I do not own Vitaly or any other related canon characters and elements of Madagascar. They are all the intellectual property of Dreamworks Animation.
Pain... fire.
Fire... pain.
Those two words were all Vitaly could remember for some reason as he sluggishly awoke in stages of consciousness.
The first one—the realization that he was still alive... Nothing could be seen besides the dark produced by his eyelids, but he could hear sounds, gargled to a certain degree, but still audible and understandable—voices—familiar voices—worried voices.
The most comforting sound to reach the feline's ears, though, was breathing—his own breathing. He had absolutely no idea why but somehow he felt as if he should be...thankful...thankful for the fact that he had been extremely fortunate to have survived...whatever it had been he had forgotten—and had left him behind in such an unnerving enough state of mind to actually think of survival, of all things, for that matter.
Second stage to come arrived as blurred images that melted through the tiger's visual obscurity. His forest green eyes retreated into their eyelids at the sudden contact with intensely white light as baritone groans simultaneously protested against the searing pseudo-blindness. Purely out of instinct, Vitaly tried to raise a paw in hopes of blocking out the offensive illumination.
Big mistake...
He inadvertently brought about the third stage: a stabbing, white-hot inflammation that took possession of his whole body instantaneously
So utterly taken off guard, Vitaly shut his eyes immediately and roared fearsomely and uncontrollably, his back arched sharply upwards as if it had just been prodded by a thousand red-hot needles. He began to thrash violently in response, the encompassing burning unlike any other bodily pain the aging tiger had endured in his long life.
Yet through all the miasma of chaotic agony, a touch of calm—a tiny paw—suddenly lay upon the poor tiger's larger right paw. Only at this touch did the feline's mind finally manage to think through the pain.
'Vat...the hell...happened to me?' Vitaly growled in his mind, opening his eyes and gingerly turning his sweat-matted head...only to find a young jaguar preteen gazing down at him through tear-ridden, golden-brown eyes. Eyes widened, Vitaly slowly shifted his line of sight to his and the child's hands, the young jaguar's fingers gripped onto the male's own desperately, as if the youth were scared that the man before her might disappear into ashes right here and now if she was to as so much let go by even a centimeter. Guilt effortlessly replaced the pain, melting Vitaly's grimace into a saddened frown. In a rare moment of emotion, the older tiger became misty-eyed. Had he truly frightened his little Gia that badly with his reaction?
Emotion overriding logic, Vitaly tried to free his paw in order to comfort Gia...but fell short as the same demonic pain from prior took hold of him once more. He had to bite his teeth down hard and summon all his willpower to prevent another bloodcurdling roar from escaping him. His eyelids screwed themselves shut and the paw that held Gia's own paw engulfed it with a pressure that, through the tiger's iron will, assured that the dear kitten's hand would not suffer injury.
After what seemed like a merciless eternity, the sadistic agony at last ebbed away, no longer active but cruelly in waiting for next time to torture the vulnerable soul.
Vulnerable...oh how Vitaly hated this word and its synonyms. Powerless, defenseless, incapable...weak...
Then out of the blue, a dainty finger stroked his right cheek...and only when Vitaly reopened his eyes did he notice the drop of saltwater on a sweetly smiling but still sad-eyed Gia's finger...as well as the snow-white bandages that crisscrossed not only all over his right hand but his body as well, practically to the point of mummification. Only his face and some of the head remained uncovered, exposed to the aftermath of...
'My failure...' Vitaly's eyes suddenly ceased seeing Gia, ceased seeing the real world. All they viewed now was one horrid memory, the incident replaying repeatedly like a horrible movie Vitaly could not shut off and turn away from.
The lubricant...the ring...the horrified gasps of the audience...the looks of terror on his comrades' faces...Stefano mouthing and gesticulating wildly, fire extinguisher in his spindly flippers, but no words or sounds coming through...Gia running out to him, tears trailing behind her as she screeched his name out, her attempts, too, never coming through...
Vitaly, for the third time in row, closed his eyes, unwilling to believe reality at first. He wouldn't have failed. He couldn't have failed. He shouldn't have failed.
Yet he had.
He had let down everyone—the audience, his tradition, the circus, his family... his cub.
For the first time in years, Vitaly, as he hung his head back on the hay bed...cried.
In one single heartbreakingly hoarse whisper, the defeated tiger uttered a single statement in the shallow shadows of cart just prior to retreating back to the dark corners of his subconscious where he'd wait and hope for merciless oblivion to cradle him once more in its pitying arms.
"Gia...I am sorry."
Feel free to make suggestions as to what improvements I need to make or what sort of scene you all would like to see next.