Summary: The animals in the zoo have never had it so good. The staff has noted that six of the animals are particular crowd pleasers. These creatures are pampered and adored by their fans! But there's one troubling thought that continuously nags at the back of their minds. They don't think like animals.
Déjà vu. The first time she got it, she dismissed it. She knew she wasn't supposed to have thoughts like these. She was designed to trot around her large zoo enclosure for the rest of her life. She was happy, so she shouldn't pay any mind to these thoughts. Still, they always came back. Again and again. Even worse, she found herself trying to form words towards the zookeepers.
"Come on, Mary!" they would coo, tossing a hunk of meat at her.
'That's not my name,' she thought irritably, and then she would ask herself why she thought that. Mary had been her name for nearly four years. She was part of an elite wolf breeding program in the zoo, brought in from the wilderness.
The most exciting part of it all was that she knew she wasn't alone. Intelligent eyes surrounded her, and they didn't just belong to the zoo's visitors. She shared a biome with one of the meanest, brightest animals in the zoo. He was a red stag that towered above her, slightly grayed with age and with a limp in his hind leg.
A few years ago, she had approached him and clawed at the chain fence dividing their exhibits. He reared up on his hind legs, made a deer version of a grimace, and then pawed at the chain links with frustration. At the time, she thought he just wanted a piece of her. He was too bold for his own good, she had thought bitterly.
Now she entertained the thought that he just wanted to talk to her. And that time was coming soon enough.
It was an unusually hot day, but the zoo was packed to the brim. Mary had retreated to the back of her den to cool off and lazily watch the swarms of visitors. They were all trying to huddle around a patch of scrub enclosed in a cage, opposite of Mary's territory. Cameras flashed like crazy, and she even saw a few men lugging around extra large cameras on their shoulders. She had to wait until late at night to finally view what had interested the humans so much.
What greeted her was an unusual sight. A dog-like creature with tiger stripes and a stiff tail sat alone in its cage. When it yawned, she was startled by how wide the yawn was. She could see every tooth in his lower jaw. She would later learn that he was a "thylacine". People lined up by the hundreds to see him because he was supposedly the last of his kind. Apparently, some expedition had been launched to further explore Australia in hopes of discovering a mate. The fate of his species seemed very grim, Mary thought.
He looked directly across the path and at Mary's den. His eyes met hers and she felt a strange sensation. Recognition?
The next morning, she looked over into the scrub but could not see him. Instead, she focused her attentions on a more distant neighbor in the zoo. She could only see him from that distance because he was jet black and big. Obviously muscular, intimidating, he was alone in his cage like the thylacine. Mary had a few companions because she was a very social creature. This animal was not so. He was a panther that yowled at zookeepers during the night but never during the day.
He seemed just as friendly as any other creature in the zoo…at least when he had fans nearby. 'Cunning', Mary thought.
And when he spoke? Mary knew that he had to be the most intelligent cat she's ever met.
He was being led past her cage, no doubt to one of the animal shows on the other side of the zoo. Zookeepers cleared the way as little children admired his sheer size from afar. He suddenly lowered himself so that his belly scraped the dirt path. He looked directly at Mary and she understood every word he said. "Do you remember me?" And then he was yanked away by a woman on a tight time schedule.
At first, Mary thought he was just a little delusional from all that time he's spent alone in his exhibit. At night, she was tormented by the encounter. She had had dreams like this before, but she never was able to remember them in the morning. This one burned into her brain because it was an experience that she hoped she'd never have again.
She saw herself in a strange position. She was sitting up on a seat. She was in a vehicle sort of like the golf carts that zipped along the dirt paths. This one had sides though, and lights that shone ahead of it and into infinity. Beside her was a human with…how could she describe it? Yellowish hair. His hands loosely gripped the wheel in front of him. She felt safe knowing that he was navigating their vehicle on the long stretch ahead of them. Something cut off the beams of light, and it was so sudden that she leaned back into her seat as far as she could go. She remembered the leather sticking to her sweat-soaked back after.
The man beside her had been nodding off, but he jerked awake when the deer planted itself stubbornly on the black path.
It was huge, and Mary knew that it wasn't going to go without tangling with the car.
The only thing the sleepy man could do was veer sharply to the left. The car pitched and rolled and tumbled…and Mary woke up. She was sure that she had dreamed of her death. But that made no sense…Her next assumption wasn't any more logical. She had been in peril, but she knew she hadn't died that day.
It was a typical summer afternoon. Mary had padded out of her den to watch the silly antics of her neighbors. A bear was chasing after the red stag, which was kicking a honey comb through the dirt in the exhibit. The crowd watching the scene was chuckling. She had seen it many times before, but she always found herself amused. The deer never even touched the honey. She just assumed that he enjoyed tormenting the bear.
She also knew that they had a strange friendship, and that was one major attraction in the zoo. She had seen the two sleep side by side on a few occasions. The bear regularly swatted at the deer's antlers, but he never took a bite out of him. Last but not least of her crazy "companions", Mary found herself checking up on a neat little fox that also lived with the stag. She was a pretty vixen that watched the bear and deer with obvious amusement. She could've sworn that she had seen the fox try to smile. And she found that these creatures could distract her from her troubling dreams. Though animals have shown foresight in the prediction of natural disasters, Mary was unable to predict the following day's events.
Note: Okay, so, there it is. If you like it, please tell me and I'll continue it! It's my first real fic here, so flame away. It was a crazy little idea that popped into my head at 11:30. Right now, it doesn't seem very related to House. Just wait. I'll even throw in some medicine. ;D