The smoke clawed at their eyes, drawing salt and sting, but the irritation had become white noise. The scent of charring flesh—pungent, primal, and thick—was an intoxicating force that overrode all physical discomfort. They didn't wait for the meat to cook through; a searing lick of flame across the surface was enough. They craved the warm, metallic juices to lubricate their parched throats, the raw center a desperate promise of caloric survival.
Hands plunged into the periphery of the embers. Fingers, blistered and blackened, tore at the sinewy portions without flinching. The physical sting of the fire was a minor tax compared to the debt of starvation.
Fadi lifted a jagged strip coated in a gritty layer of soot. He didn't bother to shake it off. At this stage, the protocols of civilization—hygiene, etiquette, even the basic discernment of what constituted "clean"—had been discarded like dead skin. They were gambling their lives on flesh of an unknown origin, yet the terror of the alternative stifled any inquiry.
Ash stained their lips and smeared across their sunken cheeks, marking them like scavengers.
Adam broke the silence, his voice a dry rasp that seemed to grate against the quiet:
"You saved us."
He glanced toward Elias for a fraction of a second, then immediately averted his gaze, focusing on his grease-slicked palms.
He didn't mean that Elias had saved them from hunger. He meant that the arrival of this carcass had saved them from a far more permanent moral collapse. Adam's eyes drifted toward the heavy, motionless shape of Jamal's corpse, lying just outside the firelight's reach but well within their peripheral consciousness. Hideous, predatory thoughts had begun to take root in the dark corners of his mind regarding that body. Others shifted uncomfortably; the sentiment required no elaboration. The same dark geometry of survival had been calculated by every person sitting around the flame.
Nour stood abruptly, her shadow looming long and jagged against the trees.
"We find water tomorrow. At first light," she commanded, her voice thin but sharpened by necessity. "Stop now. Don't consume it all. Dehydration is a faster executioner than hunger, and the salt in this will only accelerate it."
The sound of rhythmic chewing slowed, then faltered. They tried to summon the discipline of logic, to tether their impulses to the reality of their situation. But instinct—raw, ancient, and relentless—once again proved itself the superior master over reason.