Bullet showers

After fainting again. Iyya woke up for the second time again. This time she woke up to the sounds of Park Rangers communicating.

Not to her expectations and weirdly enough. The animal had not killed her.

She was still being held in the same position by the gigantic wolf on its chest.

How?! And why?! Animals do not serve their meals. What was the wolf waiting for?

Out of instinct, she crouched into a defensive position. Putting up the last fight left in her.

Pushing her nails and feathers into the wolf's fur to pinch its skin. She was trying to free herself in the only way she saw how.

But it was all useless. The animal didn't budge. It's like it didn't feel pain.

She believed her time was up and the wolf would sink its claws and tear her apart any moment now; there was nothing more she could do, so she went limp waiting.

But weirdly, the wolf looked at Iyya with a quick eye that warned her of what was happening.

Like a human would.

She turned her head to scan the area. She was faced with a Park Ranger holding the wolf at gunpoint about five meters away.

'What was going on?' Iyya's mind wandered, and she got more scared. There was more danger now in front of her. The probability of dying was rising more.

She was about to turn into a meal or die by a gunshot. Either way, she dies.

The Park Ranger spoke through a microphone placed just above his right shoulder on a loudspeaker. “Hello control room.”

“Control room copy, ninini tatizo?” -roughly translated to. What is the status? Iyya understood the language he was using. He was speaking Swahili. Iyya's native language.

He continued to speak in Swahili as he said. “There has been a massive killing of about twenty wolves or more by a new huge wolf that is not in our database, and this wolf might have killed the new tourist.”

This wolf killed a tourist?! That was bad. Terrible.

The Park Ranger talked too fast and didn't even take a breath in between, as his main concentration was on the wolf in front of him.

The Park Ranger also asked for backup because even with the gun pointed at the wolf holding her, he couldn't survive if the wolf launched at him.

The Park Ranger was strong and selfless. He looked into the eyes of the wolf with no sign of fear. Which meant he was far more dangerous without a weakness of fear.

Iyya continued to study the environment she was in. It made little sense to her.

Because the dangerous wolf was acting so opposite to its nature towards her. It continued to hold on to her like a mother would instead of tearing her apart.

Any animal in this wolf's situation would act on its instincts as fast as it could, but this wolf, she wondered, acted the same way she would; it acted like a human trapped in an animal's body.

She understood the frustrations and felt bad reading about the scenario.

More to Iyya's surprise. She felt as if the wolf was trying to communicate with the Park Ranger, trying to plead with him. But the language barrier wouldn't let them agree.

Iyya heard Park Ranger's car sirens coming from afar.

She tried to turn and see what was happening. In the corner of her eye, another Park Ranger had joined the battle right behind where they stood. And with the sirens anytime now, they would be surrounded.

The second Park Ranger was just in front of the twenty wolves believed to have been killed by this wolf. And one among the dead wolves on top of the tree hanging limp was the first wolf that tried to kill her.

The wolf holding her saved her. That felt good, but she questioned herself again.

Did it truly save her to free her, or was it saving her to kill her later? That hit scared all over her skin.

She turned her eyes back to the first Park Ranger holding the wolf at gunpoint.

And was reminded that around the Serengeti, it is a well-known fact about what they do to lions that eat humans in the park.

They never live to see another day, because if the lion has tasted human blood, they are considered to always go after humans all over again.

Not only lions but also the laws in Serengeti, which she was familiar with, were not on this wolf's side. The park rangers were allowed to shoot and kill on-site when a dangerous animal got closer to the humans or tried to attack them.

Iyya wasn't sure if this wolf had killed the tourist that they were talking about, but it was covered in blood.

And it had killed so many wolves brutally. It was not a human, and that is what wild animals do.

Wild animals do not think about killing like humans. They kill for food and to survive. That is their nature.

The fate of this wolf was as good as that of the lion that killed a human. It was to be shot down to its death.

The wolf was going to die.

From the conversation the park rangers had, she wasn't the target.

She was in the wrong place. Right in the middle of a crossfire.

But deep down, she also felt obligated to somehow try to save the wolf. The wolf had done the same for her. Killed the other wolf that had tried to kill her first. What if she helped the wolf? And it killed her later.

At the moment it did not matter anymore. From the scenarios she had been through in the few hours around here, she was as good as dead in this park. And her late mother taught her that the debt of life is paid by life.

‘You repay the good and never repay the bad.’ Her exact words pushed into Iyya’s mind. She pushed through her mind looking for ideas of a way to distract the Park Ranger and set the wolf free.

Risking her life as a sign of gratitude wasn't a bad idea at that moment.

The second Ranger behind them, who was about twenty meters from the dead wolves, was slowly approaching them and stopped after the wolf made a reflex of throwing Iyya on its back.

It's as if it could sense the movement of the second Ranger although the Ranger tried so much not to make any noise from his movement. Iyya jumped off the wolf's back, flying with her wings wide, flew at high speed, and hit the first Park Ranger by surprise, putting him off guard and throwing him to the ground.

The second Ranger ran towards the first Ranger to help him off the ground. And Iyya was standing, dazzled, and scared by what she had done.

The scare in the wolf's posture made her eyes travel, with the wolf's eyes as they both watched to their right-hand side and they both saw the dust that was rising high due to the Park Ranger's cars rushing and heading toward them.

With no gesture to warn Iyya, the wolf picked Iyya up off the ground, threw her on its back again, and ran to the left side, away from everyone at a supernatural speed.

Even before Iyya could balance herself well on the back of the wolf, they were miles away. Iyya struggled so much to balance herself on its back due to the high speed it was running and that resulted in her only way out, and that is digging her claws into its fur to balance herself.

When she could balance herself, she realized it was all for nothing because right then.

The gunshot started. It was like a rain-shower of bullets coming from above. It was as if the clouds were mad at them and rained bullets on their way.

She chose the wrong side.