Every day, without exception, a seventy-year-old retiree would walk into the same butcher shop and order exactly 40 kilos of beef.
The butcher, intrigued by such a huge order, decided he had to find out what the woman was doing with so much meat. What he discovered next was beyond his imagination.
She was short, with a hunched back, always wrapped in the same worn coat. Her deeply wrinkled hands trembled slightly as she pushed a metal cart covered in dents and rust.
„40 kilos… just like always,” she murmured as she handed over a neatly arranged wad of bills.
The young butcher weighed those mountains of meat in silence, unable to hide his amazement. 40 kilos. Every day.
At first, he thought he had to feed a huge family; but as the weeks passed, he realized that routine never changed.
The woman spoke only when necessary, never raised her eyes, and carried with her a strange, almost metallic smell, as if surrounded by a cloud of rust and decay.
Soon, rumors spread through the market:
„They say she has an army of hungry dogs.”
„No, no… I heard she runs a secret soup kitchen.”
„Maybe she’s filling a giant freezer for the winter.”
The butcher tried to ignore the gossip, but curiosity eventually got the better of him. Until one freezing night, he decided to follow her.
He waited for her to leave the store and began walking at a distance, while she pulled the heavy cart through snow-covered streets.
She moved slowly but with a clear direction, toward the outskirts of the city. They passed a row of abandoned garages and stopped in front of a ruined factory, closed for more than ten years.
The woman slipped inside, swallowed by the darkness, disappearing into the ruined aisles with her mysterious cargo.
Twenty-four minutes later, she came out again… with the cart completely empty.
And the next day, the same scene.
And the next.
On the third night, the butcher couldn’t avoid it any longer and followed her in.
The air was thick and sticky; the stench of blood, iron, and something animal burned her throat. Then she heard a low, deep roar that stopped her heart.
She peered through a crack in the wall and her world stopped.
In that immense warehouse stood four enormous lions; their golden eyes glowed like burning coals in the gloom.
The floor was littered with bones.
And in a corner, sitting in a worn armchair, the old woman stroked the head of one of them and whispered:
„Calm down, my treasures… soon you’ll have another battle… people will come to admire you…”
The butcher retreated in terror.
One of the lions roared and the entire building shook.
The woman turned around, her expression fierce.
„What are you doing here?” she growled, her voice no longer sounding human.
The man fled in terror and called the police.
When the officers arrived, the truth finally came out:
That woman had been a zoologist. And when the city zoo closed, she took the lions to „save them from starvation.”
But over time, her mission went awry: desperation—and ambition—turned her sacrifice into something completely different…