Simba and Nala settled in for the night in a tree above ground from anything that might eat them. At least... that was the plan...

Chapter 4: Night Terrors

"Dunno about you," Nala began wearily yet non-chalantly, "but nearly becoming plant fertilizer takes a lot out of a girl." She grunt as she climbed up towards a wide and sturdy branch with Simba right before her. "Though I'll give the Jungle this," she began as she looked out at the night sky, "it's actually really peaceful at night." Simba got onto the branch while she took her time to take in the full moon in all its beauty. "If it hadn't been for you, I wouldn't be seeing this view..."

Simba sighed deeply at this while Nala joined him on the branch, knowing what he needed to break to her. "If it hadn't been for me, you wouldn't have to endure this torment," he lamented while walking towards the near edge of the branch. His crush couldn't help but detect his dower tone of voice. "Try getting plenty of shut-eye tonight," the former prince ordered. "We'll need every bit to get you back to Pride Rock... somehow." His choice of words weren't lost on her.

"Me?" Nala asked with a visible look of unease in her eyes. "Aren't you... coming home?" She looked at Simba from behind, afraid of the inevitable answer. "Uncle Scar said it himself," he replied, hanging his head shamefully. "The whole kingdom will see me as the one who got my father, their king, killed." The lioness cub felt her heart sink upon hearing her best friend hold in his tears. "Accident or not, nobody will be able to see me as anything other than a murderer."

"So what?" Nala asked, trying to keep it together. "I'm just never going to see you again?" She could see Simba's shoulders tense up before going down in a sigh. "This exile is my burden to carry, my price to pay," he declared with an attempt at a firm tone of voice. "You only got caught up and nearly died twice because of it." The lioness cub heard her best friend paused to swallow in his all sorrow. "Because of me." She could make out the immense guilt he harbored.

"But..." Nala began, trying hard not to cry herself, "that's not fair..." Simba only laid his front upon the branch with his fore-paws cushioning his head. "It's about as fair as it's gonna get," he declared firmly yet wearily. "You won't last another day out here and we both know it." The former prince of the Pride Lands didn't dare look back at the teary-eye expression all over Nala's face. "Now go... to sleep so... we can prepare you... for home..." He yawned as both his eyes closed.

Simba kept telling himself mentally how this was for the best. He knew full well that Nala had a family waiting for her back at Pride Rock. Uncle Scar would likely vouch for her to so nobody would hassle her at the very least. However, the cub's slumber was slow going as a selfish desire to keep her clashed in his heart. Even if he was exiled, Simba had only just realized his true feelings for her. He couldn't help but replay Nala's previous words in his head. It truly was not fair...

"As you wish, your majesty," Nala despondently replied with bitterness mixing in with his sorrow. All she could do was sit on the far end of the branch and look at Simba from a distance, tearing up how the gap between them would be miles wider. The lioness cub knew that she had a family at home waiting for her to return safely but... imagining life without Simba was just wrong. His cute cocksure attitude. His bright smile. The way he'd stood between danger and herself.

Everything Nala loved would slip away.

"He'ssss right, you know?" a haughty voice hissed, sending shivers down Nala's spine. "You wouldn't lasssst one day out here." She rose her head in high alert in time to find a python's head slithering out of the shadows above her and into the moonlight. "An ever sssso fragile female ssssuch asssss yourself hasss but one purpossse in the unforgiving Jungle." The lioness cub felt a paralyzing feeling of fear permeating her body, her eyes and mouth wide open. "My ssssupper."

The purple python's evil glare was mere inches from Nala's face and made her too terrified to even utter a feeble meow. The sharp glint in his eyes spoke of a deep craving to the lioness cub while the flicking of his tongue tasted the succulent scent over her body. She got the message loud and clear: the snake was sizing her up for his late dinner. The damsel in distress didn't dare move a muscle in fear of the serpent's speed when something brushed against her fur below.

Nala glanced down to find the python's tail slithering around her waistline in a full loop and pinning her fore-arms to her belly. Even if she wasn't frozen in fear, her body wouldn't even be able wriggle free as the tail meticulously made its way around in another loop over the previous. The frightened feline could recall her mother's stories about big snakes that could crush grown lions in their coils, subduing them with either many around their body or one around their throat.

And Nala was about to become one such story.

Simba was slightly woken up by the silent noises coming from behind him and groaned, assuming it was Nala's whining. "Look, there's... just no sense arguing about it," he goggling managed to articulate in his semi-slumber, completely ignorant to his best friend's plight. "Just... please... go to sleep already." The dethroned prince of Pride Lands yawned, trying to sleep again despite the disturbance. He couldn't have known of the purple python snickering at his expense.

"I'm ssssure you mussssst be praying for a quick end," the python hissed as Nala raised her head back to face him. "A few sssecondsss of pain before meeting your maker in heavenly peacccce." The idea of actual death petrified the lioness cub as she bargained mentally how this couldn't even be happening. "However, I'm afraid that I'm in the mood for sssssome good food." By now, she had been cocooned in thickening coils up to her shoulders and hadn't noticed in her terror.

"S-Si...," Nala started to stammer through her immense fear, unaware of the python's tail encircling her neck. "S-Sim..." She had glanced towards her friend upon hearing him stirring and was desperate for any sort of help. "Simba-URK!" she could only yell out when two coils squeezed her throat mercilessly right out the gate. Her eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets upon being choked while her mouth went agape in trying to let any air in or out. Her only chance was lost.

Nala could feel her entire body becoming encased within the python's scaly coils from neck to hind-legs and slowly being squeezed all around. If the pressure exerted on her wasn't strenuous enough, the strangling coils around her throat were unbearable. The only sounds she could utter were hacking wheezes that barely got even a single air particle without it feeling like death itself. However, the cherry on top of this whole torture was the expression on the python's face.

Unable to move her head, Nala could only look back at the purple python's smirk that seemed so delighted. Almost as though his hunger was already sated. It didn't take long for it to become painfully clean even as she endured the constricting coils. Her suffering was nothing but the sadistic serpent's appetizer. Every hack and wheeze was but a quaint performance for him. The lioness cub could tell that the stranglehold he had her in was little more that a bit of his strength.

The need for oxygen was almost equal to Nala's humiliation over her suffering being but entertainment for the purple python. She could feel him deliberately whittling away her strength slowly but surely with the occasional sharp squeeze to her throat. How slowly the lioness cub died was completely up to him and his stomach. "Sim-ba... "she managed to croak out, praying for his rescue. Her eyelids began to droop as she glanced towards a stirring Simba just before her...

Nala finds herself at the mercy of the Jungle once more with Simba snoozing away. Has death come to claim another one of his loved ones?