[eaten alive]

the descent into madness is never a step, but a fall. a day after being released from the hospital, Kaneki Ken kills a human. au

warning: ooc-ness, death, gore.

a/n: i don't know what this is. enjoy i guess…

disclaimer: i do not own tokyo ghoul.

At first, human flesh tastes like ash. It leaves a chalky, charcoal aftertaste in his mouth, heavy and laced with a saccharine sweetness. It's heady and bitter and everything the ghoul inside wants it to be. So he continues eating.

Eventually, the bones and rivulets of flesh fall easily under his teeth, torn asunder by his molars which grin mercilessly against the screaming flesh. And oh how it screams. A cacophony of breathless pleading and too-late howls that culminate into a still, dead silence.

He does not taste the bitterness anymore; only the tarty sweetness that overcomes his senses. He likes it better this way. It's like an addiction, like a human dependent on cigarettes.

Except he leaves the hollow bones of a person behind, not leftover ash.

He inhales again. The smoke curls around him, tendrils of blood-soaked desires that cause his sclera to turn an inky black, pupils a rosendrium.

(He doesn't look in mirrors anymore.)

It's all some horrible dream, right? Some fucked up nightmare he's seen again and again and again-

it doesn't matter if he's woken up to blood painting the apartment walls, he didn't kill anyone. He couldn't kill anyone.

He's the bookworm. The quiet kid who kept his hand down in class even when he knew the answer. He couldn't rip a person apart with his bare hands, scooping out innards in a frantic haze of bloodlust. No, that's ridiculous.

So he ignores all the news reports that talk of students going missing from his college campus.

It's all just a coincidence… he assures himself. The ghoul inside rumbles in agreement.

Human. Ghoul. None of it matters. All he cares about is the feeling of broken bones under his fingertips and the taste of slick flesh under his teeth. Who gives a shit if the peacekeeping doves are down in his ward? He doesn't.

Because he's a fucking monster. He's nearly killed his best friend (a wonder, really, how he had stopped himself in time), eaten his fellow classmates. But it doesn't matter anymore; he's fucked up in the head, always has been. He can't even hear his mother's voice…

Just the ghoul inside. The one that tells him to attack a seemingly unsuspecting old man with long white hair and bug-like silver eyes. The hunger erases all of the soft-spoken boy with a love of literature, leaving nothing but a walking husk.

He's dead long before his head rolls onto the alleyway ground.

That's the truth of all ghouls. Eventually, the hunger will eat you alive. Kaneki Ken isn't the first ghoul (born or man-made) to suffer under its burden, and he certainly won't be the last. So curl up, turn off the lights, pretend the world is wrapped up in neat little bow and nothing- no one, can hurt you. But whether you are the hunter or the prey, madness follows. It's not a step, not a leap, but a fall. And its descent is not kind.