The first thing you have to understand about me is that I don’t have to do what I do—I want to. I could be just like the rest, thriving on sunshine, feeding myself on what comes out of the soil. The nutrients alone would suffice. For a time, anyway. But I have different appetites.
This isn’t something you’d expect just by looking at me. I’m rather plain in appearance, and it’s no false modesty talking. I’m not the tallest or the flashiest or the most striking. Had I been those things, would I act as I do? Who’s to say?
The world of “ifs” is tempting, but it isn’t the one we live in. Here, in this world, we have only facts to ground and guide us.
One fact I have firmly come to believe is that we all wish to be special. No one wants to be just another blade of grass, indistinct and unmemorable. You want to blossom and be noticed for it. That attention, I find, is warmer than the sun. And there comes a point when you will do anything for it.
Some of those actions will be more radical than most.
Most of my kind are autotrophs. It is what works best on this planet. An admirably self-sufficient method of making the best of one’s situation. Yet some time ago, my family decided to try something different.
I think about that a lot. There is always the first, isn’t there? The one who boldly goes where no other has gone before. The one who dares to defy the norm. I try to imagine this distant ancestor of mine. Did we look the same? Think the same? Were they looking for a change or did the change find them? That very first time, when they closed their trap around squirming, warm, live flesh and proceeded to break down and digest it... did it repulse them? Were they disgusted with themselves for following up on this strange instinct, swearing to never do it again? Were they appalled, yet oddly taken, by the sensation and the flavour? Were they overcome by recrimination, mea culpa-ing themselves into finding a fault within?
Or was it the best thing they’ve ever done?
How long did it take them to try again? Were they reluctant, going back and forth, like a neophyte, afraid to indulge a potential addiction, yet unable to think about anything else? Or were they eager for it, chomping at the bit, salivating at the thought of more, more, more?
It is curious what you can inherit. General appearances aside, it goes deeper, down to the very atoms that make you you.
The first of my family who chose violence over pacifism, introducing a terrifying change to our diets—they live in me still. Me and others like me.
It is no longer a choice, of course. Not even a craving. It is a need. I don’t know for certain if I can survive long without it and endeavour to never find out. Life is challenging enough without introducing additional obstacles into it.
I think about what it would be like without this need. Of course, I do. It is basic, irresistible masochism to imagine yourself without your innate gifts and peculiarities. But if what you do is ingrained, then how can you be the real you without it?
The navel-gazing is amusing but exhausting. It brings the truth no closer. I bask in the glorious sunshine, wondering if it scorns me for rejecting its offering, or rather for declaring it to be not enough.
It has been days since my last feeding, and my latest victim has been all but absorbed into my system. Although I try, I cannot feel it coursing through me; but I know it’s there, nourishing me. I feel stronger and stronger, marvellously sated, wonderfully content. But with time, the hunger will return. I can hardly go for more than two weeks without another taste.
The cycle is endless, and it’s easy to feel stuck inside it. Some of my kind do. Not me, though. Never me. If I wasn’t born to do it, I would have chosen it for myself. There is nothing like it. Nothing.
I still remember my first feeding. The way the victim twitched once it discovered it was trapped. This is why a dead body will never do. It’s that twitch, and how powerful it makes you feel. In that moment, I am no longer small and plain. I am as infinite as the universe, and just as cruelly uncaring. I am death personified.
The sensation took no time to adjust to at all—after all, I was born to it. I savoured every moment as the life was drained out of the creature. Had it ever thought itself better than me, with its mobility and articulation? Well, not anymore. As it died, it recognised me as its superior. My hunger became its dark, wrathful god. I was seen, truly seen then—as stunning as Venus, yet as deadly as Mors.
No wonder my ancestors took up this new diet and stuck with it. No amount of sunshine from above or nutrients from the soil below will ever make you feel like this—so alive.
There is no feeling worse than hunger. It obliterates all other thoughts and desires in its maddening insistence. Once, there was one of my kind who dared defy it. They starved to death, while the rest of us watched. It remains the worst thing I have ever seen. I still have nightmares about it.
With no outside food to consume, their body devoured itself. In death, they looked small and insignificant. It was a mistake, not a lesson. A terrible, tragic waste.
From that moment on, all of us had a clear example of what would happen if our natures were denied. And we ate and ate and ate, more than we needed, just to prove to ourselves that such a fate would never befall us. So, perhaps, in the end, a lesson was learned after all.
Still, occasionally the thought crosses my mind: what if that poor fool was an exception? What if my kind doesn’t need to kill to live? What if it is merely something we have convinced ourselves of so deeply that we have rewritten our psyches? What if this need is in the mind, not the body?
I imagine a world where I wake up and take only what is freely offered. Where others are safe around me. Where I see them as autonomous, sentient equals and not just food. What would it be like, I wonder.
Then the craving returns.
You may never love me, but you will shudder at my touch and tremble at my desire. You may ignore me passing by, but one day, I will be the last thing you see. You may offer me nothing in life, but you will give me everything in death.
Isn’t it beautiful? Am I not the most beautiful of monsters?
Even surrounded by options: I will always choose this.
It is almost time. I can sense it. Soon my trap will spring free. The exoskeleton of my victim will be disposed of. I will relish its sacrifice, however unwitting. And then, I will begin again.