Pain

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I run, crashing through trees, charging like a a mad man, pushing trees and bushes out the way as I save myself.

But what about my child, my baby girl?

Phew, she is with her mother, close to me, her face is strained, her legs shaky and tired, she has never had to run before this day.

Animals leap out of our way as we pass, startled by our terror, some even try to escape with us.

"Bad men!" I want to call, "Run for your life!" But I can't stop, or waste my breath, so I just look beside me again, and there is my family, panting with exhaustion, I turn back to my path and almost crash into a boulder, but I swerve and continue.

I'm tired now, and my family has slowed, in my mind I encourage them to keep moving, to hold on to hope, but hope is slipping away.

The hunters are nearer now, we can hear their great metal machine tumbling after us, it is not made for the savannah, but still we are in danger.

I glance to the side again and realise that they are not there, my mate and child have been stopped.

I lumber to a halt, turning as I do, then charge back along the plain, I can see them now, my mate was on the ground, her back left foot clamped in a shiny new trap, it was the same material as the moving machine and I know, from the blood in her leg that it must hurt, I stumble and trip, sliding across the ground towards the grey hide of my mate.

And then I see her, my little child, she was under a net, pinned down by horrible weights, she struggles to move, and I see that this is not a grass net, it is made of the the same things as the fence around the compound is, and it has those spiked barbs in it, they rip and tear into her skin and she lies limply in the dust.

I cry in anguish, my pain for them makes me myself convulse on the floor.

The humans step out and surround me aiming those things at me, I've seen weapons before, and as I stare up into the gun, I realise the heaving and shock and pain I'm having has been felt by many others before me, not just rhinos, maybe a stately giraffe lay like this in the mud, or a lion has looked down the round snout of this weapon before.

But I have to try.

I am shuddering, defenceless on the floor, a man brings out a small box like thing, he presses a button, "We have the target." He says, and then nods to the hunter next to him.

I stare at my family one more time.

The hunter clenches his finger and the weapon bucks in his hand, a small object flies out from the snout.

And then I am dead

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