Excerpt: If Penguins Could Fly

I remember the day before we found out about The Change, The Divide, The War. Whatever you want to call it, it's still the same. I remember it was 2079, and I was walking home as usual with Kate. We even saw that girl Meggie with the little girl who started it all. Not intentionally of course. Then that night we heard on the news what had happened. About 3 months later that girl was dead. But before then...Before then we were united. Even if there were differences, we weren't aware of them. That allowed us to continue happilily. But then...It happened. We'd been warned about pollution rates for a while, but no-one took them seriously. We all treated it as a joke, never understanding the real danger. It wasn't so much the danger of the new DNA structures. It was the exposure it gave us. "The Monsters". I guess I'd better explain:
You see, due to the high rate of pollution, it began to give emit quite high radioacion. As this increased, it started to affect roughly 47% of the population. Their base DNA codes were altered, resulting in different amino acids beings produced. Many did not survive this transformation. Over 20% of the original 47% passed away due to lose of essential amino acids. The rest underwent...changes. They developed special powers, unique to their DNA codes. Once the public knew about these "problems", agents were dispatched to contain them in an attempt to prevent it from spreading. It was not contagious. The fear was. Nobody trusted each other anymore, and other countries soon began to avoid negotions with Britian due to fear of assocation. The economy plumeted due to the costs of capturing these "Mutants". Normal folk blamed "The Mutants", and some even went as far as violence. This may have appeared a good solution at the time: frighten all the freaks away. Unfortunetly, they picked the wrong type of freak. Instead of beating a young mutant, they beat to death a monster.
Perhaps you'd like to know the difference?
The Mutants are those that have been granted special powers, and are quite new stages of evolution.
The Monsters are those creatures that exist in fairytales, the ones you were always told weren't real. Mages, witches, wizards, elves, fairies, centaurs, driders, mermaids. All the stuff that both lurked in the darkness of your nightmares and set you free in your dreams. But there's a reason you were told they were tales.
The Monster those people killed, she was just a little girl. She wasn't evil anymore than a new born baby was. Yes, she was a vampire. Who survived soley on deceased animal blood, at the cost of her own strength and health. She never harmed anyone, never did anything wrong, except perhaps sneaking out of the house on a dare set by her brother. Trivial stuff, stuff one day kids look back on and laugh about how daring it seemed. Well, most kids do. She won't.
They caught up to when she was heading home from her school, which was just around the corner from Anvil Primary. I guess because she was pale and looked slightly different, they just went for her. Started throwing rocks, then proceeded to throw heavier stuff. Next came the beating. I'm only guessing how it happened here, but it was how the other attacks that followed were recorded on the news. Those involved in the attack on the girl were all killed less than a week later.
She was the only daughter of the top prestige vampire family in Britian. And they look after their own. After the attackers were found with not one drop of blood left in their body, they started to draw a conculsion to the vampires. After extensive torture on one of the captured vampire family members, named Edward, the two separate types of freaks became known, in a special announcement for the "publics health".
The majority of us "monsters" became hostile towards the normals and the mutants, blaming them for the exposure of our secret that we'd kept for so long. The majority of the mutants despised the normals, those unaffected, for both the attacks and for being able to live without secrecy or fear. The majority of the normals hate both groups, viewing us both as freaks and unnatural. Everyday more and more mutants and monsters are taken away, where to we're not sure. The general theory is that they are given a cure and then released into a new life. But how do you cure what you are? For us "monsters" this is not a disease, it's how we were born.
So that's how it is. Everyone waiting until they are found out, ratted out on by their own families. Waiting for the capture. Waiting for their world to fall, crashing into pieces, locked away until all the happy memories turn into a shattered forgotten dream.