The World Of Sebastian

In one point I can be absolutely sure. My parents would decide otherwise, if they´d have the chance. They love Tiger and surely just want to protect him. And it´s this realization that makes me feel powerless and upset. I liked the idea to walk around with Tiger, showing him my home, the streets, and the fields around our village. He would have had the chance to explore a world that is absolutely new for him, even if it´s a limited one. More and more often I ask myself the question, how it would be to live without fences, barbed wire, and walls. Simply to be free. Just like Tiger I´ve been born in a zoo and grew up there. I know my way around here. Here´s where my family lives, protecting it and me from the world outside. Anyhow! There must be more to life than just this village. My craving for freedom is growing with every day. The world´s just waiting for me to discover it. And there´s one thing that became even clearer to me after Tiger´s birth: I´m locked up as much as he is.

2 Eight years Later

During the last years I hardly had a moment´s time to catch my breath. I studied like a fiend and actually finished school. I´d have never expected myself to turn into such a bookworm. I burned the midnight oil, poring over volumes about animals and plants. It happened quite often that my head just sank down on the school desk for lack of sleep. Together with Conran I´ve finished my training as a hunter. My father, Will, and the other hunters taught us the ropes of the trade, which included countless hours of practising in the adjoining woods. But the greatest event was that I now have a new friend and older brother. His name is Nikolas, and he´s six years older than me. My parents have taken him in, after his mother died from pneumonia six years ago. He never met his father, and there are probably no other relatives alive. Some weeks before the world changed forever, his pregnant mother came from North Africa to Europe to visit relatives. She never was able to return home and had her son, Nikolas, in the zoo, while she was on the run.   We often share the same opinions, although he´s not as impulsive and hot-headed like me sometimes. His emotions don´t play as openly in his face. Sometimes I envy him for his calm and his ability to put on a poker face. This skill would make my life a lot easier. Up to the present day I´ve always been able to rely on Nikolas. Those days in the woods, especially, often were long and scary. He made me feel safe and helped me to overcome my fears. I remember one of our first nights of sleeping rough and the conversation we had then that helped me a lot.

 “I don´t think I can do this,” I said.

“What is it you can´t do?” Nikolas gave back.

 “Killing an animal,” I replied.

 For a while he surveyed the ground and then lit up our camp fire.