No matter how much pain he was in, he could not quell his rage. He swore to himself that he would personally murder each and every person who ever pissed him off, if not for the fact that he was dying. His so-called friends didn t even have the guts to confront him man to man. Instead, he had been ambushed, stabbed, bound, shot and thrown into the frigid waters of the canal. Now drowning, blood loss, and hypothermia were fighting each other for the prize of ending his life.

He could already picture the consequences of his death on the people around him. That is, if his body was ever recovered. Former classmates, teachers and neighbors would shake their heads and agree that the impact from his downward spiral was a long time and coming. His defense attorney father would ring his hands and commiserate, If only I had gotten him help sooner. His step mother would cry herself to sleep for the rest of her days. His natural mother would stop taking her meds, climb into a bottle and try to forget he ever existed.

He wanted to tell them all to go to hell. He didn't want anyone to piss and moan because he was dead. He just wanted those who had killed him to suffer. He wanted to squeeze their throats until their eyes popped out. He wanted to beat them until their brains leaked from their ears. Give them each a bullet hole in the pit of their stomachs just as they had done to him.

He had always heard about one's life passing before their eyes before death. The people who said that were all full of shit because he could only see one frame of his life. It was a bittersweet memory, right before everything turned to shit when he was six years old. Back when he didn t know that his step mother wasn't his real mother and his real mother was a whack job.

His father and step mother had taken him to the zoo where he had become fascinated by the big cats. His father had placed him on his shoulders so he could get a better view of the tigers, lions, and panthers. He had enjoyed watching the restrained power and regality these cats had projected merely by a flick of their tail or a pace around the cage.

A deeper meaning pertaining to these cats had always eluded him until now.
Now he knew how those caged beasts had felt. Having so much power and desire, but being restrained from ever realizing it. He could see the bars of the cage surrounding him as his life faded away. He could hear the loud *clang* as the cage door swung shut behind him. He refused to retract his claws even when he died with a hole in his soul.