Africa.

In a plain forest, a jeep could be seen parked beside some distance away from a pack of lions.

There was only one male lion within the group, others were all females playing with their cubs.

Roar!

Swipe! swipe!

Pak!

One of the mothers swiped her paw to hit one of the cubs, the other kids backed away a distance before carefully moving forward to play again. Even their small play was very dangerous for humans as they were basically attacking each other with their claws, this was much more dangerous than how humans played with their babies.

 

Some distance away, inside a jeep, a few people wearing safari travelling clothes with binoculars were excitedly staring at this pack of lions.

On the front seat, beside the driver sat a human male with average features, he looked quite young around the age of 20 to 24.

His name was Ben Clarkson, a 23 year old white man, working as a tour guide in various safari zones and even some deep forest in Africa.

Today he was just guiding a group of foreigners from a different country, and describing various things regarding the wild animals. 

He turned his head,and counted 4 people sitting on the back seat, including a little girl.

Noticing that these people were showing some interest towards the lions, he described some details about them.

"Those are the famous African lions, African male lion's manes are usually much darker than other average lions. Most Lions enjoy resting, they spend 12 to 16 hours of time either resting or sleeping. They also have few sweat glands so they wisely conserve their energy during the day and get active during night when it is cooler.They also have strong night visions which helps them see in the night. Lionesses are caring mothers, they take care of even the most neglected cubs, and let them suckle to give them a chance at surviving."

 

Most people in the group didn't seem interested in knowing about lions, Ben noticed their disinterest, and decided to stop his rambling.

A little girl raised her head to glance at Ben, after some hesitation she opened her mouth to ask whether they could go up a little bit closer to the lions.

Hearing her question, Ben directly refused her. "No, these wild animals are very territorial, right now we are far away from their area so they aren't being hostile. Do you think they can't sense us? If we make any movements then they would probably be alerted, and threaten us. It is better for us to stay far away from them!" He warned her with a stern face.

The little girl looked sad after having her wish being denied, seeing the sad expression on her face, Ben was about to console her when something suddenly happened!

Swipp! Swipp! Swipp!

The sky turned dark!

Ben and the group looked up.

They saw the sky being covered by many giant round black portal-like holes!

Ben shockingly stared at the sky while asking something stutteringly.

"Wh...at the hell…. is going on!?" He and the other group members didn't know what was happening to the sky.

"Is it...some never found phenomenon? Or is it the end of the world?" A scholar looking middle aged man wearing Eye glasses with short grey hair asked. His pupils were brown in colour

He had an overall calm disposition but looked terrified as evidenced by the terror of expression on his face

Not only him, everyone including the pack of lions also looked terrified of this weird phenomenon happening in the sky.

Sheww! Sheww! Sheww! phat! Dhak! Dhak! Dhak!

Roar! Roar!

They were just stabilising their emotions, when they noticed that even their environment began going through the same phenomenon!

Many black portal-like holes appeared in their surroundings, all the wild animals started running rampant and even the ground started shaking!

Total chaos ensued with many roars of wild beasts being heard throughout the plain forest!.

Ben felt like the whole reality was being torn apart by these black portals.

He even saw a whole matured tree being gobbled up by one of them!

The driver of the jeep hurriedly started the engine, the engine started and the group of humans including Ben were almost feeling relieved, when a cheetah suddenly jumped up on their vehicle from the side before jumping and running ahead, leaving them behind.

There were many small and big animals running towards their direction just like the cheetah from before.

Seeing the situation, the driver decided to quickly drive away but before he could, everyone heard a shrill feminine cry coming from the jeep.

"No! Mary!"

A matured woman with long black hair screamed frightfully, her blue coloured pupils looked watery.

Currently her eyes were big, expression terrified because her daughter just fell down after being hit by the momentum of that running cheetah!.

The driver wanted to wait, and save the child but the situation made it very hard to do so as there were many wild animals running towards their direction, almost reaching the jeep.

He closed his eyes for a while before slowly opening them. 'I can't let everyone, including myself, die just because of one person.'

He decisively moved the gear, and didn't stop the running vehicle. 

"Mom!"

The daughter 'Mary' with long black hair shouted fearfully, some tears formed on her blue coloured eyes after seeing that the jeep and her mother were almost leaving her behind.

Suddenly!

Ben moved his hand to grab the collar of the driver, and told him to stop the jeep for a while.

The driver was furious, he was about to shout at Ben but he noticed some people including the mother sitting at the back were also angrily staring at him.

The driver hesitated for about two seconds before he stopped the jeep.

"Go! Do it quickly!"

Ben didn't wait for even a second, he hurriedly jumped off the jeep, and sprinted towards the little girl, the mother also wanted to go but someone stopped her from moving.

"Let that guy save your daughter, you are not as fast as him."

The mother stopped, and turned her head to stare at the person who stopped her.

It was the middle aged man who first commented about world destruction or something like 

that.

Ben didn't know what he was doing, he himself was afraid and anxious. This anxiousness led him to unconsciously help the little girl.

….

Hope suddenly ignited inside Mary after seeing that someone was approaching to rescue her.

Ben quickly reached the little girl, and picked her up before running back towards the jeep!.

"Come quickly!" The driver shouted, he looked anxious.

Seeing that the beasts were almost reaching them, Ben got a bit nervous and lost his footing, which prompted him to fall down on his body.

Dhak

"Shit! get up for fuck's sake! Ahh! We are going to die damn it!" 

The driver lost it, and directly wanted to start the jeep without waiting for them, but he still held himself back for a while.

Ben looked up and seriously shouted at Mary "Quick! Run! Go reach that jeep!"

After hearing his shouts, Mary started running forward, and quickly reached the jeep.

"Mom!"

"Mary! Thank god!" The mother hugged the girl with a relieved expression. Her daughter Mary started crying. 

 

Ben didn't wait for too long, he was just behind the little girl.

The driver couldn't stop himself now, he moved the gear, and tapped on the clutch to start moving the vehicle, the jeep started running ahead.

Ben almost reached the jeep, he even saw two hands reaching for him from the back seat.

He raised his hand wanting to grab on to those hand supports but before he could, a black hole of swirling mass suddenly appeared ahead in front of the vehicle!

It swallowed the whole jeep before disappearing from Ben's vision!

'huh…'

He saw the jeep get swallowed by the black hole including the people riding on it.

Their expressions just before getting swallowed looked relieved and happy as if they were happy that they could finally get away from this place but unfortunately they didn't notice the black space hole ahead.

For a moment, Ben didn't know what to do, he stopped running, and slowly turned his head to look at the wild beasts running towards his direction like a tide.

"Am I going to die here?"

A running male lion was the first to reach close to Ben. The lion wanted to turn a bit to avoid clashing with him but it noticed that it couldn't turn away because other big wild beasts were also running there.

Seeing that there was no space to turn his body, the lion decided to directly tackle Ben, and then run ahead.

Ben noticed the lion reaching close to him and lost his mind.

He kept staring at the incoming lion, and nervously moved back a few steps.

Shhing! Phwat!

He didn't know that a swirling mass of black hole suddenly appeared, and started forming behind him.

Ben kept moving back and touched the black hole before it could fully expand.

The black mass while expanding touched Ben's head, and cut off the upper part of his head, along with a quarter of his brain, directly making him lose his consciousness and life.

The lion was running towards Ben at full speed so it couldn't stop it's momentum in time. He crashed with Ben before getting swallowed by the black hole of swirling mass, together with Ben's body.

 

 

 

Author's thoughts: I am writing this as a practice to prepare for my other novel 'I Became a Faceless Expert'.