Eat The Memories

I never imagined I would come to this. Once, I believed the words I was told-a man must be strong in muscle, but soft in heart. But after the war, I've learned that the heart isn't soft at all. It's a muscle like any other, and muscles don't break-they tear. They tear apart until there's nothing left but the ruins of what you used to be.

I thought love was gentle. I thought it was something you could hold onto when the world was falling apart. But that was before everything vanished-before everyone I ever cared for turned tail and left, one by one. The world doesn't care for the tender. It chews up what it wants and leaves the rest for dead. And me? I didn't have the guts to hold on to any of it.

The war takes more than bodies-it takes the soul. It rips through you like a freight train, turning everything into dust. My family, my friends, my future-they're all ghosts now. There's nothing left to tether me. Nothing but this. This emptiness, gnawing and hollow. And I needed something-anything-to keep me from falling into the abyss.

And so, I found my way back to flesh. I'd like to say I didn't, but that'd be a lie. Flesh is all that remains, isn't it? The hunger, it doesn't care who you were. It doesn't care that you once believed in something better. It just takes, takes, and takes until you're nothing but the sum of your desire. I've done things... things I can't rightly explain, not even to myself. But what do you do when the world strips you bare, when your skin's crawling with memories of what you lost? You grab onto whatever you can.

I couldn't save her. I couldn't save anyone. The rest of them, they're gone. But the hunger-it's still here. It never leaves. It settles in your bones, a gnawing that never quiets. And when there's nothing left to fill it, you start to wonder if the only thing worth keeping is the thing that keeps you from falling apart.