THE LION GIRLS

THE LION GIRLS

It was the hottest day of the year… I was in an African country. I read a report about a criminal trial that intrigued me deeply. It involved a group of girls, kidnapped as children from rural villages. Locked in cages, they were trained like carnivorous beasts, feeding exclusively on raw, bloody meat, and forced to capture small prey for food. Once their wild-like training was complete, they were used to carrying out contract assassinations. They would set out in groups to prey on their designated victims. They covered themselves in fresh furs that gave off a strong wild animal odor, with sharp metal claws on their hands and feet. Their action was difficult to distinguish from an attack by true predators, except for a typically human characteristic: wild beasts, in nature, kill only to feed themselves or their puppies; only mad animals – and, of course, humans – kill in the absence of hunger.

A new moonlit night. Shadows have taken over the entire world, over inanimate objects and sleeping living beings. On nights like this, tradition holds that unclean spirits can emerge from the bush to contaminate the human world. In total darkness, the entire village sleeps. Only the eyes of rapacious predators can distinguish the silhouettes of the living, as if through infrared glasses. Occasionally, the desperate cry or squeak of a victim signals that a predator has earned its meal.

Four shadows climb over the thorny fence surrounding the houses, heedless of the fetishes placed to ward off evil spirits. The dog shakes, shuddering in alarm. He barely has time to turn around, but can’t even utter a gasp. He’s drowning in a regurgitation of blood, his throat torn by long, sharp claws. Furtive footsteps slip through the now unprotected door. In a few moments, tragedy strikes. A gloomy stench of death permeates the air of the small room. A chilly blanket grips the bowels of the world, in the silence. From the trees at the edge of the clearing, an owl emits its dark call.

The small, furtive figures emerge from the village, leaving bloody footprints and sharp claw marks in their wake. They no longer need to hide. They no longer move like wild beasts. Their outward appearance resembles feline fur, their tracks are those of predators, but the grim ghosts walk on only two legs. They gather together and silently walk away, toward the hill. High up, on a terrace overlooking the huts of the small village, the group stops and turns to look. Only then, do the mysterious shadows shed their furs, the sharp steel claws that coated their fingers, and unleash themselves in a wild dance. Ferocious beasts, disheveled, emitting cascades of raucous laughter, like hyenas, but they look like little girls, with human features. The dogs wake up and fill the valley with futile barks. Dawn dispels the fear of the night. Little Abla always wakes first, like every morning, and leaves the hut to go to the well to fetch water. Thus, in the first light of day, she discovers a long trail of blood, starting from the neighbors’ fence and reaching the edge of the woods. The little girl runs through the village, waking people and calling for help with loud cries. The men cautiously enter the bloody enclosure (as that house cursed by the night spirits will henceforth be called). They see the decapitated dog and discover the entire family slaughtered in their sleep: the body of Oxu, the tribe’s most valiant warrior, lies disheveled and torn, along with those of his wife, elderly parents, and two children, in an obscene, dark-red mess, among flies, mosquitoes, and cockroaches, already attracted by the smell of dried blood.

Lion women, leopard women, or hyena women, were an ancient tradition in the shamanic rituals of darkest Africa. In today’s society, this custom survives, sporadic and secret, as a form of brainwashing and conditioning, controlled by fearsome, criminal figures. The girls form small, elusive gangs of assassins and kill the enemies of their “masters”, out of resentment, revenge, or rivalry.

In three villages, not far from the shores of a large lake, I was able to gather testimonies of mysterious events. There were groups of occult power, who did not hesitate to place themselves at the service of anyone who paid enough to commit an assassination. The instruments of death were those poor girls, kidnapped from their families at a tender age and raised in cages. They fed human flesh, constantly on all fours like beasts, trained to kill for their reward. The young assassins’ feral disguises served to spread terror. People knew and pretended not to know, but above all, they feared saying or seeing too much.

I long dreamed of being persecuted by the lion girls or their “entrepreneurs.” I had to seek psychiatry because I was haunted by the recurring nightmare that hidden enemies were stalking me, day and night. When the nightmare kept me awake, I destroyed all the evidence I had collected. Finally, I was free. I tried to forget, I forced myself with all my might to erase the dark terrors of the primeval forests.

Yesterday afternoon, however, a disturbing image resurfaced from the depths of my unconscious. A magazine was lying at the coffee table in the hotel lobby. The main article dealt with wars, child soldiers, and the weakest among us reduced to slavery. That memory resurfaced forcefully. I can still smell the irritating smell of stagnant blood in my nostrils. The fluttering of flies and the chirping of cicadas buzz in my ears, on a sunny afternoon near a hut struck by the wing of death. I see those poor, torn bodies again.

I can’t sleep. I can no longer ignore images and sensations I tried to push away, but they remain deeply imprinted in my memory.

Tonight, a few hundred meters from here, another victim. Some mornings, it feels like reading war bulletins, fought in the streets, almost under our closed eyes, while we slept peacefully. Every night there is someone dead, from road accidents, drug overdoses, or settling scores. Tonight’s two victims, however, were unusual. Their wounds were too similar to the lacerations of sharp, metal claws. The nightmare that haunts me returns. The lion-girls have descended among us, into this reality where, once, killing was only with a gun or a knife.

This morning’s newspapers reported that a giant panther has been spotted prowling the park, and the police are hunting it, even though they’re not convinced the beast exists. I think I know, deep down, who committed the latest massacre, and I know the trackers won’t find any felines... but who would believe me if I recounted all the nightmares that haunt my memory?

It is the hottest day of the year. The lion girls continue to haunt me, and I don’t know, my friend, if I’ll ever be able to return to a normal life... I hug you goodbye and hope we can meet again upon my return, at a more peaceful time.