Corpse Eater

Dear Beloved,

I have bad habits.
I will not lie.
I was a mere child suffering from starvation, alone with my older sister. Abandoned by our parents because of the bad economy that had come with the war, we scavenged the desolate landscape for any sort of food. We ate the abominations of mankind, the very lowest of civilization. Every day our fingers bled for digging the dirt for roots. The other orphans and abandoned children were no better; often times we resorted to violence for only a crumb of bread. We were no longer considered humans among the adults who sniffed their faces the other way. No doubt if I hadn't had my sister, I would've died, or gone insane. We nibbled the bones of rat carcass found in a garbage alley, slept near corpses of children our own age. We lived on despite the troubles. But one day a gang found us in an alleyway. my sister was beaten to death, covering me with her body to protect me.

I slept near my sisters corpse for days, too distraught to do anything to search for food. It would've been a useless attempt, even if I did get up. In a few days I was ill, and felt myself on the bridge of death. I could no longer stand nor crawl. I stared at my sisters cloudy eyes, the scent of rot in my nostrils. Flies buzzed over her, and maggots crawled in her open mouth. I thought of her death, and I finally realized she didn't want me to die. She had given her life for me. And I would do anything to honor her wishes. In her death she had given me one final gift. I reached over and wrung her pinky finger in my mouth, first sucking, and then chewing with the salty taste of my own tears. I lived.

After the war was over, the king happened to pass by and see me. He took an uncommon liking in me and put me in a high position. I lived a life of comfort. My days were spent in vain lavishness and the repetition of eating high quality food. But I never got the taste of my sister out of my mouth. It haunted me day and night, even giving me nightmares with the urgings to eat it again.

One day I couldn't stand it any longer. I paid a gravedigger to upend a coffin recently buried. The dead lying there was a child; barely five or six. I trembled as I took its arm and ate. And as I ate my fill of the curious taste, I was filled with an unbearable emptiness. A hole had grown inside me with every bite I swallowed. The war had reduced my life to something less than human, but this time I had severed every connection to being human myself. With my own hands.

I have paid the gravedigger 27 times since then. My obsession with human flesh is growing. I can't stop it any longer. But each time I eat, my emptiness grows, and I am filled with laughter. It bubbles up inside somewhere deep inside the crevices of my skin, and overflows with memory.

Shall we toast?
To my sister.
Whom I love.

From the Reaches of The Universe, Mr. Shadow

Dear Shadow,

I've come a long ways from the farthest reaches of the universe. My mother and father kicked me out of the house, and since I was stubborn, I decided to leave my dusty gray-haired planet behind and seek out my fortune to find a world more beautiful than that one. I have traveled for more than a millennium in my light-year boots, stopping at even a remotely beautiful planet. You cannot count the amount of times I've been disappointed. Almost every one is inhabitable and as dusty as my home planet. Even the ones that have life are either boring or overused, and the neighbors that aren't stupid and crawl around on their bellies find me as a threat. They come at me with native spears, or with their advanced beam weapons that blow a small village to the other side of the galaxy, and that's only if I ask for a mug of morning grub jub! I was sick and tired of searching, and was planning on going home when I got sucked into a black hole. Now I'm usually pretty apt at avoiding those, but at that moment I was being chased by the inhabitants of Georidm riding on their space snailhorses, so I was sort-of distracted. Who could blame me? If they catch you, they dance around a fire with your head on a stick! But I suppose that was the least of my problems.

It was a funny feeling to be stretched into absolute nothingness. I went in feet first, and could hear myself crunching in on itself with all the pressure, but I didn't feel any pain. My body wrangled itself into strange shapes, and then began to be pulled apart. I don't remember thinking at all.

When I got out on the other side, I was in the most beautiful world I could possibly imagine. I was at the bottom of the ocean of Black, and it was filled with a city full of glowing ember lights. You never get tired there. I could run forever if I wanted to. Everything you imagine comes true. You can travel the 9 major dimensions without ever leaving your room. I was in ecstasy. When I first arrived, there was a dancing party going around the Midnight Clock platform. A strange looking, but joyful person flighted past, and told me to jump in. I didn't need a second invitation, and practically ran into dancing by myself at the center of the clock. And then I saw you. It was in the middle of the second song, I believe, and you knelt down to me in your shadow robes that reflected all the city embers, and asked me gently if I would accompany you in a waltz. I was much to excited to care about proper etiquette of the rules of blushing/ being shy and so forth, and simply pulled you up and led you around in a blurry twirl. I think you were surprised at first, but you laughed heartily with me the whole time. When I asked your name, you looked a little sad, but looked up into my eyes and told me it was Shadow. Near the end of Midnight, the dancing partners started walking off by themselves, and the place started to be cold. Before you left, you left me your hood to warm me up. It was only later that I realized where my true world laid. I suppose I'm still chasing after it. Don't you want your hood back?

-Admil