CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

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CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

            I can taste the blood, and it's delicious.  After not tasting any food for days, the saltiness of the liquid pouring forth from the rat is a sublime relief.  I had feared I'd never taste anything again, and I was wrong.  I can taste food, and it's wonderful.  Unfortunately, that particular food happens to be coming from the vermin that I've just sunk my teeth into.

            Closing my eyes, I relish the flavor and do my best to not think about where my pleasure is coming from.  I don't want to be drinking the blood of another living creature, but I can't deny the satisfaction it is bringing to my raging stomach.

            I continue my macabre act with my furry dinner until his little heart ceases pumping.  There is wetness around my mouth, and I gingerly wipe the back of my hand across my lips fearing a smear of red gore will appear.  My hand comes away damp with saliva but clear of blood.  I didn't spill a drop during my feast.

            Laying the limp body down onto the floor of the warehouse, I sit back and consider what I've done.  I have no further desire to eat the body of the rat, and that's a relief to me.  I didn't want to have to skin the creature, but I feared my impulses would drive me to consume it whole.  Now that the poor thing is deflated like an old birthday balloon, my stomach has no more pull towards it.  At the same time, I'm not fully satiated, either.  I need more.  That rat was just the beginning.

            My nausea that had been wracking me for the last day has been quelled by the blood, and the fuzziness that had clouded my brain is beginning to recede.   This is the best I've felt since this horrible ordeal began.  I stand and stretch, and energy flows through me that I haven't felt in days.  It’s a wonderful sensation.

            But it's not enough.  My body is already burning off what little energy I gleaned from the rat.  I've been running on empty for over a day, and the little bit of sustenance the rat gave me is only enough to wake me up.  I need more.

            Crouching back down, I close my eyes and open my other senses to the room.  I want - no, I need - another rat.  Another living creature will become my prey.  My early attack and feasting created enough noise to scare off any other rats, so my next target will be more difficult.  But it won't be impossible.  I have the distinct feeling that very little will ever be impossible for me after today.

            I spend the afternoon hunting as many rats as I'm able to track down.  Each one I devour makes me stronger and faster, thus making the hunt for the next one even easier.  The pile of bodies reaches a dozen before I take a break for the evening.  I feel strong and healthy and fit and better than I've felt in a long time.  The only part of me not feeling great is my conscious which is bothered by my method for achieving this sublime feeling.  The corpses of the rats (Are they corpses or just bodies?  Can animals be corpses?  Where is the justification line?) serve as a stark reminder of what I currently am.

            That thought gives me pause.  What am I?

            Looking back over the past forty-eight hours leaves me with more questions than answers, and that bothers me.  The strength and vitality coursing through me are tremendous, and everything in me yearns to test what I can do.  But at the same time, twelve rats had to die in order for me to feel this way.  I've never thought of myself as a "tree hugger", but those deflated furry balloons of guilt on the ground in front of me are haunting.  That's not right.  Getting invigorating sustenance from the lifeblood of another living creature is not how man was created.

            But I've never been a vegetarian either.  I have no qualms about eating a delicious hamburger or a juicy steak.  How is this any different?  I'm still a carnivore.  I'm just a carnivore dining on a different part of my prey.  As long as I stick to animals then I'll be fine.  I can live a perfectly normal life like this.

            The rationalization is a lie, but it works to soothe my conscious enough for me to move on with my evening.

            I can't just leave the rats in the middle of the warehouse floor.  I don't like where they cause my mind to go when I look at them, and they'll start to stink soon (Will bodies still stink if there's no blood in them?  Not something I've ever had to consider before.)  A quick scan of the rooms in the warehouse turn up an old clothing bag that I can stuff the bodies into.  From there, it's an easy job to take the bag out back into the overgrown field behind the property and bury them.

            At first I had just planned to dump the lifeless bodies into a pile somewhere in the grass, but it didn't feel right.  Knowing these creatures died at my hand, and that I am stronger because of them (And thus owed them something.  Or at least owed their spirits.) means I can’t just callously hurl their bodies away.  I spend a few minutes digging a hole using an old two-by-four plank and gently stack the bodies in the bottom of it.  (Out of sight, out of mind, right?)

            With the bodies buried behind me, I turn toward the massive wall of the warehouse and smile. 

            I've been able to run for five or six miles nonstop without even getting winded, climb a brick wall using nothing but my finger strength, smash through a solid wooden door and then jump out a second story window unharmed all while I felt drained, exhausted and mostly dead.

            "Let's see what I can do now that I have some energy!" I say to the emptiness around me, and I begin to run straight at the warehouse wall.

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