Spirit Lion, King Of The Cursed

• Chloe O'loughlin, Grade 6
• Short Story
• 2018

Back in the library, ‘The Chronicles of Aviperium’ rested on the shelf, where Leah had left it earlier. While sitting musingly in an armchair, she flicked through the pages until she reached page 393, where she had stopped last time. As she turned to the next page, a photo that was wedged between the pages fell onto her lap. It was an old, black and white picture showing a woman sitting pensively on a train, gazing out the window. Underneath the photo was a caption written in a messy scrawl. It read:
‘Antoinette Petite ~ The Malhuert Train ~ 6/11/1899.’
Leah wondered what it meant, so she decided to sneak the photograph back home with her, to contemplate it even further.
“Closing time!” called Ms. Sabio, the librarian.
On the way out, Leah bid farewell to her, and ran as fast as she could back home.
The next day, Leah woke at the unusually early time of three a.m. No one else was awake, but she could’ve sworn she heard a noise. She pulled out the old photograph, and studied it further. It seemed as though ‘Antoinette’ was glancing at a ghostly looking lion which was staring straight back at her. Leah soon fell asleep again, and dreamt that the spirit lion had crept into her room and devoured the pot plant in the corner.
In the morning, the same pot plant had disappeared; only shards of pottery and clumps of soil remained. She went downstairs, but found herself alone. Leah stepped outside for a breath of fresh air, and at that moment, something rustled in the bushes.
“Stay b-b-back.” Leah stammered as she picked up a spanner that was lying next to her feet. For what felt like hours, Leah stood there; her eyes fixed on the bushes. The problem was they were too thick, too tall, that she couldn’t see what had caused the noise. After a while, she decided that it was most likely the neighbour’s cat, and began to walk inside again. Just then, the same spirit lion from the photo and from Leah's dream pounced out of the bushes, landing in front of her. She screamed. In that moment, getting away from the lion was all that mattered. She backed into a corner, the spirit pounced once more. It was beautiful and horrifying. It all seemed to happen in slow-motion; the lion’s lush, regal mane billowed around its head. The world went black...

From that day, it seemed as though Leah had been erased from everyone’s memories. All that remained was a small photo of her sitting in a train, looking out the window at a wispy looking spirit lion, which was staring back at her. A caption in a rushed scrawl of cursive read:
‘Leah Miller ~ The Malhuert Train ~ 9/12/2018’
It was found in the book ‘The Chronicles of Aviperium’ one-hundred and nineteen years later. But why?