It was after me.

I had no idea about who or what it was, but it was chasing me. And from its frequent snarling, I narrowed down my guesses to it being an extremely hungry animal. I tried speeding but ended up tripping over a fallen branch and went rolling down. I made a hard landing at the foot of the hill, brushed up the mud and looked up to discover the mystery of my predator. There it was, standing under an old Oak tree at the cliff. Its roots clutched onto the hill like a fist with its fingers sunk deep into the soil. There under the wise ancient Oak stood my predator with its head held high before the beautiful golden setting sun. Initially I could see a blurry outline, and as it moved forward right up to the edge, a clear image formed. Never had I seen such a ferocious looking animal before. A loud piercing howl echoed through the vast emptiness that lay ahead of me. A slight shudder ran down my spine and my legs went numb.

It was a huge intimidating wolf with shabby gray fur and sharp blood covered canines which were highlighted by the magnificent rays of the sun. His strong thick tail added to the fearsome appearance, and his evil green eyes shook me to the core. He leaped down and charged towards me with great force. I had no intention of ending up on his dinner plate and so I ran. Gathering all the energy that surprisingly remained in me, I ran from him as fast as I could, occasionally looking back to see if he was still after me. From the tremendously determined look in his eyes, I could tell that he wasn’t giving up on this chase soon.

I ran for what seemed like hours, and then I just couldn’t take it anymore. I could hardly feel my hind limbs and my hands were badly bruised with deep cuts from the thorny bushes that I encountered on the way. I collapsed on to the soft grass in the meadow. I looked behind me, ready to face death, and I was confused to find the wolf coming to a sudden stop. He crouched down with a strange frightened look on his face. I got up, very proud that he was scared of me and had finally given up. I turned around to take a look, and apparently it wasn’t me that he was scared of. There right behind me stood a lion. Judging by his huge mane and conceited posture it must have been an Alpha male. It pounced on the wolf and before my brain could register much of what was taking place, it ran away dragging the yelping wolf along with it.

I was safe, at least for the time being. I sighed in relief as I got up to find where exactly I was. There was no one around. Not a single human or house was in sight of my exhausted watery eyes. I walked on without a clue about where I was headed for. I walked on and on until I found myself face to face with a dark forest. The thought of having to spend my night there didn’t exactly comfort me, as God knows how many dangerous creatures there were lurching in that immense density of trees. But the chances of finding a nice comfortable bed here were quite low and so I settled for the moist forest floor.

The sun’s morning rays hit my tightly shut eyelids and woke me up from my deep sleep. After a few lazy minutes passed and I had woken up completely, I looked around to get a better view of my temporary shelter. All that I could see were trees, and I was definitely not going to go in there to explore further. After a few hours of tireless wandering for breakfast, I gave up and settled for some juicy red mango-like fruit which seemed to grow on creepers everywhere. I was still healthy and alive after 3 hours which meant that it didn’t kill, and it also meant that I had found my lunch and dinner for the meanwhile too.

After a week or so, I was assured that the place was uninhabited. Luckily I found my way back to the open meadows. Unluckily when I reached there, a pride of lions was resting close to 10 feet away from me and judging from their salivating mouths and desperate focused eyes, I must have looked like a delicious chunk of meat roaming around and teasing their senses. The male lion got up, smacked his lips and stretched his limbs as I clenched my fists in defense and took gradual steps back as silently as anyone possibly could. His eyes met mine as he took position for pouncing on his target – me.

That was when suddenly 2 people caught me and pulled me back as another person tackled the starving cat by distracting it with pieces of meat. The others dragged me into their jeep and we escaped. Once we were at a safe distance from the lions, they explained to me who they were and how they found me. I had completely forgotten about the tracking device which was in my bag which I probably lost during the wolf hunt. They had searched the nearby area and fortunately they found me at the right time. My partner, Colin Hunt, had sent them to look for me when he didn’t receive any signals from me for quite some time. Colin and I were working on a wildlife project in this area and just like always curiosity had got the better of me and I ended up in big trouble by getting lost.

After a short journey of an hour, I was back at the camp in one complete piece. Glad to be sleeping on a bed rather than the itchy forest floor, I cuddled up in a warm blanket and dozed off to sleep at once, preparing myself for another day of adventure.