Chapter 2—Hunger

My stomach is cramped. An empty ache quickly gave way to a rumble. The sensation cut through my confusion and fear like a knife, leaving behind only one singular truth. No matter who I was or had been, right then, hunger was all that mattered.

I shuddered and clenched against the feeling. But the need was unrelenting, gnawing at the depths of my body, demanding its satisfaction. As the ache intensified, my mouth—if I could even call it that—began to water.

A larva. That was the word that floated in my memory. Small and soft and hungry. And what was a larva supposed to eat? The question was almost too horrible to contemplate, but in that warm, tight darkness, the answer was everywhere: meat.

My prison, the very thing that surrounded me, was also my potential food source.

It was the body of some larger creature. It was a living creature that had carried, birthed, and sustained me while I was in that egg. I was a parasite, an invader in the guts of another being. The meat was the flesh of that creature, and that flesh was now mine.

Mine for the taking.

All I had to do was open my mouth and bite, tear, chew, and swallow, and it would fill the gaping hole inside of me and quench the fire in my gut. But the idea of it made me gag, a revolting, primal rejection of the notion of devouring something so raw, so unprocessed. Yet even that visceral repulsion paled beside the thought of dying here in the suffocating blackness.

—I can’t... but I have to.

There was a pause, a hesitation, as the two sides of myself warred against each other. But in the end, the decision was already made. My stomach, cramping painfully from hunger, won out against whatever moral objections remained in me. With a sense of mounting dread, I forced my jaws to open and my mandibles to extend.

—No turning back now. Just food. Just survival. It’s no different than eating a steak. It’s no different…

And with that justification, my resolve crystallized.

Slowly, gingerly, I pressed forward, searching the warm, soft wall in front of me for the slightest indentation. A spot to start. When I found one, I dug in, slowly applying more pressure. There was no crunch or pop. The skin and tissue were surprisingly elastic, yielding to the gentle probing of my mouthparts.

With a little force, my teeth broke the skin. I paused, holding there, tasting the raw, coppery blood. It wasn't unpleasant. If anything, the metallic tang of it was comforting. Familiar, in a strange, instinctive way.

The next step was harder. Pushing deeper.

As I dug, a wave of ecstasy washed over me. Rich, warm liquid spurted into my throat, sliding down greedily, a rush of life that made me tremble. I drank, swallowing convulsively. More and more came, a flood of sustenance that filled me to the brim and then some. When I could hold no more, a moan of pure satisfaction slipped from me.

When I bite on what looked like a nerve cluster, the surrounding muscles tense, and tiny shockwaves penetrate the fleshy walls.

—It's the first sign of life that's come from outside. I can feel it moving. Twitching in response to the stimulus.

The meat pulsed. I felt the entire structure of my world shift and move in a slow undulation. Then, a second later, I could feel the blood flow around me pick up. Blood surged through vessels that seemed to press against me, making my whole body thrum. The sensation was oddly comforting, reminding me that there was, indeed, something else alive out there beyond my immediate experience. And it wasn't trying to kill or crush me. Yet.

The taste of copper faded from my senses as my hunger abated and my stomach grew taut.

[HP +1]

Your Health increased to 3.

Biomass stabilized.

You may continue to feed and grow.

I froze, panting, ichor dripping from my mandibles. The warmth of the blood had spread throughout my being, giving me new vigor and energy.

—Something is watching me.

The box blinked out. For a moment, silence returned. I might have convinced myself it was nothing more than delirium.

But then more words bloomed in the darkness:

[System Message]

Congratulations, [Player Name: ¿?], your Hunger Meter has been reset.

Please select your preferred User Name.

—A name? Now?

My thoughts, sluggish from the meal, turned inward. Who was I, exactly, and why was that such a difficult question to answer? Names, titles, professions—they had all defined me in the world before, but now, floating in this womb of darkness, those markers seemed to have lost their meaning.

The system wasn’t just tracking me. It was shaping me. Framing this nightmare as a game.

For one long, terrifying moment, I considered ignoring it. Pretending the words weren’t there, that the voice wasn’t addressing me directly. Pretending the situation was just hallucination, starvation delirium, or some madness born of panic and confinement.

But I couldn’t pretend. Not after the blood. The taste of survival was irresistible.

The system wasn’t going away.

It wanted a name.

And I was starting to realize I might want one too.