Never Starve Again
At first, I didn't understand.
Humanity.
Not the word, not the shape of it, but the way it consumed itself. How people crushed each other, not out of necessity, not out of instinct, but because they could. Because to stand, someone else had to kneel.
I had thought, once, that survival was collective. That the weak clung together, endured together. But I was wrong. They did not hold each other up. They climbed over each other, clawing, gasping, kicking away the ones below.
No one reached down. Hands were not meant to pull others up. They were meant to grasp, to take, to steal whatever warmth they could before the cold swallowed them whole.
And if someone slipped—if fingers lost their grip, if a body crumpled beneath the weight of another—nothing changed.
The world did not stop. It did not grieve. It only pressed forward, unyielding, crushing the fallen beneath its endless march.
And in that silence, Amatsu woke up.
Darkness. A sea of it, stretching infinite. For so long, he had drifted in that void, a formless thing, a whisper without breath. Then—a flicker. A pinprick of light, weak, trembling at the edges of his vision.
And then, pain.
His mind split open as memories crashed into him, relentless, merciless. A flood of sights, sounds, and feelings that were not his own yet belonged to him now. Ten years of another life. A boy named Amatsu, just like him. The same name, the same fate.
The orphan boy. The hidden child. The one who watched as his parents were cut down by men in white coats—CCG officers, reapers draped in clinical sterility. He had hidden then, small and powerless, as his world bled out before him.
Then came the second parents. Ghouls, not monsters, not killers—just people who wanted to live. They took him in, raised him, gave him warmth where the world had only given him cold. They made a home in the depths of District 24, a place where the walls dripped and the air was thick with hunger. A place where survival was measured in flesh and cruelty.
But even there, kindness was not enough.
He had hidden before. In closets, under beds, behind rotting walls. But never like this.
Never in silence so thick it choked him. Never with his hands crushed over his own mouth, fingers digging into his skin to keep from making a sound.
Never while his mother screamed.
It started with shouting. Then begging. Then—something worse.
The sounds twisted, turning frantic, breaking apart. Flesh against flesh. A muffled struggle. A sob strangled into silence.
He couldn't see. He didn't want to see. But the walls were thin. The air carried everything. The laughter. The panting. The sick, wet sounds of something being taken.
And beneath it all—his father's voice.
Weak. Shaking. Pleading. Not for himself. For her.
Amatsu squeezed his eyes shut. He felt his nails cut into his own skin. He couldn't stop it. He had never been able to stop anything.
Then, the screaming stopped.
A silence heavier than sound. Something cracked. A body hitting the floor. Then another.
The voices—the guy—spoke. Low murmurs. Cold amusement. The weight of inevitability settling into their words.
"What a shame to waste it, i'm very hungy"
His breath hitched. The hunger ruled here. There were no graves.
He had to look.
Had to see.
His body moved before he could stop it. A slow, shaking crawl to the splintered doorframe. One eye through the crack.
And then—
His stomach turned.
They were eating.
Like starving animals. Like beasts denied food for too long. They tore into her. No hesitation. No restraint. Teeth ripping, flesh snapping, hands clawing for more. They gorged themselves, shoving raw meat past bloodstained lips, swallowing without chewing. Bones cracked between molars. Tendons stretched and snapped. They did not stop—not to breathe, not to speak—only to consume.
His mother's body—a ruin, motionless, half-devoured. His father still breathing, still watching as they carved her apart. His face frozen between grief and madness, mouth open in a soundless scream.
Amatsu had watched. Again.
Now he stood in the ruins of that home, the air still thick with iron, the warmth of fresh death still clinging to the stones. The bodies lay where they had fallen, twisted into something unrecognizable. His mother's face—a mask of pain frozen in time.
His father had always been a quiet man. A careful man. Someone who measured his words, his movements, as if the wrong step might shatter the fragile world he had built.
But now—
Now, he was nothing.
Amatsu looked at him, at what was left.
His body was still bound, slumped against the stone, head lolling forward like a puppet with cut strings. Blood crusted his skin, dried in thick rivulets down his torn clothes. His hands—nails cracked, fingers bent at wrong angles—had strained so hard against his bindings they had nearly fused with them.
The air was thick with the scent of iron, but his father did not react.
Not to the blood. Not to the corpses. Not to Amatsu, standing before him, watching.
His father had not moved for hours.
He breathed, but only barely. Slow. Shallow. The rise and fall of his chest so imperceptible that, for long stretches of time, it seemed he was already dead.
His eyes were open. But they saw nothing.
Not the mangled ruin of his wife. Not the blood pooling at his feet. Not his son, standing before him with darkness bleeding into his veins.
His father had gone past grief, past madness, past the point of breaking. There was no anger. No sorrow. No recognition.
Just stillness.
A silence so perfect, so absolute, it felt like he had already rotted away. Like he was no longer there.
And perhaps, he wasn't.
His steps dragged as he moved toward the broken mirror, glass smeared with blood. His reflection stared back—dark eyes, wild hair, just like before. Just like his past life.
Still human. Still whole.
But the thing in the mirror felt wrong.
Dark eyes. Too dark. Pools of ink swallowing the whites. His pupils swallowed the dim light, widening, drinking in the room like a predator scenting movement.
His breath hit the glass. It did not fog.
The air was warm, thick with the iron scent of death. But the glass stayed clear, untouched. As if the thing in the mirror did not breathe. As if it did not need to.
His stomach twisted. His lips parted, but no sound came.
His reflection smiled.
His own face. His own lips. But he had not moved.
"I'm a monster," he whispered.
A Ghouls.
The words felt foreign, hollow, as if spoken by someone else. Monsters weren't supposed to feel. Monsters weren't supposed to cry.
Yet a single tear carved down his cheek, thin and burning.
Why did it still hurt?
Why did he still feel?
He had been given a second chance. A cruel joke of fate. His mother—his first mother—had told him once that if he was a good person, the world would treat him kindly. That kindness would return kindness. That pain would pass if he simply endured.
She had been wrong.
Pain did not pass. It lingered. It festered. It consumed.
He had never hurt anyone before. In his old life, he had endured. He had stayed quiet. He had let them trample him, break him, drown him. And in the end, he had died alone, abandoned, unwanted.
"I won't die again."
The words came sharper this time. A blade instead of a whisper.
His stomach twisted. The hunger gnawed at his ribs, a sharp, insistent ache. It clawed at his throat, a need deeper than instinct, older than thought. His hands trembled as he reached down, fingers ghosting over the ruin of his mother's body.
He could still hear her voice. Not the screams, not the last, ragged gasps—but the quiet moments. The warmth. The way she had once placed a hand on his cheek, her touch light as drifting ash.
"You're still my little boy, no matter what."
She smile.
His grip tightened.
No.
It didn't matter who he was. Didn't matter if he was still the son they had raised, or if something else had surfaced in his place. Maybe he had always been this way. Maybe he had only just awakened.
But it didn't matter.
The hunger didn't care.
I won't starve anymore.
His fingers curled into the torn flesh beneath him. Warm. Soft. The scent of blood thick in the air, sinking into his lungs, coiling around his thoughts like a noose. His breath shuddered.
A hesitation. A moment where the weight of it pressed against him, fragile, fleeting—then gone.
He didn't hold back. Didn't force himself to resist.
The hunger howled. It did not understand grief. It only understood need.
His lips parted. A breath. A hesitation. The last fragile thread of something—remorse, guilt, love—before it snapped.
His teeth sank into flesh.
No hesitation. No disgust. Just the raw, primal need to survive.
Blood filled his mouth, thick, metallic, searing through his veins like fire. Strength surged, something deep inside him unraveling, reshaping. His muscles tensed. His breath came ragged. His body—changing.
A voice, guttural, wet, writhing between his thoughts like a thing with teeth. It gnawed at him, curling around his mind, whispering in a language of need. A beast's voice. Raw, bottomless.
Tear it apart. Devour.
His hands shook. His stomach clenched, twisted in on itself. His vision blurred at the edges.
You are starving. You are dying. Eat.
A second voice. Cold. Precise. The sharp edge of a scalpel pressed against his thoughts, slicing away hesitation with surgical efficiency.
The weak die. The strong consume. Survive.
No hesitation. No disgust. Just the raw, primal need to survive. The taste of blood filled his mouth, thick, metallic, and rich. Strength surged through his limbs, a fire burning from within, spreading, twisting. His muscles tightened. His breath came ragged. His body—changing, shifting.
His throat worked. His body trembled.
His fingers dug into the torn remains, muscles straining as he forced another chunk past his lips. His teeth sank deep. Flesh gave way.
A crack echoed through the room. His back arched as something erupted from him, splitting through skin and sinew. Pain lanced through his spine, fire-hot and unbearable. He felt flesh tear, muscles twist, his body reshaping itself into something no longer his own.
Then, silence.
A wet squelch echoed in the silence. The tendril loomed behind him, pulsing, shifting, its maw flexing open and closed in slow, deliberate movements. Fangs spiraled within it, slick with blood, rotating like a grotesque meat grinder.
It wasn't still. It wasn't waiting.
It was tasting the air.
A low, guttural sound rolled from deep within its coils—something between a growl and a shuddering breath. Not his breath. Not his hunger.
Its own.
Amatsu stiffened. The thing was part of him, flesh of his flesh, born from his ribs like a parasite uncoiling from the marrow. But he felt it now—separate. Not just an extension of his will, but something else.
It twitched. Shifted. The maw angled itself, dripping, hungry. Not at the bodies. Not at the corpses.
At his father.
His breath caught.
The old man hadn't moved. Hadn't spoken. Hadn't even recognized him. But the kagune knew. It could smell the last feeble embers of life flickering beneath the ruin of his body. It wanted him.
It wanted fresh, struggling meat.
Amatsu's fingers clenched into his palm. A cold sweat slicked his back. He hadn't willed it to move. Hadn't directed it. But still, it crept forward, slow, deliberate.
The maw widened, strands of saliva stretching between the fangs.
A shiver ran through his spine.
Not a weapon. Not a shield.
A predator.
Something that had woken inside him, something that didn't just respond to hunger—it anticipated it. It sensed the dying and leaned in like a vulture, poised to take what was inevitable. It wasn't just his tool. It wasn't just his power.
It was thinking.
No, not thinking. It was wanting.
A sharp breath hissed through his teeth. He stepped forward—toward his father. His shadow stretched long, swallowed by the dim light.
The kagune quivered.
Amatsu didn't command it. Didn't move it.
And yet, the tendril slithered forward, drawn by instinct older than thought.
His father's breath came in weak, rattling gasps. His eyes didn't flicker, didn't shift. He was past fear. Past pain. A husk, waiting to be emptied.
Amatsu's stomach clenched. The hunger coiled tighter. His own? Or the kagune's?
The fangs in the maw twisted, grinding together in anticipation.
It would be so easy.
A quick lunge. A single bite. The body was broken. There was no resistance left. No struggle. Just warmth. Just meat. Just—
His fingers snapped up, seizing the base of the kagune. A flash of searing pain, muscle locking, the tendril fighting him—but he didn't let go.
Mine.
The kagune writhed, flexed, twisted against his grip, desperate to snap forward—to sink its teeth into living flesh. His arms trembled, his veins bulging with the strain.
But he would not let it decide.
The maw hovered there, inches from his father's throat, breathless, waiting.
Then—slowly—he willed it back.
The tendril shuddered. Quaked. Resisted. But finally, reluctantly, it obeyed. The maw peeled away, closing in on itself, the fangs retracting, slinking back like a serpent denied its kill.
Amatsu exhaled. His hands ached from clenching too hard.
The kagune had not moved on its own.
But it had wanted to.
A voice whispered.
Hunger.
Another, deeper, more insistent.
Survive.
He starved, his stomach devouring itself. Now, his Kagune has become his new stomach—one that never stops eating.
He steadied his breath. His reflection in the blood-streaked mirror was unrecognizable. Eyes sharper, colder. Not human. Not fully ghoul. Something in between. Something worse.
The world had been wrong.
It was not the strong who ruled. It was not the weak who were trampled.
It was the ones who could endure. The ones who could become more than pain, more than loss. The ones who could take, who could consume, who could survive no matter the cost.
He had spent his whole life running. From pain, from hunger, from death. He had believed, once, that he was different. That he was not like the monsters who took and took and took.
But now—
Now, he saw the truth.
There were no monsters. No victims. No justice.
There was only hunger.
It was in the men who had butchered his parents. In the ghouls who had raised him. In the ones who had taken and taken, carving the world into something raw and bleeding.
And now, it was in him.
It was a cycle. A law written deeper than morality, deeper than choice. The weak fed the strong. The strong endured. And those who could not consume were consumed.
That was the only truth. The only constant.
He looked down at his hands, at the blood that dripped from his fingertips, pooling in the cracks of the stone. His breath came steady. Even. His reflection, caught in the shattered glass, stared back with hollow, bottomless eyes.
I am not running anymore.
I am not weak anymore.
I am not human anymore.
The world had taken from him. And now, he would take in return.
His stomach twisted, empty no longer.
I will never be hungry again.
This was never about good or evil. Never about monsters or men. The ones who could not
consume were consumed. That was the law.
And now, I am the one who devours.