A Darker Leopard

Chapter nineteen: addicted to danger

I think what I miss most of all is the sky.

While I licked my wounds that were glistening with blood, a tiny cub watched wide eyed from the corner of his own cage.
  "What's up with you?" I grunted, to which the cub shuffled away slightly, frightened. I turned my head with a sigh and lay down to sleep. Staring at the ceiling, with my back against the cage bars, I felt a tiny tongue gently lick at a scratch that I couldn't quite reach. Slowly turning my head, I saw the small cub with his face up to the bars and a little pink tongue stuck out his mouth.

I smiled. A grin felt almost alien to my face as unused muscles decided wake up.

The cub was just more than half my size, tiny and shivering. Or was he shaking in terror from the new environment? I can't tell anymore. The cub looked away from my sharp gaze with his head held low and ears droopy. Poor thing really is scared. I let my battered paw slip through the cage bars, claws sheathed, and stroke his head. Almost jumping out of his skin, he turned around then buried his face in my fur. Humans are such monsters.

He knows he is going to die. Then he fell fast asleep on my foreleg. I wasn't going to move my paw from beneath his head and soon I fell asleep too.

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Thump.

I awoke with a jolt.

Thump.

I drew my paw back, waking the cub.

Thump!

Much louder this time.

Bash!

...that wasn't a thump...

Crash!

Using my dark pelt, I melted into the shadows as humans flooded the antechamber in which our cages were kept. Cages were opened and leopards were escorted out by these humans. Some were carrying cameras and others the wire hooped metal poles. They took the cub. All this time I stayed silent; I've had more than my fair share of human interaction.

I was alone. Not a sound, not a movement. All alone. A single noise, the hum of an engine then the clicking of machinery... followed by the horrifying sound of the ceiling coming down.

Thick dust wafted across the space stinging my eyes and nose. I couldn't breathe, I couldn't see. The ceiling was almost completely demolished along with the back wall. The structure of the building was highly unstable and my ears were ringing.

The noise came back and more of the building collapsed. I shrieked in pain as pieces of flying metal became embedded in my flesh. Scratching desperately at the bars of my cage, more rubble came down upon me. I coughed and spluttered, I sneezed and wheezed.

The bars had been bent out of shape. I squeezed through and tried to make my way over to the exit. The floor was littered with shrapnel and broken glass that cut my pads with every step.