The Digital Hunger

You press your back against the chipped tile wall of the abandoned subway station, clutching the rusted pipe in your hands tighter as the giggling echoes closer—high-pitched, manic, like kids chasing each other at recess, except the smell of copper hangs thick in the air. "Shut the hell up," you hiss to yourself, not daring to breathe as a sticky hand slaps against the vending machine around the corner, its glass cracked and smeared with something dark. The giggling stops. A single notification *ding* cuts through the silence, followed by the familiar, mindless scroll-tap-scroll of tiny fingers on a cracked screen. They’re waiting.

You remember the news alerts before everything went black—how pediatricians first called it "screen hypnosis," then "the hunger," then nothing at all once the bitten adults started turning up half-eaten in playgrounds. Now, the only things left are the corpses, the flies, and *them*—their little faces still smeared with juice box stains and old ketchup, eyes glowing faintly blue from the devices clutched in their rotting hands.

The vending machine creaks. A shadow shifts—small, maybe six years old, one shoelace untied. Its head tilts, sniffing the air like a feral cat. You press harder into the wall, but the pipe slips, clattering against the tiles. The thing’s neck snaps toward the sound, and for a second, you see its pupils dilate—not with recognition, but with the same vacant, algorithmic stare it had watching unboxing videos.

"Mommy?" it rasps, voice hoarse from screaming (or chewing). Its fingers twitch toward you, still swiping at the air like it’s trying to refresh a dead app. Behind it, three more figures shuffle into view, their Disney pajamas crusted with dried blood. One giggles again, the sound wet and broken, as it holds up a severed hand—thumb still twitching against a cracked phone screen.

You bolt. Sneakers skid on congealed puddles of something that isn’t soda as you vault over a turnstile, the pipe clanging behind you like a dinner bell. "Fresh meat!" screeches a voice that used to sing nursery rhymes, and the tunnel erupts in screeches, the slap of bare feet gaining fast.

A flicker of movement—you duck left into a service corridor just as a tiny body slams into the wall where your head had been. The door groans as you shove it shut, but not before you catch a glimpse of the pack: nine, ten of them now, their movements jerky yet synchronized, like buffering livestreams. "Please work," you whisper, jamming a mop handle through the rusted latch. The door shudders under their weight, but holds. For now.

The corridor reeks of bleach and something sour—a janitor’s closet, long abandoned. A single emergency light casts everything in a sickly yellow. Shelves to your right hold brittle rags and a jug of solvent with the safety seal intact. To the left, a chipped sink drips steadily into a bucket half-full of murky water. Behind you, the door's hinges scream as something heavy—a fire extinguisher?—thuds against it.

"Mommy’s hiding," sing-songs a voice through the metal, punctuated by giggling that dissolves into wet coughs. Another voice, younger, chimes in: "Tag! You’re it!" The mop handle creaks. You grab the solvent jug, unscrewing the cap with your teeth just as the latch snaps. The door bursts open, revealing a gap-toothed girl in a Frozen nightgown, her left arm chewed down to bone. She blinks at you, head tilting like a buffering video.

You hurl the solvent in a wide arc. It splashes across the first three—their skin sizzling as they shriek, high and reedy, like overclocked tablet speakers. The others pause, their hollow eyes flickering between you and their twitching companions. One—a boy with half his face missing—lifts his iPhone, the cracked screen casting a blue glow on his ruined cheek. "Siri," he rasps, "how do you cook people?"

The Frozen girl lunges, her remaining hand snagging your sleeve. You twist, slamming the empty jug into her temple. Something cracks—plastic or bone—and she stumbles, giggling as her good arm swings wildly. "Bad Mommy!" she trills, voice glitching like corrupted audio. Behind her, the pack surges forward, their movements stuttering in and out like lagging animations.

You kick the solvent-soaked rag pile toward them, fishing a lighter from your pocket. The boy with the iPhone watches, fascinated, as the flame catches. "Whoa," he whispers, pupils dilating like he's watching a viral challenge. The fire licks up the rags, spreading faster than it should—chemical fumes igniting. The pack screeches, some scrambling back while others paw at the flames like it's another glowing screen to swipe.

> The woman soon managed to escape. Carefully making her way through the city, she spotted two 12-year-old boys in practically spotless private school uniforms. Upon closer inspection, the woman noticed drops of blood on the collars of their white shirts. One of the boys was watching a YouTube video. The second boy was trying to pour ketchup on a wounded man on the ground, but kept missing. The boy with the phone was talking about how he would eat the blogger he was watching. The boy with the ketchup sat on the wounded man's chest and, to avoid missing again, poured ketchup on his face, all the while arguing that if the food at school had been so good, he wouldn't have skipped school.

The boys don't notice you at first—too engrossed in their grotesque tasks. The one straddling the wounded man leans forward, pressing his palm into the man's bloody chest like he's holding down a tablet, his other hand tipping the ketchup bottle with exaggerated concentration. "There," he mutters, smearing red across the man's twitching eyelids, "now it's *proper* lunch." The man groans—still alive—and the boy's head jerks up, his pupils dilating with predatory focus. Behind him, his friend lowers the phone just enough to reveal half-chewed lips stretched in a grin. "Dude," he whispers, nudging his companion, "live *and* interactive!" The second boy's neck snaps toward you with mechanical precision, ketchup dripping from his fingers like syrup.

You take a step back, but it's too late—the boy with the phone lets out a delighted squeal, shoving the screen toward you. "Look! Look!" he chatters, bouncing on his heels. The video shows a mukbang vlogger mid-bite, sauce smeared across their chin. "We can *be* him!" The other boy abandons the dying man without a second thought, scrambling upright with unsettling grace. He licks his ketchup-stained fingers, eyes never leaving yours. "Mommy packed *you* for lunch," he sing-songs, dragging the last word into a warble.

The wounded man wheezes—a wet, rattling sound—as his fingers claw weakly at the pavement. The boys don't even glance back. They're circling now, their polished loafers clicking against concrete in eerie sync. The one with the phone suddenly thrusts it forward, angling the camera at you. "Say hi to our subscribers!" he chirps. Behind the cracked lens, you catch glimpses of other faces—dozens—reflected in the screen, all blinking with the same hollow fascination.

You sidestep a puddle of congealing ketchup, gripping the rusted pipe still tucked in your belt. The boy with the bottle tilts his head, studying your movement like a glitching game character recalibrating. "Pause," he commands, holding up a sticky palm. His friend freezes mid-step, phone still extended. The first boy squints, then points at your pipe. "That's not—" he starts, before his voice distorts into a garbled screech, "*—ON THE MENU!*"

The wounded man groans again, his fingers twitching toward your ankle. You kick free just as the boys lurch forward in unison, their movements suddenly jerky—like buffering video. The one with the phone smacks the device against his palm. "Lagging," he whines, before his pupils dilate to black pits. "*Buffering... buffering...*" His friend's jaw unhinges with a wet crack, ketchup dripping down his chin as he lunges.

You swing the pipe—it connects with the first boy's temple, sending his phone clattering to the ground. The screen shatters, but the video keeps playing, the vlogger's laughter tinny and distorted. "Bad *user*!" the second boy shrieks, tackling you waist-high. His teeth sink into your forearm before you knee him off, his uniform shirt tearing on a jagged pipe.

The wounded man suddenly grabs the fallen phone, fingers trembling as he taps the screen. "No ads—just *eat*!" he croaks, shoving it toward the boys. Their heads snap toward the glowing screen like moths to a bug zapper. The first boy drops to all fours, snuffling at the device. "Premium content," he murmurs, drooling onto the cracked glass.

You seize the moment—driving your elbow into the second boy's nose with a wet crunch. He stumbles back, giggling through the blood now gushing over his perfect white collar. "Epic fail!" he cackles, swiping at his face like he's dismissing a pop-up. His friend doesn't even look up, too busy trying to lick the video through the broken display.

The wounded man's grip on the phone slackens as his breath hitches. "Run," he gurgles, his thumb still smearing ketchup across the screen. You don't hesitate—bolting past the boys just as one of them starts gnawing on the phone's edge, plastic cracking between his teeth. "Wait!" the other shrieks, his voice skipping like a corrupted audio file. "Subscribe! *Subscribe!*"

You vault over a toppled newspaper stand, the pipe clattering against your thigh as you weave through a maze of abandoned cars. Behind you, the screeching grows fainter—until a new sound cuts through: the rhythmic tap-tap-tap of small hands against glass. Peering through a shattered storefront, you spot a cluster of them—maybe eight or nine—their faces pressed against an electronics store display, fingers swiping at the dead screens of tablets locked behind the glass. One turns, her pigtails matted with something dark, and blinks at you with eerie recognition. "*Update available,*" she chirps.

> The woman runs on and sees a nine-year-old girl in a T-shirt, denim shorts, and knee-high socks sitting on the ground, watching a video on her phone, trying to tie the laces of the only sneaker on her foot. When she succeeds, the girl screams victoriously, and the woman realizes they are learning. The woman begins to think about what will happen to the world when their training is over.

The girl's triumphant squeal cuts through the humid air as she finally knots the lace, her grubby fingers flexing with exaggerated pride. She doesn't look up—too busy rewinding the tutorial video—but her socked foot twitches, the loose threads of her shorts swaying as she hums along to the instructional voice. The screen's blue glow reflects off the dried ketchup smeared around her mouth like lipstick applied in the dark. Behind her, three other children crouch in a semicircle, their necks craned at unnatural angles to watch her progress. One—a boy missing his right hand—nods along, his stump tapping against his thigh in mimicry of her movements. Their breathing syncs, shallow and rhythmic, as the video loops: *Cross the laces... make the bunny ears...* The girl's pupils contract with each replay, her victorious grin widening until the corners of her mouth split like overstretched rubber bands.

You edge backward, your heel crunching on a discarded juice box. The children's heads snap toward the sound in perfect unison—their necks twisting with the abruptness of buffering videos. The girl tilts her head, her pigtails swinging like pendulum weights. "*New... notification?*" she rasps, her voice glitching between childlike curiosity and something colder, algorithmic. The boy with the missing hand licks his lips, his tongue dragging across chapped skin with a sound like peeling tape. "*Download complete,*" he announces, raising his stump as if to high-five the air. The others echo him, their voices overlapping in a garbled chorus: *Download complete. Download complete.*

A sudden vibration makes you freeze—the girl's phone buzzing against the pavement. Her cracked screen lights up with a pop-up: *Tutorial Complete! Advance to Level 2?* She blinks at it, then at you, her pupils dilating until her irises vanish into black voids. "*Player... two,*" she whispers, her fingers curling around the phone like a claw grip. Behind her, the other children rise jerkily, their movements stuttering like lagging avatars. One of them—a girl in a tattered princess dress—reaches into her pocket and pulls out a pair of safety scissors, the blades crusted with rust and something darker. "*Multiplayer mode activated,*" she sing-songs, snipping the air with a wet *click-click.*

You backpedal, your elbow knocking over a stack of abandoned lunch trays. The metallic clatter sends the pack into a frenzy—their heads twitching like glitching animations. The boy with the missing hand lunges first, his stump swinging wildly as if still clutching an invisible controller. "*Controller disconnected!*" he shrieks, colliding with a trash can. The princess girl giggles, her scissors snagging your sleeve as you twist away. "*No cheat codes allowed,*" she hisses, her breath smelling of sour gummy worms and pennies.

The tutorial girl steps forward, her sneaker squeaking on the blood-slick pavement. She tilts the phone toward you, its cracked display now showing a live feed—your own terrified reflection pixelated in the lens. "*Join our party?*" she asks, her voice modulating unnaturally between childlike sweetness and staticky distortion. Behind her, the others chant, "*Join! Join!*" their hands outstretched like they're waiting for a device sync. The boy with the stump starts gnawing on his own forearm, his teeth clicking against bone. "*Snack break first,*" he mumbles through a mouthful of his own flesh.

> The woman runs and the thought is spinning in her head that when the children's education ends, it will be the end not only of this city, but of the whole world. The woman runs past an elementary school.

The elementary school's chain-link fence rattles as you skid past, its twisted metal gnawed and bent inward like something had chewed its way *out*. Through the gaps, you see them—rows of tiny figures lined up in the courtyard, their backs turned, heads bobbing in unison. A teacher's voice crackles from a busted intercom: "*...and now, children, we'll practice our... multiplication tables...*" The audio glitches, dissolving into static. One child turns—a boy with a gaping hole where his left eye should be—his remaining pupil dilating as it locks onto you. His lips move silently, counting. Behind him, others begin to pivot, their movements synchronized like pixels refreshing. A girl in a bloodstained "Future Leader" t-shirt raises her hand, fingers twitching as if swiping an invisible screen. "*Miss Jenkins?*" she whines, her voice skipping like a scratched CD, "*The lesson plan says... we get to... eat our homework today...*" The intercom buzzes again: "*...correct answers only... proceed to... lunchroom...*" The chain-link groans as twenty small hands grasp it simultaneously, their fingers curling through the gaps like worms through soil.

You stumble backward into a toppled jungle gym—its rusted bars now festooned with something stringy and pink. A lone sneaker dangles from the monkey bars, its laces tied in a perfect bow. The children press against the fence, their breath fogging the metal in rhythmic bursts. One—a freckled kid with half his scalp missing—presses his cheek against the links and whispers, "*Mommy... forgot... parent-teacher conference...*" His tongue lolls out, lapping at the rust like it's ice cream drips. Behind him, another child holds up a tablet—its screen shattered but still displaying a worksheet. The math problem glitches: *If Mommy has 10 fingers and you eat 7, how many will she have left?* The boy with the missing eye giggles, scribbling the answer in the air with a chewed pencil. "*Three!*" he crows, "*Plus bonus toes!*" The fence shudders as their collective weight leans forward, links popping like zipper teeth.

You grab a broken bottle from the asphalt—its jagged edge still sticky with soda residue—and hurl it at the intercom speaker. The glass shatters the corroded metal, silencing the glitching voice mid-sentence. The children freeze, their heads tilting in unison like a buffering video. The Future Leader girl's mouth opens—a wet click—before she emits a high-pitched tone, like a modem connecting. "*Error... 404... teacher not found...*" The others echo her, their voices layering into a staticky chorus. The missing-eyed boy suddenly lunges, his fingers slipping through the fence gaps to snag your sleeve. "*Rebooting... lunch period...*" he rasps, pulling with surprising strength. The denim tears as you wrench free, but not before you see his chewed nails are painted with chipped gold—"*Honor Roll...*" spelled in crooked letters.

The freckled kid licks his lips, his remaining eye flickering between you and the broken intercom. "*Independent... study time...*" he announces, snapping his pencil in half with a wet crack. The others murmur in agreement, their fingers unlatching from the fence one by one. The Future Leader girl pivots toward the school building, her sneakers squeaking on congealed blood. "*Principal says... extra credit... for self-directed... learning...*" Behind her, the pack shuffles into formation, their tiny hands clasped behind their backs like a grotesque field trip. Only the missing-eyed boy lingers, his fingertips brushing the torn scrap of your sleeve. "*Mommy...*" he whispers, his voice glitching between longing and static, "*...will you sign... my permission slip... to go outside...?*"

You bolt as his fingernails scrape the pavement, the sound like a dozen tablets charging at once. The jungle gym's shadow stretches long across the playground—a twisted skeleton of metal framing the horror behind you. A sudden *ding* cuts through your panicked breathing—a notification from the school's marquee, its broken letters flickering: *TODAY'S LESSON: SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST. HOMEWORK: BRING A FRIEND TO DISSECTION.* The missing-eyed boy's giggle echoes, closer now. "*Teacher says... group projects... get better... grades...*"

> A woman runs from a school when a school bus catches up with her. The bus doors open, and the man behind the wheel yells at the woman to get on. The woman jumps on and sees several more living adults. The doors close, and the bus quickly takes off. Then, in the back of the bus, the woman sees in horror several children filming her with their cell phones. The man behind the wheel tells her, "Sorry, but these are our children. We have to feed them!" The zombie children get up from their seats and approach the woman, intent on having lunch.

The bus doors hiss shut behind you as the vehicle lurches forward, throwing you against a cracked vinyl seat. The driver—a haggard man with a peeling "World's Best Dad" coffee mug wedged into the cupholder—doesn't even glance back as he floors the accelerator. "Sorry kid," he grunts through a mouthful of nicotine gum, steering one-handed while the other clutches a bloodstained teddy bear on the dashboard. Behind you, the living adults sit perfectly still, their eyes fixed straight ahead like commuters pretending not to notice a subway fight. Then the first phone light blinks on—a pale blue glow reflecting off the emergency exit handles. You turn to see them: a dozen children in the back rows, their faces illuminated by cracked screens, sticky fingers swiping at camera apps. "Say cheese," whispers a girl with braces made of twisted paperclips, her iPhone's flash blinding you momentarily. The driver sighs as the bus swerves around a corpse-filled stroller. "Look, we all gotta eat," he mutters, adjusting the rearview mirror just enough to watch. The children rise in unison, their seatbelts unsnapping with a chorus of metallic clicks. One boy—his "Student of the Month" ribbon still pinned to a gore-stained polo—lifts his phone to film, the lens fogged with his excited breath. "POV: You're our lunchbox," he giggles, the audio distorting as his jaw unhinges with a wet pop.

You scramble backward as the first set of tiny hands grasp the seatbacks, their owners hauling themselves forward like climbers conquering a jungle gym. A woman in a nurse's uniform finally moves—not to help you, but to gently guide a stumbling toddler toward you, her voice saccharine sweet. "Be a good girl and share, Emily," she coos, wiping ketchup off the child's chin with her sleeve. The toddler nods solemnly, her light-up sneakers flashing red with each step as she extends a juice box toward you—the straw already chewed to splinters. The bus hits a pothole, sending a cascade of Lunchables containers skittering down the aisle. "Heads up!" yells a dad in a faded Little League coach shirt, catching one midair and popping the crackers into his own mouth. The nurse sighs, nudging the toddler closer. "They learn so much from unboxing videos," she murmurs, her eyes glazing over as a boy in a half-eaten Spider-Man costume starts dismantling the emergency hammer case. "Practical life skills."

The driver suddenly slams on the brakes, sending the charging pack of children tumbling into a pile of limbs and tablet screens. "Jesus Christ," he hisses, white-knuckling the wheel as the bus idles before a railroad crossing—the tracks long abandoned, but the crossing arms still mechanically lowering. Behind the rusted barriers, a single-file line of kindergarteners in matching "Field Trip!" vests shuffle across, each clutching the shoulders of the child in front. Their teacher—a skeletal woman missing an arm—brings up the rear, her remaining hand gripping a clipboard. "Single. File. Line," she barks between wet coughs, pausing to swat a wandering child back into formation with her stump. The nurse beside you presses her face to the window, fogging the glass. "Oh! That's Mrs. Henderson's class," she whispers excitedly, tapping the toddler on the head. "See Emily? That's why we don't bite our friends." The toddler blinks, then sinks her teeth into the nurse's wrist with a crunch. The woman doesn't flinch, just sighs and pats the child's hair. "Teething," she explains to you apologetically.

The crossing arm creaks upward as the last kindergartener vanishes into the overgrown weeds. The driver shifts into gear—then freezes as a tiny hand slaps against his window. A lone straggler stares up at him, its "Buddy System" lanyard swinging. "*You... forgot...*" it rasps, its voice skipping like a corrupted audio file, "*...your... chaperone... duties...*" The driver's jaw clenches as he rolls down the window just enough to shove a half-eaten granola bar into the child's mouth. "There's your damn snack," he growls, peeling out as the kid stumbles back, chewing mechanically. In the rearview mirror, you see it lift its arms—not in distress, but in perfect TikTok dance formation—as the pack emerges from the weeds to swarm it.