Joker:
The day the prison flooded, I told God if He wanted me, He could come and take my Mexican ass Himself. I died as defiantly as a man can die. When I opened my eyes again, I thought I'd somehow survived until I saw the pearly gates shining like a bad joke.
A divine being drifted toward me, and the first thought in my head was, I had better punch this fucker. I figured I was headed to Hell anyway, so I might as well get one last good swing in. I think it read my mind, because it did not even bother walking. My vision just snapped to black, like someone hit a switch.
I thought, well, that is it, straight to Hell.
So I went headfirst into the light, ready for whatever came next.
And then I was lying in a one‑room hut, tiny lungs, tiny hands a baby again. And by the feel of my body, the shape of my limbs, the strange weight of myself… I was not human anymore
Apparently, all raccoonfolk are born blind and hairless. Thanks, God, for the great gifts you gave me. I really needed to work on not being so sarcastic in my own head and start counting my blessings because at least I was alive.
I was born into a litter, and my mother was a seasoned pro at giving birth. I came out fourth, the only boy among the bunch. My parents named me Jevon Soren the moment I arrived. My mother, Penny Soren, and my father, Tobias Soren, were both raccoonfolk through and through, striped fur, pointed ears, ringed tails, the whole package. Of course, I didn't know this till my eyes opened. My sisters Ruby, Serria, and Jenny made up the rest of the litter. Even among raccoonfolk, four was considered big. And since I was born last and smallest, that made me the runt.
We lived in the Beastwilds, a vast ancient forest stretching west of the Snowy Mountain Range. Our village, Beastpass, was a small settlement of other beastfolk tucked deep in the jungle. The huts weren't built on the ground; nothing sane lived on the ground here. Instead, our homes were carved into the colossal jungle trees, giants the size of skyscrapers.
The canopy was so thick that sunlight barely reached the forest floor. Down below, it was all shadows, steam, and the constant hum of insects. The heat and humidity could choke a grown warrior, and that was on a good day.
They said a squirrel could leap into a tree at the edge of the empire and never touch the ground until it reached the tundra at the base of the Snowy Mountains. I believed it. I'd been to the redwoods in California, once rode a Harley through them, and the trees here made those look like saplings. The Beastwilds had only two seasons: hot like the devil's ass, and monsoon, when the whole forest flooded and the world turned into a swamp. That is why every hut was built high in the trees. If you lived on the ground, you did not live long.
By about three weeks old, my eyes finally opened, and by six weeks, I was already wobbling around on my own feet. Raccoonfolk grow fast ridiculously fast compared to humans. By the time I was a year old, my fur had fully come in, and that is when I noticed something strange. My stripes were not random like my siblings'. They followed the same patterns as the tattoos I had had in my old life. Nobody else noticed; to them, it was just a "unique pattern." But I knew better.
We stop growing at around five years old, and by ten, we're considered full‑grown adults. Our lifespan is about the same as a human's, but everything before adulthood is on fast‑forward. I always figured it was an adaptation to the Beastwilds when the world wants to kill you young, you grow up quick.
This was my mother's third litter, which meant I had five older siblings on top of my three littermates. Nine of us in total. One big, loud, chaotic family, basically a Mexican household with fur and tails. My parents were traders, and every one of my older siblings helped with the business. They were already grown by raccoonfolk standards when we were born, so my sisters and I were the surprise litter. Apparently, that's pretty typical in most households here.
The village we lived in was a mixed‑race place. Cat beastmen, dog beastmen, wolf beastmen. Though you never wanted to say they all looked the same unless you were trying to start a fight. Some folks looked mostly human with just ears and a tail, while others looked like me: short, full‑furred, unmistakably raccoonfolk.
I am pretty sure God sent me here because I pissed off the angel I met when I died. Joke's on him. I loved it here.
My parents were kind, patient people who slipped little lessons into our day without making it feel like teaching. My sisters teased me constantly and tried to beat me up on a daily basis, but even then, I could feel the love behind it. Funny how they always managed to get me in trouble for things they did.
We climbed the ancient trees, played hide‑and‑seek in the roots big enough to swallow a house, and chased cat beastmen kids through the underbrush until we were all panting and laughing. Before I knew it, I was three years old, and we already had a bit of a reputation in town. My sisters beat up every little boy who annoyed them, and if any of those boys laid a finger on my sisters, I beat them up. Fair was fair.
We did not really celebrate birthdays in the Beastwilds. Time was measured in monsoon seasons, not candles. I just counted how many floods I'd lived through. We were born right after one ended, when the forest was still dripping and steaming and alive.
I picked up the common beast tongue quickly, but the raccoonfolk language is my first language. It was basically the same language, just twisted with what I could only describe as a Cajun accent: lazy vowels, clipped consonants, and a rhythm that made everything sound like a half‑sung threat. I also learned bits of the human language from traders and travelers passing through.
Our village traded forest fruit for currency, food, tools, and whatever household goods we could not make ourselves. We dried the fruit or turned it into jams so it could survive the long trip back over the mountains. The better‑organized trading companies even sent flying wyverns to pick up fresh fruit and deliver it straight to the cities.
It did not matter much which country the traders came from. The Beast Country was not a real nation, just an informal sprawl of villages, tribes, and wandering merchants. Look around Beastpass, and you would see half the beast races represented. Even the wolf tribe had multiple packs living side by side. During the warm season, when the market opened, the village turned into a crossroads of the world. Traders, hunters, scholars, and mercenaries. Races from every corner of the continent drifted in with their goods and their stories. For a place that did not exist on any official map, the Beastwilds saw more diversity than most empires
The only reason the Beastwilds had not been conquered was geography. The Snowy Mountains to the east, a murderous forest to the west. Between the two, no army wanted to bother. And honestly, I doubted our fruit farms meant anything to the human kingdoms or empires anyway. The forest was a dangerous place. Beastfolk died all the time, eaten, poisoned, falling from trees, or snatched by slavers. Out here, survival was not a right. It was a daily negotiation.
That day started like any other. I finished my morning workout,5 something my friend Soldier had drilled into my head in my old life. Ruby poked her head into the hut and said, "Brother, I want to play hide‑and‑seek." I smiled and told her, "One more set of push‑ups, big sister, then we can play.
I heard the commotion starting in the village square. The villager where slow to rouse into auction and as they gathered to see what all the commotion was about, more people gathered; the mood shifted. Something was wrong. Below him stood a group of armed human slavers, an organized force, not a handful of bandits. Panic broke instantly. Those who tried to run were caught. Those who tried to fight were cut down without hesitation and then thrown into a big pile of bodies in the middle of the town square. That was slowly getting larger. The rest of the villagers were herded together under threats and blows.
I heard crying, shouting, desperate pleas. Some villagers were dragged away; others were shoved into groups to be sold. Anyone the slavers considered a threat was struck down and thrown into a growing pile of death in the center of the square. Their cruelty was cold, efficient, and without remorse
My parents tried to hide my littermates and me in the roots of one of the great jungle trees. I could hear the slavers tearing through our home above us, boots, shouts, the crash of overturned baskets. Then came the struggle. My mother and father fought back, trying to buy us even a few more seconds, but it was all in vain. By the time the noise stopped, they had been thrown into the growing pile in the village square.
We were dragged out from the roots and chained together. My littermates cried and clung to me, but the slavers did not care. The first thing they did was separate me from my sisters. I was a boy, which meant I was headed for a different market. It was the first time in my short life I'd ever been away from them.
I begged to stay with my sisters. I cried until my throat hurt. One of the men kicked me aside without a word and shoved me into one of the cages they used to transport captives. The metal was cold, the bars too close together, and the world suddenly felt much bigger than I was.
The caravan I was in started up the mountain toward the human kingdom. My sisters were taken in the opposite direction, deeper into the forest. I watched them disappear between the trees until I could not see them anymore. The last thing I saw of my village was the smoke rising behind us; the slavers had set the pile alight. It drifted upward through the canopy, dark and heavy, until even that faded from sight
I faded in and out of consciousness for the next few days. The slavers' cart was nothing more than a cage on wheels, rattling along as the massive trees of the beast wilds slowly gave way to the rolling hills near the tundra. We were not given a chance to relieve ourselves, so the smell inside the cage was enough to make anyone heave. As the snow-capped mountains grew more visible, the grim reminder of the journey ahead was. The slavers wore thick furs and didn't seem bothered by the cold wind pouring down from the peaks. The rest of us shivered and huddled together, trying to conserve what little warmth we had. The ascent up the mountains was a brutal rentless ordeal. Each passing mile made the chill even harsher. The slavers relished in your pain and misery. Any little complaint or any sign of weakness was met with a smack with their clubs or a snap from their whips. Food became scarce, little more than scraps tossed into the cage for us boys to fight over. They gave us just enough to keep us alive. Dead Boys did not sell well. It was late fall when we began the climb, which was a terrible time to cross the mountains. I figured the slavers were desperate to get out of the forest before a posse from the nearby villages came after them. There were about twenty of us mixed beastfolk boys all headed toward the human kingdom to be sold at some unknown auction. As we climbed higher, I found myself grateful for my fur for the first time in my life. The wind up there cut straight through skin. They didn't call them the Snowy Mountains for nothing.
All I could think about was killing those black‑hearted slavers—the men who murdered my good‑hearted parents and tore me away from my sister. Part of me kept slipping back into old habits, imagining what Joker would have done. In my past life, he would've set the whole caravan on fire and watched it burn, listening to the crackle of flames and the screams of the men he hated. The truth was a cold, hard lump in your stomach. I wasn't Joker anymore. I was not a grown man with tattoos and a reputation. I was a small, weak raccoonfolk boy, three years old, shivering in a cage, barely able to keep my eyes open.
The days in the mountains grew colder, and the slavers only grew meaner. One night, they were drinking whiskey, hooch, whatever it was, and their tempers were even worse than usual. They called over one of the boys, a dog‑beastman with floppy ears who couldn't have been older than ten, and told him to serve as their cup boy. I did not even know his name. When he spilled a little bit of the drink. One of slaver dragged him by his collar into their tent as I heard muffled shouts and sickening thuds of impacts. The sounds became more violent as the cries of the boy became more desperate. It suddenly became quiet, and all you could hear is embers of the fire burning. The next morning, they brought the boys lifless body out of the tent; there was nothing left behind his eyes. They unceremoniously dumped his body on this cold, desolate mountain. Cruelty was not new to me. I'd seen it every day in the Texas prisons of my old life. But this was the first time I had seen it in this world, and it hit differently. Here, I was a child. Here, I had no strength, no voice, no way to fight back.
When I slept, all I could dream about was flames. At least I was warm in my dreams, because the chill of the mountains never let up. You woke up cold, you ate the cold scraps they gave you, and fell asleep cold. In the dream, the flames wrapped around me like a blanket. I could imagine the mighty fire warming my soul, and for a bit, I could feel it. I knew it wasn't real, but for a moment I felt better. In those dreams, the slavers burned. It was the only place where I had any power at all. The days passed on this cold, miserable mountain path. Each night, they had one of the boys be a cup boy for them. They didn't kill any more of us. Dead merchandise didn't earn coin, but they still beat whoever they chose for the smallest mistake. It was only a matter of time before my turn came.
When they finally called for me, I knew exactly what they wanted. I also knew exactly what I wanted to say. So I told the slaver to go fuck off. He did not take it well. He yanked my chain and dragged me off the cart. I tried to fight back, but I was trapped in a three‑year‑old body going up against grown men. Somewhere in the middle of getting tossed around, I had a strange moment of clarity: I've died once already. I am not afraid to die again. Then another thought hit me, just as ridiculous as it was honest: I kind of wish I'd gotten to live a little more. Maybe even gotten laid. It's been a long time since I have been with a woman.
That moment of reflection ended quickly, because I was, in fact, getting my ass kicked. The rage kept building, hotter and hotter, until all I could think about was fire flames swallowing the slavers, flames ending all of this. Then something snapped.
The lead slaver who was beating me suddenly burst into flame. At the same time, heat surged through my own skin, like my body had turned inside‑out and ignited. I stood up, burning with a fury I couldn't control. My emotions poured out of me in a wave of orange fire that swept across the camp. I heard one of the slavers shout, "He's a magic‑user run!" But it was too late. The fire was already everywhere. Whatever I unleashed must have drained everything I had, because the world tilted, the flames dimmed, and I collapsed.
When I finally woke up, there was nothing left of the slavers but ash. The fire had burned everything, armor, tents, and even the smell of them. All that remained was a bit of food and a fifth of liquor someone must've dropped in the chaos.
The other boys had managed to break their chains and free the rest of us. They even found some clothes for me, three sizes too big, but better than nothing. They did their best to keep me warm, wrapping me in whatever scraps they could find. For a bunch of scared kids, they showed more kindness than any adult had in days.
None of us knew where to go. We were just a group of beastfolk children on a frozen mountainside with no adults, no plan, and no idea what waited ahead. We made the only choice that made sense: we headed downhill. The forest below looked closer and safer than climbing back up the way we'd come. We did not talk much. We just walked, shivering, stumbling, trying to stay together. The mountain wind howled behind us, pushing us forward like it wanted us gone
One by one, as we made our way down the mountain, the kids started to die from the cold. It happened quietly, someone would stop walking, sit down "just for a minute," and never get back up. I did not understand why I wasn't freezing like they were, not at first. But now that I knew the fire lived inside me, it made sense. My internal flame kept me warm, kept my blood moving, kept me alive. The cold barely touched me, and that made the descent a little less brutal.
The little bit of liquor we had left, we used sparingly. A sip here, a sip there—just enough to thin our blood and trick our bodies into feeling warmer. It was not much, but it kept a few of us going a little longer.
By the time we reached the base of the mountains, only three of us were left: a wolf‑beastman named Trevor and a small tiger‑beastman called Blake. They were older than me, twelve or so. We didn't talk much. We did not have the energy.
At the foot of the mountains, the world changed. The forest we entered was not the Beast Glade. It was something else entirely. It was daytime when we reached the treeline, but the canopy was so thick that almost no light reached the ground. Everything was dim, shadowed, and heavy with mist.
There was a smell in the air, old, stale, like something had died a long time ago, and the forest had simply grown over it. In most forests, you can hear life everywhere: insects buzzing, birds calling, branches creaking. Here, there was nothing. Just an eerie, suffocating quiet.
Strangely enough, it felt like a relief. After days of freezing wind and the constant threat of slavers, the stillness was almost comforting. The air was warmer, the ground softer, and for the first time since the attack, we weren't shivering.
We boys were just happy to feel warmth again, even if the forest around us felt wrong in ways we couldn't name.
We set up a makeshift camp for a well‑deserved rest. I remember scraping together a sleeping pallet out of moss and leaves, proud of myself for finding anything soft in that eerie forest. We were dumb kids; we did not even think to set a watch. Warmth made us careless.
I woke to Trevor's scream. He was already on the ground when a shadow wolf clamped onto him before he even had a chance to defend himself. Blood soaked his fur as he struggled to breathe. Blake was on his feet in an instant, slashing at the nearest wolf with everything he had.
Instinct took over. I threw a fireball at the next shadow wolf lunging toward us. The burst of light and heat startled the pack, but not enough to stop them. I wasn't about to stick around and become wolf chow, so I ran, hurling fire at anything that got too close. It didn't kill them, but it scared them back long enough for me to keep moving.
My mana drained fast. Each step felt heavier, each breath colder. The fog thickened around me until I could barely see my own hands. Then, through the mist, an older wolf stepped forward, larger, darker, its eyes fixed on me. The pack leader. I raised my hand, gathering what little strength I had left for one final attack. And then the world tilted, the fog swallowed everything, and I passed out.