Catastrophe

Chapter 1-2

Zyl paced the confines of the cheetah habitat, impatience riding him without mercy. He couldn’t shift yet. It was still too light and there were too many people moving through the zoo. At all costs, he had to keep his secret. That was a primary rule of the Were-kind tribe, each and every one of them from the least rodent to the great cats and even the elephants and rhinos. You must never let a human observe your change. Only by keeping this special power a secret could the tribe do its work, protecting all the beasts from the encroaching forces of human carelessness and sometime cruelty.

For a moment, he thought about the human, the one who seemed to have a strange and powerful bond with cat-kind. He’d seen that man eyeing him earlier today, a troubled expression on his face. Zyl did not think the stranger could be a shifter, too, although there was something about him, an attentiveness and concern that few humans ever seemed to display.

To most of them, beasts in the zoo were curiosities, even sometimes objects of derision or scorn. The beasts all lived behind bars and in cages, sometimes nice, large cages where effort had been made to create a semi-realistic habitat, cages, nonetheless. There was no hunting, no exploring, no freedom.

As he mind-spoke with the other cheetahs and some of the other great cats, he learned their frustration, their anguish at being enclosed and imprisoned. He tried to tell them that for now the restrictions kept them safe and that perhaps eventually, they or their offspring would again be free. That time had not yet come.

Although the protections might help species survive where habitat and prey had declined and other pressures weakened and constrained them, few of the beasts could understand. They asked why they were kept far from their native places, captive and coddled, and he could really not answer.

Birds in gilded cages, Zyl thought, recalling something he’d heard or read in his human form. Could these stories ever end happily?

So he paced, waiting for dusk to come and the zoo to close its gates for the night. Until the people went home. Until the caged ones could pretend for a while that they were still free. Until he could change into his human form, gather the clothes he kept concealed and go off to attend to critical business he could not do in cat form.

In his mind, he laughed. He’d heard some of the zookeepers talking. They could not agree on how many cheetahs roamed in their artificial jungle and savannah habitat. There were only supposed to be twelve, although some of the people swore they had counted at least one more, one not on any of their records. How could that be? Others scoffed at that idea and insisted that one or two must have been counted twice.

The human he had seen today was one of those who insisted there was an extra one, a phantom of sorts, one that came and went. A big cat, he’d said, probably a male. Like most of the Were-kind, Zyl could vanish when he needed to and not be seen at all. Perhaps he should not let this more discerning human see him, and yet he was drawn to the man, felt the touch of his eyes and his mind. It was almost frightening, also excited him.