Seeing Scales

I remember being born. It was cold. The lights were… so bright. I was crying, but I didn’t know why. Even when I tried to stop, my throat kept bellowing out these noises that made it burn. I didn’t even know I could make noises. It was strange to everyone there, too. My species usually has quiet births.

You see, we’re not exactly normal. Yes, I’m a mammal. And I can do anything humans can. In fact, some of us can even reproduce with humans. But, there’s a big difference between my kind and humans that none of us can ignore.

Humans have a docile and indecisive nature to them, or so they like to believe. They’re much more curious and have clearer thinking. You could argue that they’re simpler than us, but I don’t think that’s the case. We also have physical differences. While humans basically look like upright monkeys with less fur, my kind has a highly primal nature that affect our appearance. To put it simply, we look a lot like animals.

Well, we don’t all look like animals. Some of us look like insects or fish. Nonetheless, we don’t really look that human. The reason for this is simple, but it’s kind of hard to explain. There was a tribe in the mountains a few thousand decades ago. The people were happy and thriving. They were no different from the rest of the world. Things were routine and everyone in the village was content.

That was… until something unexpected happened. Nobody knows exactly what it was, but an unknown object lit a distinct color in the sky that you could see from any part of the world. It was unlike anything that had ever happened before. The people who saw what’s known as “The Fallen Grace” prayed to their god for answers as to what it was. As you’d expect, some came up with stories saying it was a comet or a new species of creature or whatever else crazy thing they could think of. Others claimed to have receive no message from their respective god or agreed with one of the claims so as not to sound unfaithful or disrespectful.

The few that knew what had happened were part of the tribe in the mountains. They were called the Valgt tribe, which is Danish for “chosen”. When the object had hit the surface, it crashed a few hundred yards away from their village. By the time they got to the crash site, the smoke and the shock from the impact had subsided. The new tension that had formed was the confusion when they all looked down at an empty hole. There ended up being no mysterious object to be spoken of.

Although they all thought they were safe from harms way, things started going south after the strange encounter from the Fallen Grace. It was prime farming season, but all the crops were dying from disease. It rained every night, but they were in the middle of a drought. The harsh conditions were driving away animals and the ones that stayed were skin and bones.

This lasted 3 years. Things had gotten so bad for them that many of the people had decided to leave or take their own lives. Some simply just disappeared. The ones that stayed were deathly ill most of the time. They had little to spare, but they shared it with each other and grew stronger mentally and spiritually.

On the third anniversary of the Fallen Grace, the village experienced a sudden surge of women experiencing severe symptoms of pregnancy simultaneously. Despite age or fertility, any woman whose body had matured enough for a pregnancy was bearing a child. Even the oldest in the tribe whose loins should have shriveled up long ago and women who thought they’d never be able to conceive were now carrying the future of their tribe and growing them in their bellies.

Anxiety and fear creeped over the village when the weight of the situation hit them. They were unsure of how they could possibly feed so many new mouths. Of course, not a one of them had given up on trying to heal the land and find food, but there was only so much they could do and everyone was already doing the best they could. With less help, it was only going to make things harder.

They toiled through a week of tireless and unrewarded efforts to provide for the women in the village. There was a significant change in their energy and their desperation. If they had been working hard before when it was their lives on the line, they were working themselves to death now. They were providing for the future of their village as well as themselves now.

After their week of work, the men made a point to get up early without waking the women. When they woke up, they were greeted with a field full of animals and well-grown crops. The stream that had been dried up for three years was now overflowing with water. Fish were jumping high out of the water.

This miracle spread like wildfire through the continent, granting this tribe the new name Valgt. It was clear they had been chosen by the gods of good fortune in return for having faith during all their excruciating labors.

The day finally came for the women to birth the children they had been bearing. It was not surprise that the women went into labor on the same day, however everyone was shocked when the children were finally born. So shocked that a silence fell over all who were present.

The babies weren’t crying. They weren’t kicking or screaming. They weren’t opening their eyes. They weren’t even making giggly noises. And they also weren’t naked.

These children had been born with more than human DNA in them. That was clear to everyone. They all had physical animal or insect qualities and that left both the mothers and the midwives who were called for the births utterly speechless.

Because of the shock and confusion, but mostly the understanding that it was unbelievable and would make them sound crazy, the midwives agreed not to disclose the details of the freakish children. The tribe closed themselves off to keep the children safe. People lost interest in them over time and they were forgotten. The altered children continued to be reproduced by both the strange offspring and the normal people of the village, but this was kept secret for as long as humanly possible.

Eventually, cities started to get built which gave them less land to hide on. They had a choice to leave their land and hide out in forests or attempt to integrate into a new society. Their pride and resolve were too strong to tear them away from the soil that provided them so much, so naturally they stayed when the city was built.

The people that moved onto their land were disgusted by them. They were scared, confused and violent. The heirs of the tribe were hunted to near extinction and forced into hiding off the land they loved so much.

This happened over those few thousand years. We only decided to show ourselves again in the last decade or so, but by bringing ourselves out slowly. We’re still met with retaliation. People still hunt us down despite the fact that we’ve been hiding from getting exterminated for well over 200 years. It only makes sense that we would hate the humans, but… I can’t hate a species I know nothing about, even if they’ve done horrible things to my ancestors. To me, that means I’m as bad as them.

Besides, they can’t all be bad people and they have a right to fear something new and strange. They have to protect themselves and it would be naive to just assume we weren’t dangerous. They may go to extreme lengths, but I can’t blame them or hate them because I understand.

That kind of thinking may make me an outcast where I come from, but I don’t care really. It’s worth it to feel like a good person. I’d rather be a target than just another pawn with no thought of my own.