He opened his eyes to see a blurry blue sky above him. The ground he was laying on was soft and cool. Sitting up he looked around. Off in the distance there was some sort of large plant forest. To his right was a small lake with a river flowing out of it. Beneath him was a soft sand deposit.

Where am I? How’d I get here? Looking down, Why the fuck am I naked? Whose knife is this? He reaches in between his legs and pulls the metallic knife out of the ground. The blade glistened in the setting sun with a green tint. The straight blade was six inches long with a hooked point and serrated ridge near the hand guard. The handle was wrapped with some sort of hide.

Admiring the blade he never noticed the low growl coming from the tall grass-like plant behind him. With a hackle-cough the creature leaped. The man turned toward the sound and rolled to the side when he saw a large animal coming for him. Turning to face the creature he noticed that the stomach area was caved in from starvation. A dangerous creature then. Too dangerous to fight with nothing more than a simple knife.

The cat like creature skidded in the sand and came to a stop with its rear right paw in the lake’s water. It dropped its belly to the ground and prepared to pounce once more. The muscles tightened in preparation. The man looked at his death.

CRUNCH!

The cat like animal disappeared as a large fanged jaw clamped over it. The new fearsome head retreated into the water with it’s prey. The man crab crawled backwards, the knife still in his hands.

SNAP!

A twig broke in the grass. He turned around only to see his true fate. Another, larger cat animal had stalked up on him. With a hackle-cough the cat swung with amazing speed his massive front paw. Head flew from body and the animal had supper for the first time in a long time.

The green humanoid looked down at the computer read-out. Another dismal failure. That made four of the six picked dead. The other two were on the way to death but not yet there. Another harvest would be needed soon. The experiment must be completed, if not, he wouldn’t graduate.