Decades before the present, a scientist failed an experiment, causing a strong radiation to release and mutate every human in the world into mutants of either cats, foxes, wolves or tigers.
People were mad and wanted the scientist to do something about it, but he was nowhere to be seen, so they continued living normally in their new identity which they called——Zoologians.
Decades into the present…
"A large army was camping back in 1458 when all of a sudden, they were attacked and were wiped out in a night's time. People believe it was an enemy army's ambush, but we mythologist knows the truth." a young adult fox named Royce explained with a smirk on his face.
"That they killed themselves?"
"You are half correct, but this is the first time you have a good guess, your brother is proud of you, Rinky." he said as he patted her on the head.
"Stop it bro, just tell me what it is, I wanna sleep." Rinky said as she pushed his hand away.
"C'mon, don't be like that. Be nicer to your brother, will ya?" Royce's wife——Jullia cheered Rinky up.
"Alright, I'll be direct. Although, it was said that no one survive, there is actually one surviver who wrote about is. He claimed that those deaths were caused by a dangerous being, she showed herself in a spirit looking body, infiltrating the army's shadows to control their body and make them kill themselves. She called herself Qinny." Royce said dramatically.
"Dark, can I sleep now?" Rinky yawned.
"Okay, and I'm gonna tell you another story tomorrow, so stay tuned!" Royce sighed and said.
Rinky got up from the floor and said as she was about to leave, "And also, you can stop telling me mythology stories every night, it's getting old."
"Wha-but you used to love to hear me tell you about mythology."
"I'm not a kid anymore, you can save these stories for your future children." Rinky complained, then she walked into her room.
Royce sat in silence, then he lowered his head and said, "She really has grew up, huh? I can't believe I couldn't see it and treated her like an elementary schooler."
Jullia sat closely to him and said, "Yep, she grew so fast, she used to pull you aggressively to this room because she wanted to hear more stories, and now she's already 3 days in her first year of high school."
"You still remember that, huh?"
"Of course, how could I forget?" she said as she rested her head on Royce's shoulder, "We all grow, and growth means maturity, so let's just give her some space for now, okay?"
"…yep."
"Okay then, let's sleep too, honey."
In Rinky's room, she lay flat on her bed and went to sleep. When she opened her eyes, she found herself lying at the beach.
"A beach? Not bad." she lied and watched the sea waves, when someone slowly approached her.
She noticed it and said, "Hey, you know how my brother keeps telling me mythology stories? He mentioned you today."
The person walked over, her long silky hair flowed with the wind as a dark aura emitted from her silhouette.
Rinky continued speaking, "He told me something about you murdering lots of soldiers and infiltrating their shadows. Is that true?"
Then, that person stood right next to Rinky, and she spoke, "Pretty much, yes. They deserved it anyways."
"You are weird, Qinny."
For as long as Rinky remembered, Qinny was always in her dreams. Qinny would try to scare her, but Rinky always had the upper hand because it was her dream. Slowly and naturally, Qinny gave up trying to fight and befriended Rinky, she just never admits it.
"Qinny, my brother mentioned that you attacked the army in the 15th century, which means you were born far before the Great Mutation happened, right?" Rinky asked.
"Yeah? So what?" Qinny said passively.
"I'm just curious, how old are you really?"
"I lost track of time in here, so I don't know." her sight remained at the sea.
"Well do you know when and maybe where you were born?"
Qinny stretched her body and sat down relaxingly, then she smirked, "Late Heian Era in Japan, 1135 if I remember correctly."
"Wow…"
"Quite ancient, aren't I?"
"You're old!"
"Ancient!"
The next day…
Rinky went to school like every other 16 year olds. In science class, students were taking notes. Rinky was writing when she saw a student struggling to see the words on the board.
Then she realised, that student was Craynt Marlver, infamous in school for his half-burnt face. People would purposely avoid him out of fear or pure mockery.
Rinky saw him trying to look at other students' notebook, but when the students saw him looking, they blocked the notes with their arms, a denial without words. Craynt sighed and tried to read the words on the board again.
Without second thought, Rinky placed her notebook on Craynt's table. In shock, he turned his head to her. Rinky smiled and gave him a thumbs up.
Seeing this, Craynt smiled awkwardly and turned back to write the notes with a faint smile on his face.
During lunch break, Rinky stretched her arms, then laid on the table. A group of girls walked over to Rinky's table and cheerfully asked, "Hey, you're Rinky, right?"
Rinky lazily lifted her head and replied, "Yep, that's me. What's up?"
"Well, it's the start of the semester, I thought maybe we could get to know our classmates better. So let's go to the cafeteria together! Um, my name is Catharina!"
"…sure." Rinky shrugged.
In the cafeteria, the group of students were bonding really well, the conversations were lively and playful, until Rinky started talking.
"I swear if I was the main character in that movie I would have BASHED that guy's head and DRIVE HIS FACE THROUGH THE CURB!!"
Rinky was saying things like this that were so out of pocket and loudly. Making weird faces as a gag and throwing her hands in the air. Everyone was more or less really uncomfortable and smiled awkwardly.
When the bell rang, they all went to class, Rinky went up to the group of girls and said gleefully, "Man was today fun, let's eat again someday!"
"Oh, um, actually…" Catharina said hesitatingly, "We'll be really busy for this semester so I don't think we can, sorry…"
Rinky tilted her head, "Really? Okay then, no problem. Go ahead and work on your things!" she said and went back to her seat, she heard whispers when she turned.
"She was really loud, don't you think?"
"Yeah, it's like she's not even a girl."
"I'm glad you got rid of her, Catharina."
Rinky looked at the floor, "I heard that…" she murmured to herself, then she thought, "Maybe I should just shut it."
Just then, Craynt appeared and handed Rinky her notebook, he slightly lifted his head while trying to avoid eye contact, "Um…thanks for the notes."
"Oh, yeah, you're welcome." Rinky took her notebook back and put it on her table.
She saw Craynt playing with his shaky fingers, seemingly hesitating to say something, so she sighed and said, "Do you have something you want to tell me?"
"Uh-! It's n-nothing…I'll just go back to my seat…" he walked away.
"Where are you going? You sit next to me."
"Oh-my bad…"
Seeing Craynt being really jumpy when talking to her, Rinky grew some interest for him, and before she knew it, she was staring at him until the teacher walked in.
After school…
Rinky walked home, through the convenience store, and a left turn to near the garden.
She had always taken the same route home, but this time, the garden felt different. The atmosphere felt eerie, and there were crows cawing nonstop on the trees, there was rarely any crow in that area.
But she ignored it and thought of it as her imagination. Not knowing that one of the crows was staring at her. Its eyes were showing spiralling red light.
Somewhere in an underground bar, a man's eyes shared the same red spiral.
"Target acquired."