THE ARTIFACT

Natural hybrids go by many names; freaks, mutants, malformed, the epitome of sadness, but natural hybrids is the usual term. They are born when an artificial hybrid gets pregnant, this is possible since the parent has the genetics of both a human and lacopus despite only looking like one. Conceiving a natural hybrid is rare and having one survive past birth is rarer since most die in the womb due to organ failure. The ones that do make it past birth contain traits from both species in random ways that are usually harmful; sharp lacopus teeth with normal human gums, a thin human torso with large lacopus back arms it can’t support, or a human iris on a lacopus pupil that’s forced closed due to the oversized iris making the individual nearly blind. Those are just external problems; organ incompatibility is the main killer of these hybrids as their insides either can’t support the body or just don’t work with each other. The brain is the worst one; lacopus brains are long and run through the whole body while human brains are contained within the skull. Natural hybrids will have some mix of the two brains which leads to many physical and mental issues. Thankful extreme surgery that makes them into only one of the two species can be performed to give these children a normal life, many children get this surgery as hybrids typically don’t survive past childhood. Thankfully natural hybrids are rare making them a controllable issue; and while bloody, surgery isn’t a difficult procedure. There are some records of a natural hybrid making it to adulthood unoperated, however, these ones have very minor bodily changes and are usually infertile, and not all of them can be Luctus.