The man had walked around all day. He had wandered all over the city. Always looking for that which he could not find. The man wandered through the crowded street and stalked dark tunnels and alleys. He scanned vast areas. Nothing. He could not find what he had been sent to find. He was growing impatient and decided to leave the city. He wandered into the countryside and soon found the perfect area to do what he meant to.
He was a tall young man with black hair and pale green eyes. He did not look a day over twenty. Nothing out of the ordinary. Except everything about him was an illusion. When people looked at him, they saw a young man. That was the illusion itself. This was not a man but something masquerading as a human being.
The man entered the clearing. He looked about, all senses alert to his surroundings as he made sure that he was alone. Once he was sure, he crouched on the ground and tried to focus on the change. He pictured himself returning to his true form. The form he wore was not his own. It was a very clever disguise. The man's body began to change. Hair grew all over it. The body became covered with thick fur. He became more muscular. His eyes turned yellow. His teeth elongated and sharpened. He grew larger and decidedly stronger and more feral in appearance. Where once stood a young man now a strange beast remained. A seven-foot tall humanoid creature covered with fur and armed with long fangs and thick, sharp claws. Something out of the realm of nightmares.
The creature had a name. A name that humanity could not pronounce. This creature's kind had been around long before humanity dominated the world. Creatures like these once ruled the planet Earth without rivals. They were around in the times of the great cold. They were around at a time when humans hadn't evolved yet. Always they were there. These strange creatures were not savage beasts. They were sentient beings of great power. Underneath their bestial appearance, they were beings of great intelligence and knowledge. The knowledge they had was acquired through a life spanning thousands of years. These beings were very long-lived. They had to adapt to changes in the world when humanity became the dominant lifeform on the planet Earth.
This creature was called Khiros. In the language of his people, it meant bravery. Khiros lived in a valley with many of his people somewhere in the land of Scandinavia. They used their shapeshifting abilities to make themselves look human and thus blend into the human world. These creatures were known as the Macrokran but preferred to be called The Wild People, as they collectively called themselves. They did not want open confrontation with humanity. They wanted to live in peace. Khiros was young by his people's standards. He was only three hundred years old. Barely more than a child. He lived in the Bikouros Clan, which was ruled by his father Khaphor and his mother Gatrah. The Bikouros Clan had two hundred members. They were one of the largest and most powerful clans in the world.
Khiros was far away from home. He had been sent on the trail of his sister Gerya. She was a young one, only one century old. She had left the Clan with her lover, a crafty young male named Thoshura. Thoshura was the leader of a small band of rebels. These rebels were members of Khiros's own species who did not want to live the way of the Clan. Khiros had been sent to find them and bring them back home. The rebels were collectively known as the Ishod. Khiros had orders to bring them back. By force if necessary. He had been sent on a mission by his father and could not fail. If he did, a harsh punishment would befall him. His father had been alive for three thousand years and ruled the Clan for half of that. He was known to be a stern ruler.
Khiros had tracked the Ishod from Scandinavia to this small city in Russia. He had traveled a long way. A very long way. He was beginning to tire of this mission. Seriously. He did not want to be out there chasing his cursed little sister or her lover. He would rather be at home, romancing the beautiful female who had caught his attention. What was her name? Laskhira. She was a tall and slender female. The daughter of one of his father's war chiefs. She was a skilled warrior. Khiros was a poet and a chronicler of his People's lives. He was not a warrior. His father had many sons and daughters but somehow ended up picking him to go chasing around after the rebels. Just his luck.
Khiros needed to find a place to spend the night. He took to the trees, leaping thirty feet off the ground in one bound. He landed on a tall, ragged tree. He began to leap from tree to tree with amazing agility. His kind were more agile than the apes. Khiros was hungry. He would need to find something to eat. There were none of his favorite fruits or vegetables around. Although his kind were equipped with fangs, they were for stripping bark off trees. None of the Macrokran ate meat. They were vegetarians. Their diet consisted of fruits, vegetables and roots. Occasionally, they ate insects but that was it.
Khiros did not like to be in the wilderness of Russia. Khiros had studied many languages during his short life and had always dislike the language of this region. Also, his kind rarely ventured outside Scandinavia or the heart of Europe. Sure, they were spread all over the Globe but they preferred colder regions. Khiros's father told him of how he traveled as far as Africa in his day. Khiros was not envious. There was a time when some menace from Africa threatened the great Clans so much that they were forced to unite into army and wage war against it.
