Chapter 1
A tall tree, yes!  Tall trees are good. Tall trees are safe. I extended my retractable claws. They hooked easily into the brown flesh of the great Baobab tree. I used my arms to pull myself up.  I got my back paws/feet up on the tree. Scrambling up into the topmost, thick, foliated limbs, I had to get away from my pursuer.
I waited and soon enough the safari car pulled right under the tree. Holding my breath as the man got out of the jeep, I kept as quiet and still as I could. Then the man, who was about 6’ 4”, began to laugh.
“I can see you there,” he shouted to me.  “Come on down!”
“I like it up here,” I called back. “It’s dark and cool!” Just to prove my point I struck up a loud, resounding purr.
“Come on down now! I’ll help you learn how to catch a zebra,” the burly man taunted.
“I already know how. I caught one while you were lollygagging around with your jeep when it got stuck in the mud. Dinner and a show!” I went into a fit of giggles at the sight of the man blushing. The fit was so violent that I almost fell out of the tree. While he was looking at his feet, embarrassed, I seized the moment and leapt from my luxurious perch. I shot like a bullet towards him; he looked up right before I hit him.
We flew backwards and, after the dust settled, he discovered that he had a 115-pound creature sitting on his chest. I smiled a malevolent, well-fanged grin after seeing the frightened look upon his face.
I leaned down and whispered into his right ear, “Now you know what the zebra felt like when it found me atop its back.”  I strutted off of his chest only to leap on to the roof of his jeep.
“I want to ride on the top this time!” I roared.
“You know you can’t do that,” his voice took on a stern tone. “If a satellite or someone saw you…”
“I know, I know. I’d be taken away and processed and dissected and blah, blah, blah. Why can’t I ever do anything, Katimo?
“You know why,” my physical trainer said. He then proceeded to grab my hind legs in an attempt to pull me from the top.
Now this is a 250-pound man we are talking about here. Compared to me, 115; he had no chance of hauling me off of that roof. All I had to do was to sink my claws into the top of the car and then there was no way that I was coming off without wanting to. After about fifteen minutes of attempting to dislodge me from his vehicle, he realized that he was doing much more harm than good. He now had ten long gaping holes in the roof of his safari car. You have to keep in mind that all through this I was laughing and screaming, “Ah, come on you can do better than that!” It was tremendous fun, plus I got to destroy his car.
“You win,” he said at last, released my legs, and sighed after he had caught his breath. “But is it really worth dying for?”
“No,” I sulked. I wrenched my claws from the five-inch thick sheet of metal.
Katimo went around to the left side of the car and slid into the driver's seat. I plopped down into the passenger’s side in the front. The great man started the engine and it roared like a giant cat, deafening to my ears.
“We have a good hour until we get back to base. Man, you can run for a while can’t you?” Katimo stated.
Well, I guess that this would be a good time to fill you in on who and what I am, seeing as you are all dying to know.

Chapter 2
My name is Tigris, or shall I say “Project Panthera Tigris”.  I am an interesting creature, whatever I am. I was created in a lab. No, more like I was grown, along with 1000 other people.
You see, Project Panthera Tigris is a very interesting proposition. The scientists grow some humans and when the babies are still in the embryonic stage the scientists insert tiger genes into the DNA in an attempt to create a super human. They did this to all 1000 of us. Everyone except for me died. The conflict between the two types of DNA was what killed them; their cells didn’t form with the proper organelles.  All but me; I am alone in this planet, one of a kind, and yet have the feeling that I am unique and that no one can tell me that I don’t belong. Then again, they probably wouldn’t live to say another sentence.  Just kidding!
As I grew up, I learned what I was and how to coordinate my feline attributes with my human ones. I used my tail for balance, whiskers for feeling things, eyes for seeing in the dark and since they are wide set I have a broader area of vision.  I can stand on all fours (I have the hind legs of a cat) but can also stand on just my back legs on account of my human hip sockets. My hands are a cross between human ones and feline paws; they are webbed near my bottom knuckles, are in the basic human shape, and have retractable claws. My feet are actual paws with retractable claws and my face is quite interesting compared to human standards. I have amber hued cat eyes that see in color.  My pupils are slits like your average, domestic house cat.  The scientists aren’t sure why I have them because big cats, like a tiger, have circular pupils.  They just attribute it to a genetic fluke.  My upper lip is split, but I don’t have the puffy cheeks like a cat does.  I have a human nose, and whiskers sprouting from my cheeks. My ears are those of a cat and I have orange fur/hair on my head that I keep cut about an inch long. I have orange fur striped with black from my hips to my toes, from my ribs to my neck and to my fingers, and around the edges of my face.
Everyone that I have met has told me that I am beautiful, but that may not count for much since they are all the ones that created me. They are so full of themselves they think all of their successful work is beautiful. Trust me; I have seen some pretty weird stuff, none of which I would consider 'pretty'.
I am not alone in my world, though.  I have two best friends. There is Pardus, from a project akin to mine, “Project Panthera Pardus”; again, only she survived. She is seventeen days older than I am. And then there is Pardalis; she is from another experiment called “Project Felis Pardalis”; and she also, only survived. Pardalis is the eldest of us all she is six months and seventeen days older than I. Now there can be no doubt at how unoriginal the scientists are about naming their creations.
You now have a basic idea of who and what we are. The lab that we are from is sunken into a mountain. Mount Kilimanjaro to be exact. Nobody knows that the mountain was created for the specific purpose of hiding the lab. Well, I guess now you do, but don’t tell!
I think that I will take a little catnap the rest of the way if you don’t mind.