The Hunger Begins

we were going across a gate seeing there's berries. Food finally. I pick one berry up and put it in my mouth. The taste is very sweet yet a small bit bitter. I look over at our group, my dad, mom, and sister seem to be alright, they seem to be overjoyed at the sight of food finally after starving for so long. I pick up a handful of berries before I hear my dad say, "I've seen them before, they don't seem poisonous since our dog ate them before, but just to be safe let's not eat them." ...as I have my mouth filled with the berries, I spit them all out on the ground. "Are you sure these are poisonous dad? We are all, terribly hungry."

Dad observed the berry before replying "well they don't seem all bad, as I mentioned our dog ate them before, and she's fine. But for human consumption I'm not too sure. we should eat those plums over there, I know for sure they're safe".

'He used our dog to test out which berries are safe to eat?'

I stared at him with a look of disgust questioning what kind of person he is before getting up and starting to walk over to the plums. There's bushes and trees all around us, the whole place looks overgrown. The rusted gate to the left slightly squeaking in the wind. I notice my sister has already began running to the round plums. I shout for her to stop running. I shout that it's not safe to get ahead of us, but she seemed to be blinded by the delicious plums. To the right in the bushes I notice a weird shadow, some kind of human shaped figure. In the next second I hear screaming as the shadow disappears from the bushes. I look at my sister screaming, her breath becoming shaky with a knife up to her throat. He looks very raged, his dark color clothes having holes all over, covering his face. I can't tell who he is, all I know he is dangerous.

'What does he want? Will he kill us? What do I do...'

I try to stop my hands from trembling, to think rationally, but it's impossible. My mind has been flooded with a barrage of thoughts of uncertainty, my knees feeling like they will give out any moment now.

He finally speaks "give me all of your food."

Ah, it makes sense. I guess hunger has gotten to this stranger too.

My train of thought stopped all of a sudden when I heard my dad's voice.

"We don't have any food, please give my daughter back"

The stranger replied "I'm not so sure I'm willing to do it for free keke, I need something in return..."

My father has gotten pissed off, he starts running towards the stranger that's holding my little sister hostage. The strangers hand starts to visibly shake, he's clearly somebody who isn't able to take lives.

"I-I will kill her if you get any close-"

My father takes his fist and punches him right in the face with unnatural force. He falls down to the ground, losing grip of his knife, throwing it somewhere into the bushes.

Father looks at him with a mean glare.

"What will it be, some greed or your life?"

The stranger seemed to break out in a sweat, and without even answering, he started to run away. We chased after him but stopped right before going into the forests path. It's a path that seems to stretch out forever.

As he ran down it, we heard a strange growl coming from the forests path. The inhabitants of the path have woken up and seem to be hungry. We hear the poor strangers screams filled with fear and pleading for someone to help him. We hear his clothes getting ripped, his bones breaking, and the blood splattering against the floor.

 In a moment all the screaming stops, getting replaced with a deafening silence.

Seems like the creatures have taken another soul.

....

As I'm picking up the round plums to take back to our house, my dad starts speaking to me.

"Milo, do you know much about these creatures?"

 I scoff at his question that my dad asked.

"Of course, they roam places and eat humans to feed their hunger."

The dad replies "these creatures, yes they are dangerous, but do you know about their behaviour?"

"They eat humans...right?"

"No I mean, the way they decide where to hunt. These creatures are very, very territorial. When they deem something their hunting grounds, they rarely leave it for the rest of their lives."

"But what about those who just roam around?"

"Ah those are called wanderers. Most of them are made up from creatures who haven't found their hunting grounds yet or they hunt wandering the world."

"Ah I see..."

It seems I really don't know much about these creatures. I pick up the final plum stuffing it into my mouth eagerly, savouring the sweet taste of it as we leave to our house. The sun shining on my pale skin through my ragged dirty clothes and my dark brown hair. The warmth of the sun making me feel like it's possible to survive another day.