Razz - The Beginning (Chapter One)

The day was chaotic, but at the same time a feeling of both calm and tension drifted about the hospital.  The smell of an all-too-sterile environment was easily forgotten over time, and the relative calm that had fallen over the Stevens’ room very soon faded away.  The Misses was caught in labor that had stalled itself for the better part of two hours, and yet readings said that mother and baby were fine—all readings, to be exact, except for the ultrasound.1

The baby had looked perfectly human in earlier months—two arms, two legs, one head—but there had been rapid changes in the child’s exterior anatomy.  The spine had become too long, the legs began bending to form those of any quadruped, not a biped, but that was all that they could see clearly.2

It would be another half hour before they knew that there was something seriously wrong—in their eyes—with this baby.  She had been born with a tail and feet that looked too much like a cat’s.  Her face was slightly pointed, again like a feline’s, and her ears were drastically elongated and pointed.  She baffled the doctors and enraged the Stevens.  They had been told that she was healthy; they had been told that she was normal; they had been told that she would have no mutations of any sort.3

Razz, they named her, for the way that she tormented them with her very existence.4

Tests had been run, and her DNA was neither human, nor feline, nor any combination of the two, but something entirely new.  They simply could not figure her out as much as they tried over the years.  What they were looking for, however, was not something that could even be used for her ‘condition’—a cure.5

For the most part though, they treated her like a human child; clothed her, bathed her (which they learned she especially hated), and fed her like a normal child.  But the doctors found themselves treating her simply as a valued experiment that the parents were simply in on—still she baffled them, and they soon gave up and sent both she and her parents home, saying that they must have had some kind of devil child.  They had no clue how close that guess was.6

Her parents—tired, enraged, frightened, confused—left the child to die in the only ‘wilderness’ they could get to on the island of Manhattan when they could find no cure for her so-called condition and could take no more of those confused, cat-like eyes staring up at them every day, pleading with them never to allow another needle near her, and longing for the loving arms of a true mother and father to come and wrap around her like every other child she had ever seen from her window.7

She had just begun speaking and even reading somewhat.  She was only four years old when she turned away from them and looked back only to find them gone, her desperate cries for them gone unheard.  She was too afraid to leave the park, and even more afraid to approach anyone, or allow them to approach her, for that matter.  The city beyond the park—what she could see of it, at least—frightened her to no extent.8

So many people who did not look like her wandered the park, so many that saw her and screamed, thinking her some monster, so many that wanted to harm her out of the same fear that caused her to flee to some less visited areas, curl up and cry.9

This went on for some time as she grew older, picking both food and what little clothing she could find from the trash, keeping well away from the world.  When she got too close to the park’s edge, she fled once more to its innermost shadows, hiding beneath the bridges and walkways, drinking the cleanest water she could find there.  When it rained unexpectedly, she hid, naturally, in her bed of worn fabric and old plastic shopping bags that drifted near enough.  She had learned early enough that not putting down plastic made for a wet and very unpleasant bed, and that newspaper was a simply perfect insulator.10

She also learned, possibly all too late, that wandering in the open at night was out of the question.  Night time was automatically out of bounds for many people in the city, but she never knew that.  She never knew that, nine times out of ten, she still shared the park when she thought that it was completely clear, with some extremely sick people.11

One such night she was utterly traumatized.  Though she did not know it, her thirteenth birthday had just recently passed, and the only so-called gift she got was a sick man—with a hate of all things different—who managed to completely overpower and eventually rape her, taking with him all the security she ever thought she had, as well as quite a bit of both her blood and his when she finally learned what her claws could actually be used for.12

She fled, sore and limping, to a new area of the park and created a new hideaway there.  For days she stayed there, hoping to recover from the incident.  She only ever recovered physically, and she never saw the man that had done her so much harm again.13

Another night, more than four years later, she had an encounter of a more pleasant sort.  A young man wandered about the park in broad daylight in quite a strange outfit for the times—a top hat and something that looked quite a bit like a cape that hid a neatly pressed black suit.  His eyes roamed every inch of the park, every person—man, woman, and child—every creature, everything.  He seemed to be taking it all in, thriving in it.14

He caught the flash of her eyes in the trees and quirked a brow before starting in her direction.  She inched away quickly, using a trick that she had recently learned to make herself look perfectly normal.  Her catlike appearance completely gave way for a completely human one who’s shaggy tan hair fell into her face.15

“Excuse me, miss,” he uttered while carefully removing his hat.  His voice was pleasant, most certainly curious, and kind.16

She looked up at him through a pair of dull green eyes.  She wrung her hands together nervously and inched away from him quietly, cautiously before stuttering “Y-yes?”17

He obviously meant no harm—his posture, his tone, everything about him screamed innocent, harmless—but she was still nervous.  He was a male, and he was quite a bit taller than she, and could quite easily overpower her if he liked…and yet he simply settled for frowning and stopping right where he was when she moved away.18

She watched him carefully, almost as if studying him when he stepped forward again.  Part of her wanted to run, but the other part of her was curious as to why he hard approached her in the first place.19

“My name is Brandon, miss,” he started again.20

“Razz,” she near whispered and he chuckled softly.  She simply stared at him then.21

“Well, what kind of name is that?” his voice held both amusement and concern.  Who on earth would name someone Razz?22

She simply shrugged and looked away slightly.23

When he stepped forward once more, she jumped and stumbled, but caught herself quickly.  He grew evermore curious about her—the way she moved away from him told him more than she knew, the way she moved, catlike, intrigued him, and everything about her—from her clothes to the dirt smudges on her skin and even her weight, or lack of—told him that she had no home.24

“You need a place to stay, don’t you?” he asked now, receiving the tiniest of nods from her.  “I can give you that for a small price.”25

She narrowed her eyes in distrust at the last note.26

“You must act!” he said in the phoniest, but most amusing voice she had ever heard.27

She did something that she could hardly remember doing in the past, and that was laughed.28

“I run a theatre a ways out, Razz, and I’ve been searching for people like you for quite some time now,” he smirked, his voice now back to normal.29

He now offered her a hand, and the glimmer of hope and amusement in his eyes was more than enough to draw her forward.  She took his hand hesitantly, her much smaller hand trembling in his.30

“But, before we do anything…we have to get you some new clothes,” he uttered while looking her over for a moment before nodding to himself; “Some new clothes and a bath.”31

She cringed at the word ‘bath,’ but nodded otherwise and followed him now.  For the first time in years she was finally leaving that park, as well as the state of New York.32