amount of money, and I support myself. My brother and I chose to stay in our foster parents' house until the age of twenty-one, in which case we would move wherever we were told. Luna is only seventeen (soon to be eighteen), and my birthday is quickly coming.
As of now, I have one week until I am taken away. My name is Drusilla Undine, and I am a Hybrid.
