This is a story that Annie Fan wrote. She too was in the Rochester Scholars program, she took the Authors of Tomorrow program. This is only a chapter from her story.
The sun was a fiery ball, sinking slowly into the horizon. Or, in my case, slowly vanishing into the land behind my patch of familiar tree. The soft orange light filtered through the broad leaves, heading straight to strike several large broad granite boulders. Off in the distance, mountains loomed over the land. They were impressive works of nature, sides worn smooth through countless years of erosion, the tops brushed with pure white snow
Me? I sat on the largest granite boulder, the one I had designated to be "mine" when I was little, soaking in the sun and feasting my eyes on the scenary. Even though I had lived in this place all my life, I would never become tired of the land. I waved a hand at a herd of deer on the oppisite bank of the pond, laughing as they regarded me with sweet, brown eyes.
All of the other demons prefered to stay in the village. They insisted that it was dangerous, giving excuses like "the Hunters will come and take you away!" I didn't believe that. First off, the Hunters were human. Second off, if they saw one of us, they would probably run off in fright. I was a fox-demon. I had the build of a human, but I had fox ears and a fox tail. And the most amazing part of my demon heritage? I could morph into a fox anytime I wanted.
So, the bottom line of what I was saying is that if a human chances upon the land here, I could change into a fox and escape. Humans were crazy about wildlife conservation and spotting wild animals. Took them long enough, after destroying all those all those forests and polluting all those oceans.
I shivered as I thought. Why couldn't those humans leave us alone? We never did anything bad to them. Once, human scientists came a took a cat-demon kitten away from its mother. The older demons had followed the humans and got her back,without killing a single human. They did destroy some of the tracking devices, though. But not a single drop of blood was lost.
And what did those humans do in return? They destroyed the entire village, killed fourth of our number, and captured another fourth. We were forced to relocate after that incident. The elders vowed never to interact with humans ever again; to prevent more losses to our already dwindling numbers.
I sighed. Life was good before the humans came. Why did they have to show up and ruin everything? It just wasn't fair. We demons were nice, too. If my mother had a human child she'd still raise them with as much love as if it was a demon kit.
I pulled one knee up to my chest and draped my arms over them, a thoughtful expression on my face.
* * *
"Professor Worthington, we've been liying here for the past three hours watching that, that," I stop, racking my brain for a word. "That demon!" I finally say. "Can we please go back to camp?"
The professor shakes his head stubbornly. "Sorry, Collin. Don't you want to learn about the lives and activities of animal-morphes?" That was the name he had given them, because they were casically human except for a tail and ears of the animal they could apparently morph into.
"No, Professor. I really don't"
I can't believe it. I, Collin Prestin, 15 years of age, am stuck out here in the middle of nowhere spying on some half human, half animal creature. I could actually think of lots of things I could be doing instead of lying on the ground. My family had recently gotten a puppy and my sister was probably spoiling him silly. It wasn't fair! Why couldn't Mom and Dad have signed Crystal up for this whacky expedition, and let me stay home?
"What is that idiot doing?!" Professor Worthington hissed. I looked to where he is glancing. The tall figure of another scientist was stalking through the grass. In one of his hands he held a radio transmitter, the antena up and flashing. In his other hand he held a collar. "He's stalking the animal-morph!"
By now I had reached the same conclusion. He must have been working for a different team, because our team was just recording the numbers of the demons. I was going to call them demons.
The stalker sprinted forward, waving his arms and yelling. The demon on the rock leaped up, alarmed. She was covered with a coat of shining gold light fot an instant. As the light faded, she had turned into a small fox. A small, angry fox.
I watched as the man pounced on the fox, wresting with it. He was easily five times her size, but she was putting up a pretty good fight. The fox hissed and clawed at his face, scoring deep scratches on his cheek. Finally, somehow, the man managed to jam the collar around her throat. Once that feat was accomplished, he dashed away.
As soon as he was gone Professor Worthington and I ran over to the spot where the scuttle had taken place. I expected to find the demon running off, but she was still in fox form, trying to take the collar off.
"Here, let me help," Isay as I kneel down. She shoots me a murderous glare but stays still. There is a clicking sound and I remove the collar, handing it to the Professor.
She lces back her ears and twitches her tail moodily, giving the soft fur on her chest a quick lick. There is a flash of light and I turn my head away. When I look back, she's in her semi-human form.
"I guess I should say thanks," she grumbled. Her tail lashed from side to side as her arms crossed in front of her chest. She wore a white tee-shirt, the sleeves just covering her shoulders. Her arms were bare except for the sleeveless gloves she wore on her hands. They were red-brown in color, same as her miniskirt. Her dark auborn colored hair fell to her lower back and she had white anklewarmers on her shins, slightly covering her shoes. Had she been human she might of been really into fashion.
Professor Worthington had whipped out a notebook and was busy scribbling notes. Curious, I read over his shoulder. So sis the demon.
"I'm a fox-demon. Not an animal-morph," she said finally.
That is the end of chapter 1, if you like this stay tune for more! And if you have any questions feel free to email Annie or me.
Annie's email-ice4dragon@yahoo.com
Peggy(me)-maggie_jellybean@yahoo.com