Salt

He wanted to reach his place quickly, aching to crash. He had just eaten, perhaps the most delicious food in his entire life. Salt makes all the difference, he remembered his mother saying.

He now understood what she had meant all along. But that was before she was killed. He had never got to apply her teachings then.

He had been afraid of her murderers, always making sure they didn’t find him too.

But he wasn't afraid now, not anymore. This night would be his.

Masked in the shadows of buildings, he walked in silence into the trees. He could see the majestic skyline of the urban jungle he was roaming through. He remembered how his own home was torn down. How they had bulldozered their way through.

The glass on the skyscrapers was gleaming in the moonlight. Suddenly his instincts began to roar. With the glass, however, something else was gleaming too.

The sudden ominous change was tangible. He had felt like this only once before, in his life.

 It’s them.

His lethargy was gone. Survival instinct kicked in, but before he could do anything, ear-shattering gunshots filled the silence of the night. He could do nothing about it. Within moments he was lying down, drenched in his own blood.

“That’s the second man-eater we had to do in a month. What has gotten into all the tigers recently?”, he heard one of the killers say, as he felt himself losing against the darkness for the first time. The night had closed upon him.