You are Travis Martinez. You’re 16 years old and you’re going on a trip with your shitty dad and your little brother who you love but keep at arms length (love isn’t what men do. It’s what you do. you try not to). You’re surrounded by girls from your school you barely know but they know you well enough to call you the name that has tormented you for years. The plane you’re on crashes and your shitty dad dies trying to save those same girls. You find your Dad’s body in a tree and you climb it. His body falls and you watch. Everything is burning and everyone is afraid and all you know how to do is push away how you feel. So you do. You push your brother and you tease the girls and you use your shooting skills to torment them. You’re bested by a girl. You hunt with her to feed your brother and the girls your dad died for. You fall in love when she cuts the family ring off your father’s corpse because you can’t but you have to give your brother something to let him know (you love him. You love him so much). The girls drug you and use you and hunt you but in the end the girl you love saves you. You’re starving and you’re freezing and you hunt every day from dawn with the girl you love. Your brother goes missing and you try your best to believe he is alive. You turn to the only religion you have to help you believe it and you eat a girl and slice your hand open and you worship. The baby died but your blood saved the mother and in return your baby comes home. The winter continues and you’re starving. You’re so hungry and nothing is working. The mother beats the prophet and in a sick chain of events you agree to a draw of cards to feed her. You survive. Your baby survives. The girl you hunt with is now the prey and it’s not right. You try to stop it. The girl you love comes back with your baby on a pyre and you know with certainty what has to happen. You cry and you hold the baby but you hand him to the mother to carry one last time. You eat your baby’s heart (you’re sorry. You’re so hungry. You let him save you) because it’s the only thing left of him. You live 25 years after this.
