The smell blood has is different when it’s coming out of a stomach wound. The smell of a lung or the intestines has a warm raw smell. It’s so overbearing that it gives you a slight nauseous headache. But you can’t let it show, or you’ll get pistol whipped or worse, they’ll shoot you where you’re standing. My friend threw up, and they walked up behind him and boom. He fell on the ground, his eyes rolling to the back of his head. He twitched for 2 minutes, then he exhaled a guttural noise and stopped moving. He was dead.
I couldn’t cry or show weakness, or I would be lying next to him. So I swallowed heavy and tried not to get teary-eyed. They called me up next. It was my turn. They handed me a knife, and he pointed with his head at the corpse behind him. It was one of their enemies, captured a few days ago and brought here to be interrogated and used as a training tool for new recruits. He’d been dead since before the sun came up. He was tortured viciously. He was bruised up pretty bad. I still remember him begging for death. The way he was wailing would never leave me. They stuck ice picks in him and scraped at his bones under his flesh. They call it bone tickling. I hope to die in a hail of bullets before getting captured. I know the rivals will torture me the same, if not worse.
So, with a knife in hand, I knelt down in front of the corpse. He smelled bad. Not really that blood smell but more like shit because people do shit and piss themselves when they die. They yelled for me to hurry the fuck up or I’d be there dead next to him. So I grabbed his arm and sliced a good sized chunk off of him. I wanted to throw up, but looking at my friends body not 5 feet away from me, the blood around his head letting steam off in the cold morning made me push on. I took the piece of flesh and I shoved it in my mouth. The taste and the smell of shit and this whole unreal experience made me gag. But I quickly caught the piece I instinctly spit out and shoved it back in my mouth. I chewed it as best I could, best way I can describe it, it was like chewing on a soft piece of tire. I was chewing it and slowly working it to the back of my throat and I swallowed it. They laughed at me and called me a fucking cannibal. I stood up and they called the next guy and handed him the knife.
I came here to make a name for myself. To get respect and to cause fear in people when they hear my name. They will write songs about me. I’ll be the most blood thirsty and twisted one of all. At least that’s what I was thinking before I got here. Now I just want to not fuck up bad enough to get a bullet to my head. I came here with 3 others, friends since childhood. 2 didn’t make it this far but I cannot cry or I’ll be dead like them. I wonder what I’ll tell their mothers, that they died for being cowardly, that they didn’t have the balls. No I’ll make up something to keep their memory untarnished.
That was the last day of training. I passed the final test. They kept us cold, tired and scared these last 3 weeks. No contact with the outside. Up in the remote hills, they brought us here blindfolded in case we get captured and tortured for information, we won’t be able to tell our captors the location of this training camp. It’s more like a factory, pumping out killers and violence seen by all in the news reports. We have weapons training and survival training, and we ate pieces of human flesh to rid us of the fear of blood. That body we cut pieces from we, then cut it up into into pieces. The head, the arms, at the elbows, the thighs, at the knees.
They think it’s really funny to have a celebratory barbecue for the us right after we dismembered that body. They grill up chicken, steaks they go all out. But of course, none of us are hungry from what we just had to do. But them they don’t even wash the dry blood off their hands. They’re laughing, drinking beer eating, right next to the human pieces we just cut into 10 parts. They’re even shoving chicken into the open mouth on the decapitated head. They force us to eat. Luckily, we’re now allowed to drink beer, and I use the beer to swallow the meat off the grill. I don’t think I’ll ever eat meat again. The smell of a human burning smells just like when you’re grilling chicken.
On that last night, we were forced to sleep next to the dead we cut up earlier. But that night, even though I was asleep next to this guy’s body parts, it was the best sleep I got in those 3 weeks. I knew I made it. I was in the cartel. No more getting woken up to gunfire, them rushing into the cold, dark room yelling. They kept us cold and tired those 3 weeks. But they were worth it. I made it, though. If hell is real, then this is it. We tortured, dismembered, and burned our enemy. We lost the fear of blood and were capable of doing horrific things to our opponents without feeling guilty or sad. We have no consciousness, no heart. I made it, though. I’m in the cartel
. RIP Checo!