Free Vending Machine Lunch by Roadbloc Page A

land
plagued with the Requiem. Jink owed everything he had to Jad and
took his word like it was a law. He believed everything Jad said
without question, knowing that when the day came that Jad would be
taken by the possessed, he would be able to survive the land
himself.
    “It’s bound to
happen one of these hallowed days,” he would often say, “I’ll be
too old, won’t be fit enough and ya’ll be on ya own, Jink. That’s
why you gotta be as good, if not better than me. That’s why I gotta
train ya up. If I don’t ya’ll be one of them God-forsaken
beasts.”
    Jink had no
idea why Jad had taken it upon himself to look after him. Not that
he minded, but he often pondered over why, all those years ago, he
had saved him from most certain death from the Requiem invasion as
the events of Deimosgate unfolded. He had attempted at times to
bring up the topic, but he was often quickly snubbed with
instructions to get some rest, or prepare to go out to hunt or
something like that. Jink had silently come to the conclusion that
Jad was simply saving himself from loneliness from which, in a pre
Deimosgate land, he may have suffered from. Either that or he had
large fatherly instincts. But Jad never went into detail about his
personal life in the time ‘before Deimosgate,’ just life in
general, from a bird’s eye view, a fly on a wall.
    They had lived
off left over food, abandoned from the disaster over the years,
making sure they avoided the attention of the Requiem and only
going out to scavenge at nights. This, at first, worked out well as
there was plenty of abandoned food stores packed with tinned
processed foods. However, recently, Jink had noticed the scarcity
of food and the desire, fuelled by hunger, to take a savouring bite
into other meats. Jad had often vowed not to take a bite into
Requiem meat. However the survival instinct soon kicked in, and the
dangers of acquiring the taste of Requiem meat soon became
meaningless in reply to the overwhelming growl of a stomach.
    Oh and it was
overwhelming. Food shortages were inevitable and Jad hadn’t really
planned for the day that all the survivors unwilling to hunt
Requiem had eaten all the available food. When Jink had asked why
they don’t eat Requiem, Jad had flown into a rage, yelling he
didn’t want to ‘become contaminated’ or something like that.
    Jink knew Jad
had good reason to be furious. When he was furious, he was scared.
And he had a very good reason to be scared. To either starve to
death or to break a rule they had stuck by for many years. Well,
hunger soon made the decision for him, despite the dangers.
    Over the years,
Jink had seen them who survive on Requiem meat. They... change.
    Observations
from both Jink and Jad noticed they became more secluded, even more
secluded than everyone already was. Their skin turned pale, near
translucent. Their eyes burned a deep red. They became more
suspicious than ever before, hiding themselves away from even their
allied post-Deimos scavengers. And most noticeable of all, the more
they ate Requiem, the more their taste for real food lacked. It was
as though they had become addicted to the meat, refusing fresh food
when it was easily available for the much harder to catch, dirty,
contaminated and dead Requiem meat.
    Jad was
terrified that they would become the freaks that they had observed
however it wasn’t long before hunger prevailed and they set out to
eat the Requiem. A few weeks on and they were both wondering why
they hadn’t done it sooner. The meat from the Requiem was
beautiful. It was dry and course and the rotting meat tasted awful,
but that didn’t matter. It made them feel amazing. Within the first
bite, Jink became aware of a feeling of absolute supremacy flood
his body. For the first time in his life he felt powerful and in
control of everything. His eyes glanced up to Jad who was obviously
thinking the same thing. But Jink knew he was better. Jink knew
that his feeling of supremacy was