Jim counts the crate of ration bars three times before he feels reassured enough to latch the lid and put it back in the cupboard, hiding it behind the door. Safe. Just in case he needs it, in case the worst should happen. But the sight and smells of freshly cut vegetables and fruit helps ease those worries, giving him the fortitude he needs to turn his back on the hidden stash and walk away.
There's plenty of food. He's allowed to have it. Doesn't have to resort to choking down ration bars in secret before they can get taken away, well-meaning doctors on the rescue ship insisting that it's too much, too fast, cruelly depriving him of what he so desperately needs.
It doesn't even register that there's no meat on the plate, a merciful omission that he'll be thankful for later. There's only one thing he notices missing, can't have a proper meal without it, can't have it without the grain that lay rotting in the fields. "Bread. Please," he adds belatedly, just enough of his self-awareness still hanging on to try to act like a human being. Not sure if he even is one anymore.
What am I? He shivers briefly, not sure he wants to know the answer.
He silences the voice in his head as best he can, questing fingers immediately snatching up one of the apples, red and ripe and crisp, and he curls it into his chest for a moment protectively, almost like an animal guarding its food from being stolen by others. You're allowed, he reminds himself, trying to force himself to relax, biting into the juicy fruit. Sweet and tart on his tongue, nothing at all like anything he ever had to eat on Tarsus IV, not at all like the meat he fears he's eaten.
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There's plenty of food. He's allowed to have it. Doesn't have to resort to choking down ration bars in secret before they can get taken away, well-meaning doctors on the rescue ship insisting that it's too much, too fast, cruelly depriving him of what he so desperately needs.
It doesn't even register that there's no meat on the plate, a merciful omission that he'll be thankful for later. There's only one thing he notices missing, can't have a proper meal without it, can't have it without the grain that lay rotting in the fields. "Bread. Please," he adds belatedly, just enough of his self-awareness still hanging on to try to act like a human being. Not sure if he even is one anymore.
What am I? He shivers briefly, not sure he wants to know the answer.
He silences the voice in his head as best he can, questing fingers immediately snatching up one of the apples, red and ripe and crisp, and he curls it into his chest for a moment protectively, almost like an animal guarding its food from being stolen by others. You're allowed, he reminds himself, trying to force himself to relax, biting into the juicy fruit. Sweet and tart on his tongue, nothing at all like anything he ever had to eat on Tarsus IV, not at all like the meat he fears he's eaten.