Menace

The Sin And The Sentence

Seeing police cars driving around the city was nothing new to it's citizens. The ones that were walking past the police station didn't even pay attention to the car that stopped in front of it. Once the doors of the vehicle opened though, a very sharp and thick smell sprouted out from inside of the car. There were a few people close enough to be caught by surprise by said odor.
     Every adult carnivore could easily recognize it. It was the smell of blood, the smell of mixed blood, even some carnivore could be sensed. Blood from carnivores was a little rarer since eating other carnivores was an acquired taste. That's why not everyone could make out what it was. The question of what was the source of this vile and wonderful smell latched itself to the minds of everyone at the scene.
    An officer stepped out of the vehicle. His clothes had some blood on them but it sure wasn't what the people standing by were looking for. He opened the passenger door. That's when a wave of that drug-like scent was unleashed onto the people.
    A foot stepped onto the ground, then another. A figure emerged from the car. It was a cheetah. He was covered in thick red liquid. His eyes were pointing forward but it was obvious that he wasn't looking at anything on this world. The officer put a paw on the cheetah's shoulder. It broke him out of the trance, at least partially.
  
– C'mon, let's move. - the officer's voice sounded rather calm and collected. It was as if he was speaking to a kid, rather than a man covered head to toe in blood.

    The cheetah nodded and followed the officer's lead into the station. The animals that watched were taking pictures and wondering what the hell was happening, as anyone would in their place. They could only hope that the news wouldn't bend the story of what happened too much, if they cover it all that is.

    A year later, the trial was over, 26 dead by Jacob's own paws, more than enough to warrant a death sentence. The cheetah was sitting in his seat on the bus. He was waiting for the other people that were going to die to get in too. Some were looking pissed, others looked on the verge of a mental breakdown. There were those who looked completely catatonic too. Different coping mechanisms I guess. 
     Jacob was sitting in his seat. That was pretty much all he was doing. He didn't feel like doing anything else anyway. "Sitting completely stationary is underrated", that's what he always said. One of the best ways to kill time, truly. Of course a level of spiritual relaxation was needed and he was mindful that not everyone had reached it. He wasn't one to judge or make fun of people for their levels of relaxation, not this cheetah.
     He did notice that one of the men sitting in front of him seemed to have reached it. He wasn't looking stressed at all. It was nice to see, definitely. There was no point in crying or throwing tantrums over your death sentence. None of it would affect the outcome.
    The man was an old looking buffalo, truly a scary looking mammal. It was hard not to have an immediate feeling of respect towards someone like that. The huge herbivore was simply put - just chillin'. Take him out of context and you'd think he was going home from his dream job, back to his beautiful wife and two, no - three adorable little kids. That level of comfort made even the guards feel a little suspicious.
    Jacob had no clue who the buffalo was but the staff obviously did and the fact that he was calm made them scared. The cheetah could tell what people were feeling at any moment. He had spent hours each day studying facial expressions and the emotions that caused them. No matter how tough they all tried to look Jacob saw that they were worried about what was going to happen on that day. The road was dangerous too - going through the woods. He couldn't care less though. Spiritual relaxation.
    The prison bus started to make it's way towards the last place that most of it's passengers would ever visit. The feeling of impending doom was thick inside of the vehicle. One could even start to feel bad for the poor rapists and murderers, that's before the memory that they are rapists and murderers kicks in because, of course the lives of criminals don't matter. The atmosphere was as bleak as expected. With every roll of the wheels the death of these people approached them.
    Jacob scratched at his scarred mouth. He realized, looking at his reflection that he looked nothing like what he imagined himself to look like. His fur was dark yellow, looked badly groomed and a bit overgrown, sadly there was no last furcut to go with your last meal. His eyes were a dirty yellow color and his face had a pretty visible defect on it - a deep cut across his cheeks that expanded his mouth into unnatural size. He smiled once at his reflection, said defect making it so that every tooth was easily visible. He released a little "Huh". The cat continued to check himself out. His body was muscular and looked pretty intimidating even if he wasn't huge or ripped or anything. His arms were long, so were his legs.