The natural law of Malthus (or Malthusian constraints) says that when the population in an area is too high, something happens that lowers it.
That is what happened way back at the end of the twentieth century. The newly populated country of America tipped the balances too far, and the balances tipped back. Wars started springing out of nowhere and bigger more destructive weapons were created (this was the time of the Atom Bomb, a primitive but still deadly weapon). Then AIDS hit Africa and a strain of the virus Influenza ravaged multiple continents. Lots of people died, but peace was restored around the year 2015. But there were still too many humans on the earth. We still had not developed rational space travel, so the Malthusian law found a new way of manifesting itself.
In the year 2030 about 10% of he world's population was Homosexual. By year 2130, 90% of the world's human population was Homosexual. No one was having babies, so the population dropped drastically.
Suddenly, because there were less people to endorse the economy (buy stuff) the entire world plunged into a depression. The nations of the world reverted to the economy of the year 2006. Along with the economy went the life style. Soon the world looked as if it had gone back in time 124 years. Trees, breathable air, wood floors, brick houses, grass lawns, jeans, tee shirts with logos. All quite boorish. Everything was the same as 2006, except some minor things.
Computers were better, Healthcare was better, and everyone was middle-class. Oh, and the Hybrids. Starting about 2020 there were babies born that were half-animal. These "Hybrids" had children, and they were also half animal. Evolution had taking a flying leap out the window and was souring on new wings.
We start our literary journey on the desperate streets of New York. The city's population is an eighth of what it was in 2006, at least its permanent registered population was. The cities thousands of abandoned buildings were filled with squatters. According to the history books, the world was filled with a few very well off people, and that everyone had the same amount of money. But the truth was that there were a few very well off people, and lots of poor people that only their fellow poor knew about.
And so a sub culture developed. All the well off, ignorant people, lived in the country, and the cities were filled with the poor and dirty. So, on these streets, in the middle of New York, a story began.
Charlie:
I slunk out of the alley. The vic was still groaning as he bled out behind me. All I needed to do now was go back to the client's house and collect the other half of the cash. I pulled my coat around me. It blew around my shins as the wind whipped through my mane. My nose was freezing. I hated being covered in blood. My shirt was soaked, but it was the only thing between my chest and the blowing wind except my inadequate coat. I growled at myself. I should have brought an extra set of clothes. I always said the same thing after a job, but never took action on it beforehand. I shook my head as the wind blew a strand of my mane into my ear. It was cold enough, the thin membrane didn't need to be tickled too. I humpfed a blast of white steam in front of me. I was almost there.
I turned the last corner and jumped up the steps of the boarded up town house. I knocked three times and the door opened a crack.
"Did you finish the job." A husky disembodied voice enquired.
"Yah. I did it. Now, where's my money." I huffed at the lackey.
"Do you have proof?" I sighed and passed my proof through the slot in the door. The man on the other side gasped and retched.
"Okay, okay, I believe you. Here's your money, now go away." I threw the bloody body part in the snow and took the bundle of red bills.
"My pleasure." I turned and stalked off into the night.
I was almost home, if you can call a hole in the wall that was too hot in the summer and ball-freezingly cold in the winter with peeling walls and a little running rust that came out of the faucets occasionally, a home. I was waking through one of the worst parts of the city, where the scumbags lived. This was the area where you came to buy some easy flesh. I was craving flesh, but not the kind that was sold on this street. I was hungry. I wanted steak. I never fed off my victims. Some of my ilk thought that we Hybrids could feed off inferior creatures, like humans, like humans feed off cattle. I just fed off cattle.
I was also craving another kind of flesh. I had been celibate since I was called upon to kill my last boyfriend. That was not fun. I craved the flesh of a loved one. I didn't even care that much about the flesh any more. I just wanted someone to call my own and give my life to. I wanted someone who I could hold and comfort and be comforted by. It wasn't easy on the psyche to be an assassin. I longed for someone to caress and worry about. I needed someone to love.
As this thought crossed my mind I heard a strangled cry. My head snapped up. I halted in my tracks. I heard it again. Sounds of passion and fucking weren't out of place, but this was a sound of real fear. If there was something I knew, it was the sound of fear. I had heard it too many times for my liking from my vics before they died bleeding.
There it was again. I pinpointed it then. It was coming from the third floor of a dilapidated building a little way back. I sprinted to the door of said building and smashed through the rotten wood. I stormed up the stairs that were presented to me. I continued up the stairs, the sound growing louder. In between screams of pain there were whimpers of distress. It took me seconds to pinpoint the room once I was on the correct floor. I burst in and found the most horrifying scene of my life.
There was a boy in the middle of the room. He was tied to the ceiling, hanging by his wrists. His legs were tied to the floor far apart. He was bleeding. Most of his skin was in ribbons. He was completely naked, and his cock was bleeding too. His head was hanging as he slowly dripped onto the floor. I saw two floppy ears hanging over his face, and short brown hair. I noticed a tail drooped behind him, and a light fuzziness that covered what skin wasn't ripped apart. He was Hybrid, a dog by the looks of it.
He let out a low whine. That was when I noticed the other men in the room. Four men. Each had a different kind of whip. Most were decked out in all kinds of leather straps and crap. They were all looking at me, in shock. These men had done this to that innocent boy. I roared and my claws shot out as I pounced on the nearest offender.
I sank my teeth into his neck, then jerked my head away quickly ripping his thought out. I turned on the second and slashed him through the belly with my claws. The third came at me from behind with a whip. I snagged the end out of the air and used it to pull him to me. I quickly broke his neck and looked around for the last one. He was standing, dumbfounded, next to the boy. I walked up to him and grabbed his face. I squeezed and his head burst. I wiped my hand on my shirt and went to the boy.
"Child, are you alright?"
"NO!" He wheezed.
"Sorry, stupid question. Let me get you out of these." I gingerly freed him. He instantly crumpled on the floor, and screamed. He tried to hold as still as possible while not touching anything bleeding to the floor.
"Why are you here?" He grunted around his pain.
"Why? I don't know. Who knows why anything happens. How I came to be here is entirely more answerable. I was outside, walking back from, well, my job, when I heard your screams." I sat down beside the boy while he tried to master his body.
"Who are you?" He grunted. He was trying to find something to distract him from his pain.
"My name's Charlie. I live not far from here. Can I help you?" The boy was trying to stand. He couldn't manage the sheer strength to lift himself off the floor. With a cry of anguish, he fell. I caught him as gingerly as I could. He yelped and crumpled limp in my arms. He was unconscious. This was a blessing for him because I had to carry him. I picked him up, trying not to wake him. I ran down the stairs and back along the street to my apartment.
I burst through the doors and bounded up the stairs. I broke through my door, not bothering with the knob. I gingerly lay him on my couch (or so it was called) and got a cleenish towel. I doused it the clearest water I could find and went back to the boy. He was groaning and had shifted to a less painful position, on his side. I dabbed at some of the deeper wounds with the wet cloth. He winced and so did I. Luckily nothing seemed to still be bleeding. Most of the smaller cuts would be better by morning. Luckily, this was a Hybrid, so he would heal quickly. I got out my healing salve and smeared it all over his body. I had used it many a time when I had been injured on the job. It numbed the area it was applied to and helped the healing process, as well as protecting from germs.
The boy sighed as the cool gel began to numb his pain. He looked up at me then.
"Why are you helping me?" I smiled down at him and continued to apply the gel to his entire body.
"Are you looking for the big Why or the little why?" He closed his eyes.
"What's the difference?" He relaxed under my caring fingers.
"The big Why is the greater scheme. I could be helping you, or have found you, because it is a vital part of history, or a prophecy. The little why is the here and now. I am helping you at this moment because you need it."
"Those men that you killed need it now." He smiled.
"No. They are in need because they were needed to be in need. Helping you, a good soul as far as I can tell, is a just enough cause for killing four men that disserved to die." The boy snickered.
"Do you have any idea how self-righteous you sound?"
"Oh yes. I have every idea. But it is not self-righteousness. I in no way insinuate that I am in any way less deserving of death than those men. I do not know enough of them to make that decision. I have killed countless times before, some justly, some not. I do indeed disserve to die, it just doesn't seem to be happening." I shrugged and smiled when the boy laughed again.
