One Lion. Us.

As the nation’s top animal behaviorist, I was conducting a final evaluation of Caesar, our pride’s alpha lion.
The moment I entered the isolation corridor, the heavy alloy gate slammed shut behind me.
But instead of an alarm, the PA system blared the voice of the park director’s wife—my wife, Jessica.
“Welcome back to the stream, everyone! Today’s ultimate challenge: we’ve locked our ‘top animal trainer’ in with the king of the jungle. Will he wet his pants in ten minutes? Place your bets!”
Caesar, the lion I’d raised since he was a cub, was crouched low, growling. I reached for my tranquilizer gun, then froze. The liquid inside wasn’t pale yellow—it was a murky, angry red.
The vet Mark’s smug voice came over the speaker. “Leo, forgot to mention—I swapped your tranquilizer for pepper spray. Wouldn’t want you hurting Caesar. You two are best buds, right? Use the power of love!”
Caesar’s bloodshot eyes and dilated pupils told me he’d been drugged with agitants. Mark was getting back at me for stopping him from petting a tiger bare-handed last week.
I tuned out the speakers, focused only on the 500-pound predator before me.
My hand slipped into my pocket and closed around a small remote. I pressed the button—the master override for every electric fence in the predator enclosures.
“If you won’t let me live,” I shouted at the nearest camera, “then you’ll all die with me!”
"Jessica! This is the master switch for the entire zoo's predator enclosures!"
"The second I press this button, it won't just be Caesar. Every single big cat, bear, and wolf will be out!"
"This zoo is in the heart of downtown! Think about the body count! How many death sentences is that worth for you two?" My voice trembled with fury, but every word was a steel-tipped dart.
The PA system went dead silent for a heartbeat before Mark’s terrified shriek pierced the air. "Leo! Dude, don't do it! Just calm down, man! Be cool!"
But then, Jessica let out a sharp, derisive laugh. "Mark, what are you afraid of? He's bluffing!"
"Only the zoo's owner has access to a switch like that. He's just a glorified zookeeper. Where would he get something like that?"
"Alright, folks!" she announced to her audience, her voice bright again. "Want to see me really get Caesar worked up? Start dropping those Golden Lions in the chat, and I'll give you a show!"
I almost laughed out of sheer, blistering rage.
Keeping my eyes locked on Caesar's every twitch, I yelled back, "Jessica, did it never once occur to you to ask why someone with zero qualifications, like you, was hired as the director of a major zoological park?"
I threw myself to the left, dirt and gravel spraying as Caesar lunged, his claws swiping through the air where my head had been a second before.
"It's because I'm the secret owner of this zoo," I bellowed, my lungs burning.
Silence from the other end.
Gasping for breath, I started shouting the secret clauses from the employment contract we’d signed—clauses only the two of us and my lawyer knew.
Jessica’s breathing on the other end became heavy and ragged, as if a hand were clamped around her throat.
Panic finally set in. "Leo, honey, don't! I was just kidding! It was a prank for the stream!" she pleaded, her voice a desperate whine. "Don't take it seriously! I'm opening the gate right now! I'm letting you out!"
"Just please, don't press that button!"
But Caesar wasn't giving me a break.
I couldn't dodge in time. His claws, sharp as scalpels, raked across my arm. My heavy work uniform tore like paper, peeling back flesh and sending a gush of hot blood spilling out.
The rich, coppery scent of it filled the air. Caesar let out a thunderous, triumphant roar.
I stared at the alloy gate. It remained stubbornly, fatally shut. My hope turned to ice in my veins.
"You have ten seconds, Jessica! Open this gate NOW!"
Her dream, she’d once told me, was to run her own zoo. So I’d poured my life savings into secretly buying this one. To spare her any sense of obligation, I’d set up a shell corporation to hire her, making it all seem like a lucky break.
I was going to tell her everything tomorrow, on our wedding anniversary, and sign the whole thing over to her. A surprise.
Instead, here she was, trying to impress her sleazy boy-toy by feeding me to a drugged-up lion on a live stream.
"Ten!"
"Nine!"
I began the countdown, each number torn from my throat.
In the adjacent enclosure, the scent of my blood had agitated the Bengal tiger. It began slamming its massive body against the fence connecting our two habitats, the impacts echoing like drumbeats of doom.
"Jessica! Jessica, do something! I'm freaking out here!" Mark’s voice was a high-pitched squeal.
Jessica was completely unraveling. "Honey! Leo, stop counting! Please stop! The gate… it must be malfunctioning! I'll call maintenance! I'm calling them right now!"
I stopped counting.
The gash on my arm burned like fire. Using the precious seconds while Caesar regrouped, I scrambled up the rockwork of the lion's den, clawing my way into the branches of a decorative tree.
Before I could even catch my breath, Jessica's voice, now laced with an unrestrained mockery, echoed from the speakers.
"Oh, no, honey. What a shame."
"The maintenance guy says he's already clocked out for the day. He can come in tomorrow, though."
"Why don't you just hang out in there for the night?"
Below me, Caesar was ramming the tree trunk with his colossal body. The entire tree shuddered violently, groaning as if it might snap at any moment.
In my condition, I wouldn't last an hour, let alone the whole night. Waves of dizziness from the blood loss washed over me, but they were nothing compared to the bone-deep chill of betrayal that had settled in my heart.
"You're insane, Jessica. You actually want me to die, don't you?"
The speakers erupted with their unrestrained, dual laughter.
"Took you long enough to figure that out, Leo?" Jessica said. She cleared her throat, and I could just picture her aiming her phone's camera right at my pathetic, blood-soaked form.
"But hey, thanks for that little escape performance just now. The viewer count is through the roof! I guess you're not completely worthless after all." A rock whizzed past my head, smacking hard against the trunk.
Mark was on the other side of the fence, picking up stones and hurling them at me. "What are you doing all the way up there? Get down here!" he taunted. "Our top donor just said if you fall out of that tree, he'll drop twenty Supernova gifts!"
Jessica squealed with delight, her voice twisted with manic glee. "Did you hear that, Leo? Get down here, now!"
"If you don't start earning your keep, I'm not even buying you an urn when you're dead!"
My life or death had become just another gimmick to farm engagement on their goddamn live stream.
I raised the remote again, trying to say something, anything, but another violent slam from Caesar shook the tree so hard I nearly lost my grip. I could only cling to the rough bark, splinters digging into my palms.
Watching my desperate struggle, Jessica walked right up to the gate's bulletproof glass, her face alight with amusement. "Oh, stop the act, Leo."
"The owner's personal assistant just called me a few days ago," she said, her voice dripping with condescension. "Told me the big boss is overseas scouting new locations and won't be back for a while. Did you really think I'd believe a lie that stupid?"
My heart clenched. I’d forgotten. To maintain the surprise, all official communication had been routed through my personal assistant, Lynn.
Jessica paused, her tone shifting to a syrupy, false gentleness. "Besides, you're Mr. Morality, aren't you, Leo? The park hasn't even closed yet. There are still visitors outside. If you let all the predators out and people get hurt… you couldn't live with yourself, could you?"
"Be a good boy. Climb down and have a little playtime with Caesar. It's what everyone wants to see."
Her words hit me like a physical blow. My heart plummeted.
I had thought the remote was my trump card, the one line she wouldn't dare cross. But she had already factored my conscience into her sick equation. She knew my decency was her weapon.
Seeing my silence, she smiled, satisfied. "You have no parents, Leo. No one to even mourn you."
"And for an animal trainer to be killed by one of his own animals… well, that's just a workplace accident, isn't it? Perfectly understandable."
"So just rest in peace. I'll use the money from this stream to take good care of our child."
Our child?
My mind went blank, a deafening roar drowning out everything else. Before I could even process the bombshell, Mark sidled up behind her, placing a hand on her stomach with an air of intimate ownership.
"Don't you worry, Leo," he said, his voice slick with slime. "I'll take good care of Jessica and the baby for you."
"After all," he grinned, "they're both mine now."
"Oh, and by the way, there should be a pretty hefty life insurance payout from the zoo after you die, right? It's a big number, but I guess I can do you a favor and spend it for you."
The two of them, a perfect pair, their shamelessness so profound it made my stomach churn with bile. I swore to myself, if I survived this, I would tear them limb from limb.
On their stream, the soap-opera-level drama must have triggered a new wave of donations. To please their audience, Mark found a long bamboo pole and began jabbing it at me through the fence.
"Get down! Come on, Leo! Get down here!"
The pole stabbed into my open wound. The agony was so intense I almost let go of the trunk. I was a broken, bleeding mess, trying to dodge the pole while keeping an eye on the increasingly frantic lion below.
Just as Caesar gathered his powerful legs for a soaring leap, I launched myself sideways, landing heavily in the branches of a smaller, neighboring tree.
Caesar's lunge missed, and he crashed to the ground with a heavy thud, letting out a roar so powerful it felt like it would rupture my eardrums. The world was spinning from the blood loss.
He was completely feral now. No matter what calming sounds I tried to make, he ignored them, his blood-red eyes fixated on me.
I was filled with utter despair.
Then, a crackle of static came from the walkie-talkie clipped to my collar. "Kssht… Leo? Leo, you there? How's it going? Are you done with the assessment?" It was my colleague, Dave!
Like a drowning man spotting a lifeline, I fumbled for the talk button. "Dave! Help—"
"Dave, please don't bother my husband while he's working." Jessica's crisp voice cut through the channel, easily overpowering my weak cry. "He's in a critical phase of calming Caesar down. He can't have any distractions."
She had a walkie-talkie, too.
She had locked me out of the channel. All I could do was listen as Dave's apologetic voice came through. "Oh! Oh, my bad, my bad! I thought he'd be finished by now. That Leo, what a pro! Alright, I'll leave you guys to it!"
With a final crackle, the radio went silent.

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