Charlie felt weaker than usual. He hasn't "eaten" in a while, only eating food for pleasure. All the plants in the house are already dead, and
the only alive energy source left is Ray. He glanced over at him, who was lazily lounging on the opposite side of the couch. They were watching some
unimportant children's show, as it was the only thing on TV except for the news. It was about a little girl who had adventures with her friends and
brother. It would be easy to squeeze the life out of Ray and absorb him, but then he'd get lonely. Charlie made up his mind, they were going to get
food! Charlie abruptly stood up, startling Ray. He seemed to have startled himself badly as well, since he saw stars."Alright, let's get food,"
Charlie demanded. "Too tired," Ray replied lazily, returning his focus to the TV again. Charlie didn't care enough to reason with him, instead
resorting to grabbing Ray with surprising strength and dragging him out the door.
Charlie didn't actually eat food, so what the hell were they doing in a store? Besides, they don't have any money. "Uhm, we don't have any money,"
he discreetly told Charlie as to not alert unwanted attention. "So what, we'll just steal," Charlie said a bit too loudly, resulting in weird looks
from the shoppers. Ray punched Charlie on the arm, glaring at him. "Do you have a plan?" Ray asked, nervously looking around. "Hm? Nope," Charlie
carelessly said, loading their shopping basket with unnecessary stuff. Ray felt himself panicking. Up until now... Or well, up until a few months ago
he'd been a law-abiding citizen. He wanted to cry but held back, his mom had always said that boys didn't cry. Also, it'd be suspicious crying in the
middle of a store.
"Alright, let's go!" Charlie said, grabbing the basket and bolting, snapping Ray out of his thought spiral. "W-wait up!" Ray yelled, running after
him. They ran out the sliding doors, some incomprehensible yelling following them. Ray wouldn't listen, he couldn't. His heart was beating too fast,
too loudly. This was such a bad idea, Ray thought to himself. But he still followed Charlie, who had dashed to the back of the store. Wasn't that a
dead-end? Ray had no time to think. To his dismay, it was in fact a dead-end. Charlie was nonchalantly standing there, hunched over and catching his
breath. Ray tripped over nothing, falling head-first onto the pavement. He was quickly tackled by the security guard that had been following them,
This is it, Ray thought. He could already imagine their mugshots. But as the security guard grabbed Ray's wrists and put them behind his back, the
guard suddenly stopped and the weight on top of him doubled. Ray could see Charlie's long side-hairs on the sides of his head. Ray looked behind
to see that the guard getting strangled from behind by Charlie. This guy, who was almost twice their size, was struggling against a teenager. He
would've chuckled if he wasn't getting crushed by two people.
Eventually, his struggles stopped and Charlie seemed revitalized. Ray will never understand how that whole process with Charlie "eating" works.
"Alright, you killed him, now get off of me," Ray requested, pushing them both off of his back. "Not even a thank you?" he asked, pouting. "You used
me as bait to get your food, obviously I'm not thanking you," Ray replied, brushing himself off as he got up. "Let's go before someone finds us out."
Charlie picked up the shopping basket full of meat and a small portion normal food. Ray was on edge the whole walk home.
When getting home, Ray kicked off his shoes and threw himself at the couch. "Never again..." Ray groaned, his heart still pounding from the nerve-
wracking walk home. "You're being dramatic," Charlie said, putting the stolen goods on the countertop. "Do we have a cookbook?" Charlie wondered. He
looked through the cupboards but found nothing except plates and fancy glasses. "No, but I think there's a cooking channel on TV," he replied.