The first to die was a girl. Faint from hunger, she fell from a high place and struck her head. The children debated what they should do with her body. It was not Cacus who suggested the unthinkable, but another boy. The rest agreed, and Cacus did as the others did. Was that when he began to become something that was not human, when he first ate human flesh?

Little by little, their wanderings took them to the lower lands to the south and west of the mountains. Here the land offered more game and the rivers more fish, and the plants were more fit to eat. Still, they were hungry.

The next child to die was a boy with an injured foot. When the children came upon a bear and scattered in panic, the boy lagged behind. The bear caught him and mauled him badly, then lumbered off when Cacus came running back, screaming and brandishing a branch. The boy was already dead.

When the children ate that night, it seemed only proper that Cacus should have the largest portion.

Summer passed, and still they found no home. One of the children died after eating a mushroom. Another died after several days of sickness and fever. Despite their hunger, the survivors feared to eat the bodies of those who had died of poison or fever, and so they buried them in shallow graves.

Only Cacus and two others remained. That winter was unusually bitter and cold. Trees shivered naked in the wind. The earth turned as hard as stone. The animals vanished. Even the most skillful hunter would have found it impossible to survive without the desperate solution to which Cacus resorted.

Was that when the change occurred in Cacus-when he decided not to wait for a fall or a bear, or some other chance event? Instead, he did it himself. He did what he had to do, and for the most basic reason: He needed to eat. But he did not act rashly. He did not kill them both at once. First he killed the stronger one, and let the weaker one live a little longer. More than once, that child, his final companion, tried to escape from him. Cacus waited as long as he could, until his hunger was so great that no man could have endured it. He waited because he knew, as soon as the other child was gone, that the only thing worse than hunger would follow: loneliness.