Hunger: II

Once he got over the guilt, he started focusing on survival again. With the boy gone, hunting for food became far more problematic. His hunger became something new as well. No matter what he ate, it was never enough. It was never right. As he thought of the second boy he had killed, he knew the cure to his hunger.

Any time he wasn’t thinking about the boy’s flesh, though, he heard the voices. It had started with his brother, pleading for his life, berating him for his cruelty, and promising fates worse than death. The voice of the boy soon joined the cacophony of yells and pleads. Then came his parents, his best friend, the tribe elders, and everyone else he could think of.

Every soul he had interacted with was now after his life, and only thoughts of boy’s bones, picked clean, were enough to push them away.

But his lack of memory didn’t mean a lack of urges. He found himself craving meat. He would wake up in the middle of the night and find his arm in his mouth, teeth locked into the flesh. Soon enough, his body started adapting to his needs as well.

His ears grew sharper, letting him hear the slightest ruffle of leaves or the breaking of branches. He could feel his teeth growing longer and sharper, making tearing into flesh easier. His body slowly developed into a weapon capable of tearing anything apart, and the man got used to creeping around the forest at night, consuming everything he encountered.

The yells and taunts of the voices turned encouraging once he started showing prowess as a predator. They would push him further, egging him on to consume more and more. As long as it bled, it was all the same. Nonetheless, there would always be whispers about consuming a human again. The more he tried to ignore them, the louder they would become.

The man was close to losing his senses, but he still remembered who he was. He was a holy man, sent on a mission by Him. He knew he could control this animal rising inside him. He knew that despite the constant changes his body was now going through, he was still him. He would not give in to the urges. He would not kill another human, much less consume one. But it was an uphill battle, and every night he lost it a little more.

His conversion was made final the night the man heard Him talk. At first, His voice was indiscernible in his head. Then it rose, drowning all others. He commanded the man to give in, to let his instincts drive him.

Assured by his god, the man stopped resisting. Assured by his god, the man stripped away his humanity, from which rose a beast – hungry and wild. The beast tore through the forest with reckless abandon, and the beings of the forest quickly learned to avoid it.

The beast learned to be content with the forest. Then, one night it happened. The scent of human flesh hit its nose sending it into a frenzy. What little sense remained in him told him it was the village. Something had been hiding the scent of its residents for a long time, but the protection was now gone. The beast smiled. His hunger was going to end at last.