I wake up in a tree just like any other day. I stretch my long limbs and jump nimbly down to the forest floor, yawning. I gnaw the cold remains of yesterdays kill, fatty meat wrapped in strange fur and blue hide. It isn't a preferable flavour, but food is hard to come by. I walk through the bushes, ever wary but full and content. Yet there is never a time not to be on the hunt. I look around and smell the air - something isn't right.

For the rest of the morning I roam. I can hear the two-legged beasts thrashing through the forest. I avoid them. It is not hard. But as I cross my territory there they are, and I go back, and there they are again. North, South. East, West. Every time I turn away I find them sooner and sooner - thrashing, yelling, exuding powerful odours that assault my senses and threaten to drown out the harmony of my territory.

I don't understand revenge. When an animal is beaten, it will resign itself to death even if it had some small strength left. There is no fear once it is resigned. There is no hatred for the killer, just as a hunter does not hate his prey. I look around and listen for a break to escape the tightening circle. If I were desperately hungry I would steal one of the two legged beasts and drag it away from its fellows, as I did the day before. Or if I could catch one alone I would kill it peacefully from behind. Is this how it feels to be hunted? But I am not hunted. I have tasted one of these beasts. I know that they do not eat tigers.

A sound - I look. I see dark eyes, green clothes, a man. Not thrashing, not yelling. Silent. In his hand, long and dark. Something bites me. I run, and I run. I am not tired but my body begins to fall asleep. I will it on, on, I am alive, I am not beaten, I am still afraid. I haven't resigned myself to die here. But my legs collapse, I breathe deeply. My eyes close. I do not understand.