What is worse than an open wound? What is worse than bleeding, worse than losing a limb?
Hunger. Hunger is.
Hunger burns you from the inside, slowly enough for you to regret each hour that passes, but fast enough for you to fear what will come with the next one. With the pain always worsening, your mind descends into insanity, waiting for a feast that will never come. Hunger makes even the mightiest being no more than an animal.
As for me, maybe I have always been this way, a desperate rotting carcass animated solely by pain and craving.
I do not know, nor do I really care anymore. Pride doesn't matter in the kingdom where hunger reigns. My kin also knows this, of course. They are scavenging any bone they can find in that long hallway, in order to try to fool their decaying mind into dreaming about satiety. But every time, all of them come back to the start. We can't advance, we can't move on, for we are trapped by our own suffering, blocked by doors that never open.
None of us are ready to eat each other yet. The slaughter is inevitable, we know this far too well, but we are still too strong, too endurant for a fight to be worth the risk. What a cruel world where the apex predators become too weak to leave, but too strong to give up.
In front of me, I see the rotten corpse salivating over the rotting dog. His envy is growing.
But today won't be the time for the slaughter to happen, for fate suddenly decided to toy with us once more. The sound of a body hitting the floor. We all turn to face the source, yet we all already know what it is. In front of us, in the red corridor, there is a pale figure. It is alive. It is fleshy. Quickly they get up, realizing the situation. All pairs of eyes glance at each other. The game is set one more.
With no hesitation, the wanderer starts running, and so do we, desperate to consume the fleeing flesh we crave.