My eyes could see miles and miles of the Sahara desert ahead. The desert was a sandy dust bowl that seemed like it would never end.I drank the last sip of water an hour ago. The only object that I had was a foot long sword. Maybe once every four hours I could feel the breeze hitting my face and taste the grainy texture of the sand blowing into my mouth. After about a day my face was dry and I was parched. Then I saw a cactus and screamed, “Cactus juice!”. My feet had broken into a light jog and soon enough I had reached the prickly fruit. Once again the leather hold of the sword felt rough in my hand. As I cut the cactus in half I pulled out six canteens to refill. Once the canteens were refilled, I drank the juice. It tasted like a disarrayed mix of water and salt. Once I filled them up again, fell asleep in the starry night of the Sahara.

As I slowly opened my eyes in the morning, the first sound I heard was a loud “Sssssssss”. My instincts told me to run like the wind. When I looked up, there was a snake as big as a boulder. I was breathing hard as I ran away. The snake made a long leap and caught on to my leg. I could feel the wet skin lock on to me. The snake was slippery but it was crawling up my body slowly. My first idea was to pour cactus juice down my back. The idea failed and the snake bit me, just as I stabbed my sword into him. At the time, I didn’t know the snake was poisonous so I poured two canteens of cactus juice on my wound. My last words before I went into a somber sleep were “Thank god I’m okay”.

As soon as I woke up and took some sips of cactus juice, I realized the snake wasn’t poisonous because I was still alive. Then my next thought was in ten miles I would be at my destination. After two long weeks of trekking through the Sahara I would finally finish my survival course. After three hours, I could see the town. But just as the town came into sight a desert cougar jumped out of nowhere. I knew no one was allowed to help me even if I was dying. During my thoughts, the cougar was stalking me and looking at me as if I was prey, I think he smelled my fear, but I could certainly smell cougar dung. My information about desert cougars told me to stand tall and act strong. The survival guide also told me to let out roars. As I was thinking, the mountain lion pounced. I jumped in his direction, sword first, I heard a satisfying slicing sound. I knew I had eliminated my encumbrance. The blade of my sword snapped in half, but the cougar’s neck was stained with red. I screamed out in pain as my right arm was gushing blood. I limped my way to the camp before I bled out. My trainer and I bandaged the wound and he said. “Welcome to the town of Sahel, Richard.”