I was alive once .
I had a family .
My father was king . He was silent, always very serious, menacing even-- a very stony look about this lion . He seemed to have no weakness, no fear . My mother was queen, and she loved my father, for what reason I would never understand . She was quiet, too, but protective of my two sisters and I . She was born to be a mother, I think . And my sisters were simply timid .
I wasn't like them .
I was silent, though, yes, I'll give you that . But I was always separate from them . My sisters could hunt long before I could . They could roar before I could purr . They were faster than me . Stronger than me . And my father was disappointed with my existence . I wasn't the heir he had in mind . I was a failure .
This dissatisfied me .
A normal day it seemed, the day I got my father's attention . We had grown older; my mane had begun to grow in . I was accompanying my sisters on their hunt-- they were much better than me, so I usually hung back, the same as I did today . We waited in the grass in silence, as was our family custom, until my sisters exploded from their cover, dashing off into a herd of zebra ... I followed .
My sisters were far better hunters than me, but I had grown, I was bigger than them, I was quieter than them, and I was spurred on by jealousy . Aminat didn't see me coming, she didn't hear me .
I pounced .
Aminat was the carcass I dragged home from the hunt . I brought her to my father, and stood watching him, expressionless . As I watched, my father's face changed from its usual fierce solemnity . His gaze darkened, his eyes intensified, and his lips raised ever so slightly over his yellow fangs . He lunged at me, and I let him . His full body weight slammed into me, and we plummeted down the rocks from our royal cave, his claws locked into my shoulders . When we landed, he slammed my weaker frame into the ground, hard . His jowls opened wide . He would have killed me then, but my mother's cries stopped him . Instead, he let out the loudest, deepest, most terrifying roar I'd ever heard-- the only sound from him I'd ever heard-- and stalked away, fur bristling .
Our entire pack had seen the incident . I was disgraced in front of my pack . My pack, the one I would rule when my father was dead .
Dead ...
---
I let one full moon cycle pass . I waited for the moon to disappear from the sky, leaving the stars to light up the night on their own . That was the night I chose, specifically for what I wanted to do .
I set a fire on the plains below our rocky outcropping . The pack was trying to escape to the rocks, scrambling for their lives ... but I only allowed the first four to pass by . My father awoke to the dying screams of his lions, and ran to the cave entrance, my mother and remaining sister right at his sides .
I pushed my sister first . I didn't have to push my mother . She dove down after Akina . Like I said, she was a good mother . My father whirled around to look me square in the face, something he hadn't done since he attacked me . The burning rage and hatred in his eyes matched that of the wildfire killing his kin below . I threw myself at him, as he had done to me, but he sunk his teeth into my leg as he went down, pulling me into the flames with him . The heat was incredible . But I stood, watching him die . "I am king," I whispered to him . And then I was the only one left, and I watched my body as my fur lit up to match the blaze around me ... catching fire ... everything catching fire ...
Fire . It is a powerful creature . The most determined of all disasters akin to it . It rages on fearlessly, destroying everything in its way, until it is the only thing left .
And when there is nothing more for it to destroy ... fire dies .
I am fire . I am Catching Fire .
--- To Be Continued ---