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They say hunger changes a man.
Makes him desperate.
Makes him do things he never thought possible before.
They're right.
But they never tell you what happens afterwards.
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The alley behind Takeshi's Convenience Store reeked of rotting fish and cigarette smoke, but Ryu had long since stopped caring about the smell.
At seventeen, he'd learned to ignore a lot of things: the gnawing ache in his stomach, the way people's eyes slid past him on the street, the constant cold that he seemed to get during winters.
He pushed down another garbage bag into the dumpster, his thin arms strained with effort.
The scar running from his left eyebrow down to his cheekbone pulled tight with the motion, a permanent reminder of the night his parents decided he was "too much trouble to keep around".
"Oi, Scar-face!"
Takeshi emerged from the back door, a middle aged man with kind eyes along with a slightly irritated face. His sleeves were rolled up, revealing arms that had worked decades.
"Yeah, yeah, what's the occasion old man?" Ryu muttered, not looking up from the garbage.
"You done back there?"
"Does it look like I'm done?"
Takeshi snorted. "Smart ass. Got another job for you, inform me when you finish playing with trash."
"What kind of job?" Ryu asked, finally meeting his eyes.
"Mrs. Yamamoto needs furniture moved. Three thousand yen." Takeshi's expression softened slightly.
"And don't give me that look. You need the money."
Ryu's stomach chose that moment to growl audibly. When was the last time he'd eaten something that wasn't from Takeshi's expired goods shelf? Two days ago? Three?
"I'll take it."
"Course you will. When's the last time you ate something that wasn't moldy bread?"
"Yesterday," Ryu lied.
"Bullshit. Clean up first, you smell like old fish."
"I've been wrestling with garbage for a while now!"
"And it shows. The address is on this paper, try not to lose it like the last time."
Ryu pocketed the slip and grabbed the last garbage bag. As he lifted it toward the dumpster, something cold and wet wrapped around his left wrist.
"What the hell--"
Pain exploded through his arm as invisible teeth sank into his flesh. Ryu screamed, stumbling backward as something he couldn't see began to tear at his left hand. The pain was excruciating, like acid dissolving his bones while muscles spinning in a blender.
"Aghhhhh...HELP! TAKESHI!"
But the door had already closed, the old man back inside, oblivious to the nightmare unfolding outside.
The invisible thing made horrible sounds, wet, hungry, like a starving animal finally finding meat. Ryu could feel his fingers being crushed, could hear the cracking sounds of bones breaking. Blood poured from wounds, pooling on the dirty concrete.
'I'm going to die in this alley, and no one will even know what killed me.'
The thought filled him with desperate rage. He'd survived abandonment, beatings, and years of scraping by with nothing. He wasn't about to let some invisible monster end him now.
If this thing wanted to eat him, he'd at least injure it.
Ryu lunged forward blindly, following the source of the sounds, and bit down on something soft. The taste was 'Bad', rotten meat mixed with copper and something fundamentally wrong.
His stomach immediately rebelled, but he held on, biting harder despite the nausea.
The creature shrieked and released his hand. Ryu fell backward, gagging and retching, but the thing was still there. He could feel it.
Fighting through waves of nausea, Ryu tackled the invisible presence with his hands. He couldn't see it, could barely hold it, but he could feel it weakening. With a final, desperate bite, he tore something vital from it.
The creature's death wail echoed in his ears as it dissolved into nothingness.
Ryu collapsed, vomiting violently as his body tried to purge whatever he'd consumed. The taste clung to his mouth like chewing gum, and every instinct screamed that he'd eaten something that would kill him.
But he was alive. Somehow, impossibly.
The pain hit next, not physical, but mental. Images flashed behind his eyes: hunger, endless hunger, the taste of fear, the desperation of humans.
And something else. Knowledge. A way to make shadows move.
Ryu gasped, clutching his head as alien memories tried to integrate with his own. What the hell had he just eaten?
What the hell was happening to him?
When the visions finally faded, he looked at his mangled left hand.
It was whole...Perfect.
"What... what the fuck?"
He stared at his healed hand, then at the empty alley. Had he imagined it all? Some stress-induced hallucination?
But the blood was still there. His blood pooled on the concrete.
And there was something else. A weird sensation, like being watched from every shadow at once.
His mind raced at a high pace. 'Move. Get out of here. Figure this out somewhere safe.'
Ryu stumbled to his feet, his legs shaky. He needed to get home, needed to think. Whatever had just happened, he couldn't process it here.
The walk back to his cardboard shelter felt like sleepwalking. Every shadow seemed to move, every dark corner felt alive. By the time he reached his "home" under the overpass, Ryu was convinced he was losing his mind.
'Stress induced psychosis. That's what this is. Too much hunger, too much fear, too much everything.'
He sat on his makeshift bed, with a piece of cardboard and a thin blanket, stared at his perfectly healed hand. The hand that had been mangled beyond recognition an hour ago.
'This isn't real. This can't be real.'
But the taste was still in his mouth. Rotten and wrong.
Ryu spent the rest of the night awake, staring at the shadows and flinching at every sound. When morning came, he was exhausted but no closer to understanding what had happened.
Maybe I should see a doctor. Or a psychiatrist.
But doctors cost money he didn't have, and psychiatrists would just lock him up.
'I'll go to the job. Mrs. Yamamoto. Act normal. Maybe this will all make sense later.'
It didn't make sense. But at least he could pretend it had been a hallucination.
For now.
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