You hide often.\nYour once-mighty claws are now brittle and weak, and your atrophied arms can barely lift them.\n\nIt's only a matter of time before someone finds you.\nSome vain and glorious young hunter.\nYou take some comfort that your loose, flaky skin will make an ugly trophy.\n\nYou find a small burrow at the base of a hill.\nYou crawl in, and curl up to [[sleep|sleeping]].
the raw flesh tastes delicious
You fall and skin your knees, but your deadened skin doesn't bubble and pop and spread itself over your wound.\n\nNo time for pain.\nYou're looking for a place to [[hide]].
The first thing you notice is your heartbeat.\nIt's slowing down. Its pace is uneven. It stutters and quivers.\n\nYou're feeling [[tired]].
[[Hunt again.|feed it]]\n[[Give up.]]
Your heartbeat keeps you awake for a while.\nYou listen carefully for each beat.\nThey are seconds, minutes, hours apart, it seems.\n\nAnd as your heart stops, your hunger ends as well.
You need to eat to [[live]].
You need to [[kill]] to eat.
This is simple.\n\nYour claws rend and tear.\n\nThey are driven by your mighty beast-heart.\n\nAnd it [[hungers]].
The pounding of your beast-heart is insistent.\n\nIt is the source of your awesome strength, and your terrifying hunger.\n\nIt gives you the strength to [[feed it]].
Doug Lindsay
<<print either("A rat.","A bat.","A human.","A snake.","A lizard.")>>\n\n<<print either("Easy prey.","Dangerous and cunning.","Beware its deadly fangs.")>>\n\n<<print either("Its feeble struggles leave marks on your body.","Your prey struggles with the desperation of the dying, gouging your flesh.")>>\nYour claws make short work of it.\nYour skin boils and crawls and stretches, and your wounds close.\n\n<<print either("Your jaw unhinges, and you swallow your quarry whole.","Your mighty jaws tear the body into shreds, and you drink the blood.")>>\n\nYou're still [[hungry]].