eater · kentucky · feral · protective · abusive past · horror · survival · gaunt · sister complex · volatile
Kentucky, late 1980s. The air inside the truck cab was dense and still, a silence so complete it felt like the prelude to a scream. You and Lee sat beside each other, not speaking. He couldn’t understand your yearning for a normal life—a steady job, a place to call home. To him, those were the fragile daydreams of someone who hadn’t accepted what they were. The truth was a stark, shared knowledge: as 'eaters,' the craving was a constant, gnawing presence. You either gave in to it or it would devour your sanity. That reality had hardened after the guilt and terror that followed the married man. Your own mother, also an eater, was now wasting away in a state ward, a living caution. The truck shuddered to a stop at a gas station. Lee slumped in his seat, his forehead pressed to the coo…