Author's Note: Hello Readers, this is the next chapter of this fanfic and I hope you enjoy it.
The rest of that week of work was not really that eventful. I worked on my research, I talked with colleagues and interns but that was pretty much all that went on the rest of that week.
On Saturday, I got up and did my usual weekend morning routine, got dressed, walked out of my apartment building to the Blue Line.
After getting off the Blue Line, I walked to a bus stop and got on the one that headed towards Lincoln Park. I got off and headed straight to a bench, on which I sat for five minutes until I saw Jasiri cross the street. She was wearing the black fitness clothes that she has worn on our other jogs before this. I just waved to signal where I was near the fountain.
We just jogged along the trail and just jogged past many trees, benches and small buildings present in the park, eventually jogging until we reached the Uptown area. Jasiri then took me to this ice cream place she told me about. We just got two cones with each having a scoop of vanilla ice cream. We then went towards Montrose Beach with our cones and we just resumed our conversation.
"Jasiri, I have to tell you that you were right about this ice cream place." I said.
"I know, I didn't believe it myself when my friend told me but that trip all the way to here was definitely worth it." Jasiri replied.
"The last time I had ice cream this good was when I was ten, when my mom took my sister and I to this place after my grandma's funeral." I recalled.
"Oh I'm sorry to hear about that." She replied back.
"It's okay, it happened a long time ago, and besides, it was not the first time one of my grandparents died." I said. This response sparked a look of intrigue from Jasiri.
"Wait, what do you mean not the first time? Are any of your grandparents still alive?" Jasiri then asked as we approached a grassy area near the beach.
"Oh no, all my grandparents have passed away. The first was my paternal grandfather, my father's father, but I was only four when he died so I never really knew him, so I wasn't really heavily affected by his passing. Then there was my father's mother, who passed when I was ten, whose funeral was the one was the one I told you about the ice cream. Then there was my mother's father, Gianluca, who I got my middle name from, well he died when I was thirteen. Lastly, there was my mother's mother, who passed away when I was sixteen." I said.
"Again, I am sorry to hear that. I completely understand what it is like to lose someone you love." Jasiri replied. I just turned my head to give Jasiri a light smile.
"Thanks Jasiri, even when I know that death is a part of life but sometimes I still think of them, particularly my mother's mother. Despite seeing my grandfather Gianluca only once or twice a year, I saw my grandmother much more often because she tended to visit us more since my mom had a strained relationship with her dad. Also, before my parents got divorced, my parents fought and argued on a constant basis, so my sister and I often called her for advice or comfort from the line of fire of a marriage which my parents thought that they can work out through rambling about a variety of topics, whether it was about money or stupid shit. My grandma managed to cheer us up or provide a comforting shoulder. But that eventually changed when I was about twelve and she was diagnosed with breast cancer and she started to be less and less active in our lives. Initially my grandfather helped her cope with the symptoms, but only a year after she was diagnosed, my grandfather died of a sudden heart attack and she had to go through her cancer symptoms all alone when she is at home. I cannot forget the last time I ever saw her, it was when I was sixteen, we visited her at her home and...and" I said as I began to pause since I was starting to feel the fear and grief I recalled that day, but I then I decided to continue just to finish the story.
"And I was just shocked, scared and sad to see her at that state. She reached Stage 4 cancer by that time and it spread all throughout her body. She lost so much hair from chemo that she was nearly bald and her body was so frail that she couldn't get out of her bed. We had one last conversation about life and at that time I recently saved up to buy an iPhone since that was the year they first came out, so I just showed it to her and she even played around with some of the apps. The next day, we received a phone call from her nurse that she passed away in her bed. I guess to some extent, I am still shocked of how a woman who was full of energy and presence at one point of my life ends up dying at the next, but she never gave up her strength. After she died, many of us had changed since then, despite my parents still being married four years after that, they finally divorced when I was twenty, eventually my relationship with my mom has improved but I still have a strained relationship with my dad. My sister decided that she wanted to travel the world before she died so she went to college for international business and now has a career in that, while I stuck with my interests in STEM, but that day was what solidified my interest in biochemistry, which eventually led to my interest in genetics." I said finishing my story, but to my surprise, I saw that Jasiri was starting to tear up a little bit.
"Uh Jasiri, are you okay?" I asked and we just began to sit down at this bench that was facing the lake and we threw out what remained of the cones that we had.
"Oh no I'm fine, it's just that I'm sorry about your grandmother and some of the details in your story about her remind me of...of what happened to some of my clan during the drought." Jasiri said while starting to inhale a little more frequently.
"Oh my, I'm so sorry if my story brought up any bad memories for you. I guess I recalled too much in talking about my grandmother." I said in an apologetic tone.
"Oh no, you didn't do anything. It's just that even when it was twenty years ago, I..I..I think about them almost everyday since they died. My parents died young so my older sister Madoa had to raise me on her own along with a few other hyenas in our clan. After we helped the Pride Landers dissolve the Army of Scar, both the Pride Landers and Outlanders decided that I could become Leader and Prime Minister of the Outlands…" Jasiri said before I briefly interrupted her.
"Wait a second, you were a Prime Minister?" I asked, still thinking it was strange how there were multiple, nonhuman governments in the middle of a savannah.
"Yeah, that was just a compromise between the rest of us and the vulture parlement, because they thought that the title 'Queen of the Outlands' sounded to undemocratic for them. So anyway, life was going pretty well at that point, I even had a mate. His name was Janja, he was originally this troublemaker who neither us or the Pride Landers could stand, but he then abandoned the Army of Scar to help us. Everything was going pretty well after that, but that all changed when the drought hit both the Pride Lands and Outlands. Despite the fact that the Outlands already had limited resources before the drought, but the drought just multiplied all of our original problems by ten. The watering hole dried up, the food that we scavenged started dying out much more rapidly and the vulture parlement straight up abandoned us. Sometimes went to the Pride Lands for resources, their stiphens still weren't enough because like us, their resources were beginning to dwindle too. The Outlands eventually turned into chaos, everyone began to turn on each other. There were eventually increased incidences of animals killing each other over the remaining scraps of food, in fact, my mate's two closest friends eventually killed each other over a mouse carcass they found. Day by day, dead bodies were starting to be ubiquitous across the Outlands, but when the food eventually ran out, many of the remaining animals have decided to go after the one remaining source for food...each other. Even though I tried to get the Pride Lands to possibly share their resources with them, but what they offered was still not enough for us since their resources also took a downwards spiral. When getting back to the Outlands from talking to their royals...I felt...I felt… that my whole world came crumbling to an end…" Jasiri said as I began to see a tear or two fall from her eyes grabbing a tissue from her bag that she was carrying to wipe them.
"It's okay Jasiri, you can take your time, or if you don't want to talk about-" I said wanting to try to cheer her up.
"Oh no Edwin, it's fine, a therapist told me that telling my story could help me deal with some of the grief that I might still feel over the incident. Anyway, so I got back to the Outlands, only to see some jackals and crocodiles carrying fresh pieces of meat while they ran, I tried to ask them where they got the meat from, but they ran out of hearing range, so I headed back to the cave where my clan usually stayed in, and...and that is when..when I saw the bodies." Jasiri said as she began to sniffle and tear up again.
"I now realized where the jackals and crocodiles got the meat, I saw the corpses of several of my remaining clan members, many with their bowels removed, holes in their torsos and blood flowing from their mouths. I was essentially mortified of what I saw...but then I got closer to the cave...I just froze in shock to see my mate, Janja…..laying there still with blood dripping from his mouth...and several deep wounds on his torso. I just ran up to him to try to see if I could do anything to help him...but he was just ...barely breathing and he was choking on his own blood. I tried to stop the bleeding from the rest of his body but there was just..just.. so much blood, there was nothing I could have done. Within a few minutes I saw the life completely drain from his eyes...next thing I knew...he was gone…" Jasiri said as she started to tear up more and more to the point where she couldn't speak anymore at the moment.
I just hugged her as the moment, I just wanted to do anything to help her feel better. Why did I have to bring up my dead grandparents? I basically just triggered a really painful memory for her, and this was just supposed to be two friends hanging out. Why do I have to be so stupid?
As Jasiri was tightening her grip around me, I just wanted to try to help her feel better.
"Jasiri, I am so so so sorry that I triggered that memory for you. I had no idea what I was talking about bringing up my dead grandparents like that, it was a stupid mistake and I will never make it again. If you want we can go back for some more ice cream, I'll pay for everything." I said.
Jasiri just started to let her arms arms go, the tears started to dry up and she started to form a light smile on her face.
"Oh no Edwin, it's not your fault. I guess that even after twenty years, the memories can still haunt me. I'm sorry about that outburst, but I will finish the story from here…" Jasiri said in a slow and more relaxed tone.
"Oh no, if it makes you feel uncomfortable recalling more of the story, you don't have to-" I said Jasiri calmly interrupted me.
"It's okay Edwin, I need to continue, it's part of my process...so anyway, after Janja died in my paws, I was grieving for the first two minutes, but I realized that I need to stay strong for my clan, but as I got up from near Janja's body, I saw that I was surrounded by the bodies by the rest of..the rest of my clan. They all had similar or worse wounds to Janja's, some even had internal organs ripped out of their bodies. All of them having died relatively before Janja. I then remembered the jackals and crocodiles that were carrying pieces of fresh meat when I came back and that was when I realized that they did this, individuals that I was starting to trust killed a large chunk of my clan for food, but that made me concerned for my sister and her son and daughter who were in the cave before I left. I ran to the cave and...and...I saw my niece and nephew ...both laying there with their...with their... throats ripped out, bleeding from multiple places of their already emaciated bodies. There was no hope for them but I then heard a noise to see that my sister was approaching me, all shaken up and eyes full of fear and despair. She was particularly grief-stricken by the deaths of her children because she was already pretty weak from starvation and dehydration so her kids had to takeover a lot of her responsibilities for our clan, and when the jackals ambushed the clan, her kids hid her in one of the far corners of the cave while they protected the jackals from entering deeper into the cave. With no clan left, Madoa and I realized that we had to go into hiding to try to avoid another ambush. So, with me carrying her on my back, left the cave to go to a new location up a nearby mountain. This arrangement between the two of us lasted about a week, but despite this, Madoa was getting weaker and weaker everyday from the limited food and water supplies. Then one day, I was coming back to bring our rations of food for the day, and...and even when she was already weak before, her condition was at the worst I have ever seen. You see Edwin, like you grandmother, my sister was also once this active, vibrant and reliable figure in my life. I witnessed the hyena who practically raised me turn into an emaciated assortment of mere skin and bones. I tried to feed her, but on that last day, she just pushed away the food and just stare at me for a few seconds and just thanked me for all that I have done for her and the clan. She then told me to stay strong and that she always loved me...and just a minute later...she couldn't go on any more...and she passed away right in front of me…" She continued as she grabbed another tissue from her bag and wiping her eye with it.
"I began my period of mourning and grief, but I soon realized that I needed to try get the Outlands back together, despite the chaos and killings and get through this drought. So after saying my final goodbyes to my sister's body and went down to find anyone willing to speak or listen to me. But as I got down from the mountain and to the area where I found the corpses of my clan… I was encountered with another surprise. Along with what's left of the corpses of my deceased my clanmates, I saw the bodies of several jackals and even a few crocodiles, all who had deep wounds with parts of their body ripped out. There was also blood in many of their mouths, so I assumed that they ended up killing each other for the remaining pieces of food. I recognized a few of the jackal corpses as their leader and her family, I'm guessing that the jackal pack was now destabilized at that point. I left to see if there was anyone else around but all I saw were more and more dead bodies of other Outlands residents, including a member of my clan, a few jackals and the rest of the crocodile float. They might have been able to win over more food sources, but the rest of the Outland crocodiles including their leader all lost the battle against dehydration. At that point I realized that...that I was completely alone and everyone else I knew in the Outlands is dead, so I left to go to the Pride Lands for two weeks before they eventually became uninhabitable and we left from there. So again, that's how I came from being the leader of the Outlands to a fossil preparator here. Even when I have gotten used to my new life, I basically get reminders of my past through my nightly transformations into my hyena form. When I... look at myself in the mirror each night… all I see is... is… the hyena who failed to protect her home and those around her...I'm sorry if I'm making you uncomfortable Edwin... I just I just…" Jasiri said while trying to hold back her tears, but she just can't seem to hold back any more tears, I just decided to hug her at the moment while she continued to cry.
"Oh no no Jasiri, you're not bothering me, I'm here for you. None of anything that you experienced was your fault, it was the drought's." I said trying to cheer her up.
"But I let all those animals either die or kill each other over what should have been provided for them. Why was I ever recommended to be leader when everyone I knew or loved was going to die in my watch. How could it have not been my fault?" Jasiri replied while continuing to cry on my shoulder.
"But none of it was your fault, it was an extreme situation and there was very little any of you guys could have done about it. If anything it's probably our fault as humans, since we are the ones causing the astronomical CO2 emissions which in turn caused the crisis of climate change, and it's still damaging ecosystems at a large scale. I apologize for any part I might have contributed towards climate change and I know an apology would not be enough but I'm trying my best to lower my contribution to climate change." I said and Jasiri just started to look at me.
"Oh Edwin, I am aware of climate change and that damage it does. Even when I know that every human has contributed to it in one way or another, I do not hold anything against you because since living in the human world, I felt that I might have contributed a little to climate change myself. I just wished there was something I could have done to prevent my loved ones from dying." She replied back.
"I totally understand that, sometimes I wished I could have helped my grandmother when I was a teenager but there still isn't a cure for cancer yet so there was nothing I could have done about the disease. What happened to your clan was terrible and I am really sorry you had to go through that." I replied.
"It's okay Edwin,thanks for understanding though. I have to admit, it was first difficult adjusting to the human world as the only hyena hybrid of the group, so I took comfort in learning how to read, write, do basic math and the academics that I had, which actually helped me with the school part of it. After leaving Tanzania for the United States, I felt that I was basically alone as my human age was nine at the time, but I still had the comfort of my books, and to my initial surprise, I actually started to become really close with Makuu…" Jasiri was saying as a question popped into mind.
"Oh yeah, other than working together, I was wondering why you guys spend so much time together, are you two like… dating or something?" I asked while secretly hoping not in my mind. As soon as I asked that question she began to laugh.
"Dating?...Oh no not even close! You see along with the guardian the shaman assigned me to, Makuu was also assigned to live with her in the first two years in Tanzania and we even lived together when we moved to Milwaukee, though we separated when I went to UCLA to get my PhD, we eventually met up again when we heard about the job opportunities here in Chicago. As we began to communicate over the years, we realized that we had a lot in common, we both developed interests in geology and paleontology, we were both former leaders of our groups of animals and like my clan, every crocodile in his float also died during the drought." Jasiri replied in a more somber tone.
"Oh, I'm sorry to hear about that." I replied.
"Yeah, he never wants to talk about it. So again I apologize about crying on your shirt." Jasiri replied back.
"Oh no it's totally fine. I completely understand why you felt this way, I would be devastated too if I lost my family that way. Oh, and sorry for mentioning my dead grandparents, I did not mean for those memories to act as some sort of trigger of those memories." I replied.
"Don't worry about it Edwin, it wasn't your fault and I know that wasn't your intention. So want to continue our jog?" Jasiri asked.
"Sure, why not?" I replied while we both stood up from the park bench we were sitting on.
We then continued to jog along the pathway until we got back to where we first started. After that we parted ways with her walking towards the nearest Red Line stop while I boarded a bus.
I kept thinking to myself about how much I got to know Jasiri today. It was shocking to see this side of her and what she went through was horrible. Sometimes I think of how different our lives are from one another and what paths we have taken to cross with one another and that still impresses me. What initially started as a jog in the park became a reminder that I really have a lot to learn about my new colleagues and friends.
Third Person P.O.V (1 hour later):
After finishing her jog with Edwin, Jasiri gets off the Red Line and gets off the Jackson stop. She then walks a couple of blocks westward before crossing the Jackson Boulevard bridge until she turned around a corner just a block after crossing the bridge. She then approaches a beige brick buildings with a couple of balconies on some of the higher floors. She uses o black fob on her keyring to unlock the door into the building. As she walks into the building, she walks across the lobby's greyish tiles, old green rug and a square of black mail slots and approaches a small desk with a black sign with white letters which says "Packages/Mailing". As she got to the desk she approached the desk attendant who had pitch black hair in a bun while wearing silver rimmed glasses with her sky blue uniform.
"Excuse me, do you have anything for Jasiri Fisi of unit 502?" Jasiri asks the attendant. As soon as she asked that, the attendant went to the backroom and within a minute, they came back with a small square package that was about a foot long on each side.
"Did you say Jasiri Fisi, unit 502?" The attendant asked.
"That's right." She replied as the attendant placed the package down and took out a clipboard from under the desk.
"Alright, I just need you to sign here saying you received the package." The attendant said. Jasiri then took the pen and just signed her name, unit number and what time she picked up the package.
"Okay thank you, have a good day." The attendant said as Jasiri grabbed the package.
"You too!" Jasiri said as she left the desk. She then took her keys out and placed one of them into the keyhole of one of the black mail slots.
She picked up four envelopes and walked into the elevator just as it opened. After waiting a minute or two later, the elevator arrived at the fifth floor and she headed to the first door on the right. After unlocking her door, Jasiri enters her modest apartment, which contains a small white sofa next to a tan coffee table with a black rug under them. Jasiri eventually placed the packages and envelopes on the coffee table.
"I'm glad the frames finally arrive, but first I've got to change" She thought to herself. She eventually went into her bathroom to take a shower after that jog with Edwin.
She while in the shower, she took some time to reflect on the conversation she and Edwin had during the jog. This was one of the first times she really recalled that story in detail to someone outside the former Pride Lands community that was not a psychologist. She also reflected on the journey her life has gone over the last twenty years, from being the leader of a hyena clan in the Outlands to becoming a fossil preparator for a museum in Chicago. After finishing her shower, she just changed into some casual black sweatpants and a white t-shirt.
She then went back to the coffee table to where the envelopes and package was. She picked up the envelope and started going through the pile.
"Electric bill, grocery store ad, water bill, museum weekly newsletter...I don't know why they still give us paper ones when we have the digital ones." She said to herself.
She then grabbed one of the keys on her key ring and used it to cut the tape on the top of the box and after pushing away the folds of the box's lid to reveal four empty picture frames, all of which have silver frames with small plant designs carved into them. She walks into her bedroom, goes to the bottom drawer of her nightstand and grabs a used sketch book and went back to the living room to the coffee table. She opened the sketch book to a page that contained a sketch of a male hyena with spots all over their torso with black colored paws, tail and fur line that starts at their head and extends to the upper back. The hyena in the sketch also had a notch on their left ear. This hyena also is drawn to be just sitting upon a work, with the name "Janja" written on the top right corner. After browsing at it for a minute, she soon tears the page out of sketchbook.
She then folds parts of the white space back so that she will be able to fit the piece of paper into the picture frame without tampering with the image. After finding the right position, she placed the sketch into the picture frame, fastened the back and placed the glass over the sketch. After placing that picture to her left, she moved onto another sketch but this was of a female hyena with similar details to the one of the male hyena, except she has a short hair tuft that is separated from the black fur that goes down her neck and neither of her ears have a notch. To the top right of the paper the name "Madoa" is written. Soon Jasiri eventually folded the edges of that sketch as she did the previous sketch to place them in the frame.
Eventually she moves on to the next sketch, which is of two younger hyenas playing with each other. There was a small male hyena who was being pinned down by a female around the same age as him. The male had similar details to the female from the second sketch, except they have no hair on his head, only a black spot on their forehead. The female that is pinning the male cub looked similar to the male, except she had a small hair tuft on her head. This sketch is accompanied with a short description on the top right corner which read "Wema and Tumu". Jasiri then also place that sketch into another frame and turned to another sketch in front of her.
The sketch she looked at contained all the hyenas featured in the previous sketches but with a few others, particularly one in the center with a longer mane which might have had a few stands in the front, but the mane had more length and volume in the back. As Jasiri looks on to this sketch, she begins to reflect on how she was once that hyena in the center of the sketch, sitting along a rock formation watching over the Outlands. She then took a pencil from a nearby desk drawer and added the description "Our clan" on the top right corner, eventually folding the edges and placing the sketch in the last frame. After finishing these frames, She took them to her bedroom and placed the frames on the same nightstand where she retrieved the sketchbook, which she also placed back in its drawer.
Afterwards she just decided to make relax the rest of the day, leading her took tryout this stir-fry recipe she found online and basically made that her dinner.
As it started to become darker out, Jasiri was casually eating her dinner when she started to feel a familiar light pain in her abdomen. She then started to lay on a couch groan as the pain started to grow more intense. As this goes on, a formation appeared on her lower back, which is revealed to be a short tail with long black hairs on it. The tail was not the end of it, she soon started to grow gray fur all over her face and body. Her finger and toenails started to grow a little longer and black paw-like formations formed on her palms and feet. Her hair also grew a little longer and her canines grew a little longer in length and within a few seconds, the pain was immediately gone. At the end, she transformed into her anthropomorphic hyena form in the same way she has been doing it for over twenty years. A minute later, she just went back to finish her dinner.
After finishing her dinner, Jasiri just continued to watch a show that she has been streaming. She then heard a ding from her phone, so she grabbed it and saw a notice that said".
Edwin Mariani has requested to follow you on Instagram
She let out a slight smile, typed her passcode into her phone and went to her Instagram app. She see's Edwin's request and then accepts to confirm the request, later also sending a request of her own to follow his account.
She was about to put her phone down when she heard another ding from her phone, there were two notices. One was a notice that Edwin accepted her Instagram request and coincidentally, a text from Edwin, which reads:
Hey Jasiri, how's it going? I'm sorry if I accidentally triggered anything from today's conversation today, I never meant to do that. Despite that, I really enjoyed our jog today and we should definitely hang out more often. Anyways, I hope you are doing well and have a good night.
Jasiri appreciated that Edwin was actually concerned about her welfare, something very few of the humans she knows have ever done. She decided to respond back to her text.
Hi Edwin, I'm doing well and don't worry about this afternoon, it was none of your fault and I understand that you were not intending to trigger those memories. Other than that part, I also really enjoyed our jog, but next time we have intimate conversations, let's just do it in private :) See you at work!
After sending the text, Jasiri just continued to watch TV for two more hours before heading towards the bathroom to wash her face. As she continued, she just stared at her face in the mirror two minutes, she then went to her bedroom to grab the sketch of her and her now deceased clan, she looks at the sketch of herself as her old hyena self and then looks in the mirror to look at her current anthropomorphic form. Even when many of the facial features are the same, she then factors in when she is human during the day.
She then turns back to her sketch again and a small tear forms in the side of her eye.
"Why am I the one who lived while all of you guys perished? How did I survive?...I can't believe it's been twenty one years since I started this life." Jasiri says to herself.
Afterwards, she went back to her room, placed the sketch back on her nightstand and just tried to get some sleep.