Posted by Sawney Beane on September 17, 2007 at 23:15:46:
The Collected Works of Sawney Beane: Volume #156
BIOGRAPHY OF A DEMI
by Sawney Beane
22 November 1994, 8 May 1998, 9 September 2007
1,538 words
DISTRIBUTION NOTICE and DISCLAIMER: Sawney Beane requests that any distribution of this work of fiction remain within the realm of social responsibility. This story is suitable neither for minors nor for the seeming majority of adults who have difficulty distinguishing fantasy from reality. It is pure fantasy, which means that, for whatever reason, someone has found it interesting to think about the events depicted herein. It does not in any way mean that the author would like to see this fantasy become reality, so if you are the type of person who might be swayed into doing something irrational by reading a work of fiction, the author respectfully requests that you decline to read further.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Sawney Beane, originally a native of Edinburgh, lived for twenty-five years in a cave on the coast of County Galloway, subsisting on the flesh of unfortunate travellers, roughly a thousand of them all told. He and his wife raised a large family of eight sons, six daughters, eighteen grandsons, and fourteen granddaughters. Eventually, the family was captured, and the whole lot was brutally and unjustifiably tortured and executed without trial. Since his death in the early 17th century, Beane has reformed his ways and now confines his atrocities to his literary endeavours.
WARNING: This story contains scenes of consensual snuff and gyno/androphagia. If you find such things offensive, please steer clear; you have been warned.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: This is one of the oldest stories in my "partially-written" bin. Decided to finally finish it off. I must have been inspired by watching Planet of the Apes when I started this one. It's not my favourite. One of the reasons I held onto it for so long was that it didn't seem to really come out as I like. Too much explication and not enough real emotion, which is one of the things I dislike in stories like this, but I decided to tie it up and release it anyway. I do like the concept, but it is difficult to pull off without it becoming this sort of story.
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The first time Katherine-0672S knew anything about it was shortly after her twenty-first birthday. She was enjoying her lunch in the cafeteria of the Kansas City Demitarium when she noticed a scrap of paper on the edge of her tray. She picked it up and carefully unfolded it. It contained a single line of text in a shaky handwriting: "You are a Human--Live!" Katherine was shocked by this blasphemy and quickly hid the scrap. It would be almost a year before she knew what it was all about.
Katherine-0672S was born on September first of the 274th year after the immortal covenant between the human species and the demi species. Like all demis, she never met her parents and was only dimly aware that she had any. Katherine-0672S was raised in the Kansas City Demitarium, and, like all demis, was grateful for the pleasant life the humans had provided for her. She was raised to appreciate life and to understand and accept the necessity of its ending after twenty-five years.
Building demitaria across the globe and providing for the care and feeding of the demis was expensive and difficult, but the humans did it graciously. They provided the demis with food and entertainment. They arranged frequent mating sessions between demis. Demis generally shared the belief that their lives were good and the humans were to be thanked for it. Most importantly of all, the humans provided the demis with a place to live sheltered from the cruel rays of the sun.
It had to be this way because demis, unlike humans could not survive outdoors. Unlike humans, demis lacked body hair, so they were unprotected if they were unwise enough to venture outside the demitarium. Humans, in contrast had bodies covered in a thick fur that protected them from the sun.
But providing all of this for demis was not a small task, so the humans ask just one thing in return for their kindness. The lives of demis would be limited to twenty-five years, and the humans would receive payment for their benevolence in the form of food. The demis, in return for their lives, gave their bodies in death to the generous humans.
Katherine-0672S's life was fairly typical of all demis. She was popular amongst both her fellow demis and the humans who took care of them. But like all demis, there was little of note to say about her youth. She was thoroughly schooled in history and the workings of society. She was a good student, grasping the concepts noticeably more quickly than her comrades.
She was given permission to conceive a child shortly after her twentieth birthday. The mate she was assigned was handsome and well-built, but not very smart. She tired of his company, but her served his purpose, and she welcomed a son into the world shortly before she had her first communication with the underground demi conspiracy.
Of course she didn't know it then. She just saw it as an absurd bit of paper. But she remembered it nonetheless. It was another year before she was assigned Lucas-0920B. It was a fateful meeting. He took her breath away in bed and then he took it away again when he started giving her a history lesson.
It was a history that she had never heard before and contradicted everything that her teachers had so carefully instilled into her mind. He told of how the demis and humans had once been one and the same species. He told of how the combined species had destroyed the sky and left themselves unprotected against the suns lethal rays. He told of how most of the population had died horribly over the years. And he told of how the most hirsute humans had come to dominate the world due to their increased resistance to the sun. He told of how the ruling humans had saved their hairless brethren from the sun's cruelty by building them shelters, which eventually evolved into the demitaria of today. He told of how over the years the humans had developed ever increasing coats of protective hair while those who had come to be known as demis, partially through the subtle but deliberate breeding imposed by the humans, had become even less hairy, less intelligent, and more docile. In short, he told her that everything she knew was wrong, and she hated him for it.
And just a few months later he had turned twenty-five and had been taken away to his sacred duty, never to be heard from again. She didn't miss him. The horror stories he had told her were just too terrible to stomach.
And yet, over the next few years, she began to notice things. She looked closely at the humans' faces and, though it was difficult to see through the thick covering of fur, they actually seemed to look a lot like demis. She watched how they moved, which, although much more confident and aggressive in manner, was indeed similar to how demis moved. She listened to their speech patterns and their voices. She was actually able to imagine that they were the same as her under all their covering. But it confused her.
Over the next three years she gave birth three more times. She happily gave the world another son and two daughters. She was happy, but she couldn't quite shake the annoying memory of Lucas-0920B's awful heresy.
Her time came eventually, of course. Her twenty-fifth birthday came, and she knew how she would celebrate it. She was nervous, of course. It was natural. It was ok to be nervous, so long as you did your duty without resistance. If you misbehaved in your final performance, it was a horrible disgrace and the most unspeakable shame for a demi.
She went through all of the purification rituals calmly. She even entered the chamber in which she would fulfil her part of the immortal covenant. There were a dozen humans there to watch her end, as well as a few demi serving girls. The leader led her to recline on the middle of the altar. They would snuff her here in the time-honoured ritual and then take her off to become nutritious sustenance for humans. A good demi in this moment was happy that she could repay the debt of her species. But Katehrine-0672S was not feeling as she should. Although it shamed her not to welcome her sacred duty, there was discomfort in her heart.
Her attention was suddenly focused on one of the older humans sitting near her at the table. This particular human, presumably due to old age was losing his hair. It was thin enough on his face and other parts of his body to see his skin. Katherine-0672S could not shake the sudden realized that this aged human looked exactly like a demi.
He was wearing clothes which set him apart from the demis and made it difficult to notice and of course there was never a demi that old, but Katherine-0672S was smarter than the average demi. It was like a bolt of lightning directly to her brain. She was suddenly aware that everything Lucas-0920B had told her was true. The immortal covenant was a farce, and she was about to be murdered.
The leader of the humans was raising the ceremonial dagger over her defenceless heart. He intoned the traditional words: "Child of the demis, what do you offer this day?" To this, Katherine-0672S was expected to reply: "I offer my body in partial payment of the debt of my species and thank humans for the life I have led."
But, to the surprise of everyone in the room, including Katherine-0672S, she instead said something very different. She sat up abruptly and announced: "I am a human and I want to live!"
The situation was controlled quickly. Katherine-0672S was pushed back onto the table and the human, bypassing the usual ceremony, thrust the knife deep into her chest. Katherine-0672S's life ended and she was taken back to the kitchens which were a part of the building no live demis were permitted to enter. If she had been alive, she would have seen that beyond the kitchens the demitarium building housed a gourmet restaurant frequented by only the most fortunate humans.
But there is a time for everything. The underground demi conspiracy had touched the lives of enough demis, and two weeks after Katherine-0672S's demise, the demis in the Kansas City demitarium revolted and overpowered their human minders. For the first time in the lives of any demi in the demitarium, they all ventured outside into the streets and felt the cruel rays of the sun on their naked hairless skins.
The revolt spread rapidly, and the entire social system built around the immortal covenant dissolved worldwide. Everywhere demis were for the first time tasting freedom and the outdoors. And it was sweet.
Within six years, ninety percent of the demi population had perished. Without protection from the sun they were doomed. The survivors lived on in heavily light-proofed homes in run-down ghettos scattered around the world. They ventured outside only after dark and scraped a meagre living from the night. But they were free, and they were human.