Get away from him, was Jenny's first impulse.

Get away. Get away.

Leave me alone.

Thoughts bubbled up the back of her head, each one worse than the one before. Flashes of Sunday school, of sermons, and being told who to worship and how to obey. Of her mother slapping Jenny's face and telling her that Jesus will be ashamed. Of those miserable nights where she'd prayed on the floor till her knees hurt, begging the lord for forgiveness, terrified of what sins she might've accumulated by accident, terrified that she was being punished already. After all, good people are rewarded, and she would get punished by her mother, would have to go hungry, would cry herself to sleep.

She'd begged the lord to save her. Studied and read verses from the Bible. Kept trying to find the strength everyone kept saying there would be. She knew the words, or at least once knew, and now here this guy was. A guy she’d found nailed to a cross in another world, looking the part and saying the things she’d grown up hearing. The one who took the sins of the world...

He'd said she was forgiven.

Jenny inhaled deeply, her fear-response making her head spin. She didn't know what to say. She felt young again, standing in a church that felt like a palace, her small footsteps echoing as she turned around to admire the tapestries above. It was the middle of the night, and her mother was hoping to find shelter and... Jenny had walked up to the enormous statue of the man on the cross and felt this sense of awe, this tremendous fear that her younger mind couldn't figure out, a pressure that a foot was hanging over her head just waiting to come down and crush her like a bug.

That same feeling came back to her as she looked at Yeshua. That was how she knew who he was.

"May I ask you something?" he said, one leg folded beneath him, his arm resting on the knee of the other. "Why didn't you kill me?"

Jenny bit down on the inside of her lips. "I don't know. I figured if you wanted to die, you could die after you got off that thing." She remembered her decision. Throwing her hatchet. Slicing through Yeshua's arm. The red bolt of lightning. Why had she set him free?

Wasn’t it to save herself? She’d been surrounded by the ghouls, and she figured he was powerful. And that healing ability... was that where the stories came from?

Could he... resurrect the dead with that ability?

She smushed her new big toe against the sand, bending the toenail, feeling the flex of her muscles. Was this how he’d done it? In the stories? Healing the ill, restoring the disabled, giving strength to those who couldn’t walk or take care of themselves?

Ideas and memories spun. Stories from the past. Readings of the Bible. The fish and the loaves of bread... Had he just using the system to produce mass quantities of food? And what about walking on water? Did he have a skill that allowed him to cross over the waves without sinking? But most importantly... healing and resurrecting the dead?

Susan.

Yeshua had been quiet. It was a solemn, weighty quiet. "I am glad to be alive. Being alive is a very good thing." He shut his eyes, raised his head as though in prayer, and swallowed hard. Jenny saw his Adam's Apple moving up and down. Then he straightened up and walked over to the cross. He touched the feet he'd left nailed to the wood and glanced at Jenny. "Are you sure I can't interest you in something to eat? You and I... We have to eat a different kind of food now. And the System can no longer create the sustenance we require.”

"What?” asked Jenny, squinting at him. Her stomach twisted and rumbled with furious hunger as she watched him touch his torn feet. It was like he was inspecting vegetables growing on a vine. “What do you mean?”

He shot her a tight-lipped smile then turned back to his feet. It was one foot over the other, both of them ripped at the shins, almost exactly where Jenny’s foot had broken off earlier. A nail with a round head, driven through the center of each foot, held them in place. Dried blood stuck to the skin, blood from when he’d struggled to break free.

Yeshua grabbed the cross with one hand and braced himself. Then, with a grunt, he grabbed his feet and yanked them upwards.

There was a gross tearing sound, a series of cracks as the nail moved through a series of bones. Then, with a final soft cry of effort, Yeshua popped his feet free.

Thick, dark blood oozed from the gash between his toes where the nail had ripped through. He separated the feet, toes and loose skin flapping, and Jenny couldn't help but be reminded of jelly-filled donuts.

Something flickered in Yeshua’s expression. Hunger. A fierce, violent hunger that Jenny recognized. But it vanished as quickly as it had appeared, and he smiled at Jenny. "Go on," he suggested. "Give the System a try. Make some food. Anything. The only way to learn is to try."

The sight of the feet made Jenny feel weak. She wanted to snatch one from Yeshua’s hands. Wanted to bite off the toes one by one. Wanted to sink her teeth into the wrinkled pink flesh of the heel. His feet looked so much more appetizing than Jenny's had; they were larger, fleshier. More of a meal. More meat. Yeshua wanted her to create food using the System, and she... she wanted the foot, yes, but what had he meant before? The system can no longer create the sustenance we require...

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What does that mean?

I can’t eat... normal food?

She placed one hand on her stomach, trying to quiet the restless hunger, holding out her other hand in front of her, palm facing upward. She kept reminding herself she wasn’t a monster anymore. She didn’t have an exoskeleton. She didn’t have tentacles. She wasn’t....

Give me a banana or something, she thought, turning away as she focused her mind on the Guidance System in her head. A shudder of uneasiness crept up her side; she kept expecting Eve to respond whenever she used the System.

A banana will cost 100 Energy.

Sufficient energy

Golden light shimmered on top of her palm. Blossoming and stretching, elongating and curving like a rounded crescent moon before hardening. The light remained yellow and bright, and after a moment, it faded away and Jenny held a perfect banana in her hand, just waiting to be peeled.

"Ah, a banana," said Yeshua over her shoulder, and Jenny flinched.

But before she could snap at him, she caught sight of him chewing, the blood oozing down his chin and into his beard. That queasy twist of hunger wrung out her insides, and she swallowed what she was going to say.

“I used to love bananas,” he said thoughtfully before putting the big toe in his mouth. His teeth connected with a crunch, and she watched him chew and swallow. Then he nodded toward her banana. “Tell me how that tastes. I hope it’s good.”

Is he... Is he antagonizing me?

Saliva gushed in her mouth. She tried to convince herself it was because of the banana. She could smell its sweet, fruity aroma, and she hadn't eaten in so long... Why shouldn’t she be salivating?

But that wasn’t true, was it? She’d eaten Miriam. She’d taken a chunk out of Susan. She’d eaten angels. She’d eaten plenty, yet she was starving.

Desecrated Human...

She punctured the top of the banana with her fingernail before pulling the peel down. Strands of banana fiber stretched as she turned the banana around, peeling carefully and slowly to reveal the curved white flesh of the fruit. She fought the urge to shove the entire thing into her mouth, but her hands shook as she stared at it. White and creamy, and the fruity scent so strong in her nose. She tore a sizeable chunk off the top.

The banana felt cool between her thumb and fingers, and she held it in front of her, her eyes flicking toward the half-eaten foot in Yeshua’s hands, the toes now gone, the bones exposed in a grizzly sight. Again, saliva filled her mouth, and she met Yeshua’s intense gaze.

"Eat," he said. "Then you will know."

Okay, okay. Jenny forced herself to relax her jaws. What was going on? Her entire body was hesitating, and a ballooning feeling of dread filled her chest as she brought the banana chunk to her lips. Tingling raced up and down her legs. Her lungs contracted; what the fuck?

As soon as the banana touched her tongue and she closed her mouth, she understood. The rest of the banana fell from her shaking hand and landed with a soft splat on the ground.

It tasted like vomit. It tasted foul and bitter and rancid. The squishy texture felt like a chunk of mucus. Her bottom jaw ached. Her entire body convulsed, every signal firing: spit it out!

But Jenny’s trembling fingers kept her lips shut. She was trying to force herself to eat. She looked up at Yeshua who smiled sadly, before turning away, as if averting his gaze to give her privacy. Jenny took a shaky step forward, still trying to keep the banana down, trying to swallow. She glanced at the cross, hopelessness welling up inside her like a cavernous beast as she fought against the terrible feeling. She was shaking. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she shut her eyes and clenched her fists. And then, when she couldn't withstand it anymore, she threw up.

She dropped to her knees, clutching her stomach as she heaved again. There wasn’t much left in her stomach. Mostly water and blood and bile. But it splashed onto the sand, and in the middle of it, sat the glistening chunk of banana, her teeth marks visible in the gooey white flesh.

When it was over, when her body had calmed down enough, Jenny flopped onto the ground, breathing hard as spittle stuck to her chin. Her mouth tasted acidic, bitter and burning.

I can’t eat normal food anymore...

"I am truly sorry," said Yeshua gently. His voice drifted down to her as though he was speaking from the sky. "Once we become Blooded, even if the status disappears, our internal systems are forever changed."

Blooded. That notification... Jenny remembered when she’d first gotten it. When she should’ve died as countless angels pulled her battered, falling apart body toward the Desecrated Angel. She’d taken a bite out of one of them, desperate to fight, desperate to get out of their clutches.

She remembered how wonderful it felt. The way flesh had given way to her teeth, and saliva gushed in her mouth even though her tongue burned from the banana she’d tried to eat. It overflowed, escaping her lips and running down the sides of her face toward her ears. She sat up quickly and wiped it off.

Yeshua placed the foot he hadn’t eaten in front of her. “For when you are ready,” he said, sitting beside her on the ground. “I would like to hear about how you came to this world. How you became Desecrated, especially when are you so against consuming flesh.”

Wanting to cry, Jenny reached for the foot. Her fingers closed around what was left of the ankle and she brought it toward her, holding it as though it was a sandwich and not a man's foot. She couldn't look at Yeshua. Couldn't take her eyes off the meal. Her stomach felt twisted and gross from throwing up again, and her throat felt scraped raw, but she knew beyond a doubt that Yeshua was right. She would have to eat; she so badly wanted to eat.

Turning the foot over and bringing the heel to her lips, she braced herself. It was cold. Cold and bumpy, and she held her lips against the weathered skin for a while. The metallic sweetness of dried blood rose from the torn skin and exposed muscle and bone. The scent filled her nose and her lungs; she inhaled deeply. Her thumbs pressing into the sole, she sank her teeth into the heel and fresh tears slid down her cheeks.

This is my body. This is my blood.

She'd been so hungry. She'd been so, so hungry. “Thank you,” she whispered, shoulders shaking as she ate. As the word filled her mind again:

Blooded.

She expected her exoskeleton to burst out of her belly button, red and viscous and thick. She expected the tentacles to surge from her back, transforming her into an uncontrollable monster again. But after the first bite and the second, after she’d nibbled on the heel and flesh filled her stomach and nothing changed, her shoulders relaxed, she shuddered and stifled the urge to cry. She ate more readily, snapping and crackling through the elongated bones of the toes.

Maybe I have more control over it than I thought... Maybe there’s still hope for me.

She wiped away the tears. And then she told Yeshua everything, starting with the earthquake, the first angel she’d seen, and ending with the rainbow light that brought her to this bleak world.