GURO/GORE WARNING. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK
Feliciano stumbled towards the outcroppings of the neighborhood, gnawing on a turkey bone. Stains covered his shirt front and face. His hair was matted to one side. He crunched down on the bone, chewing the marrow and swallowing it whole. When it was done he hung his tongue out, exposing his gaping throat and sharp teeth. His eyes scoured the block for something—anything—to eat. He could never be satisfied.
Food, oh, glorious food.
Anything to eat would have been a pleasure. Feliciano rubbed his aching belly, already containing two turkeys, a chicken, heaping plates of vegetables, and a pot of pasta.
But he wanted more.
He needed more.
He felt that he would faint from starvation at any moment, crying out in anguish as his final breaths were whisked away by the need of food to fill his bloodstream.
Collar bones were visible below his neck. He was thin, save for the slight bulge at his belly. There, he rubbed the outer rim of his stomach longingly.
"Food…" he muttered, crying painfully. A fox raced past him, going between his feet. He snapped his legs together, capturing its tail. A foul stench emitted from his body and he picked up the helpless creature by its tail. It yipped and wailed in protest. With a single bite he snapped its head off and chewed slowly, tasting the liquid in its brain and feeling its hot blood trickle down his throat.
"Food…" he said, louder this time. He plopped down, the beheaded corpse in his lap. Digging his hand into it, he pulled out its gored guts, some still frantically pulsing in spasms. He bit into them and chewed smooth and rough textures, swallowing others in their entirety.
All was left eventually was the fox's fur and skin. He rolled that and ate it as it was, leaving the fluffy tail behind. At first he considered leaving it as a warning, but his stomach growled and he picked it up, eating it like cotton candy as he search for something else to eat.
Popping another tuft of fur into his mouth, he spotted a little boy running around, looking for his parents probably at that deep point in the night. Stars speckled the sky like a thousand twinkling freckles. Feliciano wanted to pull them out and eat them.
The child looked up, first smelling Feliciano's wretched stench, and then comforted by the sight of a man.
"Mister?" He called, watching the man stagger towards him, eating the last of the tail.
"yes… boy…?" He growled, blinking tears from his watery yellow eyes.
"Can you help me find my way home?" he requested bravely, trying to pretend to be tough. Across from him a nervous teenager watched, picking at his lip.
"Home… Oh, come closer, of course I can."
The boy grinned broadly and approached Feliciano, who picked him up easily.
"Now, count down and I'll take you there." Feliciano said, tightening his grip.
"Wait—" the boy began but Feliciano had already captured his head in his mouth—biting down and cracked the neck and soft throat. Cerebral fluid ran down his chin and he slurped it up, feeling the crushed head roll down his gullet. He continued the process, hunched over the twitching corpse and slowly biting into the flesh and tearing off strands. He even ate the clothing as dessert.
The teenager watched in horror, seeing the blood spray to the ground and decorate the ground. He covered his mouth, trying both not to scream and inhale the putrid, malign stench.
Some small part of Feliciano told him that it was all wrong, that he should leave the boy alone, that he should have found good, not cannibalistic food. He allowed those thoughts to win as the last strand of fabric dissolved in his stomach acid.
The teenager yelped despite himself and Feliciano rounded on him, his eyes wide.
The boy closed his eyes, ready to succumb to death, ready for the man to hurl himself at him and bite into his hot, moist flesh and devour it like a rapid animal.
But, it never came.
The boy opened his eyes again and met bright yellow eyes staring at him. Tears sprung forth from there and the man wept. The boy approached closer, trembling at the sight.
Blood dripped down Feliciano's chin like sauce. He covered his face, sticking his pinky in his mouth. "Why must I live this way?" he bellowed, biting into his flesh and snapping it off like a carrot. "I should just get rid of myself, that's what I should do!" He bit again and again, until his arm was done. A mist of red came from each powerful snap of his jaw. He left his other arm there as he went down to eat his legs and stomach.
The boy watched in shocked stillness, until the man had three bleeding stumps and an ill tint to his face.
"You don't have to do that… I'm sure doctors could help." The boy expostulated.
"They tried… When I got this disease, at eleven, my parents took me there…" Feliciano mumbled, chewing a piece of his hamstring. "Then they said they couldn't fix me and they left me out on the streets… Mama was so scared, and I remember her expression. Her curls fell into her face, her hair was so beautiful, and her eyes were teary. She said goodbye but it was airy and useless… I remember it so, so well…" Feliciano grabbed his sides and ripped a chunk away. The boy felt vomit rising in his throat.
"But times have changed, maybe there's a chance, now?"
"A bullet in my brain," Feliciano said meekly.
The boy suddenly stopped, staring up at the bright, pregnant moon hanging low overhead. It casted a pale, filmy glow on the trees and rooftops, surreal, extraterrestrial… Ideas and morals spun in his head in an endless chase, biting at each other's tails and claiming to be better than the other. A slim figure appeared in his mind, the figure of someone he loved, and he knew at once what was the right choice.
"I was saving this for myself…" He said, pulling a revolver from his pocket. "But I think you need it more."
Feliciano nodded, shutting his eyes and excepting fate as it broke his skull, piercing his forehead and ripping through his brains, sending him falling back into a bloodied mess.
The boy stood over him, thankful faintly for another chance at life.
Feliciano's disease was never identified.
I do not own Hetalia or the true story this was based off of.