“These poor animals.
Here today, gone tomorrow.
Eventually, there won’t be a single wild creature left on this mountain.”
Amidst the bustling, lively noise of the rural market, a heavy sigh carried through the air.
“So, what do you want to do?
Build a zoo?”
The melancholy young man looked at his beautiful female companion.
She spoke with a deeply doting tone.
“Would you come with me?”
“Yes.
Always.”
“Dad?
Are you still there?!”
The frantic electronic shouting from the dropped telephone pulled Old Larry’s consciousness back to reality.
He struggled to his feet.
He leaned heavily against the medical cabinet, staring up at the shaky ceiling fan as he panted for breath.
“Hah.
Ugh.”
Old Larry took a deep, shuddering breath to calm his racing heart.
He looked down toward the source of the ringing phone.
He froze in utter disbelief.
Titan was lying obediently on the tiled floor right next to him, gently holding the telephone receiver in his jaws.
The baby crocodile stared up without making a sound.
“Thank you.”
Old Larry’s voice was still weak and raspy.
He extended his trembling left hand, palm outstretched, toward the reptile.
Titan immediately understood.
He gently placed the slobber-covered microphone into the old man’s hand.
“Hello?”
“I am so sorry, Dad.
I should have told you in person.
I just heard strange animal noises on the line.
Are you alright?!”
Old Larry hesitated for a moment, clearly still reeling from the emotional blow of the news.
“I am fine.
That was just your Uncle Titan.
You need to go take care of your new little monster.
Tell me, is it a boy or a girl?”
The person on the other end of the phone paused for a long moment before responding softly.
“A girl.”
“Then she is probably going to be even more mischievous than her mother.”
“Yeah.”
A sudden, heavy silence fell over the line.
“Dad, I called an ambulance for you.
Let them take you to the hospital for a full check-up.
I need to go handle Rachel and the baby.”
“Alright.”
The call ended with a soft, emotional goodbye.
Old Larry turned to look at Titan.
He opened his mouth, but the words caught in his throat.
He genuinely didn’t know what to say to the creature that had just saved his life.
“You really are like a little guardian angel.
Thank you.”
I will take that as a compliment. The source of this chapter is g.com.
Seeing that Old Larry’s condition had stabilized, Titan began to think about his next pressing issue.
He needed to find a way to remind the old man that he still hadn’t eaten his breakfast.
While Titan wasn’t starving, he was worried about his eagle-owl brother waiting back in the enclosure.
He needed to secure some fresh meat.
“Rumble.”
Old Larry watched Titan repeatedly open and close his jaws.
Suddenly, a look of profound understanding washed over the old man’s face.
“Don’t worry, buddy.
You can come out of your enclosure whenever you want.
I won’t lock the gate on you ever again.”
Titan stared blankly.
What?
“But if tourists actually show up, you had better stay inside the exhibit and act like a normal animal.
Some terrible people like to throw stones at the enclosures.”
Titan listened to Old Larry’s incredibly serious explanation and felt utterly lost.
It is a biological fact that while crocodiles possess very small brains, they are fully functional and capable of retaining excellent memories.
However, trying to decipher Old Larry’s insane leaps of logic was simply beyond Titan’s mental capacity.
A sudden burst of hurried footsteps echoed from the courtyard.
“What is that noise?” Old Larry wheezed.
Old Larry’s ears were still ringing, so he hadn’t heard the ambulance sirens.
Titan, however, had heard them pulling up perfectly.
The baby crocodile turned around and waddled over to the clinic entrance to open the door for the medical staff.
As the footsteps rapidly approached the clinic, the lead paramedic reached for the handle.
To his absolute shock, the heavy wooden door swung open entirely on its own.
There was no one standing behind it.
It was like he had just seen a ghost.
Then, he glanced down.
Well?
What are you standing around for?
Come in.
“Why did you stop?” the two trailing paramedics asked, carrying a folded stretcher.
“There is.
There is a crocodile.”
“What the hell?”
Titan consciously backed out of the doorway.
He pressed himself against the exterior wall, politely stepping aside to let the medical staff enter.
“Should we actually go inside?”
“Just go!”
In less than a minute, Old Larry was safely strapped onto the stretcher and carried out of the room.
However, the three paramedics couldn’t tear their eyes away from the baby crocodile sitting patiently by the doorframe.
“Um, sir?
Is this your pet?”
The paramedic carrying the rear of the stretcher simply couldn’t hold back his curiosity any longer.
“He is the Assistant Zoo Director.
He is my little brother.”
Old Larry answered without the slightest hint of hesitation.
There was a strange, undeniable beauty in his completely irrational behavior.
Titan followed the medical staff all the way to the front entrance of the zoo.
Then, to the absolute bewilderment of everyone present, the baby crocodile used his heavy snout to push the main iron gate shut and expertly flipped the drop-latch with his scaly paw.
“I absolutely have to come back and visit this zoo when I have a day off.”
The sentiment was entirely mutual among the medical staff.
If Titan lived another twenty years, he was practically guaranteed to become a global social media sensation.
For now, though, it was better to keep things quiet.
Titan watched the flashing lights of the ambulance disappear down the street.
He turned back around and waddled toward the main corridor.
This time, climbing the three concrete steps was effortless.
He had finally figured out the trick to lifting his center of gravity.
“Rumble?”
He let out a muffled groan.
Not only was the heavy iron gate to his enclosure left wide open, but Old Larry’s red plastic bucket of raw chicken was still sitting right in the doorway.
Right, he had dropped it there earlier.
Titan gently pushed his snout against the bucket.
He completely misjudged the slight height difference of the doorframe, causing the heavy plastic bin to tip over.
A literal mudslide of fresh, raw chicken chunks spilled directly onto the lawn.
Fortunately, Old Larry had already cleaned the meat, so there was no foul blood contaminating the grass.
Titan squeezed past the empty bucket into the enclosure.
He snapped up several large chunks of meat in his jaws and eagerly swam toward the small island in the center of the lake.
Splash.
White foam bubbled on the water’s surface.
The loud noise immediately woke the eagle-owl.
She looked down from the sapling branches, watching Titan drop a small pile of meat directly at the base of her tree.
“Rumble.”
He gave a soft, inviting growl, then turned back toward the shoreline to claim his own portion.
The eagle-owl had grown incredibly trusting of her scaly roommate.
This time, she didn’t even wait for Titan to slip back into the water.
She hopped right off the branch and immediately began tearing into her meal.
Titan was thrilled.
With Old Larry gone for the day, he could finally drop his polite act and eat like a monster.
He had only been eating piece by piece to accommodate the human feeding him.
If he had his way, he would swallow the entire bucket in one gulp, let alone the individual chicken breasts.
Tap, tap.
Suddenly, Titan sensed something was wrong.
He paused for a fraction of a second, then immediately launched himself up the grassy slope at maximum speed.
There is a thief!
Snap!
A deafening, bone-crushing crack echoed through the enclosure.
Titan violently bit down on the edge of the red plastic bucket.
Several black feathers fluttered into the air.
A massive crow, a species Titan definitely didn’t recognize as a zoo resident, frantically took flight.
“Caw!”
The bird hovered in the air for a brief moment, let out a mocking cry, and flew away with a stolen chunk of chicken.
Why are there wild crows in the zoo?
The newly appointed Assistant Zoo Director suddenly realized something.
He waddled a few steps out of the enclosure and looked up at the sky.
Dozens of dark, shadowy figures flashed across the bright blue sky.
They descended in a massive flock, landing directly in the branches of the massive oak tree in the central courtyard.
That giant, half-finished bird’s nest.
Did it belong to them?
Titan had assumed the eagle-owl was building it.
He slowly turned around and waddled back to his spilled food.
He looked down at the red plastic bucket.
There was a massive, jagged hole bitten completely out of the side.
Oh no.
I think I actually just ate the bowl.