Author's note: Hello, everyone! Welcome to Poison: An Alternate Ending. Just a one-shot about what could've happened differently in the ending to Poison, a Lion King fan fiction series by ThatPersonYouMightKnow. You can find the series and its prequel series in the Index section of The Lion King Adventures Forum. Go check them out. You won't disappointed. Trust me - they're superb. I'd also like to thank him for giving me permission to write this.
Without further ado, I really hope you enjoy this alternate ending. The opening lines are from Poison itself. Thanks!
Poison: An Alternate Ending
Her grip on the gun tightened.
TPYMK stared downwards.
Defeated.
"You were my best friend," he admitted, allowing everyone to hear him.
Sarafina stared into his eyes.
"Well, you weren't mine."
And she pulled the trigger.
Bang!
The detective didn't even have time to blink as the bullet was sent hurtling into his skull. Blood and brain matter painted the wall behind Death, who watched with a satisfied grin. TPYMK slumped forward in the chair; his brown fedora sliding off his head and coming to a rest beside Sarafina.
He was gone for good.
Sarafina smiled, knowing that she had ended the life of an idiotic human who had insulted her again and again about her horrific drug habit.
"Well done, Sarafina," Death said in a satisfied voice. "Now that the final loose end has been tied, Sumu will eventually be on every street on the globe. Our empire will grow even stronger. No one will stop us. No one."
As TPYMK's head dripped with blood from the gaping wound that the powerful .45 calibre bullet had left, a wave of immense regret and sadness crept into Sarafina almost instantly as Death uttered those lines.
Tears welled up in her eyes and she began to shake.
What have I done?
Sarafina could only look in shock at the person in the chair. Her best friend.
All of her life, the poor lioness had it tough. Her parents abused her from an early age; drug addicts themselves. She never knew that about her parents, though. She had never even seen them smoke joints or snort coke. All she knew is that it frightened her to the depths of her being while they abused her. She never understood why they did such things to her, but she received scars as a result, both mental and physical. She would often wake up in a cold sweat, screaming her heart out in the middle of the night after reliving those memories. It wasn't a life she'd even wish on her worst enemy.
She never knew what drugs were until two dealers by the names of Timon and Pumbaa - a meerkat and warthog duo - offered her to take some. They had consumed her ever since. Ironically, they became the only means of blocking out the experiences of her cubhood. She had started after her best friend, Sarabi, tempted her to take some after Timon had given the two friends some marijuana. She had moved onto harder drugs after that: heroin, cocaine, crystal meth, even Sumu - the worst of the lot. She had no means of escaping these horrible substances...
Until that fateful day she met Detective TPYMK: a hardened law-enforcer with a hatred for anyone involved in the using, selling or manufacturing of illicit drugs. His friend, Haiba, was viciously murdered by TPYMK's backstabbing partner Simba, who was none other than a user. He had taken him out, this avenging his friend's untimely death. He despised all of them... but Sarafina. He saw something in her. He could see that she was better than that. He took her under his wing and brought her home, where he looked after her and attempted to make her realise that she was harming herself by taking these drugs. The two had been through a lot together: from being at each other's throats, to nearly being killed during an attempt on their lives by orders of the Interceptor - a ruthless assassin who worked for Death, the mastermind behind Sumu.
To make matters even worse, she had even gotten pregnant after being involved in a Mixer - a party filled with sex, drugs, alcohol and bad decisions. Tragically, her cub didn't survive due to all the deadly substances that she pumped into her body. This loss tore her up. The detective offered his best support to her through this terrible time, but it was something that would most certainly not disappear overnight. This loss would stay with her for the rest of her life. But if there was one thing that TPYMK had promised Sarafina, is that he wasn't going to give up on her.
They had disputes and difficulties during their time together, but in the end, the two were the best of friends. Not even Sarafina could argue with that.
Nala padded over to Sarafina, and placed a paw on her shoulder. "Nice shot," she commented. "Dead before that idiot had a chance to escape. No mercy... I like it, Sarafina. Keep that up, and you'll be a worthy ally to our ever-growing empire. Death's right. No one will stop us!"
The look of sadness and regret on Sarafina's face twisted into a look of pure hate.
"You're wrong, Nala. Dead wrong."
Before Nala could react, Sarafina turned and fired a single round into her eye. She was dead before she hit the floor.
"NO!" Death screamed, as he collided with Sarafina, knocking her to the floor. Death brandished a revolver and cocked the hammer... But it was too late. Sarafina fired three more bullets. This time, into his chest. Blood splatted Wazimu, who - after seeing his boss drop to the floor - ran at Sarafina, brandishing a syringe. TPYMK's former friend stood no chance as he too was shot dead by the distraught lioness.
The slide jammed back on the pistol that Sarafina held, and she dropped it to the floor.
The lioness collapsed to the floor, bodies surrounding her. She remained in a sitting position for a little over an hour before looking up at the detective's body.
"I'm sorry," she mumbled, as the tears streamed again. "I'm so sorry..."
Sarafina just sat there for what seemed like an eternity to a lioness in her current state. She looked up at the clock. 1:52 a.m.
Wearily hauling herself up, Sarafina wiped her eyes and focused her attention on her dead friend.
"You took care of me, Detective. I'm not going to leave you tied to a chair in a Sumu lab. I'll make sure of that."
She unsheathed her claws and sliced through the rope fixing him to the chair, catching him as his body slumped forward. She hoisted him on her back, picked up his fedora in her mouth and approached the door. She turned back, and noticed Death's bloodied corpse splayed on the cold floor. She frowned.
"Burn in hell, you bastard."
And with that, she slipped out into the night.
Sarafina arrived at TPYMK's apartment after sadly trudging through the cold, lonely street. She opened the door and was greeted by hundreds upon hundreds of bullet holes littering his once cosy abode. She gently laid him out on his sofa before going outside. Thankfully, his apartment was just beside the door, so she had no worries of walking down flights and flights of stairways. She padded out into the small garden behind the block, and began to dig.
She dug for hours before clambering back out of the pit she had created. It was a perfect size for a respected human.
Sarafina had finished his grave.
She went back inside and carried her best friend's body out into the garden. She carefully placed him inside and began to cover the grave with soil. When she had finished, she picked a single daffodil and placed it along with his fedora atop his grave.
Sarafina couldn't help it as she began to sob.
"You have... done s-so much for me," she spoke through her overwhelming sadness. "I just can't thank you enough..."
After a while of crying her eyes out, Sarafina recomposed herself and placed a paw on his trademark brown fedora. "Goodbye," she whispered. Her last word to the man who had done so much for the poor animal. She then wandered back inside his home...
...and locked the door.
THE END.
Author's note: An utterly awful alternate ending to an absolutely fantastic series. But what happened to Sarafina? Well, it's open to your own interpretation.
I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I've enjoyed writing it. Again, a warm thank you to ThatPersonYouMightKnow for allowing me to write this. You never know - I might write more short stories like this again, someday.
I'm very pleased with my first ever fanfic, and I would like to hear your thoughts and opinions on it, if you don't mind. Again, thank you all for reading it.
–Greg M 94.
