Take A Stand

• Tyler Groom, Grade 5
• Short Story
• 2019

The grass whips my face as I run, low to the ground on my 4 legs. Bang! A searing pain shoots up my leg and I slump down on the hard dry ground. A strange creature towers over me and starts kicking me, then he picks me up and throws me in the cage. Everything goes black.
I wake bumping up and down on the back of a roaring monster. I twist in the cage and the thin metal bars press down into my skin. My throat is dry, no freedom, no food and no water. I twist around and see an empty dart sticking into my leg.
An hour later the monster goes over a particularly big mound of dirt and my cage flips over. I see a bar slide in the cage I get my claw and slide the bar aside completely. Then the monster goes silent I hear something slam then about a minute later another thing slams. I start to smell smoke but I don’t dare move. Then I hear something stomping towards me and I see it.
He grabs my cage and slams it onto the ground. The pain sears through my body. I yelp in pain and start to struggle. He sticks me with some sort of needle with coloured fluid that stabs into my body. I go rigid and hard then he starts swinging my body down onto the ground again and again. Then he emits a low growl.
I wake up in a place full of bustling crowds. I’m in a smaller cage teetering on a ledge high above all the creatures walking around I see a gap and lean forward plummeting to the ground and my cage shatters. I look around and see a fellow cheetah collapsed on the ground. It has blood soaking its pelt. I ignore the pain in my chest and run towards freedom. I look back and see the cheetah raise its head and look at me. Then its head drops and I know it’s gone.
I make it to freedom but I don’t feel very happy.