Zoophobia

I wondered for a thousand times about why it hunted us.

I wondered for a hundred times about why it showed me the fates of its prey.

Yet I only wondered once about why I kept on chasing it.

Now that we find us here in this land of dry rock and sand. Where the wind can't push on through the sun's warm rays.

It is here I learned why.

It's a laughably simple reason.

A reason I wouldn't have thought.

No.

It is a reason I didn't want to be true.

It doesn't hunt us for the reasons we gave it.

Not because it's some religious prophet.

Not because it's some melvolelnt deity.

Not some spectator to the fears we suffer.

Neither is it a harbinger.

It is simply like us.

An animal.

An animal that simply hunts, eats, walks, lives, and dies.

Just like us.

As I look upon it, it simply looks back. I didn't even notice that it had stopped its whistling. Even though I'm aware of the lack of an answer it will give me. I still ask.

"Why me?"

"Why did you start rampaging my life? My father, my sister, even Benjamin fell to you. All people who are closest to me."

"What did we do?"

The haunting silence it now gives me is louder than any scream I could utter. As I fall to my knees fearing the answer I already suspect it will give, I see it reach out once more. It's closed otherworldly hand, now slowly opening in front of me.

In its almost human palm, it holds two wooden figures. Both lions, bloodied and wounded from their endless hunt. One positioned towards me, the other to itself.

I feel tears build up as I scream and shout and curse whatever god made this my fate.

It can't be for such a reason.

For such a stupidly plain reason.

Could life turn to hell over something so plain?

As I claw at the ground, blaming the earth that gave birth to me for chaining me to this natural rule, I hear a thud. looking back up, I see a pistol now laying in front of me.

Now it leaves me this final gift. Turning away from me, it starts to walk away.

I grab onto it. My hands slowly turned the barrel of the gun to my temple. My body moves on its own. Giving up to this unfair rule of the universe. So then, as I then close my eyes fully prepared to give up to the rules we where chained to at birth, as I think through all that I was shown and my life up to now. There is only one thing that stays with me.

The last memory with mom.

How she laid there in her bed, the beeping of electrical wires and screens filling up the quiet void between us. How I held her hand as she said her loving words to my sister and father.

How she then turned to me.

How she kissed my forehead one last time before she too became a victim of the natural rules that bind us.

"Fly high, my little starling."

Her words being a warm reminder of why I got so far. How I have made sure never to let my wings burn as I got closer to the sun.

Opening my eyes again, I see it continue its walk. The two wooden figures lying on the ground beneath me.

If this is really it. If this now really is the truth, then it means it too must play by the rules we are chained by.

A hunter can't always continue to be the predator.

As its sweet tune it sings once more erupts from its visage, I lower the gun from my head. Facing it now to the creature in the distance.

If this now is our jungle, then now its my turn to hunt.

As the creature takes one more step, its whistling melody, now louder then it ever was, I take aim and drown it's ensemble with my own.

*Bang*