Starring: tatter ^.^
Setting: A thickly forested area: somewhere in africa.
Tatter woke in the midst of midnight nap, not to his suprise most the lionesses were out, possibly for a hunt, leaving him, his son, and most of the elders the only ones still lying around in the cave.
But something had awoken him, though just what it was he couldn't tell. He exited his den onto the ledge that lowered into the forests main water hole, and pricked his ears forward for a listen.
Quite, too quite, even the lionesses were not that good, from here he should have heard birds caw, insects buzz, his girls rustling bushes and breaking twigs, but there was nothing.
He lied on the cliff's edge and watched the forest closely, it was all to still.
His son came out, sleep still thick within his eyes, "Where's mom?"
"Dunno... shhh."
His cub gave him a wierd look, "What are you doing?"
"Watching J.J., now go back inside, somethings wierd."
His cub watched him for a moment, and then resigned himself back to the cave, and hopefully back to sleep. Tatter was himself about to resign himself to falling asleep on the ledge, when he heard the thing.
The only way to discribe it was as a monster, it was the sounds of roaring, and clicking, and screaming, all at the same time, a demonic sound he had never heard, never thought he'd ever hear, in his life. Back in the cave there was chatter amonghst the other lionesses, and he heard little feet, "Back in the cave J.J.! Stay with you grandmother." he growled.
Not really wanting to go check it out, but concerned for the well being of more than half his pride, he decended the cliffside ledge by ledge, and ended upi nthe forest below. Despite the horrible sound from before once it died off all that was left was a constant gutteral growl and the smell of some kind of poisonis gas that caused Tatter's eyes to burn. He creeped through the bushes, and gasped as he paused upon one of his lionesses.
She had hole, no bigger than the size of a bettle, within her neck, and he could already scent that her life had left her hours ago, was this the fate of his entire pride? Is this why it was so quite?
He crept forward further, coming upon no other lioness, stilling the sadness in his heart with the fear for what creature would make such a noise yet be so precise and deadly, when he came upon them.
The hairless apes, he had seen their kind before, riding big metal steeds of bad smells, looking about the land, hunting his food with thunder sticks. Of course, that's what had killed the lioness, the thunder stick; it had been the first time one of them had ever been struck by the ape's weapon.
These hairless apes were not like the other apes and monkeys of the wild, other than riding steeds the only hair they seemed to wear was the mane on the top of their head, which seemed to vary plenty in size, shape, and color. They smelt not of the wild but of strong gasses that seemed to try to mimic flowers, food, and even sexual smells.
But he knew these apes, even their thunder sticks, which had probably awoken him, would not make such a monstrous sound, what was it, had the foolish gibbering monkeys awoken something worse than themselves in the forest? Something in his land something even he wasn't aware of?
Then it roared to life again, and he ducked low below the bushes, trying to keep a hold on his bladder which suddenly was full at the moment. The roaring and clicking turned into screams again and a giant claw that seemed to be full of crawling teeth tore its way through a tree directly across from him, and the tree seemed to be the thing that screamed in agony as it fell, fell, straight, towards, him.
The Pain was immense, his right arm's feeling disappeared in what felt to be both tearing and fire. He opened his eyes to see them looking back at him in surprise, and noted he was vocalizing his pain.
He quieted himself, and then his eyes fell upon the monster of the forest, giant, shiny, made of the metallic rocks the humans steeds were made of, it wore two claws at its sides as large as himself and crawling with teeth, a sight that made his fur crawl, on its front was a large maw full of sets of teeth rolled around what looked to be logs made out of the same thing as it’s skin, extending from that maw was another arm with a hollowed out paw, with a set of three claws. It’s legs did not exist, but it wasn’t like the human’s steeds either, they where as if it wore many of the human’s steeds round rotating legs, and they where combined into one giant leg with a padded foot that crawled like the teeth on it’s claws.
He was only slightly aware that the ground beneath him had dampened and warmed, and only slightly aware as his world blacked out, that the hairless apes were coming closer.
(To Be Continued?)
