Ramblings of a Stranger

Nightmare

I can't remember how exactly it started, but the first thing I can remember is being in a mall type place. It was a little crowded, I'm not sure who I was with when I heard a noise that made me turn around. I saw a tall, thin, black girl semi frozen in place out of fear with her hands held in front of her. When I looked where she was looking, there was a female lion inside one of the stores, teeth bared, ready to pounce. I ran a few steps forward and threw my hands up in the air and just yelled as loud and menacingly as I could. It got the lion's attention who ran towards me, then jumped at me. I somehow side stepped it as it was in the air, tackled it in mid air and bear hugged the thing for dear life as we crashed to the floor. After a few seconds, several other people jumped on it and we held it until some sort of authority people showed up and tranquilized it. As I was getting up I overheard people saying to each other how what I did was insane. I just went on my way. I was then in some sort of gated community like resort. It was dark, there was a main building not far from me with nothing real close around it. The main drive lead from that building to the gate at the street which was a couple or few hundred feet away. Across the street was a large, steep hill that stretched down towards either end of the street as far as I could see. There were a few trees scattered far apart along the incline with more trees sitting atop the hill. One section on top, about a hundred feet wide was clear of trees, there was just grass. I was walking around on the  grass, not sure what I was doing, and Ben(my son who was 8 at the time of this nightmare)  was walking towards me. He started asking to go train watching, which I said no. He had asked a few times, each time I said no. He then said he would just go by himself, and I said fine whatever, go ahead. I continued doing whatever it was when I looked outside the fence at a neighboring property. It was a house with a small hill out front leading up to it, 2 sets of steps connected by a walkway to the sidewalk. There were a few bushes out front, a single tree in the front yard next to one bush, a tree between the sidewalk and street, and a few vehicles on the street parked out front of the house. There was a tan car with a maroon van behind it, and another dark colored car behind the van. There were others behind those but I couldn't see them too well. 2 female lions slowly walked onto the sidewalk from between the front car and the van. One suddenly runs in a burst of speed up the hill after something, which made the bush out front shake. I didn't see what it was, but apparently it got away cause the lion then turned and jumped from near the house down to the sidewalk with nothing in its jaws. The two lions then started running up the hill towards the house, then jumping down to the sidewalk several times. I turned away and started walking again a few steps before realizing how my conversation with Ben ended. I spun around and looked across the street up and down the sidewalk, but I couldn't see Ben. When I looked at the hill I saw movement near the top  of almost just a shadow that was climbing up. It was Ben. He seemed to be about a dozen feet from the top of the hill where the clearing was. As I started heading for the gate I caught more movement from the top of the hill near the trees on the right side of the clearing. It appeared to be a couple adult jaguar with a few little ones. I looked back at Ben who was now on top and was looking over the other side for few seconds before continuing on. I was now entering the street when I looked back at the cats and noticed the two adults looking his direction shortly before darting in his direction. I had started to climb the hill but for some reason was unable to get a foothold. As I was trying to figure out why I couldn't climb the hill that's when I started hearing the screaming and the jaguar attacking. Ben was screaming no and help me over and over again. I then caught movement from the corner of my eye. The two lions had managed to sneak close to me. I bolted, getting back inside the community and closing the gate. I just stared as the two lions were growling and trying to swipe their claws me through the bars. I could still hear him scream although it was very muffled. I turned and slowly walked to the main building. Suddenly everything went quiet, I didn't hear anything. I ran into the building, down a flight of stairs, where other people were walking around. Laura(my girlfriend and Ben's mom) and Joey(our at this time 11 year old son) were there too. I rapidly started talking fast, telling everyone what had happened and we need to go find him as I was grabbing supplies and a backpack. A silence completely filled the room, everyone stopped moving and just looked at me. It was then that the realization hit there was no point. I started yelling that we have to go, and I'd just go alone if had to. Still no one moved.