Hunger

A supernatural story about six young men who have dangerous gift 

Who would not like to be in possession of supernatural capacity: to be faster, stronger than the average then to gain even more energy so that your power should increase? Sebastian has never longed for anything like it, but his life has changed forever on the spur of the moment.

After facing his new self and power, he starts desperately searching for the way to get back to normal again. Meanwhile five young men are trying to find how they could adapt themselves and their special talents to the world of the ordinary citizens only at a distance of a continent from Sebastian. Their paths cross, which has dramatic consequences for each of them.

During they adventures they are getting closer to their goals not surmising that they have become the target of a secret and savage society.

Extracts of Prologue and First Chapter

Prologue

  

Suddenly heat spread over me. I felt as my face burst into flames. All of a sudden perspiration began dripping from my forehead and slowly my whole body. What’s the matter with me? Has the air-conditioning broken down again? I could hardly breathe, the heat become unbearable. My T-shirt, soaking wet, was sticking on my body, my skin was burning. What the hell...? Have I caught that new kind of nasty flu?

As I looked at my chest, I thought the beer I had drunk a few minutes before disagreed with me. My skin looked as if it had turned translucent and, where my heart was supposed to be, orange beam of light was radiating. I mean from me. The handful of light-spot kept growing causing shooting pain. As though a hole were being cut into my body that was growing bigger and deeper. I wanted to scream but only a pitiful whimper left my throat. The TV screen blinked then darkened. Dead silence ensued, I was listening scared but couldn’t hear anything, even Emma’s breathing.

I tried to stagger on my feet but somehow I was glued to the sofa by an invisible force. By now my whole body was beaming, I was virtually blazing with that yellow light. I was badly shaken by the wave of the insufferable pain. At that moment I was certain that I was going to die. I still heard my own hoarse shriek then everything fell silent. The world was glowing with red behind my eyelids then darkness fell upon me.

When I was on the verge of becoming conscious, the first thing I became aware that it was so dark. So I must have been unconscious for a long time. I sat up to check if I had seized to be a living torch. It was too rapid a movement as I was overcome by giddiness, which ,luckily, didn’t last for long.

I was still afraid to cast a look over me. I wasn’t shining, I stated, which was relieving. It was all over.

“Em?”I called upon her. I was sure that I woke her up with my shouting. I poked out the switch of the reading lamp, pushed it but nothing happened. After attempting to switch it a few times, I realized that none of the lamps was working. Is it a power cut? The light of a car passing by slashed into the darkness illuminating the floor where a body was lying with the arms spread wide.

“Emma!” I screamed forgetting about everything. I ran up to her who didn’t move a bit. I jogged her, slapped her in the face trying to breathe life into her but in vain. I checked for her pulse, it was weak but steady. I had no clue why she didn’t react. I went on calling her. Finally, I produced my mobile from my pocket in order to ask for help, but it went dead. Just like all the electrical appliances.

I dashed out of the flat, I was blinded but the strong lighting of the staircase. I ran to Mrs Higgins’s door keeping myself back lest I should frighten her by my banging on her door. After waiting for a few seconds I simply opened the door and entered. I knew that Mrs Higgins never locked her door and she wouldn’t regret it. Being on good terms with the neighbours has advantages.

The electricity was on here, the living room was floodlit. I looked into the room and was scared stiff. My neighbour, who was always kind and helpful, was sitting in the armchair half slithered down in an unnatural pose. Her thick glasses had slid off her nose, her lifeless eyes were staring at the dark TV screen wide open. Although I had never seen a corpse before I knew it for sure that Mrs Higgins had died.

I ran out of the flat and up to the second floor. I almost reached the landing to find out that something unthinkable had taken place in the house. Tony, with whom I had chummed up quite well during the past four months I had been living with Emma, was lying on the granite floor just like a rag-doll dressed in jeans, and a checked shirt. In his hand stiffed with death he was clutching firmly his flat key.

At that point I honestly believed I was going to lose my wits. Or I had already gone mad and I saw such things that don’t exist at all. I heard somebody whine and it took a while to find out that I was the one who did it. I was shifting between crying and giggling irresistibly, which resulted in that strange sound that broke out of my throat. What I did after that, I couldn’t explain even to myself for quite a while.

I hurried to the first floor back to Mrs Higgins’s. I called the emergency number from the telephone hanging in the hall. Eventually, by mumbling something about an injured neighbour, I managed to have an ambulance sent. When my name was asked, I slammed the receiver down and hurried back into our flat that we rented with my girlfriend.

I lifted Emma carefully on the sofa and spread a blanket on her. I arranged her soft fair locks on the pillow and kissed her. Her lips were ice-cold and numb.

I took a holdall from the bottom of the wardrobe, threw anything in it I could lay my hands on. I took my papers out of the drawer, an envelope, a check made out for me. I took a last glance at Emma than suddenly I was outside the building. I ran across the street and I was watching two ambulances pull in hooting loudly. Sheer terror waved through me. My last memories of that day’s events sank into my mind forever. Emma, my Emma’s pale face as she was pushed on a stretcher into the ambulance. 

Chapter One

The boy was strolling carefully with his hood on and his head bowed down. He wanted to attract the least attention possible, although there was thick fog and not a soul  could be seen there. He did it out of habit. It was better to be cautious and prepared than wearing prison clothes for the rest of his life. His brother kept saying it as if he wasn’t aware of that himself.

As he was making way in the desolate street, the fog was gradually depleting and the silhouette of the old playground was becoming more and more visible. It was hard to imagine that once children used to play and laugh here. By now most of the toys had been ruined and due to the lack of care they had begun to decay. It was a distressing sight.

The rusty gate creaked as he entered the square. He looked around slowly in search of the others. After some seconds he caught sight of the four of them in the shade of an oak tree which sheltered them. Which meant that they were not here to practise, not today. He took a deep breath and hurried to them.

“You are late!” he heard the well-known, icy voice.

“Sorry! I had a lot to do,” he replied in the same icy tone.

“I have told you a thousand times that it is essential. All the rest is secondary”.

“It may be the most important for you but not for me. You just got me involved in all this. You didn’t even ask me whether I wanted it or not”, Ashley replied furiously.

“You are my younger brother and you do what I tell you”, shouted his brother.

“If our parents were still alive, you couldn’t do it with me”, he broke out. He suddenly felt inclined to punch him but he knew he couldn’t do it.

“Our parents? You must have forgotten who is fully responsible for their not being alive any more?” he roared.

“Bradley!”, a voice was heard close to him after he had seen the reaction to his words on Ashley’s face. Bradley turned his head toward him and met face to face with his best friend’s green eyes. He knew he head to calm down. He bent his head down, smoothed back his hair, blew out the air and said:

“Harry is right, it’s not that why we are here”. His voice was somewhat calmer. but it was to be felt that inside he was boiling with rage. “We must eat something!”

These words didn’t make them wild with joy, and what was worse they began to feel the spasm in their stomach, except Bradley himself. At least Ashley thought so because he had never showed any signs of regret at all, after eating.

“Have you chosen the area yet?” asked Tom, while he was taking a cigarette out of his pocket. He always lit up when he was tense. “Give a light, will you?” he turned to Nathan, who handed his lighter over to him. The tip of the cigarette glowed with red filling the air with pungent, white smoke.

“Yes, this place right here”, replied Bradley.

“Are you crazy?” said Ashley totally flabbergasted. “We cannot do that here!”

Bradley cast a withering look at his brother. “Yes we can and we will do it.”

“He is right, Brad” came forward Harry. “We can eat anywhere beside our home, our school and this place,” he showed around.

“Nevertheless, we are going to hunt here this evening,” he said in an authoritative tone. He seemed rather determined but besides the usual hunger Ashley discovered something else in his brother’s look, some new kind of glitter he had never seen before. Was it excitement? He can’t have known it for sure, but it seemed that Bradley was preparing for something and was going to involve the others in it as he had always done. He had always reached his goal.

“Why should we throw away the safety of this place? What are you planning to do?” asked Harry frowning distrustfully. So it struck him, too that there was something wrong why wouldn’t he have realised it. Bradley and he had been good friends since their childhood they virtually knew each other better than themselves.

“Don’t you understand”? said Bradley and his face became gloomy. “We have been practising here for two years so we know the hole surroundings inside out. It is long odds that we won’t be caught red-handed. We can at last try our strength,” he added with a craving look on his face.

“But we have done that a thousand times,” said Tom in confusion. “Why should it be different this time?”

“I mean we can test ourselves in a real-life situation. We can test what we have practised so far, what all the practise is worth, whether we should work on it any further or we are already prepared.” He laid special emphasis on ‘prepared’ so each of them knew well what he was thinking of.

Ashley became terrified he felt that neither himself nor the others were really ready. He considered his brother’s proposal, ungrounded and hasty. Bradley was the bravest among them, however, it sometimes switched over to recklessness, which made him dangerous. Not only for himself but for all of them.

“So, you say we should carry out the hole thing now? Are you nuts? What have you blasted?” said Tom with scepticism, lighting the second cigarette with Nate. Nathan looked at him yearningly then had a draw from the smoke and turned away his heart sinking. He wanted to kick the habit for a while. He got pissed off by Bradley’s idea.

“Look, what if we do it now, that is, we eat and let’s assume, that everything goes well and we won’t be captured? Have you thought of that?” mused Harry interrupting him.

“That’s right!” said Bradley in a flurry.

Ashley thought that his brother would never be made to be excited. First he was delighted to see that he was not so stiff and like a wet blanket as he thought him to be. However, the joy he felt, soon turned to sorrow when he realised that ‘it’ he had spoken of was hunting. Bad idea. “If it goes badly, say, we are noticed or should we kill someone, we might as well be imprisoned, mightn’t we?”

“It’s in the package,” Bradley curled his lips. “But I believe in ourselves and that we have been perfectly prepared, the plenty of time we have spent doing it, and that it has been worth it.”

“In other words, you believe in training and educating us properly,” Tom interrupted him curling his lips.

“If it were the case you wouldn’t be smoking now,” replied the boy, when everybody started smiling. It seemed that he didn’t lose his sense of humour over the years. “Setting aside humour are you in on it? Or not?” their eyes met. Not once had Bradley proved he knew what he was doing. But this time it was an important decision. Should anything turn out badly, it can have grave consequences.

“Look, I am aware that it is risky but the time will come when we should try our strength. Why not do it this evening?” Bradley desperately wanted to convince them.

Ashley would have preferred if it took place later or never. He didn’t want to take part in it from the start and, above all, he didn’t want the boys to take such a big risk so soon.

Harry had a heavy sigh and said: “Okay, I mean, let’s do it. I trust you.”

Ashley was a bit surprised. He knew that Harry would follow his brother anywhere with blind obedience if he thinks it won’t be so hazardous but it was now extremely hazardous. The most fearless thing they had ever done.

Harry, in spite of this, appeared to run the risk of a real hunt and if he bears it, Tom and Nathan will follow him as well because they always listen to him.

Bradley and Harry were the real and undeclared leaders of the gang. Despite their completely diverse nature, they perfectly understood each other, probably because they totally complemented each other. Bradley, who was at first sight, more aggressive and harsh, led the group, however, neither Ashley nor the others were deceived by the force behind Harry’s quietness and well-balanced manner.

“Than we can’t stay away from it either,” said Tom as he threw away the fag-end and stamped on it.

Bradley’s face brightened. “And you Nate?” turned to the boy, who hesitated for a moment but, in the end, he nodded.

It was now Ashley’s turn.

Since he is my brother he won’t say no, thought Bradley. He would hardly dare. “Brother?” asked Bradley a bit more coldly.

Ashley lowered his head and pretended to think but knew he had no choice. He took a deep breath, blew it out and said without glancing up his brother. “All right, I’m in on it. When are we to do it?”