“Follow your Dreams, and your path is straight.”

“Step off the path, and you become a Nightmare.”

“Then a question arises. What is the difference between a Dream and a Nightmare.”

“It is simple.”

“ A Dream is an Ideal that elevates you, a Nightmare is a Burden that will ground you.”

Annals of History, Philosophical Debate, Year - 343 of the Enlightened Theocracy

*

Mane Savannah

Dusk approached the parched lands below.

Shadows lengthened as the heat slowly rescinded.

Herds gathered together for protection, for the approaching night was the most haunted time of the day.

It was the time Lions hunted in packs.

There was no mid-day sun to discourage and lull them to sleep as it so usually happened in the day.

If it did happen, it was to those that were weak.

Those that stray away from the herd soon learn their mistake.

Those lulled into thinking they were safe on their own learned otherwise.

And those who unknowingly got too close to a Pride of Lions tasted the quick glare of death.

The Lions were the masters of the night as the dimmed white light of the night was enough for their feline eyes to see in the dark. Combined with their pack hunting and power born to be at the top of the food chain, it was no wonder every creature was careful during the night.

Yet, no matter how careful they are, some are always lost as the Pride desires to fill its belly.

Night approached the Savannah, and the Pride of Lioness prepared themselves for the hunt.

The big males were not with them as they patrolled and marked their territory. Only after they marked their territory would they return to the Pride of Lioness and take their chunk of meat from the hunt.

As the pride of Lioness gorged themselves on the buffalo they had taken down, shuffling sounds alerted one of them. Her big head turned around, and her slitted eyes spotted the brown grass twirling as something passed through it.

She gave a low roar of alert as her sister-wifes stopped swallowing buffalo meat. In return, they gazed at the spot indicated.

They stood from their spot and went to investigate it but what they expected to find, was not what they discovered.

As much as Lions were the rulers of the Savannah day and night, they were not the only creatures that could see in the dark.

The distinct reflection of the upper part of the creature in their eyes identified it as a Honey Badger.

It was much smaller than them, but when they looked at it, the Honey Badger did not flinch in any way. It just glared at them for a moment, then grunted and settled its gaze somewhere else as it passed by the pride of Lioness.

The pride stared at it for a moment but ignored it in favor of filling their bellies.

*

Alexander, the Honey Badger, continued his hunt.

The smell of the buffalo was very tempting, but he was not stupid to get in between a Pride of Lioness and their kill.

While he did not fear for his life, as he had a secret weapon to help in his escape, if it were one or two of them, however, a Pride was a different case.

They had the advantage of numbers and strength.

If they decided to go for him, he would die immediately. So Alexander, the Honey Badger, who still had no idea that somebody had named him such, ignored them and sought out his prey.

Sniffing his way forward, left and right, he came upon a scent.

Following it for quite a while, he found a small lizard. Some careful maneuvering, it soon met his stomach, but that was not the end of his hunt.

No. Lately, food cravings grew so much that the constant hunting and eating were only interrupted by sleep and popping.

He simply did not have the time for anything else.

Even the females had escaped his mind. Although, somewhere in his little mind, there was a notion of them building up.

However, a small change had overcome him recently.

Before, he had never bothered with it. He simply did what he wanted. However, recently everything he had done had him constantly aware of what he was doing.

In the same manner, as it happened right this moment.

Alexander’s little mind somehow made him aware that he was focusing everything he had on what this scent was telling him.

There was nothing new as his nose told him, but he was more aware of his nose doing stuff.

The same happened when he did anything else.

When hunting, his little mind told him what he was doing. Why he was doing it, how he was doing it, and most importantly, his little mind kept asking him if this was the best way to hunt.

Alexander was unaware, but every time those notions came to him, the Intent implanted in his mind gained a teeny tiny bit of clarity. And every time the Intent gained a teeny tiny bit of clarity, he became more aware of it, as it kept reminding him of what he was doing, why he was doing it, and how he was doing it.

The same happened when he ate his prey. Every time he ate, he was far more aware of his teeth, his chewing motions, and their strength.

The same happened when he swallowed it down his throat and into his stomach.

Even long after he had eaten, the awareness that something was in his stomach constantly reminded him that his stomach was doing its job.

The strangest of them all was after all those things happened.

The presence that he had gotten used to would always flare a bit after he had eaten something. Although he barely registered that it occurred, Alexander understood three things.

The first was that it always happened after he had eaten something.

The second was that it never lasted for long.

The third one was the most important as whenever the presence flared in his whole body, he would feel strangely satisfied that it happened.

It was that content that had spurred it far more than the constant hunger into zealously hunting, as it was currently doing. There was, however, another thing that Alexander had figured out.

The satisfaction was more prominent when he ate something bigger.

So far, the biggest snack he had eaten were snakes appropriate for his size. They were never big enough to cause him too much trouble, and their sting was never deadly enough that it could not sleep off.

But, there was one type of snake that he knew was much bigger than those it had eaten ever before.

While he did not need to fear its bite if careless, strangling would await him if it caught him.

That being the case, Alexander was searching for a big one, but one not too big, and he hunted it down in favor of feeling that satisfaction again.

He had seen that type of snake a few times in his memory. Traversing vast grounds of his territory and occasionally snacking on some smaller creatures, his nose caught something.

Sniffing the ground for a while, he realized the direction it was taking him.

Sniffing and walking the same path, he soon came upon the origin. It was a burrow in the ground.

There was a small hole just the right size for his head to stick in.

That was what he did. With his head inside, he sniffed everything that it could contain.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

From the burrow came the smell he wanted, but the hole was too deep for his liking.

If he dug down, the likelihood of being bitten first was much higher. At least, that is what his mind kept telling him.

The hunting instinct was telling him far more than it ever did before, so a dilemma came to Alexander.

Does he risk digging down and seeing what's inside, or should he move on?

For a moment, his hunting instinct kept warring with his desire to feel satisfaction again.

Ultimately, the hunting instinct won and declared that this was not the hunt he wanted.

At the same time, it told him that there were plenty of snacks in his territory, and to not give in and continue the hunt.

*

My attempt at helping Alexander refine the synchronization of Biology and Consciousness had proved to be a success, but only time would produce the ultimate results.

During the small eternities between the prolonged states of observing a Honey Badger's thoughts, or their echoes, I revised my understanding of Alexander's behavior.

I was not quite sure how I was storing the information. I neither knew how I was even thinking in my current state of immaterial ghostliness.

Or something resembling it, but as long as it functioned I paid it no mind.

My curiosity was regarding the Intent that I implanted inside him. The goal was to figure out how the Intent changed him and how he changed the Intent, as both influenced each other.

If I had tried implanting anything more complex than Hunt, Eat, Focus, Absorb and Grow, the results would be disastrous. His mind simply did not have the processing capability for anything outside those functions, at least the ones that would be useful to us, in his current state.

That is why I chose the simplest of Intents which catered to Alexander's instinct, as the information was already there. It just had to be given a singular form and purpose.

After reviewing my latest research/spying data. I began pondering how else I could improve Alexander, as every improvement he gains would help me in the long run.

A few ideas had come to me. Some I discarded, but one had stuck with me.

And it had done so for a reason, as I had undergone a version of it.

Currently, Alexander was spending the bulk of the eaten/gathered Life Essence to recover from the loss he had taken by my seizure of one layer of his Consciousness, specifically the inner layer dealing with Dream generation.

Like in an onion, there were multiple layers between the core of his awareness, and the last layer was the hard shell protecting his Consciousness.

All the layers represent Consciousness overall, but only the outer layers get used for Dream generation under normal circumstances. It happens because it takes time and energy to create a Virtual Reality that is the Dream.

So if the sleeping cycle is short, the layer closest to the physical brain is used. It allows for a faster switch between the state of Dreaming and the state of Wakefulness.

But if the sleeping cycle is longer, the state of Dreaming will progressively switch from the outer layer to the innermost layer, as the deeper the sleeping cycle, the greater the insulation between the physical body and the Awareness in the Consciousness.

This insulation allows the physical body to focus on recovery with automatic responses ingrained by evolution over a long period of time.

I took the outermost layer, the one just below the exterior layer that was the outer shell, from Alexander. Aside from the recovery Alexander was undergoing, no damage was done to him intrinsically, as he still dreamed, just not in this layer that I took and transformed.

His sleep is a bit deeper than usual. However, there was no active stress induced upon him that I noticed, and that effect became my thought experiment.

If that was the case, why not use these ‘Layers’? My immaterial mind had asked.

However, there was a problem. If I ignored the energy requirements to use them or the fact that I still had no idea how to do so in the first place, I still had the problem of them being finite in numbers.

The number of layers inside a Consciousness is proportional to the mass of the creature hosting the Consciousness and the relative amount of time it has existed.

Size generated more Life Essence to fuel it all, and age delivered the time it takes to make them.

Almost like a tree with its rings showcasing the number of years it has lived. Was another trivial attribute that my immaterial mind brought me.

Following that thought, I tried to use some of the Life Essence I possessed to examine the number of layers Alexander had, mine included.

The result was interesting, as he had five layers before my arrival. The problem is I had no idea about the speed of their manifestation or when they started in the first place.

My current hope is that with more data, I will be able to use the layer number for age determination, at the very least, and for some greater purpose in the future.

For now, all that was left on the back shelf, as I had another thing to worry about.

If what I was observing from my research/spying on Alexander was correct, then the development of his Intent was going far better than I imagined.

Usually, that would be a good thing, but the problem was it was developing far too fast.

Meaning, that Alexander was hunting nonstop, and if he was doing that, then it was only a matter of time before he went for prey that had more Life Essence.

Oh, my little buddy, I hope you are not doing what I think you are doing.

*

If Mir, the Ghost/Dream Walker, and recent Realm Creator, knew what Alexander was searching for, and he was in his past life where he would be nothing but an outside observer, he would just shake his head and say ‘Honey Badgers don't give a shit. They just take what they want!’.

Though, now that his current existence depends on Alexander not dying, he worried that the little fearless buddy he made was far too fearless and would get himself killed.

And he had every right to be, for Alexander, the Honey Badger, did not give up on his desire to feel satisfaction and continued his search for big snakes.

Along his hunt, his hunting instinct reminded him that he did not need to search just for snakes.

There were plenty of creatures that he could hunt.

Maybe those birds that occasionally landed near him were another type of snack to focus on?

Maybe it was time for the other predators to learn to stop bothering him by becoming his snack.

The answer, however, was always the same. Snakes were just too immobile to run away from him when compared to anything on wings and legs.

As Alexander searched for bigger snakes to eat, the smaller snakes began to dwindle in his territory, as his diet had switched to snakes largely.

Days and nights passed as Alexander decimated the snake population in his territory. Only after his search results began to take longer and longer did his hunting instinct tell him to seek other types of prey.

But there was a stubborn streak in his mind that told him that the bigger the prey, the more satisfaction he received after eating it.

Alexander’s little mind pondered on what to do, but his mind was stuck in this little dilemma.

As the sun of the day failed to bother him, a whiff of blood and meat reached its nose.

There was a bit of rot in the smell, but it wouldn't be a bad idea to check it out. The hunting instinct whispered.

Sniffing his way forward, he found the smell.

However, it was different from what he expected.

The smell wasn't on the ground as he expected. It was high up in the trees.

His beady little eyes stared at the carcass and at the spotted brown cat that had secured into the tree.

“Grrr.” His little mouth pronounced.

The sound woke the leopard in the tree beside the carcass full of flesh from a half-eaten antelope.

He opened his eyes and gazed at the origin, and the origin glared back.

The Leopard stared for a moment before closing his eyes again. He was far too sleepy to deal with the little creature.

Alexander glared at the spotted creature attempting to sleep and ignored him for a moment. His beady eyes stared at the meat. His little mind pondered the amount of satisfaction he would gain if he ate it.

Once his little mind imagined it, there was no time to ponder.

With focused determination, his small and stocky body walked to the tree in question. His claws began to grab for the rough texture of the tree, and his climbing began.

The noise of his claws on the tree bark alerted the leopard that there was no time to sleep.

With dexterity only his species had, he stood up and positioned himself between the Honey Badger and his hard-earned prize.

“Roar” Echoed the Leopard's declaration.

Alexander, still struggling with his climbing, ignored it.

His claws were great for digging but not as much for climbing. While they could do the job if the tree bark had enough folds for his claws to grab on.

There was little he could do if the fold did not exist.

Luckily for him, this tree was older. Its bark had enough for him, and while it was slower than he would have liked, his focus and determination were high enough to make it up in effort alone.

Soon there was no escaping the confrontation between the two beasts.

One of them had the high ground if the thick tree branch could count as the ground at all.

The leopard growled and hissed as he bobbed forward and back slightly. He jabbed with his front paws.

The right and left paws occasionally switched the attack pattern in order to discourage the little creature from going forward.

If the Leopard had been on real ground, he would have far more maneuverability when facing anything, but here in the tree, there was very little to do as the Honey Badger displayed his teeth.

“Khyra-ya-ya-ya” Growled Alexander.

He bobbed forward and back slightly as if probing for a way forward.

Leopard vs Honey Badger?

Who will win, and who will lose?

It became the ultimate question between these predators.

However, the Honey Badger knew something that the Leopard did not.

Alexander had come into confrontation with a similar beast before. He knew despite their size and strength, they were far more skittish if pressed the right way.

Alexander’s hunting instinct flared with a solution as he recognized the right moment to display the full aggression of a Honey Badger, and launched himself at the cat.

The surprise attack proved to be successful, as the large cat felt its instinct kick in to retreat out of the range of the teeth.

Usually, its instinct was a good thing, as it helped it quite a lot in life.

However, this time it proved to be its downfall, as its right back leg failed to land adequately on the thick tree branch.

Once that one missed, more of its instinct kicked up to compensate, but it was too late.

The teeth in the front of its nose only caused it to flinch even more as its backside slipped from the tree branch. Its front legs and claws grabbed on the thick branch which had held it before this moment to save its balance, but when it felt teeth sink into its front paws, that only nudged its instinct to let go.

Down the Leopard went.

Thankfully for it, being a cat proved to be a boon as it reoriented its body to land on its legs, barely in time to save itself.

Only after everything passed and its adrenaline subsided did it stare back into the tree. Beady eyes full of confidence, and the deep growl that some could recognize as laughter if they knew what to look for, reached it

The Honey Badger won this round, as it ignored the Leopard on the ground and began to munch on the meat that had lured it here in the first place.