Diego had gotten far away from the pack, he put the cub down in the moon light so he could see him properly. It was a jaguar cub, about a year or 2 older than his daughter. He had a golden coat. With 3 spots on his head. 2 spots on the back of his neck. On spot on the right side of his neck, and another on the other side. He had 5 spots on his back, 4 on his tail, and 5 on each leg. Making a total of 21 spots. There were no spots in the cubs face, but the one spot on his head did go through the middle of his forehead. Everything in Diego was screaming at him to leave the cub strained here and get back to the cave, but something kept holding him back. Hunter. He was a bit older but he was still very young.
"Did you really think if she knew her father had left an innocent cub in a deserted valley, with a large pack looking for him, listening to his instinct when it's telling him to leave him of all things, that she'd approve? What would Shira think? What would the others think?" he thought.
But there was something other than all those thoughts holding him back. Something in the back of his mind. He could tell what it was, but for some reason, the cub looked familiar to him. The feeling gave him a sharp pain in the stomach, the feeling of guilt mixed with something else. He shook his head to get rid of the feeling. He had never seen the cub before, he was sure of it. Suddenly his ears perked up. There was a low growl, the pack was coming pack. He sighed.
"Come on Diego. If you're gonna decide to keep a pack from getting him, you might as well follow through on it," he told himself.
He picked the cub up again and went to the cave.
Diego had reached the cave, he knew there wasn't much of the night left. When the cub had first passed out, there might have been about 2 hours of the night left, but Diego had decided to rest as much as he could. He set the cub next to him and then lied down. He was going to have to think of a way to explain this to the herd when he got back. He fell asleep.
As Diego slept, he began to dream. It was an extremely cloudy dream, there wasn't anything to see. He could just barley hear muffled sounds. Screams, silence, and then a child whimpering, it kept on going on a loop over and over again. Diego shot awake gasping, he was feeling the same feeling in his stomach from before, the cub was still unconscious, he looked out. The sun was beginning to rise, he would start leaving soon. The feeling had matured to a painful burn. He tried to shake it off but this time he couldn't, the feeling only lasted a few seconds, so did the memory of the dream. What was happening to him?