From: ASG102@psuvm.psu.edu
Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn
Subject: The Hunger of Madness
Message-ID: <92266.141017ASG102@psuvm.psu.edu>
Date: 22 Sep 92 18:10:17 GMT

Water covered the street in pools just outside the warehouse. It came from
the light rain that sprayed the Low City a few hours ago, now mixed with
the dirt and waste of too many humans living too close together.  Inside that
warehouse, where it is slightly warmer, an unpleasant smell hung in the
air.  Two people were in that warehouse.  One was helpless and young, tied to
the legs of an overturned table and gaged with a dirty rag.

Panic pulsed through his mind over and over.  He couldn't believe that this
was happening to him.  Why couldn't it have been someone else?  He knew that he
would die in the Low City some day, but why did it have to be so soon, and
like this?

Over him leaned a man with a mouth full of rotting teeth.  He brought his
long knife close to the boy's exposed chest and then moved close to his right
ear and wispered some vile suggestions of what he was intending to do with the
knife.

Upon hearing the wispered words of his death, the boy strained upon the
ropes that bound him in a futile attempt to break free.  His body worked on
pure instinct, no higher reasoning was possible.  He knew one thing, he must
escape, but he could not.

The man leaning over the boy felt every wave of fear as a wave of joy.
The boy's fright became his elation.  The boy's panic was his ecstacy.
This man fed off of these emotions, fueling his desire to cause more horrors.

He had found children to be the purist source of this nourishment.  He
had tried torturing adults, but too many of them had lived to see enough
evil that the effect of his work was dulled.

He touched the point of the knife to the boy's chest and made a long
scratch in his dirty skin, drawing a thin stream of rich red blood.  What
a treasure it was.  The boy's eyes widened in terror as the whispers began
coming true.

-----------

Five hours later, the stooped form of the Gutt Man left the warehouse satisfied
in another day's work.  He was now wearing his other set of clothes, hiding
the blood-stained ones in his hole-ridden oily sack.  As usual, he felt elated.
There was only one thing that nagged him, one had gotten away.  With a sigh,
the Gutt Man made a vow to punish the little girl who had taken away a
fraction of his pleasure...

-----------

     Love and Peace and Insanity,
            -The Dreamer-