The Throne is Mine

Emery

Emery's POV

Starvation is painful. Very painful. It is a very terrible way to die. How do I know this? It's very simple. I came very close to death.

First and foremost, the hunger pangs take place. They start out like a small itch. I like to think of it as someone had stuck their hands inside your stomach in pursuit of your intestines.

Once the minor hunger pains occur, all that you can think about is your next meal. From my own experience, tearing up food to make it look like there is more of it, tricks your mind into thinking you are eating a large quantity of it. Devouring those shreds slowly, allowed me to delay the pain for a few days.

After a week passes, panic is inevitable. You start to move around, but you can hardly walk. The pain hurts too much, so then you do the bare minimum. Your common sense leaves your body and it is every woman for herself. As the days pass, your body grows accustomed to the pain and it becomes bearable. In such a way, that you think there was no pain to begin with. You start to hear a light ringing sound, almost as if you hit your head on something. For a brief moment, you could care less about food.

Then, you start to remember all the times you passed up food and come to regret it.

My mind went back to all the days when Aunt Mildred would come knocking at my door. I remember turning her dinner offers down and telling myself, I would eat later. Not eating at that time, was a lot better than eating her ramen noodles with eggs.

If I could go back in time, I would.

When the hunger pangs strike back, they cripple you. Your mind slows and you can hardly think for yourself. You become increasingly tired, and you wonder why you can not stay awake for more than a few hours at a time. You notice this and you try to remember the last time you ate. It could have been yesterday. You know you had to eat at some point. However, you do not remember it. Your mind is then turned into a trance-like state. You wait. You feel death inside of you.

This process went on for a long time. I could hardly count the number of times I thought I would hear something, but it was just my imagination. But then something remarkable happened.

"Hello?" A horrible croak escaped my throat as I tapped a rock against the cave wall. The tap created an echo that bounced off the wall a few times before it settled outside.

I hesitated, my heart beating against my rib cage, awaiting a response.

There it was again, a faint scraping of feet against a flat surface, and a loud thud that followed after.

The cave had collapsed in on itself as soon as I had run in for safety. Between the cracks of the broken boulders, and the crumbling dirt clumps, I could see pieces of the outside world. The weight of the rocks were far too heavy for someone of my size to lift.

When the cave had fallen in, it left behind a foggy dust-like mist that hung in the air. Now, the dust covers the first few feet of the entrance, settling upon the ridges in the cave and the dirt floor.

My vocal cords strain against each other and I take a large gulp from the mini stream that runs by my feet.

"Please, hear me...I am trapped...Emery."

I had given the familiar a name. Deja, in honor of the boy that saved me all those nights ago. Without him, I'm not sure I would have gotten away and ended up trapped in a cave...starving.

Deja flutters up, her wing has healed for the most part. Consequently, she can't extend it as far out as the left one.

She starts pecking at the stone, creating a painful echo that surely is heard from the outside. Deja, had proven herself to be quite useful, despite her young age. While we were trapped, she would dig up worms for me and lay them at my feet when I reached the point of exhaustion.