I still remember the times I used to play with my first brother. We would play-fight a lot, hitting and throwing pillows at each other, all the while laughing and giggling. Our parents had always intervened if we went too far, and despite our rockier relationship later in life, we'd always been good to each other at the end of the day.

This was nothing like that. I scrambled backward to dodge a clawed swipe, before throwing myself forward and hitting my brother in the face with my baby-like fist.

He leaned away from the punch, but not from the follow-up hit that struck him in the cheek, shattering teeth and breaking his jaw. He recoiled from that, a snarl on his face as he bit down on my arm.

I let out a noise of pain before headbutting him in the face, breaking his nose and popping one of his eyes like it was an overripe grape.

He screamed at that, scrambling away from me now. I glared at him as he retreated, clenching my jaws in anger.

I didn't pursue him, even though I knew I should. Despite everything, we were only two weeks old, if even that. I... I didn't want to have to kill him.

I'd watched him kill and eat one of the two human children. He had still been alive. Not only did any of our mothers or father intervene, but they had seemed almost... proud of him.

I... had not intervened either. I had still been too terrified of the adults back then, too paralyzed to do anything. I think I still hated myself for it.

I hated my parents far more, however.

Speaking of parents, I sneakily looked around, spotting the only one around. The adults had gone out hunting, leaving behind only the four-armed woman to 'defend us'. I... I highly doubted she would. I had watched her casually rip off the arms off of the elf brat and eat them like a snack, even as he was being breastfed.

The kid's arms had been fully regrown within the hour. I did not know which was more horrifying, our regeneration or the fact that he hadn't even hesitated to feed again when his turn came once more.

It did at least explain why the adults never seemed to come back with any wounds despite often being covered in dried blood.

Making sure to not meet her eyes, I hobbled off to the deeper parts of the cave, where the few skins that we used as beds were kept.

Said skins had originally belonged to the three resident trolls that had occupied this cave before our group's arrival only a few days ago. The adults had gleefully thrown themselves at the massive monsters, biting off flesh and bone alike and carving off entire sections off of the beast's bodies, gulping down mouthfuls of blood and gore even as the trolls had tried to do the same to the adults.

The worst part hadn't even been the one time the trolls had broken through the battle 'lines', although I hesitated to claim that the chaotic battle had possessed any such strategies, and had tried to eat us, only stopped by a charge-tackle from our father.

No. The truly worst part had been the fact that I hadn't been disgusted with the spectacle. I'd only felt a deep, ravenous hunger.

Even now, I could still feel it. The constant emptiness deep inside me, my mouth constantly feeling like it was either too dry or too wet, the insane desire to kill and consume everything around me.

It terrified me on a level that I can't even begin to explain. The lack of control over your own feelings, your body, your very mind... Had I not known what it was like to live without this ever-present hunger, I highly doubted I would've been any different from these monsters wearing human skin.

I softly sat down on the rough leather 'bed' and leaned back onto the hard and uncomfortable stone wall, keeping half an eye open while also trying to catch some sleep.

A small sound right at my side had me jumping to my feet, snarling. I whirled around to face the human child, who had been sneaking up on me. He snarled right back and tried to dive-bomb me, but I was faster.

I dodged out of his way, our childish bodies still oh-so clumsy and yet so much more advanced than any two-weeks old baby had any rights to. My leg struck out, impacting him in the side and smashing him into the wall.

He tried to dodge my shoulder-tackle, but it was easy for me to adjust my trajectory. Unlike my brother, who possessed enough raw strength to almost match my own, or the elven brat, who was as quick and agile as I was, the human brat was more of a jack-of-all-trades, and it worked to his disadvantage here.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

I smashed him into the wall, his head hitting it with a loud crack that came from both his skull and the wall itself. I seized his neck in one swift motion, and twisted.

The disgusting snap that followed had him dropping to the floor, paralyzed. Even still, his eyes tracked me as I backed away, clearly disgruntled.

I stared down at him. This had been the fourth time he'd tried to ambush me, and although he'd only come close to winning once, it was starting to get annoying.

My hands itched and my mouth watered. Before I even realized it, I was upon him, fangs sinking into his flesh and ripping away chunks of bone and flesh alike. My clawed hands reached into his now-open belly by themselves, tearing away a large handful of intestines and shoving them into my mouth.

It tasted delicious.

When my mind realized what I had just done, I had to literally rip myself away from him in order to prevent myself from continuing.

I scrambled backward, falling on my butt as I watched the boy's flesh crawl and writhe like it was made of worms, growing and stitching so fast that the process looked like it was in a timelapse.

A growl of disapproval from the sides had me freezing up for a moment before slowly turning to face the four-armed woman, who was frowning down at me.

She waggled her massive finger right in front of me. "Bad. No waste. He weak." She spoke, her language purposively choppy so that I could understand her with my limited vocabulary.

Then, one of her hands reached down to seize the still-healing boy. For a moment, I thought about trying to defend him. To try and stop the monster in front of me from killing another monster-to-be.

Memories of her ripping apart a troll by herself, laughing even as she was in turn gored by it, came to the forefront of my mind, and like the coward I was, I remained frozen in place.

Her hand reached the human boy and seized him by his still broken neck, hoisting him up. She casually reached out with another of her hands and, without any effort, ripped him in two at the waist.

With a casualness that belied what she'd just done, she handed me the boy's waist. The smaller portion, the insane part of my mind whispered, but I shut it down hard.

"Eat. Is good for you. Beat him many times. He weak." She lectured me like she was imparting me with some critical wisdom before wandering off towards the other two children, who were watching me with envy.

I think I should have wanted to hurl. Instead, all I felt was the deep, dark hunger still writhing within me, demanding me to devour the boy in front of me.

The woman looked back with a cocked eyebrow, and the terrified part of me suddenly joined the insane part. I hastily started shoveling sweet, delicious flesh into my mouth, feeling myself die inside even as I did so.

It would have been poetic for me to cry even as I went against everything I stood for. As I degraded myself to the same level as these monsters, and as my principles and moral high ground were torn away from me by my own two hands.

And yet, all I felt was satisfaction, as the last drop of my sibling's corpse entered my stomach. I felt a relaxing warmth spread out through my body, and for a brief instant, the hunger was gone.

And then, just like that, it came back. I blinked a few times, trying to clear my head of the strange sensation that had come over me. That... had never happened before.

I stared down at my hand in an almost-trance. It was still covered in gore, and despite myself, I couldn't help but lick it.

It tasted worse than the boy's flesh, but far better than the women's milk.

I recoiled once again, hastily wiping my hand onto the floor to get rid of the temptation. Once again, I felt myself die inside.

Already, I could feel the craving for that respite. My eyes unconsciously traveled towards my last remaining brothers, who were now eyeing me warily.

I'd been the most attacked out of any of them, partially for the fact that I was the strongest amongst them, but also because I hadn't killed. It had made me a... not an easy target, per se, but definitely a preferable one.

Now, that had changed. I could see it in their eyes. They wouldn't try to attack me as fearlessly as before, which was definitely good for my quickly dying morals.

What was worse for said morals, however, was that I was now seriously considering attacking them instead.

Luckily for all of us, the rest of the adults arrived right at that moment, their large forms, at least compared to me, having no trouble entering into the even larger entrance to the cave.

The four-armed woman was quick to get up and go greet them, not out of any desire to make sure they were fine, but rather, to grab her share of the hunt. Without preamble, the elf woman carelessly threw a green-skinned... thing... at her, which the other woman caught easily.

Us children, meanwhile, huddled away from the adults and deeper into the cave. Despite our own desire to kill each other, we remained perfectly silent as the adults started chatting, the fear of being used as a quick snack far higher than our fear for each other.

The adults hadn't outright killed any of us ever since we'd been taken up by our own respective mothers, but that didn't mean we were treated well. I had been lucky enough so far as to avoid that fate, but my brothers hadn't.

My arms wrapped around my knees as I huddled into myself, closing my eyes. I only briefly opened them again when moans started coming from the adults, but a quick glance revealed that they were merely having another orgy.

Considering that none of our family had any sort of possessions beyond food, and thus no clothing, I wasn't exactly surprised that these savages had sex practically every second hour.

Further, considering the absolute lack of any sort of recreational activities beyond food, fighting, and sex, it even sort of made sense. I just wished they'd get some privacy for it. There were children watching, after all.

... On second thought, considering they happily killed and ate their own children, I somehow doubt they would ever care.

I closed my eyes once more, trying to block out the moans even as I listened for any sneak attacks from my brothers. I wouldn't put it past them to break the unspoken truce we had going on, the damn devils.