Chapter 2: ORIGINS 2

When he woke up, quite a large crowd had gathered all around him and shock and confusion was written all over their faces. Why was happened? Why were they all looking at him that way and why was he on the floor? He struggled to get up only to see yellow hairy skin with black dots on his hand and claws coming out of it. He screamed in terror of his own hand trying to understand what had happened to him. He heard a scream from a woman from afar and people speculated on what had happened to him. Most of them had seen him before as his normal self, so why did he look like a monster now? He took the help of a bold man but the same fate befell the man and he turned into the same thing. By now the people began to panic and run screaming,

meaning a little far from the scene saw and heard everything with her now enhanced senses of hearing and sight. Assuming her face wasn't covered, everyone could have seen how color drenched from her face. It didn't take long for it to hit home that she had started the spread of some kind of disease and it appeared the man that had helped her knew it. Lost in thought, she felt someone hold her wrist and drag her "It's you. I got it from you", he said. She wriggled her wrist to escape but it was no use, he was inhumanly strong. After a good deal of struggling, she was finally able to slip her hand free from his grip and pick race. The man chased after her and got hold of her veil, yanking it which made her slip and fall. Her face was revealed and he dragged her out to the center of the village claiming that she had brought it to the village. Her heart wanted to seize, she looked up and was shocked to see the many faces that had changed to look like a leopard and a human at the same time- a hupard. Dreading what was going to happen to her, she ran away from there just to have a group of stampeding people chase her, seeing a little hollow she all but threw herself inside it and her chasers ran over it not knowing where she went. Tears filled her eyes, no wonder her parents locked her up.

The next day came quickly and Ovashi got up from the hollow she had slept inside. Her stomach growled as if a battle was being fought in there. She got out hoping and praying that no one would recognize her. As she came out she almost lost her balance on what she saw. There was a stream of hupard faces everywhere, her disease had spread faster than she thought but the people she saw were not in agony as she had imagined. They were rather... enjoying themselves? She shook her head thinking she was daydreaming but her sight still remained the same. She saw a male hupard carrying heavy goods that an average human couldn't have possibly carried without breaking the back. When she looked the other side she saw kids playing with their tails and laughing. She even saw a lady on the mirror testing the strength of her new fangs. As she walked on the streets, she heard someone say "Look, it's the lady who started everything".

Her heart thumped hard on hearing that statement, she expected people to run with her with pitch forks or torches but they did nothing of the sort they rather smiled at her which totally confused her.

"You're not going to harm me?", she asked in surprise.

" Harm? Why would we do that?"

" Because you guys have changed into some kind of monster", she said. They laughed it off and explained to her that they liked it that way. Their strength, speed, agility and senses had increased by far and they didn't necessarily look like monsters. Some even went as far as thanking her for the transformation and asking her how she came about it. These were the same people that were chasing her the previous day like they were going to kill her and here they were congratulating her. She wanted to knack her head on the wall to let it all sink in. People treated her well and even gifted her things so she lived a somewhat comfortable life. She started developing magical abilities and was the only person capable of wielding it. The spread of hupardity stopped as well.

News soon spread of the new race called hupards and it reached the emperor. He heard about the abilities of these creatures and he wanted to see for himself. At his order, a hupard was brought to his court and he asked for a transformation to make himself a hupard and all the hupard offered was to touch him. After placing a hand on him, nothing happened which made the hupard to be confused. The angry emperor who had been looking forward to a whole new level of strength fumed. He captured hupards and made them all touch him, when nothing happened the mad king took it to far by drinking the blood. He summoned the first and original hupard Ovashi and asked her to change him and give him her powers. Ovashi could sense the blood lust radiating from the emperor and she refused, disappearing from the castle. His fury reached no end, how dare that lowly being defy him. He ordered for the persecution of any found hupard and the head of Ovashi. "No one can ever be stronger than me!" , shouted the emperor.

The hupards had gone into hiding and all depended on the magical Ovashi to survive. When their hiding place was infiltrated by guards, Ovashi created portals as her men were fending off the humans. Every existing hupard had a portal created for them to pass through and when the humans had subdued her men it was too late she had made all of her kind go through the portals.

The place they had transported to was a beautiful place with extraordinary things, a world she had spent each day for years creating. "That world is too evil, let us live in our own where we will never see them again", said Ovashi. Everyone made her the queen and she ruled the hupards as the supreme ruler.