Food Everywhere

It did not take long to understand what the haggard human had been referring to with its absentminded mumbling. Examples quickly materialised one after another in front of Aspen’s eyes in the form of skeletal human remains, with their ribcages burst open and their skulls and eye-sockets emptied and a couple of dozen bodies reduced to mere flaps of skin, hung up like flags stretching across the still-standing lamp-posts. Clearly these former people had not just been defiled, but eaten, as well. On the flesh of those who could still be identified as anything other than hunks of meat, skin, or bone, there were clear teeth-marks. Not to mention the irregularity of the way flesh had been torn. Now the insects continued the feast. Aspen scratches the back of his head with a bored look on his face. Just as he’s about to take his first step into the shade of the buildings, a hand grabs his ankle with enough force to cause him to stagger. Bewildered, he looks down.

“M-My-My legs…!” the cannibalised person gurgles, indeed without a bottom half. “L-Leg…s…!”

Uncomfortable, Aspen tries jerking his leg free, but their hold is iron-firm.

“They’ll grow back,” he tries assuring them, while simultaneously resorting to kicking.

“Th-Those…sa-s-savages…” the person hisses on, widening their bloodshot eyes. “They l-laughed…! They-“

Aspen manages to pull his leg away, stumblingly regaining balance with his club of a leg afterwards, and the pitiful creature coughs up blood, still with an outstretched hand. Their throat seems to clog, as only burbles and gasps escape their lips, still firmly intent on conveying their immense pain. Looking away, Aspen excuses himself. Entering the city, similar moans of pain echo through the streets. Humans acting in groups is rare enough, but the amount of effort put into redesigning the surroundings… Aspen observes the blood-red walls of the buildings he passes by. Had they tried to repaint these structures entirely? He couldn’t help but feel impressed. Eyeballs hung up by their torn muscles dangled in nearly every open window, lazily spinning, glaring at him. The stereotypical heads speared by poles filled the streets at large, as well, unable to talk of course, but more disturbingly - their expressions changed. Simply put, he had walked into a gorefest. A reoccurring message appearing on the walls, written in, unsurprisingly, blood, read: “FOOD EVERYWHERE”. And looking around him, he couldn’t deny it. Unfazed as he might be, however, Aspen did not intend on becoming someone’s meal. Nor indulge in one himself. Whether it was pointless traces of morals stopping him, or his sanity not yet having deteriorated to that point, Aspen had yet to inflict pain upon another living being in his long lifetime on Earth. There was no longer any reason to restrain oneself in a world stripped of laws and stability, so the fact that brothers and sisters were strangling each other felt natural at this point. Even so, violence didn’t tempt him. Perhaps it was apathy. One thing he felt sure of, however, was that any sense of righteousness he might’ve had at some point was long dead by now. He steps over a twitching hand. Suddenly, amidst the dreary wails of the city, a bloodcurdling scream pierces the air. It sounds to have come from quite a distance away, but Aspen’s ears were still ringing long after it’d receded. No sympathy, he reminds himself, feeling his stomach knot. Nearing the origin of the scream now, more can be heard, though ones not as fierce as the first one. He subconsciously deduces that it’s a woman. And his brain goes on to paint him a great deal of scenarios in which screams like that are produced. He deviates from the road and enters shade. With his dark hair and dully coloured rags, he conveniently melts into it. The yells grow louder and louder. And right before he sees it for himself, voices of several others become audible as well. Roars and cheers. Aspen stops, and hides behind a lone-standing wall, crouchingly peering through its window instead. Seeing the large man of the group didn’t surprise him in the least, but the rest… The rest of them were children. The oldest ones 12, 13 maybe. The youngest one no older than 10. Like the man, their arms were all bloodied up until the shoulders. And each time the woman cried out, they laughed gleefully with mouths stuffed.