Chapter 1
(Chapter song ‘Dark Side’ by NINJA TRACKS)
Chapter 1
1944
Life.
One of the world’s greatest mysteries.
Through human history, humans have built, grown, and multiplied, congesting city streets with a sea of heads, going about businesses that only reflect the mystery more.
Around the world, from the busy intersections of Tokyo to the ruthless sidewalks of Manhattan, it’s seen but never solved.
We see the start.
A proud father holds his infant daughter after her entrance to this planet. He sees all her future possibilities as he strokes her fine, white hair. His dreams for her are endless.
We also see the end.
The mighty king who rises, driving his sword into hearts while life extinguishes into the mud around his feet. Shells drop from the sky like rain, destroying land that was once beautiful and bold. A mate driving home careens of the road, engulfed in flames, begging for someone to save her. That call might not be answered. We see loved ones lined in hospital beds as viruses take hold and steal the life from them.
But through the beginning and the end, we never lose sight. We see the greatness and the failures in between and understand the purpose. Towering buildings, massive dams, walls that are so impressive we can see them from the stars. We challenge. We persevere. We improve. We live.
Our daily lives are wrought with questions to move us, but there’s one question no one can seem to answer.
How... did it begin?
Basic biology gives the explanation we all know, but that’s just the start.
In sterile labs, secret and unforgiving, the answer is being sought. Governments of most countries are in a race to be the first to crack the mystery wide open. Money and assets are poured into solving it with no spared expense. Is it to better mankind? Perhaps. Is it to be superior? No one really know for certain.
What is for certain is that no matter who or how much is applied, science is still at a loss.
The double helix turns on screens and analyzed through the lens of microscopes. Teams of scientists use test after test hoping for the day it happens.
But that day will never come.
Chains of DNA are probed, ripped apart at the seams, yet they stay silent enough to say we are, we will end, but you will accept only that.
For some, that’s not good enough.
Secret organizations above government protocol take up the reins to circumvent God’s plan. They amass great wealth and resources, moving in circles that presidents or queens can’t touch. They have no real face or name, and no one can question them. Their actions are swift. They rules are non-existent. The walls… are sacred.
They work tirelessly to reach the creator, but he’s not interested in their reach of power.
Still, these organizations continue, even if many have long since given up. They know the answer lies somewhere on the planet. Maybe not in cities or towns, but somewhere where humans were never meant to tread.
There are places in this world—regardless of the billions on it—that have not been seen. Places where the faint of heart dare not go.
Places where mysteries lie and wait.
Just like the ocean floor, the trees are vast. The container of the world’s water… the holder of the world’s air. Surely, the place that provides the fundamental building blocks of the earth must have the answers we seek.
Across many miles, across a mighty river, and deep into the foothills of mountains, she falls, punching through the wide thick leaves of the trees dripping in condensation. She hears them. She feels them.
She knows it’s time.
In the heart of the largest jungle on earth, under the canopy covered in heat and humidity, she’s called. Alone and unafraid, she lands and journeys to answer the question for at least one creature on the planet…
Shapeshifters.
Though countless time, she sits alone, unknown to the world as her skin prepares to make a life that will infiltrate, hide, hunt, and observe in plain sight of us all.
Her bare legs are brushed by all manner of tropical plants; the air around her is thick with mist as the temperature rises. Her hands lay outstretched as her bare feet sink into the moss and soft soil. She enters the space she has been coming to since her first memory on this planet.
In the low light, with a parrot’s call and a jaguar’s growl, she sinks to the ground. Her legs cross and she holds her back regally as she holds her forearms out in front of her. Her children need to enter the world, and she will provide them the door.
As water beads on her skin, her dark eyes watch. From every pore, like tree sap oozing out of the bark, her skin comes alive. She creates an energy that helps the clear, bubble-filled substance coat her arms. Her skin is seen through the gel that will become what they will.
She twists and floats her arms in a sort of ritual dance that only she knows. The gel drips and oozes to her palms while more flows out. Her hands slowly turn in circles. Under, over, and around as she gathers the clear, viscous liquid in her palms.
She feels no pain. She feels no discomfort.
She feels nothing.
This is not the time for motherhood. Her children have to answer their own calls.
With hands full, she turns her palms to the ground. The time has come. With arms dripping, she waits on her children. The hand-sized balls hang and stretch. The green vegetation reflects, distorted and wrong. The tiny bubbles move and roll as she sits patiently.
Then she feels it.
Life.
Her lips remain unmoved as the ball stretches for the ground. Like the slow drip from a tap, it slowly descends. When the connection between the ball and her palm is pulled thin, it snaps.
The gel lands on the soil and ferns with a bounce, coating itself in leaves and husk fibers. The other falls from her other palm and lands in the same way, but its direction is different from its sibling.
As her hands gently roll again, she watches her children begin to roll.
The gelatinous balls begin to pick up speed across the jungle floor before the evolution begins.
As it rolls and collects dirt, a fin emerges. It bounces off a rock, and it’s no longer a ball but a small flopping fish. The sunspots under the canopy flash against its red and blue scales as it gasps for water. It bucks and jerks along until it rises in the air and comes down on four legs. It croaks and immediately hops away. The moist skin shines bright purple and black as it makes a giant leap and hisses. Its slithering body moves quickly around the hills and logs in the grasses. Its forked tongue sniffs the air quickly, then it curls up, head to tail. It folds in on itself, and long ears emerge. It leaps into the air, whiskers and nose twitching in panic. Three bounds and its paws grow. Its muzzle pants as it runs through the forest. Its predatory eyes inspecting the world it now lives in. As it jumps a cavern, its wings spread. A screech leaves its beak and it takes to the air. Once above the canaopy, her child will never look back. It soars over the mountain peaks, through the misty clouds and sees something it instinctually needs.
It circles and lands, shifting quickly to something that’s familiar to its target. A black dog.
It trots out like a stray, unnoticed by many as it passes the faces. It studies each one closely, not giving itself away until it’s time. When it sees a young man with some fish, it barks. Its tail wags as he looks up at the man.
‘Begging for food this early? Alright, friend. Here you go.’
It takes the food, but it’s not fish that it’s after.
As its tongue tastes the fish, all it needs is a graze of skin. The tiny skin cells enter its system and the cycle is complete. It takes the fish and runs off, rising on two legs as it turns out of sight of the humans and the man who it now wears.
He grins and his eyes shine as he diappears into the world to hunt, hide, learn… and remain secret. Growing its skills and faces to join the sea of heads.
This is what hides in the green jungles of the South Americas.
The birth of a species that has no parents, no upbringing, no love. A life built on survival and camaflogue. One that feels no consequence of action. Why would you when you can wear another face easily enough disppear? You can skrink to sqeeze out of any jail, and never be found again.
Their pupose is survival. Their intent is their own.
And some species have been doing it for millennia.
She doesn’t miss them. No tears leave her eyes. She will never think of them again. If she passes a child of her, she will never know and they will never know her. It’s been this way since her own first breath rising out of the goo.
This is the origin.
This is the truth.
This… is how it started.
And although this is a life that started as a secret, it will not remain that way... for long.
As the new life she continues to release takes its first breath and leaves her, the bush moves in an unnatural way.
Her breath becomes quiet; her hands never stop the ritual. Her arms continue to leach the sap, but her eyes lower. Her hearing sharpens. She feels the steps in her legs. As her eyes slide from one side to the other, she sees something that doesn’t belong.
And the devil awakens.
She looks forward, not moving a muscle except for the ritual that continues to drop her children. She hears the weapons of man she’s seen many times in thousands of collected memories and thoughts. Unnamed and unseen, she should fear them, but they are the ones entering the den of the monster.
The black shadows in the trees gather in front, on her sides, and behind her. She lowers her arms and rests them on her knees, palms relaxed to the canopy.
She raises her chin and looks forward. ‘The devil enters the jaguar’s curse.’
The black boots part the palm ferns as they step out in black clothing, black steel streaked with the light. As they gather with guns aimed at her head, they stalk toward her, closing the circle tighter.
She meets the black-painted eyes of the man in front of her; the pulsing of the fabric over his mouth and nose confirm what she already knew.
He’s scared.
His eyes dart from her hands to her eyes as he sharply barks his order. ‘Raise your hands and get on the ground!’
Her hair sways over her naked breast as she defies his words and steadily rises to a stand. Her nakedness is on full display, but she doesn’t care. Her eyes float over one shoulder, then the next. Her hands drip at her sides as she faces the one with the voice.
As the parrot screams and the big cats roar across the jungle, she sees the man swallow. ‘You have fear. You reek of the stench.’
He narrows his eyes. ‘I said get down.’
She raises her hand to her eyes and moves it around as the slime runs down her fingers and hands. ‘I believe it is you… who will follow your words.’ Her eyes turn as yellow as the sun as she faces the man with a display of confidence that stiffens every body around her.
Her hand grows into a man’s hand and the sap is sucked back into her skin. Muscles grow as does her height. Her facial features beome sharper, lighter and coated in hair. Her chest shrinks and becomes well defined as her legs grow powerful.
‘OPEN FIRE! OPEN FIRE!’
Before her hair could finish changing from brown to jet black, the steel and fire rain. As the jungle leaves tear and fly in pieces, she moves. Not as mother, but as a man. As the highest order of Shogun she had in her arsenal. Quick as a cat, he rushes the soldier closest to her side. He drives his fist into the mans throat causing him to choke. He wraps his weapon around the soldiers body and punches down on his hand. The weapon is freed, and he throws the soldier across the circle. He spins and backhands the next, who stumbles. He catches the soldier’s head and twists it one direction quickly. The snap can be heard over the gunfire and the body drops. He kicks the next in the head, turns and punches another with fists so fast, the men were having problems keeping up.
‘TRANQUILIZERS ONLY! DON’T KILL HER!’
He moves like a storm. Throwing his body at the men who are now afraid to fire for fear of hitting one of their own. The jungle is alive with screams and wails as he relentlessly attacks.
As he breaks the back of one man in black, a sharp pain hit him in the back. He cries out and falls to a knee as he reaches back and pulls out what hit him. In his blood covered palm, a silver dart with red feathers gleams. His expression twists into fury and he raises his eyes. They meet the remaining soldiers eyes, fire burning inside.
He looks around the circle. ‘Chimeiteki na ayamauchi.’ His lip curses as he slowly drops the dart and rises to his feet.
One soldier looks at the other. ‘Uh… what did he say?’
The other meets his eyes. ‘My japanese is a little rusty, but… fatal mistake?’ he chokes with uncertainity.
He roars at the soldiers who fill with shock as he leaps into the air. His body thickens and is coated in black fur. His canines elongate and his head and chest become hard as rocks. The soldiers scream as the 800 pound gorilla lands and his massive thick fingers wrap around their heads. Others try to shoot, but the animal throws the bodies into them. The all fall into the jungle brush. He stomps and thrashes his fists as he fights the intruders. His silver fur just a flash behind the horror itself. Blood flies and bones break as he tears his way through the intruders.
The man kicks, screams and begs for mercy as the gorilla lifts him above his head. The animal was about to throw him when more sharp pains landed in his stomach. The soldier falls and the animal roars as he grips the darts. He lunges for the man who shot, fur sleek and black. Her claws are sharp as knives, with hatred on her curled lips. She leaps as he backs up, screaming for help. She mauls and attacks as her vision doubles, then slowly triples. Her claws stop working and her strikes are clumsly. He pushes her off and she lands hard on her side.
The jungle darkens, and the sounds of guns aiming fill the air above her. She struggles to look up at the men looking down.
‘You are an interesting creature.’
Her eyes try to focus as she shakes on her hands. The circle parts, and in the dreamlike vision, a woman walks through the men. She leans down and looks her over, red hair framing her face like an evil spirit.
She runs a finger up the shifter mother’s arm and scoops off the sap that had begun leaching again. She inspects it then rubs her fingers together. ‘An interesting creature indeed.’ She meets the mother’s eyes. ‘I think… you are just what I need.’
‘You know nothing! Leave here!’ The mother struggles to keep up as the darts invade her body.
‘I will and you’re coming with me.’ She looks to her soldier. ‘Take her to 35.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
They move on the woman.
‘NO! YOU KNOW NOT! LEAVE ME BE! DIABLO! CURSES ON YOU! DON’T TOUCH ME!’
She struggles and tries to fight, but she has none left. They flip her and tie her hands and feet as she screams to the jungle to save her, but no one answers. A sharp pain in her neck removes what little fight she has left, and her eyes dim. Her head falls and her eyelids droop. ‘I will be freed…’
The world shifts, and the two yellow eyes of a panther watch them wrap her in a blanket from the shadows. Her pink tongue swipes across her lip; then she quietly growls. The mother and the cat exchange looks and soon the cat turns away, swishing her long tail into the darkness.
The mother’s heart sinks and her eyes close for good.
‘My children… will kill you all.’
