I was young when they took me. I struggle to remember my previous life, a life that now seems foreign and alien to me. I recall the long summer nights I spent running with my friends through tall grass and kicking up dust as my feet scampered along unbeaten terrain. I could look up into the night sky and see so many twinkling little lights. I remember my family with no issue of that sort, as they are permanently connected to me and my life from before. I remember my mother, kind and caring with nothing but the most nurturing love for me and my siblings. Her face was soft, her kisses wonderful and when she held me I felt safe from all the harm in the world. My father wasn’t as kind and gentle as my mother. He was rougher with us, almost as if he was trying to prepare us for dangers that he knew we would face some day. He seemed lazy at times, and he never brought back food the way that mother did. He was always the first to eat from the food she brought home, but we loved him regardless. My siblings were just like me, completely reliant on our parents. Things seemed so idyllic and wonderful for so long.

Then they came.

It wasn’t all at once. I remember seeing a big green thing on the horizon one day, and I saw figures inside of it pointing in my direction. I was so excited, new faces were a rare site at home. I wanted to run out and greet them, but mother stopped me. She picked me up and ran back home as fast as she could and started yelling warnings to the other families in the area. Nobody listened, as they just went about their everyday lives. I wasn’t too worried either, why should I have been? I hadn’t experienced anything bad in my short life up to this point, why would this be any different? Children are prone to naivete, and I was no exception. I spent the entire day thinking about the strangers. They weren’t like anything I had ever seen before, and they were so far away that I thought they were just illusions. I wondered what they wanted, why they had come here and if I would ever see them again. My mother was so quick in scooping me up and whisking me away it left me with more curiosity than anything else. I wouldn’t disobey her and try to go back out to meet with the strangers, but it was frustrating not having instant gratification like I was used to having.

I would soon have all my answers.

It was no more than two days later when they descended on the place I called home. They moved in closer this time, close enough so that I could see them. They were the strangest creatures I had seen up until this point. They stood on two legs and had two more sprouting from their torsos but didn’t use them for walking. They had smooth skin that was covered by some sort of cloth, not fur but smoother. Some of them wore things made of the same material on their heads, and their eyes were bloodshot red. They were shiny, and water dripped off their brows onto the dry earth beneath them. They carried long sticks that had shiny bits on the ends of them that glistened in the presence of the sun. They rode in something that I still have no name for to this day, a metal beast that roared and spit black smoke from behind. I could see them looking at my family and I from a distance. They crept in ever so slowly, enough that it didn’t startle any other families or my own. I saw them hoist their sticks up to their face and aim it at something in my direction. I was confused at this point, and frightened. I hid behind my mother long with my siblings, and she stood strong like she always did. My father stood and began to walk back and forth, sizing up the strangers. I felt safe. I felt like nothing in the world could hurt me.

Memories that I will never forget are burned into my mind after what happened next.

I heard a loud noise that sounded like thunder. I saw my mother fall forward, and blood spurted from her neck. She convulsed on the ground, struggling for breath and tried to cover the wound to no avail. My father charged the attackers, the vicious scoundrels who had hurt my mother but the sticks the strangers had went off into him. I saw his head explode, his insides sprayed over the strangers. I tried to run, as my siblings did. We tripped over one another trying to escape, and I ended up being the slowest out of all of us. The next few moments are clouded in my memory, and it’s difficult to remember the exact details of what happened. I felt a small prick in my backside, and I felt myself getting groggy with each step I took. I remember falling out, and the next time I woke up I was in a large white room. There was another stranger looking over me, wearing coverings like the others were but these were cleaner. I was in some kind of box with holes in it. I was too young to understand what was happening, and I was frightened. I cowered in the corner of the box, and I could not be consoled. I wanted to know if my mother was okay, and if my siblings were still out there. I could not be consoled.

The next few years were torturous.

I was forced to be gawked at by spectators, the same kind of creatures that had killed my parents were now laughing at me in amusement. Some were smaller than others, some older and frill. I grew strong and big, almost as big as my father. The location they have me set up was reminiscent of home, but it is not the same. I lack all my freedom here. My life is a lie, and I do not want to be here anymore. I’ve decided to make an attempt at escape. Even if I do not make it, at least I will die knowing I tried. As I look out over the gap between me and freedom, I breathe deeply. I make a running jump, and make it across. I am ecstatic! I run past all the screaming spectators and here a loud voice yelling worried words and can only think of making it out. As I run past all the terrified looks, I make out a sign that is on the highest wall in the area.

PITTSBURGH ZOO: LION EXIBIT