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A boy slowly walked through the snow; trudging, dragging his boots as he went. Hunger panged at him like a punch in the stomach, and he was almost nothing but skin and bones. He stumbled through the snow, as the whirling winds sent the snow dancing about, like little grey faeries, taunting him as they spun. He stumbled on slowly, dragging his old boots behind. He was covered in cloth and had only a rifle upon his back, his hands shaking from hunger.

For the last few days, he had hunkered down in the basement of an abandoned house as the cold came down in the freezing month of January like an icy hammer. He thought he had enough food. He was wrong.

Now, here he was, walking along the old road covered in gray snow, looking for at least a tiny sign of life. The wind through the dilapidated buildings all around him whistled and howled, like giant, ominous trolls looking down in anger and discontent, all at him. Or at least it felt that way.

He remembered, only a few years ago that seemed like decades, he would be sitting in his warm house right now, sipping Hot cocoa from a mug sitting by the fire, a boy of ten years old.

But then, when they came and pulled his father away to fight, and the riots began, people were dying in the streets, red snow was common… The electricity and gas turned off one day, and he remembered asking his mother why everything was so cold, and why she couldn't go out and get food. She just broke down crying then.

Eventually, he remembered the day that They came. He remembered seeing them on the news, the strange, human-like beings that walked among us. But now, they were now either just like him, simply trying to survive, or joined the gangs that were now raising hell.

He remembered the day that they came. They kicked the door in, grabbed his mother by the hair and dragged her out of the door, screaming, before shoving her into a van and driving off. He never saw her again. They attacked him, hitting him over the head and leaving him there. He didn't wake up until the next day, and everything was either broken or stolen.

A boy of twelve, he had no choice but to leave and search for some kind of settlement of good people, which he was yet to find.

He stumbled again, remembering the thoughts that raced through his mind. They made him angry, sad and upset all at once. He growled as he fell down and curled up near an old dumpster, as he shivered in just plain stress, hunger and cold. He whimpered, pulling his rifle to the forefront and gripping it, his last piece of security. It dissuaded those who might have done him harm, and it brought him large game.

But this winter, the hunting was poor. Not a single deer.

He sat there and shivered, feeling the cold steel and the hickory stock. He closed his eyes, drifting away to a better place…

He smelled meat cooking, roasting on a barbeque. He saw his father in front of a grill, flipping hamburgers. There was laughter, as other people were there in the street cooking as well. A block party, he remembered. He saw the sun, shining, warmth… Oh, the glorious warmth. What he wouldn't do now for a stable fire… and the smell alone was delicious. It made his mouth water. The smell of meat cooking, coals burning. A wood smoke.

Meat.

Venison.

He opened his eyes.

The smell was no dream.

In astonishment, he drew another breath. Wood smoke and that unmistakable, iron scent of blood boiling within muscle. His saliva was now filling his mouth.

Slowly, he got up. Almost silently, he turned around, and he peeked out over the dumpster.

Lo and behold, a good two hundred feet away, was a crackling fire, and upon it, pieces of meat hanging on sticks.

His drool, unbeknownst to him, dripped onto the dumpster as he stared at the entrancing sight. Meat. So much meat. He practically choked on his own phlegm.

But then, he saw, sitting next to that fire- a figure, tending to it. He looked at it in amazement and fear- it was one of those Hybrids. He, from that distance, could make out a muzzle and a grayish color, and it was sitting down.

He contemplated asking for food. But the thought was perished as he remembered that, this was the dead of winter. That and nobody shared anymore. He brought up his rifle. He intended to rob them.

But, his mind exed that idea as well. He remembered watching this old man get robbed at gunpoint in the streets, but as the thief turned to flee with the old man's food, the man pulled out a pistol and shot him three times in the back, before walking over and shooting him in the head.

Murder.

Murder, in his mind, would be the only reasonable solution.

He brought up his gun, steadying it on the dumpster. He pulled the hammer back, as he sighted in his target. Several things were going through his mind as of now- one of them was that, this being a hybrid, maybe he aught to eat this creature as well! He heard of the horrible Shakes that one developed after eating human flesh (as well as humanoids, but he didn't know that at the time), and the insanity accompanied by it if you consumed too much. You could tell of somebody was a Cannibal, A man-eater if they shook, spoke to themselves, cackled, and looked at you with a sort of odd dead-inside look.

But, he continued to think of all the marvelous things he could do! He'd skin it and use it for clothing! Maybe it has a gun, after all, how else would it have hunted a deer? He could sell it for a good price; hell, even keep it.

His hand quivered as he took aim, but then- The being stood up.

He gasped as he saw it. It was not a normal Hybrid, oh no. It, in fact, was a large being bearing a humanlike torso- but where it's legs should have been, it had another body entirely. An Anthroquad, he remembered. He grew more excited, as this thing had not only more meat, but more fur. He grew a bit angry seeing it. "Look at how fat it is!" his mind screamed. "What a giant, selfish brute! Shoot it and rid the world of this greedy disgrace!" But, far contrary to what he thought, the creature was actually quite thin for 'Taur standards. Up close, he would have seen just how skinny the caninetaur was, but at the two-hundred foot range he was at, he could not tell, and even it he did, he would not care.

He grew excited, and his trigger finger shook. He knew that these creatures had two hearts and two lungs. The only way to surely kill it was to hit it in the spine, neck, high-upper chest or head, which narrowed his target down tremendously.

He also remembered of what these creatures were capable of. He once watched, from a distance, a dragontaur pin a person to the ground, and with them flailing and thrashing, hold them there before opening up it's jaws and swallowing the poor humanoid whole, before walking off with the person screaming and kicking inside of them. He was repulsed at this as well, as his thoughts went through hate and anger.

Normally, he would not think in such a biased, one-sided way. But he was hungry. And when you are hungry, nothing else matters.

His teeth chattered, and his heart beat so loud that he was convinced that the creature could hear him, despite the dumpster in front of him being almost a silhouette in the distance. He breathed in and out, his breath creating a fog in front of him as he focused, focused, trying to get his hands to stop shaking. He was no longer a fifteen-year-old boy. He was now a ruthless killer, a hitman with hunger as his employer.

But this ruthless killer adjusted his feet as he aimed, which bumped a tall canister full of metal scraps. He gasped as the metal clattered out onto the road. He became dead still, as still as a ghost as the thing's head perked up, ears shooting up. He gasped as it stood up again, and turned towards him. The thing looked huge to his panicked brain. He stared at it, daring not to move, keeping the sights beaded on it's jacket.

"Hello?" She suddenly called out with a decidedly high-pitched voice. Female, he thought, he remembered seeing her soft, feminine features and a bigger chest than a male in her jacket. He gulped under his breath.

He then remembered, he wasn't a killer. He was a nice guy. He was just hungry. He didn't want to kill, especially not a GIRL. He thought that he might appeal to her natural motherly nature and let him have something to eat.

But the other side of his mind screamed at him, "KILL THE BITCH!!! KILL THE FAT BITCH!!!" over and over again. He opened his eyes again, and bobbed his head a bit as he reacquired his sights.

But she saw his bobbing, beanie-covered head, and, not knowing what it was, she began to walk forward in a slow trot.

"Hello, is anybody there?" she called out again. Silence as he, barely breathing, rose the barrel to her neck as she approached, making a bigger target. Guilt was slashing through his mind. He could see her face, and her hair tied behind in a ponytail. He saw her face. He could not kill. She still approached, oblivious to the human and his gun barrel glaring at her neckline. She came closer, barely fifty feet away. He could see her eyes, her beautiful brown eyes. Closer. He stared into them, cold sweat pouring down the sides of his face. "She sees me," His mind screamed, convinced that she locked eyes with him. "If I don't kill her, she's gonna kill me!!!"

Suddenly, her trot slowed to a stop, as her eyes blasted open. Fifty feet away, he saw her freeze, mortified as she stared like a deer in the headlights, completely dumbstruck at a spiraling bore thirty-hundredths of an inch wide pointed right at her face, and the two sorrowful eyes accompanying it.

"No," one half of his brain pleaded before the other one shut him off.

"Block it out. Kill the bitch."

He closed his eyes. She disappeared. Her face disappeared. The world disappeared, the buildings, the hunger, the guilt, the pain; everything.

Except for one thing, scarred into his mind.

Her perfectly round, brown eye.

Wide and fearful.

Staring into death himself, preparing to die.

For, He was death.

He pulled the trigger.

Two minutes earlier…

The being sat there, in front of the fire, watching it crackle over the thin strips of meat. She smiled a tiny bit at her catch, as her stomach rumbled, her hunger pangs worsening in intensity and frequency. Granted, the deer was almost completely thin, but some good things were there; the heart, the brains, the kidneys and livers and eyeballs. Now was not the time to be choosy, after all.

Her larger lower-body was lying down, but her humanoid portion was sitting erect, as she looked over the weapon across her frontal legs, the crossbow. She had already unstrung it and was now inspecting the bow for any cracks. Finding it devoid of any bad marks, she placed it off to the side on some firewood, before she took one of her other weapons from her holster, a small handgun she had found a while ago. She removed the magazine from it and cocked it back, before she held it up to the light, inspecting the boreing. Satisfied, she let the slide fall back into place, the hammer click back, before she put the magazine back within the weapon, placing it in her sheath. She then reached to a pouch next to her holster, pulling out a knife. She took up a piece of wood, and began to carve onto it.

Suddenly, she thought she heard something, something like feet walking along. She ignored it for a while, passing it off as the wind, before she finally looked up, it having stopped. She then, for some reason, felt uneasy again. She took a wary look up, before she stood up. Having bestial tendencies (much in fault of her upbringing) she, having rose to her full 7' 1" height, slowly paced around the fire, her dark grey fur a contrast to the light grey environment. She, feeling a little bit more relieved, laid down again on the blanket she had laid out, continuing to carve.

But she couldn't shake the feeling that she was being watched. Her ear twitched involuntarily. She continued carving, ignoring her instincts, when suddenly…

A tinkling sound arose, like glass shards or ball-bearings being poured out. She, exasperated, looked up.

"Hello?" She called out. No response except the wind. She shivered a bit, before stabbing her knife into the wood and leaving it there as she stood up, and began to walk over, convinced to assure herself that she was in no danger.

She walked towards the dumpster, it being the thing that made her the most uneasy. Her stomach growled and she knew that the meat would be done within five minutes, but she was determined to know what was behind that dumpster, and that it was simply the wind, as she was confident that it was.

"Hello? Is anybody there?" she asked again, calling out almost mocking her "bad feeling", smiling smugly. No response, just as she had expected. But she saw something, something either in or beyond the trash receptacle, bobbing subtly… She wondered just what it was, scratching her side. Maybe it could be something interesting… she thought.

An understatement as she moved in.

"Wow, that looks like… eyes?" she whispered to herself silently as she approached. She saw that the bobbing item was an old, deep-dark-red beanie. Two blue, innocent-looking eyes lingered under it, wide and almost emotionless. And the thing protruding in front of this head-

She stumbled to a halt.

It was like staring down into a dark, never-ending pit, the long tube with no light at the end of it. It was, if you will, promising yourself- no, BEING promised that you would be rewarded but lead into a trap- by yourself.

Her mind tumbled as she just stared into his eyes, and they stared back.

"No," she begged quietly.

His eyes shut.

Boom.

Time seemed to slow to a crawl as the shot rocked out. He, his eyes still closed, felt the gun push him backwards. Being substantially thin and forgetting the feel of recoil, the weapon caused him to fall over onto the ground, his eyes still gripped shut.

On her end, she saw the flash. Her mind screamed out in terror, as her mouth opened to copy it. Fortunately for the large Anthropomorphic Quadrupedal Canine girl, while the bullet cleaved through space so fast that if could clear a football field in the time it takes you to blink, it was on an unaimed trajectory. The bullet screamed in her ear like a harpy, burning, as it cleaved through it, leaving a rather nice, clean hole, cauterizing and searing the wound instantly, accompanied with a small splash of blood. But that screaming fizz was the last thing she heard in that ear.

Suddenly, out of instinct, she found herself behind an old building, taking cover a good seventy feet away from her assailant. With fumbling, shell-shocked hands that appeared to be functioning independently from her brain, pulling the pistol from the holster.

He, his mind and ears ringing, found himself on the ground. Almost in shock, he slowly stood up. Then, all of a sudden, barely having time to recuperate, he heard a pow and felt something pass by his shoulder, cleaving a bit of cloth and blood spitting up from his shoulder. "Yaah!" He screamed, more in surprise than in pain as he ducked behind the dumpster. It wasn't a bad hit; it simply ate a muscle fiber and bled a little. But it stung like a bitch, and if it wasn't for the fact that he was hopped on adrenaline he would have actually felt it.

He yanked the bolt back and a long brass casing pinged out with a cool puff of smoke and steam. He jumped up and took aim quickly, popping a shot off.

She, on the other hand, anticipated this move, and as he was pulling the trigger, she ducked quickly. A bullet cleaved through the drywall she was near, barely affecting her. She responded by popping out low, on her side, and aiming her gun, to get him as he was aiming this time, but he rechambered quicker than she expected. Fortunately, she had jumped out pretty much exactly as he was setting the bolt down, and both combatants had neither the bravery nor the time to truly aim their gun properly. His bullet slammed into the ground half a foot from her face. She had got only three haphazard shots off which two hit the dumpster and did not make it through, and one missed almost completely; before the dirt and snow in her face made her cry out and recede back.

He, hearing her cry, suddenly thought he had scored a direct hit. He then jumped out of cover, his hunger getting the better of him, and the deer smelling fantastic. He intended to finish her off, but food was the bigger priority right now as he ran towards the delicious meat; running in a sprint he would have considered unimaginable in the shape he was in five minutes ago.

She however, had no wounds (aside from the new ear-piercing she had just been given), and when she had rubbed the soot from her eyes, he was gone from his cover. She looked up, hearing running feet pattering away. She at first thought that she had succeeded in scaring him off, but she then heard the direction- towards her catch.

She slowly got up, picking up her pistol and walking out into the street. She raised the pistol and a shot rattled out again. Unfortunately, due to her adrenaline-spurred grip and shaking hands, the bullet did nothing more than show the snowy, dirt-covered pavement who was boss, and the boy just kept running, as if in a trance from the smell of cooking meat. She tried to pull it again, but it did nothing. She looked down to see the weapon, slide locked back. She reached for her other magazines, before feeling none. She had left them over there. She snarled to herself, releasing the slide and reholstering the weapon, galloping after him.

"Food!!!" he screamed aloud as he carelessly tossed his rifle to the side, coming to his knees. Forgetting about the searing heat of the fire, he snatched the nearest leg and began to gnaw on it.

It was like heaven to him, chewing on something aside from bark in the first time in at least thirty days. His taste buds screamed in heavenly praise and his stomach leapt as food, real food, not canned mold-laden bullshit hit his stomach. He ravenously attacked it, chewing loudly with his mouth open, his drool slogging out of his mouth. He then, the leg exhausted of muscle, cracked it wide open and sucked the marrow from the bones, the delicious, ironey, spongy taste. His mind screamed out. Nothing else mattered now, he was a survivor, and this is what he needed to do. And wanted to, because it was damn near the most satisfying thing a brain can experience, starvation and then feasting.

But he had little time to rest as he felt two arms slam onto his shoulders. Before he could reach for his gun, she yanked him to his feet, and he yelped out. He whipped his head around, before she, angry and intending to punish the boy, unzipped her jacket and worked her jaws around his head, which made him scream all the more. But she did not expect him to fight so viciously, and he kicked her in the shin, which caused her to collapse off to the side, the two of them wrestling on the ground, the size advantage obviously going to her. Suddenly, she saw a glint of shiny steel come out. His knife. She gagged as she, his head still in her mouth, attempted to grab his arm and work the blade away from him. She grabbed his arm and slammed it against the ground until the blade came from his grip- but he found himself in reach of another, his hand contacting her hunting knife, as he pulled it from the wood. He then managed to elbow her in the stomach several times before she released him and grabbed his knife. He turned around, and suddenly, the fighting ceased.

The fighting turned into what seemed to be an instantaneous stalemate, her knife in his hand at her throat and his knife in her hand at his throat.

They simply gasped out, breathing, their breath creating a fog that contrasted the smoke next to them as they just stared into each other's eyes with mad, war-crazed looks, as they just breathed. But, as they stared, their complexions softened slowly, before both of them found themselves looking into the soul of a kindred spirit.

He was atop her, grabbing her by the collar and the knife in his hand angled at her jugular, and her arms gripped his neck and the other had a blade pressing against his throat. They just lay there, breathing.

His complexion slowly deteriorated away as he realized just what he was doing. His arms shook, and he furrowed his brow as his chapped lips quivered, before he let out a whimper, dropping the blade, it falling to the side, as she did the same. Tears ebbed at the corners of his eyes and he fell over to the side, tearing but emitting no sound. Whilst re-zipping up her jacket, she got up slowly, onto her lower stomach and looked down at him.

"I'm so sorry," he slowly uttered quietly, fighting to keep back sobs. "I was hungry," he said again, now no longer a killer at all, just a boy. A boy, fearful. Fearful of the world, fearful of the one he was with now, fearful of the soul- and most of all, fearful of himself and what he had just tried to do. Slowly, out of compassion, she stooped over him and wrapped her arms around him and brought him up, and he just sobbed on her shoulder as she held him. "I don't know what I'm doing," He sobbed, "Forgive… Me…"

"I already have," she said, patting him on the back.

"Your- Your food," He said slowly.

"Yes, I know, you were just trying to survive… It's okay, you were just acting under stress, that's all-"

"It's burning," he said. She then stopped and turned around, looking at it.

"Oh, shit!" She cursed at the slightly charred meat as she turned, picking up a handful of snow and tossing it atop the flames, dousing them. Her hunger was now reminded of her as she quickly put it upon a clean cloth and picked up the knife from the snow, wiping it quickly before cutting it up.

"Here," she said, turning around quickly and offering him some of the meat. But he was getting to his feet, and he froze as she turned. "Wait, where are you going?" She asked him.

"I'm sorry, that's all, and I don't mean to bother you… I owe it to you to leave you be…" He said, picking up his knife, folding it, and slinging his gun across his back.

"What are you talking about?" She asked. "You don't owe me anything. Sit and eat, there's plenty for the both of us."

"B-but I…" He said, in repentant shock, "I stole from you. I tried to murder you. I was going to… I was going to cannibalize you, cut your skin off and use it as clothing…"

"Thoughts are thoughts, and even you know that you would not normally do that…"

"I'm not normal!" He hollered. "I haven't been normal for five years!"

"Well, I haven't been normal ever since I was born in a stasis tube!!!" She said, one-upping him and getting a bit impatient. "My mother was a Siberian Husky and my father was an Anaconda. How's that for dysfunctional?" He fell silent. "Please… Mister… Sit with me… I promise I won't try to get revenge or anything…"

"Are you going to eat me?" He asked quietly. "I've seen your kind do it… They just… Uugh… And then they're gone… Digested alive or something…"

"I'm not gonna do anything to you, I promise. I just want some company."

"If you wanted company, why not eat somebody whole and fondle him inside of you, huh?!" He growled.

"I'm not like that!" She spouted. "I mean, even I think that's cruel! I wouldn't kill somebody…" she said. He just stared at her. "Come, sit. Please, mister. I've giving you a break here. Think about it. You tried to shoot me and now I'm feeding you." He stood there for a few moments, before he slowly walked over onto the other side of the fire pit, sitting down quickly. She passed him a stick with meat on it, as she tried to warm the fire back up, using a few embers to get it going again. He simply stared at her for a little bit, still in shock. Before he slowly sat back, up against the wall. She came around the other side and sat down next to him, beginning to eat.

"So… What's your name?" He asked slowly.