When I Tremble I Am Meat: prequel to Consecrated - By Salem Youngblood
Written By: Salem Youngblood
Category: Short story
Competition: Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026
Salem Youngblood invites readers into a chilling and introspective journey with "When I Tremble I Am Meat: prequel to Consecrated," submitted to the Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026. A haunting short story, it delves into the dystopian future where human identity and autonomy are stripped away, presenting a stark reflection on the human condition. This piece is part of Hashtag Kalakar's illustrious competition, celebrating creativity and the power of storytelling.
About the Work
Salem Youngblood's "When I Tremble I Am Meat" explores themes of identity, dehumanization, and resistance. The narrative is set in a harrowing future where individuals are reduced to commodities, stripped of their voices and identities. Through evocative imagery and poignant language, Youngblood masterfully depicts the protagonist's internal struggle between self-awareness and the imposed silence, creating a powerful commentary on the resilience of the human spirit amidst oppression.
When I Tremble I Am Meat: prequel to Consecrated
Original Submission by Salem Youngblood
When I Tremble I Am Meat
They do not want me to scream.
I misunderstood that in the beginning, because screaming seemed like the natural product of a place such as this, something the Covenant would cultivate the way farmers once cultivated fat beneath the skin of pigs, and because there were drains beneath every table and restraints bolted into every wall and instruments arranged in steel trays with such careful distances between them that I assumed pain was part of whatever sacrament they believed themselves to be performing.
But screaming is language.
That is what I learn.
A scream says something is happening to me.
A scream says I know it is happening.
A scream says I would like it to stop.
Even without words, a scream implies a self.
The Covenant cannot have that.
The Covenant needs silence.
So when I scream, they punish me.
When I beg, they punish me more.
When I say my name, they punish me until I cannot remember why the arrangement of those three letters matters so much.
Eve.
Three letters.
One syllable.
A woman made from a rib.
A woman blamed for hunger.
I find that funny sometimes.
They don't like when I laugh either.
---
My name is Eve.
I repeat it internally because I have learned not to move my mouth.
My name is Eve.
My name is Eve.
My name is Eve.
I was born on a Tuesday.
I think.
I had a mother.
I know.
I had a father.
Probably.
There was a kitchen with yellow curtains, a wooden crucifix above the doorway, and a chipped ceramic bowl that my mother refused to throw away because it had belonged to her mother, and on Sundays there was always the smell of coffee and hairspray and whatever perfume she dabbed behind her ears before Mass, though sometimes I wonder whether I invented those details because memories have begun to feel like stories someone told me about another woman.
My name is Eve.
I am Catholic.
I believe in God.
I believe in God.
I believe in God.
That one becomes harder every morning.
---
The woman in white does not call herself a doctor.
She calls herself a Steward.
There are many Stewards.
Some wear white.
Some wear gray.
Some carry clipboards.
Some carry batons.
Some carry syringes.
All of them wear gloves.
They touch us constantly but never with bare hands.
That matters to them.
Purity always seems to require gloves.
The Steward standing beside my table is preparing an injection while another watches a monitor displaying things about my body that I cannot see: heart rate, temperature, blood pressure, oxygen, perhaps fear, if they have finally invented a machine capable of measuring it.
My legs are already shaking.
The room is cold deliberately.
They learned early that cold produces trembling without visible injury, which makes it useful during evaluations.
The Covenant likes measurable things.
They like numbers because numbers do not accuse anyone.
“How long since vocalization?”
“Thirty-six hours.”
“Voluntary?”
“Mostly.”
“Mostly isn't sufficient.”
“No.”
“Response to verbal stimulus?”
“Eye tracking remains elevated.”
“Reduce it.”
The first Steward glances toward me.
I look away immediately.
Too late.
She writes something.
Eye tracking.
I hate that phrase.
There are phrases here for everything that proves we are human. Eye tracking.
Social seeking.
Protective response.
Anticipatory distress.
Attachment behavior.
Vocalization.
Recognition.
Grief.
Every ordinary human thing becomes a symptom requiring correction.
The syringe enters my thigh.
Fire spreads beneath my skin.
I clench my jaw because noise will bring the baton.
My legs shake harder.
The Steward watches.
“When I tremble I am meat,” I think.
I do not say it.
They have taught me that much.
---
Before the Covenant there were animals.
That sounds stupid.
There are still animals.
Just not many that we can touch.
Fewer that we can eat.
The disease moved through livestock first, although by then people had become accustomed to hearing about diseases in distant places and believing distance was another kind of immunity, so we watched footage of cattle stumbling through mud and chickens convulsing in industrial sheds and pigs being burned by the thousands, and we called it unfortunate while continuing to buy meat beneath clean plastic because the dead have always been easier to consume when someone washes away the blood.
Then people started dying.
Not immediately.
That would have been kinder.
A family would eat beef for dinner and wake during the night vomiting until there was nothing left to vomit, then continue anyway, their bodies trying to expel organs that could not be expelled.
Children died from chicken.
Men died from pork.
Hospitals filled.
Governments issued recalls.
Then larger recalls.
Then bans.
Then emergency slaughter orders.
The surviving animals carried something we could not reliably remove through heat, freezing, curing, irradiation, prayer, legislation, or denial.
Humanity discovered very quickly that civilization had been built around the assumption that something else would always be available to kill.
When that assumption failed, religion became useful again.
The Covenant appeared on television before they appeared in our streets. Their priests spoke gently.
That is something I remember.
They never shouted.
They talked about famine.
Children.
Supply chains.
Necessity.
Sacrifice.
Leviticus.
Clean flesh.
Unclean flesh.
Purity.
They spoke about the human body as though God had designed it with a secondary purpose we had been too sentimental to recognize, and they found verses concerning animals and purity and blood and rearranged them into something new enough to sound ancient.
People laughed at first.
Then food became expensive.
Then food became scarce.
Then people stopped laughing.
Hunger is extraordinarily persuasive.
---
I was Catholic before they took me.
Not the decorative kind.
Not Christmas and Easter.
I went every Sunday.
I went on Wednesdays sometimes when life felt unbearable and I needed somewhere quiet enough to hear myself think.
I confessed.
I fasted.
I prayed the rosary.
I carried one in my purse.
Wooden beads.
Brown.
A little silver crucifix.
When they captured me, one of the handlers found it while emptying my belongings onto a steel tray.
Wallet.
Keys.
Phone.
Rosary.
Lip balm.
Receipts.
A photograph I cannot remember now.
He lifted the rosary between two gloved fingers.
“You're religious.”
“Yes.”
I had not learned silence yet.
I thought answering questions might help me.
I thought cooperation was something civilized people rewarded.
“Catholic?”
“Yes.”
He smiled.
Not mockingly.
That would have been easier.
He smiled as though we had discovered something we shared.
“So you already understand consumption as devotion.”
I stared at him.
He let the crucifix swing.
“Take and eat.”
I lunged for him.
I don't remember deciding to.
One moment I was sitting.
The next I was on the floor with someone's knee between my shoulders and blood in my mouth. The rosary broke.
Beads rolled beneath the table.
I watched them disappear.
For several days afterward I found myself thinking about those beads more than God. ---
The Covenant calls us the First Offering.
There are hundreds of us spread throughout several facilities, although I do not know where the others are or whether that number is true.
We are not intended for immediate processing.
We are demonstration stock.
That is another phrase I learned accidentally.
Demonstration stock.
The Covenant needs the public to see us before the public will agree to eat us.
People are sentimental about people.
The Covenant understands this.
So first they must establish that Sacraments are not really people.
Not anymore.
Perhaps never.
Their broadcasts explain that the neurological treatments given to Sacraments reduce cognition below the threshold associated with conventional livestock.
Below cattle.
Below pigs.
Below poultry.
Below turkeys.
I remember the turkey comparison because a reporter asked about it during one of the broadcasts.
The Covenant representative smiled.
“A Sacrament possesses less self-awareness than the average domestic turkey.” People wanted to believe him.
That is the part that hurts most.
They wanted him to be right.
Because if he was right, dinner became possible again.
---
The first stage is speech.
They call it Vocal Extinction.
The phrase is printed on a chart attached to the wall.
I see it once before they realize I can still read.
After that they turn the charts around.
Speech is not lost accidentally.
They train it out of us.
At first, they punish words.
If I say water, no water.
If I say please, the baton.
If I say stop, restraint.
If I say my name, injection.
If I ask a question, isolation.
If I speak an entire sentence, they cover my mouth with a mask and leave it there until panic teaches my body what language costs.
But silence is rewarded.
Silence brings food.
Silence brings water.
Silence means the lights go dark at night.
Silence means the restraints loosen.
Silence means nobody enters the enclosure.
Eventually my body begins stopping words before my mind can finish making them. I think water.
My tongue does not move.
I think please.
My jaw locks.
I think my name is Eve.
My throat closes.
They have not removed language.
Not yet.
They have simply convinced my nervous system that language causes pain. This pleases them enormously.
---
There is a man two enclosures away who refuses.
His name is Daniel.
I know because he tells us every morning.
“My name is Daniel Mercer.”
The handlers strike him.
“My name is Daniel Mercer.”
They shock him.
“My name is Daniel Mercer.”
They withhold food.
“My name is Daniel Mercer.”
They break one finger.
“My name is Daniel Mercer.”
They take him away.
He returns unable to stand properly.
Still, after the lights dim, we hear him.
“My name is Daniel Mercer.”
I lie awake listening.
“My name is Daniel Mercer.”
Another voice whispers from somewhere.
“Daniel.”
Another answers.
“Daniel.”
Soon the room is full of us saying his name so quietly that the cameras cannot distinguish speech from breathing.
Daniel.
Daniel.
Daniel.
For one night he belongs to all of us.
The next morning the handlers come wearing masks.
They remove him.
He does not return.
Nobody says Daniel again.
Not because we forget.
Because we understand.
---
The chemicals come after obedience.
They want the mind quiet, but not destroyed.
That distinction is important.
A dead mind cannot walk into a feeding pen.
A heavily damaged body costs money to maintain.
A completely unconscious Sacrament looks sick.
The Covenant wants us healthy.
Healthy flesh.
Healthy organs.
Healthy muscles.
Empty eyes.
The treatments are designed to make those things coexist.
The physician discusses me while I am lying three feet away.
He does this because I no longer speak, and silence has apparently convinced him that I cannot understand.
“Retention remains high.”
“For?”
“Semantic processing. Episodic recall. Recognition.”
“That's unacceptable.”
“Temporarily. Higher cognition will degrade with continued dosing.”
“What about speech?”
“Physically intact.”
The Steward looks annoyed.
“That isn't the target.”
“No. But learned suppression is approaching total.”
“We need total.”
“It will be.”
“They cannot vocalize during demonstrations.”
“They won't.”
“Cannot.”
A pause.
The physician looks at me.
I stare at the wall.
“Understood.”
That afternoon the injections change.
---
There is a period after each injection when I cannot organize the world. The ceiling becomes separate from the room.
My hand becomes separate from my arm.
Sound arrives before meaning.
Meaning arrives before memory.
Sometimes a handler says my name.
Eve.
My body reacts.
They record that.
Then he says another name.
Rachel.
Nothing.
Another.
Mary.
Nothing.
Eve.
My eyes move.
They record it.
Again.
Eve.
I force myself not to look.
Eve.
I stare at the floor.
Eve.
Something inside me screams that's you. I remain still.
The handler waits.
Eve.
I do not move.
Eventually he writes something. Recognition absent.
I almost laugh.
I have learned how to lie without speaking.
For the first time since they took me, I feel victorious. That feeling lasts three days.
Then someone says Eve and I genuinely do not recognize it. ---
When I tremble I am meat.
I begin using the sentence privately.
It becomes a measurement.
When I tremble I am meat.
When I remember I am Eve.
When I tremble I am meat.
When I pray I am Eve.
When I tremble I am meat.
When I hate them I am Eve.
When I tremble I am meat.
When I remember my mother's kitchen I am Eve. When I tremble I am meat.
When I know that what they are doing is wrong I am Eve. The categories help.
Meat.
Eve.
Meat.
Eve.
I divide myself between them.
I don't realize that eventually one column will become easier to remember. ---
They bring a group of visitors into the observation corridor.
Families.
Journalists.
Clergy.
Government people.
Potential donors.
I can see them through the glass.
We have been washed.
Our enclosure has been cleaned.
Fresh straw covers the floor.
The handlers have removed anything we might use to hurt ourselves or communicate. No bowls.
No utensils.
No loose cloth.
Nothing that can become a symbol.
Nothing that can become writing.
The Covenant priest stands before the glass and explains us.
“The First Offering represents the future of ethical human nourishment.”
Ethical.
I know that word.
I wish I didn't.
A woman raises her hand.
“They don't understand what's happening?”
“No.”
“Nothing?”
“Neurological restructuring eliminates meaningful self-awareness.” She looks at us.
There are eleven in my enclosure.
Or twelve.
Counting is difficult today.
A man beside me rocks forward and backward.
A woman stares at the ceiling.
Someone is chewing straw.
I sit with my hands between my knees because the chemicals make them shake. “What about pain?” another visitor asks.
“Basic nociception remains, as it does in all viable organisms, but there is no cognitive framework capable of interpreting pain as suffering.”
I understand every fucking word.
That is the miracle.
That is the obscenity.
I understand nociception.
I understand cognitive framework.
I understand suffering.
I understand that the man speaking believes none of this matters because I cannot stand up and tell him he is lying.
My mouth opens.
A handler notices.
His hand moves toward the baton.
I close it.
The visitor continues watching me.
For one second our eyes meet.
I want to say:
My name is Eve.
Three words.
That is all.
Not save me.
Not help.
Not God.
Just evidence.
My.
Name.
Is.
Eve.
My tongue presses against my teeth.
The handler watches.
My legs begin shaking.
The visitor notices.
The priest smiles.
“You see? Reflexive tremor. No emotional significance.”
When I tremble I am meat.
I stare at the woman through the glass.
When I tremble I am meat.
She turns away.
---
There is an old woman in the enclosure beside mine who remembers hymns. Not words.
Melodies.
The chemicals have taken the language but left the music behind.
At night she hums.
The first time I hear it, something inside me opens so violently that I begin crying before I know why.
Ave Maria.
I think.
Or maybe Salve Regina.
Something from church.
Something from before.
The old woman hums.
I crawl toward the divider.
She looks at me.
I press my forehead against the wire. She does the same.
Neither of us speaks.
We are good now.
We know better.
But she hums.
I hum with her.
A handler enters immediately.
Music counts.
Of course it counts.
Music means memory.
Music means culture.
Music means one mind recognizing another. They drag her away.
I grip the wire.
I don't scream.
I don't beg.
I don't say anything.
That is what they have taught me.
She reaches toward me while they pull her across the floor.
Her mouth opens.
No sound comes out.
Maybe she has learned too.
Maybe she cannot anymore.
The door closes.
I never see her again.
That night I try to remember the melody.
I cannot.
---
The treatments continue.
There are holes now.
Not darkness.
Holes.
I know something should exist in certain places, but when I reach for it there is only the shape left behind.
Mother.
I know mother is important.
I cannot see her face.
Church.
I know church means something.
I cannot remember why I went.
God.
I know God is—
God is—
God—
I sleep.
---
There is a red door.
People go through it.
People do not return.
We understand this.
The Covenant says we cannot understand death.
We understand the red door.
When handlers enter and point toward someone, that person urinates. That person shakes.
That person crawls backward.
That person grabs the enclosure.
That person knows.
The handlers call it stimulus aversion.
The Covenant calls it reflex.
The cameras call it nothing.
A young man is chosen.
He cannot speak.
None of us speak anymore.
He looks around the enclosure.
His eyes move from face to face.
Please.
There is no word.
There does not need to be.
Please.
He reaches toward us.
Please.
Nobody moves.
Boots.
Batons.
Cameras.
Please.
His hand remains extended.
I want to take it.
I do not.
They drag him through the red door. The machinery begins several minutes later. I sit in the straw.
My legs tremble.
When I tremble I am meat.
---
Eventually they stop calling me Eve.
Then E-17.
Then Sacrament.
Eventually they don't call me anything because livestock does not require individual address. A click means stand.
Two clicks mean walk.
A whistle means stop.
A light means food.
A buzzer means enclosure.
They discover that language can be replaced with signals.
I learn quickly.
That embarrasses me.
Then I forget why.
---
Sometimes there are dreams.
Kitchen.
Yellow.
Hands.
Church.
Wood.
A little silver man nailed to something.
Someone saying:
Body.
Someone saying:
Blood.
Someone saying:
Take.
Eat.
I wake with my mouth open.
There is drool on my chin.
I wipe it away.
No.
I don't.
Hands are difficult.
The straw scratches.
I am hungry.
Someone beside me makes a sound. I look.
Woman.
Maybe.
Person.
No.
Something.
She touches my arm.
I touch hers.
Warm.
Good.
The camera turns.
We separate.
---
The final evaluation takes place beneath bright lights.
There are people behind the glass again.
More than before.
The Covenant priest speaks into a microphone.
I hear applause.
He explains that the First Offering program has exceeded expectations, that Sacraments demonstrate cognitive function significantly below conventional livestock, that they possess no meaningful language, no individual identity, no comprehension of mortality, no complex social attachment, and no capacity to conceptualize suffering.
I sit naked beneath the lights.
My legs shake.
Someone points at me.
The priest says something.
People laugh softly.
I don't understand why.
There is a word I used to know.
Something about a garden.
Something about a woman.
Something about—
E.
The sound appears.
E.
I hold it.
It hurts.
E.
There should be more.
I search.
Nothing.
The priest comes into the enclosure. He stands in front of me.
I look at his shoes.
He touches my chin.
I do not resist.
Good.
He opens my mouth for the audience. Teeth.
Tongue.
Gums.
He turns my head.
Good.
He presses something cold against my arm.
I shake.
The audience watches.
“When exposed to discomfort,” he explains, “the Sacrament exhibits autonomic response without higher emotional interpretation.”
My body trembles.
There is a sentence somewhere.
Old.
Important.
Mine.
When I—
Something.
When I—
I cannot find it.
The priest continues speaking.
The audience applauds.
I look through the glass.
Faces.
Many faces.
People.
I think I was one.
Maybe.
My chest hurts.
There is something inside it.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
I don't know what it is called.
My hands shake.
My teeth chatter.
The sentence returns.
Not all of it.
Fragments.
When.
Tremble.
Meat.
When I tremble I am meat.
I do not say it.
I cannot say it.
I don't know if I could even if I tried.
But somewhere behind the chemicals and the conditioning and the punishments and the little electrical deaths they have administered piece by piece, somewhere beneath the blankness they have manufactured for cameras, the sentence repeats itself with the rhythm of the thing beating inside my chest.
When I tremble I am meat.
When I tremble I am meat.
When I tremble I am meat.
The priest places his hand on my head.
I do not look at him.
The audience applauds again.
And for one moment, so brief I cannot know whether it truly happens, something moves through the emptiness where my name used to live.
Not a word.
Not a prayer.
Not even hatred.
Only the knowledge that there was once something here they had to work very hard to destroy. Then that disappears too.
The light means food.
I stand.
The whistle means walk.
I walk.
The buzzer means enclosure.
I enter.
My body knows what to do.
That is what the Covenant wanted.
Behind the glass, someone is crying.
I don't know why.
I sit in the straw.
My legs tremble.
Meat.
There was more to the sentence once. I am almost certain there was more. But the light comes on.
And I am hungry.
About the Competition
Hashtag Kalakar's Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026 is a prestigious platform showcasing diverse voices from around the world. It celebrates poetry, short stories, essays, and creative writing, fostering a global community of writers and artists. Participants are encouraged to explore bold themes and innovative narratives, making it a beacon for creative expression and literary excellence.
We extend our heartfelt gratitude to Salem Youngblood for sharing "When I Tremble I Am Meat: prequel to Consecrated" with us. This compelling narrative adds depth to the Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026, inviting readers to reflect on the profound themes of identity and humanity. Thank you, Salem, for your powerful contribution to this global celebration of creativity.
About Hashtag Kalakar
Hashtag Kalakar is a creative platform dedicated to providing artists, writers, singers and other creative talents with opportunities to showcase their work and reach wider audiences through competitions, features and creative initiatives.
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