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When he was a cub, Stripes didn’t know what it meant to be free, what having the feel of the cold wind brush against his fur as he drives through the jungle trees.
No, when Stripes was young, all he knew was the bars that kept him inside. That kept him and his mom from running. From all of his childhood, all Stripes knew was the feeling of being trapped, confined, and backed into the corner, clinging to his mom, praying she wouldn’t leave him again and come back bloodied and bruised.
Stripes was born in a zoo. Not just any zoo, but a zoo of hybrids. Hybrids like him and his mom; gorillas, lions, bears, elephants. His mom was caught and captured and brought here, still pregnant with him. Stripes didn’t know what it was like to be free.
Since he was young, he gets to stay inside the cage. Unlike his mom who keeps being dragged out so the zookeepers could “train” her. Every hour that she was gone, every minute she was not by his side, Stripes worried. He worried what they could be doing to her, what they could be feeding to her, because every time she gets back, she would be bloodied and bruised, her body dented and her pipes twisted.
Stripes cried and cried, apologized that he couldn’t stop them, begging her to wake up. Alina would hear the cries of her child and she would look up at him with her beautiful golden eyes. Stripes loved those golden eyes. Those eyes held stories about her adventures in the jungle. Those eyes held the love she had for him. Those eyes held her will to keep going on and not leave her son in the hands of those cruel monster trucks. Alina held Stripes every night, silently weeping apologies that he had to live this life.
“No! No, please!” Alina cried as Stripes was taken from her grasp. It was the first day of Spring, where Stripes finally turned the right age to be trained. He cried, tried to resist as he was dragged into an area surrounded by high walls and obstacles lined up ready with a monster truck who had a whip by his side.
It was a hard day that day. Stripes couldn’t stop crying as he felt the whip slash onto his back, demanding him to complete the course, and whenever he failed, he get whipped. He came back to his mom, bruised and crying. He rushed to Alina and cried, and Alina could do nothing but let him cry and whisper comforting woes. She cried with him as well, mourning the torture her baby went through.
That night, Alina whispered a song to help Stripes sleep.
“Come stop your crying, it will be alright
Come take my tire, hold it tight
I will protect you from all around you
I will be here, don’t you cry.”
The song was repeated each night, whenever one of them was taken away. Alina’s eyes would shine brightly into the night, staring into Stripes’s dark irises. Those dark onyx orbs would soon shine with a beautiful glow, a change of color to signify that they were ready to leave their mother, strong enough to go alone and travel on their own. Alina wishes she could see that day, that she wouldn’t pass away when that day comes.
More weeks had passed and Stripes’s mom returned later and later each night. Stripes would wait, drive around his cage as he waited for his mom to come back. He would sing the song his mom sang to him, although his words would stumble on themselves. And when his mom come back, he would stare into her golden eyes and sing the song to his mom, luring her to sleep after an exhausting day.
“‘Cause you’ll be in my heart
Yes, you’ll be in my heart
From this day on,
Now and forevermore.”
One day, they took Alina again and Stripes waited in his confinement, watching as the tourists come and go and the sun go down. He waited in the corner, singing the song his mom sang to him, trying to keep his eyes awake so he could see his mom before he went to sleep. He failed and sleep took him.
The next morning, he woke up alone. His mom didn’t come back. He got pulled out of his confinement and met the truck with the whip again. Gears turned in his head and Stripes somehow formed a conclusion that this monster truck did something to his mom, he did something to Alina that she didn’t get to return back to him.
“Hey! You!” The truck called, pointing his whip then gesturing to the practice obstacle course, “get on with it!”
Stripes made no move, and this irritated him. He mumbled curses under his breath as he drove closer, readying his whip to beat Stripes with it. Stripes saw the truck coming closer and instinctively backed up, back stretched and fangs visible, growling in warning as the truck came closer.
The tamer wasn’t fazed and whipped the air above Stripes, making a loud snap. “C’mon, cat! Time to practice!” He whipped the air again and somehow accidentally made contact with Stripes’s tail. He didn’t bother to apologize.
That seemed to serve as the last straw from Stripes. As inexperienced as he is, Stripes pulled out his claws and pounced on the tamer. The tamer, who didn’t predict this happening, couldn’t do anything and was too late to dodge. He yelped and screamed for help as Stripes began to scratch the tamer, trying to peel off the metal on his face until he could be nothing else than pieces of scraps.
Stripes couldn’t hear the sound of metal scrapping off of his claws. Stripes couldn’t see the blood poor out of the tamer’s face and the training area’s door open for multiple zookeepers to run in. He couldn’t hear the shouts of the men yelling for help as Stripes struggled from their grips. He couldn’t see the approaching men with metal wires and ropes as they tried to restrain him for him to only claw his way out.
All Stripes could hear was his mom’s voice, screaming for his name as he was taken away. He could hear her voice assuring him every night that she was okay, that she was alright and the important thing was that Stripes was unharmed. All he could hear was the voice of his mom when she sang him that special song every night so he could stop crying.
“For one so small, you seem so strong
My arms will hold you, keep you safe and warm
This bond between us can’t be broken
I will be here, don’t you cry.”
All Stripes could see was the golden gaze her mother had when she looked at him. How her eyes glow in the night, reminding Stripes that they were together and what happened that day wasn’t important, because he had her in his arms. How they shimmer whenever he came back from training because she cried during his absence, always apologizing how she couldn’t give him a better life than this. Stripes would comfort her, wiping those tears away from her golden eyes.
“Cause you’ll be in my heart
Believe me, you’ll be in my heart
From this day on
Now and forevermore.”
Electricity flowed through Stripes’s body, making him feel as if he was burning. His mouth opened on instinct, but he couldn’t hear his own voice for the sound invading his ears screamed louder. They had put a shock collar on him as a last resort for he was being too aggressive, too much.
The tamer watched as the hybrid fell, exhausted and unconscious. He glared at the animal before letting himself be ushered off to the clinic.
The zookeepers left Stripes, letting him lay there on the ground. He stayed there for hours, just staring blankly at what was in front of him. When the sun had set, he finally had enough strength in him to cry.
Tears welled up in his black orbs and Stripes let them drop on the dirt. He looked in front of himself and wished his mom was here, to pick him up and put him in her arms. He would imagine those beautiful golden eyes starring at him with a loving gaze as she would sing her song and rock him to sleep.
“You’ll be in my heart
No matter what they say
You’ll be here in my heart,
Always.”
Stripes will never see her golden eyes again.