After I started working at the zoo, I was added to a group chat called “A Hundred Ways to Kill a Human.” Every member had an animal as their profile picture. At first, I thought it was some quirky staff group. I even found it kind of cute.

That was, until I realized they were discussing how to eat me.

Pedro the Parrot: [The new human has beautiful eyes. I can’t wait till Christmas. I want to peck them out right now!]

George the Gorilla: [Relax. There’ll be many visitors during Christmas. We’ll have more eyeballs than we can eat! Also, I’m calling dibs on her thigh.]

Thor the Tiger: [Nobody’s taking her head, right? That’s mine.]

Tucker the Elephant: [I’m a vegetarian, but I can crush her bones to dust.]

After I started working at the zoo, I was added to a group chat called “A Hundred Ways to Kill a Human.” Every member had an animal as their profile picture. At first, I thought it was some quirky staff group. I even found it kind of cute.

That was, until I realized they were discussing how to eat me.

Pedro the Parrot: [The new human has beautiful eyes. I can’t wait till Christmas. I want to peck them out right now!]

George the Gorilla: [Relax. There’ll be many visitors during Christmas. We’ll have more eyeballs than we can eat! Also, I’m calling dibs on her thigh.]

Thor the Tiger: [Nobody’s taking her head, right? That’s mine.]

Tucker the Elephant: [I’m a vegetarian, but I can crush her bones to dust.]

My fingers trembled. Slowly, I lifted my gaze toward the elephant enclosure—the area I was assigned to.

An elderly elephant was staring straight at me. Its eyes were dull and cold, filled with fatigue and resentment. Its massive body was covered in cracked, dry mud. Flies swarmed around it, and it looked like it hadn’t bathed in ages.

We locked eyes, and a chill ran down my spine. What on earth was that group chat?

When I looked down again, the chat had gone silent.

“Hey, newbie! Get to work!” my coworker snapped.

He walked into the enclosure with visible disgust, grabbed the hose, and sprayed the elephants roughly. They backed away, clearly unwilling to let him near.

“You useless beasts,” he cursed. “I’m so sick of taking care of you. Get over here!”

The elephants didn’t move, so he threw the hose on the ground. “Fine, stay filthy! See if I care.”

He stepped out of the enclosure and turned to me. “I’m done here. Don’t forget to prep their feed later, but don’t bother too much either. They barely eat anyway. What a waste of money.”

Then, he left.

Every elephant glared at him as he walked away, especially the old one, its cloudy eyes full of rage.

My phone buzzed again.

Tucker the Elephant: [When Christmas comes, I’ll be the first to crush Hose Guy. Then, I’ll crush all the humans.]

Ellie the Elephant: [Let me stomp on them too, Dad!]

Chuck the Seal: [Christmas means lots of humans! If we riot at that time, we can kill so many of them!]

Kingsley the Monkey: [Hose Guy deserves to die. The new girl probably sucks, too. I’ll throw a rock at her head to see how she likes it!]

I blinked in shock and instinctively looked around. Suddenly, with a whoosh, a rock the size of an egg flew past my ear, missing by inches. My knees almost gave out.

On the monkey hill not far away, a monkey was standing upright, baring its teeth at me. The moment it saw me look, it scratched its chest and grinned, pretending innocence.

I swallowed hard. I was sure of it now that the group chat was full of animals.

I stood frozen, completely stunned. Those animals… Did they hate humans that much? And they were planning a revolt on Christmas?

After hesitating for a while, I finally stepped into the elephant enclosure and began my work. All the elephants watched me with blank, emotionless eyes.

As I moved, I tried to focus on cleaning while my mind spun with questions.

The place was in terrible shape. The enclosures—both inside and out—were piled with dung, and the stench was overwhelming. The artificial stream and pool, once built for the elephants to play in, were now black and stagnant. The faucet on the fake rock wall hadn’t produced a drop of water in ages.

Even animals cared about cleanliness, especially intelligent ones like elephants. I couldn’t imagine how miserable they must have been, living in conditions like this.

I scrubbed and shoveled hard, hauling mound after mound of dung out of the enclosure and scouring the food troughs that hadn’t been cleaned in days. By noon, I’d only finished about seventy percent of the job, but the elephant enclosure already looked worlds better.

I didn’t stop there. I ran to prepare their feed next, only to find the supplies painfully sparse. There were mostly palm fronds and some dry, brittle hay. There weren’t even vegetables, let alone fruit.

“Is this all the elephants eat?” I asked the woman working next to me. “The zoo isn’t short on funds, right?”

“I wouldn’t know. I feed the capybaras. Their food’s worse,” she said hurriedly before rushing off.

I pressed my lips together and grabbed as many bundles of hay and leaves as I could carry back to the elephants. When I returned, the group chat chimed.

Ellie the Elephant: [She worked so hard cleaning that I thought she might be a good human. But as it turns out, she’s just like the others, feeding us dry hay!]

Benny the Elephant: [I’m so hungry. I want papaya. It’s been ages since I had papaya. Boohoo…]

North the Polar Bear: [Stop crying. I ate rotten fish today. At least a pile of hay would’ve been better.]

I hesitated for a second, then dumped the feed into the enclosure. The elephants shuffled over, eating with hollow, weary looks. There was only grief and resentment in their eyes. The old elephant didn’t come near. Instead, it lay down and stared blankly outside the enclosure as if lost in thought.

While they ate, I bolted to my car, drove to the nearest supermarket, and cleared out the produce section. Mangosteens, apples, bananas, papayas, cabbage—I bought as much as I could and had the store deliver the rest to the zoo.

Before long, the feed room was piled high with fresh produce. My coworkers stared in disbelief, but I ignored them, hauled three full baskets of fruit and vegetables, and took them to the elephant enclosure.

When the fresh produce hit the floor, the elephants froze. They had been chewing on dry, tasteless hay and sour leaves. They clearly hadn’t expected anything like this.

“Eat! There’s plenty,” I urged, tossing a mangosteen toward the old elephant.

It didn’t react at first. As the fruit hit the ground and cracked open, white flesh spilling like jelly and smelling sweet, the old elephant stared at it. Then, it slowly curled its trunk around the mangosteen and examined it as if it couldn’t believe such a thing existed. Finally, it looked at me.

“Go on. Try it. It’s sweet,” I encouraged.

Its mouth watered, and in a blur, it scooped the whole mangosteen into its mouth. For the first time, I saw contentment and something like gratitude on an animal’s face. The others went wild, devouring the produce like they’d been starved for years. I ran back and forth three more times with baskets until the chaos subsided.

Meanwhile, the chat exploded.

Ellie the Elephant: [Dad, I got an apple! It’s so sweet. I’m tearing up!]

Benny the Elephant: [Wow, cabbage and papaya. They’re my favorite!]

Pedro the Parrot: [What’s all this yapping? I got slapped by a zookeeper again today. It’s been fifty-six days since I wanted to peck that human’s eyes out!]

Thor the Tiger: [Stupid elephants. Remember, every bit of human kindness hides a hunter’s rifle.]

Kingsley the Monkey: [Hey, what occasion are you guys celebrating? Toss a banana over here!]

I read the message and looked up at the monkey hill. Kingsley the Monkey and a big gang of monkeys were scratching their ears and chattering, all of them staring at the elephant enclosure. Many monkeys stretched out their hands, hoping an elephant would fling a banana their way, but the elephants ignored them and kept eating.

I grabbed a banana and hurled it toward the hill. Kingsley the Monkey leaped up and snatched it midair, already chewing before his feet hit the ground. He looked like he hadn’t eaten in days.

The monkey troop howled and squealed, begging me for more bananas. My hands were only so fast, so I tossed as many as I could. The whole hill rattled with noise like a little festival, and with the commotion from the elephant enclosure, that corner of the zoo suddenly felt alive.

Animals from nearby enclosures crowded to watch, and they filled the air with a nonstop chorus of chirps, squawks, and bleats. Luckily, the zoo was quiet today, with almost no visitors. Otherwise, anyone passing by would have been terrified.

The truth was, Sunnyside Zoo had been quiet for years, and the main reason was the stench. It smelled really bad. The whole place reeked of animal waste, and on top of that, many of the animals looked listless or openly hostile. No wonder people stopped coming.

In fact, only the holiday season drew a trickle of visitors. However, if the animals rioted on Christmas, that would be a disaster. Visitors would be at huge risk, and the animals would likely be shot.

I checked the calendar at that moment, realizing it was seven days until Christmas.

While I worried, conversation filled the group chat.

Ellie the Elephant: [That was delicious! I finally had a proper meal. She’s a good human!]

Kingsley the Monkey: [I agree. The way she tossed that banana is burned into my memory. My butt’s tingling!]

Wendy the Capybara: [Hey, guys. Last week, I found a rotten orange that was tasty, but it just crossed my mind to share the joy today.]

Thor the Tiger: [Interesting. That human really knows how to win beasts over. When I go out, I’ll be the first to kill her!]

Wait. Tiger, are you serious? That wasn’t right.

Then, a different voice spoke up in the chat, a voice I didn’t expect.

Benny the Elephant: [Thor the Tiger, that human is truly kind. Don’t hurt her.]

Thor the Tiger: [Kid, you’ll learn when you’re my age that human kindness often hides a loaded gun.]

Wendy the Capybara: [All these messages are making me sleepy. I’m going to take a nap.]

Kingsley the Monkey: [I think we should keep observing. Thor the Tiger, don’t be impulsive.]

Thor the Tiger: [Hmph.]

It was like a tiger’s roar echoed through the group, and the chat went quiet.

I shook my head and kept working. Normally, we could take a lunch break, but there was too much to do in the elephant enclosure. The urgent task was to restore running water. Without it, bacteria would breed, and the elephants would fall ill.

I spent two hours tracking down the person in charge and slipped him two hundred dollars. Finally, he opened the water valve for the elephant enclosure. From the fake-rock cave, a clear stream began to rush, water from the tap gushed down the rocks into the creek, and the flow swept toward the pool. In a few hours, the dirty water would drain away, and the elephants’ lives would be a little better.

The enclosure erupted. Excited calves raised their trunks and trumpeted, while bold elephants jumped into the stream without hesitation, splashing even though the water was cold.

On the monkey hill, Kingsley the Monkey craned his neck and shouted, “Oh-ho! Oh-ho!”