Hunger, Part the Fifth

CHAPTER 6

They were drinking from a pond when I did find them. They seemed healthy, well fed. At least, for what we usually are.

My brother was cupping his hands messily, and dropping the water before it reached his mouth. He had resorted to plunging his head in the water. My sister was looking around. She was being protective, as she always was. God bless her for it.

“Hey, someone’s here. Let’s go.”

“But I’m thirsty.”

“Yeah, well, you’re gonna’ be dead if you don’t stop drinking right now.”

“Stop. It’s just me.” What a beautiful family reunion!

“Oh.” That was all she could say? At least that was better than my brother. He just wiped the smile off his face, and put his head back under the water.

“Come on. Don’t act like you didn’t- “

“You know that you can’t stay with us.” What?

“But-“

“He won’t be OK the next time you blow up. And don’t say you won’t, because we both know what eventually he is going to do something so idiotic that you just can’t resist-“

“It is my turn to speak,” she needed to listen to me. “We can’t separate. We will die.”

“How can I let you just destroy his feelings and expectations like you did!?”

My brother took a few seconds to breathe.

“I will not do that again.”

“Did you not just hear-“

“It is my turn to speak, dammit! Keeping us separated will destroy his feelings worse than me saying a couple of wrongful sentences! He needs to suck it up! This is not a game!”

“What, you don’t think I know that?”

“He needs to know that”

I shook my head and waited for my brother to come up for a breath. When he finally cam up, I tapped his shoulder. He looked back, and then began to get ready to go back under.

“Stay,” I demanded.

“Why?”

“Do you always have to ask that-,” I had to revise my words, “I don’t always have an answer to that question. But I can answer it with another question.”

“Oh yeah, what’s that?”

“How are you?” He stared back at me for what seemed like an hour.

That question was almost banned from our code of language.

“I-I’m fine, you?”

“I am also fine. So, I have something that I need to talk to you about.” He was completely baffled.

“Sure. What is it?”

“You know that we might die, right? Any day, any time?”

“Yes.”

“And you know that this isn’t a game, right?”

“Yes, I know.”

“And most importantly, do you love us?”

“More or less.”

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Everything was normal again. We still wandered, ate in portions, and talked. Something was different, though. It was nothing noticeable by the outside, we were still just as alert as before, in fact more than ever. Something about the pond made us closer, stronger. We trusted each other, and I was no longer the leader. I had as much power as my brother did, and so did my sister.

We were one, one family, one group, one person. That was something that was non-existent before; I never thought we would be so close.

“Well, what are we doing today?” My brother was becoming bored with this lifestyle.

“I suppose we could do what you want to do.” My sister and I exchanged quick glances.

“Or maybe we could do what you want to do.” Nobody ever asked me what I wanted to do. It was quite the shock; it took me a second to answer.

“Um, we could… get some fish and have a feast tonight!” I answered an unusual question with an unusual answer. As I’ve said before, we never had feasts. I didn’t even know where I had leaned that learned that word, as it was so distant, unreal.

They stared, and then my brother said, “Well, let’s go find a pond!”

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I had always wondered why animals seemed to be thriving so well. The human race had been almost completely wiped out, and the animals had been perfectly fine. At least as far as I could tell, when humans were still dominant, animals were kept in pens and cages, and their birth patterns were probably monitored. A guess was all this was, but a very good guess, I thought.

We had found a pond with beautiful water, and you could see the fish swimming on the bottom.

“Look!”

“Yes, I see them.” Now we just needed a way to get them. I thought that the easiest way would be to sharpen some sticks with my knife and stab them. Of course, this wasn’t as easy as I thought it was.

“We could… make them come over here.”

“How?”

“I don’t know… with food or something.”

It turns out that my little brother had some good ideas. We caught three fish, and we were wondering how we would cook them. We decided that we would just stick it over the fire like we usually did with meat.

My sister was the only one who could actually start a fire. We didn’t know when or where she learned how, but it had saved us before. Of course, it could also give away our location if we were not careful. I had to make sure that we would snuff it out before night. My siblings enjoyed the warmth and light, but the dark and cold kept us hidden from them.

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They had to come on that night, didn’t they? The one night where we could indulge ourselves in food and together-ness.

“Get behind the trees. I’ll put out the fire.” They were obviously being careless. I could hear them coming, and they still didn’t know where we were. Thank god.

“I smell some smoke.”

“And fish.”

“We just ate.” The third one was being just as defiant as always.

“I’m still hungry.”

“I doubt that.” I sensed and eye-roll moment.

I hated that I couldn’t hear them coming near our hiding places. They most have gotten more careful. I wasn’t even sure where my brother and sister were. I didn’t hear another sound for that entire night. I couldn’t sleep; I couldn’t think. The night passed by quickly, and by morning I was hungry and tired.

When I finally thought it to be safe, I stood up to find my muscles to be cramped, and my joints might as well have been squeaking. It still felt good to stand up.

My first goal was to find my brother and sister.

“Rice-cake!” This was our code word for meeting up/coming out. I didn't eveb think my sister knew what it meant.

There was no answer of movement or words. I did not panic; things like had happened before. I searched the surrounding area.

Nothing. No one. And then I saw it.

They had been dragged. Beaten. Drops of blood left a trail towards them, and I was going to follow. What choice did I have? Without them I was nothing.

CHAPTER 7

The trail of blood stopped once I found the road. I had to decide which way I would go next. I decided left. The blood seemed to lean that way before it disappeared. There wasn’t any confidence in my decision. They could have turned around just as easily as staying on the path that I took. But it was all I had, so I went with it. I spent four days like this.

On the fifth day I gave up. They were gone, dead probably. Why should I exert myself to find corpses? Why should I risk my life in order to discover that I’m all alone, rather than accept with the slight possibility of hope? This was my train of thought, and I went with it.

I didn’t know what to do with myself. Dirty up. Eat. Find food. Sleep. What else was there? Nothing. I was alone.

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I was thinking of killing myself. What else was there to do? My life was meaningless, and I would rather not let my blood become a snack for them. That kind of purpose is worse than having one in the first place.

There had to be a place where blood would pour out of my body, into the soil. I wanted my body to become the earth, not food. I had been testing spots on my body. My wrists bled largely, and I could only guess that my face had many vessels, especially my neck. When I sat down and thought about it (which I did a lot), all of the blood had to get through my neck, up to my head. There simply had to be a mass of tubes doing that job. Also, they always seemed to drink from there. So my disturbing decision became that I would use my knife, and cut open my neck as largely as possible.

Fun thoughts to have, no?

I only had to decide when and where. There was also the matter of leaving some kind of note behind, most likely in graffiti. Where would I get something to write with? I supposed that I had to carve it into the wall, which would mean that it would have to be short and sweet.

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I spent hours and days and possibly months deciding what I should write. I had found that my knife would make a nice enough mark to outlast simple rain-wash. But what to write?

I spent another month thinking about it.

And another.

So after my three month meditation, I could only think of one thing to say, and it took me a few days to finally write it out on the wall. It dwarfed all the other writings. It truly was a statement.

“LIFE SUCKS”

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It was the day of my suicide attempt, hopefully a success. I thought that really nothing could go wrong. Even if they came to me, I would die and join my family. The aspect of not-being-food would simply be ignored, which wasn’t the worst thing to be lost in this. If my words disappeared, or my family watched me as I cut my neck open, then this would be failure.

But I wouldn’t care, ‘cause I’d be dead.

It was actually quite the beautiful day, and I even thought of enjoying it before my final hours, but too much preparation! I mean, I had to think about it, and think about it, and even think about it! It was quite tiring.

I had the knife in hand all day. Waiting for it to come up to my neck and-

There were screams, and I ran off to find the source.

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It was my sister. She was on the ground. Why wasn’t she bleeding? There was a gash in her neck.

“Luke…”

“What happened?”

“Th-they were keeping us…. Too full… they were ready… and then… and then…”

“Did they drink it all?”

“I DON’T KNOW! I DON’T KNOW. LUCIUS. HELP ME.” I took off my shirt and put it to the gash, and then I remembered that there wouldn’t be a blood flow.

“Help… Help…” What could I do? There was no blood.

“Help, Lucius, Help.”

“JUST GIVE ME A DAMN SECOND TO THINK.”

“Help me.”

I thought about anything and everything. Nothing I knew could help her. You’d think that after all of the experiences I’ve been through, I would know how to help.

She would have to die. I put on a reluctant smile on my face as tears poured out of my eye sockets. She did not deserve this.

“You’re going to be fine Mary. You’re going to be fine.” She then also smiled.

“No I’m not.”

And she closed her eyes, and died.