Thank god I ate Trent. I don’t think I would have been able to find this place if I didn’t have his memories. It turned out the conductor’s personal quarters were very far from the slave quarters. Why he had it so far is beyond me. If I had to guess, it’s probably because he couldn’t stand our very presence, but that doesn’t matter. I’m here now, standing in front of his personal quarters. The only thing between him and me. Was this door. I leant closer and put my ear to the door. I could hear loud snoring coming from the door.

“He’s asleep. This makes this so much easier.” I said to myself

I took a deep breath to calm myself. My body was shaking with anticipation. I lifted my hand and wrapped it around the door handle, and pulled. The door opened. And I crept into the room.

‘he doesn’t lock his door?’ Alexis asked.

‘According to Trent’s memories, this place is usually filled with guards who protect his personal quarters. fortunately for us, He’s gotten so used to them being around that it’s made him careless.’

I slowly tiptoed around the room, trying to minimise any noise I made. The conductors’ room was the most lavish place I’ve ever seen, filled with exotic materials and animal heads mounted to the walls. Light came from runes etched into the wall. They could only be made by a magician, and they usually charge a lot for their services. How much money did this guy have?

I slowly crept towards the side of the bed he was sleeping on, making sure not to step on the stone shards covering the floor. Once I was on his side of the bed, I moved up towards his head, putting myself within touching distance of the conductor, my body started shaking with anticipation, and I think I could hear a slight growl from my second mouth. I reached down with my hand and wrapped it around his neck. His eyes instantly shot open, and he started gagging as he struggled to breathe. He flailed his arms at mine, but I barely noticed the blows. I thought back to how 13 died slowly and in pain. I looked back at the conductor.

“A quick death is too good for you”, I spat at him as I lifted his fat ass off the bed with one hand and threw him at a nearby wall.

He hit the wall with a loud thud and then slumped to the ground and lay there motionless. I walked to him and kicked him, but there was no reaction.

“no”

I got closer and punched him in the face but still no reaction.

“NO”

I shot my hand through his chest using all my strength, but still no reaction. The conductor laid still, completely motionless.

“NO! THIS IS NOT HAPPENING. GET UP, YOU FAT BASTARD, YOU CAN’T DIE THAT EASILY, NOT AFTER WHAT YOU PUT 13 THROUGH. I REFUSE TO ACCEPT IT”

 I punched his body, again and again, hoping for something to come from him, the tiniest whimper, the slightest sound, something to tell me he was alive, but there was nothing, just the sound of my fists hitting his flesh and the occasional crack of bones.

’44, THAT’S ENOUGH.’ Alexis yelled

My punches began to slow down until they eventually stopped.

‘It’s okay, alright, calm down.’

I stepped away from the unrecognisable corpse of the conductor

“How did he die so easily.”

‘If I had to guess, it’s because you’re a lot stronger than you realise, and he isn’t a fighter. His body isn’t made for that kind of abuse.’

“BUT IT’S NOT FAIR! HE PUT 13 THROUGH SO MUCH BEFORE HE DIED, BUT HE GETS TO GO QUICKLY. IT’S BULLSHIT.” I delivered another swift kick to the lifeless lump

‘I understand how you feel. Trust me; I’ve been here. But we have to move on from this. I’ll teach you how to control your strength, so this won’t happen again.’

I looked at his corpse. I felt a deep seething anger well up inside me as well as something else. Something I’m all too familiar with. Hunger. My second mouth growled as I felt the tongue slowly worm out and start to wrap itself around the body however gave it the command to return, and it reluctantly went back inside the mouth.

‘Why did you do that? aren’t you going to eat him?’

“If I was starving and he was the only thing to eat in the world, I still wouldn’t eat him. I don’t want any part of him inside of me!” I said as I stormed out of the conductor’s room.

‘Where are you going now.’

“I’m hungry, and I’m pissed.”

I arrived at my destination—the mines slave quarters. Using my strength, I broke open the door and entered the quarters. It probably woke everyone up, but I didn’t care. I made sure to block off the entrance as I made my way towards the other slaves. That night would be a night filled with blood and screams.

********

’44, you there? It’s time to get up.’

“Few more minutes”

’44! Get up now. I wanna leave this cave.”

*GROAN*

I slowly lifted my head up and was met with a wave of pain across my head.

“Oh god, my head.”

I lifted my hand to my head, feeling something cold and sticky. I brought my hand down from my head to look at it. It was red approaching scarlet colour with tiny flakey bits that were darker than that. I put my hand down and looked around. I found myself in a lavish room filled with exotic materials and animal fur. The conductor’s room. Like a flash, all the events of the previous night come back to me, and anger begins to well up inside me, but I manage to keep it down. I got off the bed and scanned the room.

 

“Alexis, you’re right. It’s time we leave this place.”

‘Sure, before you go, let’s loot this place. That fat oaf is bound to have lots of valuable items.’

I nodded and began searching the room. I’m not sure how long I was searching for, but I did find a lot of valuable things, one of which was a small purple bag of holding that could hold a lot of items inside.

‘magic has progressed a lot since I was around. We should stop by a library if we have a chance. I wanna catch up on what I have missed.’

In the end, we left the room with around 200 gold coins, 500 silver coins and around 100 or so copper coins; this was a pretty large amount of money. I better be careful not to draw any attention when I’m outside. Besides the money, I took anything that looked valuable, such as the animal materials and some gems I found. Happy with my haul, I left and went to the guard quarters to pick up some clothes and get a shower. I arrived and entered the guard quarters. It was much better than the slave quarters. It was bigger, and every guard looked like they had their own sleeping quarters. Back in the slave quarters. You had a bed, and that’s it. I followed the signs that pointed to where the shower was. I was kind of disappointed when I arrived at the showers. I expected it to be cleaner than the slave showers, but it was just as dirty.

*sigh* “can’t complain. A shower is a shower, I guess.” I said to myself

I took off what remained of my clothes and stepped into one of the showers, and pushed the button and was hit with an initial blast of cold water, which quickly warmed up.

“Ahhhh, so that’s what’s different. The guards get hot water, and we don’t.”  

As the hot water washed all the blood and other fluids off my body, I stood there in bliss as I enjoyed my first hot shower in years. I grabbed a bar of soap on the side and began to work it around on my body to break down some of the more stubborn stains on my body. This took a while as there was lots of blood to clean off but eventually, I was done. Now that my body was clean, I moved on to my now silver hair and began de-clumping it and removing all the blood that was caught in it as well. After a good hard scrubbing, my hair was now passable. It still could use some work, but it will do for now. I switched off the shower and made my way back to the guards quarters, where I rummaged around for a towel to dry myself and some clothes to wear. In the end, I settled with a blue guard tunic, some leather boots and a belt which came with holsters and straps which I could hang my bag of holding. I also found a grey cloak with a hood which would be useful for keeping me warm. I searched the guard quarters for anything else valuable. I found a short blade which I  attached to my belt and a fire-starting kit. Sadly there were no tents in the guards quarters, so I took some spare blankets, hoping I could make a shelter or something out of it. Once I had everything I needed, I left the guards’ quarters and made my way to the slave quarters.

I arrived at the entrance of the slave quarters. I could smell lots of blood coming from behind the door. I opened the door and entered the slave quarters. As soon as I entered the room, my knows were hit the pungent irony smell of blood and urine. I looked around the quarters. The floor was covered in blood, and so were the walls and ceilings. Bits of pink flesh was all over the place, stuck to the floor, walls and ceiling. I kept walking forward in the room, stepping over pools of blood that lay everywhere. As I looked around, I found bits of pieces of human lying and even some bones. But the part that really got my attention was the sound or lack thereof. Usually, this place would be full of conversation between all the slaves, but now it was silent.

‘why are you here?’ Alexis asked.

“last night, when I ate all the slaves, I didn’t care at all. They were just food to me, something for me to take my anger on. It honestly didn’t matter whether they did anything to warrant me killing them. Up until now, I thought it was because I was so angry at the time. I thought once I came back with a level head, I would feel something.”

‘And do you feel something’

“No, nothing at all, no remorse or guilt or even pity, just nothing. I honestly don’t care that I murdered these people.”

I looked down at my hands.

“A farmer doesn’t feel sympathy for the animals he kills for food.  I guess in some twisted way; this is kind of the same”

I clenched my hand.

“I have some thinking to do. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

Without further word, I turned around, walked out of the slave quarters, and made my way to the main entrance. So I could finally begin my cannibal life.