The Cure for Hunger - A Horror Short Story

Photo by Markus Spiske.

I know, I haven't been posting much lately but that's partly because I've been working on several different projects. This short story you're about to read was taken from an upcoming weird horror collection I'm putting together. I'll post here about it once it's done but until then, I hope you'll enjoy this short piece of taster (pun intended).

THE CURE FOR HUNGER

At this point, I'm one hundred per cent certain. There is not the slightest doubt that this insatiable, uncontrollable hunger is my body's revenge on me. For what, I've yet to find out.

For a while, I thought it might be the symptom of a different underlying health problem but several visits to the different types of doctors and psychologists made me give up on this theory.

“Fortunately, there is nothing apparently wrong with your health,” the doctors said. “Just try your best and maintain a healthy and balanced diet and do some light movement each day and you’ll do fine.”

I would be lying if I said that I'm the healthiest person on the planet but I wholeheartedly believe that I take decent care of myself. I try my best, at least.

But this hunger, it keeps eating at me. As I sit here, I can already feel it getting stronger again and I know that when it reaches a certain threshold, there's absolutely nothing I can do from that point. There's no stopping it. It's like the hormones controlling a normal human’s hunger and fullness are simply no longer present in my system as my body isn't capable of producing them anymore. Leptin? No, thank you. Cortisol? Ghrelin? Yes, please. As much, as possible.

I'm in a constant state of being hungry, just getting fatter and fatter, feeling increasingly worse and helpless each day. 

“Try to move more,” they would say but what they do not know is that my hunger grows in direct proportion to the physical activity I do. My body demands those lost and wasted calories back and I have no choice but to obey and eat until I'm sick of myself.

Sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick.

Here we go, here we fucking go, it starts again. First, a plate full of oily, greasy BBQ ribs and mashed potatoes, then a second round, then a little more with two glasses of sugary soda in between, and now give me that container of salted-caramel ice cream from the fridge, yes, that's right, that'll do it, but now it's all gone and the container is empty and still, nothing has changed, I'm still starving, oh my God, why does it never fucking stop, think, think, I can't think, there are still a few doughnuts left in the cabinet, I take them out and pop them into my mouth, one, two, three, four, they have a chocolate coating with pieces of marshmallow sprinkled on them, and wait, now I feel like the hunger has subsided just enough to be able to think again.

I feel disgusting and I want to fucking throw up, so I stroll into the toilet, fold a towel in half then lay it in front of the toilet bowl, kneel, then push my fingers down my throat. I struggle and cough, but I can't seem to keep my finger down long enough. I can feel the tiny blood vessels popping in my eyes and all around my face but no matter how aggressively I try, my body doesn't let me do what I want.

After minutes of misery, I fall on the floor and pull my legs to my chest. I'm tearing up. I'm defeated.

I lie there for a while when I start to feel something. Again. It starts again. The hunger. It hasn’t let up yet.

But this time, with the hunger, I can feel something else also grow inside me. It's hatred. Anger. Fury.

I get up and march back into the kitchen, I pace around, I'm so fucking mad, I've just eaten, and I don't want to eat again, but what the hell do I do about it, so now I walk to the kitchen furniture and I can feel my left hand rising, reaching toward the bag of toast bread, and my hand is getting closer and closer to it and I can't pull it back, no, but then unexpectedly something in my head clicks and I gain control over my right hand, then with it, I grab my left, drag it away from the bread and towards my mouth, and my left side tries to fight but somehow I am stronger now, and I take my index and middle finger into my mouth and start to bite and chew and munch on them, my rotting teeth tearing into the raw meat until they meet bones and stop, and I can feel my tears rolling down my face, and I want to vomit my stomach out and yell while doing so, but I'm stronger now, I keep it inside, and when I'm done with the chewing I swallow, and gag, then swallow again, and now the only thing left in my mouth is the metallic taste of my own flesh and blood.

I take off my clothes, wrap my bleeding left hand into my t-shirt and walk to the large mirror in my bedroom to take a look at myself. 

There's so much I want to change about my body. All that fat on my belly and my thighs and my overbearing double chin. And now, I know the way. I can't help but smile.

Reuse. Circulation. Reinvestment. It works. Finally, there's something that fucking works.

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