I like it. It's creepy, but in a good way. If you know what I mean.

Having only just signed up I guess it's not surprising that I haven't read much good stuff, if much exists around here. But this is definately the best I've read so far.

The narrative voice is very effective, as is the repetition. I like repetition.

I don't much like genre fiction, and there's something transcendent about this - it doesn't fit any of the fantasy archetypes, so that's good too.

That's some impressive world-building stuff you've done. Just from a few words you told me about as much about the setting as one of those page-long infodumps.

There's nothing much wrong with this really. If there were any spelling/grammar errors then I didn't notice them. Although near to the end it says 'Around me' a couple of times quite close together, so you might want to word it differently. Or you might not.

Personally I think that the final line could use some work, although I'm not sure what exactly to suggest. "I will never go hungry again, I think, as the barrel makes its way inescapably to my mouth." - It's a powerful line in essence, but the way it's worded makes it a bit less effective. Maybe you could lose the 'I think' part - it diminishes the tension you've built, and that way you could split it into two stronger sentences. And maybe get rid of the adverb, they're generally not much good.

Basically I really like this. It's short and to the point, and concise writing is usually better than the bland meandering of the average fantasy plot. Oh, and you have a nice style.

Keep up the good work.

~The Dream Unicorn