Infected Hunger
I struggle to my feet. I am hurt, but dont remember how. I hardly feel the hurt anymore. Or try not to. Sometimes I slip up. I know I'm in pain, I hear myself weep, but I pretend I'm not inside. Pretend it isn't really me anymore. It's better that way. I don't want to know what I do.
I look around. Only darkness. Seeing is getting hard for me now. But then, a sound. Somewhere out there. I walk, or stumble. Closer, closer to the sound. Sound means people. Means food. I need food. The hunger is the worst part. It sticks with me like the scent of smoke. Other pains come and go, but the hunger is always there. It's the sickness that gives it to me. It drives me to find and bite, so it can spread. That's all it cares about. It doesn't care about me, as long as I can still mostly move to spread it. So it lets me feel every bit of the pain. But it won't let me die.
The only thing worse than the hunger is feeding it. The flesh between my teeth. The blood on my skin, running down my throat. What am I eating? What kind of flesh is it that I tear from bones with my teeth? I wish I didn't know. That I could pretend. Just meat, it's just meat. Doesn't matter how many times I think it. It's still not true. But I dont need to remind myself anymore. It became normal long ago. This is just my life. Or what's left of it. Pain and hunger and horror, mixed together into something worse than the sum of its parts. I barely remember my life before. Who was I? One bite, and the life I knew was gone. My heart still beats, I still breathe. But that's the only thing ahout me that's alive.
Click.
Click.
I can hear them, looking for food. There rarely is any. More people are like us than not these days. We've all started tearing each other apart down here. I sit down, try to rest. But rest never comes. There is no escape from this cruel reality.
I start. A sound! Voices and footsteps, coming closer. Four of them, two big, adult, two smaller and younger. I hide. I know I can't be seen, can't be heard.
An arrow lands in the head of another one and she collapses with a hoarse cry. I rush ahead, and grab him, grappling for a moment. I feel his warmth, his strength and I envy him. He still wants to survive, but I'd had the choice I'd have given up long ago. We're all waking up now the fight has begun. I hear more sounds all around me, piercing, keening screeches, weeping, and that clicking as the older ones look around the only way they still can.
And thats it. That's the last thing I hear. The man raises his gun to my face, I feel a sharp sudden pain in my skull and then the world slowly fades to black. Finally, the hunger ends.