The Lion King

Chapter 10 - Run Away

Chapter 10

Mufasa had disappeared into the dust, but Simba was almost sure of where he'd landed. The cub bounded down the steep cliff, nearly catching his claws on the rocks, and sprang to the bottom of the Gorge, pausing with his tiny tail flicking. The last of the stampede was disappearing into the gritty fog, leaving nothing behind but eerie stillness and an acrid stench of disturbed earth.

Seeing no more gray beasts, Simba crept forward, setting his paws down gingerly on the trampled ground. He peered through the dirty mist but found no trace of his father, so he tried lifting his nose to the air, sniffing anxiously for Mufasa. The dust hurried down his throat, and he coughed, spraying the stuff in every direction.

"Dad!" he croaked at last, giving up. Surely his father would hear him.

Simba bounded forward, shaking his head free of the debris in the air, and looked left and right, front and back, waiting expectantly for the sight of his father's rich golden coat, his reddish-brown mane, his warm amber eyes.

Suddenly, there was a light stir, and Simba's ears shot up.

"Dad?" he called out hopefully.

There was a thud of hooves, and a stray wildebeest reared through the dust, shooting past Simba with a frantic splay of hooves. Only then did Simba see where it went, the limp form that it pranced so uncaringly past.

He felt his heart plunge into his paws, through his paws, into the earth itself. Except he could still feel it, feel the pain that was beginning to invite itself in, the horror, the terror...but no, there was still hope. His father would be all right. Mufasa could fight off anything.

Simba bounded forward, swallowing back his apprehension, and cautiously approached the fallen figure. As he drew nearer, he noticed the broken tree branch that hung over the slumped body. The same tree branch that Simba had clung to only moments before.

He slowly skirted the splintered tree, letting his eyes creep past its thin trunk to the still unmoving body. On his way to the figure, he tread across a long fallen branch, as thin as a distant river. No...it was a tail.

The king's eyes were closed, his paws resting almost delicately beside him. He could have been asleep, yet his magnificent mane was matted and dirty, the brightness of his pelt dulled by the shadows of the Gorge. But it was still the same Mufasa. Simba could see his face, his mane, his tail. He was there! His father was with him! So why wasn't he moving?

"Dad?" Simba whispered, pausing a few steps from the body. Mufasa didn't move. Not even a whisker twitched. Simba swallowed, tried again. "Dad, come on." He rubbed his cheek against his father, tried to force the king to his paws. "You gotta get up!" he insisted. The giant lion's head merely rolled back into place. Simba stared at it in horror. "Dad," he choked out. "We gotta go home!" He jumped up on Mufasa's shoulder and shook with all his might, hoping that he would finally, finally wake up.

The king didn't move.

Simba stepped away, rasping for breath, his heart rate spiking to impossible heights. In one last desperate attempt, he leaped onto his father's mane, breathed in his sweet perfect scent, and grasped the lion's ear in his trembling teeth, tugging and pulling on the ear with all his might, just as he had the morning before their sunrise together...Mufasa's head rolled back into place.

Suddenly, it hit him like a buffalo's horns. His father was dead. His father was dead.

"Heeelp!" he shrieked and tore himself away from his father's body, running into the soiled mist of the Gorge. Mufasa's face slowly faded from view, and Simba forced himself to look at the walls, the rising dust, the Gorge, where the beasts that had killed his father still thundered away. He circled, around and around and around, expecting help, a bounding lioness, a concerned face, except nothing. "Somebody!" he cried again, his voice echoing feebly. "Anybody!" This time, a quieter echo, as if even the Gorge were fading away. Like his father.