It was the night of the pale, pink moon; an uneasy mist hovering over the heavily battered snow and ice encrusted escarpment. Several thin fires could be seen flickering in the eerie moon-lit darkness as Baloo padded quietly through a maze of twisted, bent and scorched metal; a host of grotesque dead soldiers frozen in their last death throes silently greeting him. The stench of destruction and death assailed his sensitive nostrils as he sniffed the air; puffs of steam instantly freezing on his bristly muzzle. This was no place for an old leopard.
Never in his entire life had Baloo seen anything remotely like this; a battle ground of sheer ugliness; raw pain, intense terror and final futility still lingering. Although the snow was covering everything like a gigantic shroud, a light breeze blowing the final epitaph; when spring arrives, the ghastly scene will be once more renewed but the dead soldiers will not be reborn.
Shaking the snow from his large spotted-head, about to search for a way out of this clutter, this utter destruction, this utter madness, Baloo thought he heard what sounded like a moan. He perked his ears and cocked his head slightly to the side and gazed into the gloom. Paitiently, like the cat, the hunter he was, he listened intently for the sound but nothing could be heard. Although the dead, if they could be heard, Baloo's ears would be bleeding profusely from their screams and agony. About to walk away, to escape this land of lunacy, he heard the moan once again - it wasn't a figment of his imagination - it was the sound of life. Padding softly, the mournful sound, drawing him closer and closer towards a small fire like a midnight moth, he wondered how anything could have survived this holocaust.
Arriving at the pale, flickering fire, ghostly shadows playing on the snow, Baloo indeed found life. A soldier sitting, his right side leaning against a large metal wheel of some mechanical war-machine, its treads disappearing beneath him, was holding a pistol in his right hand and it was aimed directly at him. The part of Baloo that was a man knew that death was a split-second away, yet neither the beast nor the man within felt any fear. The soldier's hand slightly shook as he squinted deeply into Baloo's eyes, as if he was searching for his soul. And then, knowing his death was eminent, he'd very soon be dead or perhaps not wanting to kill anymore, he calmly laid the pistol on the ground, the muzzle pointing into the quivering flames.
As Baloo looked more closely at the badly wounded soldier, he noticed that his blood spattered face was as pale as the surrounding snow. He sat in a pool of frozen blood, a jagged bone jutting out of cauterized blackened flesh just above the elbow was all that remained of his left arm. Both his legs were badly shattered as well; his pant-legs stiff with blood and gore pointed in unnatural directions. And an open wallet lay on the soldier's blood-drenched lap, a well-worn photograph of his family poking out from beneath it.
How many times the dying soldier had looked at it, he did not know and even though it gave him some comfort, some consolement of his impending death, he realized that he was all alone. Looking up at Baloo, their eyes almost on the same level he said, "I must be halucinating. A leopard, a creature that lives in a tropical jungle, what would you be doing out here in this frozen God-forsaken waste; this waste of humanity and dignity. Do you know that I've soiled myself, acutally shit myself and it doesn't bother me in the least."
Baloo moved closer to the dying soldier and still he did not reach for his pistol. Instead, with his good arm, the soldier motioned for him to come closer and said, "Come here leopard. Let me touch you and see if you are for real or if I'm dreaming. If you are hungry; eat me. Perhaps then my life might account for something rather than the slayer of my fellow human beings who I was lead to believe were my enemies."
Baloo moved next to the man and crouched down beside him, his long tail swishing back and forth like a pendulum.
The soldier's body spasmed uncontrolably as he put his arm around Baloo's neck and gently pulled his head across his lap. Running his hand through Baloo's thick spotted-fur he uttered, "You are real my friend. I feel your warmth, the beating of your heart, your strength, none of which I have remaining. Are you an angel in disguise? Have you come to comfort me in my last moments? Whether you are beast or angel, I thank you for coming. To feel some compasion from another living being for the last time has been worth my lingering death. To have died instantly by a bullet to the brain or a bayonet to the heart, although merciful, would now have been very wasteful - not everyone gets to experience a miracle."
Spasming violently once again, the dying soldier coughed, spraying the leopard's coat with blood and gasped, words trying to form on his bluish lips, but none came forth, only a gurgle deep down in his throat was heard.
Baloo remained by the dead soldier for a short while and gazed into the firelight. He was a predator, an eater of flesh and even though he killed mostly animals that were either old or ailing, he was not a scavenger and in this case, the man within him was not a cannibal.
Baloo stood up and peered into the purple haze, gentle snowflakes falling lightly about him. And, as silently as he had arrived amidst this place of destruction, horror and sadness, he began padding away, his furry spots, sharp claws and twitching tail morphing into a man - and then - into nothing.
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