Using your flashlight you slowly reveal a tail, you feel your heart rate speed up as you realize whatever this was it was some sort of animal. As you slowly move the light you realize that the animal was a large mountain lion draped across your lap, you freeze in fear,"what the hell am I supposed to do now?!?!?" you think. You look to your right and see your rifle leaning against the cave wall, but it was too far away for you to grab it without disturbing the lion, you also couldn't reach you sidearm without risking waking up the lion. Your only option was your knife on the back of your belt, slowly you move your hand toward your belt and unclip your knife, the sound of unsnapping the clasp on your knife sheath was enough to wake the lion.
The lion stood up and walks over toward your face, quickly you draw your sidearm and fire a round straight up, the lion runs over to the other end of the cave. "What was that?!?" you hear the lion yell, you sit there shocked that you just heard a mountain lion talk, "you can..talk?" you ask, "only if you don't make that loud noise again" says the lion in a female voice, "ok only if you don't try to hurt me" you say. "I wasn't going to hurt you" says the lion, you reach over and turn on the flashlight on your rifle illuminating the cave, over in a corner was the mountain lion with her paws covering her ears.
"Ok I'm putting my weapon away" you say showing your sidearm to the lion as you holster it. She lowers her paws from her ears, "what do you mean you weren't going to hurt me" you ask, "just that I wasn't going to hurt you" she says" I just....who....why" was all you could say. "You're confused and scared aren't you?" says the lion, you nod, "well this might help" she says. In front of you the lion morphs into a human form, but still had the mountain lion features like the tail and fur.
"Do you have a name?" you ask, "Kathleen" she says, "ok Kathleen, my name is John" you say sticking your hand out, she hesitates, "what are you doing?" she asks confused. "Sorry, you don't shake hands do you?" you ask, she shakes her head, the two of you continue talking for over a hour, you notice that the whole time Kathleen moved closer to you, seeming no longer afraid of you and you also no longer had a deep fear of her for being a mountain lion. "Well Kathleen if you don't mind me asking, but how did you find me?" you ask, you see the fur on her face ripple, "I..uh..well I smell you" she said, you knew ever human had their own distinct scent that they gave off, you've seen police use dogs to track people using their scent to find them. "I was out hunting when I smelled your scent and followed it to this cave and found you asleep" she says.
"So how did you get here?" she asks, "well my helicopter had an accident and crashed in this forest" you tell her, "was that the loud boom I felt a couple hours ago?" she asks, "maybe" you say. "Was that also the giant metal...um thing that I found a couple miles that way?" she says pointing North, "no I crashed that way" you say pointing South. "Oh well I found something a few miles away from here that I've never seen before" she says, "there's another wreck?.....maybe I have a chance of getting rescued" you think to yourself, "can you take me there?" you ask, Kathleen nods, "in the morning though I hate navigating in the dark" she says.
"Ok we should probably get some sleep" you tell her, you reach over and turn of the flashlight plunging the cave back into darkness, you grab your bag and make a makeshift pillow with it. Just as you lay down you feel a presence behind you, you sit up and turn on the flashlight again and see Kathleen laying down behind you, "what?" she says looking at you. "Nothing its just that I've never fallen asleep this close to a mountain lion before" you say, "you know you can sleep closer to one" she says with a small grin. "What ar--" before you could finish she wraps her arms around you and hugs you close to her, "only if you don't try to eat me" you say.
She lets out a small laugh, "no promises" she jokes, you reach up and turn off the flashlight and again plunge the cave back into darkness. The only noises you hear are the sounds of your and Kathleen's breathing as you drift off to sleep.........
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