He stood there, motionless. The young lion had been standing in that exact spot for nearly an hour now, his pale green eyes never leaving the edge of the newly formed chasm. Only hours earlier, he'd been standing where the giant hole now gaped across the ground was, alongside his parents. Now only himself and Mwenzi remained among the eeire silence, as both his parents and their partners were just... just gone.
His heart pleaded with him, he needed to walk to the edge and look over. Couldn't there possibly still be a chance that they'd survived? Just one more look!
His mind, however, knew it would be pointless, and was continuing to attempt to grasp onto the fact that his parents were no longer members of this mortal world. Over and over again, the fresh memory replayed itself in his mind. His parents standing there, simply talking as they continued on their minor journey across the plain, when the earth shook. It was a tremendous force that'd knocked Kamau to the ground in an instant, and no one, not even the birds, knew what was going on... or what would happen next. The crack had appeared so suddenly, beneath his white paws, and it began to grow at an alarming rate. He remembered his father yelling something, his mother grabbing him, attempting to pull him up as if he were a small cub again. How he struggled to his feet, amidst the rumbling of the earth, and how the crack chased them, and caught up to his mother and him.
The young adolescent's eyes closed, his mind desperately attempting to cease the screaming in his mind, to shut out the rest of the memory. Both of his parents had tried to save him.. they'd tried to save each other. But, in the end, only he remained.
They were gone.
The small parrot glanced up at his companion, and then back towards the chasm that his friend refused to turn away from. Mwenzi might not have been related by blood to Kamau's parents, but he had grown quite fond of them, and losing not one, but both at the same time, shocked the tiny bird. He knew his partner was in a great deal of more suffering than he himself was in, and he hated the fact that they'd finally come across a situation where Mwenzi would fail to lighten the mood. He'd always prided himself on the fact he could tease a smile out of his lion-friend, but what did one say after witnessing such a scene? It was a wonder that Kamau hadn't chased after his parents, fallen down into the chasm with them, but Mwenzi knew why he hadn't. It was the same reason why Mwenzi himself hadn't flown down after them. He was too frightened, too startled. Both of the avian partners of Kamau's parents had flown after their bonded, but neither bird had reappeared. Mwenzi hadn't the faintest idea of what could have forced the birds to remain down there, but he wasn't about to investigate. No, he was far too much of a chicken, and remained beside his own bonded, silently mourning the loss, speechless and clueless as to the next step the duo would now take.
