Where the Tiger Waits

In a quiet village surrounded by deep forest, lived a widow named Amara and her two children — Rafi, her 10-year-old son, and Lina, her 14-year-old daughter.

After the sudden death of her husband, Amara raised her children with quiet strength, working in the fields by day and telling stories by candlelight at night. But nothing could stop the grief that settled into their little home like fog.

Until one night, something changed.

It was a full moon when Lina wandered toward the edge of the jungle, barefoot and drawn by something she couldn’t explain. Grief had made her restless, distant. Rafi had cried when their father died. Amara had screamed. But Lina… had gone silent.

That night, she found herself staring into glowing amber eyes.

A tiger.

Not attacking. Not growling. Just… watching.

Frozen, Lina expected fear. But what came was a strange peace. The tiger blinked slowly, then turned, disappearing into the trees.

She returned home and said nothing.

The next night, she went again. And the next. Soon, Lina and the tiger had formed a secret ritual. She would sit near a large stone at the forest’s edge, and the tiger would come. Sometimes close enough to touch. Sometimes just near enough to feel his presence.

She named him Azaan — meaning “a call,” because somehow, he felt like one. A call to feel again. A call to be alive.

Amara noticed the change. Lina was eating again. Smiling sometimes. She didn’t know why, but she was grateful. Until Rafi followed his sister one night and saw it for himself.

He screamed when he saw the tiger, and Lina had to hold him back, whispering, “He won’t hurt us. He never has.”

But Amara was furious when Rafi told her.

“You’re risking your lives for an animal?” she shouted.

Lina’s voice was steady. “He’s not just an animal. He’s the only one who listened when I couldn’t speak.”

Amara didn’t understand. Until one evening, she followed them both. She stood behind a tree as her daughter sat quietly and the tiger approached, slow and majestic.

And then she saw it.

The way the tiger sat beside her daughter like a silent guardian. The way Lina leaned against him like she would’ve leaned against her father. The way Rafi, once scared, now looked at the animal with wonder.

Amara’s heart ached. Not in fear, but in surrender.

Months passed.

The tiger became part of their lives, though always at the edge — a presence in the background of healing. Lina would bring food scraps. Rafi would draw him in his notebook. Amara, one day, even whispered a prayer for him.

But forests are never safe forever.

One day, men came from the city with cages and rifles. They said a tiger had attacked livestock in a neighboring village. They didn’t care to ask which tiger.

That night, Lina heard a gunshot echo through the trees.

She ran.

She found Azaan, limping, wounded but alive. His amber eyes were dull, breathing shallow. She fell to her knees, sobbing.

“Please don’t leave me too.”

Amara and Rafi arrived minutes later. Amara dropped beside her daughter, her hand shaking as she touched the tiger’s fur.

Rafi took off his sweater and pressed it gently to the bleeding wound. “We have to help him,” he said firmly.

And they did.

For days, the family nursed the tiger in secret, using herbs, cleaning his wounds, keeping him hidden.

He healed slowly. But he stayed. Not out of pain — out of love.

Years later, the village would whisper about the girl who walked beside a tiger.

Some said she was cursed.

Others said she was blessed.

But no one dared harm them.

Because Azaan was not just a tiger anymore.

He was family.

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