The Gnawing Hunger

Waking Up

The first thing that Bo was aware of was the sound of beeping. Then there was some form of tubing in his nose. Along with a needle in his arm. Which probably meant there was an I.V in his elbow. If he remembered that's generally what a needle in him would mean. Carefully, he opened his eyelids to see that he was actually in a hospital. That the beeping sound was from a machine that monitored his heart rate. There were two nurses milling around the room. Doing things that he guessed were either to help him. Or to keep the room much cleaner. They were quietly speaking stuff that he didn't really listen to. As what they were saying to each other didn't matter to him. All that mattered was the growing hunger in his belly. The strange joyous pain that it brought him.

And how he wished that it didn't.

How he wished that he was with his friends and family. Back before any of this happened. Celebrating his twenty-fifth birthday. All of them having fun in the cabin his Grandpa rented for the entire week.

How had everything go so wrong just so freaking fast? They had barely been a few days out there. Barely a few days and now everyone he loved was...was dead. At the hands of something that he still didn't know. Just how much it had hungered for everyone's flesh. For every little piece it could rip freely from their bodies. Consuming whatever it could whenever it could as well.

And then there was the way its hunger seemed to infect him. Causing a painful, gnawing, and insatiable hunger that he couldn't fix. And the way it seemed to see him like no one, not even his family could. There was this strange euphoria that he felt from this.

Just how real he felt from it as well.

Bo couldn't entirely understand why he felt this way. The hunger and the pure joy that he felt. Or why he found himself unable to stop enjoying it. Enjoying whatever this thing had been doing to him during that time. And he still didn't know what that had been. All he knew about the thing was what it had shown him. Its paper white pale skin that was stretched tight over its bones. Eyes a touch too wide for a normal human being. Like maybe it had been on something. Yet, it seemed too lucid for it to be like that.

The thing was so very thin. Too thin for the strength that it showed. And then there was its teeth. Sharp as a butcher's knife and white as its skin.

At least, when it was feeding it did. When it had finished, it looked no different than a human.

Paper white skin looking way less like death. Still pale but, not in an entirely unhealthy way. Thin but more fat than the stick thin it was when hungry. And its teeth became much more human like. Still strange but dull like his own. When it was like that, it felt safer. Looking like any other human he could see walking around in town. Wearing stolen clothes from his late best friend. Nearly all of his articles of that his clothing. Except for the shoes his friend, Arthur, had coveted.

It seemed the thing despised them. And he vaguely recalled it telling him that they weren't comfortable. Before he could even linger on the memory, it skittered off and away.

Much like the creature when it was going to feed. Up in those mountains. On anything that had crossed its path. Anyone that had dared to as well. Though it seemed to go after people that were around Bo. Another thing that Bo wasn't entirely sure of. Or why it truly gave him this hunger. As it claimed it was to protect him a little afterward. That's what it had told him while it was feeding him. An attempt at a sweet smile on its face.

Those slender hands gently placing piece after piece of his Grandpa into his mouth.

Eyes staring at him so intensely as it worked. Being careful to not choke him as it fed him those pieces. As if worried about choking him. And he couldn't stop himself from eating what had been given to him. Licking those slender fingers clean of his Grandpa's blood. Begging it to give him more. Pain of hunger flaring in his stomach and barely being satisfied with what it had given him. Knowing that what was soothing to him was ripped from the man he once adored.

And somehow he couldn't bring himself to mourn.