Prologue

              “A prison for your nightmares”, the television blares, “the TFR corp is here to clean up the streets of Taipei.” The screen lands on a ten-story building, the dark stone green with mold and vines.

“The ghouls have roamed the streets for long enough. With approval from the CDC and National Security, the TFR corp will now be patrolling the streets for any suspected ghouls. From the hours of 7pm to 6am be prepared to submit to randomized testing.” Cut to a short clip of a woman getting her blood drawn. “Further announcements will be made. Together, let’s make Taiwan a safer place to live.”

Chapter 1

Boredom is the only thing I never got used to. The disgusting food, the itchy sheets, the endless muttering of the psychotic inmate next door, they don’t bother me anymore. But staring at bleached white walls for hours on end, feeling my mind spiraling into madness, that strikes fear in my heart.

“Ken, you’re back!” Mikey exclaims, blond and bouncing about with excitement, he reminds me of a golden retriever, sans the unexpected bloodthirst when provoked. The standard denim blue jacket we all wear hangs off his shoulders like a cape, flapping as he moves about. I smile half-heartedly to show I am still sane, still (mostly) in possession of high thought and not a raving mad beast as I was tempted to become.

“I swear, you must be the only person who has spent more time in solitary than here and come up with your brains intact” he slaps me on the back in congratulations. Mikey only comes up to my shoulder so when I throw my arm around him, he protests, claiming I must’ve gained weight because he’s being crushed. I chuckle, glad for the company. Amidst the roving hordes of ghoulish inmates, he must be the only one who could smile so wholeheartedly.

The automated doors had led me out to the prison yard, called that despite being just the ground floor of our hospitalesque building. Twenty-four floors of white tile and steel doors. The none too pleasant, yet familiar scent of the prison was a welcome relief after the constant, chemical stink of solitary.

I took a deep breath, “Ah, it’s good to be back”. Mikey scoffed, “Only you would ever enjoy the smell of unwashed gym shorts and prison soap”. It was true in a way, none had stayed in solitary as long as I and returned. No one truly understood the pain of being a brain in a vat, only experiencing light or dark. A human being shouldn’t know what the life of an amoeba is like, or whatever primordial organisms came before us.

I hear slaps of flesh on steel bars, the classic greeting for a long missed friend or fresh inmates. In here, we don’t call ourselves inmates, we’re citizens. Wronged by our government, unjustly imprisoned, misunderstood. That’s all well and good but I know for a fact that none here are the law-abiding citizens we claim to be, after all, how are ghouls supposed to eat when our prey are locked behind government laws and gun wielding cops.

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“Ken!”, someone calls from behind me. I turn and see Finch, hair as elaborately styled as always. How he has the time and means to preserve that 90s hairdo is both a mystery and an accomplishment. The weakest ghoul I’ve ever met, but as loyal as they come.

“I’ve missed you!” he cries, I can actually see his eyes shine with unshed tears.

“Still a crybaby I see” I can’t help but crack a smile and pat him on the back.  

Our reunion is cut short by the shrill blaring of an alarm. “Dinner time”, Mikey says with a black look at the slavering hordes of inmates surging towards the cafeteria. I’ve never seen his face so devoid of emotion and his eyes says he’ll rip apart anyone who gets in his way.

I look at Finch with a questioning glance and gesture with my eyes at Mikey, but he only shakes his head with a resigned sigh. Not now.

But as we walk, Finch steals quick darting glances at Mikey and surreptitiously moves to my left putting me in between him and Mikey. Interesting.

It’s a known fact that prison food is revolting, but when you’re a ghoul, a creature deemed less than human, prison food is downright inedible. We step into the cafeteria, a room just as cold and inhospitable as the rest of the building, made more so by the rotting carcasses arrayed on steel surgical tables in the center of the room, like a morgue repurposed into a buffet line. The smell is horrendous, if not for the fact that security forces you into scheduled rooms at scheduled times, the three of us would never set foot in here. We have our own methods to fill our stomachs.

Despite the smell, a crowd has already gathered around the corpses. Slavering like piranhas in blood infested waters.

“How do they eat that stuff?”, Finch gags.

The dark look hadn’t left Mikey’s eyes and without turning away from the feast before us, he says, “You’ll do what you have to when you’re starving.”

We watch with morbid interest as several of the weaker ghouls scuffle over a rotting hand. The meat is gray and writhing with maggots, yet the two gaunt figures snarl and bite for possession. Another ghoul, slightly plump with pink, rosy cheeks, plucks an eyeball with perversely dainty movements. It was so soft that her fingers left concave marks on the surface, vitreous liquid painting clear marks down her blood-soaked arms. She popped the grotesque thing in her mouth, chewing with apparent relish.

The room seemed divided in two, those who watched and those who partook. Out of those on the perimeter, half seemed on the brink of starving themselves, and looked on with glazed eyes, barely able to contain the drool leaking from their undead mouths. As for the rest, we could look down on the weak and exclaim our disgust with the privilege of those who had never starved, we were able to watch with our minds unclouded by the edge of hunger and useless pride.

This is the reason why there are no human guards. If even this filthy, rotten meat could summon such appetites, imagine what the smell of fresh human flesh could do.

“You’d be among them if not for us”, Mikey tells Finch. Taking the chance to lighten the mood, Finch gives an indignant cry, “You don’t know that!”

“We might’ve even been enemies”, he says with mock seriousness.

“You think you could handle this?” Finch swipes a hand through his hair and leans in.

“Cool it Finch, you don’t want to get knocked on your ass again, do you?”, I say. Looking him in the eye, I place a hand on his head, “Remember what happened last time Mikey was in a bad mood?”. He pales, all pretense of play gone.

He laughs shakily, “Of course.”

Within minutes, the ghouls have finished eating. The only evidence of the carnage that took place are splattered bloodstains, a few marrow-less bones, and a few broken bodies of ghouls who didn’t know their place.

Back in our cell, I’m greeted by a familiar sight. Stark, metal bunks. Thin mattresses with springs budding from the fabric like new grass. A small pile of books in the corner, the only entertainment the humans trust us with. And Baji snoozing like a baby as always.