Short Story by Simone S.

The savannah had cycled quietly in a way that felt intentional. Not quiet in the gentlenesses of the dusk, when insects paused and wind delayed, but a hollow silence, as if sound itself had escaped. The hunter knelt in tall grass near the dried riverbed, his left knee pressed against his chest, stabilizing his shot. This was a position that became familiar over the years. There were badges and patches filling the sleeves of his camouflage patterned jacket, and there was a name tag under his left collarbone that read, “Maverick Locke”, which was embroidered in brown nylon thread.  He slowed his breathing and began counting his heartbeats. 

One. Two. Three. 

The grass and weeds around him stood motionless, sun-bleached stalls that rose above his head, hiding more than they revealed. He had followed tracks all afternoon ranging from wide paws, overlapping paths, to the confident mess of birds that did not fear pursuit. But for the last ten minutes there was nothing. No birds, or insects, or wind. 

After many hunts, silence, he had learned, was never empty. Sweat slid down his temple and stung his eye. He didn’t wipe it away, the movement would’ve invited unwanted attention. Instead, he listened inward, to the soft click of his teeth when his jaw tightened, to the faint rasp of breath through his nose. He had been hunting all his life. He knew the rhythm of fear, how it rose and fell like a tide. This was different, this was stillness before a decision. The grass crinkled. Locke didn’t move. He didn’t look behind him, a mistake people made in movies and stories when panic overruled instinct. Rather, he let his eyes shift forward, scanning the land ahead. That’s when a lion stepped into view, one of the only two remaining in their species. Both this lion, and the other one he knew was close by, were Brazilian white lions. Their fur was both gorgeous and worth hundreds of thousands, the value going up every second that passed. Now, Locke didn’t originally want to kill them. He wanted to study them, study their movements, the way they handle themselves, knowing both of them cannot help their population. The other lion emerged slowly, deliberately, protecting. Their bodies parted the grass as if the land itself was making room for them. One on the left, one on the right, both light, golden, and immense, shoulders rolling beneath their hides with each measured step. They didn’t crouch or rush, their tails only flicked once, betraying neither fear nor haste. They stopped around ten yards away. The hunter’s mouth went dry. His finger rested alongside the trigger guard, not yet inside. The crunch came again, closer this time, and it vibrated through his spine. He understood then, with a clarity that cut sharper than panic, he was not surrounded by accident. He had been guided here, placed like a piece on a board he had mistaken for his own. Just then, Locke remembered his first hunt, decades earlier. The clean thrill of it. The simplicity. Target, breath, shot. The animal had fallen quickly, and he stood over them feeling tall, justified, certain of his place in the cycle of things. That certainty had brought him back, again, and again, chasing the same high that is fading with time. Both the lions watch him now, their eyes unblinking. They weren't looking at the rifle, they were looking directly at him. He shifted his weight slightly, easing pressure from the knee on the floor. The one on the right lowered his head a fraction. It wasn’t a threat, it was awareness. The hunter felt the world narrow to small things, the angle of the sun, the dryness of his throat, and the way the rifle stock pressed into his collarbone.

A step forward from the left-hand lion. Then the stillness again. They were testing Locke. He eased the safety off and the lick sounded impossibly loud, snapping the silence like a stick. The lions did not flinch. The rumbles coming from the two deepened, and for the first time, fear bloomed fully in the hunters chest, not the sharp fear of being attacked, but the heavier fear of being seen clearly. Stripped of distance and any other advantage, he was simply another animal in the grass, pretending he was more. He raised the rifle, slow and calculated, bringing the sights up to meet the closest lion on the right. The circle settled over his chest, he didn’t move. His gaze held the lions, steady and assessing, and in that gaze was something that unsettled Locke more than aggression ever could. Recognition. He knew exactly what he was. And he was deciding what he and the other lion were going to do about it. Time stretched alarmingly thin and the world existed only in the space between heartbeats. He could shoot. He knew he could. The rifle was ready, his hands weren't even shaking. He even imagined the recoil, the sound, the way the body would fall, both of them. He imagined the aftermath, the silence breaking, the smoke from the muzzle, the media attention, the story he would tell himself later. Nonetheless, he also imagined missing. Or wounding. Or the charge that would come if he stared too long. 

He looked into the sights again and shot. 

The shoot cracked the air, spilling the quiet wide open. Dust erupted where the bullet had struck. The ground. It sprayed between the coalition of lions and the sound rolled across the savannah and dissolved into the distance. Everything froze. The lions halted mid-motion, muscles taunt, eyes sharp. The weeds swayed from the shockwave, and then eventually settled. For a long moment, nothing moved at all. Then the lion on the left roared. It was not a roar of rage, but not a roar of declaration either. The hunter knew he wasn’t out of the woods yet. The sound of presence roared again; it echoed across the land and filled his chest. It rattled his bones and it reminded him how small his body truly was. 

Suddenly the lions charged forward. Both mouths bared all of their teeth and Locke stood paralyzed. He thought his body would have prepared a different expression, but it couldn’t recall anything. The lion that was on the left side, the bigger one, jumped onto the hunter first. He barely had time to turn before he slammed into him, knocking the rifle from his hands. It skidded uselessly across the land. Locke fell hard, the breath punched out of him. The second lion circled in. He watched his hands, his legs, the way that panic made him suddenly clumsy. When the hunter tried to scramble up, the lion's claws raked his shoulder, not deep enough to tear him open, but enough to break skin. The first lion pinned him down, his weight crushing, his breath hot against his neck. His teeth closed and sunk into Locke’s shooting hand. Maybe because it was the closest to him or maybe stop him shooting an animal again. He shook the hunter once, violently, blood seeped into his clothing fabric and the sand stained red. The other lion scratched his face not in a way facial reconstruction would be necessary, but he definitely would earn a sick scar if he survived. 

At this moment, Maverick Locke thought he was dead. He couldn’t feel his hand, his abdomen and ribs were burning, and blood was mixing with sweat and dripping down his face. The hunter lay gasping, blood spilling, but not pouring. Pain sharp but contained. Every instinct screamed that this was the end. 

The lions leaped back suddenly, leaving him alive. He didn’t understand but he did want to live. He knew that. He knew he would live, no matter what. He knew when he loaded up this morning, when he said goodbye to his wife for the trip. The trip that would change history. Figuring out why animals acted how they did, why they were keeping him breathing. Except now it was different.

With his left hand, the one not bitten into, he slowly reached into his boot, pulling out his spare pistol. 

The coalition of lions stood a few paces away, tails flicking, eyes steady. The small lion jumped out towards his direction, sensing that Locke would make a move. The hunter wasn’t intimidating though, his body was still on the ground, making no obvious effort to fight again. The pistol cocked back. He had to. The larger lion bolted in front of the other and aligned in front of the gun. 

A bullet whizzed. Smoke rose again. The thud of one of the lions was somehow the only thing Locke heard. The smaller lion turned to run, wanting to immediately retreat after seeing his brother bleeding out on the grass of their home. 

The next bullet that flew right into the lions neck was shot by the hunter a millisecond before. 

Sound returned to the savannah all at once. Insects resumed their song, distant birds called. The wind brushed the grass, as if exhaling. Maverick Locke stayed lying on the ground long after the last amount of smoke aired away. When he finally lowered the pistol, his arms trembled violently, the delayed cost of no restraint. He laughed once, softly, a sound without humor, but with relief. He was alive and the lions were dead. He looked at the bodies in front of him, red staining their expensive fur that he gets to return. He understood that it was life or death. 

Yes, it was life or death. Yes, the savannah chose him. 

 Locke sat up and crawled away from the riverbed, moving carefully, slowly, and did not look back. Pain pulsed through his body, but survival burned better than anything else.

That evening, he would return back to the scene that was frozen in time. The bodies lay there and the hunter stands over them, bandaged, shaking in adrenaline, and ready to collect his reward. The last two Brazilian white lions. The final brothers of a dying species. He killed them. Yes. He did, and he told himself he was proud. He repeated it like a mantra that rolls off his tongue, and every time repeated, he wants to believe it's true. He had come to study them, to understand their behavior, their patterns, their bonds. 

That intention dissolved the moment fear took hold. He left the savannah not with knowledge, but with trophies. 

Fur and bodies where understanding should have been. He left with the pride of his game, unaware that the only pride left in the area was his. He wouldn’t leave understanding that the lions didn’t give up on attacking him, but instead, left him alive on purpose because they didn't want to kill him. They had only meant to drive him away, to teach him to lower the gun and leave their home untouched. He wouldn't know that the bigger lion was only trying to protect his brother. 

He would forget the plan entirely. Instead, he would write a book. An autobiography. A story of survival. A story of being attacked by the last two Brazilian white lions and returning victorious. The world would read about his fear and his bravery, about the moment he pulled the trigger and lived to tell it. Not the hunter nor anyone else would know that the lions spent their last seconds on earth, as the only two left, trying to protect each other's lives. No one would ever know that the lions spent their final seconds not hunting, not killing, but trying to save each other, unaware that they were the last seconds they had. No one will ever know.