In the Beginning

Mina looked across the stretch of dry grass to her mate Khnor, who lay sated and sleepy. His eyes were closed but his tongue licked the residue of blood and meat from his muzzle and paw. His tawny mane flowed back from his face and the powerful spike teeth glistened in the light as he yawned.

She had made the kill, a young gazelle. Running after it, she sensed every turn of its body while inside her the feeling of urgency, hunger, and elation seemed to overwhelm her. It was a sensation she was still getting used to. The moment she had brought the animal to its knees and buried her teeth into its neck; adrenalin rushed through her body. A feeling she had never felt before. She tore another strip of meat from the haunch. The smell of blood rose in her nostrils and released a need that seemed to intensify. She buried her muzzle in the bloody mess and savored the smell and the fast beating of her heart. Another strange feeling had come over her. The scents in the air had become stronger. She could smell each animal and sense its fear. Now every creeping thing was potential food. With the final gnawing of the meat from the bones, she rutted around the carcass, her belly was full and the two small cubs she carried in her womb would be satisfied. The rest would be devoured by the birds circling and the ring of smaller animals she sensed, just out of her sight.

There was a tree and a rock just a few yards from her mate. She stretched out in the blazing sun and rested her head on her paws.

The high rock overlooked a garden that seemed to have no ending. The large tree was still at the center; but the garden was changing. The area was blending in with the surroundings.Would the garden, as they had known it, be gone forever?

Just below her was the garden's gate. A glowing body sat near it, with a stick that shot bolts of pain to anyone who tried to enter. She knew that pain. She had experienced it. She had tried to return. She roared and charged the glowing body only to have that stick pointed at her and felt the pain. From that moment her life,and the lives of every animal shunned from the garden, was changed.

Mina closed her eyes and thought back to their days in the garden. She and other animals had played, chasing their tails, rolling and tumbling over each other. The food was not killed. It was provided; fruits, vegetables, grass, leaves, all succulent and filling. In the afternoon, the two-legged animal and his mate came and played with Mina and Khnor. They had no fur or feather but they were fun and loving. The male called each animal to him and gave them a name.

All had changed after that other animal entered the garden. If she would have had the instinct and senses then that she had now; that thing would never have made it two feet from where she had first seen it. It had two legs and a long tail, beady eyes that darted to every dark shadow and a skinny forked tongue that seemed to taste the air every few seconds. Mina had slid on her belly, following the new animal, did it want to play catch me? Maybe roll down the hill or try to climb the trees? She watched it for a while as it made its way to the center of the garden, where the two furless beings stayed.

But now it was too late, the serpent, as she found out, was worse than any of the animals created. It had spoken to the furless female, and she had walked with it. She had picked the fruit from the tree at the center of the garden. Mina had followed her and watched while she curled up with her mate and shared the fruit with him. Immediately there was a loud noise that seemed to shake the garden. A voice roared in the air; calling for the furless ones who had run away and hid.

That was before, now everything was changed.

The glowing body with the firestick made all living beings leave the garden, never to return.

All the animals ran from the garden and into the tall grasses of a new land and a new life. Her former playmates that had once chased and tumbled over the grass now ran from her in fear. Those that she had once slept with and cuddled into their soft wooly backs were now just food to her and her kind.

She sniffed the air, smoke. That meant the furless ones had killed one of her brothers or sisters for their sustenance. She had followed them when they left the garden, she had wanted to be with them, but when she saw and smelled the covering they were wearing, she hid. Hanging on their bodies was fur. Not attached like hers and the other animals. Only the skin had been cut from the animal and hung over the main part of their bodies; leaving the legs, arms and head uncovered. By the color of the pelt, she knew whose body was missing its fur.

The red sun set over the horizon. The silhouette of the big tree mocked Mina. Tomorrow was another day, another hunt for food and the rush of elation with the kill. That was all she lived for now days. Killing for her mate, and eventually teaching her young cubs to do the same; when they were born. It wasn’t a bad life, just a hard one. She sighed as she watched the glowing body with the fire stick, sitting by the garden gate her eyes slowly closed and she slept.