A year ago, Granny Edith was returning from the market when she heard a faint whimper behind a rubbish bin. There, in a soggy cardboard box, lay a tiny kitten with golden eyes. Thin, shivering, nearly frozenher heart clenched with pity. She wrapped it in her scarf, pressed it to her chest, and carried it home.
From that day, the creature never left her side. She named him Tobysoft, sweet, like any house cat. He ate eagerly, grew fast. His paws thickened, his fur darkened, and his gaze grew heavier by the day.
Months later, when he shredded an old cushion with a single swipe, the truth struck her like a blow: this was no kitten. It was a lion.
Yet by then, she couldnt let go. Toby had become her companion, her solace in the quiet loneliness of her cottage. No family remainedjust this beast, now the centre of her world. She hid him from the neighbours, curtains drawn tight, venturing out only when necessary.
Every penny went to meatjoints of beef and lamb vanished so quickly the butcher raised an eyebrow. But Edith paid no mind. At night, Toby curled beside her, rumbling a deep, throaty purr as she stroked his thickening mane like any doting owner might pet a tabby.
The neighbours noticed. Odd noises drifted from her cottagelow growls, the scrape of claws on wood. “Somethings not right in there,” they muttered over tea. Then, for a week, no sign of her at all.
Worried, Mrs. Wilkins from next door fetched the local constable. The door creaked open to silenceuntil a scream tore through the cottage.
There, under the warm glow of a lamp, sat Tobymassive, tawny, his muzzle streaked with rust. And on the bed lay Edith, cold and still.
Shed slipped away in her sleep. For days, hed stayed curled beside her. Then hunger gnawed, and instincts took over. Crimson smears trailed from room to room.
He didnt flee when she died. The world beyond those walls meant nothinghed known nothing else.
A wild thing stays wild, no matter how tender the hand that tames it.
