Chapter Two β Hunger Is the First Teacher (π³πππππ π΄π πππ π±ππππ πΏππππππ)
690 Words
πΏhe bread was gone by morning.
My stomach didnβt care that I had eaten. It didnβt remember. Hunger was the only memory that stayed. It clawed at me from inside, twisting me into knots, bending me double as I walked.
I staggered back toward the village, through frost-crusted fields where crows picked at the frozen earth. Their calls cut the air sharp. Black wings against gray sky.
My feet ached. My lips cracked. My hands shook.
Hunger made my thoughts thin, like smoke.
By the time I reached the market square, the sun had barely cleared the roofs. Merchants were already shouting, carts rattling in, oxen steaming in the cold. The smell of cooking struck me like a hammer: meat spitting on iron pans, onions frying in grease, the sour tang of beer slopped onto the ground.
The square was alive, loud, bursting. Women in wool skirts leaned over baskets of fish, fingering scales. Men shouted about weights and coin. Dogs wove under tables, snapping at scraps.
No one saw me. No one cared.
I drifted between stalls, eyes on the food. Apples stacked high, red and shining. Loaves of bread, steaming as they were torn apart. A man ladled stew into bowls, the smell of bone broth rolling out heavy and warm.
My mouth watered. My belly cramped. My hands shook.
I reached for an apple.
The vendorβs hand shot out and cracked my wrist. The fruit tumbled, rolled into the mud. He shouted, words like stones, thick and harsh. People turned, faces pinched.
I ran.
π¬ hand caught the back of my neck. I was slammed into a stall, jars rattling. A fist hit my gut. Air shot out of me. My knees buckled.
The man dragged me back, shouting for others. βThief! Thief!β
Voices joined. Hands grabbed my arms, my hair. Someone spat in my face. A boot kicked my ribs. I folded, gasping, coughing.
They threw me down in the mud. Faces circled. Not kind faces. Faces that had decided I wasnβt a boy. Just a rat. A pest. Something to stomp until it stopped twitching.
A boy stepped forward. Not knife-boy. Another one. Barefoot, taller. His grin was wide. He raised a stick, thick as a club.
He swung.
Pain burst across my back. My vision blurred. I curled in on myself, arms over my head. The stick came down again, again. Laughter rose around me.
Something broke. Not my bonesβsomething else.
The part of me that thought they might stop. That someone might help. That anyone cared.
The world spun. Mud filled my mouth. My ears rang with shouts, with laughter, with my own heartbeat.
The boy raised the stick again. His grin stretched, cruel.
And I bit.
Not him. The mud. The earth itself. My teeth sank into it, grit grinding between them, foul on my tongue. It woke something in me. A scream that wasnβt words.
I lunged.
I clawed at his legs, scratching deep. He yelled, stumbling. I bit his ankle, hard, tearing flesh. His scream cracked the air.
Hands grabbed at me. I thrashed, kicking, biting. A man tried to pin meβmy teeth sank into his hand. He howled, jerking back, blood dripping.
πΏhe circle broke. They shouted now, not laughing. Fear edged their voices.
I scrambled up, chest heaving, hair plastered to my face with sweat and mud. Blood on my lips. My nails red. My teeth aching.
I ran.
Through the square, down alleys, across the ditch. My ribs screamed. My lungs burned.
No one followed.
I collapsed against a wall outside the village, panting, trembling. My whole body shook, my skin buzzing. My mouth tasted of iron.
I looked at my hands. Nails broken. Fingers cut. Blood that wasnβt mine drying in the cracks.
I should have been afraid.
But all I felt was this:
Alive.
I spat mud, wiped blood from my mouth, curled up in the weeds.
The lesson burned in me, hotter than hunger.
βπ£ β π£π¦π€π₯π± π£ππ¦π―, β π‘π¦π’.
βπ£ β π£π¦π€π₯π± π π©π’ππ«, β π©π¬π°π’.
βπ£ β π£π¦π€π₯π± π‘π¦π―π±πΆβ
ππ¦π±π’, π π©ππ΄, π°π π―ππ±π π₯, π±π₯π―ππ°π₯β
β π©π¦π³π’.
- Writer
