First comes plucking the fur out. Pinching tuft after tuft in my incisors and tugging each out before spitting them aside. Rather unpleasant to eat. Eventually I get impatient, don’t do as thorough a job of that as I could. I start peeling the skin off in long strips. It’s incredibly painful.
Next comes sawing off bits of meat with my carnassials. I can barely stand the pain. The only thing that helps it is biting harder, faster, gulping down more chunks of my own flesh and tendons. If I keep going then I might end up satisfied.
I try to focus on the sound of those shearing teeth.
Every few moments I’m able to slow myself down enough to lick instead of bite, to rasp away bits of flesh and to lap up the blood. These moments do not last very long, and every time I return to devouring my own foreleg more ravenous than the last. I am well past the point where I can stop myself.
I am the beast that consumes. I am being consumed.
Pain races as I bite further into my paw, as I tear off another tendon. One of my teeth has been bothering me lately, so I try to only use the left side of my mouth.
The tendons do provide a nice chew.
Is this still chewing, with carnassials? I don’t know if there’s a better word, one made for these teeth.
I’m using my untouched paw to hold down the other at this point. Not that it’s likely to go anywhere.
I slip my tongue in and out from between the bones, seeking out any scrap of meat they can wrest free. I’m not ready to be done. This is far too soon, too unsatisfying. I crack open the bones between my teeth even though there’s barely any marrow to speak of in ones so small. Eventually this frustrates me. I look down at my handiwork, at the ruined mess that was my foreleg, paw. I blink, and the leg is whole. I blink, and it’s a remnant again. I blink, and bend my head back down.
It’s something to do.
