Ten days had past and the crocodile gave him fish every night and since Ezekiel had his fill the night before and said his goodbyes to the crocodile and the elephants, he was on his way. He didn't know where he was on his way to, but he was walking through the savannah regardless. Five days prior Ezekiel began smelling a burning smell and occasionally hearing a loud sound, so he was looking to find what it was, but he hadn't heard anything all day, he had only a vague smell guiding him. In addition, over the ten days Ezekiel has felt his senses have improved, especially his sense of smell and hearing, but he's lost a lot of weight since his diet has consisted of fish and he's been walking around exploring.
Ezekiel continued walking until he found a buffalo lying on the floor. Ezekiel approached slowly and carefully, it wasn't moving. Ezekiel gently put his hand against the buffalo and it felt cold. Ezekiel knew it was dead and began to examine it more, because if it was killed by another animal there would be lots scarring's or it would have been only its bones left, but Ezekiel could tell it wasn't a natural death. Ezekiel began to examine its head and made a shocking discovery… Its horns were missing, it looked as if it had been cut off rather than broken off in battle and it was a clean cut as well, which suggested to Ezekiel it was done with a knife. Ezekiel didn't know or understand why someone would kill a buffalo, but he knew whoever did it was related to the sounds he's heard since a couple days ago, so he continued following the vague smell.
Eventually it was mid day and the sun was at its highest point, drilling down at Ezekiel, but his curiosity got the better of him and he continued searching, but he came to an abrupt stop because he could sense danger. There was rustling in the grass, birds circling in the sky and worst of all the laughs of a hyena. During his stay in the savannah he learned a multitude of things about animals mannerisms and one of them was that when hyena's laugh, they're hostile.
Ezekiel could feel himself being encircled by the hyena's, he couldn't see them, but he could hear them, but he couldn't tell for certain how many of them there are, so Ezekiel grit his teeth and nonchalantly and confidently walked forward and as he did a swarm of hyena's stood in front of him, blocking his path. Ezekiel was frightened, but confused, as they weren't attacking him.
"Shin Shin, what are they doing?" "They're defending something, something dear to them." "Is it food, because I see the birds circling?" "No, judging by how they're acting and the fact they have no leader with them, it suggest to me their matriarch has fallen and they're guarding it." "Do you think it's connected to the buffalo?" "I'm not to sure. We would need a closer look, but it doesn't look like that is going to happen, so lets just leave them be and go around."
Despite Shinka's warning, Ezekiel stepped forward with false confidence and the hyena's gradually stepped back, while grinning their teeth at him. After a few yards of stepping forward, the hyena's wouldn't back off anymore, they stood their ground and Ezekiel didn't want to challenge it and he could see what he needed to see anyways. It was a bigger hyena, lifeless on the floor, while its offspring cling to its lifeless body in hope it wakes up again, but little did they know, that the hyena was in an eternal slumber. Ezekiel was mortified and stepped back in horror. As he further examined the hyena's lifeless body, he realised its head was missing and once again it had no scarring anywhere else on its body, but this time Ezekiel could see a hole in the hyena's body.
"Poachers." "What's that?" "They're people who hunt animals for sport and it seems to me they're taking their body parts as trophies." "But why? What's the point?" "Some humans are like that. No every human values life as much as you do."
Ezekiel wiped his tears and walked around the hyena's and now he was unwavering on his path to hunt down that smell. But instead of walking carefully like he was before, he was running towards it like a wild beast. He didn't know how fast he was running, nor did he care, he was only focused on hawking down where the smell came from.
Eventually the smell began to intensify and Ezekiel came to an abrupt stop. In front of him, was a dark brown tent, some chairs outside it and a vehicle nearby. Ezekiel crouched low and began scouting out the area, but as he begun his investigation, he felt like he was being followed. He could vaguely hear footsteps behind, so he turned around to see what was going on and he couldn't see anything. But he could still hear the footsteps. They were to light to be a humans, so Ezekiel knew it was an animal, so Ezekiel turned back around to investigate the camp site and as he did all the sounds disappeared, so Ezekiel turned back around, but as he did a massive leopard pounced on him, but Ezekiel had an inkling that would happen, so his hands were ready to push it to the side, while he stepped to the other side, so Ezekiel began doing as he did before and started circling the leopard. After a couple seconds of going round in circles, the leopard stepped closer to Ezekiel, this made him hesitant and the leopard sensed the uncertainty from Ezekiel and closed the gap by pouncing on him and Ezekiel was unable to defend, all he could do was struggle, as the leopard clawed away at his skin looking for the opportunity to bite him and go for the finish. Ezekiel kept to try and push the leopard off of him, while shaking frantically moving around, but this did more harm than good, as Ezekiel lost his balance, which made him fall to the ground and the leopard was on top of him dominating him. Ezekiel tried to wriggle side to side, but the leopard had him pinned down and was trying to bite him, so Ezekiel kept on pushing the leopard's chin away from him, until he was able to push the leopard to the side, so he could reposition himself, but the leopard had very good balance, so as Ezekiel pushed the leopard to try and stand up it pounced on him again as soon as he got up, but Ezekiel caught the leopard this time and was able to throw it off of him. Ezekiel got back to circling the leopard, but this time he made sure to stand his ground and as he was circling the leopard, he saw red dot on the side of the leopards head, but Ezekiel couldn't afford to find out what it was, so he continued circling the leopard to see if the dot would disappear, but it didn't, it always remained on the side of the leopard's face, which was facing the sun, so Ezekiel positioned himself, so he was facing the direction of the sun and in the distance he saw white flash, like someone was taking a photo.
"Get down! It's the poachers, there going to shoot at you." "But what about the leopard?" "You can't worry about it, you need to save yourself." "I don't care, they are probably the people that I'm looking for anyways, so I might as well find out." "But you could get killed!" "I'll take my chances."
To the amazement of the leopard, Ezekiel charged at it and wrestled it to the ground, so they were both hidden in the grass from the poachers, but the leopard didn't understand what was going on and was still trying to attack Ezekiel and was trying to struggle out of Ezekiel's hold by using its hind legs to scratch him, so Ezekiel wrapped his arms around the leopards body as well, while holding it down, as low to the ground as possible. However, the leopard was able to free itself from Ezekiel's grip and went in for the kill, but Ezekiel put his left arm in the way, so the leopard bit his forearm instead. The leopard was violently and viciously biting, but Ezekiel didn't care, he was more focused on keeping the leopard safe, the leopard looked down at Ezekiel and saw his calm demeanour, which made its mood switch completely. It loosened its grip on Ezekiel's arm and walked away.
Relieved, Ezekiel put his head on the ground and let out a sigh of relief.
"Shin Shin, I'm so tri…"
(BANG)
"Boss we got him." A man shouted.