Kings Of The Jungle

• Sibi Pakirisamy, Grade 9
• Short Story
• 2013

It was an insignificant grey lump when I first laid my eyes on it, sitting calmly among the tall grass. I had told my mother but she dismissed it as a mere rock or stone and told me to finish my lunch. But as time passed I noticed that it was significantly closer and there were many other rocks just like it surrounding our herd. I told my mother again, but this time she did not say anything except look closer at them through narrowed eyes. Then her face grew still and a flash of an alien emotion raced across her eyes. I turned my head to see what she was looking at just as chaos erupted throughout the herd.
Those insignificant rocks were now gone, and replacing them were ferocious beasts with a short, gold coat and claws gleaming and sharp protruding from their paws. My mother had once told me of these beasts, she had called them the kings of the jungle, yet in a tone that one might use to describe a villain.
As she called my name, I snapped back to my senses and we both began to run away from the demons, with new found energy coursing through my limbs. I think I tripped once or twice and grazed my leg, but I couldn't feel any pain.
Just as I thought we had finally escaped, a lone fiend leaped out of a nearby bush and almost caught me. Then I met its eye. It was large and round with a tiny pupil surrounded by an enchanting golden sclera. As it drew me in, all I could see was hunger and voracity lurking about the deep radiance of its pupil. But what filled me with pure terror was that it held not a single trace of remorse or guilt of anything it had done. I tried to avert my gaze but found that I couldn't move a single muscle.
And that’s when the beast made its move. It crouched low and leaped at me with its mouth wide open and body fully extended. My mother shoved me to the side, causing me to break out of my brief reverie and we bolted away from the beast. Or so I’d thought. When I turned my head my mother was no longer at my side. Instead she was many body lengths behind me, with the golden beast almost within reach of her. The upper part of her left hind leg had a deep, red gash, explaining her excruciatingly slow speed. When the monster finally caught up and it leapt onto her back and dragged her to the ground. As she lay on the ground thrashing, the fiend ripped out her throat and within seconds, half a dozen other beasts had emerged to eat the flesh off her corpse. With tears stinging my eyes, I ran on and did not stop until I was many leagues away and could no longer smell or hear the ‘Kings of the Jungle’.