Chapter 9 – Hunger's Bite
1278 Words
The cold ember of rage that Deji’s betrayal had forged was a feeble defense against the slow, methodical siege of the body. The resolve that had felt like granite on the bridge and in the aftermath of Ojuelegba began to c***k under a far more ancient and inexorable force: hunger.
The first day of fasting had been bearable, a hunger he could attribute to tension. The second day had been a dull gnaw, a whine of want in the back of his mind that colored everything. But today, on the fourth day, it was no longer something he sensed; it was something he felt. Something alive had formed in his stomach, a worm or a snake, twisting and contorting, its demands dominating all else—pride, recollection, even the soothing numbness of the System's equations.
His body, kept up by constant meals though plain, now consumed itself. A relentless shudder had taken up residence in his hands. His eyes would spin on a sudden motion, the ground on a greased axis. Walking from his generator camp to the highway made him light-headed, his breathing in short, agonized gasps. The jacket sagged off him like a shroud off a skeleton, the fabric hanging loose where once it had clung taut with tension.
Food was a torment. He would catch the acrid, greasy smell of suya from a street vendor grill, the peppery scent of a pot of pepper soup bubbling away, and his mouth would water so violently that it felt like nausea. His head, deadly in its famishment, would recall Adeshewa's plain stews, the soft fluffy rice, the fried plantains crisped to perfection which he had previously underappreciated. No longer did these serve as reminders of warmth; they were reminders from a lost paradise.
His pride, the last shattered piece of armor he clung to, began to fade under the biological imperative to live. The few naira money he had left was all spent on water days ago. The universe did not grant charity; it only granted transactions.
It lay behind the sprawling Oyingbo market, in the fetid, narrow streets where the traders dumped their unsold rubbish, that his own final downfall began. The air was heavy with the sweet, nauseating stench of overripe fruit and the pungent smell of spoiled vegetables. Flies flew in a solid black cloud. It was the belly of the city, the garbage dump.
He stood in the alley entrance, his body trembling with disgust and ravenous hunger. The System's text glowed in front of him, a dispassionate witness.
[Physiological Status: Critical. Glycogen Depletion. Muscle Catabolism Detected.]
[Objective: Get Calories. Action Required Immediately.]
"I can't," he addressed the empty air, his voice a dry whisper.
[Analysis: Pride is an unnecessary nutrient. It cannot sustain cellular functions.]
The logic was unfalsifiable, iniquitous in its simplicity. He was a professional. A man who had managed million-naira accounts, understood elaborate systems, cause and effect. The cause was his integrity. The effect was this alley, this bin, this moment.
With a sob that tore from the very depths of his soul, Elian Athen took the final step. He approached a massive, full bin with cassava peels and burnt plantains. His hands, those that once signed documents and typed reports of superior sophistication, now pushed through the muddy, smelly trash. The odor hit his nostrils, making him gag. He pulled out a fruit, its skin battered and cracked, infested with ants. He brushed them away with frantic, animalistic gestures and brought it to his lips.
The first bite was a hymn of shame. The texture was mush, the taste a faint, offensively weak sweetness masked by the all-consuming rot. He swallowed, his throat convulsing, and it felt as if he swallowed part of his soul. He coerced it down, and then another, his body overriding his mind's thudding protest, fueled by the instinctive strength of survival.
He was so enthralled by his miserable banquet that he didn't perceive the forthcoming steps in time.
"See! Observe the madman!"
He stood stock-still, half a rotten mango clutched in his grimy hand. A small cluster of children, no larger than Zola, at the alley's entrance. Clean, their school uniforms bright in the gloom. They gestured, their faces not with the compassion of their teacher the day before, but with the unsullied, brutal interest of children.
"He's eating from the garbage!" one of them yelled, his voice ringing with amazement.
Another laughed, a ringing, high-pitched laugh that tore into Elian more roughly than any of Uche's taunts. "My mama says only witches and madmen eat garbage! He's mad!"
The words dropped, each one separately, like nails. Madman. No longer a failed professional, a betrayed husband, a fallen man. He was a spectacle. A cautionary tale that mothers told their children to frighten them into submission. Look what you become if you do not do what I say. You turn out like a madman, and you eat from the rubbish bin.
His pride, which had survived Bello's threats and Adeshewa's contempt, snapped then. It did not shatter; it exploded into a million invisible, wordless pieces, leaving only a hollow, gnawing shame. He dropped the mango, the rotten flesh splattering on the ground. He could not meet their eyes. He turned and ran, stumbling out of the alley, the children's laughter behind him like a chorus of hounds.
He did not relent until he tumbled onto his hideout behind the generator, the cacophonous roar an appropriate background to the maelstrom in his head. He curled up into a ball, his arms wrapped around his hollow belly, the ethereal aftertaste of rot still on his lips. The derisive laughter of the children echoed in his head, louder than the generator, louder than the city. Madman. Madman.
This was the bottom. Not Shakespearean melodramatic, tragic bottom of a drama. A dirty, sluggish bottom. It was the nadir when a man was brought lower than an animal, scrounging for morsels as he was taunted by infants. The fire of anger was extinguished, buried under an ocean of pure, complete despair.
What was the vision? The System spoke of A Path of Retribution. What a cruel joke. How could he, a bin-rumaging madman, possibly match the Bello's and Uche's of the universe? They were in penthouses; he was on the street. They ate from silver platters; he ate from dumpsters. The chasm was not social or economic; it was ontological. They were from a different species.
Despair closed its cold, last hand around his heart. It dragged him down, out of the world, out of pain. Surrender was a soft, dark blanket. To just stop. To stop fighting, stop moving, stop feeling. To just let the hunger eat. To let the city devour his bones. It would be easy. It would be an act of kindness.
He remained there for hours, floating in and out of consciousness, the line between waking horror and fitful sleep blurring into nothing. The System's directives became more insistent, more rapid, their frigid green text an anxious counterpoint to the warm emptiness.
[Warning: Physiological Systems on Brink of Catastrophic Failure.]
[Directive: User Must Continue. Mission is of Paramount Importance.]
[Alert: Consciousness Degrading. Activating Countermeasures.]
He dismissed them. The Mission had been an illusion. The Path had been an illusion. He was only human, and he was devastated.
As the shadows consumed him, a final cue flashed, different from the rest. It was no longer green, but it burned like a fierce, blinding gold, and it carried not a message, but a lone ringing word that seemed to vibrate through every cell of his killing flesh, a command and a vow intertwined:
[AWAKEN.]
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- Writer
