Your stomach gnaws at your limbs. You look in the collapsed lung of your refrigerator to make it stop and find nothing. You decide that you need to go out, hunt and gather. You walk into your bedroom and open your closet.
What skin do you want to wear tonight?
[[A ski mask with a black long sleeve sweater and matching black pants]]
[[A hoodie and jeans]]
[[The T-Rex cop costume]]
You press the ski mask against your nose. You gag at the collected sweat. You don't think your stomach could handle the smell. You're afraid of the scent memory trapped in the matching black long sleeve sweater and pants. You don't want your prey to know you're coming.
What skin do you wear instead?
[[A hoodie and jeans]]
[[The T-Rex cop costume]]
You slip the hoodie over you. You notice that the drawstring is missing. You notice dried paint, blood around the edges of the wounds on the knees of the jeans. You remember how you began your celebration over the success of your first hunt and gather. The outfit fills in some of the gaps, but not all of them. You put it down.
What skin do you wear?
[[A ski mask with a black long sleeve sweater and matching black pants]]
[[The T-Rex cop costume]]
You look at the T-Rex cop costume. You hunted and gathered enough to claim this skin as your own. You sketched a business plan on a half-stained pizza box, how you would advertise that you have the lockdown on fun. You spent days finding the perfect catchphrase, then practiced it to ensure the tone was right: "Freeze! You're under arrest...for not having enough fun." You would then pull the silly string gun out of your holster, empty the contents on the inflatable punching bag that represented today's birthday child. The phone never rang.
You put on the T-Rex costume. You notice the paint coming off the badge. You doubt anyone will notice it. You get the gun from beneath your bed. You...
[[Wonder whether you should pawn the gun]]
[[Holster the gun]]
You look at your father's .38 Special, wonder whether you should pawn it to see what you can get. You know whatever you get will stop your stomach from gnawing your limbs but you don't know for how long. You remember that your father said that thing that all fathers say to their sons about teaching a man how to fish versus giving a man a fish after pawning your fishing rod. You holster the .38 Special. You can't pawn the one tool you need to continue living.
Where will you hunt and gather tonight?
[[Somewhere downtown]]
[[At the public park that's in walking distance]]
You look at your father's .38 Special. You don't know how he got it, only how he used it to ward off whomever was collecting the latest debt. You had to learn to use it yourself. Your father believed his absence could teach you more than he ever could. You holster the gun.
Where will you hunt and gather tonight?
[[Somewhere downtown]]
[[At the public park that's in walking distance]]
You look at the calendar. Wednesdays are a weird time downtown. There should be enough drunk people that you could choose which one to hunt and gather. There would be less police milling about but the station is close enough to where you couldn't easily escaped if someone called them. On a Friday or Saturday, you could use the clot of drunks to as an escape route. [[At the public park that's in walking distance<-You decide that the park is a better hunting ground.]]
You count on the tunnel vision of drivers during rush hour to not rubberneck as you jaywalk across the street. You find an oak tree thick enough to obscure your scaly plastic skin on the busiest side of the park. You scan the park for the best target.
[[The mother and father pushing a stroller]]
[[A man walking around with his hands in his pockets]]
The family might give everything to protect their children. The father may want to be what a good father thinks he should be by trying to wrestle the gun from your claws. The mother could do this, too. You decide the family isn't a good target. <i>Children shouldn't be traumatized by dinosaurs</i>, you think.
[[A man walking around with his hands in his pockets<-You choose the man walking around with his hands in his pockets as your target]]
You walk over to the man with his hands in his pockets. You draw the .38 Special from your holster and yell "Don't move!" The man...
[[Asks you to peel back the T-Rex's neck flap so he can hear you better]]
[[Raises his hands]]
The man asks you to peel back the T-Rex's neck flap so he can understand you better. You're afraid what the man might do while you're distracted. You shoot the man twice in the gut. You loot the body: $12, an expired bus pass. All you can do is run, hope no one saw you. If you're lucky, you'll burn the T-Rex cop costume, lose the last memory of your father.
<b>END</b>
To try again, click [[Intro<-here]]
The man takes his hands out of his pockets, holds them high. You...
[[Command him to empty his pockets]]
[[Read the man his rights]]
The man empties his pockets. You order him to empty his wallet. $12 and a bus pass fall onto the sidewalk. You...
[[Take the cash and make the man count to 1,000]]
[[Read the man his rights]]
You read the man the rights you want to remember: silence, anything can be used against you in a court of law. You leave out the parts about an attorney, the one phone call. You don't ask him if he understands his rights. You press the gun barrel into the small of his back. Your stomach demands you use his life as a search warrant. The man will plea that he did nothing wrong, but you know better. Everyone has committed a crime of some kind. Some people are just better at not getting caught.
<b>END</b>
To try again, click [[Intro<-here]]
You take the cash. You make the man get on his belly. You tell him to close his eyes, count to 1,000. Tonight, you'll find a place to burn the T-Rex cop costume. Tomorrow, you'll wash the ski mask and its matching outfit, use what ever is left to shut your stomach up for the next day or two before you go out for your next hunt and gather.
<b>END</b>
To try again, click [[Intro<-here]]