Breathing: Short, quick pants.

Eyes: Wild.

Location: Under a bush.

Position: Sitting. Completely still.

Hopes for the future: Survival.

Something large is close. He can hear it sniffing. Hopefully, it has not seen him. Hopefully, it has not scented him. But the rustling of leaves under its paws is coming closer. He tenses his back legs, ready to spring as soon as it sticks its head under the bush. He hears it stop. Snif snif snuffling. Not yet, not yet. The jaws would get him in a flash.

Then a black snout appears between the leaves and he pounces, digging the claws of his front paws into the damp black thing. A loud

“Yiip!”

From the thing and he is off in the opposite direction. But the big red being of teeth and claws quickly recovers and it is after him already. He zigzags between the molehills and his pursuer skids in the loose dirt granting him a few extra moments.

He is so close to home now, but the predator is snapping at his heels again, and then he sees it: Home, safety, a hole in the ground. He leaps, the killer snaps, he loses a tuft of hair from his tail and tumbling into the tunnel, he keeps running with the sound of the killer scratching at the earth behind him.

Deep in his burrow, he trembles, still experiencing the aftershock, but, and with the thought his heartbeat slows a little, he lives to run another day.