Synopsis
In a world where humans have long been eradicated, the only known life left on Earth, or ‘Venne’ as it is now called, exists in the form of four half breeds, or species. Created by humans in our final years, they are part animal, and part person, and genetically enhanced to be better equipped against the radiation-laden mess that is the last forest.
It is hard to be an individual, when you were all created to be the same. It is hard to have your own thoughts, when there are things that you have to think. It is hard to be free, when you were meant to be slaves.
Struggling against the prejudices left behind by humans, and the ones that arose after their departure, is a nearly futile attempt at regaining the humanity you were never meant to have. Trying to find what is real and steady, and discovering that sometimes even the ground may fall out from under you.
Excerpt
The wall of dirt in front of me seems to becoming more daunting with each passing moment of doubt. Therefore, the best option seems to be to give up. I decide to opt for waiting for my feathers to dry, which in the currently strong breeze coming from the water, shouldn’t take too long. The only problem this may present is that the more predatory species, felisians and lupusae, may not share the same sharp opinions on the eating quality of avesrians, however skinny, such as myself. I tuck myself behind a large-ish boulder and hope that my bright plumage isn’t visible from above.
As I sit here, shivering lightly, I find myself reflecting on our current situation. ‘Our’ referring to the only living beings left on this rock floating around in space. They, the humans, called it Earth, we call it Venne. I suppose you could say that the word ‘human’ is somewhat a curse word, for although they may have essentially created us, they also enslaved us, and after becoming extinct passed down to us this dead planet, ravaged by war and pollution, with this one forest as our home. Our winters are viciously cold, and our summers so hot that it turns the edges of the forest into desert-like wastelands, we are somewhere in what used to be called North America. We have no real name for it ourselves, to us it is all just Venne, it belongs both to no one and to all.
