The Roar

Two teens running among a variety of trees trying their best to overcome their exhaustion finally were defeated in the end and came to a halt. They bent their knees a little and the torso was bent to accommodate their hands on their knees as they tried to take in as much oxygen as possible which was given to them from the trees surrounding them.

In the silent woods, heavy panting of two people of opposite gender could be the only sound heard around. The sweat trickled down their faces while their eyes burned by the exhaustion.

As they came back to their senses, the siblings turned frantically in all directions to find any nearing danger while locating their location in the heavy woods to find any sense of familiarity around them. The green lush made their mind blank as they realized that they were lost with no one around to even ask for directions to their family cottage situated somewhere around in these woods.

“Fuck! I knew we would be lost. Damn this forest. Damn this vacation. I would never listen to dad ever again,” the boy cursed under his breath looking around to find any clues to lead them to somewhere.

“That’s what you say every time, but you follow him like a chick follows the hen everywhere in the end,” the girl grinned at him which received a glare from her brother. She shrugged helplessly trying to be as calm as she can in front of her brother being the older sister she was, so that her brother could calm his mind while she herself cursed her dad in her mind.

Her efforts were indeed succeeded as her brother cleared his mind and started looking around with a calm mind and that is when they heard a roar from a direction. They immediately looked at each other and started dashing in the opposite direction from the source of the sound.

They dashed until they were breathless again and the panting increased while the sun decided to go down. That is when they heard a few footsteps and they looked in the direction of the sound to find a middle-aged man walking towards them while grinning holding his phone in his left hand.

Once they looked at the man, the siblings breathed a sigh of relief and lunged towards him shouting a unison, “Dad!”

The father laughed heartily while holding both his kids in his arms when they heard the roar again. But the sound was nearer this time compared to before and looked around to realize that the sound actually came from the fathers’ phone when he pressed a button.

They immediately released the father from their hug and glared at the culprit who made them run around all day in the woods and made them to think that they would have died today by a wild beast all along. The father simply grinned at them and pressed the button on his phone again resulting in a roar echoing in the middle of lush greens.

Anger bubbled inside both the siblings’ hearts and they immediately left him heartlessly and turned to walk away from him but heard the voice of him from behind, “Hey, that’s the wrong direction kiddos. Cottage is this way.” He pointed his thumb to the other direction.

The brother and sister duo gave a collective loud “Hmph!” and walked in the said direction thumping their feet as hard as they can to show their anger while continuing their ‘cold war’ with the older man. The father chuckled to himself and followed them slowly with his own steady pace.

The prank receivers calmed a little as they walked forward and the girl finally spoke in an aggrieved tone, “Why dad?” The boy looked at his father too, indicating that he is also waiting for the answer of that question.

The middle-aged man smiled at them dotingly and spoke warmly, “Kiddos, this is the training for calming your minds during dangers. You need to experience a few encounters yourself so that you can get accustomed to them in order to calm yourselves during unannounced dangers.”

The kids realized that this was all their training for the growth of their strength and the faces turned serious to listen to him as he continued, “The anxiety and fear will eat your judgement leading you into taking wrong decisions. You need to know how to be calm at every moment in order to make a perfect judgement. Your survival instincts should kick in instead of your anxiety or fear.”

The kids nodded seriously to express that they understood to their much-respected father. And the smile on his face increased a little as he patted their heads dotingly as the trio continued their journey to their cottage.

By the time they reached their destination the sky turned dark and their mother was anxiously waiting for them. As soon as they were seen, she relaxed and immediately chastised her husband to tone down a little regarding the training of their kids.

Though she is as strong as him being comrade in arms in the army with each other and she wanted to toughen up her kids as much as he wanted to, the mothers’ heart in the woman softened when she saw the exhausted looks of her beloved kids.

Her husband comforted her and everyone except the mother returned to their rooms to freshen up and came back to the dining room to have a hearty meal with their family. After filling up their stomachs they left to their rooms to finally have a good sleep.

During midnight, while everyone was in a deep sleep, a huge sound of a roar was heard from outside.

The head of the family was the only one who was woken up and he smiled.

“Kiddos, you can’t scare me with such a simple trick and that too with the one I used on you guys,” while speaking he moved towards their room, “I know that there are no wild beasts in this area of forest so give up trying to scare me.”

He heard another roar as an answer as he shook his head and opened the door of the kids’ room to find them sleeping soundly. They look really exhausted as they slept too soundly to even move an inch even if an earthquake destroyed their room.

The father smiled at his teenage kids and the doting look cannot be concealed and his reverie was broken by a sound of a roar from outside the window and that is when he realized that it was not a prank played by his kids.

He looked outside the window with a frown to find nothing out there and thought, “Maybe I am hallucinated myself. It’s better to take a rest.”

 He locked all the rooms soundlessly in order to not to disturb anyone and reached his room. As soon as he touched the doorknob, he heard another roar and he froze in spot.