Amalgam Nation [This could possibly shock you, you've been warned.]

Chapter Two

Chapter Two.

World War Three started before I was born. From my understanding as a child it was the world vs us, America. My hometown was a ghost town in the end, the only inhabitants were  the priest and an old farmers wife, everyone else was gone.

  I grew up in the church, I was the only child who had been born in the area over the last few years so there was ample room for a skinny little girl to hide in the shadows, the lonely chair-bound priest took pity on me and fed me with what little he could find for us. He never talked to me and I never knew his name. I didn't have a name to call myself.

One day I found the father, cold as ice and frozen with eyes that stared but could not see, I didn't care that he was dead. I just felt as if half of the entire world had fallen away and now I was finally truely alone. As a seven year old in a dead town, I knew at that tender age I would have to fight to survive.

It took me almost until the age of eight to find another town with people in it. I had taken a tame milking goat from the farmers wife, well, I had stolen it, and used that jenny as my stead. I had knives for protection and I learnt very quickly to stay out of sight.

Surprisingly, food was everywhere. As I moved from town to town I realised that there was no shortage of supplies here, there was just no one left to use them. Eventually after  four months of slow travel I wound up at a vermin camp outside of what was once a capital city.

It was dirty, cramped and dangerous. There were no other children. People had been so absorbed with winning the war that there had been next to no births over the last 25 years. The country had begun to fall apart, it had exhausted it's resources and when they tried to turn back home there was no home left to go to. It was a hovel of crime. Those that had been left behind were either deadbound or criminals, deserters. I kept my head down, I scavenged as best I could to stay alive, I slept curled up next to my Jenny goat in an old meat smoker and the fires that burned in the city kept any animals at bay.

From what I can now piece together, the American government was depleted and dying. They bombed the aggressors, and in turn, they nuked various parts of the USA.

I was out foraging, wild carrots, potatoes, onions. I'd found a fantastic old plant barn that was still yielding fresh food. I remember a thud, and a crack that echoed so loud I thought the earth had opened wide. A wall of solid force lifted me from my feet and all I saw was white.That was the last thing I remember from before.

Then the world started again.

I live with my group, my pack, they are my new family. As with most amalgam, we group with others of our kind. When the world started again 75% of humans fused with an animal. Mainly mammal amalgams survived, the mix wasn't too radical for the human body. After the bomb the beaches were littered with hundreds of various fish amalgams, many countries had navy ships in our waters at the time and mixed with some horrible results. Reptiles had the obstacle of blood temperature, it simply settled at a midpoint. Avian amalgams are easily recognised by the downy feathers that often cover their entire bodies, I've not met an amalgam that can fly but with the right breeding in the years to come I imagine it will be possible and will happen.

Being in post WW3 America we have high concentration of native amalgams, as a coyote amalgam I'm considered a native. The exotics, such as lions, tigers, zebras etc. have higher populations than one would ever expect. The exotic pet laws in the USA were so lax that we literally have hundreds of exotic species in every state. Think private zoos, public gardens, the circus, they were everywhere and now they've mixed.

The other 25% of humans were underground when the world started again. They resurfaced and were faced with half crazed animal-human mixes who were trying to come to grips with what they were. Immediately the humans rallied against the amalgams, they had the firepower but we had increased speed and strength that they hadn't ever encountered before. We fought for our lives, for what we thought belonged to us and our rights. It was a hideous waste of life. Unfortunately we were forced out, out into the forests and wild where we 'belonged'. Once in our natural habitats we began embracing our instincts and enjoying the new bodies we had been given, we learnt about ourselves and what we were capable of, as the instincts made us more animalistic certain species began splitting off on their own until all amalgams were either loners or 'family' groups.

We are not were-animals. We stay in one state of mind and body at all times. We share characteristics between our mixed species, it was hard at first to tell the difference between logic and instinct, to balance with tails, to see, hear and move with heightened senses. I love it, I embrace the power that I have in my body, I was so fragile before, a delicate little human  but I bloomed into a strong, powerful animal. I can run faster, jump further, punch and kick harder than any human. I've noticed some amalgams seem to be wilder than others, more animalistic, as though they have more animal inside than human, it's hard to see the humanity in their eyes. Once it's gone they can turn into monsters that must be taken down, as a pack we cleanse our territory of them.