Lion

Lion was found, completely abandoned, in a snowbank not too far from the laboratory. While Lace and the other scientists were worried about security when his presumed clan first started to encroach on the frigid wilderness near the Fortress, it was not long before the telltale fire smoke ceased to rise into the sky and never returned. An Enforcer was sent to determine the cause of the cessation, expecting to find frozen corpses or an abandoned campsite but instead finding the stark white ice smeared with shockingly red blood.

Lion alone had survived without fleeing, too young to tell the tale and half-buried in the snow, surprisingly well camouflaged in the grisly red-and-white scene. If he had suffered at all over the days he had likely spent alone and cold in the frigid wastes, he showed no sign of it, happily greeting his new savior.

He was carted back to the Laboratory and there was squabbling over what to do with the seemingly normal but likely traumatized hatchling until one scientist spoke up, assuring the room that the hatchling had an unnatural energy about him, and more than likely belonged in amongst their subjects. No one voiced the question of whether the small blood-red Snapper had been involved in his own clan's demise. His generally docile, agreeable demeanor earned him his freedom to move about the other hatchlings, albeit with careful surveillance. After a few weeks, one of the Caretakers first reported to the scientists that the liquid level clearly visible in his belly was slowly draining--and that they had been entirely unable to get him to eat.

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Featured on the front page Nov 30, 2020