Welcome to Los Lagos, home to 20,000 people. A city surrounded by towering walls that block out the desert wasteland beyond. It was the only place Lance Esposito had ever known.

The walls surrounding the city were built to keep out enemies. Because the world was full of them. Rogues that attacked and raided villages, lethal mercenaries who would kill for the right price, and mutated animals on the lookout for prey. In short, everything out there wanted to kill him. And if it didn't want to kill him, it wanted to whack him over the head and rob him blind.

For that very reason, nobody was allowed beyond the wall. The Mayor's regulations, enforced by the ruthless Feline Guard, made sure of that. So Lance stood on the top of the wall, the closest someone could get to the desert, the closest someone could get to the wide world beyond that wall. Looking over his shoulder, back at the city, he could see the fields where the Los Lagos farmers were hard at work, tending to rows of corn, beans and prickly pear cacti, with their edible fruits. The crops were planted in such neat rows, almost as if they were standing to attention, desperately trying to reflect the manner of the farmers, who worked with the same precision and monotony as they tended to the plants. But if Lance looked forward, his eyes were met with a world of change and excitement. It was a wild world, feral and fierce and edged with danger, but also glimmering with a freedom, the kind of freedom that made his heart beat fast and strong in his chest. The desert was a barren, dry place of stark beauty. He could see groups of spiny cacti, mounds of weathered boulders, and rolling hills of dry, golden grass. The landscape was peppered with the stunning bursts of coral, violet and crimson that were blooming desert wildflowers.

He sighed wistfully. It's beautiful, he thought.

But it was a dangerous beauty, a lethal splendour. One minute he could be running through the cacti after a sapphire butterfly and the next he could be attacked. One of the giant leeches that hide beneath the ground could spring up like a trap and suction around his foot with its terrifying, parasitic mouthparts.

Then there was the fact that it was completely illegal to go outside the city. There was even a taboo on speaking about going beyond the wall. One careless word and he could lose everything.

But despite the dangers, Lance had always wanted to explore the land beyond the wall. He loved the wanderlust, the sense of adventure. He wanted to go into the wilderness, to roam the desert, to explore, to discover. Lance looked at the landscape with a wistful longing. There were amazing creatures and plants outside of the city, waiting to be uncovered. Not to mention the medicinal herbs that would be useful for the health of Los Lagos' citizens.

If only he could go out there, somehow...

He was jerked out of his thoughts as someone called up to him from the ground below.

"Hey! Lance, can I come up there?"

The voice belonged to a boy that Lance recognized instantly as his friend Jaylin. The two had been close for years.

Jaylin had short, curly black hair and almond brown eyes. Like most people in Las Lagos, he wasn't completely clean. His dark skin was covered in a thin layer of desert dust, carried on the wind from the desert, which whirled in stinging dust devils all around Lance.

"Come on up," Lance yelled to Jaylin. His friend scrambled up the ladder. Lance reached out a hand and pulled him to the top. Once he had a firm footing on the wall, he sat down, peering into Lance's face.

"I know that look. You're thinking about the desert again, aren't you?" Jaylin asked eagerly, looking into his friend's face with the eagerness of a young child.

"Yeah. I know that we're not even supposed to talk about going out there, but I have to. It would help the town in so many ways. I could find new medicinal plants to aid the sick, the mechanics could obtain tech from before the Great Deterioration to improve the machinery here, and we could find water," Lance said. The city needed water now, more than ever. The droughts were becoming more and more common, and the people were thirsty, dehydrating. If the city's lakes dried up, which was a serious danger, the life of every Los Lagos citizen would be threatened. They had to find water, and soon.

"Just imagine how cool it would be to go out there!"

"You must be insane! The desert isn't cool, it's hot," Jaylin exclaimed with mock seriousness.

Lance gave a sarcastic laugh, rolling his eyes. Jaylin was always upbeat and silly: playing and joking around were almost his jobs in life. But despite his bubbly personality, he could be counted on in important situations. That's what Lance liked about him.

"But if we're really being serious, I agree with you. I want to go out there too," Jaylin said, his gaze wandering over the desert landscape. For a moment he froze in place, his eyes fixed on the sight in front of him. Then he turned back to Lance.

"It is dangerous out there, though, with all the mutated creatures," he reminded Lance, "not to mention the fact that we'll be stopped by the Feline Guard before we can even leave in the first place."

"What did you think? That we could walk right up to the guards and ask them if we can break the laws that they uphold? No. We can always sneak past the guards at night. And as for lack of safety out there, we should only go when we've morphed. We'll be much stronger and more capable than," Lance said. Jaylin nodded.

Suddenly, a Raptor Sentry marched toward them on the wall battlements.

Lance lurched forward and covered Jaylin's mouth with his hand: if the sentry heard their traitorous talk, they would be reported to the Mayor and then imprisoned. The sentry was a middle-aged man, morphed into his hawk form. Ruffled feathers covered his whole body, and his hands had taken the curved, pointed shape of the talons that belonged to all birds of prey. His eyes were a piercing yellow, with a stark black pupil directly in the center. Lance watched warily as he surveyed the desert, scouring every inch of the landscape for signs of danger. The group of Raptor Sentries was exclusively made up of people who could morph into birds of prey: with their incredible eyesight they could easily spot any hints of enemy activity, even in the far distance, and with their piercing calls they could instantly alert the Militia, who would rush to the city's defense. Lance held his breath as the sentry marched past. He lowered his hand from Jaylin's mouth, and they only beginning to whisper again when the Raptor Sentry had strode out of hearing range.

"OK. We'll only go outside the wall when we've morphed," Jaylin agreed.

They shook hands, making a silent pact. Lance knew, deep inside, that he would fulfill his promise. He was determined to go outside the wall, and nothing would stop him. Nothing.

For a few moments, they sat in complete silence. The sun had already risen in the desert sky, a cloudless canvas of bright blue. The time was slipping away from them and soon their day would begin. Lance would have to leave to work at his apprenticeship.

"What Chimera form do you think you'll have?" he asked quickly. It was a question that had been consuming him for the whole year. It had been in his mind for a long time, a thought that he had tossed around his head, back and forth, trying to find an answer, when he knew that he couldn't possibly find out until the day he transformed. Some adults said not to worry about it, that he shouldn't think about his Chimera transformation until it actually happened.

But how could it not be on his mind? When the Chimera mutation activated and began splicing the genes of an animal species into his human genome, he would receive the ability to morph into a species of animal. It would be one of the most important days of his life. Right now, he couldn't even comprehend what it would be like to have that ability, to be able to gain claws or fangs or talons or beaks when he was threatened, or to use enhanced senses in daily life, like the Raptor Sentries, or his mother and father who could use their canine sense of smell to sniff out sicknesses in their patients.

"I don't know what my Chimera form will be. But it's exciting just to think about it, to imagine all the possibilities," Jaylin said.

There was a stream of images in Lance's mind, of coyotes and weasels and hyenas and crocodiles and owls and otters and lions. But even as he thought of it, he still couldn't really imagine being able to turn into one of those animals in the blink of an eye.

"Uh-huh. But sometimes... sometimes I wonder when we'll even become Chimeras. Or if we will at all."

"Of course we will! The Chimera Mutation is present in every human alive. Everyone says that the transformation can happen anywhere from fourteen to sixteen. And we're both fifteen, so it could be any day now," Jaylin said. Lance nodded. It was true. The elder members of the city were always telling them to be patient, that they would become Chimeras soon. But that was what everyone said. Always soon. And yet here they both were, still purely human.

Suddenly, the tolling of a bell rang through the city, startling the two. It was the signal to begin work.

Waving good bye to his friend, he left the wall. He ran along the path to the surgery. Between him and his destination was the Den, the city's market. Though he had to dodge a horde of obstacles in the marketplace, he enjoyed the constant bustle. There were people everywhere, buying and selling goods. The air was thick with smoke as lizards and desert jackrabbits roasted on spits.

A multitude of smells filled the air. Some were sickly sweet, others as sour as citrus. He could even smell the tempting scent of roasting fish and his mouth filled with saliva at the thought of so much protein. Swallowing his hunger, Lance moved on through the market. He could see stalls selling produce from beans to sweet corn to prickly pear cacti. As usual, some of the food had been mutated by the Chimera Mutation: he saw a double-headed goat, a lizard with the wings of a sparrow, and a few strangely glowing plums.

But food wasn't the only thing for sale in the market. There were also decorations and paintings which were being sold in artsy tents blocked from the smoke by gauze sheets. There were many paintings of the desert, but there were also pictures of dreamy landscapes, lost after the Great Deterioration. There were meadows full of lush, green grass, vibrant rainforests, icy mountains from when snow existed, and even a painting of a lake. It wasn't like the small lakes in Las Lagos, ones that risked vanishing in every drought. No, this lake was massive and magnificent. So large, that it could accommodate the floating vessels teeming with hundreds of passengers. Lance saw a group of pictures in the corner. They weren't painted. Instead, they were photos of ancient ruins from centuries ago. One of the photos showed a wrought iron tower, with a sharp end pointing to the sky. Another one showed a green woman with a crown, holding a book in one hand and a flaming torch in the other. The third picture was a huge bridge with had a rusted orange hue. There were a few words written on the photo in thick black marker.

Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco.

Lance didn't recognise the name. In his school there had been a history class, but there wasn't much known about the world before the Great Deterioration, so the teacher had focused on the history and the founding of Las Lagos itself.

Could it be that the bridge in that picture was really somewhere nearby? He could imagine it somewhere outside this walled city, slowly deteriorating into oblivion. If only he could get out there, and see the bridge...

Lance shook his head, clearing his mind of questions. He needed to get to the surgery. His parents were expecting him to help them. It was his job.

Lance had finally come out of the Den. Now he was in the residential area of the city, running past the houses of Los Lagos.

But not all the building in this area were houses. There were a few restaurants in the city, that utilized the food from the market to create delicious dishes. One of them was an Italian restaurant called L'olivo, which meant the Olive. It was owned by Lance's uncle. He could see its sign, emblazoned with olive branches painted by the city's artisans, the same people who created the paintings in the market.

A few minutes later, Lance stopped walking. He had reached the surgery. It consisted of a plain white room with a bed for patients and a vast range of medical equipment and medicines.

"Thanks for coming, Lance," Lance's dad said over his shoulder. He was facing away from the boy, slowly putting a man down on the bed. Lance shuddered as he saw the man's problem: lacerations covered his arms and chest, long streaks ripped into the skin. They were accentuated with smears of blood that left the wounds in scarlet trails.

"What happened to him?" Lance asked, clenching his jaw to steel himself, annihilating the numb horror that tried to seize his mind. Lance knew that he had to be brave if he wanted to help. This man needed rational thinking and fast aid, not fear and doubt.

"A couple Shredder Falcons somehow found their way over the wall. He was the first person they saw. And... well, you know," his mother said to him, cutting away the man's shirt.

Lance nodded, understanding what she meant. Shredder Falcons were a terrifying avian species that lived in the desert, sleek birds of prey with impossibly sharp beaks and talons that hunted in packs, slashing at their victims until they bled to death. They were just one of the dangerous altered animals that made their homes outside the wall. The wound on the man made some of his enthusiasm drain away. How much was he willing to risk to go beyond the wall?

Dear readers: Hello, Sylver here! I'm new to Wattpad and this is my first story. If you like it, don't forget to vote, comment and add it to your reading lists. Thanks so much for reading my story!