Young Writers Society

Iliad turned from Samson, running away as quickly as he could.

“Iliad!” Samson cried out, worry and frustration dictated his voice, “Iliad where do you think you’re going?!”

“I’m leaving! I can’t live up to your greatness, father,” Iliad called back, his paws barely touching the ground as he gained distance, “I can’t do this!” Iliad jumped a fence. He was in the safe backyard of some neighborhood home owner. His senses told him a storm was coming.

Catching his breath, Iliad lay down and began to wash his paws. They lightly brushed his whiskers as he proceeded onto cleaning his face. He couldn’t stay.

His father and his father’s followers….they expected too much from him.

He was completely capable of everything his father, the neighborhood dominant cat, was capable of: hunting, protecting territory, and showing dominance, but he just felt shallow. How cliché.

Iliad leaped to his feet and shook his tan fur in surprise at the first raindrop. He ran as quickly and lightly as he could; trying to put as much distance between him and his father as possible.

He paused to look around on a sidewalk in town. The storm was gaining ferocity. Tan fur sprayed water everywhere when he shuddered. Lightning flashed. Iliad decided to look for shelter in which to stay until the system passed over. Suddenly, everything was quickly darkening, and he instantly lost energy. Iliad blacked out.

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The sun shone brightly on my face. I sat up slowly, my hair and jeans stuck to the mud. I looked down at my arm, amazed to find that tan fur had been replaced by tan skin. I possessed human hands. I felt my face. Yes, definitely human.

Another, lighter skinned human came up and offered to help me up. I accepted the assistance and he quickly explained the situation to me in hushed, hurried tones.

I was not human, but a common rooster, a chicken. I tried to explain that I was a cat, but he begged me to not raise my voice and listen. He explained to me that chickens saw each other with human bodies. We also saw humans with human bodies, but something was different about them. Something…sinister.

We were at a farm, a camp of a sort, the kind where chickens are slaughtered for their flesh. The idea didn’t sink in.

Shortly, I figured out who the humans were. There was a cruel looking woman, with a tight face and white blonde hair. There was also a big-boned man who had nearly no hair and chuckled at particularly sick jokes.

There were others too, but they just pulled the trigger.

The day was not passing by quickly. By noon, they called for us to line up. Patrolling up and down the line up for some time, they examined our eyes and mouths. We looked them straight in the eye, yet they looked down at us.

I positioned myself towards the middle of the line. The large man went inside a shed at the front of the procession, and the tight faced woman stood at the front and forced one into the shed at a time. Every few that went in, one didn’t come out. I would hear a gunshot, I’d flinch, and I’d move up one more place in line.

Then, the idea sank in.

Blood rushed to my face. Three years of life, wasted. I had to get out. I had to get out. I looked around and –subconsciously knowing I’d be followed—broke line. I rounded the corner of the building.

More horrors.

Young, teenage girls, approximately my age, stood mesmerized and happy. They

were hypnotized by the eggs that lay in the boxes before them. Their eggs.

“Do you like your eggs?” a man inquired with a cruel smirk.

“Yes, yes I do,” repeated the girls in unison, smiling.

“Why?” the man asked.

“I-I don’t know,” they replied.

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The man laughs, and smashes the eggs. The girls fall to their knees, clawing at

their faces, screaming, crying, and in hysterics.

The screams.

I start my feet up again. I must get out.

Safely, I enter the alleyway in which the only entrance to the “farm” is. I find the contraptions that will allow me (being in human form) to fly away. They’ve been clipped. I have to walk.

I round the corner onto the street. I walk down the sidewalks and eventually look over my shoulder. The tight faced woman is walking slowly but fiercely towards me. I can’t go any faster; I’m stuck at this pace.

I will seek refuge in a store. I reach the sliding doors and-

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“Alas, Iliad did not make it,” a voice says to the darkness.

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A flash. The sliding doors open and a police officer smiles down at a tan feathered rooster.

“Ah, what have we got here?” he chortles.

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A flash, the inside of the wooden shed is humid. The barrel of a gun is pointed and the big boned man chuckles. A gunshot.

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A flash. He was beautiful. A boy of 18 years with tan skin, dark hair, shining eyes, and a bright smile.

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A yowl. Samson knows it is over. He cries for his Iliad.

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I cry for mine.