Christopher Hart

Trigger warnings: Gore, Self-cannibalism

It had been months since I saw sunlight, though I hadn’t known it then. I counted seconds in the dripping of leaking pipes above, and days in routine walks He made along the cells. He checked on us twice in what we learned to be a day, pacing the cells and tossing food to those of us who needed it. I remember when I first saw Him. I was a blank slate at that time. My mind was fresh, new, unhindered by decades of memories and learned misinformation. Still when I saw Him, I knew He wasn’t right. It wasn’t the scarred face or the red stains on His hands, it was the way He carried himself. There was no fear, no hesitation in His step or searching for an exit like all the others down there. He walked and stared at the papers in His hand. He rarely lifted His head. His freedom meant nothing to Him. In a place where everyone was begging to be let out, to breathe fresh air again for just a moment, He took His freedom for granted. He didn’t think twice about it. In fact, He loathed it.

I relearned life down there. I taught myself how to use my hands, and how to eat. I learned that being loud and aggressive warranted punishment, so I learned contentment. My thoughts were cohesive and deep, but wordless. The way a scream or growl was universal language, I understood it from the root of myself. I only learned words from the others around me, picking up on meaning without consciously addressing the connection. My brain rewired itself, shifting from something animalistic and feral to something conscious and aware. I learned how to say “please” first. It was the first time He looked at me with anything other than disgust.

“Please” I sputtered the word. I heard the others say it when they were starving, and sometimes they were given more food for it. It was a good word, a word that He did not punish the others for. He stared at me with an expression that wasn’t angry or annoyed, an expression I hadn’t known until then. He looked surprised, and I hesitated to say it again. That day He gave me double the meal and spoke to me in a softer tone than I had ever heard before. I was rewarded for speaking, so I learned to use more words.

Thank you. Food. Pain. Quiet. Help. Whatever words were spoken in those cells I mumbled to myself between His walks. Still, I only said please and thank you when He fed me. He liked when I used those words, and I liked the way He looked at me when I did.

Then the sense of time I had grown to understand was disrupted. I was hungry again, but He had not returned. More time passed than I was used to, and the pain of hunger grew more urgent. Eventually, someone walked between the cells. He was not Him. This one was not stained with red, and he walked with his head down. When I asked him for food, I learned a new expression. It was not the wide-eyed surprise that He had shown. This one’s pupils shrank, he took a step back, and he shoved food into the cell before scurrying to the next. That one fed me less food than I had ever been given, and it was gone before he left. It stalled the pain for a while, but I was hungry again long before his next walk.

I said nothing to him after that. I stayed in my corner, tracing crevasses in the brick with my fingernails. That one watched me expectantly, but I didn’t want to look at him. That one shivered when I looked at him. I didn’t want him to be afraid of me, but he was. I liked that He wasn’t afraid. Disgusted, sometimes. Annoyed, usually. But never afraid. He hated freedom too much to be afraid. He liked me more than He liked freedom, and that meant something to me.

I don’t know how many days passed before I was fed again. The passage of time felt so much longer when that one cared for us. That one didn’t speak to anyone, didn’t take time to observe us eating our meals or open the door to clean the stains. That one simply fed and walked. That one moved like the rats that hid in the shadows of the cells. That one was ready to run in a moment’s notice, tail flicking and ears twitching at every noise. That one liked me the least. That one didn’t even look at me when he fed me, and he spent less and less time at my cell when he did. I let my food sit until he was gone, thinking the sound or the mess was what made him scared. But he still ran, even when my food lingered at the bars where he could see it was untouched. That one grew more afraid of me every day, and I grew hungrier.

I didn’t know at the time, but a week passed when he neglected all of us. Most of the others hardly noticed the hunger, but it was eating me from inside. I ran my nails over the crevasses in the wall, but the rock was tough and snagged my nails. I was drawn to the texture of my skin. It was smooth, and caved under the pressure of my fingers. I scratched it until it was red, until the skin broke and red liquid bloomed to the surface. It looked the same as the color that coated my food, but it smelled less stagnant. I tasted it. When a taste wasn’t enough, I tore open the skin of my arm to find a meal underneath it. It hurt when I ate. Food and pain: those two words contradicted each other in my head, but the hunger outweighed the pain. That’s when I learned that food came from the body. If it came from mine; it came from others, too.

I did not think of the repercussions that would come from attacking him. When he made his way back down the row of cells, he tossed me a piece of food smaller than the flesh I had torn from my arm. I let him walk away, but I did not hide in the corner of my cell. I stood at the bars, leaning in to watch as he moved further away. There wasn’t enough food, there never was, but he would be plenty to fill me if I could get him. I remember thinking only of the meal that was walking away from me as a measly red clump sat at my feet. That one made his way back through, practically sprinting towards the stairs with an empty bucket. That one stopped just short of my cell, just out of sight. Just out of reach. My blood stained the tiles outside of my cell, the blackening stream ending at a drain in the middle of the floor.

I did not know about the relationship between predator and prey at the time. Whatever instinct drove me to devour him found its opposition in his fear. Before either of us could fully appreciate the adrenaline rushing through our bodies, he sprinted across the front of my cell towards the door. I don’t remember telling my body to move, only the excitement I felt after my nails ripped through his sleeve and into the flesh underneath. Interrupted momentum sent him straight to the ground, and I dropped to the same level as I tried to grab him. That one rolled out of reach. Whoever was in the cell across from me must have been just as hungry as I was. I only saw the claws pull him against the bars. A flash of teeth took a greedy chunk out of his shoulder, devouring it shirt and all. I felt only rage, a deep hatred for whoever had eaten my food before me.

That one took something sharp out of his pocket and jammed it between the other’s eyes. They both shrieked and howled in pain. The greedy one fell back, too wounded to continue its pursuit. At the time I didn’t register what had just occurred, I only knew that he was freed. I reached through the bars desperately. I begged him to come closer, but he stayed out of reach. I could smell the blood. It amplified the pain in my stomach. I begged, I pleaded, I called to him softly hoping that he would give in the way I had given in to His voice so many times before. That day I learned how it felt to cry. That one stopped feeding me after that day. That one wasn’t willing to get close enough to my cell for me to grab him again. The one that had gotten a taste of him didn’t get fed either. It was silent now. I never saw it again.

For days, I chased the rats in my cell. I failed to catch them time and time again, and they started to avoid my walls entirely. I was so hungry that moving was exhausting. I stayed in one corner, hoping a rat would come or that one would take pity on me and feed me again. I begged the walls for food, but the walls could not feed me. I begged Him to return, but He was gone. I resorted to devouring my own flesh once again. I had healed from the first meal, but the new flesh was more tough, damaged by scarring that I did not understand then. When my arms became too damaged, healing took more time than I had. I started picking into the flesh of my thighs. There was more there, but it was not enough. These wounds healed fast, but not fast enough to satiate me.

In the night, the rats would come. They licked my blood off the ground and cleaned the stained walls. They were just as hungry as I was. I was too tired to chase them anymore, so I watched as they became brave and reckless. Blood tasted good, but I knew they wouldn’t resist my flesh. Down here, nothing did.

It took days, but finally while I was sleeping, I felt one eating at the skin I had torn into before. The same instinct took over me as when I grabbed him. My hand moved on its own. Before I was even awake, I felt the snap against my fingers and the rat stopped struggling. No words could have described that taste. When I ripped into the flesh of the rat, I found the same food that had been given to me inside. Something more plump, more satisfying than flesh. I savored that food. Inside of the flesh was something so much more pleasurable than the outside. I wanted more. I needed more. But the other rats had scattered when their companion got devoured.

I started ripping into myself without thinking.

I started at my chest, the same place I had opened the rat and found food. The agony meant nothing, because the meal was everything. Inside of me hid portions of food that I had never seen before. Not a few lumps of inside. I was full of inside. And so I ate. I ate until I was full. I ate until I was nearly empty. 

He came back the next day. I was laying on the ground asleep. For the first time in my life I was full, satiated by the meal I had discovered in my own body. I might have slept for days like that, finally content after weeks of starvation. That was when I was awoken by a sound I had never thought He could make. He stood at the front of the cell, and yelled. It was an angry noise, the same noise I had made when the other had eaten a part of that one. I startled awake, expecting that rage to be taken out on me, but when I turned, He was gone. I could hear His steps receding, and that one’s voice far in the distance. I didn’t know why He was mad, but the cells were silent as the two screamed at each other. The others were so quiet, and so scared.

When He came back through, no one dared move. I sat in the corner and kept my head down, hoping He would move on without speaking to me. The door unlocked, and He stepped inside. There was something in His hand, a large black brick that wreaked of chemicals and blood. I looked at Him, expecting to see rage in His eyes and be punished.

But He kneeled in front of me and opened the black brick with a click. He looked smaller than I remembered. “Did Gynesis do this?” He spoke softly, a tone that made all the pain melt away into nothing.

“Do this?” I repeated.

He reached out, putting His hand on my shoulder as He stared at the hole in my chest. He didn’t look at the open wound like the hungry rats did, or like I had looked at that one’s. I didn’t know why He looked at me like that.

“No. I did this.” I said simply. If that was why He had punished that one, I was sure He would punish me. Instead, He sighed and grabbed something from the open black brick.

Despite how small and fragile He looked, I had no desire to bring Him pain. I was full, and the thought of grabbing Him like I had grabbed the other one made me hurt for reasons I didn’t understand. He touched me with newfound caution as He wrapped a long cloth around my torso. He covered the hole in my chest and spoke quietly, only to me.

“You were hungry… is that why you did this to yourself?”

I matched His tone, because it felt right to speak to Him as He spoke to me, “I found food. It stopped the pain.”

The answer seemed simple to me, but I could hear the tension in His tone as He watched the blood stain the cloth on my chest. “Never do that again. Do you understand me, Angel?”

Still no punishment came for my actions. “I understand.” Was all I could say to Him.

He covered the wounds on my arms and legs, and days later He brought me clothes to cover them completely as they healed. I grew hungry every day, but He kept me full. Instead of giving me pieces of inside that were never enough, He gave me filled torsos and buckets for meals. I settled back into contentment, satiated by the new understanding He and I had for each other. 

Still, when that one walked with Him through the cells, I felt the urge to reach out to him. He didn’t let him close to me again. I didn’t know if it was my punishment or his, but I often imagined pulling him into my cell and eating him as I had eaten the rat. It was not hunger that drove this urge, it was anger. It was hatred.