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Sabertooth - The Storyline
by tobephoto
Nothing stirred that was not rooted in earth. The dried grass with their familiar rustle stirred only when prodded by the hot winds pushing down from the barren hills. His eyes squinted through the watery movements of the heat waves, at a far off tree with few leaves and none green. One limb bent lazily by the wind, gave no indication that any animal inhabited its branches. Its as if the heat had sucked up the life of anything that ran on blood. To his eyes, nothing disturbed the natural fauna of the shallow valley. No smells, no sound, no movement hinted at the presence of food. His eyes keen and intense swept the savannah. No sign of an easy meal. There rarely was. Eyes moved to the rift over the next valley and revealed the same emptiness. Survival had always been a full time job for him, but now that the prey was gone. His survival was in peril. His tongue hung heavy and dry; swallowing came with difficulty. Even the flies that claimed stake to his face with its usual feast of dried food and saliva were mysteriously gone. He would go down to the dried up stream bed and like yesterday; scratch up the baked earth to see if the water seeped up to him. A step on one of ‘those’ stones, reminded him that his feet still pained from yesterdays digging.
A volcano had erupted two months ago three valleys over leaving the savannah barren. Few creatures survived or stayed. His wounded foot, a result of necessity of curiosity, had taught him to keep away from the smoking red rocks that fell to the ground. He still avoided stepping on them and resented their intrusion into his domain. The noises of the distant smoking mountain still haunted his dreams. He was once the loudest the fiercest of all, but the mountain had forced humility upon him. Unknown amongst his kind; for there was, till now, nothing to fear. For many days the mountain showed its strength and all fled save him. Even the little black beetles that he often snacked upon had vanished. The grasses burned, the few trees blackened, and the water disappeared. If not for his rock enclosure, he surely would have perished. Never had he hid from anything. It was not in his nature, not in his manner, but the sounds and shaking of the earth put the fear to him so that he almost empathied what his prey must endure from him. For days with out food or water he clung to the pile of rocks where he was born and that had once been a lookout for him and now offered him protection. A feeling foreign to him. A gnawing not brought on all together by hunger, but by fear. He paced back and forth upon the rocks, daring not to walk where the blackened stones lay; so numerous as to make a path without touching them was impossible.
On the first day when the mountain taught all those around who ruled the world, he had caught one of the little men, and been lazily licking the hot sticky blood from himself. The baboons head, eyes strangely alert, though long separated from it spine, kept his attention. It bothered him that this meal who fought so uncharacteristically poorly was haunting his feast. He pawed it, almost disappointed that again it did not fight back; till it rolled over and the eyes now, if able, saw only the fresh green grass painted brightly with its own blood. Comfortable that no eyes were upon him, he stretched back and there in the wide-open grasses of the savannah, he yawned and invited sleep. The first loud gurgle from his stomach barley caught his attention. The next one rocked him. One eye half committed to regard this curious movement. The other opened when he realized it was not the result of his ingestion. He had learned that the entrails of the baboon, although his favorite part, often invited such rumblings and pain. Often the entire contents of his hard won meal would be emptied through one orifice or the other. This was not that. This was the rumbling of prey, big prey. Spooked and nearby. He was lying out in the open with all the confidence of a king; a herd of freighted prey could trample him unaware he was there. He rose up and looked with drowsy eyes about the valley. On a far off hill a dark swarm of animals ran and from the distance he could not tell what they were, but they were running away from him. A long yawn and belch had him back in the grass. The next thing that tore through his senses was a noise so loud and deep he sprang up in full alert.
The few scarred trees that lived, had little capability of shading him or passing prey. He could not move on, only the other animals had that luxury. His domain once rich with food and water was now his prison. He could not leave or come close to the boundaries set by scent markings of his kind.
He had feared nothing until that day and with time; as memory of that event faded, his rightful place in the world reemerged. Only one animal ruled all; for it was his time, his place. He was Sabertooth.
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