Lion King: Zira
She no longer knew how many days it had been since she dragged herself on shore and began walking. The pain hadn't been so bad at first. Only a few muscles had bothered her, but now it seemed that every fiber of her being throbbed with unending pain. She wanted to stop walking, but persisted. If the vultures overhead became aware of her weakness, it would only be a matter of time until the jackals came. Or even worse, hyenas.
The hot, stiff dust-filled air choked her lungs. She needed to find shelter soon. Like all the other animals in this desert, she could feel a sandstorm coming. With great effort, she quickened her pained gait towards what appeared to be a cave. Even from a distance it gave a putrid smell; the smell of an old kill. It is probably too rotten to eat, she thought. But perhaps it might attract something that wasn't.
As she hobbled towards the cave, she began to feel the heated winds beat against her back, along with millions of grains of sand hitting her fur. She barely managed to make it to the entrance when the full brunt of the storm hit. Calling upon all her lion strength she climbed over a the boulders blocking her way into the deeper parts of the cave.
Finally, she was safe. She then saw the carcass. It seemed to be of a wildebeest and by its small size it was young. As expected, most of it was gone and the shreds of flesh that remained were rotted. She turned away in disgust, but when her stomach began to give its own roar, she staggered back towards the kill. She took away one of the legs and began to gnaw on the bone, trying to ignore the stench and vile flavor of the rancid meat that covered it. Once she ate the marrow, she pushed it away and faced the wall. She then curled into a ball; a position she had not been in since she had been a young cub.
"Oh Zira the Ruthless! Great queen of the lionesses!" She muttered sarcastically. "Where is your greatness now?"
She could just imagine what Scar would say if he could see her now. Scar… She shook her head. It would do no good to think about him now. He could not help her. No one could. Though the winds outside were muffled, their sounds were like roaring waves in her ears. She shuddered at the thought of that.
The time she had spent in the river had seemed like an eternity. She didn't know why she hadn't died. She had been waiting for the bliss of death. She had wanted to be reunited with Scar and Nuka and the rest of her countless sisters. But no it was not to be. She was a coward. She had fought for life and had struggled to the surface of the raging river, and even now she struggled to keep alive despite the predators that surrounded her each day.
Tired of thinking about the present, and just plain tired, she lowered her head on her scarred paws and tried to sleep. Instead, she began to remember what now was a past life. A life before Kovu and Vitani; before Nuka, and even before Simba.