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Before there was Bear, there was Rebecca Walker. There was a girl who loved listening to the birds in the tree outside her window sing every morning, a girl who played in the rain in bright red boots too big for her feet and made castles out of the mud left behind hours later. There was a girl whose parents called her Becky, even though she wanted them to call her Becca, because the kids at school thought Becky was an old person's name.
Before there was Bear, there was Rebecca Walker, and she knew nothing of what her life would become. All she knew was parents who loved her, a house that sheltered her, and a life that could be described perfectly with the word ‘normal.’
When her sister was born, everything changed, even if it wasn’t all at once.
The Sick had been in the news for weeks before Becky’s sister was born, but she didn’t pay much attention to it in that naive way that children do. Six years olds don’t bother watching the news, and learning about politics or wars or celebrities, so the Sick was no different. All Becky knew was she was on a surprise vacation from school, she had to wear a mask during the few times she was allowed outside, and her parents frowned a lot more than they used to. Later, she would remember wondering if the baby being born would make them happy again.
In the end, she couldn’t remember if it did or not.
Katherine Walker was born at the beginning of the end of the world, though she didn’t know it, being a newborn and all. She was born at home, the hospitals too disease ridden and dangerous for Becky’s parents to want to risk it. Becky sat on the back porch as her baby sister was born, hands clapped over her ears to block out the sounds of her mom screaming, as she watched the sun set on a muggy summer day. By the time the fireflies started to come out, the screaming was over, and Becky’s dad was sliding open the glass door behind her.
“Is the baby out?” she asked, her dad only giving a grimace and a nod in response. “I wanna go see!” she exclaimed, springing up from where she had been sitting on the wooden steps, only to be stopped by her dad blocking the door frame.
“She’s- Becky, your sister is different from you or me or your mom. She doesn’t look the same as us, she’s a little, ah, how should I say- stranger,” her dad explained, and Becky made a face. Her teacher had said the same thing before they’d gotten a new student at the beginning of the year, a boy with a cleft palate. Becky liked him just fine, even if he looked a little different. He told funny jokes and he was really good at playing pretend at recess.
“Daddy, don’t be silly. She’s not gonna be strange, she’s gonna be my sister.” Her dad had let her into the house without a word after that.
When Becky saw her sister, she realized in a distant sort of way that her sister was not normal in a completely different way than she had expected. Even at six, she knew that babies didn’t usually have pig snouts instead of noses and pointed ears. Still, when her mom helped her cradle her new sister in her arms, and whispered ‘meet Katherine, meet Kathy,’ she hadn’t felt as if anything was wrong at all. She was holding her baby sister, who was making soft snorting sounds in her sleep, and all was alright.
“I’m gonna call you Katie. Kathy is an old person name, too,” she whispered into her sister’s curls, and vowed in that moment that even though she was only six, she would always be there to protect her sister, whether if was from being made fun of for having a weird name or because other kids thought she looked funny.
Becky smiled down at her baby sister, and in that moment, made one of her last happy memories for a very long time.
__________
When Becky was twelve, she met a girl in the woods. She was half a head taller than Becky, with black hair messily dyed orange and dark eyeliner around her eyes. She called her new friends Tiger, and in turn the girl called her Bear. And on that day, when she was twelve and skinny and covered in dirt but no longer alone, Becky became Bear, and it was like a rebirth.
The Animal Army became the formidable force that it was slowly. At first, it was just Bear and Tiger, holing up in an abandoned theme park and spending their waking hours scrounging for food and water. When more kids like them, orphans born before the Sick, started showing up, they brought food and clothes and knowledge out of what was going on in the world. People called the Last Men were capturing hybrids and killing innocent men and women. The Sick was taking more and more lives everyday. The world was becoming crueler than it had been before, when it’s inhabitants were killing the very planet they lived on. Only this time, mother nature was fighting back.
Slowly, Bear began to form an empire. They managed to wire electricity into the rooms under the theme park, started a stockpile of food, and began leaving their mark on the walls. Drawings for Tiger, Orangutan, Flamingo, Zebra, and many more overlapped. Bear’s etching on the wall stood alone, a sign of respect from those she had gathered around her. They saw her as a leader, and she was only a little reluctant to take on the role. She had grown stronger in the two years she had been calling the Animal Army her family, and she was damn good at giving instructions. The others just plain liked her, too. But the thing they liked about her most was her stories.
Their favorite story was the one she told to newcomers, preteens who had just found their way into the ranks of the Animal Army. First, she told a story all of them knew far too well, of men with brands on their chests that sought to take and hurt and kill, of people who were determined to take what was good in this world and strangle it with all the might they had. But the best part was the story she told next. She spoke of a planet that had been wronged by those who lived on it, and a disease that was sent to enact vengeance. She told everyone who came to seek refuge with her army of children born with animal features, not to spread the Sick, but to heal the world from it. The hybrids were a gift, an olive branch sent by mother nature herself. Bear convinced everyone she met that hybrids were precious, that they needed to be saved from the Last Men and anyone else who sought to hurt them, and they soaked up her words like sponges.
Secretly, Bear did not know if what she was saying was true, but in her heart she had to believe it. She couldn’t imagine a world in which a baby girl with dark curls and a pig snout for a nose was sent to cause the end of humanity, and not to save it. So she told a tale of humanity’s bright future, of men who sought to end it, and an army she led to stop them. If she let herself be childish enough, she could imagine that each hybrid she saved was a pointy-eared girl with dark skin and snorting laugh.
Bear had sworn years ago that she would protect her sister, and she had failed. Maybe saving every hybrid kid she came across wouldn’t bring her baby sister back, but it would have to be good enough. And so, she carried on the purpose of the Animal Army, and tried her best to live with the intent to do good by the world. It was what Katie deserved, after all. A world that would have loved her.
__________
After Tiger’s betrayal, Bear wasn’t sure what to do. The pain of losing the people she had called family was physical, an ache in her chest that wouldn’t go away, no matter how much she cursed them out under her breath for being stupid and bloodthirsty and hypocrytical. She didn’t like the man that Gus had been travelling with, not one bit, but killing him wouldn’t make the world a better place, not if it wasn’t in the interest of saving someone’s life. Bear had killed before, everyone in the Animal Army had, but it was different when it wasn't a life or death situation, them or the Last Men.
It was different when it was the man that a hybrid had chosen to trust.
Bear didn’t know why Gus had decided to follow Jepp, even after he found out that he used to be part of the Last Men. If it was up to her, she’d have taken Gus and high tailed it for the Preserve, or Colorado, or wherever the hell the boy wanted to go, as long as it was without Jepp. But the boy trusted him, he liked him, and the two had disappeared in the fighting, gone to everyone except Bear, who dropped the mask she had worn for the past four years and followed them.
She told herself she was just making sure Jepp wasn’t going to hurt Gus at first, as she tailed them through the woods. Then, he hadn’t shown any sign of planning to do anything bad to the boy, and she’d told herself she was following them to see if they had any information on where the Preserve was, even if she was well aware they had never even mentioned it before.
Finally, she admitted to herself that she had nowhere left to go, and she snuck around and ahead of them, and swore that she would just tag along until they got Gus to where he was going, and by then she would have a plan on what to do. Mostly, she promised to herself that she would not stick around, and she would not admit to them that she was tagging along because she didn’t want to be alone.
Katie would be around Gus’ age, she mused as she sat in the crook of a tree, waiting. Maybe a bit younger, a bit shorter. Maybe, in a different world, they could have been friends.
She didn’t want to dwell on it. She shook her head, reclined back into the trunk of the tree, and waited for her two new unsuspecting traveling partners to appear.
__________
Bear was Becky and Becky was Bear, but she wasn’t sure which one she wanted to be more. She was two sides of a coin, before and after, and yet she was also a whole. For so long, she had been determined to leave being Becky in the past, to just be Bear and never thinking about Rebecca Walker again. But Judy had asked, and she had told, and now she couldn’t stop thinking. About parents who had adopted her when they weren’t able to have their own child, but loved her as much as they would have if she had been biologically theirs. She remembered how happy they had been when they found out her mom was pregnant, and how scared they had been once Katie was born, even if she hadn’t been able to recognize it at the time. She remembered, above all else, that they had loved both their daughters dearly, and that she missed her parents so much it hurt sometimes, even if she tried to never acknowledge it. She missed Katie just as much.
And now she missed Gus and Jepp.
They had been gone for over a day, and Judy was concerned. They both mumbled about wild animals and storms and ditches they might have fallen into, and neither of them spoke their fear of the fate they had most likely met. Last Men were common in the suburbs, and if they had found Jepp, or even worse, Gus-
She refused to think about it. Bear hated to admit it, but she had gotten attached to those two. Jepp was gruff on the outside, but Bear knew he cared fiercely about Gus, and in her weakest moments, she liked to think he cared about her, too. Gus was impossible not to love, with his optimism and bright smile and just- his Gus-ness. Bear hadn’t known either of them for long at all, but as she sat at Birdie’s house and waited, she couldn’t help but miss them just as much as she missed her parents and her sister.
Her one distraction was the phone.
When Birdie had answered the other end, Bear had been half convinced that it was some sort of Last Men tactic to find their location. But Judy had recognized her friend’s voice, and both women had cried for a long time about finally being able to contact each other again. Both of them had thanked Bear profusely for fixing the phone, and she had just shrugged her shoulders and mumbled something about the computers the Animal Army had managed to repair.
Bear had told Birdie about Gus, and the mere mention of him had sent the woman into hysterics. The idea that her son was alive, but missing, tore her apart, especially since it was him finding her research that drove him to run off.
They were figuring things out now, Judy and Birdie, something to do with Antarctica and coming home and finding Gus. Bear would get involved when things became more concrete, and when Jepp and Gus got back so they could all plan together. Every time she said that, though, Judy just gave her a sad look. Bear knew, deep down, that neither of them were probably ever coming back, but she wished Judy and Birdie would just let her pretend, even if it was only for a little while longer.
She had just gotten a new family again, and she wasn’t ready to lose it for a third time.
__________
The plan went as follows:
Jepp would be their distraction when they broke into the Preserve, pretending to be a guard until he was in deep enough, and then raising hell until they could get in and find the kids. Their numbers were weakened by Aimee’s attack with the fireworks, and even with a healing gunshot wound, Jepp would be able to hold his own for a while. Aimee, who knew the place best, would lead Bear through the abandoned zoo, and together they would find the kids and help them escape. Judy would stay behind and prepare the house for the kids to arrive. Finally, Aimee would set off one of her last remaining fireworks as a signal for Jepp to get out, and they would rendezvous at Judy’s house. It was a crazy plan, one that everyone was half-convinced would turn into a suicide mission, but they were also all determined to try to save the kids, not matter what the cost. Aimee spoke fondly of all the children, but especially her daughter Wendy, the first kid to show up on her doorstep not long after the Sick sent the world into chaos. In the late hours of the night, Aimee told Bear about the young, big-hearted pig hybrid who had welcomed every hybrid with open arms and taught everyone around her sign language so they could all understand each other. Bear ached to think about another girl like her sister, and yet liked to imagine that Wendy is what her sister would have been like, had she been given the chance to grow up. She was determined to save Gus, and after speaking with Aimee, she was determined to save Wendy and the rest of the children, too. In a way, it felt like saving Katie, too, just like the Animal Army had.
It had been a miracle, Jepp leading Aimee back to Birdie’s house after a week of being missing. He had still been badly injured, but he’d pulled Bear into a fierce hug when she’d opened the door. Plans had been made quickly after that, once Gus’ location had been explained to Bear and Judy, and as soon as Jepp was healed enough to fight, they made their final preparations.
They left long before dawn, so they could attack under the cover of darkness, and escape in it, too. Bear felt like she was marching towards her death as they made the long trek towards the Preserve, but she couldn't help but think that it was worth it. Her purpose for so many years had been helping hybrid kids, so it felt fitting, almost.
If this was to be her end, at least it was doing what she believed in.
__________
Somehow, some way, their plan was working. Alarms had been raised not long after Jepp had disappeared into the Preserve, and Aimee and Bear had taken that as their cue to enter. They could still hear the commotion outside as Jepp did his job, and Bear prayed to a god that she didn’t believe in for him to make it out alive. After an agonizingly slow search, they found the kids huddled in cages in the heart of the zoo, crowding around the door as it opened, smelling the woman they knew as their mother from a mile away. Gus was at the front of the crowd, and as soon as the light fell on the group of children, Bear found his face, and everything else became radio static. She hugged him just as hard as she’d hugged Jepp, and whispered promises into his hair.
“I’ll protect you,” she said, like she had a decade ago, “I won’t let anything bad happen to you ever again. Until the day I die, I will protect you.” Gus just clung to her tighter, and for a few precious seconds, Bear could pretend that everything was alright.
Eventually, they both had to pull away, and return to the real world.
“This is Wendy,” Gus introduced, pointing to the girl Aimee had embraced first when they’d walked into the cage room, “she’s like the leader around here.” Bear locked eyes on Aimee’s daughter, and her heart stuttered. Her hair was coily and black, her skin a warm brown, her nose a pig snout and her ears pointed. Bear knew there were countless hybrids in the world for each kind of animal, but she felt it in her soul that she was staring at the baby sister she had lost ten long years ago. Bear had a death grip on Gus’s shoulder as she stared at Wendy, at Katie, frozen in place by the sheer shock of it all.
“Bear?” Gus asked, and she noticed the way the other hybrids were looking at her, the way Wendy-Katie was looking away from her mom and glancing over at her. Bear tore her gaze away from the girl in front of her, willed herself into saving everything brewing inside of her for later, and let go of Gus.
“We have to go,” she said, and Aimee nodded in agreement. Still, as they snuck their way back out of the Preserve, Bear could not keep her eyes off of Wendy-Katie. She kept Gus’ hand in a death grip, but her gaze did not leave her baby sister, all grown up.
When Aimee shot off the signal firework, she barely heard it. She was too focused on the way the red and blue light of it reflected off of Wendy-Katie’s hopeful face.
Maybe, just maybe, things would be okay. It was already more than Bear had ever expected to have again. She just hoped it would last.
__________
“Did I do something?”
Bear startled in her seat where she was working on repairing a radio in Birdie’s attic, turning to face Wendy in the doorway, backlit by the soft yellow glow of the hall light. The original plan had been to leave Birdie’s after a couple of days in case the Last Men came after them, but Jepp had done a better job taking care of them than anyone had expected, and since he had killed their general, it seemed pretty unlikely they would be looking for the escaped hybrids anytime soon. So, they had spent the last month and a half occupying Birdie’s house and those around it, carving out a life for themselves. And that entire time, Bear had not uttered a word to Wendy, or about a sister she thought she had lost long ago.
“What?”
“You always ignore me and give me weird looks when you think I’m not looking. Did I do something or are you just mean?” Wendy asked, crossing her arms. Bear swallowed the lump that had suddenly appeared in her throat, and set her tools aside.
“It’s not anything you did,” she said quietly. Wendy clearly expected more, by the way she waited for a long moment as if leaving room for Bear to say more.
“Well, then what is it? Because you talk to everyone else just fine but you treat me like I have the Sick or something.” A million things to say raced through Bear’s head. Different excuses, ranging from mundane to crazy, kind to flat out cruel. She could tell the girl she just didn’t like her, that she was allergic to pigs, that she was jealous of how close she was with Gus, taking a sisterly role just like Bear had. She could even tell a half-truth, that she reminded Bear of someone she used to know.
“I think you’re my sister,” was what she said instead. Wendy scoffed, until she saw that Bear wasn’t joking, and she went still.
“You’re wrong,” the young girl said, a note of panic in her voice. “I was left outside of the Preserve when I was a baby and my mom took me in. I didn’t have any siblings.”
“My sister was taken by the government when our parents died of the Sick. The Last Men didn’t exist back then, and the government was much more unstable. Transports got attacked or disappeared all the time.” Wendy said nothing to that, and Bear didn’t have anything to add. They just sat there, staring at each other, for a long time.
“Well,” Wendy said finally, voice shaking, “I guess we should go get the adults.”
“Yeah, we probably should,” Bear said, standing up from her chair robotically and moving to join Wendy in the hallway. As they walked down the stairs, Wendy grabbed Bear’s hand, and the older girl squeezed back. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a start.
Before there was Bear, there was Rebecca Walker, and before there was Wendy Eden, there was Katherine Walker. Now, though, there were just two girls, hand in hand, ready to face whatever the strange new world threw at them next. And for Bear, that was enough. For Bear, she was home.