Hybrid

The teenager slowly began to wake up to the feeling of someone running their fingers through his hair. As he opened his eyes he could see a figure coming into view as his vision cleared up.

It was another teenager, this one a girl though. She was roughly 175cm tall and had a slim build. Her hair was a dark chestnut that went down to her mid-back and her eyes were hazel. She had light brown skin that was smooth and had no blemishes that you could see.

She was wearing a light blue crop top with short sleeves, blue jeans, and black work boots. She had a necklace shaped like a strange key and black work gloves in the back pocket of her jeans.

"What do you think you're doing, Hazel?" He gently reached up and grabbed her wrist and surprised her for a second, but she shrugged and began to talk.

"Thought I'd play with your hair until you woke up, Ethan. You know it's very soft, right?" Ethan let go of her wrist and started to sit up on the bed, however, the action of Hazel gently rubbing her wrist didn't go unnoticed by him. 'The strength he used just now was a lot more than he's used before….'

"So you've told me." He continued to watch her rub her wrist, then gritted his teeth for a second before talking again. "Sorry about that. You know I'd never hurt you on purpose, right?"

"Yea, I know you wouldn't." She paused for a few moments then stopped rubbing her wrist and looked at him with a solemn face. "You've been changing a lot in the past week, do you want to talk about it?"

Hazel believed him to be a Hybrid because of his pure-white hair, vibrant violet eyes, and slightly paler complexion. Because of that, she knew that his body changing wasn't anything strange for Hybrids.

⬩⬥⬧ Hybrid ⬧⬥⬩

⌜Hybrids are a mixture between Creature and Human. Either a Creature's soul enters a Human fetus or a Human soul enters a Creature's fetus. Former is called "Human-Born Hybrid" while the latter is "Creature-Born Hybrid".

Creatures include Mana Beasts and Mythical Creatures.

Throughout the development of the fetus it will take on traits of both Human and the Creature, though always having a human body. However, the Human body will normally have features of the Creature, such as scales, claws, animal ears, or in extremely rare cases the Hybrid could have wings.

Even if the Hybrid is born without any Creature-like features, every Hybrid will have unnatural hair, eye, and/or skin color compared to a Human. Which is a way to distinguish them between Humans.

Hybrids are far stronger than a normal Human and their strength will grow as they age, along with the possibility of acquiring more traits of the Creature. Be it physical appearance or Abilities.

Hybrids will also always awaken the System between the ages of 18 to 20 on the new year's, while Humans only have a chance of awakening it. When that happens their bodies will go through a drastic change to acquire more of the Creature's power and Abilities.

There are also rare cases called 'Natural Hybrids', which are the children of two different Humanoids. Examples are Half-Elves or Half-Orcs. Although most Natural Hybrids normally die within a year of being born because their soul is unstable.⌟

~~~~

Ethan tightened his lips then after a moment he sighed. "No, I don't feel like talking about it. At least not right now." He turned his gaze from her wrist up to her eyes and could see that she was worried about him, even if she had a soft smile on her face.

'I can't tell you what's going on with me right now. Not until I know more about myself and control my thirst. I may not crave your blood, but I still don't want to attack you.'

Hazel parted her lips for a moment but they changed to a sympathetic smile. "That's fine, though you should talk to someone about it. If not me then how about Sister Sasha? After all, she's the one my father and I trust the most."

Unlike Ethan and the other orphans in the church, Hazel still had a father, though her mother was dead. Her father traveled a lot for work and Sister Sasha was a good friend of his, so when he traveled he would have her stay at the church with Sister Sasha and who he proclaimed to be his daughter's 'Boyfriend' despite the fact that they were just good friends.

The other main reason she stays at the church despite being old enough to stay at home by herself is because she visited the church with her father one day as a child and he told her to go play with the other kids. There she saw Ethan sitting alone and reading.

She thought he looked lonely even if his face didn't show it, which then caused her to annoy him till he eventually acknowledged her presence, and once they started talking they hit it off quite well.

After that, she asked to go to the church when her father was leaving for work one time and it became the norm since then.

Ethan sighed and rubbed the back of his head after hearing those words. 'I definitely can't do that because…. For obvious reasons, what I'd be discussing and with who.'

"I'll think about it." He put his arm down and gave her a gentle smile, which seemed to put her at ease somewhat.

Hazel sighed and fell back onto the bed, then closed her eyes. However, after several minutes she sprung forwards and looked back at Ethan, and smiled. "Let's go get some breakfast before they stop serving it, okay?"

Ethan let out a little laugh. "Yeah, okay let's go get some food." He started to get out of the bed, Hazel jumped up and walked to the door.

"I'll wait outside for you to change your clothes." She exited the room and closed the door.

Ethan finished getting out of the bed and walked over to the dresser on the other side of the room. However, he stood in front of it for a few moments before placing his fingertips on his throat. The small embers from the previous night had become a weak fire.

"Ha~ 'Let's go get some food', huh?" He lowered his hand to his side, making it into a fist, and gritted his teeth at the thought of the thirst getting worse in just a few hours, even though he didn't use his powers since traveling back to the church through the shadows.

He sighed and relaxed his hand, then began grabbing a pair of jeans, socks, and underwear out of the dresser, tossing them onto the bed as he headed to the closet. He grabbed a white T-shirt and a black hoodie, which he also tossed onto the bed, then began to change his clothes.

Once he was done he headed towards the door and could hear Hazel talking to someone.