Chapter 42: Shadows of Hunger
What the actual fuck.
That was my first thought that came to my mind upon watching a man feast on another man’s thigh like it was a holiday roast glazed in something red, fragrant, and definitely once alive. He didn’t flinch when I gasped or when I took two steps backward into something that crunched. Whether it was bone or burnt sugar, I had no intention of finding out.
I turned and ran, boots slipping against the slick, sticky floor beneath me. Wine, meat juice, and gods-know-what else turned the ground into a maze of near-misses and stomach-turning smears.
But running made noise. Noise that stirred the walls.
Low giggles echoed behind me, childlike and wet, like laughter from a cracked music box soaked in syrup. Shapes emerged—shadows unfurling themselves like cloaks shrugging off hooks, bones bent in the wrong directions.
They didn’t speak. They moaned fragments.
"Mine," hissed one, its jaw unhinging wider than anatomy allowed.
Another limped behind me, arms too long and mouth already chewing nothing. "Feed me..."
One lunged. I spun, dagger flashing—a single shallow cut across its shoulder. It hissed and recoiled, more shocked than hurt.
"Darling," I muttered, sliding backward and catching my balance on a nearby pillar, "you’ve got to buy me dinner first."
More came. They weren’t attacking to kill. They were starving for something—anything. Not food. Not flesh. Something deeper. A need that clawed from the inside out.