Chapter 99: Sleeping Lion

Ying was scrabbling against the bars of her cage.

She was supposed to be a lioness, tearing across the savannah. Being a part of her pride, hunting down prey for their next feast. The clear sky, the endless plains, prowling through the coarse grasses.

But now, she was trapped. By means beyond her comprehension, she’d woken up someplace else. Gone was the bushland, the grass and open sky. Dim fluorescent lighting filled a drab, grey box of a room. The air stunk of day-old piss and dung, dank and cloying in her nostrils. Now it was cramped and stuffy, cold steel bars pressed on every side of her. A heavy manacle was secured around her left paw.

Ying squinted outside the bars of her cage. She realised that there were several other animals with her. They were all similarly caged. Some, like her, threw themselves against their confines. Others were sullen, robbed of their energy, and sat or slumped on the ground. The ground was unsteady, the entire room swaying, causing the dozens of cages packed together to rattle and clang in a horrible metallic symphony.

Ying couldn’t understand what was going on.

Just then, voices drifted into her perceptive ears. Two humans were walking past her cage. They were talking. When they passed by her, one of them looked at her, and stopped in his tracks. The other one stopped as well, saying something else.

But wait… she could understand, now. Because she wasn’t a lioness anymore, but a…

A sharp bolt of pain shot through her skull. By the time she was done shaking her head out, she couldn’t remember what she was thinking. But… her head swivelled to the men outside. She found that she had not been mistaken. She still understood them.

“Where did you get this lion from?” one of them was saying. “I didn’t know that there were any lion populations in Loukoumades.”

“There aren’t,” said the other. “I imported her from over the seas.”

“Huh? You bastard, you. Just how did you manage to sneak her past all the angel officials?”

“Barely had to. Angels don’t really give a crap about animals. In fact, some of them would rather we traffick them—keep them subdued and confined, so they have no chance of turning into Beasts. We’re doing them a favour, really.”

“A favour? Ha-ha! Fancy that.” The man laughed. He crouched down to get eye-to-eye with Ying. He was too close, encroaching onto her space. Baring her teeth, she growled back.

In return, he raised his brow. “Wow. She has an attitude.” That was the only warning Ying got, before a sharp bolt of fire lanced through her nerves. Pain lit up her every sense, so intense that she lost vision. A howl ripped from her throat as her ears rang, and she threw herself against the bars once more, anything to take her mind off the fire burning from her bones.

“Settle down, or you’ll get it again!” she heard the man threaten. When Ying could see again she saw him waving a prod in her face, whose end sparked with potent electricity. She panted heavy, slow breaths, forcing herself to keep down her growls even as her body screamed. Looking at her, the man scoffed and turned back to his mate. “Heh. They make so much noise, but lions are really just big pussycats.”

“Then unlock this door,” Ying thought. “This pussycat will tear you from limb to limb.”

Yet, something about this whole situation felt familiar to her. Like she had been here before long ago. This had all happened a long time ago. She couldn’t put her finger on it… huh? Finger?

“So, where’s this cat gonna go?” the man spoke again, disrupting her train of thoughts.

“Oh, just a night carnival. No need for any bells and whistles like circus tricks. People here will pay through the nose just to see a live lion. Save the feed we have for those going to the circus—they’re the ones we need to make sure can still jump around by the time we reach our destination.”

Time passed in a haze of confusion and hunger. So much hunger. Ying did not know how many days and nights had passed; she could see neither the sun nor the stars from inside this rattling grey room. It felt like a century. She had to hunt, but her claws could only scratch ineffectually at the steel floor below her. Afterwards she could not do even that. She laid down on her flank, cheek pressed to the cold floor. It smelled even worse here. Through her bleary eyes she saw the monkeys in the next cage over gobbling some brown, mushy chunks that looked like month-old banana. Then her eyes rolled up in her skull, and she passed out.

She woke up again when the ground moved below her. It was nighttime, but bright lanterns carried by men stabbed her eyes. The grey room had been opened up, while the cages were being dragged out one by one onto the grass. Ying’s tumbled out, and lying on her back, paws curled, she saw from between the bars the star-twinkling sky up above. She could feel fresh air flowing over her fur again, the din of crickets tickling her ears. It was a welcome change, but she still wasn’t free. Also… the climate she was from was bristlingly dry. Here, the wind was humid and heavy on her fur, the trees too lush and green.

This wasn’t the land she was from. It was utterly foreign, and most certainly miles and miles away from home. Ying was certain that she would never see the savannah or the rest of her pride again.

Later, the men came by to shovel her half-rancid minced-meat scraps. They did still want their lion alive, after all. Some of them found great joy in smacking their shockprods across her cage, revelling in the way she cringed backwards. An apex predator, Ying was not one to be subdued easily, but after all this time of struggling and having nothing to show for it, she was drained her of her determination. Eventually, tail flicking, she sank to her haunches in defeat as they transferred her cage onto another cart. It was better to conserve her energy at this point. Her companions were the clutch of monkeys on her left and the nickering zebra on her right, among other animals these men deemed exotic.

Soon, they arrived. The carnival was a spread of colour in the midst of the dark night.

Their cart rattled to a stop. Another line of cages were rolled out in front of her and the other animals. They were all bigger than the one she was squashed in currently, which would allow some pacing room. From a distance, Ying saw the lanternlit figure of a human shambling down the line, unlocking each crate one by one, leading the captive animals into the larger cages. Ying’s fur prickled with anticipation, but it would be a good while before he reached hers.

Just as she was waiting, a wet slap of something fell to the floor beside her.

Ying turned around to stare, mystified, at a large, marbled slab of meat that had suddenly appeared by her paws.

The lioness craned her head around to look for where it had come from, but there were no men in her vicinity, only the leaves scattering in the wind, dew glistening upon them. The men also wouldn’t have given her such good meat.

Too famished to care, Ying thanked whatever forces above that had smiled upon her and devoured the meat. Soon, she felt the fog over her brain clear, her muscles renewed. She stood once more upon four paws, and turned her attention back to the approaching man. It was then that she noticed that other animals had been mysteriously gifted food, as well. The zebra was munching on a bundle of fresh grass, while the monkeys behind her were feasting on a small pile of dates. All the food was finished before the man got within seeing distance of them.

She watched as the zebra’s cage was unlocked, and the striped equine was led out on string into the other cage. The man locked the door shut behind it, then turned towards Ying’s enclosure. He looked weary, like he wanted to get out of here already. But Ying was ready.

The moment the man unlocked the door, Ying sprang with a roar so deafening, it was like the wind had exploded around them. The man looked up to see whirling claws, the shadow of a creature several times his size soaring over him. Now he was the one curling into himself—as he should’ve been. Prey needed to act like prey.

As Ying sank her jaws into the man, she heard alarmed shouts of other humans. Some who came rushing out of the coloured tent, some who ran over from other parts of the line where they had also been in the midst of transferring animals. Most of the animals, left alone, wisely ran away into the thick green trees. Some others were putting up a fight. But none fought quite as ferociously as Ying. So it was her that the humans focused their efforts on.

A cluster of humans attempted to jab her with their shock prods. Each time one of them grazed her, it sent quivering shudders down Ying’s spine. Gnashing her teeth, she battled on, ripping prods out with clawed sweeps, barrelling down lines of people with her weight.

Just when she thought that she might win her way out of here, though, her eye caught a figure standing in the very back, shadowed by the lights of the tent. There was a click—the man was cocking a rifle. He squeezed one eye shut and calmly fired.

BANG! BANG!