The Wild

• Zaina Mohamed Fahim, Grade 6
• Short Story
• 2021

Lila could hear noises. They were faint at first, but they eventually became loud enough to wake her up. The soft snores of her parents seeped through the hollow plaster walls. ‘Some hotel this is,’ thought Lila, ‘no one can get a peaceful sleep!’ She slipped her cold feet into the wooly slippers slanted on her bed. Lila thudded her way towards the creaky wooden door. Her bony fingers crept their way onto the door handle, creaking it open. Peering out of her room, she could see thin streams of pure moonlight snaking it’s way through the old, brown moth-eaten curtains at the end of the hall which were flapping in the wind like a ghost. Lila tip-toed her way to the window.

She had been in this hotel for at least a few weeks. Things were pretty peaceful (and lame). The thick grass grew limitless, there was no garden or pool instead there were muddy brown ponds beneath the hallway windows. Yet lately Lila had the feeling that Morris, the hotel guard who locked the front gates and the hotel doors wasn’t really qualified for the job. There were huge gates surrounding the hotel, which were rusty and mossy. Morris was supposed to lock the gates at five, which was at sunset. Instead he locked them at seven, when the sun was way below the horizon. The fact that this was apparently the ‘only hotel available’ for their destination was pretty dangerous. A hotel—on the edge of a jungle.

Leaning out, she could see the thick, dense jungle stretching out into the horizon. The starry night sky stretched high above her head and into the unknown. The wind howled in her ears. Looking down, she could see something strange. The hotel lights had turned off. Considering all the hotels she had been to, the lights were always on at night. And Morris was always looking pretty alert at night. But something else caught her eye. Leaning a little further, she could see the hotel’s doors. They were swaying open in the wind, welcoming the wild inside.

As well as that, Morris who was usually at the front of the hotel doors in his office wasn’t there. But she could see a thin beam of torchlight, from his torch, illuminating the spot where he should’ve been. A growl came from behind. She didn’t want to turn around, but her instincts told her to. And the sight was horrifying. Two pairs of yellow eyes glowed in the darkness. A furry figure creeped its way towards her. She had to jump, but the fall was too big. Turning around, Lila could see the black-patched thing closing in on her. Looking down one more time, she could just make out the reflection of the moon glimmering below, and that’s when she remembered. Just as a sharp pain jabbed at her foot, she leaped through the hotel window..... and into the wild, a place never said to return from.