00:00Mark Thompson, 35 years old. He is a veteran veterinarian who has been treating wild animals on the African savannah
00:07for 10 years.
00:08Today, as always, Mark was heading out for a field visit under the morning sun.
00:14It was an ordinary morning, just like any other.
00:17But then, something lying at the edge of the bushes caught Mark's eye.
00:22Animals sometimes got caught in traps on the savannah.
00:25Thinking this was one of those cases, Mark moved closer.
00:28But the moment he did, his body froze like ice.
00:32The animal caught in the trap was a lioness.
00:34She was lying curled up at the edge of the bushes, one front paw gripped by an iron trap.
00:40Even caught in a trap, a predator was dangerous.
00:44Mark carefully took out his tranquilizer gun and aimed it at the lioness.
00:49But just as he was about to pull the trigger, the lioness's desperate gaze caught his eye.
00:54The lioness was pleading with him for something.
00:57Mark put the tranquilizer gun away and carefully approached her.
01:01He felt no threat from the lioness at all.
01:04She seemed to be staring at something in the distance, as if trying to tell him something.
01:08Mark first removed the trap and examined the wound.
01:12Fortunately, it was not deep.
01:14He disinfected it and applied antibiotic ointment.
01:17When the treatment was done, the lioness struggled to her feet.
01:20Then she turned her head in one direction and began to let out a low cry.
01:25Mark looked in the direction the lioness was pointing.
01:28Several tracks were clearly visible on the ground.
01:31Large, distinct hyena prints mixed with much smaller ones.
01:35Mark's expression hardened.
01:37They were the tracks of a lion cub.
01:39The savannah had been suffering through the severe drought.
01:42And Mark already knew that the conflict between hyena packs and lions was growing as prey became scarce.
01:49The hyenas wanted the adult lions dead.
01:52It was clear that the cunning hyenas had taken the lion cub as bait to lure the adult lions into
01:58their territory.
01:59Mark immediately took out his radio and reported the situation to the ranger station.
02:04But the response was cold.
02:06Without an exact location, they could not deploy.
02:10The only thing Mark could offer was the tracks in front of him.
02:13Mark set down the radio and paused in thought.
02:16Logically, this was outside the scope of his duties.
02:19Going in alone to find the lion cub was far too dangerous.
02:23But he could not take his eyes off those small tracks.
02:27Knowing that a young life was in danger, he could not turn and walk away.
02:31As if he had made up his mind, Mark picked up his bag and stood beside the lioness.
02:37Then together, they began slowly following the tracks.
02:41The lioness kept moving without stopping, even as she limped on her injured leg.
02:47The instinct driving her toward her cub was stronger than the pain.
02:51Mark walked silently beside her, following the tracks with his eyes.
02:55The hot savannah sun beat down on their backs.
02:58But neither of them could stop.
03:00About an hour into the walk, in the distance, a hyena was tearing at a piece of hunted meat near
03:06some bushes.
03:07The lioness immediately tensed, ready to charge straight at it.
03:11Mark grabbed her and calmed her down.
03:14Right now, finding the lion cub was more important than revenge.
03:18Mark and the lioness hid behind a rock and watched the hyena.
03:22If the hyena finished eating, it would return to its pack.
03:25And following it, would lead them to the lion cub.
03:28But chasing a hyena while the lioness was injured was out of the question.
03:32As if an idea had just come to him, Mark pulled out the tranquilizer gun and fired at the hyena.
03:40The dart hit the hyena squarely in the neck, and it staggered and collapsed.
03:44Mark quickly reached into his bag and pulled out a GPS capsule.
03:49It was a device he used for tracking wild animals.
03:52A capsule with a location signal transmitter built inside.
03:56He pried open the hyena's mouth, forced the capsule down his throat, and poured in some water.
04:01Then he injected the antidote and slowly stepped back to watch.
04:06About five minutes later, the hyena, now free from the sedative, opened its eyes.
04:11It staggered to its feet, looked around for a moment, and then began running off somewhere.
04:16Mark switched on the GPS tracker and started following the hyena's signal.
04:22After about an hour of walking, the signal stopped moving at a specific location.
04:27Mark thought the hyena had arrived at his habitat and quickened his pace.
04:31A moment later, an open plane appeared, and in the middle of it, a lion cub was sitting alone, crying.
04:37Mark felt something slightly off.
04:40This was not the situation he had expected.
04:42But before he could think further, the lioness spotted the lion cub and charged toward it before Mark could even
04:49stop her.
04:50She wrapped her front legs around the cub and pressed her face against it, and a look of relief spread
04:56across her face.
04:57The lion cub stopped crying the moment it caught its mother's scent.
05:01Mark slowly walked toward them.
05:03But something felt wrong.
05:05There was no trace of hyenas anywhere nearby.
05:09No footprints, no scent, nothing at all.
05:12It was too clean, as if no one had ever been there.
05:15Mark looked down at the tracker.
05:17The signal was still pointing to the very spot where he was standing.
05:21If that were the case, there should be a hyena somewhere here.
05:24But there was nothing.
05:26Mark slowly knelt down and began digging into the ground, where the GPS was pointing.
05:32About a finger's depth in, a red light was quietly blinking inside the hole.
05:37It was Mark's own GPS capsule.
05:40A chill ran down Mark's spine.
05:42He could not even begin to imagine how something like this was possible.
05:46At that moment, everything went silent around him.
05:50The wind stopped.
05:51The sound of birds disappeared.
05:53Mark slowly raised his head and looked around.
05:56Just then, hyenas began emerging one by one from the bushes.
06:00The lioness growled at them, but the hyenas did not even pay attention.
06:05Moments later, dozens of hyenas had completely surrounded Mark and the lions.
06:09At the center of it all, the largest hyena with the coldest eyes slowly bared its teeth at Mark.
06:16It was a sneer directed at a human.
06:18The hyena, who appeared to be the leader, seemed to have turned Mark's own plan against him and set a
06:24trap.
06:25Mark finally realized, fully and completely, that he had been lured.
06:30But no matter how he thought about it, he could not make sense of it.
06:34No, he refused to accept it.
06:37Two hours earlier, when the hyena that had swallowed the GPS capsule returned to the pack,
06:42it was met by the leader's suspicious gaze.
06:45The returning hyena's eyes were glazed and its movements were sluggish.
06:49It seemed dazed, as if under some kind of spell, and kept retching over and over.
06:55The leader watched it in silence for a while, then walked over to a patch of grass and pulled up
07:01a specific plant.
07:02It was a plant known on the savanna for inducing vomiting.
07:06After being forced to eat it, the hyena curled up and began to vomit.
07:11The leader crouched in front of it and stared at the ground.
07:15Among the vomited contents, a red light was blinking.
07:19The leader slowly prodded it with its paw, then raised its head and looked at the hyena.
07:25The leader's eyes were filled with rage.
07:28With that same rage-filled gaze, the leader snapped the throat of the hyena that had returned carrying the GPS.
07:36The hyena fell to the ground without making a single sound and died.
07:40The leader sensed that the lioness, the mother of the lion cub, and a human were heading this way together.
07:47It could not stay still.
07:49The leader glanced at the lion cub.
07:51If it used the lion cub well, it seemed like it could create a perfect opportunity to deal with both
07:58the lioness and the human at once.
08:01The leader ordered the hyenas to dig a small hole.
08:04The GPS capsule was buried inside, and the lion cub was placed on top of it.
08:09The hyenas made sure to threaten the lion cub so it could not move.
08:14The frightened lion cub froze in place and cried, and the entire pack buried themselves deep in the surrounding bushes,
08:22waiting for Mark and the lioness to arrive.
08:25Surrounded by the hyena pack, Mark took out his radio and called for emergency rescue, but there was no response.
08:32Even so, he could not die like this.
08:34He had to find a way out somehow.
08:36Mark knew that hyenas were extremely sensitive to smell.
08:40He quickly grabbed a bottle of disinfectant from his bag and sprayed it in a circle on the ground around
08:46him.
08:46As the powerful chemicals drifted through the air, the hyenas wrinkled their noses and stepped back one by one.
08:53It was working.
08:55But then, the leader, who had been watching from a distance, slowly walked toward the water's edge.
09:02It buried its nose deep into the mud.
09:05The soft mud filled its nostrils and blocked out the smell of the powerful chemicals.
09:10The leader had found a way to shut out the scent.
09:13As the leader coated its nose with mud, the other hyenas began doing the same, one by one.
09:20Moments later, the hyenas with mud-packed noses began advancing toward Mark without hesitation.
09:26The leader's strategy had worked again.
09:29Cold sweat ran down Mark's forehead, but there was no time to hesitate.
09:33Mark quickly grabbed an alcohol bottle from his bag, stuffed a piece of gauze into the opening, and made a
09:40firebomb.
09:41His plan was to set the area ablaze, drive the hyenas into one direction, and use the gap to escape.
09:48Mark lit the firebomb and hurled it toward the hyenas with all his strength.
09:52As it hit the ground and erupted in flames, the hyena pack lurched to one side.
09:57Mark threw another, then another.
09:59The hyenas, scrambling to avoid the fire, were pushed in one direction, and an opening began to form on the
10:05other side.
10:06The panicked hyenas stumbled around in confusion.
10:09This was the last chance.
10:10Mark held the lion cub against his chest and prepared to run in the opposite direction, counting silently to himself.
10:17One, two, three.
10:20But at that very moment, something fell on the tip of his nose.
10:24Mark looked up at the sky.
10:25Rain.
10:26At the most unbelievable moment, raindrops began to fall from the sky.
10:31The drops turned into a heavy downpour in an instant, and the flames that had been protecting Mark and the
10:37lions went out all at once.
10:39The eyes of the rain-soaked hyenas began to glow.
10:42The leader threw its head back and let out a long howl, as if the sky itself was on its
10:48side.
10:49The hyenas all tensed, ready to rush at Mark and the lions at once.
10:53Mark had no cards left to play.
10:55The lioness had already given up, it seemed, lying flat on the ground with the lion cub pulled tightly to
11:01her chest.
11:02Mark looked at the lions once, then slowly closed his eyes.
11:07At that very moment, a mechanical sound broke through the noise of the rain.
11:11Mark slowly opened his eyes and looked toward the sound.
11:14A massive rescue helicopter was cutting through the downpour toward them.
11:18Even the hyenas seemed startled, frozen in place, staring up at the helicopter.
11:23Then, dozens of blank rounds were fired from the helicopter.
11:27The thunderous noise swallowed the sound of the rain, and the hyenas all flinched at once.
11:33The leader took one last long look at Mark, as if reluctant to leave.
11:38Then it turned and began running deep into the savannah.
11:42As the leader fled, dozens of hyenas disappeared into the rain after it.
11:47Mark sank to the ground where he stood, and for a long time, could not get up.
11:53He sat there, soaked by the falling rain.
11:56Shortly after, a rescue worker came running over and checked on Mark's condition,
12:00explaining how they had been able to find him.
12:02Mark's colleague Kate had happened to notice that Mark's GPS signal had gone outside the managed zone
12:09and reported it to the hospital director, who then contacted the head of the ranger station,
12:14with whom he was personally acquainted, and requested an emergency deployment.
12:19It was a colleague's small act of attention, not turning away from a single signal on a screen,
12:25that had saved Mark's life.
12:27Meanwhile, on the other side, veterinarians were checking on the lions.
12:32The lioness and the lion cub were fortunately in good health.
12:36Aside from a few minor scrapes, the vets determined that after brief first aid,
12:41they could return to the wild right away.
12:44A moment later, through the heavy rain, Mark and the lioness locked eyes.
12:49Her gaze held a depth of gratitude that no words could express.
12:53After looking at Mark for a long while, the lioness and the lion cub quietly turned their backs
12:58and began walking toward the savannah.
13:01Even as they walked away, the lion cub looked back at Mark several times.
13:05It seemed as though the lion cub was saying goodbye and thank you.
13:10Mark watched the backs of the lion family in silence for a long, long time, and he thought,
13:16it would be a lie to say today's choice had not been frightening.
13:20To Mark, the savannah was always a place of wonder, but also of fear.
13:25Even so, if the same situation came again, he knew he would make the same choice.
13:31He made that promise to himself, and also promised that if he were born again,
13:35he would once again be a veterinarian on this savannah.
13:39Today, somehow, the sun of the savannah seemed to shine brightly through the falling rain.
13:58Today, somehow, the sun of the savannah.
Comments