This is Why I'm a Cat Person

Chapter 1

Humans and hybrids have been at odds since I was a little girl, but I never really understood why. I could see the obvious discrimination by both parties plain as day, but I never saw a logical reason for it. It was fairly normal to see human-hybrid friendships when I was in my middle to early high school years, but as time went on, people found more and more reasons to push away from each other. I still had hybrid friends when I graduated high school, but they were fewer than they used to be. After I graduated, I took a year off before starting college in hopes of traveling some. I join a program suggested to me by my mom, and ended up doing a few months of training before moving to South Asia for a year to do earthquake relief with a team. There were multiple teams in my training, and I ended up becoming good friends with one of the other girls that was on a different team. After the program ended, we both went to school and then got an apartment together in my home town. It's been a few years since then and we are now sharing a small house and each working.
My roommate's name is April and she is a hybrid. She and I have one of few and far between hybrid-human friendships that is not effected by the outbursts of each of our species. It doesn't bother me that she has a tail and an extra set of ears and occasionally turns into a small arctic fox when she gets too stressed out. I tend to find her company to be comforting in the midst of all the turmoil in the world. To know that someone else stands where I do on the issue even though as far as society is concerned, we should hate each other.
I thought about all this as I got ready this morning, the news playing on the television in the kitchen spurring my reminiscent thoughts as they spoke of another attack on a young hybrid child on the other side of the city. The child had been turned on by the humans it had once called friends, and been beaten before being thrown into the river that circled the outskirts of the city. The story brought forth a frustrated groan from my throat as I walked into the kitchen to find April staring forlornly at the television. As I entered the room, she tossed me the remote and poured herself a cup of coffee.
I sighed. "I don't know why you turn the news on if it only makes you upset." She grunted slightly in response as I skirted around her to the teapot and poured myself a cup of hot water before adding a teabag.
"I know, but I hate it. Its like the whole world around us a train wreck. It's too terrible to watch, but I cant seem to pull my eyes away." She sighed slightly and then focused her eyes on me for the first time that morning. She looks me up and down, pony tail to tennis shoes, "are you going out?"
I glanced at her and grinned, "just because I stayed up late doesn't mean that I'm skipping my run this morning. I'm not as hopeless as you seem to think when it comes to working out." April is a bit of a health nut, and always picks on me when I skip a day at the gym, or decide its too hot to run.
She laughs slightly and sticks her tongue out at me. "I don't think you're hopeless, you just have a little less hope than I do." She hops out the doorway and down the hall, laughing as she goes, before I have the chance to pick up whatever is closest and throw it. She heads toward the bathroom as I finish my tea and head for the living room. I grab my house key, pushing it into my pocket before yelling that I'll be back in a bit and latching the door behind me.
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As much as I hated to, I had recently begun running without headphones on. I hate doing much of anything without music, but the crime rate had gone up so significantly in the past six months in my area that I couldn't afford to be caught off guard. This is also the reason that I began to carry my pistol with me when I ran through the woods in the mornings. I would usually try to stick to the open paths of the park where there are lots of people if I'm going to be out alone, but the heat of the Kentucky summer drove me to the shade of he trees where I would be a bit safer from the sun's rays if not the potential criminals of the area. In all my years of living here, I had never once had to fire my pistol at anyone, but I had scared off a few potential break in threats with the warning that if they stepped foot inside, they wouldn't be walking back out on their own. This may seem violent, but the tension between humans and hybrids these days had me reaching for my gun more often than I would like.
As I ran, the story of the beaten child resurfaced and I thought about April again. I know she is an adult and can very well take care of herself, but I have a fairly protective nature, and I find it difficult not to worry about her as she drives across town everyday to her clinic where she is a massage therapist. Hybrids are being attacked more and more these days by the people they thought they could trust, and it worries me. This is not to say that the hybrids are innocent of discrimination, but their population is much smaller than that of humans, and there are significantly less stories of violence on their part.
A popping sounds breaks me from my thoughts and reminds me to stay alert this deep into the trails. There usually aren't many people this far back into the woods behind the park, so the sound makes me wonder what I'm up against. I hear faint laughter coming from the same direction as the popping sound and my hand moves instinctively to the concealed gun at my hip. I slow my pace as I approach the small group consisting of what seems to be three teenage boys and move to stand behind a nearby tree. No one seems to have noticed my arrival, as they all seem to have their attention trained on something that I can't see from my hiding spot.
"Oh, look at it cower!" The nearest one shouts and laughs as he points to something I cant see. The next sounds I hear make my blood run cold. The one farthest from me, but closest to whatever holds their attention laughs and lifts a medium sized pellet gun to his shoulder, taking aim and shooting. This explains the popping sound I had heard, but the whine that echoes through the clearing is what spurs me into action.
My gun raised and pointed at the boy holding the pellet gun, I step out from behind the tree and into the clearing. My approach is quiet, but gains the attention of the boy nearest me and he backs away quickly.
"J-Jeff," he stutters and grabs at his friends. The other two look at me, startled and the one with the pellet gun drops it. They watch as I move into the clearing, my eyes never leaving the eyes of the one, apparently Jeff, that I have my gun trained on.
"What do you think you're doing?" I ask the question calmly, but all three boys flinch and out of the corner of my eye, I can see their target shift slightly. I don't take my eyes from the boys, but move to put myself between them and their victim.
"W-we were just screwing around," Jeff started, "honest."
I narrow my eyes and glance at the pellet gun at his feet and then back to his face, which is now a brilliant shade of red and he laughs nervously.
"Does screwing around involve guns these days? Please enlighten me, because I don't find the humor in this situation." I am met with silence as the three of them back into each other in an attempt to get farther away from me. I sigh and look closer at one of the boys standing behind Jeff, the only one I hadn't gotten a good look at yet. "You're Mrs. Houston's kid." His face goes pale as he realizes that I know who he is. I sigh again and holster my gun. I had never even switched the safety off, but they didn't know that. "Get the hell out of here. I will be reporting you morons, but if I ever even think I see you hurting anything ever again, the idea of a stint in juvie will be the least of your worries."
They all sigh, slightly relieved, but with their eyes on the gun at my side still. Jeff leans down to pick up the pellet gun and my eyes narrow dangerously. "Leave it." He straightens quickly and his friends pull him from the clearing before disappearing back towards the main road.
I watch for a moment as they leave, but another soft whine brings my attention to the victim of the teens. I look down to find what seems to be a small grey house cat bleeding from multiple open wounds where pellets had been shot into its fur. I immediately fall to my knees, cooing gently and reach out a hesitant hand to touch its head. It flinches at the touch, but whines louder as the movement surely sends pain through its entire body.
"Shh, shh, you'll be okay," I whisper, stroking its head slightly. "I'm going to take care of you, little one, I wont let you get hurt anymore." I continue to coo sweet nothings at it as it seems to adjust to my touch and relax as much as possible given its current state. It has yet to open its eyes, and when it does, my heart drops into my stomach. Staring up at me are the eyes of a hybrid. Hybrids always have two different colored eyes when in their fully animal form. I had only seen it a few times with April, as one has to be stressed to an incredible point to turn into their full animal form, but I knew exactly what I was dealing with as soon as I saw those eyes, one a dark brown, and the other a piercing blue met my own.
"Oh honey, it'll be okay," I breathed out as my mind raced. A hybrid. Those boys were shooting a hybrid with a pellet gun. My blood ran hot as I realized what I had stumbled upon. If it weren't for the bleeding cat lying in front of me, I would have chased those boys down right then and there and given them a piece of my mind. They deserved to be shot with a pellet gun until they bled.
Focusing back on the injured animal in front of me, I pulled my shirt over my head, leaving me in my shorts and a sports bra, and wrapped it around the small body before picking it up as gently as possible. I wasn't actually far from my house, only a few blocks away, so it didn't take long to get to the front door where I dug my key from my pocket and pushed the door open a moment later. Moving as carefully as possible, I placed the grey cat on the bathroom rug and threw open the door of the linen closet in the corner.
This was one of many times that I thanked the lord that I had lived with a hybrid for so many years. It's a little known fact among humans that when a hybrid shifts into their full animal form, not only are they under incredible amounts of stress, but they tend to lose the human part of themselves and move on instinct alone. Living with April through some difficult family matters had taught me that shifted hybrids hurt themselves on accident if worked up enough. I had learned quickly how to treat April's wounds when they were serious enough that they couldn't wait until she shifted back. Vets these days tended to turn away shifted hybrids, saying they weren't qualified for such issues.
The first thing I searched for was an anesthetic the take the pain away. I used a slightly smaller dose than I would have given April because the cat was smaller than her, and it went out pretty quick. I guessed I would have a good 15 to 20 minutes before it woke from the medicated stupor I had put it under, but I had no idea how long it would be before it shifted back. April usually shifted back within an hour, but she had never been under the same amount of stress that the little cat hybrid had been under today. I turned on soft instrumental music as I treated the cat's wounds and hummed along to the tune.
Ten minutes later, I had moved the kitty to a soft cushion on the couch, and wrapped it in a thin blanket. He, as I had found out while treating wounds, slept soundly until I got up to clean the mess in the bathroom. When I would leave for more than a minute at a time, he would begin to whine and I would have to come back to him. I came back every few minutes, and stroked his head until he fell into a deeper sleep, before cleaning a bit more. Finally, I finished cleaning and came to sit by him on the couch. I had never changed out of my running clothes, but I was reluctant to leave his side long enough to change. I leaned back and closed my eyes as I stoked the cat's back where there were no wounds.