Kieren

It's strange, the things I can remember. I can picture, with vivid colour and ferocity, the night I rose. The first kill, the blood running hot and thick down my throat, chunks if flesh and brain stuffed into my mouth like I'd never eaten before. The Hunger so intense it made me cry out in rage and pain when I smelt the salty sweet smell of humans. The last kill, Amy sat next to me, blood dripping from our chins, brain and skin sticking to our fingers, feeding from that poor girl. I remember Jem, her gun lowering as she realized it was me. The hesitation in her hands. She walked away after watching us for a few seconds. I felt nothing towards her, no flicker of memory. No love for my sister, just another walking meal that I would not try to run after. We had this one. This meal.

I hate thinking of her like that.

I vaguely remember the men in uniforms, circling me and Amy, weapons in hand. The nets against my skin, Amy groaning as they pushed us into the back of a van.

"Rabid rotter," a voice said.

There's one memory of the early days at the treatment centre I remember well. The first doctor. How young he was, the colour of his eyes. They were hazel, with specks of gold. He stood back as a guard pinned me to the ground, the feeling of hitting the floor, knowing later it should have hurt but it didn't. I felt nothing. No pain or remorse for biting the guard. Just that gnawing hunger.

The first few days, I remember foggily. They might have talked to us, but it isn't clear to me. They didn't feed us anything, and there was always that gnawing hunger, just under the surface. Most of those days were spent shuffling around my cell, or sat in a numb haze after the injections. I can't remember the really much of those days. It becomes clearer the closer it gets to the present.

My roommate, Alex, was brought in a few weeks after I was. He wasn't rabid, but far less along than I was. He huddled in one corner while I was in the other. We stayed like that for days, moving only when the doctors came in to give us our shots.

My doctor was hoping that I would speak soon.

"It's okay," he'd say after the flash backs had faded. "Do you feel like speaking now?"

I would just look at him.

Then, one day, he asked me my name. Hazily, I replied, "Kieren."

"Good!" he said, smiling. "Well, Kieren, you're making wonderful progress."

He took me to group therapy the next day.

After weeks of waiting, I finally got to go home.