Chapter 12: The Appetite

It was hard as a brick. The loaf was the simplest, coarsest kind of black bread, likely made with more sawdust than flour, without a hint of butter or jam to soften it. Jared had buried it for days, and the cold ground had turned it into something you could use to brain someone. This was the kind of bread that civilized folk would boil in a thick soup for an hour before even attempting to chew it. And yet, I was gnawing on it directly. It was hard, and bitter, and tasted of nothing but grit and damp earth. But, shockingly, I could not only bite into it, but I could chew it, and swallow it, and I was doing so with a frightening, desperate speed.

My tongue and the memories of my old brain screamed that this stuff was awful, not fit for human consumption. But my body, this new, starving vessel, was ravenous. It was like a parched desert drinking in a long-awaited flood, instinctively craving this foul sustenance, finding it delicious. Had I been starved for that long? To be eating with such desperate, ugly haste? The thought was mortifying. But I couldn't help it. The hunger was a physical, demanding entity coiled in my gut. The body had its needs.

“Parula, slow down,” Jared said, taking a piece of the hard flatbread for himself. He watched my frenzied eating with wide, concerned eyes. Even he, a boy used to hardship, only dared to nibble at the thinner, softer flatbread, while I was tearing into the rock-hard loaf with a relish that seemed to make him hungry. Was this black bread really that good? He picked up a piece of the charred loaf himself and took a tentative bite. His teeth clicked audibly against it. It was like biting into iron. He stared at me, astonished. How could a little slip of a girl have the jaw strength to bite through uncooked, petrified bread?

In a few frantic bites, I had devoured the entire loaf. I immediately reached for a smoked sausage and shoved it into my mouth. Ugh! A strange, foul, rancid taste exploded on my tongue. I couldn’t tell if it was from a poor curing process, or if the meat itself was off, or if it had simply been too long since Jared had stolen it. The sausage was rotten. But even as my mind reeled in disgust, my mouth kept moving, my teeth tearing, my throat swallowing. Soon, the entire sausage was gone, and my hand was already reaching for a small, greasy meat pie.

“Parula? Are you alright? What’s wrong?” Even Jared could see now that something was terribly amiss. The Parula he knew was a small, delicate eater, with a bird's appetite. It made sense. A child who was constantly starving, who was nothing but skin and bones, wouldn’t have the stomach for a large meal. You could place a royal feast before her, and she wouldn’t be able to eat much. But I… I had already consumed enough food to satisfy three grown, labouring men. And yet, I felt no sense of fullness. In fact, the hunger was growing, intensifying, a gnawing, insatiable void that demanded more. More food! More!

It was then that I, too, realized something was deeply, fundamentally wrong with me. I tried to stop, to pull my hand back, but my body wouldn’t obey. A force that was not my own continued to snatch at the food, stuffing it into my mouth with a desperate, wolfish hunger, my movements growing faster, more frantic, more bestial.

“Parula!” Jared reached for me, but when I turned to look at him, he recoiled, his eyes wide with genuine fear. The look on my face, I knew, was not human. It was the look of a predator staring at its prey. I knew this because, in that moment, a horrifying, intrusive thought slithered into my mind, a thought that was not my own: He looks tender. He looks like meat. I wonder what he tastes like?

The thought shocked me back to my senses like a douse of ice water. My God! How could I even think such a thing? Jared was my saviour. Without his care, I would have no hope of survival. And to eat him? To eat another human being? The very idea of it, of cannibalism, triggered a wave of such profound, instinctual revulsion—a remnant of my old self—that it finally gave me the strength to fight back against the ravenous hunger. I threw the half-eaten pie aside and scrambled back into the corner, huddling into the blanket, shaking. Before, I had been weak, barely able to move. But while I was eating, a strange, terrifying strength had surged through me. As I tore at the food, I felt as if I could have easily overpowered Jared, pinned him down, and… The thought was too horrific to complete. I had never imagined that the simple act of eating could be so terrifying. That uncontrollable, insatiable appetite… it was a monster living inside me. By the time I regained control, I had eaten three-quarters of the food Jared had stored for at least half a month. And stranger still, though I had consumed a mountain of food, my body showed no sign of change. My stomach wasn't even distended. And I was still hungry. This was not normal. This was not human.

“Parula,” Jared said, his voice soft as he knelt beside me, placing a tentative hand on my shoulder.

 “No! Don’t touch me! Stay away!” I cried, shrinking from his touch, terrified that I might hurt him, that the monster might lash out. “I’m sorry…”

“It’s alright, Parula. It’s just hunger. You were just very hungry, that’s all,” he tried to soothe, though I could hear the uncertainty in his voice. “Eat as much as you want. When it’s gone, I’ll just steal more.” He didn’t understand the true nature of my fear. He thought it was just a simple case of a starving child overeating. He was still just a boy, innocent in his own grim way.

“Thank you,” I whispered, my voice choked with a sob I couldn’t suppress. “But please… just let me be for a while. Don’t touch me. And please… keep the food away from me.” I was so afraid. Afraid of what I might become if I saw the food again, afraid of that monstrous hunger taking control, of not being myself anymore.

“Alright,” he said, and to my surprise, he actually listened. He didn’t press me further. He simply sat down nearby and began to gnaw on a piece of the hard flatbread himself. He didn’t have my strange, unnatural strength. He struggled with it, his jaw working hard, the scraping sound loud in the small space.

For a while, that was the only sound. I couldn't bear to listen to it. "Can't you find some hot water to soak it in?" I finally burst out, my nerves frayed.

“You’re the one who told me not to light a fire,” he retorted, his voice muffled by the bread. “Where am I supposed to get hot water?” His words silenced me. A wave of guilt, mixed with a strange sort of warmth, washed over me. He had actually listened to me, respected my strange, unexplained fears, even when it meant he had to suffer for it.

I was at a loss for words for a moment. “You can… you can take the brazier outside,” I said finally. “You can light a fire out there safely. To boil some water.” How could I explain it? How could I speak of invisible poisons, of air that steals your breath and kills you in your sleep, to a boy whose world was defined by a knife in the dark or a boot to the ribs? The poor souls of this city died from a thousand visible evils; they had no frame of reference for the unseen ones. They’d burn toxic refuse in their cramped, sealed hovels, never knowing the smoke was as deadly as the cold. And because the death rate was so high, from so many different causes, a sudden, inexplicable death indoors was just another tragedy in a long, sorrowful list. The dead couldn't speak to warn the living, so no one ever learned from their mistakes.

Jared looked at me, a flicker of understanding dawning in his eyes. He seemed to grasp, at last, that there was a reason, a logic, behind my seemingly mad prohibitions. He nodded slowly. “You wait here. I’ll be right back.” He took a piece of the dry bread with him and disappeared out of the alcove, returning a few moments later with a glowing ember clutched between two sticks—a tiny, precious seed of fire, and of trust.