So hard. This was just the most ordinary black bread, baked from coarse rye. No butter, no cheese, no jam—and Jayard had buried it underground for days. After being frozen, it was almost as hard as a rock.

Most people usually cooked this kind of bread in thick soup first. Otherwise, if it was a baguette—the long loaf commonly known as French bread—you could even use it as a weapon.

But I just grabbed it and started chewing. It was hard, dry, and bitter, with absolutely no redeeming taste. And yet, somehow, I could chew it—and even swallow it. I was eating fast, too.

My tongue and my memories told me this stuff was disgusting, practically unfit for human consumption. But my body was starving. Like parched earth finally getting rain, it instinctively craved this awful food.

Had I been hungry for too long? I couldn’t help thinking about how frantic and ugly I must look as I ate. But what could I do? I was that hungry. My body needed food, and I had to eat.

“Parula, slow down.” Jayard grabbed a piece of flatbread too. Watching me wolf down my food, he couldn’t help trying to slow me down. Even he only dared eat the thinner flatbread instead of the bread, while I was chomping away like it was nothing. I’d made him hungry just watching me. Was this black bread really that good?

He picked up a piece of charred black bread too. One bite, and he couldn’t even break through it. It was like a rock—or steel—not something a person could eat at all. Jayard stared at me in disbelief. How could a little girl bite through black bread that hadn’t been softened by cooking, with such strength?

By then, I’d already polished off a whole loaf of black bread in no time. I picked up a smoked sausage and shoved it into my mouth. Ugh! What was that awful taste?

Maybe it hadn’t been properly cured. Maybe the meat they’d used wasn’t fresh. Or maybe Jayard had stolen it too long ago and it had been sitting around ever since. Either way, the sausage had gone rancid.

But even though every part of me recoiled, my mouth wouldn’t stop. I quickly swallowed the grilled sausage too, then reached for a pie.

“Parula, are you okay? Is something wrong?” Even Jayard had noticed that something was off. Parula usually ate very little.

Of course she did. How much could someone who was always going hungry, and had been reduced to skin and bones, possibly eat? Even if you put a lavish feast in front of her, she wouldn’t be able to eat much. But I’d already eaten enough to fill three people—three grown men, at that.

And yet I still didn’t feel full at all. I was getting hungrier, more unsatisfied. I wanted more. More food!

By then, even I could tell something was seriously wrong. I tried to force myself to stop, but my body wouldn’t cooperate. I kept grabbing food and wolfing it down, faster and faster.

“Parula!” Jayard came to pull me away, but when I turned to look at him, he flinched. I was looking at him the way a beast looks at its prey.

I knew it, because for one brief moment, I even thought Jayard looked delicious. Should I try a bite and see what he tasted like?

Then I snapped back to my senses. Oh God! How could I think something like that? Jayard was the one who’d saved me. Without his care, I wouldn’t have had a chance of surviving. And eating a person?

The thought of eating a person filled me with instinctive revulsion and nausea. Clinging to that feeling, I finally wrenched myself free of my appetite’s control. I threw away the half-eaten flatbread and scrambled back under the blanket.

I should’ve been too sick to move earlier. But for some reason, I’d suddenly had incredible strength while eating. As I grabbed food and wolfed it down, I even felt like I could knock Jayard over and bite him to death without any trouble.

The whole thing was terrifying. I’d never imagined that eating could be so frightening. That uncontrollable hunger was terrifying. By the time I got myself under control, I’d eaten three-quarters of the food Jayard had set aside to last at least half a month.

Even stranger, the food he’d brought back had been at least as big as he was. I’d eaten that much, yet my body showed no sign of changing shape. I still felt hungry, too. This definitely wasn’t normal!

“Parula.” Jayard came over to me and rested a hand on my shoulder.

“No! Don’t touch me. Don’t come any closer!” I cried, resisting in fear. I was afraid I might hurt him. “I’m sorry…”

“Parula, it’s okay. You were just hungry, so you ate a little more. If you want to eat, go ahead. When we run out, I can always steal more.” Jayard had no idea what I was afraid of, so all he could do was try to reassure me.

He was still just a boy, after all. He didn’t know there was anything abnormal about what I’d done, and he had no idea what had just been going through my mind. He thought I’d simply been hungry and eaten a little more than usual.

“Thank you. But please, just let me sit quietly for a while. Don’t touch me, and don’t let me see any food. Please!” I said, my voice trembling close to tears. I was scared that if I saw food, I’d become abnormal again—like I wasn’t myself anymore.

“I understand.” Jayard actually listened. He didn’t push me any further; he just sat down nearby and began to painfully gnaw at the flatbread. Unlike me, he couldn’t easily eat these rock-hard things. His teeth were just an ordinary boy’s, and he had to struggle with every bite.

For a while, all I could hear was the sound of him grinding away as if he were gnashing his teeth. When I couldn’t stand it any longer, I blurted out, “Why don’t you soak it in some hot water?”

“You won’t let me light a fire. Where am I supposed to get hot water?” Jayard shot back. I was left speechless. At the same time, I felt a little touched. He really had taken my words to heart. Even while struggling to chew hard, dry flatbread, he still hadn’t gone against what I’d told him.

I was at a loss for words for a moment, then said, “Take the brazier outside. You can light a fire safely there. Boil some water.”

The danger of carbon monoxide poisoning mainly came from lighting fires indoors. If you knew that, moving outside would reduce the risk as much as possible. In fact, plenty of people lit fires along the riverbanks. But some, wanting to stay warm, carried them into caves and lit them there.

These homeless people and beggars knew nothing about that kind of thing, and had no way to learn. The trash they burned for warmth was often toxic, which made lighting fires indoors even more dangerous.

The biggest problem was their high death rate. People died in all sorts of ways every day, and there were far too many cases of people suddenly dying indoors. The dead couldn’t speak, so no one could figure out how to prevent those deaths.

Jayard looked thoughtful, as if he was beginning to understand why I wouldn’t let him light a fire indoors. He nodded. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”

He went out with a piece of dry bread and soon came back with a glowing ember instead.