Chapter 1

                                  Chapter 1

Leon

Where am I?

        A strange scent fell over Leon, much like the smell of gas from a car.

        I'm here sleeping soundly. I remember just having my lunch. Not the nasty foods the house cats get. I had a nice plump mouse just yesterday. That's right. I'm a forest cat. And hope forever to be so...

        Dazzling, Leon awakened. Then he blinked the sleep out of his eyes ready to see his location. The ginger tom gapped his jaws wide in a massive yawn. He was still tired but too eager to stay asleep. The cat's green eyes wandered around his surroundings. A small place, leather seats...and humans!

        Instead of waking to his usual family in the exotic forest, he woke to constant shaking, an unsteady ground. There was an annoying roaring noise, too. It was something he certainly couldn't miss. It looked as if he was in a small moving house. All the makings of the machine were very unnatural-like.

        Leon noticed he was lying on the lap of a female human. She was a stranger. In fact, all the humans were strangers; from now on, cat nippers, too. Humans were the certain kind of creatures who he didn't see everyday. There weren’t many humans he recognized. This one seemed harmless. She didn't act aggressively towards the young cat.

        Leon lifted his furry head to sniff the air. He could only sense human and the burning fuel of the machine. The fuel smelled worse. It was too overwhelming, but not as overwhelming as being apart from his family-surrounded by strangers.

        Leon felt as if his heart skipped a beat. He wondered how he got here, desperate for an explanation.

        Leon was roughly only 8 months old. Not really a kitten anymore, but not full grown yet. He lived in the forest all his life. He didn’t know much about the human world. He was a forest cat. A wild born cat.

        His fur began to bristle from stress. Where were these humans taking him? Was it to their home where they would keep him as a pet? There was no way he could allow the humans to do that!

        The rumbling machine had no opening for him to escape through. He was locked in. Trapped!  It moved fast along the ground, roaring and shaking him out of balance. The human kept a grip on him with her hands, keeping Leon from slipping of the seat. She was being very fragile with him, but he was irritated and didn't care if the human cared for him or not. He didn't want her to love him as their pet. He just wanted someone of his own kind to love and care for.

        Leon had heard stories about humans. "Outside of this forest, humans build just about everything you lay your eyes on," His mom had said. "And they use big machines called, ‘cars’ to get around."

        I must be in a car. Leon confirmed. It wasn't too pleasant either-mostly because of the woozy, sick feeling it gave him. Eh. He could just feel the vomit rising in his throat.

        The woman he lay on began to calmly stroke his long ginger fur.

        Again, Leon wondered how he had gotten here. All he remembered was lurking around in the forest with his sister and then being ambushed and captured by humans. He had heard the humans shouting, and yowling. He also heard hissing from his siblings as they were fighting to free themselves from the human's capturing objects. They used them like a third arm, reaching and then gripping the young cats with it. Everything was a blur after that.

        That must be it. Then, they put me in here, all unexpected.

        Leon has lived with his family in the forest all his life. It was all that he knew. He enjoyed every moment of it. He loved the feeling of being wild, hunting for his food, surviving like real animals-not like house pets. But, if these humans were bringing him somewhere tamed... What more could he make of it?

        Leon's pretty tortoise shell mom, Violet, would always fix his nest every night before he went to sleep. Then she would curl up to him and his two beloved sisters, Willow and Jessie, and keep them warm.

        He liked the stirring sounds at night, of the frogs, bugs... It helped him sleep.

        His father, Blizzard, who looked so much like Leon with his long ginger fur and green eyes; would teach him and his sisters how to hunt. Just recently he had learned how to hunt well. He could stalk the prey and make the kill.

        Hunting had come easy for him to learn. It was surprisingly natural to him. Leon was born for the wild.

        Leon was the far better hunter when compared to his sisters, but he never bragged about it. Leon respected his sisters. There were always his best friends.

        "Someday you will see in the eyes of the lion; become the heart of a lion,” Blizzard always told them, and every time Leon had small glimmers of hope in the back of his heart telling him it was true. This young tom wanted it to be true every time he heard it. Someday, someday, he promised to himself.

        Trapped in the car, Leon began to look around, his heart was speeding up.         Where are they now?

        He longed for a simple answer. There was nothing but the panic rising in his chest, and the disturbing roaring of the car.

        Leon searched the car for his family. He did not sense a trace of them. Now he began to panic. They were nowhere near. In fact, Leon was the only cat in the car!

        The tom tensed with his fur standing on end. He just wanted to go back to his den with his family again. He had never been apart from his family.

        Bewildered, he began to helplessly call for his family, “Mom! Dad! Willow! Jessie! ” He bounced up and almost fell to the car floor.

        “Where are you?”

        Leon hooked his claws into the skin of the human that he stood on, struggling to keep his balance. Leon looked up at the human with his wide green eyes full of confusion. Where are you taking me? He silently wailed to the human.

        The human glanced back at him with soft brown eyes. She begins stroking him again. She was speaking words to him in a language he could not understand. She seemed calm. Leon wished he knew what the human was saying and wished he could speak to the human. How he wanted to ask her what was going on.

        The cat gazed at the human, strange looking creatures. It had no fur except for the top of the head. The weird wrinkly pelts they wore seemed different from the other creatures he'd seen before.

        Some of the humans Leon encountered were not nice. The woman was not being aggressive at the moment, but someone took Leon away from his family. Was this woman responsible?

        The human began to stroke him again. Leon would never be able to understand humans. He was more of a cat’s cat. Not a human’s cat and not a human's pet. Leon wasn't like that. He knew everything about the life in the forest and was smart for his age. He always thought big. He was the kind of cat that wanted to be all he could be and kept his mood positive. Well, most of the time.

        I must calm down, He told himself, and be brave like… like a lion!

        Leon heard many stories of the big cats: Lions, Tigers, Cheetahs, Leopards, and other cat the size of horses. These kinds of stories were passed down by his ancestors; Classics.

        The lion was always his favorite. They were known to be "king of the jungle", but he knew that they never really lived in the jungle. Lions preferred territory like grasslands, tropical deserts, forest and sometimes the mountains. The lions that lived in the mountains were known to him as "mountain lions".

        Other cats always told him that he looked just like a lion and that he could be the ruler of a lion’s pride if he had the chance-even though he was not a lion. Maybe it was because of his long ginger fur. It had the same color of a lion's pelt. His sisters said they were only saying that to make him feel better. It did make him feel better about himself.

        His desire to meet a lion grew and grew with every story he heard of these amazing beasts. How he wished he could even be one!

        His father had always told him that lions were dangerous, that he should never encounter one, or want too. The curiosity Leon felt only made him want it more.

        Leon sighed and laid his head on his paws and thought of his family.

        "Will I ever see you again?" He whispered to himself.

        There was a tiny voice in the back of his head telling him "no."

        The small cat slowly started to purr as the human gently pet him. It almost melts panic away.

        He tried to sleep out his stress, but the loud rumbling of the car and shaking kept him awake.

        Annoyed, he sighed. His eyes were wide awake even though he was a bit tired. Leon longed to go back to his family and get away from all this nonsense, but there was no way out. If he tried to attack the humans, it could only get worse. He could get hurt.

Leon still lay awake in the car as night began to fill the sky. Hours had passed.

        Leon could fell the nervousness building in him. Further and further away he went from his home.

        Finally, the car came to an easing stop. The human in the front set operating the car opened up the car door. It murmured something to the other as if for a cue. The human he was lying on picked him up out of her lap. Then she laid him back on the leather car seat and stepped out, too.

        Leon looked outside curiously. He could see the forest and feel the wind: calling him.

        As the car door lay wide open Leon decided to use this as an advantage.

        It was the perfect time; he could escape into the forest and find his family!

        Some of the nervousness he felt before started to fade away and was replaced with excitement.

        They could be waiting for me!

        Leon quickly crawled over to the edge of the seat and, with all his might, jumped from the car, past the humans, and onto the cool grass waiting outside. He could feel the summer's heat beat down upon his pelt. The familiar forest ground reminded him of where he and his family lived.

        This has to be the place! He reassured himself.

        He looked ahead to see tall pine trees and wild growing plants that looked so much like home. The orange-pelted cat searched left and right before stalking into the darkness of the forest.

        The humans chased after him, but Leon was fast. Within seconds the humans were left far behind.

        Good, he signed, they shouldn’t kidnap cats.

        Leon padded quietly as possible through the forest. He only caused faint rustling in the bushes.

        The humans would not be able to find him now.

        Rarely had Leon spent time in the forest alone. His mom or dad would always lead him and his sisters through the forest. They were still young and needed full grown cats with them.

        He kept each paw step light. His nose, eyes, and ears were all fully alert. Leon tried to remember all the things his father told him to do when he was hiding or searching for prey.

        He traveled deeper and deeper into the darkness of the forest. Every now and then the young cat would hear bird songs, a frog croaking, and tree branches rustling about. All the noises he heard were too strange to make out. This was surely not the same forest he called home.

        The tall pines, brambles, and ferns began to become less as he traveled further. This was a landscape that was becoming alien to him. It reminded him of the Savannah lands that he heard of in stories about the big cats.

        Twilight began to fill the dark blue sky. The air started to become chilly. It was getting late.

        Leon was tired and hungry. The cat had a clinching thought that he was much too far to find his beloved family. He was smart enough to know that he wasn't in his normal territory and that finding someone so far away could be impossible.

        Shivering from a cold breeze Leon seated himself by a small oak covered by dead leaves and moss. It was the only good cover he could find where nothing could try and attack him in his sleep. He needed to stay alert because his mother was not with him to protect him.

        Leon padded in circles to soften his bedding and then lay down. It was not very comfortable and the fact that he was alone still bothered him.

        Leon wished his mom was there to make a nice nest for him. He wished she slept next to him and kept him warm, but she wasn't.

        He took one last look around and sniffed the air. No sign of his mom. No sign of his dad. No sign of his sisters. Leon knew he was lost.

        Is there any hope in finding his family? No, the voice told him again.

        Leon wouldn't go back to the humans for care, no matter how desperate he was. If he had to be apart from his family then him just wanted to live in the forest-even if it cost him his life-even if he was alone for life.

        “Mom, Where are you?” he wailed, gazing at the first appearing stars in the night sky.

        “I want to see my mommy, daddy, and my sisters again,” Leon’s voice began to crack; “I’m too young! I…I can’t live here alone!”

        Hopelessly scared, Leon closed his eyes used his paws to cover his head as he buried his face in his makeshift bedding. He was too tired to think anymore and quickly drifted into sleep.

When Leon finally awoke, he lazily stood up, let out a long stretch, and shook his drowsy head around to wake up-just like he always did.

        Looking behind him the nest he had slept in seemed smaller than he remembered.    A lot smaller, Strange…

        “Mom?” He normally called out.

        When there was no reply, he opened his mouth to call out for his mother again. Then Leon sadly remembered he was alone and lost, in the middle of nowhere. His family wasn't around.

        Disappointed, he dangled his head and laid his ears flat.

        Leon gazed at the ground in displeasure.

        What a horrible feeling it is to wake up to nothing...

        Leon's whiskers twitched as he looked down on his paws. They looked a bit different than usual. They seemed more round and it looked as if they had grown. There was something that didn’t feel normal...not right.

        Nothing was right at the moment. He was lost, hungry, alone, scared, and now it seemed as if he was walking in another cat's paws; a different body.

        Spotting a small lake nearby, he scrambled over to it. He had not had water for hours and he was dreadfully thirsty.

        Leon drank deep from the lake's cool water. Just as he quenched his thirst Leon opened his eyes and looked down at the surface of the lake.

        Leon was expecting his own kitten-like reflection to appear in front of him. That was not what he saw.

        Glancing closer, he tried to confirm what he was staring at. A broad head, huge sharp fangs, and a young lion's mane!

        “Someday you will see in the eyes of the lion," His father’s words echoed in his head.

        To shock to speak or move, he stared on as his eyes stretched wide in disbelief.

        "A…a Lion? But I’m only a helpless little cat! How Could I be a lion now?" Leon said with the tip of his tail waving; half confused half excited.

        This was incredible! Leon hoped he wasn't just dreaming. He turned away from the lake with a joyful stride.

        Suddenly, like a strike of lightning, a large beast with blazing yellow eyes, pounced at Leon. It roared loudly.

        Uh Oh!

        A somber shadow lined the beast's angry face and light up his golden pelt reviling scars on its face and body. Its teeth were barred and its claws were long and sharp.

        Leon instantly realized it was a lion, another lion much bigger than him, ready to kill him!

        Frozen, breathless, and eyes wide in shock; Leon never thought this could happen to him.

        Leon held his breath as the attacker flew though the air at him. He saw its blood thirsty eyes. He shrank back and tensed for the attack, but in the back of his mind he could hear his father's voice, "Become the heart of a lion,” the voice calmly echoed.  "Someday you will see in the eyes of the lion; become the heart of a lion." 

        The lion's claws sliced through the air and fell towards Leon.

        This must be the end!

        Leon shut his eyes tight and waited for the death blow to reach him.

        The next thing Leon remembered was gasping for air and reaching for the sky as if to block the razor sharp claws of a lion. Leon's heart felt as if it was going to jump out of his chest. 

        His eyes darted about his surroundings. It was dark and quiet. He was lying on the same soft ferns and moss where he had fell asleep.

        It took him a moment to realize what has happened.

        His body had not changed. He was still the same kitten as before. Leon hated that he hadn't really been somehow magically transformed into a mighty lion. The thought was greatly overshadowed by the reality that he wasn't being attacked and killed by a lion. He was still safe and alive.

        "It was only a dream", he told himself. "Only a dream…"