fod-flash

[fod-flash]

My childhood friend died this time last year.

Good luck punching God in the face, Samearan.

for context: Samearan's name was changed to Denzel, after they were adopted. I knew them before they were adopted.

[fod-flash]

The History of Buddha (the Werehyena)

When the Jewish Arabs became masters of metalworking in Damascus, their skill was believed to be from a deal with the devil, Djinn.

Non-Jewish people who saw the Jewish as outsiders claimed that a Jewish wise man had used glass blowing to capture the spirit of the fire in the lamp of Alla'in and traded the demon's freedom for secret knowledge of fire.

This became the popular tale of Djinn of the lamp, as can be found in the novel An Eternity And A Day, the title often mistranslated as 1001 Arabian Nights.

It is also the direct inspiration for the story of Doctor Faust.

Unfortunately this made the people fearful of the Jewish 'fire magic', leading to them being ousted by society and hated, though at the same time kept around, since their metalworking skills were highly needed.

Such things also inspired tales such as the Golem, a powerful being formed like the first man on Earth, by breathing life into clay mud, made to protect the Jews from their oppressors.

These kinds of stories left the Jewish community vitally important, yet devoid of freedoms, like a nerd that does a bully's homework for them.

They were lavished with luxuries, but would be punished for the smallest misdeeds, this being the main reason many migrated away from Egypt.

Egypt had seemed like a promising place at first, they had a rising economy so prospects were good, but then they found themselves enslaved, with their children massacred simply for wishing to celebrate a holy day that the Egyptians didn't believe in.

Not all fled back home to Arabia or Eastern Europe, some headed south to Sudan and further into East Africa, where an honest wage for farm work was praised.

At one point the royals of West Africa saw the Jews worth and hired them as soldiers, granting them property and wealth.

This made the humble farmers of the region jealous, and when the Western King died, many who were struggling working the land in the East saw this as an opportunity to ransack the Jews and exile them, stealing their wealth for their own families.

Due to the West African people's usage of domesticated hyena, these Jews had learned how to do the same and some armed themselves with packs of hyena for defense.

This lead to a myth that the Jews were not human at all, but in fact demon hyena with advanced human intelligence, who had learn how to use fire to transform things, metal ores to tools, themselves to humans, their enemies to salt.

To be fair, the local Christian population of Ethiopia did not think all Jews were werehyena, but they did believe that the werehyena lived among the Jewish population using jobs that involved fire, such as glass work and metal work to excuse the scent of smoke that they attained by transforming themselves with fire.

Still, they saw the only solution was to exile all Jews or convert them to Christianity thus removing the need for jobs involving fire and making it impossible for the werehyena to transform without suspicion.

Today, very few Jewish people live in Ethiopia. Many have fled and those that remain are treated like dirt.

The multicultural city of Harar still keeps domesticated hyena and has most of what's left of the Jewish population in the country.

As a myth the werehyena or Buddha in Ethiopian language are kind of terrifying to be honest.

Unlike werewolves they're not undead and can die by normal means, but they're as intelligent as an intelligent human, as fast as a fast human and as strong as a strong human all at once.

They can still see in the dark in their human form and still talk in their hyena form.

They could turn you into firewood with their magic or even turn you into a hyena yourself so that when you speak in human tongue simply trying to ask for help the Buddha can point the finger at you and claim you to be the werehyena instead.

They can trigger the rounds in a gun, making someone else seem dangerous or foolish.

They can remote detonate petrol tanks.

Basically any use of fire can be done to any object, as long as the werehyena knows of its existence.

And if the transformative fire won't be seen or the smoke smelled, like if the target happens to be out in the open away from public sight, they can transform the target be it person or object into pretty much anything they please.

But they are not unstoppable.

Once their identity is uncovered, a large enough group of men can overpower them.

For this they can call their pack to help them, since Buddha generally travel in groups of 5, usually 4 males and a single female who leads them.

Take out the leader however and the others will run away.

Since hyena are cats, certain behaviors can expose them, cat nip's like a drug to them and a dog whistle makes them flinch, not to mention, the can see in the dark.

But a suspicious Buddha knows how to control their actions deliberately not reacting or acting in a suspicious manner when they know they're being watched.

It's all a battle of wits and allegiances.