Page 20 of Eat Me Alive
“To stave off the hunger. And keep this close, just in case.” He unsnaps a knife off his belt, throws it my way and—before I can jump back—it stabs the ground just a few inches away from my knee.
I can’t hold back my anger. I’m tense and hungry—not a good combination. I grab the hilt and slam the dagger to the ground, just barely missing his shoe by a few millimeters.
“Do that again, and I won’t miss next time.” I snarl. I should be embarrassed by my short fuse, but I feel justified. I’ve been through a lot today. I’m entitled to a little fit, right?
“Look, instead of fighting, can we just agree to work together?” he says as he picks up the knife and holds it out to me, hilt first.
“Agreed.” I swiftly take the knife and turn to walk away. Where I’m going? Fuck knows.
My face is hot with a concoction of emotions I can’t understand. I’ve learned at a young age I had a capacity for violence, but Mother had severely curbed said capacity. One curbing method had been starving me. Perhaps why she always had a tight grip on me. I’d been ready to murdersomeonewhen I was a kid. Just one person, though. I never felt the need to hurt others.
I’m starting to feel weak so I need to make myself scarce.
“I’ll be back with food.” Ingar calls one last time.
The biodiversity in Esoterra is breath-taking. I see mahogany trees, palm trees, fruit-bearing trees within my periphery. It shouldn’t make sense. Mahoganies inhibit growth of fruit-bearing trees, but here, they are healthier than ever. This makes me worry since this can alter everything I know about plants.
Automatically, I fish out my notebook and pen, writing my thoughts.
Esoterra day 1
Subject is named Datu.
Male, approx. 7 feet tall, mute, speaks through the wind and trees.
Found him chained with mirrors catching the sunlight, pointed at him. Fried. Close to death.
Dermal tissue crinkly but smooth and human-like post-water.
Datu has grown sharp teeth and claws. Mentioned he did not have this before. Now has canid-like incisors.
I feel like I’m in a dream that’s just randomly manifesting specific things I should know about, throwing them in a blender, then fucking them all up. I dump everything onto paper to rationalize everything I’m seeing, but the more I read back, the more disconcerted I become. I flip my notebook close, an attempt to comfort myself.
Sitting on one of the mahogany’s roots, I feel like an ant. It isenormousto say the least. In my quiet spot, I curl over to hide the painful pangs and peer around. I can see Datu and Teva. She’s talking to him while he lays there, serenely staring at the sky.
Something about it strokes a silent part of me. I don’t think he’s ignoring his sister. He’s listening, but he just doesn’t let it faze him—the grim reality that he almost died. It’s an admirable trait, one I’m secretly jealous of.
My gut twists, and I gasp. Sharp, stabbing pain blooms in my innards, and I know I’ve overexerted myself today. It’s the gastric acid gnawing through my stomach lining. Hunger hurts more when I’m stressed.
I open the bar Ingar gave me and Itryto eat slowly. Instead, I finish it in less than a minute. I barely even chew it, its taste not registering. It’s enough to lessen the pain, and as I stay there seated, waiting for the snack to settle, I keep staring at the trunk of another tree.
It’s old, cracked, greying with fungi growing out of its folds. It’s not unusual for conks to grow from decaying wood inside. The tree contracts and retracts, moving as if it’s…purging—pushing, oozing. A bright violet fluid bleeds through the folds, leaking down to something akin to a screaming face.
I cock my head to the side, my mind trying but failing to make sense of what I’m seeing. The world becomes utterly silent, and all I hear is my heart pounding in my ears. My breathing’s rapid as the folds where the fluid has dripped from snaps open.
Eyes. I’m seeing eyes. A face much too inhuman. What I first thought was a screaming mouth was actually that—its mouth, but it isn’t screaming like I first thought. It’s panting open breaths with that serrated-toothed grin.
A scream rips from my throat and I scramble away. It shifts briskly against the tree trunk, and I see now why I hadn’t noticed it the first time. It’s camouflaged itself into the tree’s patterns.
It moves like crazy. One moment, it’s fixed on the trunk, and now, it’s on the ground, skittering towards me. I can see its large claws, its back legs bent in too many places. In horror, I see they’re longer, bigger than his upper legs. It is growing bipedal before my eyes and it doesn't know how to walk so it just clumsily scuttles toward me.
The mangled way it’s moving just makes me scream again, bolting for the treeline that I can't see anymore.
It rattles a deep sound, and mid-stride, a heavy weight smacks against my back. My front drops straight to the ground while something licks across my skin like velcro. It’s rough, smooth, sticky at the same time. As my heart assaults the earth, all I can think is how big of a failure I am to be eaten so quickly.
My hunger dissipates, my adrenaline surging once more. I’m angry, irritated, not scared. Why am I going to let a fuckinggeckobreak me like this? I’ve survived much worse situations.
Its wet, gelatinous tongue moving across my neck, shaking with excitement. Something big pokes at my butt, but the temporary madness has made me rabid.
