Heart Pangs

Chapter 4 - The Truth

More years go by and Mrs. Marotta keeps thinking that at some point Benji and Felix will grow apart, but it never seems to happen. Felix is always swinging by and crashing at her place like a fifth child. He acts the same as ever, but Mrs. Marotta is growing nervous because he doesn't quite look the same.

By now, Felix is even taller than her. Benji stands just below his shoulder. Mrs. Marotta is painfully aware that the bigger Felix gets, the greater danger he becomes to her family.

She thinks about how she can politely ask him to never come around her or her family again. She fantasizes scenarios where she had been able to summon the courage to tell Felix's mother, "no," that first day they came over. But she knows all that is wishful thinking. She just hopes that, with Felix and Benji finally about to attend separate schools, they won't have much time to hang out anymore, that they'll find new friends of their own kind to be around.

Middle school is when things change. It's when prey and preds are segregated into their own buildings on their own sides of town. Neither Felix nor Benji have ever really questioned why things are this way. That's just how it's always been. But once classes start, they learn. They learn why it's this way.

It's a whole class for Felix. He gets a crash course on his first day. They teach him all about what makes him and all his new classmates different from prey. Turns out, it's not just the size.

Felix learns about consuming and preds who are consumers. He learns that "consuming" is just a nice way of saying "preds who swallow down prey whole and alive and, more often than not, digest them like nothing more than food."

Several of his classmates seem intrigued by this concept. Felix has to hide his disgust. The idea horrifies him.

He thinks about the Marotta family. Benji, Camille, and little Stephanie. Does Benji know about all this? The girls surely do not. What if someone tries to consume them and no one's there to stop it?

Felix remembers the way Brandon stopped playing with them when he entered middle school. He remembers all the odd ticks and things Mrs. Marotta has said to him over the years, and suddenly things are clicking into place.

Felix thinks at first that this practice must be an old and barbaric one, something nobody practices today. Otherwise, how has he lived for eleven years and never even heard of it? His assumption is somewhat confirmed when he's taught the history of consuming. How there used to be no laws against it. How prey would be snatched up by preds with no consequences. But thankfully, those days are a long time ago. Now, non-consensually consuming prey is a crime.

However, even today there are remnants of this past. Like how most political positions of power are held by preds, how many prey live in poverty while most wealth is owned by preds, prey still have larger families (just in case), prey didn't even have a say in their country's government until only a few decades ago. But, Felix's teachers assure the class, things are changing for the better. Prey are given more opportunities and respect than ever before.

This information provides Felix with some manner of relief. If so much has changed for the better, perhaps he doesn't have to worry so much after all. Perhaps Benji is safe.

But this isn't the end of the lesson.

Preds have enjoyed consuming for far too long to simply give it up. There are ways for them to do it even today.

Most popularly, there are publicly contracted prey. These prey enter into federally or corporately owned contracts for a certain amount of years. During the extent of those years, they're treated with innumerable benefits including: a large allowance, home upgrades, free food from anywhere and transportation to anywhere, health bills taken care of in full, and often times a staff personnel to take care of anything else. The shorter the contract, the more extravagant the benefits.