CW: Blood, Mentioned Attack on a Child
[size=10pt]The cub ran.
[size=10pt]His paws screamed, and his lungs burned. But the ghosts of their fangs snapped at his paws, and though he'd left them well behind he swore he could still hear their pawsteps thundering after him. Lions four times his size, adults so much stronger, trying to get rid of him, to end him, to end his sire's lineage.
But he'd run, and run, and run, and though he was smaller, lanky and thin and scrappy, he was faster, and had somehow lost them along the way. Still though, their ghosts haunted him - the fear coursed through him - his blood wept where their claws had scored him and his pawpads left bloody prints - and when the ground turned to mush beneath them he didn't know but then he was leaping to avoid the snapping jaws of a gator, and leaping again as something pointy was beneath him, an irritated hiss - what the hell kind of turtle was that! - and then he was clawing his way up a tree, baring his teeth and snarling at whatever the hell that had been.