Just after crushing the neck of a burly black bear, the tiger with the massive crimson teeth mightily smashed the bear’s head with his calloused front paws. A hungry small cub who followed his mother, yet unable to see the glamour of world, felt the fur of the teddy bear. “My dear Lynx, the world is large and dynamic. You will soon be able to visualise its beauty and you will recognise your potential. But right now, you are just five days old and you should do as I say,” said the mother tiger. Stretching his ocelli, Lynx listened to his mother and filled his unfilled stomach.

On the eleventh day, Lynx opened his golden eyes to the sun. He could see that his stripes did not match those of his mother. He turned his head around the walls of the cave and saw a photo frame with a garland on it. “Mother, who is he? And where is he?” Lynx asked, his whiskers standing. Seeing the curiosity in the cub’s eye, Mother Tiger put him on her lap with great affection and began the tale of Lynx’s great- grandfather.

In the moist air of the forest, your great-grandfather was running after a spotted brown deer, but before he could pounce upon it, a man ejected a sharp stone from a pipe-like thing. Your great-grandfather was standing still, but life had left him. Thankfully, your father had seen the man and informed him about it to your grandfather. In that rainy night, a group of tigers left Chitwan National Park, their eyes searching for their lost brother. They walked pase the bricked houses and the colourful parks, religious temples and roads filled with bikes and cars. Finally, the league reached the realm of the murderer.

“Oh my God! My father is lying helplessly there, to become the coat of this moron. And is that the head of the King of Russian Tigers I see behind him? Wasn’t he murdered last week?” your grandfather exclaimed. Everyone was amazed to look at the happenings inside the window. Without wasting a single minute, the league returned to the jungle and called the King Gumshoe Bureau (KGB), an organisation of spies in Russia. Immediately after they heard of their King’s fate, a group of Russian tigers booked a couple of Archaeopteryxes and left for Nepal. After flying over Siberia, Mongolia and China, the Russian Archaeopteryxes landed in Chitwan. The next morning, the tiger chiefs sat around a table with steaming hot blood in their cups as they planned to punish the hunter.

From far away, a fierce fire made its way to the meeting place. Humans commonly lit fires in the jungle to destroy weeds and grass, indifferent to the fact that many snakes, insects and burrowing animals died due to this. In fact, this was why Siberian birds had stopped visiting us in Nepal. When such fires raged, our only option was to rush to the Balmiki forest in India. That day, all of us ran to India. The Red Association of the Wild (RAW) in India very humbly welcomed us to their home and arranged caves for us. They were astonished to see the Russians with us. To avoid all confusion, we explained our predicament to the Indians. They understood us very well and were very supportive of us. The good news was that the hunter we were searching for had also come to Balmiki. We came to know from some porcupines that he was planning to take an elephant ride and shoot tigers.

Simultaneously, we marched towards the elephants that were playing with their children near the river, creating fountains with their trunks.

What a mesmerising view it was.

Before long, we convinced the elephants to help us trap the hunter. The elephants did not object to our plan when they heard that the hunter had been killing our own. The elephants’ part in the scheme was to bring the hunter near the waterfallwhere we would be hiding. Next we would attack the hunter and rip him apart.

So when the elephant dropped the hunter by the waterfall, we jumped upon him and showed him a killer’s fate. This became a historic event and was well known all over the Internet as well. Tigers in other jungles of other countries liked this idea of trapping hunters and killing, so they started to sign treaties with elephants. Soon, tigers all around the world killed many hunters and the jungles became hunter-free zones.

We soon declared July 29, 2025, as Hunter Free Day. Throughout the world, the forests echoed the roar of the tigers. Green parrots sang for us and peacocks performed feather dances. Deer jumped and hyenas laughed. Dr White Rabbit wrote a thank-you speech. This day celebrated the fact that jungles were free of hunters.

The celebration was over and we all returned to our motherland. Although the hunters were exterminated, life was not easy. Woods were being cut down to construct highways and factories. The green soon died from the forests. Chemicals and smoke polluted our rivers. My aunts and uncles died of hunger. Cubs were becoming weak and the infant mortality rate had increased rapidly. It was necessary to take action, make note of our demographics. The Tigers Association realised that our silence was become scarier than our roar. And hence, we decided to leave the forest and migrate towards towns in search of food and water.  

The people got exceedingly fearful of us. They stopped exiting their houses. Offices, schools, shops, cyber cafes were shut. One day, as we lay sleeping in the shadow of a skyscraper, our shrunken bellies more shrunken than ever, we felt that an earthquake was coming. The city grew cacophonous with roars, barks and meows. Birds scattered and all the animals rushed towards open spaces. Japan was soon hit with a tsunami, and multiple earthquakes happened in Nepal, India, and China. Sadly, the humans were compelled to stay inside their houses during the earthquake because the free spaces outside were occupied by the wild. The humans were crying in pain as houses fell on them; many died. They must have felt that the world was coming to an end.

But this was not the end of humans. The dead bodies buried under the houses generated a new virus called Terminus, which increased oxygen demand in human bodies. But because there wasn’t sufficient greenery in the world, the oxygen levels plummeted. The virus spread throughout the world and none were able to find its cure. Many humans writhed in pain as life slowly left their eyes and their breaths left their mouths—

“My head aches when I think about it, Lynx,” Mother Tiger stammered.

“Mother, I feel sad for the humans. Are they fine now? I want to see how they look like,” Lynx said.

“I’m so sorry, Lynx,” Mother Tiger replied, sadness in her voice.

“Mother, I want to go to the city. I’ll go there alone if you don’t want to take me,” Lynx argued, stubborn as he was.

“It’s not that, Lynx. There aren’t any humans left anymore. If you really want me to, I can take you to the Human Museum. You can see skeletons, creations, inventions. They have videos and photos,” Mother Tiger said.

Lynx was shocked. “Huh? Mother, you should have protected them for me.”

Lynx shed tears upon his mighty young stripes.

Mother Tiger could do nothing but wipe the drops on stripes.