"Tell Me Something Sweet To Get Me By"

Jahzara was so lost in her thoughts that she paid little to no attention to the rustles of the dry thistles around her, attributing them to the wind playing with the leaves. But as a voice whispered to her, Jahzara dropped her thoughtful stare down towards the greeting, suddenly freezing as she realized that the voice belonged to a cat. A big cat. Larger than any cougar she had ever seen. Immediately her heart began pounding faster and faster, pumping blood frantically as her breathing became rapid. Still she stood frozen, but the sides of her barrel began to rise quickly, nares flaring as her breathing became labored. The ‘fight or flight’ instinct seemed to have a delayed trigger, purely locked up in her fear like a deer in headlights.

Suddenly, one distant voice broke through the silence of her mind. Though her schizophrenia seemed to be at rest for the evening, one of the voice’s of her visions broke through to try and give her some common sense. ’Run, Jahzara! Run!’ A flashback of fangs, claws and tawny fur raced through her mind, a memory of the first traumatic event of her past. Finally, her muscles caught up with the hallucinations voiced, and the golden vixen attempted to turn on her heel and run. Instead of a chance at freedom, she was met with bark as she realized she was cornered by the tree. Desperately she scrambled to press herself as far away from the cat as she possible good, the effects of a full blown panic attack setting in.

Her breathing became so frantic she was at risk of hyperventilating, and tears began to well up in her eyes as she began to plead with the tigeress. Jahzara was not able to comprehend that the big cat did not mean her any harm, she did not have the mental capacity to understand that the predator was actually trying to talk to her. All she could do was begin to cry as she shut her eyes tightly, rubbing her face against the bark in any way to soothe herself from the traumatic memory. All she saw were the panthers that tried to kill her in her youth, the ones that left all the scars upon her. “Please, please, please…Don’t hurt me…Please, please…Please don’t eat me…” Why did she have to wander from the herd? Why was it that the first time she wandered alone in the main portion of Helovia, a TIGERESS had to be the first to find her?


"Talking"

JAHZARA