Chapter 2. Loss.

-Have you heard the news? Hans is dead.

— Is this a lover of gambling and courtesans? Yeah, i heard about him. Apparently, he and his crew took the quest of catching a gwuel. Even heard he was successful. However, it doesn't matter to Guns any longer.

-What anIdiot. Gave up his life to go to one of the red district princesses.

-Don't judge him like that. Everybody's got a dream, and this is the one he had. We should feel sorry for him, not judge him. Had died on the job before he could reach his dream.

I had another strange dream. This time a nurse named Tanya was sitting by my bed reading me a colourful fairy tale story. At first, when I started having these dreams, I didn't understand anything. But gradually I began to understand what a hospital was, what a nurse was, what a drip was, and a lot of other things. Each time I saw the same picture, as if I were in human form, lying in a hospital, alone in a large ward, covered with various wires and devices. Only a nurse named Tanya always came to see me. Occasionally other nurses and doctors came to see me, but only Tanya looked after me every day. In today's dream this girl visited me too. Her eyes were sad as she was reading me a colourful story about a princess who had passed through a lot of things and got her happy ending. When she finished reading she smiled at me, but her smile was not bright and sincere as usually. Soon the doctors entered the room, followed by a middle-aged man.

He looked at me with a bitterly cold gaze, as if judging me, and asked something of the doctors. I failed to understand the words. It seems that I don't understand all the words for now. The doctors, hearing the man's words, answered in a calm and sad voice - "one more week at the best", and then the man looked at me again and said that this week be the best for the dying girl. I wanted to watch this dream a bit longer, but I was woken up by one of my sisters biting my ear.

The bright sunlight creeping through the leaves of the trees blinded me. When I opened my eyes, one of my sisters was biting my ear, lying playfully next to me and flicking her tail. I didn't react to her actions and thought about the dream I couldn't finish.

I don't know what kind of dreams they are and why I have them, but thanks to them I was able to learn many things. Even the word "sister" and its meaning I learnt thanks to these dreams. And now I am truly curious if everyone dreams like this and where these dreams come from.

I couldn't lie there and think about it for long. For starters, my brothers and sister were in the way. But more importantly, it was my mother's growl, which made us all calm down and pay attention to her. In a moment we were already quietly following her, and in the distance we could hear someone's voices. I guess of all the cubs, I was the strangest at my mother's. Even though we're a month old already and learning to hunt, I'm always messing up. The only thing I'm good at, compared to the others, is following our mother's instructions exactly. But when it comes to being on my own, I don't do as well as I'd like. That's why lately I've been trying to copy my mum's behaviour. So this time I did the same thing - I was walking very carefully, slightly ducking down and, just like my mum, looking back.

Apparently the voices that came from far away were coming from something dangerous to us. I don't know if everyone understands it, but my brothers and sister sense our mother's mood. Therefore, there is nothing unnecessary in our actions. Everyone moves on very carefully and very quietly.

But we could not get far. Soon we heard a whistle and one of the arrows hit the cub, which stopped for a moment. The arrow pierced him through, and he fell down with a cry, moaning and whimpering. His breathing became a wheeze. He tried to get up, but he could not and only moved his paws. When we saw this, we were all struck with fear. Only the one I call mum started to growl furiously instead of fear.

A moment later I felt my mother grab me by the scruff of my neck with her teeth and rushed away, leaving the others behind. But we didn't run far. After a short distance, she put me down and made me climb up onto a tree, then she ran back down.

Thanks to the dreams, I know about such animals like cats, and I've always compared us to them. Just as agile, just as good at climbing trees, jumping high, and even in appearance we are similar in some ways, but there are more differences.

I'm not as fluffy as them, and my skin is harder and more like a dragon's one.

Climbing high into the tree and hiding among the leaves I saw another cub climbing a bigger tree next to mine. None of the other siblings I noticed.

Though the branches and leaves were hiding me, they also prevented me from seeing what was happening. Carefully, trying not to move, I tried to find my mum. While doing this, I noticed that the cub, who had earlier climbed up a neighbouring tree, had successfully hidden among the branches and leaves.

Suddenly, I heard somebody screaming, and I could finally see those who were trying to kill us. Those were humans. I have seen humans in my dreams before and I know the meaning of the word, even though I have seen humans in real life before, but only as food. Mum had brought them back a couple of times and made us drink their blood. There were five cubs at the time, but Mum killed one because he disobeyed her.

When she brought the man in, he was already dead. She used him to show us how to drink the blood. The first time we did as Mother wanted, and then she took the man away. Soon she brought another one and we drank the blood again, but one of the brothers then decided to taste the man and the mother started growling. Unfortunately that cub didn't pay attention and did what it wanted to do. In a moment he died from the teeth of our mother, she chewed him up. This case made it clear to me - disobeying the mother leads to death. I think others realised it too.

I was lying on a branch and not moving, watching what was happening below. One of the men had fallen holding his throat, another man was trying to help him while three of them were killing my mother with their swords. I honestly wanted to whimper, to jump up and sprint to her. But her gaze that looked up stopped me.

I can't tell if it's true or not, but for a moment I thought she was looking at me. The look was stern, commanding, as if telling me that if I disobeyed her, I would die. It was the same look I'd seen when she'd bitten my brother, and it was the same look that made me freeze and hold still.