Prisoner Thirty-One

Feather: Mutant monkey people

Time seemed to freeze as the eyes watched us. I was lucky having to stare past the fire and Alec to see clearly, while Alec must have had a front row seat to the horror.

A breath past before out of nowhere the eyes leaped to replace Alec by the fire. To the animal's confusion Alec had moved to between me and Kimba so remained unharmed. Now that it was closer to the fire, I could clearly make out the large lean cat that crouched in front of us. It had thick black fur all over its body and bared long white fangs as it analysed the rest of us.

I'm not sure when the others found time to move but once I had stop being transfixed on the new creature in front of me, I noticed that the other three were standing. They seemed ready to spring into a fight scene as I stayed frozen on the floor.

"Kimba let's try and scare it first." Joe's voice came out at just above inaudible. The second his sentence had finished the small contained fire expanded to a semi-circle around the beast. It sent the animal stepping backwards in what looked like a retreat, until it shifted forwards and used the distance to take a run up to leap completely over the fire.

It landed right in front of Kimba and would have clawed at her knees if it weren't for Alec crashing into its side. The knock didn't seem to move the cat but definitely managed to draw his attention. He started stalking us, maybe assessing for the weakest link or better yet, easiest prey.

It lunged towards Joe who somehow managed to dodge its open jaws and made a stabbing motion towards the side of its face. There was a shriek from the cat as Joe scraped it with some sort of knife. The wound turned the animal on me as I found myself crawling backwards from the lumbering cat. While the rest of my friends had been on there feet, I had to look up at the animal and found myself in a moment of clarity.

Up close its fur seemed a lot thinner, with its middle looking more bone than muscular. The cat also apparently had lost half of its right ear and housed a series of scars from knives similar to Joe's. It was close enough for me to feel its breath as it leaned inwards to tear into me. Just then Alec seemed to materialise on the cats back using his speed and momentum to flip the great cat over. They fell in a heap of claws as the two struggled to be in a better position.

They both ended up in a crouched position facing each other and circled until the cats back was too the wall. "Now!" Alec yelled as he reached to catch something Joe had thrown to him from the other side of the room. It only took a moment for the object to be positioned, pointed and shot.

I'd never heard a close gun shot before, so the echo forced me to shut my eyes and lean away from the scene.

I returned to see Alec on his knees staring at the black fur, which had collected on the floor. The other two ran to Alec to check if he was okay as I continued my obsession with the cat. Approaching it, I ignored the head area and the red splatters around the body and took a closer look at the fur on its side. The scars I had noticed over the face seemed to flow the whole way down its body, creating a map of matted fur and exposed hard skin.

The animal had clearly been a fighter. I found myself pushing back tears as I considered the story this creature could have had and why I deserved to live more than it did. But the truth was I didn't, there was a fight and it had lost. Although I had been useless in the whole situation, I had been on the winning side and that was clearly what these woods were all about.

A sudden gleam of white caught my eyes and I reached into the side of the fur to pull out what looked like an arrow head. Thinking back to the fight, I remembered the way the cat had leaned to one side and seemed to limp as it moved slowly. "What the hell?" I mumbled as I looked at the symbols across the triangle, that appeared to be engraved in black on the white surface.