The first hyena, a blur of mottled fur and bared teeth, pounced onto Alex. Its powerful jaws snapped ferociously, aiming for a vital hold. Alex, caught off guard, felt the weight of the wild beast crashing down on him, its hot, rancid breath overwhelming his senses.
Alex's perception heightened to the max; he could see everything in vivid detail. The hyena's disgusting saliva, its yellow, sharp teeth, its long tongue flapping wildly, and the unmistakable excitement in its eyes.
Every movement, every sensory input, flooded Alex's mind, immersing him completely in the moment.
Ignoring the pain surging through his body, Alex raised his hands and managed to grab hold of the hyena's jaws. With the support of the tree against his back, he kept the beast from biting his head off.
The hyena was strong, but Alex was able to hold it back.
For the first time, out of fear of dying, Alex used the full force of his hands. Initially, he was only trying to prevent the hyena from killing him while gripping its lower and upper jaw, but he clenched his hands so hard that he heard a snap. A warm sensation trickled down his right hand, and to his shock, he saw he had completely destroyed the bottom jaw of the first hyena!
Quickly realizing the shift in the power dynamic, Alex decided to take a bold move. Maintaining his grip on the hyena, he pulled with all his might, pushing past his internal agony.
In a gruesome display of strength, he tore the hyena's body in half. Alex stared in disbelief as blood splattered around him, leaving the first hyena utterly mangled and torn from its mouth to half its body. Alex then threw the body away, terrified of what just happened.
The other hyena, initially excited to finally consume food, stood to a halt. It was about to pounce at Alex to help its brother in crime but as soon as it was about to, a sudden instinct kicked in, and it froze in its spot. In an instant, the first hyena was torn apart, and as soon as it saw what happened, it fled the scene as fast as it possibly could.
'What have I just done?' Alex thought, his heart pounding, a mix of shock and adrenaline coursing through him. 'This power... it's unbelievable, what the hell just happened.'
His eyes darted around to see if there was any other sign of danger. He heard the second hyena running in the bushes, and after a few minutes, nothing but silence.
Alex lay there, beat up and still bleeding from his mouth due to the internal injury. He kept looking back and forth between his hand and the hyena, still unable to comprehend the destruction he just caused. After almost an hour of nothingness, and the adrenaline rush going away, he started feeling the pain.
The movement he did to kill the hyena caused his internal injury to worsen, and he was now feeling all of the pain rushing back.
'I need to get out of here,' he thought, panic starting to set in.
The sun was setting, it was soon going to get dark, and darkness in a forest is a very scary thing. In desperation and not knowing what to do, Alex desperately just wanted to go home.
He missed the safety of his apartment, his couch, his game, even the mirror. Suddenly, he heard something that caused shivers all through his body.
'Eat … Lexie…It's time… meet …to…' The voice, or more specifically, the thought, drifted away.
Alex stood there in silence, he was scared to look around him. He felt like he heard this voice before, and he could tell it came from somewhere inside of him.
'Eat? What the hell does this mean, and it called me Lexie... Didn't this happen before? I remember I heard this voice during the last dream phase, but I assumed it was something else.
'what is going on, and what does it want me to do'? Alex's body was almost moving on its own at this point. His initial position was that of one on his back to a tree, slumped down. He went on all fours, and started crawling towards the dead hyena.
In a trance-like state, all he could think of were the words that he heard. "Eat… eat" as he kept crawling. 'Eat what, but I need to eat, wait what am I doing? What am I eating? Why am I going towards the beast?' Alex was thinking, but his body never hesitated.
'Eat Lexie, don't think, eat…' Alex's mind was going crazy. Now, Alex was right in front of the half-torn beast. And without slowing down, he pushed his face right into the hole he created, and started to eat.
'This can't be happening,' he thought, horrified at his own actions, yet unable to stop himself.