The Last of the Shifters

They say a war started it all, that’s why there aren’t any Shifters left. We now live in walled off cities where we can’t go into the forest. It’s not safe, what’s left out there no longer has any consideration for life. It’s taught in schools now as “The Great Shifter Wars” or as Gran calls it, “The blank spot”; They refer to the creatures as monsters but I don’t understand why they are deemed monsters. When it was us humans who made them this way.   My grandmother, Evangeline, still tells me stories from when she was a girl and she met a Lycanthrope; she always describes his human form to be almost god like, she met him when he was the Alpha of the territory, that’s like common day governors I imagine.   From what history has taught us, sadistic human scientists decided to capture shifters of all breeds; Kitsune, Selkies, Lycanthropes, Puma shifter, Lion shifters, and any others that they didn’t write down. It's written that they would starve the shifters, do DNA testing to find the gene that allows them to be human and animal and to see what blind hunger would do, the few who were lucky enough to overpower their inner animal didn’t succumb to what they became when the animal took over from pure hunger.   The history books don’t exactly describe what they became but my grandmother lived through it and remembers. She says they turned into creatures that mimic the Native American lore of Wendigo. In the lore, humans who are trapped and succumb to cannibalism become wendigo, they become inhumanly strong so they can rip a person into pieces in a matter of seconds but they lose any and all human characteristics, their hair falls out, their fingers elongate and nails grown into claws and their teeth become jagged. I would imagine a shifter wendigo would be a million times more horrifying, considering not only is the human losing its humanity, the animal is becoming feral.    History class barely details the day they escaped, only that there were no human survivors. Once the wendigo shifters reached the territory, the Alphas were ready with a great shifter army, and they fought to the death to protect their territory and packs. Very few Wendigo shifters were hurt or killed, but the shifter tribes were torn apart. Now when a human who is born with the shifter gene, they are cast out to a small island with other shifters. The moon goddess, as grandma calls her, is trying to make up for her fallen children and bring our world back to what it should be.  Today is my 18th birthday which in shifter communities would be my coming of age, I would be bonding with my animal and finding my mate, but I am human and I have to find a partner the human way. My best friend, Ilea, and I used to day dream about what it must have been like to be a shifter. She set up a birthday party for me, I was not looking forward to it.   Standing in the closet, I riffled through my clothes, looking for something to wear when I heard a knock on the door. “come in” I hollered. My Gran walked in to my room, our wolf-dog Bear in tow. “Happy Birthday my darling. We need to talk when you get home from your party. I want you to go out and have fun with your friends.” She smiled at me reaching out for a hug, I wrapped my arms around her. “Thank you, Gran, part of me wished that my birthday would be a bit more this year, maybe she would come back. I miss her so much. It's been 14 years.” I sniffled slightly.   “I know my dear, get ready, get ready, your friends are going to be here soon to take you for your night on the town.” Gran smiled again, wiping the tears from my eyes.