Carnivore

How good is your imagination? Would you say that you’re an imaginative person? Good. I want to tell you a story. This story isn’t for people who can’t watch a horror movie without cowering behind the sofa. This particular story isn’t for those who run at the first sight of a scare. This is for those who have a strong stomach and an iron will. Can you face the fact that you’ve killed someone? Can you live with yourself after knowing that you not only murdered someone but took pleasure in their death? If you can, keep reading. If not, move on.

Picture this. You’re walking through a snowy field with your best friend, taking a scenic detour back home from the town centre. As you’re walking he sees a fairly small mountain.

“Hey, let’s climb up there and see what’s in the cave.”

You’re unsure about going in there since he always seems to land you in deep trouble but nonetheless, continue with him because you're an idiot. The cold wind is biting at your skin as it attempts to tear through your jacket, hoodie and jumper. The snow had engulfed your foot and travelled up to your ankles as the melted snow drips into your feet, soaking your fluffy winter socks. Every step toward the cave feels like trudging through a thick swamp. The last thing you’d expect to happen now is for Shrek to come barrelling through the snowstorm and tear your head off.

Eventually you reach the foot of the mountain. The cave seems further away, the closer you are to it. However, this doesn’t stop your friend as he begins to climb up the slope toward the cave. You hesitate for a moment but still proceed to climb after he taunts you and calls you a coward a few times. Grabbing the snow feels like grabbing clouds. You can feel the snow disintegrating at your touch and you’re having an even worse time trying to find the rocks and branches to hold on to. Unfortunately, you didn’t bring gloves with you and so your hands are immediately frozen at the touch of frost. The winter chill stings your hands and face as your cheeks are stone solid. After a good ten minutes climbing you finally reach the mouth of the cave. As you and your friend enter the cave you find yourselves engulfed by a warmer atmosphere. The temperature change is like hitting a giant wall of warmth. It isn’t actually much better than the outside but you can definitely feel the change. The deeper into the cave you get, the warmer it becomes. Eventually, you are both in pitch darkness. Your friend picks up a stick and tears some cloth off his shirt, wraps it around the end of the stick and lights it on fire to make a primitive torch. The warmth of the fire is enchanting to you and so you latch yourself to your friend in order to embrace as much warmth as possible. He can feel it too and so keeps the flame at face level to take advantage of the warmth.

As you both explore the large cave you can hear a rumbling noise at the mouth of the cave. You both sprint toward the end of the cave to get out but you’re too late. The snow collapsed above the cave and you are now trapped. A final cold blast knocks you off your feet and the torch is flung to the other side of the cave. You end up falling on a rock and are knocked out.

As you awake, your friend is standing over you with a look of worry. The torch burning brightly beside him. As you get up you see the cave entrance covered with snow and surrounded by ice. You and your friend sit down at the warmest part of the cave and stay close to each other, wondering how you’ll get out of it. Suddenly, your phone goes off and you see you have one bar. You quickly send a text to your mother telling her where you are but the phone doesn’t tell you if it’s sent. You look desperately at your phone for another few minutes as your friend goes to collect wood and make a fire.

The phone stays silent and you put it away in your pocket, holding your hands together. As the flame of the torch leaves you can feel the cold slowly seeping in towards you like a creeping shadow, slowly embracing you. Taunting you. As you frantically look for your friend you can hear the dripping of water behind you. It sounds like little feet slowly pattering on the stone floor. The dripping begins to increase in volume behind you. You start quivering as you feel a presence bearing down on you. You spin around to face it and see your friend behind you, cradling a huge pile of sticks and branches. You feel relieved as he lays the wood before you and lights it with his torch.

You both sit there for a few minutes and take in the situation you have been left in. As you both sit there you decide to bring out the food and drinks you had bought earlier from the town centre and decide to delegate how it will be rationed whilst you are both stuck in the cave. Once done you pull out the McDonalds you were saving for home and split it with your friend. Exchanging scary stories, you both enjoy your meal and almost forget about the dire situation you’re in. After eating and laughing you both feel filled and drift off to sleep.

The next day you’re awake and you look up to see your friend hacking away at the ice and snow with a large, jagged stone. He’s been stood there for three hours chopping at the ice but has barely even scratched the giant wall. It would take him days to get through the ice layer.

A few more hours pass and you decide to take over for him. The stone is fairly heavy but you can handle it. As you spend the next two hours chopping at the ice your hand has gone red and begun to bleed, you can now understand why your friend had a bandage around his hand. You turn around and see him tucking into a red apple and a bottle of apple juice. You smile as he looks up and waves back at you with his bloody hand as if he had forgotten that you were trapped in a cave.

You’ve both spent most of the day chopping at the ice but to no avail, as the ice wall is as strong as ever. You check your phone and a warm swell of joy rises within you. You haven’t received a message back from you mother but the phone clearly says ‘sent’ underneath the message. You show your friend and both giggle uncontrollably, unable to contain your joy. You’ll both be out of this cave at least by tomorrow.

Three days have now passed. Nearly all the food you had is gone and you are quickly losing your train of thought. All sorts of questions are intruding on your mind.

Are we ever going to get out? Did she really get my message? Am I going to die here? You keep shaking your head, forcing yourself to get rid of these awful thoughts and focus on the fire. The flames are licking higher the more you stare at it. You don’t know why, but no matter how hot the fire may be, you still feel the bitter cold wrapped around your bones, chilling your veins and strangling your throat. Your friend is at the wall again, chopping away. The wall seems to be breaking but still looks indestructible.

You try shouting his name but he doesn’t hear you. His head seems to be only filled by the constant echo of stone connecting to ice. That seems to be a dominating ring in your head as well. Every morning and every night you both hear only the sound of ice cracking and stone crushing. Every single day.

Five days now gone and your mind seems to be wandering further and further away. Your friend has given up on the ice wall, despite all the cracks in it. Your eyes are darting here and there as you keep thinking you see shadows and shapes everywhere. Your friend is further away than you are. All he does is stare at the fire, his mouth drooling from a lack of food. You look at him and feel a swell of anger run through you and sap him across the face. You shout at him to stop acting crazy and get back to the wall. Eventually, you take matters into your own hands and start smacking at the wall with another jagged rock. You don’t care how long you’re there but you’re definitely prepared to stay there all night until you break through. You can only think about escape. Seeing the sunlight. Seeing the snowy field and seeing your home in the distance.

As you deal the ice wall another fatal blow you can hear the ice cracking  tremendously. This wakes your friend out of his trance and he rushes toward you. The ice is breaking. You both are flooded with excitement and begin to smack at the ice together. Suddenly, the ice wall shatters and ice blocks fall everywhere. You and your friend both leap out of the way and watch the ice fall. you look at each other for a brief moment and your friend points out a tear flowing down your right cheek. As you both approach the entrance to finally see the sun, your spirits plummet at the next sight.

The ice wall has broken but replaced by an avalanche of snow. It would take a good few days to sift through it all and get through to the other side. Your friend collapses on to his knees and begins to cry. You don’t know how to react. All that hope, all that effort and you're still alone in this cave. Your last chance buried under a white sheet of misery. You are still standing but your legs are like twigs, ready to break at any moment. You look at your friend who is silently crying to himself, lying on his side. You kneel down and pat him on the back, trying to console him somehow. It’s no use. He looks up to you and mouths a sentence. You can’t hear him over the rumbling of snow still blocking your ears but you can make out what he says from lip reading. “We’re gonna die in here.”

A week has gone by and you have both only survived on cave water and melted snow. Your stomach is grumbling as you keep thinking about food. A big pepperoni pizza with melted cheese in the crust. A big apple pie with sugar subtly sprinkled on top. A big roast chicken covered in gravy. Even a simple custom Subway sandwich. All these foods bring saliva to your mouth but you can’t do anything about your hunger. You can hear grunting noises behind you. As you turn around and illuminate the cave with a branch from the fire, you see your friend crouched on a rock, holding something in his hands. You look over at him and see him eating the raw flesh of, what looks like, a deer. Usually you would be disgusted but your hunger overwhelms you and you try to grab the deer carcass but your friend isn’t willing to let it go without a fight. You both grapple each other and begin to fight like animals. As you have him in a headlock, you remember that he is your friend and you try not to harm him. He has no problem keeping his meat. He grabs your arm and bites into it. As you scream and hold your bleeding arm, a wild, feral rage sweeps over you. You’re seeing red as you advance on him. You grab his head and throw it against a large rock. As he tries to get up you leap on to him and repeatedly smack his head against the rock again and again.

Eventually, the side of his head is beaten inwards and a combination of blood and brains spills out from the exit hole. You step back and your humanity returns as you realise what you’ve done. An unmeasurable wave of guilt and anger fills you as you drop to your knees and cry over your best friend’s corpse. You drag his body to a part of the cave where there is soil and begin to dig. You spend a good two or three hours digging but after so long in the cave, you have lost any concept of time. You throw his body in the hole, spend roughly an hour covering the hole and proceed to mourn.

You return to the murder scene and sit down. Your stomach roars as you stare hungrily at the deer corpse. Your mind is made up and you begin to dig in. There is no rationing. There is no preservation. You take all the flesh right down to the bone and sleep on your meal.

Two days later and you are hungry again. You don’t know how you’re going to survive. Unless perhaps..

Your mind wanders back to your friend’s corpse. No. How could you possibly even consider  such a horrendous act? Cannibalism? No. You’re better than that. However, your mind begins to stray back to the deer you ate and how good it felt to eat it. Perhaps eating humans is the same as eating any other meat? Like eating a really tough, undercooked steak. Out of pure desperation you go back and dig up your friend. You drag his carcass out of the hole and stare at it for a few minutes. Can you really do this? Yes. You need to survive. He doesn’t. Not anymore. You pick up a sharp rock and begin to smack at his shoulder. After ten minutes of frantic battering his arm rips off and blood flows from the socket and the stump. You rip the clothes off like unwrapping a Christmas present. But you’re still slightly civilised. You wash the arm in the water next to you and look at it as it glimmers in the fire light.

Drooling uncontrollably you take a huge chunk out of the arm and chew only slightly before swallowing and satisfying your hunger. It tastes like pork but rather bitter and overly salted. It tastes good though. However, you’re hating yourself thoroughly for thinking this. The idea that you’re enjoying human flesh. Feasting on it like it was a Sunday roast. The heart tastes sweet and is very juicy. The ribs are the best part, tasting no different to actual barbeque ribs, without the barbeque part. Your brain is fuzzy as you can’t think, only eat. You no longer feel sickened by the sound of human flesh tearing and human bone breaking. You no longer feel regret as you slowly lick the blood off of each rib bone. You feel even better now than you did when you ate the deer.

As you’re working your way through the torso, devouring the heart and the meat from the ribs, a bright light suddenly emerges from the mouth of the cave. The snow is falling away and a group of men are standing in the entrance. You wipe the blood from your mouth and prepare to stand up and embrace the light but then you suddenly remember the meal you just had. you look down at the corpse and begin to cry again. You look at your shaking hands which are doused in human blood. You can’t go back now. you can’t face the world anymore. You’re a monster. A bloodthirsty, carnivore.

As the men advance on your home you grab a heavy boulder from the floor and dive into the pool next to you. The boulder is dragging you down to the depths of the pool. It seems to go on forever. Your entire body is submerged in water but after getting used to the damp feeling, you feel normal, as if you were flying through the air. Weightless. Eventually, the boulder hits the bottom and you are still gripped to it. You feel dizzy as you try to hold your breath. There’s no point trying to hold  on. If you let go down here or up there you’re dead either way. Your vision is going black as the strain overpowers you. You lose your grip on the boulder and begin to float upwards. A light shines on your body as you float up to the surface. You can see your friend. he’s smiling at you. You try to reach him but your arm doesn’t move. You try to say sorry but no words escape your mouth. As your eyes close you feel the breath held in your mouth finally leave.

Never take for granted, the bounties with which you are blessed. You never know when all you thought you knew will be torn away from you. That’s when the beast inside us is released. People only show their true selves when desperation and chaos is all that remains. And don’t bother lying to me, or lying to yourself. You became hungry while reading this didn’t you?