Joanna was a free goanna, and... well, she didn't know what to do. She had watched from the sidelines in Crocodile Falls as her former master went over the waterfall to his doom, while she swam over to a nearby rock and meekly waved goodbye. A part of her wanted to feel bad, but after all the abuse he'd hurled at her, the lizard found it quite hard to muster anything up. So instead, she got the heck out of there and back to the forest; her natural habitat before she figuratively signed her life away to serve that human and his vile schemes.

Not that Joanna was any better, of course, but that's just how she was. He, on the other hand, had no excuse to toss her around and yell at her all the time over things that weren't even her fault.

As she lounged in a tree, one hind leg dangling while her teal scales absorbed the humid Australian air, a rustling caught her attention, and one piercing red eye opened as it scanned the vicinity. With a sly flick of her tongue, she went down and over to the tall grass, ready to pounce on what could only be her next meal.

However, when a crocodile poked its leathery snout through the grass, Joanna's already cold blood ran colder. She let out a frightened screech and made a run for it. The croc gave chase, relentlessly snapping at her, but she was able to avoid each lunge until it managed to nab her tail, which made another cry of pain sear through the goanna's throat. She tried to wrench herself out without ripping her tail off, only to be whipped around and around before she was flung from its mighty jaws smack-bang into a tree, instantly going out like a light.

...

Joanna's eyes blearily opened as she took in her surroundings - she wasn't dead, which was a surprise. But she wasn't in the forest anymore. Instead she was in a large, cozy terrarium in some sort of laboratory. Not a truck like his. This place felt safer. And her tail had been patched up with gauze, same with one leg and her chest.

He never would've done this for her, so... who did? Who saved her?