First Taste
Cannibalism, so warning I guess. (?)
Watch as a creepily try to describe human flesh as being the most delicious thing ever,
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It was a pivotal moment in his life. An inevitable moment, perhaps, one that would have happened eventually regardless, but important none the less. He was alone for the first time, fleeing the death of his mother. It had been a wasting fever, hot and cruel, that had killed her. He'd buried her with his own hands only a few days prior and the pain of it was still sharp. His father had already been gone six years now. Leaving him, at eighteen, with no one else in the world.
The grief had snapped the last bit of restraint holding back his natural wanderlust, inherited from his father just as much as his strange features were. Pale skin and hair, crystal white eyes, and, hidden from others behind cloth masks or closed lips, the fangs of a predatory animal. These things marked him as different from the other people of his homeland. Different from all other men he had known save for the one whom had sired him.
There was nothing tying to him the home he had been raised in any longer and the memory of loss was too acute to do anything but encourage his departure. It took a few days to bury his mother and prepare for the journey. After that, he was gone.
And that's where Victor was when it happened. Gone. Camped alone in the desert, not knowing where he was going besides away. He wasn't concerned with getting lost. He could survive in these wilds as easily the sand foxes and the snake-dogs did. What did concern him was when a stranger approached his fire out of the dark.
He was chewing on a tough strip of jerky right before the man approached, despite the fact he'd eaten shortly after making camp. The tough meat was more a distraction. A distraction from a different kind of hunger that hid deep in the pit of his stomach. One he knew well wouldn't ever be chased away by the goat cheese and bread he'd had for supper. It was like some foreign monster, seeming to growl inside him whenever he acknowledged its existence.
Victor had been wary when the stranger had asked to share his fire. He was naturally suspicious of people he didn't know, but he allowed the man to stay. He just kept a wary eye on him. Really, everything was fine until the man tried to rob him.
“Sorry, kid,” the stranger had said, while pulling out a long, wicked looking knife “Now be smart and just hand over your stuff without a fight.”
Victor may have been relatively young, a “kid” in the other's eyes, but he knew how to defend himself. The man hadn't expected the ferocity of the defense. After all, he was armed, his victim wasn't, why would he have any trouble? Only there had been trouble. First a desperate grapple, with his victim staying decidedly un-stabbed, then the kid had tried to bite him of all things. The startlement at the teeth he saw was enough for Victor to take the advantage. He threw him down hard, and was stringing his bow before the stranger could rise.
And that, long story short, was how Victor came to be sitting at his fire with a body across from him. At first when the man had fallen Victor had stayed standing still and wary, watching. Fierce observation and a few cursory sniffs with his sharp nose had confirmed the man dead from where he stood. Then, instead of retrieving the arrow that pierced the body's chest, Victor had retreated from it.
Adrenaline from the tense event still hummed through his veins as he sat, adding a wild edge to everything. Victor panted hard, sharp breaths, in and out. He tried to ignore the body as he waited for the rush to fade, but part of him was acutely aware of its presence. Something deep inside him stirred and he found himself staring intently at the pile of clothes and limbs slumped across from him.
He realized that he was staring at the dead man with morbid fascination and turned away. He swallowed back the mouthful of drool that had formed without him noticing. The adrenaline had already almost faded and he quashed the other feeling, that foreign hunger, back down into the pit of his stomach. As he always had. At first it worked, but it wasn't long until Victor's mind was fixated on the dead man again. He hunkered down, tense, away from it. He found his half eaten piece of jerky where he'd set it down on the stranger's arrival. He tried chewing it but it tasted too bland now. He wanted to spit it out on the ground but forced himself to swallow.
Finally Victor relented and looked over to the body again. There it was on the other side of the fire, same as before. The thing inside him seemed to gnaw at his insides. It constricted his chest with desire. He wanted to go over to the body. He wanted to...
No! Victor turned his head away with an irritated growl to himself. No, he wouldn't even entertain the thought. He was in complete control of himself. It would be wrong. An abomination. But...
Who would ever know?
Victor half bared his teeth, wet with drool, imagining the feeling of what he could do with them. What he wanted to do. He closed his mouth fully again, feeling the canines mesh comfortably together and swallowed back the saliva. Victor closed his eyes. A shudder of anticipation went through him.
He gave in.
Moving almost automatically he rose and walked to the other side of his neglected, dying fire. He knelt at the body of the stranger who'd tried to rob him and ripped the arrow from his chest. Victor was trembling with nervous energy. His fingers did a nervous tap dance along the arrow's shaft as he held it. He wanted to tear into the corpse right this second with no hesitation, but self control was paramount. Instead he took the time to clean the arrow on the man's shirt and carefully set it aside. Only then did he begin.
First Victor wrestled the body's stained shirt off. It proved to be troublesome with the literal dead weight getting in the way. Eventually he manged, though it ended up slightly torn. It was of little concern. Then Victor drew his knife. He was uncertain where to begin, but after a moments deliberation settled on the ribs. The chest would be fairly easy to partially skin.
He slid his knife down the middle of the man's chest, slicing through the skin easily. Then down along the side of the ribs, creating a flap. Victor pulled back the skin to reveal the glistening, pink and red muscles beneath. He was drooling again, worse this time. He swallowed and moved to slice off a piece of flesh.
Victor's mind was a cacophony of growling desire. He was practically functioning on autopilot as his knife sliced into the muscle, cutting it to the bone. The was no regretting now. No going back. He couldn't have stopped himself if he cared to try. He pulled a small chunk off meat off the body and lifted it in anticipation. Victor stared at it for a moment until he could stand it no longer. Then he ate it.
It was like nothing he'd ever tasted before. Sure, it essentially tasted like meat, but for him there was so much more than that. The first instant it touched his tongue felt like the single greatest moment of pleasure. The flavor infused him mouth and it was so good it practically tingled. It was if everything he had ever eaten up to this point had been made of ashes and only now was he actually tasting real food. The meat was something that satisfied that strongest craving he'd had for so long.
Victor was already slicing off the next piece as he swallowed. Then the next. He couldn't get enough of it. Eventually, practically frantic, he abandoned the knife all together and just used his teeth. Sinking them into the dead man's flesh and tearing at it viciously. Biting and gnawing like an animal.
Victor gorged himself until he could eat no more. Only then did he leave the body. His resolve had finally broken, giving into that primal hunger. He was covered in flecks of gore. But at the moment he couldn't care less. Full and more satisfied then he'd ever been, Victor settled down to sleep.
-----------
The next morning, Victor ate from the corpse again. This time there was no hesitation in the action. The feeling of finally satisfying his hunger had been too welcome to allow him to stop now. He exhibited a great deal more control than the night before, though there was still a franticness to his feeding.
After his gruesome breakfast, Victor set about butchering what remained. It was an easy task. He'd often hunted with his father before he'd gone missing, and after that he'd continued to do so on his own. He'd learned young how to butcher a carcass and the methods carried over from animals to humans easily. He wrapped each piece in butcher's cloth that he carried in the event of a successful hunt and packed it away. He took what he could carry and left the rest for the scavengers to dispose of. Even if the corpse was happened across by someone else before it was gone, scavengers is what they'd assume had eaten it.
Camp was packed and Victor slung his bow and bag across his back. Then meat he'd taken would last him a good while before it was gone. And after it was? Well, he could always get more.
