BOOM
The appartment door slammed behind him, as he rushed outside, he ran for a while before checking his watch. 'Oh I'm early, I forgot my alarm clock was broken,' He slowed down and walked alongside the road slowly.
The sun was shining against the asphalt road ,while Leo, a man in his twenties, was on his way to his job, He walked unsuspectingly, unaware of the event that was going to transform his life soon, He navigated between the towering skyscrapers,making his way through alleyways as if he knew the city like the back of his hand. 'Why are the streets always so crowded, I keep having to go through here..' He murmured.
These alleys reminded him of a part of his childhood, He sped up trying to get past them as fast as possible.
After a couple of minutes, Leo found a clearing, this part of the sidewalk was always less busy than the other side of the street since the higher paying jobs were there. Leo would have loved to work there but sadly he didnt have a degree, he continued to walk until he saw a little girl crossing the road, and a speeding car rushing towards her from afar.
He rushed towards the little girl without thinking, He pushed her aside trying to help her avoid the dashing car. Time seemed to have slowed down as the car crept closer and closer to Leo. 'Is this really how my life is going to end, I didn't even get to save up for a luxury dinner at the restraunt I always wanted to go to,' Leo thought.
Suddenly his world turned black, he could not feel, see or smell anything.
"Host meets requirements." A voice spoke in his head.
"Who is there?" Leo asked frantically.
"Initiating reincarnation process....20 percent...50 percent." The voice spoke again.
"Reincarnation process completed, Sending
host to new body." The voice continued, before Leo could open his mouth, the world around him distorted, thousands of colours were gliding past him in increasing speed.
Then suddenly the colours stopped moving and blended into each other and forming a semi clear picture, then the pictured became focused and his vision became clear. The first thing he saw was the colour green, He tried to focus on it and realised it was actually grass.
'Huh, that's weird, wasn't I just on the road a minute ago, where did this grass come from?' Leo pondered for a while before examining his surroundings.
All around Leo were dark brown trees, they stretched out for a vast distance. The trees were tall, taller than what you would expect, near the ground the trees had no leaves but were instead covered by overgrown vines and weird looking plants , only the top of the trees were covered in leaves that blocked the bright sun.
'Maybe I'm dreaming,' Leo pinched himself. 'Ouch...I guess I'm not dreaming.'
Leo tried to stand up but he couldn't. 'Why can't I stand up?' Leo looked down at himself and saw fur across his hands and legs. 'What the f*ck is this, why am I covered in fur," Leo kept asking himself these questions, then he saw a pond.
Crawling over to the pond, Leo thought about checking his reflection in the pond, What was he going to see there, was he going to see his face or something else? Then he reached the body of water and he looked at it.
His reflection stared back at him, completely different from before, instead of a human face he had the face of a lion. His mane was flowing with the wind, it's dark orange colour contrasting against the light colour of his fur.
"What?" Leo roared out.
Leo zoned out, he started rethinking all of his life choices.
Leo had a talent for adapting to changes, so he got over the sudden change fast. The reason for the talent was simple;
Leo was an orphan, when he was a child he had no money to feed himself, and he would have to sleep in filthy alleys. After a while, he got used to life on the streets, he also gained a skill that helped him survive, adaptability. This ended up being a crucial factor for his survival.
Leo started organizing his thoughts, he remembered of the order of events. 'Okay so first I got hit by a car..then there was a weird voice..wait what was that voice'
"The system greets the host, system will be locked until host meets new requirements,
Requirements: Classified." The voice answered.
'What are you? And how can you read my thoughts' Leo thought.
"System will not answer questions until host meets requirements," The system continued.
'This is like those stupid reincarnation novels my coworkers talked about'
"Hey, you,what are you doing so far from the pride!" A rough voice echoed from behind.
Leo turned around looking at the direction of the voice, infront of him was a large lion that was covered in bright yellow fur and a light orange mane.
'How can I understand a lion, oh yeah I'm a lion now...it's so hard to believe yet I got over it so quickly' Leo shook his head.
"Answer me!" The lion yelled.
"Sorry, I'm not from around here" Leo answered.
"Oh, I'm Victor, sorry for shouting, we normally don't allow lower ranked lions from our pride to go this far, this forest is pretty dangerous" Victor explained.
"I'm Leo, can you show me the way to your pride, I'm lost," Leo requested.
A bright smile appeared on Victor's face "Sure, follow me" He said before jogging away.
Leo wasn't used to his new body yet so it was hard for him to keep up with Victor. Victor turned his head to look at Leo and saw that he was falling behind.
Victor stopped in his tracks. "Are you hurt, why are you moving so slowly?" Victor asked.
Leo didn't know what to say without revealing he wasn't a lion originally. "Uhh, I'm not used to this kind of environment" Leo blurted out.
"Ohh, you must be from the southern desert, I'll try to run a bit slower until you get used to the forest." Victor said with a smile on his face.
"Thank you" Leo thanked him.
After a while, Leo started getting used to using 4 legs instead of 2 and started running faster than before.
10 minutes later, They reached a clearing, Infront of Leo were hundreds of lions and hundreds of dens.
This is where the pride lived.