Anklus was 7 feet tall, and quite young for a mental. His bony arms reached down just past his knees. He wore a gas mask always, not because he needed one, but because it covered up his clan tattoos.
Also it had been permanently stapled to his face.
Anklus once lived with the Vengruzs People. His mother had always been there. But she had a son (Anklus) with another mental from Glonraz Clan, a known rival of the Vengruzs. When the chief discovered this he and his elders executed his mother. The Vengruzs found to their surprise, that Anklus could actually feel pain, and after that they tortured him for 8 years on end, until he eventually escaped.
Part of it was their fascination, they didn't understand how red hot irons could make you scream and wriggle. The whole idea of pain was so alien to them. Eventually they became sick of cutting him, burning him, pulling out his nails, that they eventually stapled a gas mask to his face, to cover his Clan tattoos, because they didn't see him as a true Vengruzs Mental, and frankly, he didn't want to be one. So they locked him in a cell and let him starve. He was almost thanking them for putting him out of his misery.
But something happened.
After a few days someone came. Anklus had never seen her before, and she wore a buff over her face, she came, opened the cell door, and helped Anklus escape.
She broke killed at least four guards, shot them, and tried to break all the other prisoners out too. Some of them escaped. Most of them didn't. Including the girl that saved Anklus' life.
Anklus just roamed now. Surviving off the wild. He was sure they were still hunting him. It was not like the Vengruzs to be beaten by a lowly bastard like him. So Anklus always kept moving. He'd been attacked before, only once by the Vengruzs, other time bandits or wild animals had jumped him.
But the main thing Anklus was looking for, was someone else, somebody that also could feel pain. He knew he was not a normal mental. His arms were much shorter than a lot of other mentals. Maybe he wasn't mental at all? Or maybe... maybe he had human in him...
Humans always fascinated him. He heard the stories, his cellmates would talk about them in great detail. He knew they were small people, with short arms and a strange fur on their head, something you would find on an animal. He knew they lived in massive clans... or no, not clans. What were they called again? Cities, that's it. They were called cities.
But the thing that intrigued Anklus the most about humans, was that they too, feel pain. Just like Anklus they could feel the gut wrenching stinging aching feeling, of pain. Anklus liked to think that the humans were his true people. He was going to find one of these great cities, and he would live with the humans in peace. He swore it.

But were there any left?