The Lion King 4 - Tarew's Story

The World Stops, The River Doesn't

Can someone please explain how we moved up +800 reads in 3 chapters? :O

Tarew shifted in his spot. It had already been incredibly cramped in the hole before the extra body was added, but now that it was there, he found himself struggling to find room to breathe. He pushed his feet against the dirt walls and turned his body around so that he was facing the back of the hole. He saw that the cubs had already started to claw at the thick walls, so he joined them and began to scrape his paws against the moulded dirt. The earth fell away at his motions and soon, with the help of the cubs, a tunnel began to form. 

He hoped that he would find what he was looking for fairly quickly, so he sped up the dirt-scooping by a rapid pace. Much to Tarew's relief, the tunnel began to slant to the left, meaning that he was on the right path to his goal. He was constantly paranoid that one of the Pridelanders inside the volcano would check the hole that he and the cubs were in, only to discover that their colleague's unconscious body had been dragged into it. He'd purposely left the body at the entrance of the hole so he wouldn't have to carry extra weight, plus it eliminated any chance of him waking up and giving away their position. 

It suddenly occurred to him that 'Kuson' could wake up even if he had been dragged along. Tarew gained a new fear that the lion would wake up at the tunnel's entrance and either go alert the other Pridelanders about what'd happened, or crawl down the tunnel himself. Tarew's nerves seemed to affect his digging because he gradually became aware of the amount of ground he'd dug up. 

As he was expecting, his paw abruptly passed through the dirt and slammed onto the rough ground of the tunnel, creating a tiny hole that you could look through. This was the air pocket that he'd been aiming for. Suddenly, an unidentified eye became level with the peep-hole. This made him jump and bang his head on the low tunnel ceiling.

"Tarew! Are you ok?" one of the cubs asked.

"Ugh, yea I'm fine."

"Why did you stop digging?" the other one questioned.

"Because," he answered,"we've found what we're looking for."

He turned his attention back to the eye. He saw it widen and he heard lots of shuffling coming from the other side of the wall, accompanied by the quiet sound of someone scraping away at the dirt. He resumed digging into the wall, only to find that the eye's owner was helping him. This made the excavation time decrease by a lot. 

Soon enough, the small hole crumbled away into a bigger one and a straight path into the air pocket had been crafted. Infront of the "Excavation Trio", a sandy-coloured lioness lay about three feet away from them. Her eyes were green and her tail tuft was a musty colour, but Tarew couldn't tell if it was natural or because she was in a dusty hole. Nevertheless, he pulled himself forwards so that his head was next to the lioness' ear and whispered:

"I need you to continue this tunnel. Bring every lion you find down this path; It'll lead outside. From there, you must tell them to run in a straight line until they reach the River, where they'll be safe with us," he gestured to the cubs, "Can you do that for me?"

The female nodded and shuffled in her spot. She stretched her arms out and started to claw into the walls around her, mainly digging in the same direction that Tarew had started in. He nodded at her, then turned his attention to the wall on his right.

"Alright cubs, last bit of digging. I promise."

They jumped forward and thrashed at the wall with a new-found enthusiasm. He edged towards them and helped to exterminate the tunnel's boundary. Soon enough, they reached the outer stone of the volcano. Unfortunately for the lions, it was too tough to dig through, so they had to improvise and continue the tunnel underneath it in order to get outside.