A Tale of Humans and Thyroi

A World of Humans and Thyroi

"BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP!"
"Ughhhh!" I groaned as I rose and stretched my arms as high as I could.
"BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP!"
"Be quiet I'm up I'm up," I reached down and pushed the button on my alarm ending the awful assault on my ears. After I finally woke up, I took a look at the alarm clock "6:00, good I have plenty of time to get ready." I hopped out of bed and left my room heading towards the bathroom. I could hear Uncle Scott downstairs listening to the news while he made breakfast.
"In other news, Today marks the 10-year anniversary of the passage of the Thyroi Civil Rights Act." "Many Thyroi seem pleased with how things have changed over the last 10 years, however there is a large group of Thyroi protesting outside of the UN Headquarters today." "They claim nothing has really changed; the law might see them as equal but humanity still doesn't" "Officials have yet to respond to this group's allegations, we will continue to keep you updated as this event unfolds."
I turn on the shower water, and hold my hand under it as I adjust the temperature to fairly warm but not scalding hot. I get in and as I wash myself, I begin to think about the news broadcast. "What makes us so different from the Thyroi, well we do look pretty different." "A Thyrus is human in body shape but has the features of an animal, but they don't act like animals." "I just don't get it, why can't everyone just get along?" Once I finished my shower I got out and dried myself off.
I began brushing my teeth and continued the train of thought. "I wonder if we can ever get along, if we could then Darius would probably stop bullying me all the time." I left the bathroom and went back to my room and got dressed for the day. I chose a simple dark green polo and blue jeans and ran downstairs so I could eat breakfast.
"Well good morning Marcus." Uncle Scott was sitting at the table enjoying some scrambled eggs and bacon. There was a plate for me as well. I joined him at the table and began to devour my breakfast.
"Well you are certainly excited today, normally I have to get you out of bed myself," Uncle Scott eyed my curiously, "What's the special occasion?"
"Well today is the anniversary of the Civil Rights Act and Mr. Dean, my science teacher, said he had a special lesson planned to show how similar Humans and Thyroi really are." "I hope it will help me get along better with Darius."
Uncle Scott looked taken aback for a moment but then smiled "That's good son, I'm sure we can all get along better one day." "Just like your mother and father wanted."
Uncle Scott just looked past me for a moment and I was surprised "Uncle you never talk about mom and dad."
"I know, as you've grown up these past 10 years you just remind me more and more of them." "You never really got to meet them and yet you've turned out so much like them." He reaches across the table and puts his hand on my head messing up my hair. "Now you need to get going soon it's 7:00 and you don't want to be late for school."
"No, I don't want to be late today of all days!" I put my plate in the sink, grabbed my backpack, and bolted out of the door. I began my walk to school and I saw cars driving by and others walking places to. It was about a 30-minute walk to school and I became entranced. The birds were singing, fallen leaves were crunching under my feet, and I found that after raining smell. I was lost to my senses for some time
"P-P-Please officer I wasn't doing anything wrong."
"Of course, ya were you loitering beggar."
My trance was broken as I saw two people across the street. One was a burly human police officer and he was towering over a Rat Thyrus. The Thyrus had torn dirty clothes, looked really thin, and his fur was all matted.
"Please sir I'm just trying to get by, won't you spare anything?"
The officer spit on the thyrus, "Ha! Help vermin like you what a riot." "Now go crawl back into yer hole, nobody wants ya here." "Ya've got yer Civil Rights Act, what more do you want?" I watched and clenched my hands into fists, and before I knew it, I was right behind the officer. The Thyrus was stunned starting right at me and the officer turned around "Hey kid what do ya think you're doing?"
I just stammered "I...what...happe."
The Officer shook his head "Ya know yer going to be late for school if you stand here muttering all day."
I just continued my walk to school and noticed the Thyrus keep his eyes on me for a second before he scurried away from the officer. "How did I cross the street without even noticing?" This thought echoed in my head for a few minutes
"Clop! Clop! Clop!" I looked behind me and saw a familiar bull thyrus, it was Darius and he was running towards me. I my eyes darted wildly as I looked for a way to escape him, I considered crossing the street again, but there was a car coming and I knew I wouldn't make it.
"Clop! Clop! Clop!" He was much closer now and I realized I was close to a forested area, so I made a beeline for it and dove into some bushes. I had actually found a nice little alcove surrounded by trees and bushes and hoped he wouldn't find me.
"Clop! Clop! Clop!" The sound of his hooves was right by where I was "Ah ha there you are you little human!" His horns parted the bush as his head and body made their way into my hiding place. I feel backwards and was right up against a tree now "You know it's not nice to run away from friends."
I looked up at his imposing figure was in 5th grade same as me, but built more like a miniature tank, "F-F-Friends? I didn't know friends bullied one another all the time."
"Well it's because little Humans are weak." "You are just made to be bullied." He shook his head "Now you know what, so just hand over your math homework."
I gulped "B-B-But it wasn't that much this time and I really didn't get it either, my Uncle helped me with it." "Don't you have someone to help you."
Well of course I have help; You are my help little weakling, but you aren't being helpful right now." "Now hand it over or I'll just take it from you."
I was terrified, but I knew this wasn't right. Uncle Scott had told me over and over again that if I wanted him to stop, I needed to stand up for myself, but I had always been intimidated by him. However, after saying how proud of me he was today. I felt a surge of courage and stood up looking Darius in the eye. "No, you need to learn to do your own work."
Darius's eyes went wide in shock, but then he shook his head, flared his nostrils, and raised a fist at me. "So, you think you can stand up to me?!" "Guess I'll have to teach you a lesson today!" He balled his fist up and it flew towards my face. I stood there rigid, eyes glued shut waiting for some kind of impact, but it never came. I slowly opened my eyes and my mouth dropped.
In between me and Darius was what looked like some large dog. Darius was on the ground and was staring at the dog looking terrified and the dog was towering over Darius. growling and baring his teeth. "I didn't know you had a dog!" "You got lucky today Marcus!" Darius scrambled back to his feet and fled the alcove.
The dog turned towards me and after closer inspection I realized this was a gray wolf, and quite large one at that. I just continued to stare dumbstruck by this turn of events, then quickly became terrified about what would happen next, it was a large wolf after all. The wolf had this calm in its eyes and seemed almost happy. It then leaped into the woods before I could do anything and I was left dumbstruck again. I looked at the time on my phone "Oh crap 7:45, I'm going to be late!" I quickly ran out of the alcove and after nearly running into quite a few people and one really grumpy turtle thyrus I made it to school just in the nick on time.
I had the jitters all day waiting for science class, I was so excited for the special lesson in science class I don't really remember what happened in the classes before science class. I was nearly bouncing in my seat waiting for science class to start. Mr. Dean, brown horse Thyrus in a black button up top and brown dress pants, walked up front
"Alright it's time for class." We all slowly began to quiet down.
"Now, as we all probably are aware, today is the 10-year anniversary of the Thyroi Civil Rights Act." "Most of you have lived your entire lives under this act and might have heard about Thyroi used to be treated very poorly by some humans." "Some Thyroi say nothing has changed, however I'm not here to give a history lesson."
"What I'm here to teach you today is who similar we actually are, Thyroi and Humanity might think they are incredibly different, but when you look at our DNA, we are actually exactly the same." "Does anyone remember what DNA is?"
Myself and a few others raise their hands "Hmm Marcus remind the class what DNA is." Mr. Dead walks over to his computer and seems to be preparing something to show on the board.
"DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, is a material inside nearly all living organisms." "It carries genetic information."
"Exactly! Very good now DNA makes up the Chromosomes and each cell in a human body normally contains 23 pairs of them and they contain all of the genetic information that define the human." As he explains this, he turns his projector on and a picture of the 23 pairs appears on the board.
"Well we have actually mapped out the Human Genome some time ago, it was an international science project that maps out all of the genes inside of human DNA." Mr. Dead begins cycling through various pictures. "Much more recently we finished the Thyroi Genome project and it brought to light some astonishing discoveries." "One Thyroi and Humans have the same number of Chromosomes and we share the vast majority of genes with each other." Mr. Dead stops at a side by side comparison of the Chromosomes. "There are a few genes we don't share that help define specific animal characteristics but it's very minimal."
"The big take away here is that Humans and Thyroi are not as different as we think we are." "We are two of the most similar organisms on Planet Earth." "We even evolved alongside each other." "So, we shouldn't treat each other so differently, we are the most advanced organisms on this planet and so similar we should we working together towards a brighter future." "Not squabbling with each other over petty things."
Me and the rest of the class sit in stunned silence. This is probably the most excited we've ever seen Mr. Dean act so excited about something, he's usually very calm.
"Oh, guess I got carried away a bit." "Well I'm sure you have some questions so feel free to raise your hands."
Many people began to raise their hands, I was more of less floored, I had never seen Humans and Thyroi as all that different, that's what Uncle Scott always told me. I looked over at Darius on the other side of the classroom, he wasn't raising his hand either, he looked confused about something and he saw me looking at him and gave me an angry look. I quickly turned away and after that.
Mr. Dean was in the middle of answering a question when we all heard a muffled sound.
"Hmm what was that?" Mr. Dean wondered.
"Boom. Boom. Boom." It sounded like the sounds were getting closer."
Mr. Dean walked over to the intercom and pushed the button to call the office
"BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!" It sounded really close now, me and a few others were looking really worried and we kept asking what was going on. Then one final "BOOM!" erupted right beside me and everything went black as I felt myself flying before passing out.
When I woke up it felt like my entire body was on fire, and I was also bobbing up so I just felt worse and worse by the second. Then I realized someone was carrying me. Someone with furry arms and hands, I finally am able to look up and see it's Darius hauling me over his shoulder.
"Darius?" I weakly mumble.
"Huh?" He stops running and looks at me, "You awake Marcus?"
"Yeah I think so." "What's going on?"
Darius looks around quickly for something and I see we're still at the school, but it's in bad shape. Some of the walls are complete collapsed, rubble everywhere. Various school supplies are scattered about, and I saw some students and adults lying face down on the ground.
Darius sees a closet and quickly runs towards it while carrying me and closes it. He sets me down and I wince as I touch the ground.
"You good man?"
"Not really, everything hurts and feels like it's burning, but please tell me what happened!" "All I remember is a boom and flying before everything was just gone."
"Some really angry Thyroi are attacking the town, they blew up the wall by you and pointed guns at all of us. Mr. Dean tried to figure out what was going on but they..." Darius bit his lip and looked like he was going to be sick. "They shot him and everything was crazy." "The rest of the class was running around wildly; I saw an opportunity to run out of the room and I saw you along the way to the door so I just picked you up and booked it."
I was speechless. Everything just sort of feel apart for a moment as I just tried to understand what happened. My mind raced at a million miles per minute trying to understand and comprehend what I was just told.
"Hey! Hey! HEY!" Darius was snapping his fingers in my face "Are you okay man?"
I looked up at him tears in my eyes. "Why? why would they do that?"
Darius looks at me nervously "No man don't start crying we don't have time for that." "If they find us it's over, we need to think of where we can go."
I wipe my eyes of the tears. He's right if I don't pull myself together, we won't make it. I'm surprised Darius reacted as well as he did to the situation. I probably would've also just started running around wildly after they shot Mr. Dean. He so calm and he's helping me; I never would've imagined this would be how we talk to each other without any bullying happening.
"Well maybe we should go to my house." "Uncle Scott has a big basement that I know from experience is really hard to get into, he's probably using it to hide."
Darius sits there and considers the idea "Yeah that's not a bad idea." "I was thinking about going to my place, my dad has a bunch of weapons, but that's all the way on the other side of town and your house isn't too far from the school."
"Yeah it's only about 45 minutes when I walk, but I also walk pretty slowly."
"Speaking of walking are you going to be able to walk?"
I try to stand up on my own and I yelp in pain as my left leg tries to support my body. "I don't think so, I think my left leg might be broken, at the least it's not going to be able to carry me."
"Dang, oh well I'll just have to keep carrying you." Darius picks me up again and slings me over his shoulder.
Darius walks over to the door and uses his free hand to crack it open, looking around for anyone.
"Alright looks like the coast is clear." "Once I open this door, we're going to begin booking it." "You are going to need to tell me where to go once we get out of the school."
"Alright," right as he was about to open the door something occurred to me. "Wait once you leave the school immediately go for the woods to the left of the school." "I sometimes use those to walk home It's peaceful and I never see anybody else use it."
"Hey that's a pretty good idea; Alright the woods it is then."
I wanted to say something but he pushes the door open and began booking it towards the front of the school. We're moving as fast as possible when we hear "HEY! What are you kids doing!"
We turn around to see a Wolf Thyrus dressed in what looked like military gear carrying a rifle of some kind.
"Well, well, well what do I have here." "A little kid bull carrying around a human, and looks like you were trying to leave the school." I look up at the Wolf from Darius's shoulder. "So, the human's still alive?" "I thought maybe you had killed it and were talking it somewhere." "However, seems you are trying to help it."
"Why would you try and help a human?" "When have they ever tried to help us." "All they've ever done is oppress us and bring us down, now we're going to do the same to them." He begins inching towards us. "So why don't you hand it over to me so I can kill it, since you clearly don't want to." Darius takes a step back "Don't you move kid!" He points his rifle at us. "Take another step and I'll just kill you both." "I'm trying to help you kid don't make this harder for you."
I'm panicking I don't know what to do and Darius looks no better, he seems terrified too and I sort of slump over his shoulder in defeat. Then I see that a desk is behind Darius and I get an idea.
"Darius let him come over here and give me to him," I whisper. He turns and looks at me like I'm crazy. "Don't worry I've got an idea just trust me." He slowly nods and about a minute later the Wolf reaches us.
"Alright hand it over kid." Darius reluctantly begins to hand me over and the Wolf reaches to grab me. As this happens, I brandish the pen I had gotten off the desk behind Darius and thrust it into the Wolfs left eye. He falls to his knees and begins howling in pain.
"RUN DARIUS!" Darius doesn't think twice and bolts out the front door towards the woods. As we reach the woods, I see the Wolf with his hand over his eye see us and run towards us. "Darius there's a big tree right over there." I point towards a large cypress tree. "We can hide over there."
Darius runs towards the tree and I point to some of the bark "That part of the tree comes off and we can hide in the tree." Darius rips the bark off surprised by how easy it came off and sees what looks like a manmade hole in the tree bark. He hops into it. "Hey that bark fits back onto the tree put it there before that guy catches up. I could hear the Wolf's footsteps as he was getting closer Darius fumbled with the bark a bit before I told him how to place it back on and it seem like we did it just in time.
Some light normally came in through the bark door, but it was blocked out completely now. Me and Darius sit there holding our breath trying our best to be completely silent.
"Hey kids, WHERE THE FUCK DID YOU GO?!" "I'm only a little angry at you now." "I probably won't even shoot you little bull, but that human on the things I'm going to do with it!" He howls in anger.
"BEEP! Hey man where the hell are you?" From the staticky sound of the voice it probably came from a radio.
The Wolf responds "In the woods outside the school, some kids ran out here and I was trying to catch them."
"BEEP! Well they're just kids get your ass back here we have work to do!"
"BUT ONE OF THEM STABBED ME IN THE EYE WITH A PEN!" There is a moment of silence before laughter comes from the radio.
"BEEP! No way a bunch of kids got the better of you!"
"Shut up!" He sighs sounding defeated, "Whatever I'm heading back, be there in five."
We listen closely as he walks away and we can see the light come in again. After a few minutes Darius and I breath in finally and burst into laughter. After a minute of that we calm down and Darius says "Well your quick thinking saved us twice, nice move with that pen." "By the way how did you know about this tree?"
"Well because I made this little alcove." "It's my safe place where I can be alone and no one bothers me."
Darius looked at me in surprise "You made this?" "Well explains why I can't ever find you after school."
"Yeah took me about a week to carve this out, I wanted somewhere where you couldn't find me."
Darius looked almost ashamed for a second, "Well anyways we should keep moving." "Sounds like that guy is gone now."
"Right, go straight from the entrance of the hole and once we reach a big clearing, I'll tell you where to go from there."
"Gotcha" Darius took the bark door off and placed it back then began jogging.
We moved in silence for a few minutes then something Darius said earlier occurred to me and I had to ask him about it.
"Hey Darius, you said you lived on the other side of town, right?"
"Yeah what about it?"
"How do you manage to meet up with me almost every day on my walks to school?"
"Oh well, my dad drops me off about half an hour walk from the school and I walk the rest of the way." "He would be late for work if he took me all the way to school so it's the best he can do."
"Oh, okay I was just curious about that."
"Yeah, hey by the way." Darius pauses for a moment looking for the right words. "I wanted to say I'm sorry." "I shouldn't have been so awful to you all this time, you're pretty cool and definitely not a weakling."
I was surprised and didn't know what to say, but I didn't have much time to think about it either. We reached the clearing and there we saw something unexpected. Two Thyroi were standing in the middle of it, a Rhino and a Raven, dressed in the same gear as the Wolf. Darius quickly moved behind a tree.
"Hey are they going to be an issue?" Darius asked.
"No, I normally take a left from the center of the clearing we just need to move slowly without them seeing us and we can keep going."
"Alright I'll stay in the trees and try and stay out of sight."
We began creeping slowly through the trees and could actually here the two Thyroi having a conversation. The Raven took his radio away from his ear and said "The Town has managed to mount a good defensive against us." "Our men are having trouble breaking through to the police station, the local police have set up barricades and are keeping them out."
The Rhino holds his hand on his chin "How many men do you think we'd need to break through?"
"Well based on the report we'd probably have to gather almost all our men from elsewhere to handle the station." "I'm surprised they have this much firepower in such a small town."
The Rhino crossed his arms "How is the rest of the takeover proceeding?"
"Fairly well, we've taken over every other building in the city; Resistance was minimal elsewhere."
"And the status of our other goal?"
"Well our person of interest has vanished, and his research has vanished with him."
"Hmm is there any sign he's left the town?"
"No, our sentries posted at the borders and outside of the town haven't had anyone get by them."
"Then, it stands to reason that our target of interest in there doesn't it?" "But it would be difficult to take the station." "I suppose we're left with little choice but to destroy the target instead of capturing it."
"But Sir, weren't we ordered to capture the target?"
"Yes, however we were also told if capture was deemed impossible or too risky, then simply destroy it; I don't want to risk our entire force for one target." "Better it be destroyed then fall into the hands of the enemy."
"Of course, I assume Operation Richter is a go?"
"Yes, radio all the men to evacuate the city."
The Raven as the Rhino leans down and places his hands onto the ground.
We had nearly reached our goal when we heard this and stopped. "Darius, what is he talking about?"
"I don't know and really I don't want to stay and find out." Darius continued moving and was about to be in the clear to run.
As we began running the ground began to shake violently. Darius ended up tripping and we both fell to the ground. I screamed in agony as my left leg hit the ground and Darius kept trying to make his way towards me but the ground was shaking so violently, he kept being thrown further away from me.
Then the ground between us began to split open and create a huge crevasse. Darius finally managed to regain his balance and realized that there was an ever-growing hole between the two of us. "Marcus I'm going to be over there soon." Darius walked back and way able to maintain his balance somehow. Then he charges towards the crevasse and jumped into the air. I watched in horror as he realized he wasn't going to make it. The crevasse has continue expanding and now it was too far. I reached out towards him and just like earlier today I found myself somewhere I didn't expect.
I was holding onto Darius's arm trying to pull him up. "I've got your Darius just hold on!" I didn't know how I was doing this, all the pain I had been in had just vanished, but I couldn't focus on that I had to save Darius. He looked up at me in shock and just sputtered.
"Your eyes...Marcus what's going on?"
"Darius what are you talking about?" I struggled to try and pull him up. "Give me your other arm I'm not strong enough to pull you up like this."
Darius snapped out of whatever trance he was in and reach his other arm up and I reached mine down.
And we inched closer.
And closer.
And closer.
And as we were about to grab each other's hands I felt the pain coming back and whatever strength I had was going away. Our other hands had finally grabbed each other, but it was too late. My body was on fire and I just couldn't hold on anymore, my hands gave up and I just sat there paralyzed.
"MARCUS!"
"DARIUS!" Darius feel into the crevasse and soon I lost sight of him completely. I slumped over just began sobbing into my arms. I couldn't move anyways my body just refused to cooperate. Then a shadow loomed over me.
"What a touching sight," The Rhino from the clearing was standing over me with his arms crossed, "A Human crying over a Thyrus." "Humanity has always considered it self so strong, and here we have a Human to weak to save a friend." He leans down, grabs my face and pulls it closer to his. "Humanity has always tried to make the Thyroi think they are weak." "That we are below you." "But look at what's happen to your home." "This is the power of the Thyroi, and now we will stand at the top." "While Humanity will live at the bottom where it's always belonged."
I just continued to cry and he throws my head back into the ground. "You're pathetic."
The Raven from the clearing flies down, "Ah Sir there you are!" "The operation was a success." "We have scouts going through the wreckage, eliminating any uncooperative survivors." The Raven looks over at me. "Ah a survivor, shall we take it with it?"
"Yes, it's broken, and it has no way to resist." "Inform the men that the mission is over and we're heading home." "We've sent our message and soon the world will kneel before the Thyroi.
They both began to leave with me. I was alone, I had lost a friend I had just made. I just cried and cried until exhaustion took me over and I passed out. From that day forward My world of Humans and Thyroi was turned upside down by an organization we now know as the United Thyroi Coalition.