Dearest Reader,
The following short story is part of a serialization. It’s enjoyable on its own, but it’s recommended you start at the beginning with John Doe. The story will be a bit confusing otherwise.
Now please enjoy,
The Beasts Within
-Rafe
The Fr’shinterpyun, commonly known as the Halinox rhinoctohydra, was the second most dangerous creature to be found in the kitchens of The Familiar Place. They carried a particularly devious venom capable of turning the tiniest bite from any of their eight sets of teeth into a deadly serious problem. There was a single antidote; a tincture, capable of preventing rhinoctohydra wounds from turning fatal so long as it was applied within minutes of the initial damage. It came with a host of possible side-effects: nausea, vomiting, anxiety, paranoia, aural hallucinations, permanent blindness, and a moderate chance of spontaneous organ failure.
Everyone residing on planets with one of these death bringers were fortunate they generally kept to themselves. The rhinoctohydras’ great sensitivity to light forced them to spend the vast majority of their well-researched, clockwork-like lifecycle underground in the labyrinth of cave tunnels they built with the labor of their own eight horns. However, exactly 130 Halinox years after their hatching—approximately 180 Earth years, or 6 and 1/2 million rotations in The Familiar Place—the asexual creatures laid their one and only egg, and then began their steady decline towards death. Time would end up claiming the new egg mother exactly five Halinox years later, which by some cruel trick of the Gods above, just so happened to be the same amount of time its egg would take to hatch.
Cue existential crisis.
Somehow, the Fr’shinterpyun knew they would never live to see their progeny with their own sixteen eyes, and the crushing weight of the revelation sent them into a frenzy. In the ensuing anger they shattered the walls of their caves and buried their nearly indestructible egg in the rubble. Unable to find fulfillment in the destruction of their home, they moved upwards, towards their great enemy in the sky, where the oviparous momma murderer raged against the coming of the light in a blind blood lust. Like a viking warrior grown too old for war still hoping to reach the halls of Valhalla, the rhinoctohydra rampaged, using its eight powerfully adherent legs to destroy everything in its path as it searched for a battle to finally bring it to its end.
The Fr’shinterpyun’s large, snake-like appendages warranted even more fear than its venom. If even a single lone sucker was to catch against the skin of an ogre drinking in Edwick’s tavern, it would easily wrap it into a titan like grip, apply enough pressure to pop the head free from its body, squeeze the fluids out of its neck like ketchup from a plastic bottle, and grind its skin and bones to flake and dust.
For most, the only appropriate response to ever laying eyes on a Fr’shinterpyun was to run—run as fast and far as possible. Why, you ask, would The Familiar Place house such a deathly terrifying creature? How could Ahhe dare to put everyone in the hotel in danger every six and a half million rotations? There were two reasons.
The first, was because when cooked properly, those thick, meaty, ogre-to-jam crushing appendages were considered by most in the culinary world to be the single greatest delicacy in the known universe. Some of the realms’ most affluent individuals came to stay in The Familiar Place, often waiting millions of rotations in the off-chance they may get to try the chef’s special.
The chef herself was the second reason.
Just before Ahhe appeared in her humble one-room shack built deep in the valley of the kitchens, Chef Drunhilde was laying on her bed with her eyes closed, rolling the shaft of her trusty Filétine in her hand. There were two other weapons in the room. One was a large spear with giant barbs that came off the side to create a serrated effect to the edges, and the other, an almost humorously massive claymore. They both sat in wall mounts near the corner of the room, clearly cared for and having remained unused for some while. A pair of matching, golden horned helmets sat on a triangular, two-tiered rack in the corner between them, flanked by a couple of small, always-burning braziers that tied the shrine together.
Without opening her eyes, Druni instinctively threw Filétine across the shack, directly through Ahhe’s image as it fizzled into existence, planting one of the emerald blades of the double-glaive weapon into the wall behind them.
“What brings you here to mine quarters this day, Ahhe?” she asked, her voice keeping time like a metronome in three tones. It moved up and down from a single higher note to a single lower note and back, sticking to a steady beat as if the words would be meaningless without it. The only change happened at the end of a question, when her baritone voice rose a full two octaves to finish her final word with an awkward airy peep.
“It is not possible the wealth of rations I prepared for the breaking of this day’s fasts have indeed been fully consumed,” she continued. “Has John fallen in his battle with the stairs once again? Do you require another mine magic pastries? I must gather supplies if this is the case.”
“John is alive and well, currently aiding Ssssissss with her molting,” Ahhe said, their hands clasped behind their back. “We are here to inform you of a recent geologic anomaly that has taken place beneath the standard elevation of the kitchens, specifically within western waterfall five’s caverns.”
Druni’s eyes shot open and she sat up. A giddy, toothy smile kidnapped her face. With both hands, she slapped down hard on the meat of her thighs, then lifted all 8’2” of her muscular 412 pound frame to standing. She stretched both arms out from her sides. “This is quite good news indeed. Please inform Edwick his assistance will be required in the kitchens and alert the guests our next supper will be held in the grand banquet hall.”
When she stopped speaking, she closed her eyes and took a quick, powerful inhale through her nose. The air filled her lungs and lifted her bosom like that of a lesser man trying to accentuate the threat of his masculinity, only her back remained flat and unburdened by any need to prove her unquestionable dominance.
“Mmmmm,” she hummed, riding her exhaled breath like a wave of ecstasy. She reopened her eyes and moved to pull her shining, silver breastplate from the wall. She slid it over her head and let it fall into place, readjusting the shoulders for a second before tightening the set of straps on one side and ensuring it was perfectly secure. A horned helmet similar to the ones in the corner came next, only this one was silver like her breastplate, not gold like those of her sisters’. The horns had been masterfully crafted into a set of off-white wings that gave the helmet the impression it could fly away from her head at any minute. She knew it wouldn’t dare do such a thing, but she strapped it to her head anyway.
She stepped away from the bed and reached one hand through Ahhe, gripping her Filétine at the staff between its two blades. “What a wonderful day indeed for a battle to the death,” she said as she yanked it free from the wall, and then she sighed. The sound was part exaltation, part deep and enduring sadness—the stay-over effects of a different battle that would live forever in the war inside her heart.
She knelt before the shrine in the corner and bowed her head, paying homage to Astrid and Brunhilde, the sisters who had been forced to pay the terrible price it cost to teach her the most valuable lesson she would ever learn. If only she had stayed with them, fought with them, rather than letting her ego chase after her own obsidian trophy. If they had stood together, maybe they would still be alive. Or, maybe they would have all fallen together—a fate the last member of the legendary trio would gladly have accepted in exchange for the shame she now carries with her.
They had died with pride. Her sisters had won their battle against the dragon Vorsilithax, succeeded in what they had set out to do, only to be dispatched by the one Druni herself had failed to finish. She had ignored her sisters’ warnings, her swollen ego having shouted too loudly to hear their pleas for her to abandon chase. Rather than stay by their side, she had planted her spear through the dark wing of the volcanic dragon, mounting it just as it attempted to retreat.
She had remained atop the lightning-fast beast for longer than any mortal should have been able, while razor-like buffets of icy wind ripped her helmet free from her head and tore exposed skin. But even the strength of Drunhilde had a limit. She would eventually lose her grip and be tossed overboard; abandoned, weaponless and miles away from her sisters with no sight of the dragon she had ridden to get there.
She had made her way back to them just in time to see the one she had ridden away flee the scene. Vorsilithax was dead, her sisters’ weapons planted deep between the cracks in her scales, but the death of the dragon proved poor compensation for their torn and tattered bodies.
The fault had stricken her immediately. It was only the desire for vengeance that had kept her from breaking down on the spot. It alone had driven her to take up her sisters’ weapons and search for their murderer, but it was a fruitless effort. He seemed almost to have vanished into the aether, disappearing without any clues as to where. She had given the search a full month with nothing to show for it before the agony of her sisters’ deaths caught up with her and she finally crashed, falling to her knees in fits of tears and cries of agony.
When she was once again able to return to her feet, she did so as a changed woman—and a broken one. She would never again kill for sport, never fuel the fire of her warrior ego in unnecessary battle. She had made a vow. Every kill she made from then on would be done only to sustain the life of others. Instead of fighting on the front lines, bathing herself in the blood of her enemies, she had spent her battles working the pots and cauldrons of the fires back at camp, providing food to the wounded and warring alike. And during peacetime, rather than hunting the realms for the next head of big game to mount on her wall, she had searched their fields and forests for rare herbs, fungi, and spices. In doing so, she had unknowingly set herself down the culinary path that would eventually lead her to spending eternity in The Familiar Place, where she could continue to hone her skills in the most magical kitchens in the universe.
This is who she was now. No longer a warrior of legend, but a master chef, and the battle she was preparing to fight was not one for glory, or honor, but necessity. Someone had to put the Fr’shinterpyun out of its violent misery, otherwise it would destroy everything in its path. It had lived a long, full life in the caverns beneath the basement kitchens, and was too primitive, too rigid in its natural instinct and connected to its lifecycle to realize time worked differently in The Familiar Place. As John would say, this was the humane thing to do. So, with no other options, Druni finished her prayers to her sisters, asking again for their forgiveness, their guidance, and their strength, then rose to her feet, striking out for battle once more.
With a quick, opposite twist of both wrists, she separated the staff, turning the mighty glaive her equal in size only seconds earlier into a pair of equally frightening long-handled knives. She raised them up and brought them down behind her, locking them diagonally into place on the back of her breastplate—the only place she felt they ever belonged besides her hands.
“I will be seeing you, Ahhe,” she said, not bothering to turn and look at the hotel’s holographic form as she marched through the room with confident purpose, opened the door, and stepped outside into the wilds of the kitchens. She knew Ahhe, and understood their logical side. Further propriety was unnecessary. The little time she had to spare had been spent at the altar with her sisters. Now, it was time for action. She turned westward and began to run.
Every step that Drunhilde took when she ran announced her presence. She was a juggernaut, the ground beneath its feet shaking with each stride, providing an early warning to all in her path. An unstoppable force was coming through—move . . . or be moved.
It didn’t take long for her to climb over the hills of her valley, then descend down into the plains on the other side. She sped past the groves and orchards, crossed through the fields of cereal grains, and was almost to the lakes at the base of the mountains at the western edge when she felt the rhythmic shake of her own steps disappear into the rumbling earthquake ahead. She came to a sudden stop and nearly drew Filétine, stilled only by her intuition. It was still too soon. She was certain Ahhe would have come immediately after the anomaly began, and no Fr’shinterpyun could have breached and made it this far so rapidly. This was something else. A stampede.
She pulled her hands back from her blades as the herds of animals came into view. They should have been grazing peacefully, but were instead rushing towards her. They were running for their lives, as fast and as far as possible—exactly as they should. It could only mean one thing. The Fr’shinterpyun was topside.
Druni raised her arms in front of her, flexing her muscles as if she were a bodybuilder on a stage actively destroying any last ounces of hope her competition had been holding onto. She took a long, deep breath and held it for a moment, until the approaching animals were but mere meters in front of her. Then, she let it out in a shout of utter dominance. The bellow was said to have been made with such frightening power behind her voice that a particular, well-ear-endowed patron engaged in the throes of passion on the 42nd floor became suddenly unable to sustain their performance.
The leaders of the stampede were massive, bovine-like creatures with thick, knotted fur that clumped well higher than their backs and hung low beneath their bellies, and a pair of trunk noses they could blow like horns to speak to their kind in song. The nearest to Druni blasted disharmonic chords as their fur-shaded eyes widened in newly recognized fear and they shoved over to either side. Like a crack in a piece of glass, the fissure spread throughout the group, the animals splitting for the one true alpha of the kitchens—making way for queen Druni.
She walked onward through the animals with her head held high, but still on a swivel, scanning her immediate surroundings to ensure none of her subjects disobeyed and stepped out of line. Breastplate or not, taking a full speed charge from a biraffalo would leave her in a weakened state, and that was something she could not afford when going up against a Fr’shinterpyun. Speed was momentarily forced to take a back seat as she saw herself safely through the packs, but before the last straggling antelope galloped past, she was back at a run. This time with the twin blades of Filétine in hand, and a Fr’shinterpyun in her sight.
Its flexible orange legs the size of tree trunks shot up and out, away from the single ball-shaped body in every direction, pounding against the ground and raging at the sky, searching for anything they could crush, wrench, or rend. Fortunately, the animals had all fled, because giant shards of stone were being broken free of the nearby cliffs and tossed in all directions, raining rocky death upon the land. Any sane individual would immediately turn around and join in the escape, doing their best to make up the advantage the galloping animals had over them, but the word sane had never once been used in association with Drunhilde the Huntress.
The staff clicked between her hands as she screwed Filétine back together mid run, rushing forward at the rampaging beast without missing a beat. It was bigger and stronger than she was, with a terrifying venom and an entire squad's worth of extra legs, heads, and eyes. If it so much as landed a single strike, she would likely be a dead woman, but would that really be so bad? Sent to join her sisters in the halls of Valhalla where she could finally kneel before them and make penance for failing them? No. Of course it wouldn’t, but she knew that wouldn’t be happening today. On paper, the rhinoctohydra may have had a number of advantages over her, but paper only ever beat rock. Filétine cut through everything.
The Fr’shinterpyun was the second most dangerous creature to be found in the kitchens of The Familiar Place, but it was above ground, out of its element, and about to be up against Chef Drunhilde—the most dangerous one.
Druni dashed forward in a flash, bending and bowing her massive frame with the grace of a leaf blown in the wind, fearlessly dancing between lumbering downward strikes that shattered the earth beneath her feet in an upheaval of grass and stone. She twisted sideways, dodging a lightning fast snap from one head’s set of teeth at the same moment she parried the stabbing strike of another’s horn with one of Filétine’s blades. The weapon flowed in her hands, riding the wave of the deflecting momentum down so that its other blade could forcefully climb up from underneath, freeing both of the jutting heads from the necks that chained them to its mortal coil.
The creature cried out, all six of its remaining mouths opening wide to deliver screams of existential pain that only a mother slighted by God could possibly translate and understand. Using all eight of its legs, it shoved off of the uneven ground and propelled itself backwards through the air, Druni far too close for its comfort. Vision was not a requirement to sense the unmistakable presence of death drawing near. This act was delaying the inevitable, and they likely both knew it.
Now that it had a distance between them, the Fr’shinterpyun decided to create chaos. Using its significant range advantage, it sent large sweeping strikes arcing towards Druni from multiple directions, an attempt to fill the space between them and remove all of her options other than to escape. Against anyone else, the creature's attack likely would have worked. The six legs would have either forced their opponent back, or ripped their body into pieces. Against this chef, however, it served as nothing but a recipe for its own disaster.
With a twist inward and a roll of her arm, Druni had already set Filétine spinning. Her fluid motions propelled the twin blades, sending the staff twirling around her body to form a quickly shifting protective shell. In a matter of a single second, the blades were spinning so fast that they had become nothing more than the occasional whirling flash of verdant steel. When the masterfully sharpened Filétine met with the first of the rhonoctohydra’s stone-crushing legs, it landed not like the chop of a master forester’s axe striking a tree, but the slice of an aged tailor’s scissors gliding through fabric. The resistance of the Fr’shinterpyun’s thick, leathery exterior came and went, again and again, but its hide was no match against the perfect marriage of Druni’s strength and Filétine’s precision. The dance of death continued uninterrupted.
It happened too fast for the creature. Filétine’s razor edge cut too cleanly for the Fr’shinterpyun to even recognize the pain until long after 60 of the massive, meaty steaks had been portioned from its six striking legs. By the time the damage had sunk in, it was already sinking forward, fumbling off-balance as it tried to catch itself with the violet gore of stumpy appendages no longer there. It tumbled towards Druni. The boulder-sized globe of venomous fluid that was its torso rolled over an entire half-a-turn before it was finally able to stop its progression with the two, still capable legs it had. It was too late to prevent a pair of its heads from being crushed beneath the body, the ugly purple slime of their venom bubbling up around its edges.
There was a time when Druni would have taken pleasure in the sight of her handiwork. Where she would have felt the tendrils of thrill flowing through her, feeding her ego, reminding her of her dominance. Where she would have approached the creature and made sure it could see her, so that it would know without a doubt who had slain it, and make sure it understood that its weakness in the light hadn’t made the difference. That she could have walked right into its home at any moment she had chosen to wreak the same havoc she had today.
That time had long since passed.
The Druni of olde was no more. She had died a month after her sisters, the hunter’s mind, heart, body, and soul left behind, abandoned on the random mountainside where she had broken down, by a tyro cook. That same cook was now one of the universe’s greatest chefs, who only killed because her noble duty to sustain the lives of her guests required her active participation in the circle of life.
And so Druni stood in silence, stopping Filétine’s motion to raise it above her head where it joined her for a brief moment of stillness before she stepped forward.
“Fear not, for you indeed may sleep in peace,” she said, despite knowing it would not understand her. “Your child will not be hunted, and you will live on in the fond memories of countless many.”
A gurgling response emanated from a few of the heads as its slumped figure tried and failed to work itself back to standing. Its strength was clearly fading, oozing out of its wounds with every pint of the violet blood it lost. There was no fight left in it. The anger the Fr’shinterpyun had felt towards the cruelty inherent in its existence was now gone, quelled by the sudden realization it would soon be over.
A single tear clouded Druni’s eye as she stared up at the mighty beast. She took a final step closer, then postured Filétine to strike. “It is my honor indeed to be here with you in your final moments,” she said, the tear dripping loose and dribbling down her cheek. She smiled, just before driving Filétine forward, clean through the middle of its robust gut and severing its central brain.
The gurgling ceased immediately. The four remaining heads fell limp, and its last two legs gave up in their struggle to lift the body back up. It collapsed in a rounded heap, rolling ever-so-slightly closer to Druni as she yanked Filétine free. The gore-covered blade produced the slurping sound of suction as it exited. Druni grimaced at the sight of the violet venom drenching her emerald darlings.
“So much is there to clean,” she said, with a sigh, hoping her particularly gifted partner would arrive soon to help her with the task ahead.
While she waited, she cut up the rest of the still intact legs and began stacking the giant rhinoctohydran cookies several dozen meters away from the primary source of the gore. She had finished carrying nearly a hundred of the steaks, and was just beginning work on what she believed would be the ultimate stack when he finally arrived. She dropped the roughly sixty pounds of rubbery meat down on the ground near the others, straightened, and gave him a wave.
“Edwick. Thank you for joining me here in the kitchens on this great day of days,” she said.
From behind a wheelbarrow that looked far too large for his slight frame to push, Edwick smiled a wide, genuine smile that infected the pitch-black skin of his cheeks and ran all the way up to his ice-crystal eyes. “You are very welcome, Druni. Yet, as I have said each and every time we go through this. It is I that should be thanking you.”
The smile somehow turned into something else as he set the wheelbarrow down near her stacks and stepped around them to look down upon what was left of the shattered skulls and bloated corpse of the Fr’shinterpyun. It remained a joyous thing, but it transformed in a way to show the full movement of his teeth and jaw, becoming something utterly ravenous. “Just look,” he whispered, as the spear tip blades of his sharp teeth revealed themselves in a rare moment of arousal, “at the feast you have prepared for me.”
Edwick smacked his lips together in excitement, drool beginning to leak from the sides of his mouth as he stared at the creature’s body. His breathing grew loud and heavy. His chest began to rise and fall alongside it, a visual warning to accompany the sounds of the voracious hunger growing within him as he walked towards the corpse. “If you will, please excuse my lack of pleasantries,” he said, the sound of his voice emptying to nothing more than a low and quiet rumble from deep in the back of his throat. “I am famished.”
Had John been present in the kitchens at that moment, it would have seemed to him that Edwick was standing in place, growling, and then simply was not. If he was paying close attention, he might have noticed a blur of black movement. A streak through his vision, crossing the hundred feet that separated Edwick from the bloated dismembered body of the Fr’shinterpyun in a flash, as if it were a ball of darkness that had been shot from a cannon. Even then, he would not have understood it; would not have been able to comprehend the speed at which Edwick moved.
Druni was not John. She saw no issue tracking Edwick’s movement in its entirety, up until the point he stopped running, lifted one of the creature’s still intact heads, and began to unhinge his jaw like a snake. His skull expanded up and back, turning itself into two equal parts of nothing but mouth and vicious teeth, like the jaws of an open bear trap. Then, without warning, it sprung.
Druni turned away from the sight of exploding gore and the sounds of Edwick’s untamed pleasure to begin loading her steaks into the wheelbarrow. Even for her, his dining habits were a bit much, but the unsettling nature inherent in his methods were more than a worthwhile exchange for the detailed cleaning they provided.
Rare was a being quite like Edwick. He had the ability to consume without end, as though whatever anatomy the equivalent of a stomach he had was as unfillable as the void of space itself. Atop that, however, was how his body processed the energy. Like a master alchemist, it separated the properties of whatever victuals he thrust down his gullet, transmuting the bad into power and releasing the good. Alcohol was but the crisp, clear, refreshment of spring water, and the toxins of the Fr’shinterpyun’s venom? Ambrosia.
Since even a single drop of the venom would kill 95% of Druni’s animals, it was too dangerous to leave lying around. Since it had to be cleaned up, it was too dangerous to leave to anyone but Edwick. And since Druni could trust the job was in good hands, it was time she got on with her work.
With Filétine safely on her back, she picked up the wheelbarrow and began towards the actual kitchens within The Familiar Place’s kitchens. She didn’t bother to wave or say goodbye to the snarling night beast viciously shredding apart her kill. Edwick was busy, and the last thing someone ever wanted to do while a Guentidorean was eating, was disturb them, since it would then, very likely become the last thing they ever did. Druni did not have this fear of Edwick. She was stronger, more experienced, more capable, and more well-armed. But, when the speedy Edwick was covered from head to toe in a debilitating venom, she figured it better to not take the chance. Besides, the time for fighting that day had come to an end. Now was the time to cook.
Tonight’s feast would be Fr’shinterpyun kebab. She would accent its flavor with certain herbs and spices, but this gentle preparation would leave the meat in one of its most natural forms, allowing her diners to taste it as she believed it was meant to be received.
The process, to Druni, was a simple one. All it required her to do was thoroughly wash, then cut the legs up in a very specific, precise manner, so that she could remove the thick cords of veins that grew throughout them. Any that she missed would calcify into tooth shattering lines of stone as it cooked, then very-likely end up ruining someone’s supper. The meat was then şiş’d, placed just within the flickering tips of a large and well-maintained open flame, and then slowly and continuously rotated over the next several hours. Once the heat-resistant outside skin was charred to perfection, the fatty tissue had rendered, and the meat inside reached an ideal temperature of 145 degrees, it was removed from the flame and set to rest within a serving box.
The hard part—or, the harder part, to most—was ensuring the two hundred pounds of the stuff she cooked at any one time were completed in close relation to each other. She had no interest in serving her guests a ten pound roast of kebab that hadn’t had the opportunity yet to rest and was still burning hot, alongside 190 pounds beginning to grow cold and flabby. That meant, multiple fires, multiple spits, and multiple hands.
Fortunately, just as Druni was finishing up with her preparation, Edwick returned. Like a cat, he was licking the last of the purple goo off his hands and wrists, rubbing them against his face and neck to collect more, and then repeating the process.
“We are indeed ready to skewer and roast,” Druni said, matter-of-factly as he arrived.
“Excellent,” he replied, his voice back to its normal, chipper-sounding British. He had a gentle, more humanoid smile on his face, which had returned to the front of his now again ovular shaped head. He squeezed the last bit of purple from the white hair atop it, and added. “Per usual, I could use a few hours of the meditation the act of spit-roasting would provide. I find the simplicity in it cleansing following such a large bout of gluttony.”
“Then if you would indeed be so kind, please get the fires lit.”
Edwick nodded, then went to stand in the center of the four fire pits Druni had already dug out and filled with wood. He raised his hand, and the fingernails on his thumb and forefinger grew, each extending to a couple inches in length. With a flick, he rubbed the thumbnail against the inside of the other, then breathed life into the spark that came of it. Once it burned and tumbled like a ball of fire floating above his open hand, he cast it into a stack of wood, then did it again and again and one last time, until all four pits were lit and raging.
Soon it was time to carry the four giant skewers of meat to the tripods on either end of each pit. Once they were in place, it was time for Druni and Edwick to each take theirs, an arm gripping a spit on either side, and turn. And before either of them knew it, the food was done. Just one more pleasant side-effect of the powerful, mind-altering substance that is the act of meditation.
“And now,” Druni said, looking at Edwick as she pulled the two blades of Filétine free from her back. “I slice.”
—
When Druni and Edwick arrived on the 81st floor with the first of their large, lidded serving-trays, a line was already queuing at the Banquet Room door. It extended all the way down the hall, then turned to run up the stairs into what Ahhe dubbed, “The overflow floor.”
John stood at the front of the line, facing them, doing his best to hold them back. He tried telling them they weren’t allowed to enter the banquet hall until Druni gave the go ahead, but those at the front of the line didn’t seem keen to hear it. A rotund looking rock-feathered creature argued with him, claiming it didn’t care who said what about waiting, he should be allowed to take his seat immediately.
“Well, you can listen to me. “Or . . . ,” John said, smirking as he gestured an open hand down the hall. “You can take your issue up with the Chef.”
The set of three, rock-feathered and ball-shaped heads atop the large, rock-featherd and ball-shaped creature rotated around 180 degrees to look in that direction. Upon seeing Druni they immediately rolled off and away, returning to their place further back in the line. The larger body, left blind and bumbling around, rolled into walls as it attempted to chase after them.
“Awesome timing guys,” John said with a cheery nod. “I was starting to worry Brillick was gonna break the door down.” He sniffed the air as they approached. “What the heck is this stuff anyway? I’ve never seen anyone act like this over food. They’re going nuts. It’s like they think it’s gonna make ‘em immortal or something.”
“No, It will not make them immortal,” Druni said, as John opened the door for her to pass through unencumbered. “But perhaps, while one is in the act of consuming the Fr’shinterpyun’s tender flesh, will they indeed feel like a god.”
John went to step inside and close the door behind them, but when he did, the line of ogres, owlbeasts, and other various creatures surged forward, all trying to join them within the portal. He noticed and turned around, preparing to scold them for their impatience, but it was Edwick who spoke up first.
“Stop,” he said, his voice a bass-filled growl. He let three beats pass as the hallway stirred in its relative silence before he spoke again. “If any of you believe yourself not the fragile beast you are but one capable of raising its eyes to either the Chef’s or mine own, then please, come forward at your peril. Otherwise, I suggest you immediately improve your failures, gather your strength in self-restraint, and step. Back.”
The entire sea of hallway occupants immediately shifted three feet further away. Even John, who had turned towards Edwick when he had begun to speak, stepped away from the night-black bartender, following the suddenly terrifying man’s directions.
Edwick looked at him over the top of the covered silver tray in his hands and frowned. He gestured him back into the banquet hall with his head, but John didn’t move to go inside, simply scanned his immediate surroundings and then pointed at himself. When Ediwck nodded enthusiastically, he quickly scurried past him and inside with his eyes glued to the floor, then was forced to turn back around to get the door he had forgotten to close. Once he did, he rushed across the room, ensuring he was standing on the opposite side of the towering, armed, Druni, before Edwick managed to clear his hands of the serving tray.
“You know, John. Of all the things in this place you should be scared of,” he said, as he set the tray down on one of the tables. Snuggles was sitting on her ledge on the far end of the room, behind John, and Edwick shot her a narrow-eyed glance. “I am the least likely to do you harm.”
“Of course, man. It’s not like I’m scared of you or anything. We’re good,” John said, giving Edwick a thumbs up from where his head peeked out around Druni’s massive tricep. “We are totally good. Yeah.”
Edwick took a breath in preparation to say something, then seemed to think better about it. He closed his mouth to cut it off, then turned and walked back out the door. Druni followed without a word until she was halfway out of the room herself. She paused, turned back, looked at the cat, then at John.
“John, if you do not mind, would you kindly wait outside and hold the line again?”
John also turned to look at the cat. “Aren’t you worried about Snuggles?”
A rare smile crossed Druni’s face. “Let us just say, I am more worried about what might happen if you are left alone in this room with the food, than I am if she is.”
John squinted, confused, then shrugged it off and started her way. “I’ve learned better than to argue with a chef about their food.”
The blue cat seemed unbothered by it. She remained exactly where she was, seated on the ledge, swishing her tail back and forth against the wall below her. If John didn’t know any better, he’d have said she looked like she was waiting for something. She probably just wanted to be pet. “Just a few minutes Snuggles,” he said, as he closed the door to wait for Druni and Edwick to carry up the next two of the eight remaining trays.
Three rotations later, with the grand banquet hall set and ready for supper, they opened the doors and filled the space with wild, hungry beasts of all shapes and sizes, ready to have the meal of their lifetimes. The excitement was palpable, even for John, who had chosen to remain standing against the wall petting Snuggles, rather than fight with Junrith the glorillahawk for the final seat at the only table he thought it safe to eat at.
Once the tables were full, the doors closed, and everyone who had failed to find a seat given an assurance there would be plenty more coming, Ahhe directed the hall’s attention to the night’s main purveyor.
“It is indeed my pleasure to thank all of you for joining us tonight, here in the banquet hall for this most delicious of meals. Being able to provide you with this service of sustenance is indeed something I cherish and value as much as anything else I have ever done, or will ever do. I only wish my sisters were alive and here with us today, so they could see me at my best and could join us in this wonderful experience. Now if you please, would you join me in a silent moment so that I may indeed pay respect to them, Astrid and Brunhilde, two brave warriors struck down in their prime by the dragon known as Emberscale. May he rot, wherever he may be.”
Snuggles meowed in a rare show of emotion as Druni finished, then quieted herself as the massive chef closed her eyes, and bowed her head. Everyone followed suit, letting the moment pass as requested—in a silence unbroken for as long as Druni determined.
“Thank you all for sharing that with me,” Druni said, lifting her head. She then opened her arms out wide to her side. “And now, I am excited to share with you my special Fr’shinterpyun kebab, which I expect will be the most delicious experience of your lives. As the French Earthlings would say, Bon appetit.”
The room rumbled back to life as the hungry diners began to serve themselves and eat. Some laughed as they chewed on the charred and seasoned orange legs. Others cried. A few rose from their seats and left altogether.
John looked on in confusion. Certainly it couldn’t be so bad? This was Druni we were talking about here, who was the most incredible chef he had ever come across in his entire life, and the ranking wasn’t even close. He shook his head and guessed there was only one way to find out. Then he approached one of the newly empty seats at the nearest table.
Druni moved to block his path. “No John,” she said. “I am indeed sorry, but this meal is not meant for you.”
“What? Why not?” he asked.
“A taste of this magnitude is not meant for one such as yourself. It will set the apex of your life, leaving all other things ruined for you. Darkness will inshadow your soul. You will be left feeling abandoned by all things warm and good. Like your story of Icarus, you will have flown too close to your sun, and only ruin will follow.”
“That . . . seems a little intense?”
“It does indeed, only because it is. Eating the Fr’shinterpyun is not like eating a normal meal. It will fill the holes you do not know you have, and when it fades, you will be left feeling emptier than you have ever felt before.” She paused, then gently laid her massive hand upon his relatively tiny chest. “Trust me, John. I have seen the effect on a normal human before. It was . . . not good.”
“Fine,” John said, feeling strangely disappointed considering this was something he hadn’t been sure he even wanted to try in the first place.
He turned around and dragged himself back to the wall like a child heading into a freshly assigned timeout. Snuggles wasn’t there waiting for him when he returned. Now, on top of not getting to try the dinner of such cosmic excellence, he didn’t even have a cat to pet. He slumped his back down the wall until his butt hit the floor, then let his heavy head fall forward to sulk atop the forearms draped over his knees.
The feeling of being left out didn’t keep John in that position for long. It would soon be calmed by the sound of purring and the fuzz of fur rubbing against his hands.
“Awe, Snuggle butt,” he said, as his hands responded to her with pets before he even raised his head. “You came back to—” John paused what he was saying as he noticed something being held gently in the cat’s mouth.
“What’s that you’ve got there?” he asked, reaching down to grab at it. In an unusual display of obedience, she didn’t fight with him over it at all. She just let it go, dropping the orange, rubbery meat right into his hand.
It was in the cat’s mouth, he thought, trying to heed Druni’s words and convince himself not to eat it, but . . . it was barely in her mouth at all. Besides, weren’t cats’ mouths significantly cleaner than humans? Or were those dogs?
It’s probably gamey, he thought, trying to prevent the inevitable from happening, since he hated gamey meats, but . . . would he really discredit Chef? Surely a culinary genius such as her would have done something to play on its profile to enhance the flavor.
It does smell good, he thought.
It does look good, he thought.
And besides . . . it was one itty-bitty, teeny-weeny, tiny little bite. What harm could it possibly do?
John picked it up, put it in his mouth, and started to chew. Then the world changed. The taste of the Fr’shinterpyun kebab filled him with the feeling of family and the love of a mother he never knew. It was warm and inviting, with just enough chew. It was tender and accepting, and the most delicious thing he had ever tasted by an order of magnitude. It was something like the dreams of a thousand sleeps, if each were a lifetime of their own—experience bending around time. The oroborus was a snake named flavor who was forever wrapping itself around his tongue, and John had become lost in it.
He didn’t know how long the bite lasted, only that it felt like forever, ended in an instant, and was over far too soon. His mind returned to the body seated in the banquet hall with one thought in it and one thought only.
More.
John jumped up and rushed forward to the nearest table in a blind rage. He struck like an arrow, diving atop the table with a battle cry and grabbing the nearest knife set upon it. He covered the tray, using his body as a shield to box out any who would dare to take any of his meat for their own. Knife lifted in challenge, he shoveled meat into his mouth, screaming even as he chewed that he would not hesitate to kill.
“John,” Edwick said, having approached him from the side with his hand raised calmly in surrender. “Why don’t you come down from there, my boy, and hand over the tray.”
John growled at him. “You’ll have to pry it from my cold dead fingers.”
“As it happens, that is what I’m afraid of.”
John’s eyes rolled back in his head. He moaned, then released the sound of unhinged laughter—a Hahahahahaha that came out in a rapid warbling tremolo from behind a mouthful of the Fr’shinterpyun. He raised a hand in Edwick’s direction. It was so consumed by the fistful of charred meat in its grip that the point of John’s index finger could barely be made out.
“Then you will write on my tombstone,” John said, his eyes burying truth in those of the demonic bartender, “He died doing what he loved.”
Without warning, John added the contents of his fist to his already overstuffed mouth. He managed to work his jaw up and down twice before the meat slid back into his throat and his eyes went wide in silent terror. Even when he screamed, it was void of any noise.
The knife clanked against the table as he rushed both hands to his throat. There are many things that compete for rank in the hierarchy of needs, but the king who sits atop the pyramid is never in debate. No matter one’s desire to quench their thirst, or their ravenous hunger, the need to breathe will always reign supreme.
Most of the room paid no attention to John’s signal for help. They were too busy in their own experiences, ingesting that which they loved most in the form of food. There were at least two, however.
The first was Edwick, who, as a multidimensional representative of the food and beverage community, was well trained in all 62 variations of the “Heave & Huck Compression” known to Earth as the Heimlich maneuver. So of course, he stepped forward to assist.
The second was an ogre.
“Edwick!” the ogre named Shingg yelled. His head turned slowly from one side to the other. “Must I remind you, of the rules?”
Edwick stopped in his tracks. His face dropped. He sighed. “I’m sorry, my friend,” he said, lifting his head back up to look at John. “But he’s right.” Then, he took a step back.
Thoughts began racing through John’s mind, hidden behind the muddying cloud of fear. What did he mean he was sorry? He was right there! Ten feet away? He could jump up on this table and help him. He could save him. Why wasn’t he? What happened to the least to do him harm?
John tried to speak the last of his thoughts with all his might, even though he knew it was in vain. The effort crumpled him to his knees on the center of the table, tray clattering away as his hands left his throat to catch his fall. As if Edwick had seen the thoughts on his quickly purpling face, he stepped closer and said, “There are rules to this place, John. And if there is one thing we must all do here, it is to follow the rules.”
They were the last words John heard as the ringing kicked in and he crumbled to his back. His head lolled to the side and off the table. Druni had arrived and was looking down on him with pity, but turned her head to squint daggers at the nearby Snuggles. The last thing John saw as the light began to dim around his edges, was the cat batting its tail from side to side, grinning a Cheshire grin.
—
John was confused when he woke up on the morning of March 13th. For a minute he simply stared, unblinking, at the popcorn ceiling, questioning recent events.
Hadn’t he died?
He was almost certain he did. He took a deep breath. The deepest breath he had ever taken in his entire life, just to make sure it was possible. It was.
It must have all just been a dream, but something about it felt so . . . familiar.
Eventually, he stopped staring at the popcorn ceiling of room 2025, rolled out of bed. He instinctively reached for his phone, then spent a few seconds sitting with his feet against the ground while he searched, “How to eat slower.” He clicked a link, and scanned the contents as he tried trying to remember if he had any plans for the day, or if he was just going to find some work to do around the hotel, like usual.
That’s when his attention was drawn to a new email in his inbox.
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