Claws

City Life

There is extreme, and I mean EXTREME violence and gore in the chapter. Skip it if you are squeamish.
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     I didn't just wake up with a crick in my neck. My entire body screamed with pulled muscles, bruises, scrapes, and overall soreness. A pained groan left me as I struggled to sit up on the concrete roof of the skyscraper.
     "Santa Maria!" A voice exclaimed to my left. From a small protruding room, a human was frozen stock-still just outside a door leading to the building's roof. He was caramel-skinned, chubby, with a goatee and a janitor's outfit, complete with cap and cart.
     What is he doing on the roof?
     Well, it was great timing, because I hadn't had dinner the night before. I was quite famished. Despite my aches and pains, I was still an apex predator and twice as fast as him.
     When I struggled to my feet, the broom he carried clanked to the ground. A walkie talkie I had not seen was reached for, and I pounced with all the speed my sore body possessed. The button on the device was pressed and and almost instinctively I recoiled at the sound of the tiny click.
     The human took the opportunity to scream into the walkie, "Help! I'm on the roof, there's a—"
      As quickly as I recoiled, I was back, and ripped the device out of the human's hands. It flew off the side of the building and shattered against the street seconds later. Feeble fists pounded against my chest and head while I grabbed him by the throat and lifted him into the air. With the man sputtering like a decades-old vehicle, I reveled in the feeling of not being helpless anymore. I was disappointed when less than a minute later the struggling stopped. Like a sack of potatoes, the body was cast to the cement roof.
     Just as I was cursing myself for choosing strangling, of all things, to kill my prey, it choked and coughed back to life.
     "Lovely," I purred in it and I's shared tongue, "a second chance."
     "Please stop!" It begged, tears welling in its eyes and cascading down its now-red cheeks.
     "But that's no fun." I pouted, mimicking it's trivial behavior.
     It started praying in a foreign language.
     A swift swipe of clawed hands to its jugular did little to shut it up. At first I was taken aback, before remembering my scramble up to the side of the building the night before.
     "Guess we'll have to do this the old fashioned way." I hummed while it prayed with its eyes squeezed closed.
     Clawed hands slammed the man's hands to the concrete, pinning them above its head. Its eyes shot open just in time to see me sink my fangs into its throat. Crunching, squelching, and chewy— I had forgotten how amazing live food tasted.
     Gurgling screams and spurting blood did nothing to quench my appetite; in fact, they made the hunger in my bottomless pit of a stomach grow exponentially. I chewed and chewed through the agonized sounds. Eventually, the throat was ripped out, and I watched light fade from the human's eyes.
     Its trachea was as tough and crunchy as I remembered them being. Bloodied hands pulled the punctured part from my sharpened fangs, and I set upon my actual meal. Cupped fingers scooped out flesh like an ice cream scoop and delivered the delectable treat to my mouth as carefully as they would hold a newborn baby.
     An explosion of flavor hit my tongue with the addition of the first bite. It was addictive as it was delectable, and I set upon the corpse once more. Part breakfast, part art, I mutilated the corpse with little care. It was a rare treat and I was determined to enjoy it to its fullest.
     As I snapped off a finger and chewed it before swallowing it whole, I pondered my predicament.
I could do this my entire life. This is what living is supposed to be like. Food, freedom, and not fighting who I am.
     I ate and ate and ate until I couldn't cram a single bite down my stuffed gullet. Then, I popped open its gut with jaded claws and spilled its guts all over the cement next to me. I pulled out intestines and spread them like tinsel, humming and singing in my native tongue while I channeled my artistic vision.
     Next, I decided I could eat a little bit more, and dug it's lifeless eyeballs out of its head, popping them both in my mouth at once and roistering with happy moans at the pop each one made as I punctured their hard shells. I sucked out the jelly inside and crunched up the sclera before swallowing all of the gore in one giant gulp.
     I knew I'd be hungry later. That's why I sawed off it's left calf at the knee. It took the assistance of claws, swift kicks from my slightly-sharper toeclaws, and a lot of gnawing, but I was finally able to free the appendage of its mortal cage.
     My intense desire to check out the human city was squandered by my incredibly full stomach. I couldn't possibly fly with this much in my gut.
     A nap wouldn't hurt, right?
     With that, I took up residence atop the room-sized box that held the door the food appeared out of. I opened my wings with a lovely stretch, and soaked up the rays of the sun with a pleasant sigh. I was finally content as I drifted off to sleep.