The Long Road Home - 5 - The Hunger

I found out last night that my words make my stomach growl. Either that, or I'm just hungry. Very hungry. It's like my stomach wants me to eat my own hand or something... I don't know, I'm having problems even standing straight now. Hobbling while the world spins into grey makes me wonder if I'll ever see straight again. All I can do is let this dizzy head rest, while my friend stays in the cave, sleeping all the while. She's tired, having walked all the way to that reservoir--she called it that--can take the energy out of anyone. So I'm letting her sleep while I check out the immediate area some more. It'll help me get my mind off this starving business. Besides, I should know the market, since I have been in this situation many times. Starving, thirsty, laying out to dry in the sun like a forgotten cob of corn to shrivel up and falter from its stalk: these are what I had to participate in for my life on Sweet Acres. Some days we won't eat, while others we would. It all would depend on our work. Master loves it when we work. We are his slaves. I am his slave.

I am--free.

Over my dead body, Dyson!

I try to ignore his voice, but eager words escape his mouth like thousands of guns being shot at once.

You nothin' but my slave! You're just runnin' off to leave your family out to dry! Your sister, yes, her...

I hear him laugh in the thicket of the trees, birds flying high above us, squawking without end.

She ain't nothing but a stick in the ground.

My eyes widen. I knew she was gone. I knew this all along. Her body was always too thin. She would cry when Mother would hold her close. She'd ask why Master wouldn't give her food. Momma would just respond saying,

"Did ya do your work?"

Her eyes told my Mother everything. Eyes going down: she didn't. Eyes staying there: she did her work.

They rarely stayed.

Momma would always wonder if her girl was just afraid of work. My Momma and Papa taught her all they knew of the trade: picking, grabbing, putting in a basket, hauling it to the pile under the rickety shack Master built, since the barn's angry descent to the ground after a brutal storm got him angry enough to build the thing as a substitute. Farmers mocked Master all the time, asking him when the new barn would be up, or whether he had the money for a new barn. Master used that anger on us.

I wish they never did that to him.

I wish you would just return to work ya escaped slave! But my slave doesn't want to come back. He's *free*... Something that I'll be fixing soon, you stupid ni--

With my eyes set on the cave I put Rainbow Dash in, I walk away from the voice whose angered shouting fades into the thicket of the trees above. A few birds still squawk overhead, but I pay them no heed, as I walk into the cave, where a light shines through on the tired form of Rainbow Dash, whose chest rises and falls with normal succession. I sit there, watching, momentarily thinking of what we have accomplished when suddenly my stomach growls. It roars at the sensation of nothingness, a feeling more physical than emotional. It tears at my insides, shaking me to the point of losing my breath. I grab my chest and groan, the pain heating me more than the sun could ever do. This pain, this hunger; I'm wondering if I starved or if I thought I was starving for those three days before eating the morsels I would get from my Master's pantry. Maybe I am a liar, a fateful, gruesome liar whose stomach speaks for himself before his mind thought of food. Maybe I cannot control myself; maybe I'm a slave to my hunger, my thirst...

I am a slave no matter where I am.

That's right... *Slave.***

I scream on the top of my lungs, just wishing the pain would end. Let this nightmare be done. Let me go home. Yet, my injuries remind me of the present, a reality that loses balance. I fall onto a large pointed rock back first, arching my back in a way that sent shockwave after shockwave of pain through my system. I gasp as each one hits, the latter stronger than its predecessor. I felt like Rainbow Dash when she lost her wing after it was sheared off and zapped to oblivion by the giant eel. My body feels electric. My everything is electric.

I need her now.

Quickly crawling to Rainbow Dash, I shake her rapidly in hopes of waking her up. I need her help, and her being asleep doesn't help me none.

As I shake her, I think of the other possibilities. Maybe I need water again. Maybe I need food.

Maybe I need her in my stomach--

No, I would never eat her. No I wouldn't. She is my friend. She said so herself. She is my friend. A friend, a pony, a horse, she's food--she's a friend.

Flickering to the left, I see darkness, to my right, I see light. I look up and smile, while my stomach roars and shakes me whole. I grab it to quiet its rage, but every attempt makes me want her more. Meat, substance, energy...

I begin to feel more dizzy, my mind circling around her tail like one uses a knife to cut out a certain section of meat. I wish I had a knife right now, so I can--plunge it into my head for thinking of her like that!

I fall on my back and distance myself from her. At the other end of the cave (small like the one before), I curl up in a ball and deal with my hunger. I close my eyes and let it shake me to the core. Every time a thought of came around with a hungry drive, I ignored it. I only thought of her positives: her happiness, her motivation, her love for life, her meaty back--her lovely face, how juicy it is--how nice it looks. Her father told her the world was beautiful, the world was loyal, the world was like herself: pretty, yet I see her all the same...

...except her face looks so delicious, I want to ea--I don't want to eat it!

I snap my eyes open and look over to Rainbow Dash, whose body stirs from its healthy sleep.  After opening up her eyes and taking a brief stretch on the ground, she slowly brings herself to her hooves, a struggle for her since her legs wobble like my one able leg, which twitches in response to the pain that I'm feeling. She sighs as she looks up at the light peering through the entrance of the cave, before her eyes rest on me. A look of concern flashes there momentarily, before she dismisses it, probably to not distress me.

Yet I'm already distressed as her form walks towards me. I shuffle back as the hunger begins to speak to me. It says to eat her, every bit so I can leave, eat her it says.

"Dyson, are you alright?"

I shake my head. "Stay back," I warn her, while my body quakes to the sounds of a stomach ready to burst. "He--"

She cuts me off. "Is it your master that is telling you to leave me?"

I want to lie. I want to tell her it's him. But it's not. I'm not a liar. I'm not going to lie to a friend. No, I'm not. She's a friend. She's a pony. My hunger wants her, but I don't. She's just a friend. She's food--not food. "No..."

She steps back a bit, making my hunger worse to bear. "Then what's wrong?"

My hunger speaks for me. "Y-You..." I quickly cover my mouth and succumb to its desire.

She gasps at the word, and continues to step back until her butt hits the wall. "Dyson, you're scaring me."

"Ya don't come near!" I struggle to shout. "My hunger be wantin' me to eat ya! Yet I don't wanna!"

"Your hunger?" she asks, clearly startled by the news. I nod, which triggers her to move forward. "I don't get it, you mean you're hungry?"

My hunger takes her steps closer as a numbing feeling, making my brain burn with the embers of death. "Yes, Dash, very hungry! I haven't be wantin' to eat this much since I left the farm!"

"The farm?" she asks as another hoofstep clicks against the stony surface of the cave. "You mean where Master lives?"

I nod. "Sweet Acres, home of the freshest corn on the cob!" My mouth begins to water. "It tastes so good and fresh and I--" My eyes see her muscle stretching. "I want..." You to help me! Help me!

I try to reach out to grab her, but I cling my hands to my stomach, where I clench them into fists to make sure I don't hurt her. I see how my black hands turn whiter for that moment. It makes me realize that I only can be white when I'm like this, but as I unclench my fists, the color returns and I am a slave again. A slave who wants some smoldering pony over a fire.

She takes a step back again, and gasps, "You're..." She looks at the entrance to the cave and quickly files out, her tail swish and swashing as she leaves.

Meanwhile, I sit there, curled up in a ball.

I'm horrible, I'm hungry, and most of all...

I just wanted to eat my only friend here.

Maybe I'll just fall asleep now. Maybe I'll just dream. Maybe I'll be fine tomorrow. Maybe she'll be here.

I hope she is because being alone in the dark hurts the most.

I rub my eyes. I look at the light. It's very dim. The world looks like fire. It's grey, it's red, and it's orange too. I look out of the cave. No Rainbow Dash in sight.

Sighing, I hop into the water. Carefully I dip myself in, and wash the dirt off. Grey grains slither out of the crater and into the stream, trickling down to the mayhem where Rainbow Dash and I had undergone. Meanwhile, she is somewhere else, probably far away from me, thinking I'm some monster, some angry, hungry, meat-eating demon to come and kill her at her lowest point, while I just sit here, bathing. I'm in luxury, I own the water, I am the dominant species, I am a slave. I am eager, I am hungry.

I drink some water to quell my hunger. It groans and roars some more, but silently it falls to its death. As I pull myself out from the sudden dunk, I remember her leaving. I saw that face of shock, that look of betrayal, that heart breaking to the sound of a soul gone wild with hunger and desire to eat anything in its path. I would love to know where she's at right now, so I can tell that I'm sorry for what I said, take back the thought of wanting to eat her, then eat her anywa--no! I want to be there, not leave her. There is nothing I can do now, she already left. Maybe I can chase after her. Maybe I can't. I don't think she wants to see me.

I think I'll just walk around after I finish my bath.

"Go after 'er, son!"

"Momma?"

"Didn't I raise ya right? Ya treatin' her like a slave right now!"

I shake my head. "But she ain't no slave."

I flinch at the sound of Momma's voice. "You think that it be fine then to be given her pain like this? Ya think you wanna be in her spot, draggin' along the hopes of ever leavin'?

"But Momma, what about my--"

"Why are ya worrin' 'bout yourself? Didn't I tell ya to be kind to others! Didn't I tell ya that ya be smartest of them all on this here farm?" Her voice continues to raise in volume as she speaks, "Are you kiddin' me? Can't ya see the problem?"

I begin to sob, letting loose the painful tears I've been holding since she came. "I'm sorry Momma..."

"Don't be sayin' that to me, baby. My dear baby you be needin' to say it to her."

"But how can I--"

"No buts, Dyson!"

I shudder as her voice rings in my ears.

"Ya get your be-hind workin' all the way to where she be layin' and tell 'er that ya sorry!"

I nod as fast as I can and say, "Yes Momma!"

I can feel her smiling from here. "Now get goin'!

She didn't need to tell me twice. I'm already out the water, my hands hurdling me over the edge of the crater.

I'm sorry, Rainbow Dash. I'm so, so sorry.