Red Feast

The hunger came like a sickness,

a gnawing thing with teeth of its own,

twisting, clawing, whispering:

Eat, or be eaten.

We held out for days.

We prayed to gods who did not answer.

The wind howled through the bones of the trees,

but the storm would not break,

and the dead lay heavy at our feet.

First, it was only the knife.

Only what the ice had already claimed,

what would not scream, would not beg—

what had no more need for flesh.

But hunger is a beast that learns,

and soon, cold meat was not enough.

Soon, we were listening for shallow breath,

for faltering steps, for the moment

a man becomes a meal.

We stopped saying names.

Names made it real.

Names made it murder.

When the storm passed,

when the searchers found us—

thin and hollow-eyed,

our hands still slick with ruin—

we did not weep, we did not rejoice.

We only wiped the blood from our lips

and swallowed our shame.