Info
Article written by Sariastuff.
Image compiled and edited by Nikuchan , using the following images:
https://unsplash.com/it/foto/maiale-nero-su-terreno-marrone-durante-il-giorno-8zZpbxglLV4
Entity Number: 800
Habitat: The Hotel
Allergen notice: Lots of gore and vomit. You have been warned.
INTRODUCTION:
It's a slow night. It's been many slow nights for a while now. It doesn't seem like it's going to be anything other than slow nights for a while, judging by the many slow nights you've been having these past few weeks.
Order up.
Not many people in the dining room, and the night is far from young. Seven or eight young voices incessantly gossip about people they know, and what they know that they've been gossiping about. Two gruff voices talk about some trade secret you don't care about, boasting superficial achievements in a continuous effort to impress one another. At least one other person eats their food alone, mouth open, like some animal. You are acutely aware of this world of velvet wallpapers, lit-up chandeliers, and eloquent decor just outside the dingy kitchen doors, though you've learnt now to tune it out. It's none of your business, not your place; besides, you have work to do where you are now, here, in your own world.
You heave your flabby body off of the sitting stool you were resting on, and begin to lumber your way towards the pantry to find a bag of potatoes. You hear someone ringing the bell outside. Your ears twitch as you hear the familiar ding.
'Another serving, please!', they entreat you.
'It was just so good, I can't go without another serving', they opine.
'Please bring me more, I must leave soon, but not without a third plating!' they urge.
You don't say anything back. Turning yourself to face the opposite direction whence you came, you instead walk towards the enormous stewpot sat on the stove, scratching your rear. It's one of many pots in the kitchen, though it's the only one that you use because it's the last one with handles on. It's one of many stoves that line the kitchen, but it's the last one with running gas so you're forced to use it despite the fact that the cooktop is almost completely broken. It's one of many recipes that you know, and-
It's finished. You realise that you've run out of stew as you take a peek into the utensil. You need to make a new batch from scratch, which is just more work for the evening. You huff to yourself, dreading the effort needed to prepare another pot. At least it's a slow night.
You pull out another stool from underneath the mingy island, and sit yourself in front of the stove. Two fingers rise to your maw as you open wide, past your teeth, down your throat, and they induce a feeling that goes straight to the pits of your stomach — a little routine that you've gotten all too used to. Gagging, choking, sputtering, gargling, and once you're done you've filled less than half of the pot with a mixture of mashed entrails and watery broth, some bones to add to the texture, and a drizzle of your own gastric juices. No potatoes or vegetables though, so it's a good thing you were already planning on getting some. Not enough meat to make a full batch either, but it would have to do for now, and you'd work more on the whole broth later. It was time to platter another meal.
You reach for a dirtied bowl from the sink to your right, but your ears perk up anew as you do so. The flash of a camera from across the room, and the subsequent printing-out of a polaroid, completely foreign to the kitchen atmosphere. You swivel your head backwards to meet the cameraman: a scrawny, freckled ginger dressed in an oversized uniform looks at you, fear in her eyes as terror sets in and she's made eye contact with a monster. She freezes, then lets out a small squeak before breaking the staring contest and running skittishly outside. You can hear her take a table and tidying up her environment before muttering some mantras about how she had to stay calm and act normal.
Another archivist, though not even a fat one at that. Hardly any meat on her bones but with all the hardness to munch and crunch on, quite the unpleasant experience as far as humans go. The peeping rats had to be disposed of by any means necessary according to hotel policy — no matter how tough they were to eat. It had been a while since you'd eaten too, and any meal would suffice at this point. You reckon it's best to leave the logistics of the whole ordeal later, once everyone else is gone. For now, there is work to attend to.
YOU WILL NEED:
As you serve your eager customer, some new people enter the hall, surveying the room for a table to sit at. They don't give you any attention. Nobody ever does, even when you're standing right next to them. You blend in with the surroundings, a background visual that people don't seem to see.
But she does. You can hear her going over ways to approach you, the best ways she can deescalate the question, how she can get at least something about your employment out of your mouth — success permitting, she adds to herself as she tugs aimlessly at the tablecloth. You don't tune her out like you would the others — the terror is part of the fun. She sees you, and it feels good to be seen.
You take your sweet time delivering meals to some of the new customers, each oblivious to what it is that they're eating. Some hesitant bites at first, but they begin cramming spoonful after spoonful into their mouths without a care in the world not long after. With everyone satiated, you walk back to the kitchen with minimal animation, ready to begin the messy work.
Taking one of the broken pots with a hole at its bottom from the cabinet, another short set of waddles brings you to her table undetected. She doesn't notice you until you tap your fat fingers twice on the table, at which point she yelps in fright.
'Excuse me!' she blurts out, pausing for a second. 'You startled me for a moment there.'
Her bottom lip is quivering, leg bouncing up and down with perturbation. She's gone pale, making her look fragile and delicate. She's not tiny, not particularly large either though. Some pudge here and there contrary to what you'd observed in the kitchen, a pair of chubby cheeks that in conjunction with buck teeth and slightly spaced out eyes give her a mousy appearance. She's as cute as a button.
'Sorry for uh… taking a peek earlier. I just saw you and had to take a- take pictures. For an article. I'm with the M.E.G., if you know uh, what that is? We're archivists, explorers technically but uh, we write things and, I mean, we explore places. You get what I'm talking about, r-right?'
Of course you know. Ditzy girl, daftness that comes with youth. She puts on a stupid nervous smile, as you remain stoic, staring straight into her eyes. She looks away, expression faltering briefly, her curly hair bouncing as you catch a glimpse of a microphone on her neck. Sweat drips down her freckled face as she turns back to you, and forces another smile.
'A quiet one, bit of… bit like me, haha. Uh, do you want to- like, maybe take this somewhere else? We could find somewhere quiet and… chit-chat, and take better photos. I like cooking too, we can go to your k-kitchen.'
No. You want to stay here. Here is comfortable. Here is yours. Besides, it's shouldn't be her place to meddle in other people's business and tell them what to do in their own clothes — the kitchen and dining hall are your refuge and yours only. She's the one overstaying her welcome if anything.
'You're… not going to hurt me, right?' she says meekly, lowering her voice. She looks at you with doe eyes that look just one sudden movement away from bursting into tears. 'Please be- don't hurt me or anything. I'm sorry if y-you just didn't want me with you there. I just… this was my job ok? I really didn't want to do this. Can you- can you let me go? I promise I…'
She trails off, taking a glance at the entrance before looking back at you. You seize the opportunity — in one swift motion, you raise your pot and strike her on the side of her face, stunning her for a brief second. Breaking free from her daze, she clumsily pushes the chair aside and stumbles past you. Reaching out with lightning quick reflexes, you grab the panting girl from the back of her shirt and pull her back, throwing her to the ground, yelping. Before she can raise her hand and plead for her life, you bring the pot back down on her pretty face and bash part of her jaw in. A third hit knocks her out for good, a fourth smashes the microphone (and part of her collarbone). A few more hits for extra measure ensure she won't have the strength to stand up again.
You drag her by her hair back to the kitchen, a small trickle of blood coming from her mouth leaving stains on the floor that you'll clean some other time. People, oblivious to the happening that has taken place before them, continue eating their meals, completely enamoured with your cooking. The kitchen doors swing open as you heave her limp body to the freezer. You can feel yourself salivating, though the day is not over yet. Patience is a virtue, you remind yourself as you begin tying her down.
METHOD:
As the last few customers of the day trickle out, you lock the double doors that lead to the dining hall. Tied rope on the handles, doors locked, bolts anchored to the ground, and a chair for good measure — you'd like to be unbothered for the remainder of the night. Your heavy steps are partially muffled by the ornate carpet, but the creaking of the mangy boards below you betrays stealth.
The groaning of the girl started not too long ago. She was unconscious for most of the evening, but eventually woke up. In no particular order, she'd thrashed and screamed and groaned and moaned and banged on the walls of the icy freezer to no avail, before resigning herself to her fate and waiting for you to walk back into her confines. Though you're good at tuning out the excess noise around you, it was fun to pay extra attention to her raggedy breathing, the chattering of teeth, and the quiet sobs of resignation. It excites you even now to hear her go quiet when you begin to unlock the freezer.
She's the same as you left her, shackled to a thick copper pipe. Her skin managed to turn to a brighter shade of white, but her fingers have taken a sickly blue hue. Bruises from her attempts to escape cover various parts of her bare body, which you can see now that she's taken off some of her clothes in hypothermic delirium. She looks at you, eyes not hiding the fact that she fears for her life. She's still as you walk in, anticipating your next move in palpable silence. You can hear her heartbeat accelerating despite her efforts not to panic.
You get down on your knees and approach her. Taking a few sniffs here and there, you feel parts of her body tense up as she watches the ordeal with bated breath. You smell nothing unexpected — the grime of a day's work to get to the restaurant, the slight spike in adrenaline as she continues to panic, the faint smell of nicotine coming from her sweat. It's more just theatrics to make the process worth the wait rather than an actual investigation, and it's produced the intended effect. She's gone entirely stiff.
Finishing your faux inspection, you get back up and walk to a rack of meat knives propped on the wall. You take out a carving knife with some dried blood from the last intruder, which you lick before turning back to face the girl. In the euphoria of the moment, your hearing becomes fuzzy, not caring much for her weak pleading or the shuffling as she tries to move as far away from you as she can. You savour the moment, taking your time with each step, until you're standing right above her. She's crying and screaming her lungs out, trying to appeal to empathy that you don't have for her. Right now, she's dinner. Right now, you're hungry.
You motion for her to stay still, though she doesn't understand or at least pretends to ignore you. A few seconds of choking later, she's calmed down and offers no resistance as you take off her shoes and socks. Grimy hands grab her cargos and pull them off ravenously, revealing a nice pair of fleshy thighs. You rip her undershirt, freeing her bosom and revealing a birthmark next to her navel which you trace with the knife's pointed edge as her weeping grows more profuse.
World paused around you, her left hand is brought up to your maw. You take a nice, well-deserved bite, as the metallic taste of fresh meat and the crunch of bone overload your senses. You feel alive.
Screams fill the room as the girl now lacks two of her fingers. She begins thrashing anew, but your stern grip on her hands gives her no room to evade your clutches any further. She kicks and beats you as you move your head down once more to take a second bite. Body and uniform are both splattered with blood as the crimson liquid sputters out of her arteries. You munch on the flesh with gusto, finishing off a mouthful before you pick off the last few fingers, then her palm. The blood loss quickly takes its toll on her body; you can notice judging by her less animated pounding and increasingly faint screaming.
You let go of the stump that was her hand (the appetizer, as you thought of it), and move on to her legs. Typically, leg muscles are the hardest to stomach due to the fact that they are working muscles. The constant exertion hardens them and makes them more difficult to bite into — a bad cut by definition. The whole body is food for you however, and you simply hate wasting a good meal. No such thing as a bad cut, you think to yourself as you chomp down on her thigh.
With the next few bites, her vocalisations quickly drop down to weak moans as the last of her body's youthful spirit drains out. Blood now flowing much slower than before, she defeatedly watches you take a few more chomps off her legs before laying her head on the ground and staring at the ceiling. She winces every time that your teeth make contact with her flesh, though this soon dies out until eventually, she lets out her final sigh. The hunt is over, and your prey turned meal now lies in front of you, struggling no more.
You don't slow down your pace as you finish both legs, turning to other parts of the body. Now that she's not thrashing about, the cheeks on the cadaver's pretty face seem like perfect places to continue your meal. Her eyes bulge out towards the ceiling, lifeless — you slurp them first before anything. Her cheeks are ripped off next in just two clean bites, the saltiness from her tears adding to the flavour of the tender flesh. You finish off the rest of her face in due time before you're down to the bone layer. Using your knife, you carve a rough opening out so that you can get into the goods trapped beneath. It's ill-advised to eat anything coming from the brain or the spine what with the risk of encephalopathy, but the taste far outweighs any of the consequences. It's all slurped up before you know it anyways, so there's no point in crying over spilt milk.
Her midriff is next. You sink porcine teeth into her sides as you eat your way through the rest of the abdomen. At some point you bite into a section of her colon, and the taste of stool overwhelms your senses, causing you to cough and sputter in abject disgust. Intestines have to be rinsed for a long time to get rid of the taste of faeces, so they're easily the worst part of a fresh kill. The rest of her stomach will go untouched for now; in the meantime, you focus your attention on her chest and the organs that lie within the ribcage. It's not long before you get to the heart, which you reckon is the best part of the whole butchering. Breaking the ribs that protect it and carving it out from the blood vessels it's attached to takes little time what with the excitement you've contained up until now. The still-twitching heart in your hands beckons for you to place it in your maw. The muscular organ barely fits in, but a strong clenching of your jaw quickly reduces it to a fine red mist.
By now, what remains of the body are some hard muscles, bones, and the last of the fleshy organs. You've eaten through most of her face so there's nothing left to stare at you, and the rest of her body is all cuts that would be considered waste under normal pretenses. You're also well aware of the feeling of fullness that comes with having eaten half a human, the pressure building up and making it a good deal harder to breath. Fresh meat has been hard to come by recently though, and it's been a while since you've had a good meal… sure, you had your reservations about the girl at first, but perhaps finishing her off right now would be worth it?
You sit back down, knife in hand. You begin carving the bones into smaller pieces.
SERVING:
It's almost time to reopen the restaurant, in preparation for another slow night, one of many recent slow nights in a cycle of slow nights that never ever seem to end end. You have no time to waste and must be punctual, despite the fact that it's just going to be yet another slow night.
The world around you is hazy. The ground beneath you seems unreal. Your stomach bulges from beneath your overstretched shirt as you stumble out of the freezer. She's all gone, every last bit of her devoured or prepared for another meal. It took you so long to get through her, but it was all worth it in the end. She was delicious.
The comparatively warm air hits your skin, and the sudden change in temperature upsets your stomach. You pant and squeal in pain as you take tremoring step after tremoring step towards the stove. Standing at the edge of your trusty pot, colours vibrating around you as the world goes numb, the only things that exist are you, the pot, and the pain coming from your stomach.
Not even needing to force it, you churn out the slurry of human parts into the massive pot. You can hardly breathe as the mixture keeps flowing out of your throat, straining your blubbery neck and causing tears to flow from your beady eyes. The pot overflows in a matter of seconds, then weakness strikes your bones and you collapse onto the ground, still puking onto yourself. The euphoria that comes with the release of pressure raises all your hairs on end. Such a nice, blissful feeling. How fine it feels to be relieved of the pain.
It's a good few minutes until you can fully stop hurling your insides out. You take a few deep breaths in and out, as you're made acutely aware of the foul smell around you and the current state of the kitchen. You weren't able to relieve yourself of all the pressure, but the bulk of it is gone. Getting up is a bit harder and you almost begin to vomit anew as you do so, but you manage to stifle it. A quick brush of your forearm wipes most of the sick off your lips, and in no time at all you've turned the stove on and have begun cooking breakfast. The slurry you're stirring and the intestines you've hung in the freezer will make for amazing sausages.
It's not long before you begin hearing people knocking on the doors to the dining hall. Turning off the pot, you hum a tune to yourself as you walk a bit more sluggishly than usual to the barricade you'd set up last night. Removing all your safeguards, you open the door as the first few patrons of the day begin to take their seats and demand their meals to be served.
None of them pay mind to your dishevelled appearance. None of them care that you're covered in blood and smell of acidic excretion. None of them will ever know that a girl disappeared last night, or that they'd eaten what remained of an old man yesterday, or the fact that the steak last week was once a mother of two. They would always just be happy to eat, and you would always be more than happy to serve. As the hum-buzz of the day begins again, you retreat back into the kitchen and continue your duties, with a belly fuller than it was just a couple of hours ago and the vitality to work the rest of the day till the end with vigour.
Your life is slow, and it certainly isn't flashy, but you like it just the way it is.