With Eyes Open
I was born with my eyes open. For many, birth is darkness, only the feeling of cold and perhaps the sound of their own voice screaming in fear. I could see what was happening, perhaps even before I breached into this world. Tearing though flesh and liquid, the tasted of blood filling my mouth as I struggled to free myself from the captivity of my mother's body. How do some remember this first breath? Well, after I fell to the ground covered in sticky placenta I felt the teeth of my sisters sinking into my wet fur. Mother would lick me clean as they began attacking and I was left alone to fight my way through the first few days of life.
We killed my brothers and left them in a pool of blood to rot. The smell became so recognizable I think we preferred it to the smell of our mother's own milk. Death would stalk close to me; becoming a familiar shadow, but I was too young at the time to really understand. Violence was second nature, something I relished, taking my demand for dominance out on anyone the weaker. Many of the older females put me in my place in the beginning and I learned quickly to avoid anyone larger than myself, but my siblings and other younger pups were fair game.
In a Hyena pack there is a strict matriarchal hierocracy that we all follow. The strongest bitch is in charge. Needless to say, this position can change at a moments notice, as the entire pack constantly vies for said leadership. However, these instincts which came to us so naturally from birth, the hunger for blood and power, was curbed early on by our elders, a generation of bitches who had declared an evolution of our people into more civilized animals. Does that not sound like a contradiction in its self; "civilized animals"?
We all knew that their decision to curb out violent nature was in fact more do to the pressures put upon us from the lion tribe. Our bitter enemies had become kings of something they called society, most of the other tribes had followed, zebra, buffalo, and gazelle. I blame elephants, those meddling smart-alecks threw their weight around and demanded order; control was more like it. They made a packed with the rhino lords and then politely offered the lions their "proper" place as monarchs of the land.
It made me sick to see our elder female leader collapse under the weight of old cats who suffered from delusions of grandeur. Now all the animals tread lightly through out our new Civilized Tribal Monarchy. Many of our parents had been drafted into the armies as warriors of order. It pacified our demand for violence by taking it out on any tribe who had not opted to join the CTM. In some places civil war broke out. The cheetah tribe broke into clans and many scattered into hiding. The baboons fought with gorilla tactics, but were taken down by the sheer number of water buffalo soldiers.
My generation, along with the younger children of all the other tribes, were swept up by insurmountable waves of propaganda and most were lost to the dream of "a better world for all species". My sisters and I were not convinced. We watched our parents turn into CTM goons, corrupted by their illusions of power; they obeyed the beck and call of the lion royalty and their generals of war. They terrorized any community whose loyalty came into question. They even began bullying their own kind; the elephants used our matriarchal desire of hierarchy to tempt the stronger bitches into abusively driving our tribe into submission. The younger one's kept quiet and avoided public confrontation. But we were born with our eyes open, and they were not clouded by the shroud that hung over CTM.
The elephants used the lions as puppets to control the kingdom. We had all been duped by this presented ideal of civilization, harmony, cooperative living. It made me sick; many of my sisters would not stomach it either. However, we would not be the first to move against the CTM. A pride of rogue lions at the west end of the kingdom took a stand and declared war on the elephant rhino alliance. Other tribe lead rebellions sprung up, but were quickly extinguished by the well organized armies. Our tribes had purposely not been interspersed into unified cities; instead we had been subtly encouraged to keep to ourselves. This prevented the collaboration of different species and fractured any possible resistance. Within a few months the renegade lions were hunted down and executed.
Fear gripped the nation and a strange silence fell over the land. The Hyena tribe grew restless without war and soon, turmoil exploded from within. Our eldest bitch died suddenly from a strange illness. The sudden upheaval in the ranks left our packs in chaos; a perfect opportunity to slip past formalities of state in favor of ruthless backstabbing. While the elder female's bickered over scraps of authority a forgotten threat began circling downwind. My sister's and I had made a choice about our future and would have no more if this "civilized" tribe.
We moved without warning when the rains came. The smell of rot from within the pack had finally driven us over the edge. I remember my first kill that day. She was an aunt or cousin, whimpering from the pain of a leg wound near the den. My hackles rose in disgust as she tried to rise to her feet as I approached. I could smell the blood soaked earth around her and as I tore her throat the first drops of water fed a growing river of crimson that spilled over the land.
In the third day of fighting I lost my right ear. The bitch that caught me would have taken more but for a sister who came to my aid in time. I watched as my attacker fell under the weight of both our bodies. She did not cry for mercy but cursed us saying our ignorance was unforgivable. We began eating her while she was still alive. My eyes stayed open until the last elder's breath went into death's arms.
We left out territory and the rains covered out tracks. The message we left in our wake was clear; the hyena's laugh echoed over the hills and mocked the puppet monarchy of placid felines and fatted calves now visibly shaken by our blood sport. Carrion shadows circled overhead, eagerly awaiting our next indulgence. The sister that had aided me in our first attack became our matriarch. It was a wise move, backed by myself and other's after brief encounters with her prowess. We called her She-Rages, christened so for the short temper and nasty scar you were left with after encountering her on a good day. We all took new names after the tribal cleansing. Any old ties to the failed pack were severed and our mothers' influence was shed like the rain on our oily coats.
My sister's called me One-Awakened. The reference to alertness rather than aggression like Her-Blood, Kills-Lightly or even Death's-Grin left me a little disappointed, but the position of pack guardian was a great honor and I took the responsibility very seriously. Retaliation from the CTM would be slow but inevitable. A water buffalo division could be a strong contender against our powerful, all be it small tribe. In killing our elders we had wiped out a good half of our kind, but my sisters were young, strong, and without fear. We moved together with a common vision, She-Rages kept our hearts true and I guided our sight on the horizon.
We matured in our own brutality, culling out the weak to feed the strong. The few males that had followed us were tolerated as breeding stock and many females delighted in the pleasure they offered. Some took mates, but She-Rages and I had no interest in being weighed down with pups during times of war. The pack would grow in time, but the scent of battle still hung heavy in the air. Soon the carrion circle overhead dipped lower in the sky signaling the approach of our destiny.
They sent emissaries in an attempt to stall us with empty flattery. The zebras pawed the ground as they sighted the grievances of the Monarchy. We could smell the fear in their words, dripping like honey from the hive. She-Rages licked her jaw and bullied one of them until he stumbled back into his partner sending the pack into a snickering uproar. They bolted and we gave chase, driving them back with snapping jaws and yips of displeasure. Our reply was clear, "you are not hyena, go back to your herd and embrace the depravity of your civility."
That night we danced in celebration of the coming battle. We slashed out chests and tore at our fur in frenzy. Death stood by and watched, seeing our eyes were open, she came down from the shadows into fire's light. We could see her twisted macabre face reflected in our own wildness and as the first light of dawn approached, a call rang out across the grass lands, trumpeting the arrival of our enemies. In the dim light I could see She-Rage signaling silence. A hush fell over the valley, ushering the dawn in to cast out night's shadows.
I circled the pack and moved to join our matriarch at the front of the line. We watched the water buffalo as they moved though the grass. We took in the scent of their massive bodies; sweat and dirt, fat and muscle closing the distance and halting a few hundred feet away. My alpha barked her commands and the tribe fell into loose pack formation. Everyone watched as the sun crept from beneath the earth into sky. As the last star faded behind our enemies the moment of truth fell upon us. Bolting from us, She-Rages lead the charge.
It took only seconds to meet head on with our enemies, but in that short distance we had assessed every weakness, every opportunity, and when we struck, our blow was felt though and through. We broke though their center block and flanked around either side. Speed aided our surprising maneuver and soon the buffalo were balled into a tight ring, horns lowered and eyes wide with confusion and fear. Without aid, this heavy cavalry was a sitting duck in the flood of fang and claw that struck at them on all sides. One or two fled in panic, brought to their knees and quickly dispatched by groups of three to five pack mates. The rest huddled in disorder, at the mercy of our instinctual predatory nature.
In their pathetic civility they had forgotten the very temperament that drives every animal's survival. It would cost them in blood and a painful defeat. Within hours we had driven them away, back to their mismanaged monarchy a facade of power run by pompous, overconfident academic fools. It was a small victory in what we knew would be a long and tedious struggle against complacent decency. Anarchy was the only sure cure for such madness. We would clear the way with unbridled violence, reawakening the primal impulses that allow our eyes to be opened.