I was never a bad person. I never got into trouble when I went to school. I was an above-average student and because of that, I usually got picked on a lot. But even then I didn’t have the guts to fight back, I just told my teachers or my parents in a cowardly way. I was shy but I never hurt anyone.
At least not deliberately.
I had two major problems that started happening to me at an early age and have stayed with me all my life: sleepwalking and hunger attacks.
I wasn´t the zombie-like sleepwalker who only walks around and does nothing else. I had a mutation on my sleepwalker gene that made me look just like a normal person. The only difference is that I was never conscious. I could see, hear, smell, taste, feel and run, basically I could do almost everything but I never got direct control over my actions.
I also wasn’t a fat kid, I actually was pretty slim. But these hunger attacks weren’t your average “eat an entire cake” attacks. Whenever I got these, I would literally eat half of the food in my fridge. Even though my stomach volume was nowhere near the amount of food that I ate, I would always find space in it, even if a lot of times it felt like exploding inside me.
And the most strange one, as if I wasn’t weird enough already, my previous two problems always happened together.
This is why I was very dangerous to the people around me. Most of the time I was harmless. I got up in the middle of the night, went to the fridge, ate most of its contents and went back to sleep.
But the most intense times happened after big parties or holidays.
When there wasn’t enough food in the fridge.
Now, I never remembered what I did while sleepwalking, so I can only base myself on my parent’s words, but essentially, this is what happened after last Christmas.
They heard me getting up and going downstairs to the kitchen in the middle of the night. They were already used to this so they did nothing and let me go on my nocturnal business.
Next, they heard the fridge door open and close a few minutes later. That was strange because I usually took a long time eating, since I require a lot of food.
After that they heard me coming upstairs, assuming I was going to sleep, but I didn’t.
I was headed towards their room.
When I opened their door, they turned on the lights and asked me what I was doing. When I didn’t answer they figured I was still sleepwalking, so my father got near me trying to direct me towards my bedroom, hoping I would go to sleep.
But since there wasn´t enough food in the fridge to satisfy my hunger, there was only one other option.
My parents.
My mother said I attacked my father and bit him in the arm. They both screamed and my mother called 911, while my father was wrestling me to make me stop. He managed to wake me up by punching me in the stomach, making me puke the little food and flesh I had eaten. When the ambulance came, both me and my father went to the hospital. After those events my parents decided to always keep the fridge full, to help me cope with my problems.
But eventually, as I grew older, these events started to happen less and less often. I got out of school, moved out of town, got a nice job in an office and a big apartment. Life was actually pretty great, and it got even better when I met Stacey at my work. She was an intern there for a year and everyone grew accustomed to her presence, me in particular. After the internship ended she started working there and our feelings for each other grew stronger until one night at a bar she told me she loved me.
I instantly told her the same thing. She giggled and kissed me.
We continued to go out in secret, since our company didn’t approve when workers had “inappropriate relationships”.
A few months later, she asked me if she could go live with me in my apartment, and I said yes. I had a big apartment and sometimes I felt a bit lonely. We eventually talked about having a baby, and because we both worked and had saved quite a bit of money, we went for it.
Nine months later, our little daughter was born, but unfortunately, our company found out and fired us both. They knew about the baby situation and gave us some more money to help us.
But we couldn’t find a job anywhere and soon, almost all of our money was gone.
We could only go on for a few more weeks, and the money for food was getting thinner and thinner each that passed.
I told Stacey about my “situation”, I figured she would understand me, and at the moment I didn’t get an episode for more than five months. I told her that if I started acting funny at night, she needed to punch me in the stomach. I thought everything was going to be okay.
God, how wrong I was.
I had spoken to my parents about the problems with the money, and they asked if we wanted to move to their house, so they could help us. I said yes and wanted to stay only for three more days in the apartment just to pack and clean everything.
We went to bed early so we could start packing our things in the morning.
When I awoke, I saw that Stacey wasn’t in the bed with me. I yelled for her, but I got no response. The place was in dead silence. I noticed three things when I got out of bed. The puke stained carpet and that I felt full. And I mean really full. Like if my stomach had grown five times its original size.
The other thing I noticed was dried blood on my hands. But I didn’t had any wounds, so it couldn’t have been my blood. Confused, I went to the bathroom and was shocked to also see dried blood on my mouth.
I knew another episode happened, but couldn’t exactly tell what I did.
I checked my cell phone for the hours. It was 11:00 am. There was also a message from Stacey dating three days ago. I started reading it as I explored the rest of the house.
“I’m at the hospital right now, you had another attack in the night. I heard you get up and go to the kitchen, eat a little, and return a bit after. But when you entered the room you just stood there, motionless. I asked you what’s wrong, but you didn’t answer. You stood there for a few more minutes and then you jumped at me. You went for my left arm and you bit it like a rabid dog. I immediately remembered what you told me before, about the sleepwalking, so I managed to punch you in the stomach with my free hand. You puked and fell asleep on the ground. I called 911 and they took me to the hospital to treat me. When you see this, please get the baby and come see me.”
My heart sank when I saw the last line. The message was from three days ago. I slept three nights in a row.
With no food in the fridge.
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Credits to: jpvl1
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