Fearful One

By Jim Stigall: jimstigall.blogspot.com

Hungry.

Hungry.

Hungry.

Lonely.

Frightened.

The only things that consume my mind as I wander through this wasteland of a place, this city that once was. Massive, beautiful, wondrous thing my feeble mind can no longer comprehend. A world I do not understand, was never really part of, don’t even remember.

Hungry.

Hungry.

Lonely.

Frightened.

Dying.

My tattered flesh burns in the heat of the sun, freezes in the midnight moonlight, wrinkles in the waters of the seas. Is this really all I was meant to be, a shell of the human I once was? Trapped inside this unending torture, forced to watch the destruction of the species I called my kin?

Hungry.

Hungry.

Blood.

Meat.

Death.

The taste will never leave my mouth. It’s the stench, the reek, of their fear that drives me, brings me, strengthens me. My life, my species, cannot go on without yours, but you cannot persist with ours. We will never know art, music, happiness, love. But you will never know the absolute desolation, the anger, the pain, the hate of living a prisoner inside your body, knowing only the urges, the needs. Never able to stop yourself.

Lonely.

Lonely.

Lonely.

Spotted.

Frightened.

And as you come for me this time, the revenge you take on my hostage mind, know in your heart that I meant you no harm. Know in your soul that I never meant to hurt you, scare you, kill you, eat you. Know in the deepest safest place of your mind that in that moment, where I reached in to take a bite, I wish you to die, completely, instead of turning into one of me.

Meat.

Death.

Lonely.

Lonely.

Not alone.

Together we will walk now, no longer alone, no longer afraid, no longer dead. Within each others strides, we become whole again. Whole to see a companion, a friend. Now we are not alone.

Walking.

Walking.

Stumbling.

Crawling.

Darkness.

Now I watch your face as I truly fade into the black, my head cut clean from my body. I was left too, once. All alone when my walking companion died. Just as I was, you’re alone to suffer the anguish of killing, causing pain, reaping fear. But now I am free.