Chapter 2

"I'm sure you find this hard to believe, so if you don't believe me, just don't eat for about an hour. After an hour, you should be hungry enough to believe what I just said was true, Piggy." and then the the voice went off, the static remained.

I sat there, just staring at the fuzzy screen, trying to figure it out. I sat, I paced, I lied down. The next hour was surreal. It was like scary stories when you've ten: You know there's no monster under the bed, but you can't help but feel a bit scared. Except this was even more insane. It was the longest hour of my life.

I thought I was in the OK, there was no clock, but it felt like an hour, longer than an hour, when it hit. It started slowly, I felt more hungry, like I hadn't eaten all day, until a few minutes later, I was absolutely famished. I sure as hell didn't want to eat anything the whacko had left for me, but another couple of minutes, and I was in pain. My stomach felt empty, but it was more like this absolute NEED to fill myself up, i've never experienced any sensation so strong in my life.

So I did what any sane person would do, I see that now. I started rationalizing. If he went to all this trouble to kidnap me, so the food wouldn't be poisoned or anything. And it's not like I had to eat everything, just until I was full.

So I started. I grabbed a bag of chips off the kitchen counter, eating a few, then a handful at at a time. It wasn't that long before I reached in and hit the bottom of the bag, pulling my hand out and licking my fingers, I reached over and opened the fridge: Wow, this thing was stacked. I grabbed one of the two litre soda bottles, and quickly poured myself a large glass, guzzling it down.

Normally this would fill me up, I can't even recall the last time I ate an entire bag of chips. But the pain was still there, so I threw a couple of pizza pockets I found in the freezer into the microwave, while filling up my glass. I devoured those even faster than the chips, and I was getting worried.

I was putting a few more pizza pockets into the microwave, but my finger hovered over the "Start" button. I was still ravenously hungry, what if the crazy guy was right? This wasn't normal. My stomach got the best of me though.

I think back on it, how could I have been so weak? But, it's like when you're really sick: You'd do anything not to be sick. Why else would people take horrible tasting medicine. I hit the "Start" button on the microwave, and grabbed a couple of cookies out of a bag on the counter.

The pizza pockets weren't enough either, so I rummaged through the fridge, munching on some more cookies, pulling out a meatloaf, heating that up as well. Waiting for the meatloaf to finish heating up, the empty, need-to-eat feeling got worse, more intense if that was at all possible, and I was crying, breathing hard, panicking, staring at the microwave waiting for it to ding "ready", but there was 3 minutes left, and I was getting desperate.

I reached into the cupboard, pulling out a family size box of twinkies, and ripped it open, tearing the packaging off, and cramming one into my mouth, my other hand pulling some more out, I was popping them into my mouth one after another, eighteen of them before the box was empty, just as the microwave dinged.

I picked up the meatloaf, tearing pieces off and eating them as fast as I could, half way through, I could feel the hunger subside a bit. It wasn't gone, not even close, but it was less. If I had to stuff myself to get rid of that feeling, then i'd stuff myself silly. After the meatloaf was a big bowl of rice that I shoveled down, washing it down with the rest of the two litre soda I had started.

I touched my stomach, it was bulging out a bit, it felt hard, packed, but the hunger was still there. I couldn't believe it, how could I eat more? But I did. As long as I ate fast enough, the hole in my stomach seemed to get smaller, the need less urgent, less pain.