10 Years ago Part 2

I stare at the food service in front of me, my stomach growling and the pain gnawing at my insides. I know this will be my one meal for the day, I have to brace myself before going inside. The prying eyes, the disapproving gazes. They see a child on the street, but all they can do is look. What place is there for me in the world? I'd been asked my age and told them I was 18, they looked at me weird but what can they do, it wasn't the truth of course. Just shy of 17 now, my birthday passed some time before I even realized it, another day of mourning for all the lost souls, another birthday passed.

The streets were dangerous, but nothing like I hadn't had to deal with, their shallow punches and scratching, their diseased looks nothing like the zombies that still haunt me. I woke up screaming and howling at one point which seemed to scare most of the sane ones away., Fighting for my life being attacked by those as rabid from hunger as I was, nearly killing a man by hitting his head against a stone building until he stumbled away never to be seen again.

The days blending together into one maddening bad dream, each night his smile haunting me as it stretched and devoured me whole. The white room, my surroundings nothing like it, the dirty gray of the street, a stark reminder of how different life is now.

From a happy home, to the world ending, to a lady tending to my wounds, to the white walls and screams of pain and ecstasy, to the street. All of it is like a nightmare that I'm going to wake up from each morning. My mother is going to bring in a birthday cake, white chocolate icing with salted caramel base, my father will tell her 'Felicity my love you've done it again!' We will watch some old cartoon movies, ones about friendship and family. My dad will try to teach me about cars again, try and 'toughen me up'.

I cry tears of self-hatred.

WIshing I was home that day.

That I didn't go to the old oak.

That I never told her that name that night.

The last of her warmth as we died together that morning.

This is just my hell.

The whispering in the back of my head is just my demon, deserved to me, while it writhes inside me and tells me all about giving in. I should be upon my throne, I was destined for great things, it would whisper, Sweetly, in the voice I wanted to hear the most. She's dead, so I must be dead too for such words to filter through my deranged skull. I can only laugh to myself.

"Huh weird kid…" A passerby whispers to his friend, their shirts stained with sweat, towels hung over their shoulders, the shirt has barbells on it with words above and below it 'Gym Maximus, become the strongest you!' I think about the words again and again.

Become the strongest me… I need to become strong… I need to survive… I need to live, it's a sign. The voice quiets down again, I sigh in relief at the silence. Only the sound of a car alarm going off in the distance to fill the void it left.

I look around from where the men came from, spotting a back alley sign, the same barbells on it, people are still leaving, I'd woken up at a bad time, my stomach screaming to ingest and feed. The food service was not until morning, I'd somehow managed to wake up before midnight. The pain is too much to sleep through now, finding that if I ate a little bit of the food from the day I was able to sleep through the rest of the hunger, tricking my stomach, each day seeming to need less and less.

A man comes out of the building and locks it up, heading down the opposite side of the alley… My stomach's protests pushing me forwards. I get to the door and try the handle anyway, despite seeing him lock it, I look around and see a window above the door to the right. Leveraging myself up the best I can I feel it giveaway in my hand, screeching metal on rusted metal as it has probably never been opened before. I push up off the wall and fall inside, with a crash I enter the darkened space where I will become the strongest. I wince in pain as I feel a sharp stinging up my arm, I must have landed on something…

I ignore the pain the best I can and feel my way around the room, nearly tripping multiple times as I stumble into metal bars and weird contraptions, maybe for torture… is that how I get stronger? I'm used to being in pain… maybe getting stronger is easy! I find a room in the back and manage to somehow hit a lightswitch, the area illuminating around me as I find myself in a kitchen.

Panic wells up in my body as I tremble, falling to the floor, vomit exiting my mouth like it was there the whole time, just waiting, the white tiles of the floor reflecting my expression of fear. The pooling of red blood follows it, it always follows the white room, I look up and around, expecting to find myself back on that bed, strapped down, cords coming out of my stomach, the crystals growing, always growing, the smile of the doctor taunting me.

The room is silent, only my haggard breathing being heard in my ears, the pumping of my heart as it tries its best to cover up the flowing wound on my arm. I'm not there, it's not real and I'm not there, it's going to be okay, I'm just bleeding, a large gash in my arm, exposing the skin under the skin, muscle maybe, it twitches and convulses to the pulsing of blood as it exits me.

I calm down, worries over, it's just a wound. I nearly slip as I slide through my pooling blood, opening cupboard after cupboard, finally finding a supply of bandages under the sink in a red box just like mum had under hers. I start to wrap it around my arm and find that the blood still goes through, I feel the void pulsing and calling to me as my vision starts fading, huh weird… I haven't done that since I've been on the streets… I must be hungry… I make my way over to the fridge and find some yogurt in a tub, I just need to eat and then I can start getting stronger, I can be my strongest me. I start pouring it down my throat after pulling myself into a corner, the blood has soaked into my pants and I'm not sure how I'm going to wash it all off, if only mum was here… hah but she's dead, everyone is dead, just dead, they all went to heaven and I'm stuck in hell…

I will become stronger, maybe there's a way out of hell if I become stronger…

…

"Kid! KID! Are you alive?!" I laugh in response, of course I'm not, what a silly question. I open my eyes, they are weak and as I try to open them. I hope the food kitchen is open now, I just need some food and I'll be right to keep going.

A man is in front of me, shaking my shoulder with one arm. He looks nice, like an older uncle… He reminds me of the man who used to make the yummy muffins… I wonder if he also has a husband.

"What are you doing here?! Fuck fuck. There's blood everywhere! I need to call the guys in, this is fucked, how the fuck did a child get in here, they are going to shut me down!" The words flowed over me like the yogurt flowed down my throat.

"Stronger, be the strongest me." I try to get up and stumble back into the wall, in a panic the man holds onto me, wow I wish I had big muscles like him, but like… nice looking muscles! In my delirious state I can only laugh.

"Fuck kid, let me see that arm… wha- how did you make so much blood with barely a scratch on you?! Theres half a human in here stuck to my fucking floors?!" I laugh, thinking about how many humans I must have had put inside me, their blood congealed all over my stomach, seeping inside me. Do I even have my blood inside me anymore? Maybe it's made up of all the people that died above me, their eyes staring and pleading at me.

I vomit and black out, the red specks in the darkness greeting me.