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The Ark

by


Lana Star

Chapter 2

By Sea

I woke in my cramped cage and stretched as far as I could. The moonlight streamed through the bars on my tight prison. I sighed heavily as the truck that carried me bounced along the dark country road. I drifted in and out of an uneasy sleep until we came to a stop.  The two men got out of the truck and stretched. They we’re dark skinned and one carried a dart gun. They started talking to each other in Spanish.

 
I sighed again. They had just stolen me from a local zoo. I was a prized Bengal tiger named Sheila. I had been sleeping soundly in my large and open terrain that looked like the home I had grown up in if I hadn’t been born in the zoo. I was only about two years old and already I was a well loved animal at the South Dakota Zoo. I guess these guys planned to sell me on the black market or something.


My mother had told me stories about men who steal tigers for money and greed. I missed my mother and the home we shared. A loud banging on the bars of my cage startled me. One of the men was banging the butt of his gun across the bars of my cage. I hissed at him and he hissed back, the smell of whiskey on his breath.


The other man came out of a run down store with bottles of whiskey. They got back into the truck and we were off again. Down the dark, bumpy road that led to nowhere and somewhere.



By Air

I circled above the long stretch of trees for miles and the highway that cut right down the middle of it. Humans thought they owned everything. They thought they could just cut down the trees and pave roads and not hurt a thing. I soared higher and flew toward the mountains in the north. A large, bald patch of dirt was cut in the middle of the forest. Humans and their machines were building homes for more humans in a forest that didn’t belong to them.


I screeched in frustration. I tilted my wings to the left and soared away from these terrible creatures. I flew to a secluded area and sat on the branch of an oak.
I was a red-tailed hawk who answered to the name Nisha. I watched over the field below me for any signs of movement while I preened my rust red tail feathers.


A stock of grass moved and I swooped down upon a young mouse. I scooped it up and ate it on my way back to my nest. My mate, Dagger, was keeping our three eggs warm while I hunted. I screeched a welcome as I landed on a branch just above the nest.
He yawned and stretched his wings.


"I was worried you had left me here all by myself," he teased.
Dagger was a kidder, but I loved him all the same. We both fell silent as I thought about what I had seen earlier.


"Nisha, do you think the humans will come this far?" he asked quietly.
I looked into his golden eyes with my yellow ones and gave him a truthful answer.


"I don’t know Dag, I really don’t know."

Chapter 3

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