The Lion King

The breeze started to pick up, moving the dried, brown, tall field grass from side to side, eventually breaking pieces off of the long stalks. The sun was beating down, making the temperatures almost impossible to bear, making wild fires an ever occurring event for this summer. The trees were monstrous, leafless, and branched out like all cliché wild safari trees. Animals that touched the rocks and the sandy ground instantly burned their hooves or paws, forcing them to leap into the air like they were prancing, in order to move from place to place and to keep from burning.

On this particular safari summer morning, a zebra is eating in the fields and keeping an eye on her twin foals. She notices how big they have grown in eight months and that they are beginning to get their stripes. She dreads the day that she will have to leave her babies and move to a new area to live. As she keeps eating, she notices the patch of grass she’s eating is particularly dry and moves around to find less crispy grass. As she is moving around all she can think is “It’s impossible to find good food in this doggone heat! How am I supposed to find enough food for my foals and myself so we don’t starve?” Replaying this over and over again in her head she finds some shade under the trees located by a water hole. Calling her foals over to take a drink and scavenge for the green grass that grows just on the outside edge of the water; she notices that one of the foals isn’t coming. Thinking that she’s just playing or lollygagging, the mother isn’t very concerned about her “She’ll come on her own time,” and starts eating grass again.
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Stretched out on the rocks overlooking his pride, the king of the jungle stretches out his long, lean body, letting his claws out and retracting them again about three times. Opening his mouth to let out a blood pumping “ROOAAARRRR”, he shows his fangs and pearly whites. Then, the single most important thing to do; he shakes his brown, luscious mane, made from hair that is rough, bent, and frizzy from years and years of attacking his prey, to show his hierarchy among the others.

After his morning rituals, he looks at his surroundings and sees that the rest of his pride is either still sleeping or getting ready to go out for the hunt. The king starts down towards the water hole on the other side of the huge mountain of rock that they have settled on. On his way, he notices a family of zebras, on their way to the nearby watering hole, most likely to find better grass than the crunchy, brown stalks that grows in the wide open fields. He notices that she has two foals with her as well.
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The safari was beginning to wake up now, and the watering hole is beginning to fill up with other antelope, giraffes, meerkats, wildebeest, hyenas, elephants, warthogs, baboons, and various species of birds, including the parrots that everyone knows is last getting water in the morning. Now the mother zebra is starting to get concerned. She frantically looks around for her foals, but they are nowhere in sight. She calls for her other foal to come to her immediately but he doesn’t. She weaves in between all the other animals getting water and fighting over the good grass at this point. Asking everyone she meets if they’ve seen her foal and they all point her in the same direction. “He’s next to the trees over there” they all say, and as she makes her way over there and sees a little foal imbedded into the brown, tannish grass with his head down in front of him sleeping. She explodes in front of him, thankful he isn’t lost, only to find that this foal isn’t close to being hers. So her search continues. She gets the feeling she’s being followed so she picks up her pace a little only to see a shadow behind the trees she just came from and a patch of grass moving more fiercely than what it should be.
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“What a lucky day this is turning out to be.” The only thing the king can think of is how much he’ll impress all those back at Pride Stone. He brings back the two fresh kills he’s just made and goes out to make the final one. He creeps through the grass making his shoulder blades pop up higher than ever over his body, and steps so carefully, not even he can hear himself moving through the grass. He creeps so low to the ground; no animal can see his mane above the grass line. All of his hunting techniques never fail him and today would be no different. Weaving through the grass and the trees that are spaced here and there, he finally catches up with his last victim.
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She knows she’s being foolish, but she keeping getting that feeling like someone is following her like she’s their prey. But that doesn’t matter, both of her foals are gone and she needs to find them. “They aren’t old enough to be on their own” she keeps thinking and sometimes saying out loud to random animals she meets. Even though she’s asked about everyone in the whole area if they’ve seen her foals, no one has.

She sees a shadow behind her and she swears it’s the shadow of a lion or a tiger, but she was unable to see the difference. When she gets into panic mode and can hear the blood pumping through her veins, she stops in a valley in between two mountains of rock. Not knowing that the lion pride was on the other side, she thinks this is the safest place for her.
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The pride sees her coming in. They have two others and want more. Standing on top of the rocks they can see that the King is corralling her in to face her doom. With one flick of his tail, they get the signal to move in on her and they begin down the rocks to corner her in and take her down. The first one to strike out is a lioness. She thrusts her body forward and her claw catches the zebra in the neck, making it a successful hit. The zebra goes down. She can’t get up for a while, and when she does she’s very weak and tries to kick her way out of the lion pack. Blood is everywhere and scars the rocks of where she’s been. She keeps getting attacked and more and more blood is flowing out of each wound. The white on her fur stains red and making the black, blacker. Lions pounce all over and scratch and bite her, making her unable to move.
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So much pain. So much pain. So much blood. So much pain. She realizes she’s lying in a pool of warm blood and realizes there’s not a spot on her that isn’t being bathed in her own blood. She tries to get up, but is too weak. She sees the lioness coming toward her. She’s creeping towards her, with her fangs showing and claws ready for the kill. The lioness lets out a blood curdling roar and pounces. Then…… the unbearable pain causes her to cry out and darkness fills her world.