Note : This chapter may be slightly disturbing. Please skip according to your discretion.

The older farmer started shivering intensely. He felt his eyes burn and throat sting unknowingly as he ran out of the hut and controlled his urge to vomit. He didn't understand. No robber should take the trouble to steal from the huts right? It's a known fact that there are not much to steal from people living in the huts in the first place.

But then, he had an epiphany. In normal circumstances, the robbers wouldn't take the trouble, but with the famine raging across Lyria..... they are humans too. They need food to eat. And which target is better to steal from than a defenseless women and children and a solitary hut?

He felt like screaming. He felt pathetic. What should he do now? He did not have enough money on his hand right now to conduct the final rituals of his sister in law and her children. But he had an even bigger problem on his hand. The dead could be thought about later. He needed to save the living first.

He felt like his head might burst. What should he do?! He needed to bring back food for his family. No matter what it takes, he had to. He couldn't watch his children dying due to starvation. He racked his brain till a thought occurred to him.

Meat.... is meat. It doesn't matter if it's from a human or a beast. The older farmer felt cold. He knew that what he had thought was wrong. It was completely messed up. But he had to. He needed to find freshly dead people. Because he couldn't take rotting meat back home.

He covered his face with his palms. He felt as if he was going to perform a grave sin. Those were the bodies of his sister in law, nephew and nieces.

He headed into the hut. His heart was beating desperately, almost as if signaling to him to not perform this deed. But his body was moving on it's own.

He slowly took out the dagger he kept with him for self protection and looked at the bodies with shaking hands.

After an hour...

He had done the deed. He had already vomited twice while doing it, but he had finally done it somehow. Guilt and repulsion had already taken over him, but sheer will still kept him going. He put the meat into a rag and headed home.

As soon as he entered his home, he saw his malnourished daughter run towards him. She hugged him and said, "Daddy, did you get any food? Did aunt give food? It's okay if she didn't. Don't worry too much."

He looked at his daughter's hopeful yet cautious eyes and smiled slightly. He said slowly, "Aunt gave us some meat."

He felt sick saying that, and felt like killing himself. He decided to not tell his wife, because he was sure that she would not touch the meat at all if he did.

For a few days, his family ate well. But he himself couldn't bring himself to touch the food.

Note : This book is being rewritten and all the comments for this chapter were for the previous version of it.