Wishful

A wish was granted

Skin becomes salty and bitter when it accumulates sweat. An unpleasant taste that lingers in the mouth develops and permeates the pores until it is cleansed. No rationally thinking human would choose to devour such a thing. Unfortunately for the bloody mass beneath me, I am only human at the moment, and not rationally thinking at all. Fortunately for me, though, they bathed recently, and only the slightest tinge of sweat born of fear and sudden exertion sours their skin. The meat below, too, is succulent, tearing easily once I put force into it. The neck and jaw muscles of a human are among their strongest, more than enough to sunder flesh.

Blood is metallic in taste, not dissimilar to rusty ketchup, but overpowers the more subtle flavors. Raw meat, truly raw meat, is not something I particularly enjoy, although it is, at once, a delicacy, an experience to be savored. A chunk of half chewed flesh squeezes down my throat and I pause in my ravening, pulling apart my food’s clothes and ripping open their chest, seeking out their heart before its final beat, hoping against hope to cradle the fragile organ as it falters. My hands dig, pulling up their bones and freeing space until I reach it. Still, already. Without motion or rhythm. Dead. I almost feel like crying. I bite down on my misguided sentimentality and set in again, all thoughts folding away.

It’s like meditation, only instead of clearing your mind, you fill it. Fill it with raw hunger and the satisfaction of that hunger. A carnal, carnivorous, voracious meditation to the sounds of tearing flesh and your own gulping throat. Time flies, and I’m left with a savaged, unrecognizable cadaver. I leave it, too annoyed at the way my bites had left it to bother bringing it home to cook. I say it, but my meal probably had a gender, once. Anyway, the scavengers will probably reduce this mess to a skeleton or less by the time it is found, so I’m not worried. I dragged them far enough from the path that it should be fine. And if I am suspected, I’ll just leave. I don’t have any attachments to this town.

I’m a monster now, after all. That was my wish. I don’t regret a thing. I live a life without regrets, you see. I do everything I want to and whatever is required to do that. Things like 'morals' and 'ethics' are just buzzwords people like to toss around. I'm just a monster, like I always wanted to be. An uninhibited being. Killing, taking, feasting. Or, more accurately, I'm not a monster at all. Just a human who got to make one wish, and chose correctly. A human, then, without humanity. A living corpse, you might say. A body with no soul. So, in the end, the worst kind of monster. Nothing magical or fancy or destined to slain by some knight in shining armor or a troubled hero or anything so hopeful.

Or maybe it's just my point of view, having gone from a law-bound, pure acting, paragon of morality to what I am now, and having some memories of 'right' and 'wrong'. I can't help but wish I'd been born like this, so that I'd never even think of whether what I do is considered evil. It doesn't feel evil, that's for sure. A life without guilt, no matter what. What a wonderful wish to have granted.