SHORT STORIES FRIDAYS (6)

A DREAM, A NIGHTMARE, OR A LESSON : A SHORT STORY BY ME.

Hi friends,

I am going to continue the Case of Cyber vigilante next week because I have planned some thrilling twists and add spine chilling turns to the story. So, today I am presenting one of my old stories published in Sweek.com. It was earlier titled ” Love and Protect the Animals “but I thought of changing the title. I hope you like it.

Raj Sharma,the thirteen year old son of Mr. Kedar and Mrs Anju Sharma, was a very bright student studying in 8th grade of Violet International School, Bengaluru. He was always the class topper and yet he was very modest and so friendly that no one could dislike him. He was supposed to do a project for his class.He represented his school in the inter school competition organised to create awareness about nature and wildlife.

He was a bit worried as he had not yet decided what to do for his project. He asked for his parents’ advice but unfortunately , they could not come up with any idea. He slept late that night thinking about his project.

Later that night, he had a weird dream, more of a nightmare, to be precise. In his dream, he saw that he was playing with his friends in the garden, when his mother came rushing out to call him . She was very frantic. Beads of perspiration formed on her forehead. She told them that the wild animals have escaped from the zoo and are on a rampage all over the city. She also called his friends inside the house and stay there till the danger was over. 

Raj and his friends were scared. They were huddled together as they suddenly heard a loud roar.They were stunned to find a leopard prowling out in the garden  as they looked out of window. It was growling and baring its teeth. It glared at them as if it could pounce on them any moment.

Raj’s mother was now trembling because she had forgotten to close the door. When she was about to close it,  another leopard entered into the house. It slowly moved towards them and about to pounce upon them when it was distracted by its little cub which began to speak like a human.

The cub said,” Don’t kill them. Let us capture them and put them in our special prison, what humans call as zoo.”Raj and and his friends were too stunned to see these animals speak like humans.Raj found himself stammering as he asked the leopard,” H…. How can you talk like us?”The leopard chuckled and replied,” We have been injected with a special serum created by a scientist on an experimental basis. We escaped from  his captivity  when he forgot to padlock the cage door.”

Raj, his mother and friends were captured by the leopard and its companions and taken to the forest. They were put in a cage meant for animals.They were very much surprised to see more humans being held as captives in adjacent cages.

 In this forest everything was Topsy Turvy.They were astounded to find animals behaving like humans. Other animals  also came to visit them and laughed at the plight of the prisoner. The lion said,”Well done. These humans deserve to be punished. All these years, they either trapped us to be captive in zoo or killed us to sell our fur. It is time that they learnt their lesson. They should know how we feel when are held as prisoners and these people make fun of us by ogling at us or throwing stones.  Now Show them how it  feels to be killed and skinned.”. On hearing this order from the lion, a tiger promptly killed a captive man and started tearing his flesh. Raj and his friends were terrified and felt like puking.

Raj and friends were released from the cage only to be attacked by the leopard. The leopard was about  to pounce on him when suddenly Raj opened his eyes on hearing the alarm. He said to himself,” Thank goodness. It was only a dream.”  He realised  the dream had actually given him an idea to work on the school project. He approached his elder brother and sought his help to make an animation film showing the plight of the animals and also his dream where the trend was reversed and how it would be like if we were in the place of the animals.  The film was then shown in the inter school competition which eventually won the first prize for creating awareness amongst people to love and protect the animals. Raj received  the award from the district collector. He was extremely happy that his project was a great success.

Thank you so much for taking your precious time to visit my website. Hope you enjoyed reading my blogs. 😊😊