“Rare are the few who can withstand the emotional drive of a Nightmare.”

“Rare are the few who can overcome the emotional drive of being a Nightmare.”

“Rare are the few who thrive as a Nightmare.”

“Beware of those.”

Annals of the Lost and the Found, Chapter 17 of the Book of Dreamers.

*

Mane Savannah

One pair of black beady eyes gazed upon the golden-maned lords and golden-furred ladies of the Savannah.

They gazed and observed.

They learned and understood.

They imagined and calculated.

Yet, behind every one of those stood one emotion that fueled it all.

Vengeance had settled into the little mind of the largest and most intelligent Honey Badger, that graced these plains.

Vengeance became the number one goal for Alexander.

The question, however, was what kind of Vengeance was he attempting to execute.

Well… even Alexander did not know that fact.

All he knew was that the fury inside him wanted to explode and rip apart the Pride of Lions into shreds.

However, he could not do it without getting torn shreds in return.

It did not matter if Alexander had grown bigger.

It did not matter if he grew more aggressive.

It did not matter if he ignored his well-being. His chance of achieving a clean Vengeance before being torn to shreds was low.

That was what his hunting instinct was telling him after the many years he had been honing it.

Then his instinct reminded him that if he could not hunt the big prey, why not try for the cubs?

Like a new spark, it inflated in his little mind, and there is where it got stuck.

Now Alexander knew his target, but just because he knew the target did not mean he would be able to exact his Vengeance.

Cubs were always protected by their mothers, if young enough, and by the Pride if old enough. When they were young adults, they were about the same size as the current him was.

With that being the case, Alexander decided to seek a good opportunity.

*

While Alexander was out doing his best to kill himself, I, on the other hand, was trying my best to think of a way to save him.

The only good thing I had been able to do so far was to inflate his Hunt Intent into overpowering his blind emotional Vengeance.

This way, Alexander, became more calculated, and it was that that I was watching through his eyes.

Alexander observed the Pride of Lions.

He learned their behavior.

He understood their desires.

He imagined their thoughts as much as his little mind could fathom.

He calculated his possibilities, and they were slim.

It was by using that slimness that I prevented him from blind Vengeance.

But this could not go on forever. Even now, I could feel the smoldering emotions radiating from his mind.

Yet, even if he succeeded, it was bound to be the first domino that would lead to our demise.

With that being the case, how would I save us?

How could I save us from this doomed fate? The short answer is that I could not.

No matter how I imagined and calculated, Alexander and I were bound to separate one day.

Him being a living breathing creature of Reality and me a Ghost/Dream Walker and Realm Creator, in a strange symbiosis with him.

I would outlast him, but he is my anchor keeping me sane.

With that being the case, I had to save him somehow.

Even if we both end up going down the drain, at least we will go together.

That ending is still better than me, going insane from the sheer amount of overanalysis of myself and my past actions.

Then the question came, how do I save us?

I could not leave this minuscule Dream Realm, at least not as I am now. I probably needed some kind of body to leave, but the only body that I can create right now is one based on a Honey Badger.

That in itself isn't bad. But unless I actually need it, I will stay away from it for now.

Since I did not know how a Honey Badger body would interfere with the Inheritance discovered so long ago.

Being unable to leave this Dream Realm meant I needed a solution inside this little minuscule Realm of mine. And I could only think of one answer to saving Alexander. But that method still did not prevent the other worst-case scenario I had to circumnavigate.

What will happen to the both of us, if I save Alexander by somehow pulling his Consciousness inside my Dream Realm?

The transfer, if possible, would probably use up a lot of my saved Essence, leaving us with little to keep going.

We would become rotting Ghosts haunting this place before long going insane.

Hence my hope stemmed from a different project of mine.

A long time ago, I wondered how to make use of the layered onion structure type of Consciousness that was Alexander.

And probably all the other Badgers too.

That included the children Alexander fathered over the time he enjoyed being the number one Honey Badger in this Savannah.

It had taken me a long time to figure out a solution.

It would take a major restructuring of the Realm, yet even then, it would become a gamble.

Then again, it was by a gamble that I landed myself in this situation.

My initial solution was to wait and stockpile as much Essence as possible and only attempt this when Alexander dies of natural death by age.

I guess the time has come to expedite the process.

*

Mane Savannah

Days passed as Alexander stalked the Pride of Lions.

Days passed as he tried his best to find the most opportune moment.

More days passed when he realized that Pride was very protective of the cubs.

Far too protective for him to just waltz in and kill a cub.

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Every time he thought he saw an opportunity, his hunting instinct would flare up and hinder his actions.

It threw caution at him.

The said instinct made him paranoid, slightly.

When it happened enough times where nothing happened, Alexander began to wonder if the hunting instinct was wrong somehow.

For such a long time, he relied on it, and now it began to make mistakes.

Normally he would have wondered what was going on for at least a few moments before going on another conquest, but his Vengeance was demanding actions, and he had yet to deliver.

From then on, Alexander began to rely less on his hunting instinct. He still listened, but no longer was he blinded by the information it was giving him.

After enough days passed, an opportunity presented itself to him.

It was time for a hunt as the Pride of Lioness was hungry again. A few stayed behind to watch over the cubs while the others went to get the food.

Alexander, The Conqueror of Land and Females, stalked the pride from a concealed position.

He had hidden between two bushes that had enough clear vision for him to observe the Pride, and currently, he was seeing the females leave.

Having watched the Pride long enough, he had learned the tactic of stealth.

With careful steps, he inched forward.

If he had been a higher thinking being, he would have probably thanked something for having such a small diminutive height, for even after having grown larger, the grass still hid enough of him to allow him to stalk his prey like this.

Crawling closer and closer, he came to the point where there was no more grass between him and the few females left behind.

Around them, Alexander heard the little whines of the cubs as they played with each other. They tumbled on the terrain and each other as they played.

Most higher-thinking beings would consider them cute at this moment, but not Alexander.

He was here for a purpose, and the intent was to kill.

Measuring the distance between him and the cubs and the leftover Lioness, he calculated the time it would take him to sprint over there and snatch a cub.

With his beady eyes, he glanced at the guardian Lioness.

SPRINT

Immediately Alexander ran forward towards one little cun that had been a tad bit too far from its guardians.

Fifteen meters.

There was no response. The little surprise attack became a true surprise attack, as the guardian Lioness barely reacted to him.

Ten meters.

The Lioness heard the shuffles of something running in their direction. Three heads snapped in that direction.

Five meters.

An instinct flared up inside the big cats.

They stood up and growled loudly, but that did not stop the Vengeance-seeking Honey Badger.

Like a white streak, he used every shred of his strength to run toward the cubs, oblivious to his presence.

Three meters.

The Lioness sprung into action to protect the cubs.

One meter.

The momentum that Alexander had built up proved to be the winning factor as he reached the slightly out-of-position cub.

Zero

His jaw and teeth expertly grabbed at the neck of the little Lion cub.

In that instant, Alexander underestimated how much a cub weighed and how much force exactly was needed to grab a cub and run away with it.

The weight of the cub nudged his head down towards the ground. The body of the cub became the drag to his momentum.

The next instant, Alexander rolled on the ground without his jaw releasing the cub.

The momentum from the badger, combined with the bite force of the Honey Badger, and the twisting situation was enough to snap its fragile little neck.

It was instant death for this little Lion cub.

What was not instant, however, was the fury of the three Lionesses as they reached Alexander's position.

They clawed and bit on the Honey Badger.

The thick and loose skin once more proved to be his saving boon as they failed to hold him down instantly.

Alexander twisted his way out, especially since his body was not big enough for all three of the Lioness to swipe and hold on to him at the same time.

What ensued was a battle of fury on both sides. It took seconds for Alexander to spray his best defensive weapon and make a run for his life.

Two Lioness chased after him and were able to swipe at him a few times to topple his escape. A few times, they succeeded, but just two Lioness were not enough to stop this Honey Badger from escaping into the bushes.

Again, his smaller size proved a boon, as the Lioness stopped following the same path as Alexander.

“ROAR” “ROAR”

Two hate-filled roars reached Alexander's ears as he continued his run, despite the heavy wounds he had received.

Only after he had returned to one of his burrows, did his little heart begin to calm.

However, that did not stop the mind from recalling the memories and the chemical cocktail of Vengeance permeating even deeper into Alexander's mind now that he had achieved parts of it.

Licking some of the wounds he could reach, a never before felt satisfaction manifested inside his mind.

A satisfaction that wants to be fulfilled.

A satisfaction that needs to be fulfilled.

A satisfaction that will be fulfilled, even more after the first taste has already partaken.

*

The die has been Cast, as I saw Alexander engage and barely live to tell the tale.

Shaking my head, I knew what was coming.

The wounds would heal, of that, I had no doubt.

Over the years, the synchronization between the physical body and Alexander's Consciousness has grown to such a degree that now he was generating more Essence than he was gaining from eating meat.

Yes, the difference isn't that big, but it is there.

Thanks to the synchronization of Consciousness and the physical body, every tiny bit of Alexander's body worked better than it would without Life Essence.

He gained strength, speed, and flexibility, and a similar thing happened with his mind, or at least a similar process should have happened to Alexander.

My presence and siphoning of Life Essence may have altered how the Essence synchronized his mind.

Over the years, I have speculated that it was so. The implanted Intent inside Alexander's mind helped him achieve more than any Honey Badger did, but it also locked his development to only those five Intent.

The Five Intents in his mind had grown and culminated into a combined whole that represented Alexander as an individual, but at the same time, it had left the rest of his mind less developed.

And when your physical mind only has so much room to grow its capabilities, specialization triumphed over generalization, but that was also the cause of today's situation.

That explained why Vengeance had become such a large forest fire after the first trees fell and the first spark appeared. There simply was not enough of his other aspects to balance his mind, and my foolish attempt only increased the endeavor.

Shaking my metaphysical head once more, I added another folly of mine.

The die has been Cast, Mir. Deal with it.

Encouraging myself, I gathered my attention to my project.

Maybe it was the pressure from nearing an inevitable death or something similar, but strangely I made more progress now than I ever did before.

New ideas filled me. I explored my options, and days passed as I began my first experiment.

In the center of this minuscule Dream Realm, I manifested a small Sphere.

It had no color or natural shape. It was just a gathering of Life Essence conveniently shaped into a Sphere.

Usually, Life Essence, when siphoned into this Realm from Alexander, permeated the whole Realm. With every tiny creation inside it receiving its due share.

Now that would not do. The small sphere would become the core of the Dream Realm. It would become my demesne, so to speak, while everything else will become the first layer of the…

Let's leave naming things for later.

Its form had yet to be determined, but it was coming along and would only gain more substance as I improved its purpose by a meticulous array of Intent.

Over the years, I ended up doing a few memory dives. Nothing grand, as I noticed that the core memories about myself were somehow locked in that Inheritance.

Everything else was fair game. With careful pruning of my thoughts and intents, I came across coding and what it represented.

Once I knew about it, most of my dives were regarding it.

Now it is that coding logic that I used. What I knew about coding was probably not even close to what I would find in the Inheritance. But it was enough, as when one worked with Intent, one did not need to be as precise and rigid as Logic demanded.

Logic belonged to Order, in the grand scheme of things, while Life Essence was a thing of Chaos. The two complemented each other in ways and repulsed each other in ways.

And now I was making use of those interactions.

Then a few days after, I observed Alexander and his wounds. What they told me was that another hunt would ensue soon.

And it did when a little trigger of mine implanted inside Alexander reminded me that another hunt began.

Soon, I saw his goal, and another stalker session began.

Endowed with experience from the last attack, Alexander examined his approach.

He did not want to be clobbered, by the Lioness again, of that I was sure.

More days passed as no opportunity presented itself. The last attack and loss of a cub had alerted the Pride that they had to be more cautious.

A few days later, more of the same happened when an idea popped into my head.

It was the best kind of distraction his mind and actions could have per time gained as a result of said actions, at least before Alexander is clobbered to death.

Knowing that this Pride was far too cautious right now, I added a little thought to Alexander's Hunt Intent.

The idea was that if this Pride of Lioness was far too attentive, why not search for another Pride and take Vengeance upon them?

Instantly I noticed his mind shift gears as his little mind pondered.

Then I add another to convince him even more. This one was a reminder that he could come back after he took Vengeance on that Pride, and by the time he returned, the vigilance of this Pride would be lower, giving him another chance.

Done with it, I noticed my little idea worked like a charm.

Good, with this I bought more Time for us.

The next time I observed Alexander's actions, my little idea solidified considerably, and he was on his merry way of Lion cub slaughtering.

However, I did feel kind of bad for Titling Alexander as The Scourge of Lions in my mind as he continued to enact his Vengeance.