Post by Rae on Nov 12, 2009 0:11:02 GMT
U N N A T U R A L S E L E C T I O N
i'm hungry for some unrest
i'm hungry for some unrest
A gloomy, rainy day hardly seemed special. The city of cold concrete and corrugated iron seemed to blister in the rain, the scent of sodden tarmac lifting into the stale air. Only a single solitary figure stood staring into the rain, standing in the doorway of the Calf and Bottle with a cigarette between thin, shaking fingers. The grey hoodie was pulled around her shoulders and zipped up to just beneath her chin, a tartan wool scarf wrapped around her neck. Dank brown hair was tied back at the nape of her neck, feathers peering from between strands of hair. At her back, a neat pair of wings settled against the fabric of her hoodie. Jeans spread out into rain-soaked trainers, tapping coldly against the paving slabs as she took another shady draw from her cigarette.
This was now the only hybrid pub in the area, which was bloody annoying. As a part-owl part-cheetah part-human sort of creature she would have liked more than one bar to go to of a weekend. Of course she could always brave the human pubs, but she didn't know if she could take the abuse. Nicola Fleet was never one for confrontation.
The doors opened behind her and a middle-aged bloke in a mack huddled against the frame, lighting his fag before catching her glittering blue eyes, smiling slightly.
"You look well frozen, Nikki." He said, putting a hand on her shoulder. She smiled, her fine lips not particularly reactive to any emotion, but enough to show she appreciated his care.
"Cause I am." She shrugged, dropping the end of her fag butt into the gutter and stamping it into the dirt. "I'm pissed off, Mark, I really bloody am." She said almost despairingly, exhaling her last breath before turning heel and shifting back into the dirty under-funded pub.
It was poorly lit, the walls and ceiling were damp and the carpet was thick with booze and grease. The chairs were all mis-matched and broken and the staff were generally underpaid and tired. But they were nice, they were lovely, kind people. And every night, in the corner, they found themselves sat together. The staff of the biscuit factory. The shop floor cheap labour hybrids. Including the limited mentality of her good self.
Nicola Evelyn Fleet, middle name that of her grandmother. Twenty-three years old, working on the shop floor to pay the rent and to pay for cigarettes. She was scum, the lowest of the low, an inhuman unethical stain on humanity. She was a hybrid, a human girl born to human parents, but human parents who had at some point in their lives, or their parents' lives, been altered. Changed by chemicals in their blood. And now this was what had become of the world.
Shops closed down and were bought out, and now only a few major corporations survive. Disillusionment towards government resulted in extremist rules, the election of a slightly bent prime minister and the subsequent crushing of the genetic hybrids. Some parts of the city now felt like communist Russia, only still with the artwork from years ago.
"Pint, Nik?"
As the woman sat down, her companion stood up, heading to the bar. Nikki smiled, and nodded as she shuffled into the corner of the bench tapping her nails on the table before dragging her phone out of her pocket. Still no reply. That was the problem with pure gene humans, they never called or texted the morning after. He was a swine anyway, leaving before she had even woken up. It wasn't the first man who had decided that, because of her dna, she was pretty much available. She sighed, her forehead hitting her phone then sliding down her arm to hit the table top, just listening to the sounds of the bar. Sometimes she really loved this life. She loved that she could fly, that she could run and that she could work well as both human and animal. There were also days she fucking hated it. Today was one of those days. She could just tell from the air that though it had been shit, it was going to get shitter.
"Lager. Get it down you, you need cheering up, innit?" Nikki lifted her head, managing to raise her eyebrow at her friend Lissa, who grinned. She grabbed the pint glass and took a good long drain, before sitting back in her seat, just listening to the ramble and noise of the pub and the conversation of her friends. It was quite nice to just take a moment to stop. To let it all soak in. She would occasionally interject, but never voluntarily. It wasn't her way, she was too quiet. She always had been. More of a cerebral thinker than a talker, which could be both a blessing and a curse in equal measure.
She knew it wouldn't last. It happened almost in slow motion. And she knew exactly what was going on, as it had happened before.
As the hulk of dark suited men hurled into the door a huge beast bounded over the bar, and was pushed aside by heavy armoured police. The lion got to his feet, roared and bit down on one of the officers' legs, and a great fight broke out. This was becoming far too common.
Nikki got to her feet, her heart solid in her chest as she glanced left, right, anywhere. She gasped, darting right and out into the gangway as a golden retriever was thrown across the table, knocking her almost full pint to the floor. She watched humans fighting humans, humans fighting animals, and animals and people alike being dragged out, or battered, regardless. She stood still for a fraction of a second, lost, before winding between police and civillians to try and get to the door, but her way was blocked by an upturned table, and then a furious Mark in his equesstrian form backing into the bar and breaking it down, before being tasered and controlled. She made a break for it, wings half-spread for balance as she launched herself over the fallen horse, shifting as she did so to her scops owl form. She could get out of this unscathed, she knew it. She spread her wings, ready to fly, ready to get out, when something grasped her wing, she span painfully in the air, and slammed into the ground, finding herself forced back into her human form and twisted to lock handcuffs onto her slim wrists. She was pulled upright, and dragged furiously out of the door into the street, where quite a crowd had gathered. Semi-consciously, she was handed from copper to copper, before being loaded into the back of a riot van, shattered and bruised. She could feel warm blood running from her ear down her cheek which wasn't nice. She slumped against whoever it was beside her, her breathing heavy as her wings struggled to break free of her locked arms.
She knew that her day was going to get worse. And here it was.
Worse.
She woke up, one side of her face cold and damp. She sat up, her hair clinging to her face as she reached out in front of her, her hand hitting something plastic and cold water spattering over the back of her hand. A bucket to catch drips from a leaky ceiling that clearly couldn't cope with torrential rain.