Chapter 18. Akainu

"what's going on?" An antelope asked another as they noticed the ground shaking.

Maybe an earthquake had occured.

"Look over there!" The other said, looking towards the horizon where they could see heavy smoke filling up the sky, all originating from a volcano that had erupted, far away from the antelopes.

"Let's hurry away!" The antelope said in worry. Even if the natural catastrophe was far away, the sight of it was scary to anyone that laid eyes on it.

And right in the middle of the volcano, a lion was hurrying down a unknown path. Simba had been split form his brother and he had to taken another path, longer path, circling the mountain. The lava had almost reached him and was flowing very fast.

Simba could barely see anything in front of him because of the smoke and his paws started to burn as the volcano was heating up.

He didn't know what path he was taking since this was far away from where they had climbed, he just hoped for the best.

As he ran, he found that the path he took down, led to a valley on the mountain. He had no choice but to continue.

After running for what felt like years, Simba felt the temperature raising even more. confused, he looked back and found that the lava was flowing even faster because of the valley like path he had chosen, it was closing in on him and he had no choice but to run even faster although he could barely see where he was going.

After sprinting with all his might, his paw stumbled on a rock and he fell down rolling down the valley that had become very steep.

He tried to stabilise but before he could stop his plunge, the valley opened up and he came to a cliff and tumbled over.

Simba only felt his body rolling and plummeting down, before the ground underneath him suddenly disappeared, and Suddenly there was only air underneath him as he fell from the cliff.

He instinctively roared as he fell. A lions mighty roar can be heard from 8 km away. His mighty roar echoed throughout the mountain.

His fall was over 9 meters and he crashed into a small tree, compelety breaking off the tree.

Both Simba and the three fell ontop of a big rock. When he fell, he hit his head first and because of the hard collision, Simba fell unconscious.

The lava continued flowing until it reached the cliff where Simba fell, and it flowed down like a waterfall. From the cliff, a big rock broke off from the cliff and fell down crashing into the ground, breaking into many parts.

A fragment of the rock as big a basketball soared through the sky towards Simba, fortunately, it only hit his tail.

The rock fragment clashed against his tail so hard that 70 precent of Simba's tail got cut off.

The lava started flowing down like a waterfall and filling the area and soon the lava started running down the mountain like a flood again.

The big rock that Simba had fallen unconscious on, suddenly split into two parts because of the heat from the lava. One half standing still where it stood and soon got swallowed by lava.

And the other half of the big rock, which Simba was laying ontop of, the rock Simba was on had started floating down with the lava river, down the mountain.

The rock Simba was on slowly got swallowed by the lava as it floated downards.

A few km from where Simba fell off the cliff, Asafa was running his fastest, hoping to get away so he can meet his brother again.

As he ran, he soon heard the screams and shouts from Timon and the others.

Asafa could hear how they were shouting for him and his brother as they ran down.

Soon he caught up to them.

Hamu was on top of Pumba, crying out and Timon was riding Imani like a horse. Both of them shouting for either Simba or Asafa, hoping that they were fine.

Asafa heard the anxiousness in their voices.

"HURRY UP, RAN FASTER!" Asafa shouted as he ran by their side, they were relieved to find him safe and sound but soon they noticed that Simba wasn't with him.

Timon was just about to ask him about it but he noticed how perturbed and uneasy Asafa seamed so he kept his mouth shut so that he wouldn't make Asafa lose focus on where he was stepping.

Everyone had gotten black or grey from the dark smoke that they ran through, and Asafa got the darkest because he was further up the volcano than the others were.

As they were running, Hamu suddenly fell from Pumba's head and stumbled on the ground. It was hard for Hamu to keep himself ontop of Pumba as he had no arms.

Pumba was about to stop and pick him up but Asafa, who was the furthest back, shouted for him to continue.

"YES, CONTINUE! DON'T MIND MEEE! ITS BETTER THAT ONLY I DIE THAN BOTH OF US!" Hamu shouted, willing to give his life so that the other can survive.

Sadly, his heroic spirit was broken as Asafa came to where Hamu was and picked him up with his mouth and continued running.

"AH NEVER MIND, I'LL SURVIVE WITH YOU!" Hamu corrected himself

Suddenly all of them heard a mighty roar from a distance. All of them realised that it was a lions roar and it sounded very dismayed.

This roar made all of them halt and look back, all very worried.

Asafa froze, as he remembered what he had seen that day... That day when his father fell from the cliff, his roar at that time sounded eerily similar the roar now.

"Asafa!" Timon shouted, noticing that he seemed in a haze.

Pumba and Timon looked at eachother in worry and seemed to realise that it was more than just a brotherly worry.

He shouted once again to try to get back Asafa to the right mind but it seemed like Asafa had fallen into a mental maze.

*SLAP* Imani got to Asafa and slapped him hard.

"Now's not the time to worry, we have to run or we die!" She said angrily as the lava was closing in.

It seemed like it worked as Asafa came back to reality and took the lead in running.

'Simba... You better be alright.' he thought, and although he looked like he was focused on running, his chest was constricted and heavy.