C5 Today

Iyya and the wolf had been running around Serengeti Park since yesterday.

She didn't know what the wolf wanted, but she guessed it was a way out.

Wherever it went, she followed it.

She questioned why this powerful wolf would want to leave the park; she had seen the kills that it made swiftly of most of the world's largest and most dangerous animals that tried to get close to them in one shred, but neither the lion, buffalo nor elephant were a match.

It was so powerful. She would swear this wolf was the current king of the jungle.

Today they spent the whole day playing in the grassland. It was a lot of fun, and she missed feeling like that.

She hadn't trusted the wild wolf a hundred percent in her life. She would sometimes stop and try to study the wolf, searching and studying its actions or if it had started exhibiting any animal instinct's reaction, but she hadn't found any fault.

Something about their relationship had grown on her, although she couldn't admit it.

She just hoped the wolf would get her out of the park. It would be safer for her.

The second bridge, which was going back to Zanzibar, she would cross when it came, but first, she needed to get out of there.

Iyya was watching, mesmerized by the midnight sky with the wolf sound asleep beside her when she heard movements.

She then saw torch lights coming their way.

The Park Rangers had found them.

She pinched the wolf on the back, who then shot his eyes open straight, looking at the torchlight that was coming their way; the wolf picked her, hiding through the bushes as they walked by the side of the Tarmac road that they had met on their search had led them to the Park Ranger's office.

But they had learned their reason during the bullet showers to never stay in plain sight whenever they heard sirens or horns. It was their queue to hide more.

The wolf walked back in the same opposite direction, along the tarmac road, and finally, when the sun started to go up, they made it to the Gate with the sign showing the beginning of Serengeti Park, which meant the human settlement was away in a few miles.

No more wild animals and no more Park Rangers.

Iyya had made up her mind earlier that she would go wherever this wolf took her.

The scale weighed more on staying with the wolf than running away from it.

She would never survive the park without this wolf ir any help.

But she was also worried and scared of humans. They would never stand by a wild wolf this big.

Iyya thought this was the worst decision the wolf had made since meeting her.

In her mind, she was already in the déjà vu of the Park sirens and gunshots that will be on their way soon when they came face to face with people outside the park.

The people will surely report the wolf that left the park to the park authorities.

On the last bush just before the gate, the wolf wanted to put Iyya down, but she would never allow it to go anywhere without her.

It was safe for her in the human settlement. She would be treated as a domestic animal, but the wolf would be in total danger.

At the moment she still studied the wolf, it was evident its thoughts were more like a human and a clever human; it was time for Iyya to live on the suspense of what would happen next.

At the moment, Iyya thought better about living and surviving than yesterday.

She credited herself as a survivor, just like her mother. 'Anna.'

Her mother was a quadruple amputee. She had lost part of both her legs and both her arms before she gave birth to Iyya and, because of her condition, both Anna's paternal and maternal sides had abandoned her when she was still young. She grew up in an orphanage where she met Iyya's father.

A lot was running through Iyya's mind. She had made it out of the park. Then what?

She scaned through all her thoughts and made the conclusion that her first priority was going back to Zanzibar. She needed to go back to find her stepmother.

Heina had been her mother figure since her dad's death and was the only close friend and relative she knew of. She was supportive and loving, the only person who made her dad truly happy after her biological mother.

'What happened?' is a golden question Iyya would love to know the answer to? Such a drastic change made Heina hurt her this much.

She thought of her parents, who would have been the first ones to run to her rescue. She missed her late mother 'Anna' and her late father 'Khamsini' so much.

If they were alive, they would be worried sick about her and she would run to them now.

Anna loved Iyya to the best of her ability. And Iyya didn't feel she lucked anything during the few years she lived in her mother's presence.

Her mother had taught her the meaning of true happiness and being content with what God blessed her with.

Suddenly Iyya felt her body being lowered to the ground.

Which brought her mind back to Serengeti. She stood still, waiting impatiently, a lot of thoughts running through her mind, thinking the wolf was ready to run away from her. She wasn't the wolf's problem, anyway. The wolf had done a lot. She was the clingy one.

Suddenly, the unbelievable happened.

Iyya's eyes almost poked out of her socket balls. Her feathers stood up. She felt panic take over.

She didn't believe what was happening. She tried to understand, but couldn't. At first, she thought something had hit the wolf and broken its bones, but the sounds of consecutive breaking of bones told her otherwise.

The wolf growled in pain, the paws on the ground, bones cracking consecutively, again and again, the chest forced into a bending position; the head raised looking at the sky, knees forming as they pushed the wolf lower onto the ground. As the wolf breathed in pain, it looked like it was about to die.

Iyya looked into the wolf's eyes. Not knowing how to help. They had tears and had started to get diluted in color, changing their gold color to red, then black. The black paled and then they became human blue-colored eyes, the color of the ocean. She took a step back, scared more.

More growl came out of its chest, the sounds had now changed, and it was more of the human pained voice than a growl.

Iyya then darted her eyes to the paws on the ground, which in seconds no longer existed, replaced with a human hand, fingers, and human fingernails. The human now held the ground with all the force he could gather to balance himself.