My nerves were utterly shot, for the past week that jaguar had interrupted my sleep, keeping me awake out of fear, twice now it had confronted me in the daytime, each time slinking off into the forest the moment my hand went to my machete.

It was unnerving. And each day I was more jumpy than the last, and above all the lack of sleep was making me highly irritable, then again that may have just been because of the sunburn.

Today I'd decided I'd had enough and had deliberately slept through the entire day in preparation for the arrival of my nocturnal bane. The sunburn would drive me nearly insane tomorrow but if I succeeded it would be worth it.

As dusk hit I dropped from halfway up the tree into a crouch, then I went to the torches and lit them, I also had 2 unlit torches which I would light when my feline opponent turned up. The machete through my belt along with the torches, and the weight of my other weapon at my hip all that remained was to grab a spear from the perimeter and wait.

As the torches burnt out I stood with my back to one of the two trees within my encampment, this wasn't what I'd hoped for, without the light of the torches my spear was useless, and as a spear was a 2 handed weapon, the small torches through my belt were useless. Annoyed I tossed the spear aside, watching with disinterest as it rolled into the dark and out of my field of vision.

I lit one of the torches at my belt and removed the machete, if the jaguar kept to it's schedule it would be along within 10 minutes.

Sure enough around 5 minutes later I saw the amber light reflecting eyes of the jaguar come into view, seeing as the jaguar was black it's eyes were the only clearly visible part of it's body outside the field of light projected by the torch.

The eyes dropped a centimetre or two, I held the machete out in front of me in my left hand while I held the torch to my right, I wasn't very good at using two weapons in concert so things were likely to get very dangerous, very quickly.

It leapt. The only warning I got was that the eyes were going towards me with a speed and power I would compare with a freight train, then again I was probably biased.

As it came crashing back to earth I sliced at it with machete, shallowly cutting it in one of the forelegs, this was why I'd wanted the spear, jaguars had been known to be fatally wounded and still kill their attacker before succumbing to the wound, with a spear you could both wound it and ground it so it was slower with the spear dragging.

This series of events continued repeatedly, every now and then one of its paws would catch me knocking me flying and causing deep claw wounds where it caught. Each time I rolled to me feet before it could turn and follow up on the attack.

Nether the less I was slowly tiring, while the big cat before me showed no such sign. Realising that if this continued I would lose – the victim of blood loss and exhaustion – I changed tactics.

Instead of using the machete on the next jump I struck out with the burning torch, the jaguar hissed as it tried to dodge in the air, I could smell burnt hair.

Now at last the big cat was wary, instead of the relentless series of leaps we now circled each other looking for an opening, every now and then I would lash out with the torch careful not to overextend and overbalance, nothing was happening, as time lagged on the pain of my wounds begin to override my currently adrenaline ruled existence.

The tension in the air slowly increased as neither side actually attacked each other, content with merely waiting for a sign that the other was finished, blood greased the skin of both of us like sweat.

Finally I'd had enough of waiting, slowly careful not to let my guard down in my tired, light-headed, adrenaline fuelled state, I backed my way to the boundary of my camp and putting the machete through my belt, I took a spear from the many facing outwards into the endless green of the Amazon.

It was awkward holding the spear in one hand and my wrist soon ached, I advanced upon my night-time tormentor.

In a single swift movement I threw the burning torch at the jaguar using the momentum of the swing to get a grip on the spear. I ran forwards taking advantage of my foe's momentary distraction and thrust the spear into it's chest, sliding between the ribs and piercing the heart. Strangely it was only now that things would be really dangerous. I jammed the butt of the spear into the ground and held it – if I let go it would be upon me in an instant. Eventually the jaguar stopped moving, relieved I let go of the spear, I was injured, bleeding, sunburned to the point of being a microwave TV dinner and hurting all over, but I was alive; and I felt alive, adrenaline was almost saturating my mind, I felt wonderful , I felt invincible, I felt... the adrenaline ran out, I tried to take a step towards the trees and collapsed.

I felt terrible, surely I must be dying, no creature could survive this! I was in agony. I slowly crawled to the trees and then collapsed once more.

I felt light headed as the blood loss became apparent to my aching brain.

When I finally fell asleep, sure that I would never wake again, I counted it as a mercy.

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Author's Note: For the few people reading this, don't worry I'm not killing him off. Also any chance of a review?