003

Opening my eyes I cringed, my head hurt and I could feel dry blood flaking off my neck when I looked around. Feeling the back of my head with my hand didn't reveal anything new, at least the wound was sealed and I wasn't going to bleed out.

I checked my suroundings but every move of my head caused a pounding headache to resurface and it took me much longer to examine my situation than I would have liked.

A faint light was cast through the trees high above and looking up revealed a damaged moon, it had an extremely large crater on the top right side and a ring of debris now circled the giant rock. It was strange to see the moon like that but oddly enough it was beautiful.

I was able to see my surroundings extremely well, I noticed this in the building above but I always seem to be able to see in dark places now. I wasn't sure why but maybe I gained some power or something like in the documents I read. Night vision seemed like a shitty power compared to the documents but atleast I had something.

I tried to climb out of the vines I was in but found out that I was tangled up from my waist down and I only had one arm that was completely free. I glanced about and found the rock I was reaching for before and I struggled to get closer to it. Rocking back and forth provided me with the chance to get closer but the vines around my stomach and left door kept getting tighter.

It didn't take long for me to feel my leg go numb and right after that it started getting harder to breath. Still I struggled to get the one thing that might save my life. I was gasping for air by this point when I finally grabbed the stone, immediately I began to cut my stomach free and I dropped from the vines.

My leg however was still tightly wrapped in the plants and my fall created a loud popping sound emanating from my ankle. I stifled a scream of pain as I hung there for a few minutes, trying to work up the courage to reach for the vine on my leg. I eventually gritted my teeth and started to use my leg for leverage and climbed up to the vine. It was slow progress as each time I touched my leg and used it to pull my self up was agonizingly painful.

I managed to cut the vine after several tries and I fell unceremoniously to the hard dirt. I groaned in pain and curled up as my leg began to tingle as the blood rushing into my foot.

Between the pain of my knee and the tingling pain from my foot I was unable to think clearly. It was of course at this time my ever growing thirst made it's self known. The sense of hunger was dull but echoed my desire to quench this growing thirst.

I dragged myself into the hole that was created by the massive explosion and tried my best to pop my leg back into place. I screamed in agony as pain shot through my body but I sighed in relief as the overall pain lessened considerably.

I stretched it out and put my head towards the center of the crater to using the slope to keep my leg elevated. I remember hearing that I needed to keep my leg elevated if I ever injured it so I did just that as I stared off into the night sky.

It was cold, but I didn't really feel all that uncomfortable considering my position. I remained there for a long while watching the clouds pass over the moon. I started feeling tired and exhausted as I lay there, it seems being rendered unconscious doesn't count towards sleep. As I relaxed all the fear, adrenaline, confusion and hunger all piled up in my mind. The experiences I had that I repressed in exchange for my survival returned to the forefront of my mind. I covered my face with a free hand and I cried and just let myself go, all my reservations in the face of danger gone for this one moment. Just this one moment while I'm safe to do so. I let myself cry until I couldn't do so anymore and eventually fell asleep as the last of my exhaustion washed over me. I had a fitful sleep as I woke up to the slightest sound of the forest and to the strange itching feeling in my leg. It didn't surprise me in the slightest when I found myself awake to see the sunrise.

I stretched and yawned and rubbed my belly. I was really starting to feel the lack of food now, my thirst that echoed in tune with my growing hunger was making its self loud and clear. A low rumble e hoed in the brisk morning.

I attempted to stand up and found that my leg was much better, it itched like a demon but other then that it was good as new. I marveled at that development until I grew incredibly dizzy my stomach growling in tune with the disoriention.

I stead myself and my head cleared. I was evidently starving now and I needed to eat immediately before I passed out. That dizzy spell nearly floored me and all I did was stand up.

I began walking into the morning fog looking for something edible, something I could recognize as I knew better than to put strange plants into my mouth. A few small squirrel ran by and one climbed up my arm, instinctively I reached for it to swat it off but I managed to change that motion into a grab and snatched the little beast from my hip. My arms movement was far faster than I thought it should be but something else held my attention from that thought.

In my hand the little beast struggled but I could feel a steady rhythm best from its little body and it echoed my own pulse. Before I could think better of it I brought the squirrel to my mouth and bit into it. Blood ruched from the wound and the creature cried out in pain as I let the red liquid flow into my mouth. I half closed my eyes as I began to swallow the blood of this creature. The hunger paused and began to dull as I drained the creature dry, after a few seconds the creature died but my hunger forced me to continue draining the body. By the time I was done the little creature looked like a raisin, and I dropped it in shock.

'what the hell did I just do? What the hell' I though to myself over and over again, I subconsciously liked my lips clean however and to my chagrin it tasted amazing. I decided to return to my crater and cook what was left of the squirrel, there was nothing I could do about it and I planed to eat it anyway to begin with. I just didn't expect to have such and instinctual desire to bite the creature, I've read some stories about people with a low iron deficiency developed a keen need to drink blood and I figured wit was something along those lines.

I collected kindling and used a scrap of clothing and a few sticks to create a simple fire starter and soon I had a small fire going. I managed to gut the squirl using a sharp rock to open its abdomen and I pretended to be ignorant of the fact that the squirrels insides were like a rasin as well. I didn't want to think about what that meant and just dumped the contents out, it was much easier to do so when they were shriveled dry.

I stuck what was left of the Squirrel on a sharp stick and set it over the fire, the smell was amazing and in minutes the creature was a golden color it's meat shiny with juices. I took a bite of the fragrant delight only for my face to fall flat. I couldn't taste anything. I finished it off, my face growing more and more depressed by the lack of flavor. After my last bite my stomach made an irritated noise and I could feel my guys doing the jig as my bowels began to emit complaints as well.

This lasted for several minutes as I bent over hiding my stomach. 'the Squirrel must have been bad, could a fresh Squirrel go bad?' I rushed to the bushes to relieve myself of the pain ravaging my insides. After I was done I looked in horror to see that the food I ate was practically unprocessed. I gagged at the sight but then a realization dawned on me.

'I can't eat normal food. Does that mean I have to do what I did before? What did I do before?'

I wrestled with my self for a while as I debated the morals of the situation and whether or not I can go through with it now that I knew the process. A loud rumble in my gut decided for me, I at least need to test it. I couldn't eat the Squirrel but I could always try to drink one. The memory of the red liquid entering my mouth made me drool, but I shook my head out of it. It was wrong to think that way but the memory still tickled the back of my mind every time my stomach growled.

It took much longer to find a creature then before but I eventually came across a small group of bunnies playing on a tree stump. I slowly approached them and tried to be as quiet as possible. The little things didn't seem to notice me and if they did they didn't seem to care. In moments I was apon the small fur balls and my hand fired out like a bullet grabbing a rabbit so fast I broke its neck. The other scattered off and I let them go, I waited for my desire to kick in again to set me off and bite into the creature but it never came.

I was confused at first and decided that I would just have to willing bite the creature this time if I wanted to be sure. I slowly lifted the small animal to my mouth and after a moment of hesitation I bite into the creatures small form. At first nothing happened but a single drop of blood hit my tongue and before I knew it my canines dug deeper and blood rushed into my mouth. My eyes squinted in delight as I sunk to my knees drinking deeply, this time my hunger left completely and I was left satisfied.

The feeling of a full stomach and the engery now coursing through my veins gave me the answer I was looking for, I needed blood. I looked at the creature and thought about trying to eat this one too but just the thought of it made me gag in disgust. It was at that moment I resigned myself to my fate, sure I needed to eat differently than I remembered but all people had to kill to survive. I nodded trying to look positively at the situation, just imagine how much time I would save on food preparation now. I smirked at my own joke as I looked to the sky my eyes aching at the bright sky. The smallest amount of sunlight hurt my eyes now and that was already getting annoying. My grimace turned into a smile after a few second of adjusting when I saw a stack of smoke rising from the forest a little ways away. My goal to find people looks to be an easy task today and I stood up tossing the creature away. I imagined it like a juice box or just a common day item to trick myself into dealing with it. I had to do what ever it took to adapt to this new change, I wasn't going to starve myself just because it felt wrong to eat. I wasn't happy with it but at the same time I didn't really have a choice in the matter. I patted myself off and hopped up and down to try and cheer myself up before I started walking towards the source of the smoke.