Chapter Text
Act 1: Hunger
The world collapses before you without warning—slowly, soundlessly, as if it’s been waiting for you to notice too late. You crave, and you crave again, for something you cannot name, something that cannot be touched, only felt gnawing from within. It hums beneath your ribs like an ache that refuses to die, a hunger that breathes and grows and asks for more even when there is nothing left to give.
Sometimes you wonder—how can something so empty feel this consuming? How can longing taste like blood in the mouth?
And a question lingers, stubborn and unkind, echoing like teeth against bone:
What should you prioritize more—the needs, or the wants?
Enid learned she was different the day her mother walked out the door without looking back. No reason, no explanation—just the sound of footsteps growing faint. It looked so easy for her, leaving. That day left Enid with a truth that burned: that departure is always an open choice, and choosing to stay is the harder sin.
She learned more about herself the day her father decided to stop caring. It is not easy to raise a child alone—but it is far harder to be the child left behind by both. The moment his eyes dimmed with exhaustion, when his words stopped reaching her, Enid began to build her own walls. At nine, she learned how to feed herself—not with food, but with silence, self-preservation, and the small bones of her own dreams.
When he left too, she didn’t cry. He left a letter, nothing more. As if ink and paper could ever fill a child’s stomach. As if words could ever replace the warmth of being chosen. That day, she knew: she had been alone long before she realized it.
Now she wanders. She travels not to arrive, but to keep moving—because no one ever taught her what staying meant. Leaving became her inheritance, her ritual. Every new place offers her another taste, another life to bite into, another heart to pretend to devour. She learned early that hunger can disguise itself as desire, and desire—when left to starve—starts to eat you from the inside out.
Still, she cannot tell which one she’s searching for.
The needs? Or the wants?
Different towns give her different flavors. She learns how to mimic, how to wear faces like borrowed skins. She studies laughter, molds her voice, paints herself in the colors of whoever she must become. It’s easier that way—easier to belong when you no longer remember your own reflection. She becomes what is needed until the taste turns dull, until the craving comes again, until she feels that same raw emptiness crawling beneath her ribs.
Because Enid doesn’t know what satisfaction means. Fulfillment is a myth she’s never been fed. Every place, every face offers her choices—but in the end, she always returns to what her childhood taught her best.
To leave.
It’s easier. But each time she departs, she carries the weight of what she’s consumed—the names, the faces, the tastes. Some linger like the metallic sting of regret against her teeth. Sometimes she can still taste them when she closes her mouth too tight. She scrubs her hands, her lips, her memory, trying to wash off the scent of blood and the echo of their voices. But forgetting has a flavor too, and she’s learned to stomach it.
She carries pain the way others carry scars—under the tongue, behind the smile. The first time she tasted desire, it was bitter. Bruno was his name, and he offered himself like a feast. Sweet words, warm hands, promises cooked too perfectly. Enid thought perhaps this was it—perhaps hunger could finally rest. But she was fooled. Bruno was all aftertaste—lies, regret, betrayal. A dish served with a smile that rotted on the plate.
He was her first meal of disappointment, and he filled her with nothing but air. She buried him not in the ground, but in memory—deep enough to pretend he never existed. Yet his taste lingers still, clinging like guilt on the tongue.
What haunts her most isn’t that she consumed him—it’s that he left something inside her that wouldn’t leave. His voice, coarse and trembling, echoes like a curse:
“You’ll forever be alone,” he said, his fists bleeding from how tightly he tried to hold onto what could never be kept.
“I know,” she replied, her voice flat, almost kind, before closing the car door and driving away.
Through the mirror, she watches him fade—small, helpless, stranded at a nameless motel in the middle of a road that leads nowhere. He becomes smaller and smaller until he disappears completely. But his memory lingers like the aftertaste of iron.
She knows he’s right. For someone who never stays, Enid does not deserve to be stayed for.
Yet it hurts—God, it hurts—to feel this hollow ache gnawing at her chest. It feels like hunger, but deeper. Like something inside her stomach trying to eat itself alive. The ghosts of the past rattle in her bones, their whispers like spoons scraping an empty bowl.
So she runs. She leaves. She goes.
But her soul—her soul stays. Unfed, untreated, unhealed.
She is starving for something she cannot name.
A taste she has never known, yet has always craved.
A love that consumes as much as it gives—
a love that finally eats her back.
Act 2: Sweet treat
She tries—God knows she did. She begged, even, for someone to make it right. But it never feels right at all. Every time she fools herself into thinking it might, she only ends up farther from what she’s looking for. The more she reaches, the more it pulls away, until she’s chasing shadows she can no longer tell apart from her own reflection.
But seriously—what was she looking for?
Every night she counts. Twenty-five years of searching. Twenty-five years of wandering through half-lived moments, half-felt loves, half-eaten lives. Her body aches for something she can’t even remember—something it craves without ever having known. Every bed feels like a coffin, every town like a graveyard, every touch like soil pressed against her skin.
She doesn’t belong. She never will.
She can’t find a place that doesn’t taste like ghosts.
The past hunts her with every step, whispering behind her shoulder. The cravings come in waves—deep, low, bone-heavy. Some nights she tries to silence them with sleep, but even her dreams ache with hunger.
For two months, she managed to cheat it. Two months—the longest she’s ever stayed. She told herself she was cured, or maybe that she could be. She learned to pretend again, to live on borrowed sweetness, to survive on crumbs of affection that never reached her soul.
Then she met Yoko.
Yoko came in like cake you’d get when you turn seven—bright, soft, made for joy. But Enid had never had cake at seven. She never had candles, or frosting, or anyone to sing her name. She didn’t know what the sweetness meant. So she lingered, not because she believed in it, but because she wanted to try. To know, even for a second, what it was like to be full.
For a while, she convinced herself this was it—her journey’s end. The sweetness was overwhelming, almost blinding. She drowned herself in it, tasting caramel and honey and chocolate and every tender thing Yoko offered her.
But soon, it began to rot. The sugar turned thick in her throat, too heavy, too artificial. The more she swallowed, the more she felt it coating her lungs. Every touch, every kiss began to taste like empty icing—beautiful but hollow.
“Enid, you’re out of focus.”
Panting beneath her, Yoko tapped her shoulder, smiling softly.
She was offering herself now—bare, open, unguarded. The kind of offering Enid had never known how to accept. She had tasted sugarcoated love before, dressed in smiles and pretty lies. It was all for show, for bragging, for proof that she could belong to someone, even if only for a little while.
“Yeah, sorry.”
Enid tried to focus. Tried to play the part. Maybe if she moved right, kissed right, touched right—it would spark something. She pressed her lips to Yoko’s neck, feeling the warmth pulse beneath fragile skin. She licked, just to taste her—sweet, soft—and bit, just enough to draw a sound from her lips.
Yoko moaned, her breath catching, her body arching upward to meet her. “Don’t stop…” she whispered, voice trembling, “I’m close…”
Her nails traced down Enid’s back, pulling her closer, needing more skin, more heat, more illusion. Enid moved faster, pushing toward an ending she didn’t want but couldn’t resist. The room filled with the sound of breath, the smell of sweat and sugar, the ghost of something that almost felt like love.
And with one last push, Yoko collapsed, undone and trembling.
Enid lay beside her, her heart still steady, her body hollow. The air felt thick, heavy, almost suffocating. She stared at the ceiling, at the shadows moving across it, waiting for something—anything—to fill the silence.
But nothing came.
She felt nothing but the familiar ache of emptiness settling back into her bones.
Every sweetness fades into ash. Every warmth turns to cold.
She wasn’t sure what she was searching for anymore—what she wanted, what she needed. Maybe there was never a difference.
And so, before Yoko could speak, before she could ask for morning or meaning, Enid whispered her quiet confession—her review of another failed meal, another failed try at taming her hunger.
“I’ll leave tomorrow.”
She said it softly, like a prayer.
The next morning, she woke up alone. The sheets were cold. The space beside her smelled faintly of sugar and skin.
Two months of sweetness ended like it had never happened.
To be honest, this was sadder than her first meal—sadder than Bruno, sadder than all the others she left behind. Yet it didn’t hurt anymore. Not really. When she packed her bag, zipped the last of her things, and closed the door, there was no sting, no tremor, no regret.
She pressed her foot to the pedal and drove away, and it felt like nothing.
Yoko tasted like dreams. But Enid craved reality—the kind that burned when you touched it, the kind that left marks. She wanted something that could fill her completely, even if it meant ruin. Something that could stop her body from asking for more, even if it took her apart piece by piece.
She wanted to be consumed as much as she wanted to consume.
She will always feel empty. She knows that now. She can feel it in her bones, in her stomach, in the small hours of the night when hunger claws its way up her spine. She shivers, her body remembering the cold that has followed her since birth.
And with every flavor she’s tasted, nothing—nothing—beats the taste of emptiness her body has grown used to.
Until this moment.
Until she stops.
And she sees—
not a meal,
not a body—
but a feast.
Act 3: Craving
She stops by the sign—
the metal rusted, half-tilted toward the ground, as if the wind itself had grown tired of holding it upright. She needed a break from driving all night. The hum of the tires had become a prayer she couldn’t finish, the dark road a mouth swallowing her whole.
This place might be enough, she thinks. Enough to rest, enough to forget, enough to leave again in the morning—or maybe in two.
She parks the car. The engine quiets, and for a long moment, silence stretches like a body beside her. Enid steps out, scanning the town with that tired gaze of hers—the kind that measures distance not in miles, but in ghosts.
There aren’t many stores. Just a few flickering signs, a diner that looks like it stopped existing years ago, and a lone gas station that hums under a dim yellow light. It’s smaller than any place she’s been before—small enough that she can almost feel its bones beneath her feet. No extravagant lights, no billboards pretending to mean something, no fake signs promising home or belonging.
This town doesn’t ask you to stay. It doesn’t pretend to care if you leave.
Enid laughs softly at the irony, a bitter kind of sound that dissolves into the air. Even the wind seems to mock her, brushing against her skin like a reminder that she’s nothing special—just another body passing through, another stranger swallowed by the road.
Nothing new. Nothing special.
Just hunger wearing a human face.
As she wanders through the quiet streets, she notices it—an old house across the road. Big, skeletal, abandoned. Its windows are blind eyes staring back at her. The paint has peeled off in strips, like old skin, revealing the wood beneath—gray, brittle, tired.
It looks haunted.
But what unsettles her isn’t fear—it’s recognition.
Because for the first time in years, Enid feels something that almost resembles being welcomed.
The air around it hums softly, alive in a way that feels dangerous. She moves closer, drawn like prey to a snare, her feet moving before her mind can follow. When she reaches the tall gate, she stops, studying the iron bars that rise like black ribs against the twilight.
She wonders how many ghosts live there. How many voices cry behind those windows. How many nights the house has waited for someone foolish enough to enter.
She wants to see inside—to know if it’s as hollow as she is.
She looks around. No one. Just the wind, the hum of a faraway car. She grips the gate, feeling its cold against her palms, and begins to climb. Trespassing doesn’t scare her anymore. She’s broken worse boundaries—between bodies, between lives, between herself and the people she’s devoured just to feel something.
Halfway up, she almost slips when a voice drifts from the other side.
“You could’ve just asked me to open the gate for you.”
Enid freezes. Her head jerks to the sound, scanning the shadows. Then she sees her.
A woman, leaning casually against the wall, arms crossed, gaze steady. She isn’t watching—she’s studying. Like she’s been there for a while. Like she’s been waiting.
“How long have you been there?” Enid asks, breath shaky.
“Long enough to watch you decide to trespass my house.”
Her voice is calm, measured, yet there’s something sharp beneath it—something that cuts quietly.
Enid doesn’t know what to do. She hadn’t planned for this part. She could jump, maybe run. She could disappear into the night like she always does. But she doesn’t move.
Her fingers tighten on the railing until her knuckles ache. The metal bites into her skin. She feels her body tremble, her arms heavy, her muscles burning. Still, she stays.
“I didn’t know someone actually lived here,” she says finally, her voice low but steady.
The woman looks up at the house, nodding slightly. “Most people don’t.”
There’s something in the way she says it—like the words have a double meaning. Like the house isn’t the only thing alive in this conversation.
Enid watches her move—slow, deliberate, like each step is part of a ritual. She walks until she’s standing right beneath her, tilting her head back just enough to meet Enid’s eyes.
“Next time,” the woman says, her tone smooth as smoke, “if you’re really desperate to get in, use the smaller gate at the back. You don’t have to break your bones to feel invited.”
Then she turns and walks away, not looking back even when Enid calls out.
“Hey! Wait! I didn’t get your name—”
Enid moves to climb down, too fast, her hand grabbing the wrong bar. It snaps. Metal shrieks. She falls. The air leaves her lungs before the pain arrives. She hits the ground hard, back first, the breath knocked out of her.
“Fuck,” she mutters through gritted teeth. Her arm screams in pain when she tries to move it—something’s wrong, maybe broken.
But her heart—
her heart is pounding. Fast. Loud. Alive.
She stares up at the night sky, breathless, and laughs. The stars above blur into streaks of silver.
That woman—
that nameless stranger—
she made something inside Enid awaken. Something sharp, primal, frightening.
The hunger rises.
Not for food. Not for safety.
But for her.
For her voice, her calmness, the way she stood there so unbothered, so unafraid.
Enid has never been satisfied just by looking. She’s always needed more. To touch, to taste, to consume—to know what someone feels like from the inside out.
And yet all it took tonight was a few words, a gaze, a fleeting moment across a gate.
She didn’t get her name.
Didn’t get a taste.
Didn’t even know what she was hungry for.
All she knew was that the ache inside her had changed shape.
It wasn’t just hunger anymore.
It was craving.
She laughs again, the sound broken, breathy. Pain shoots through her side, but she doesn’t stop. The dirt clings to her skin, the night wraps around her like a bruise.
It hurts, but it feels real.
It feels like something alive.
Her arm throbs. Her ribs ache. The world spins softly. But she doesn’t mind the fall. She doesn’t mind the taste of dust in her mouth, or the blood on her tongue.
Because for the first time in years—
she feels something.
Something that isn’t empty.
Something that wants.
And it makes her hunger sing.
Act 4: The Invitation
She is hunted—maybe by the town, that house, or that nameless woman.
She can’t quite figure out what voices or ghosts are louder now inside her head. Sometimes it’s her mother’s forgotten voice calling her darling in a dream she no longer remembers the end of. Sometimes it’s her father’s last words of affirmation, brittle and shallow like old paper. Sometimes it’s Bruno’s reminder that she will be alone forever, or Yoko’s sugar-sweet voice that still lingers in her tongue like rot. But lately, it’s that woman. The nameless one. The voice that invited her to get in, to see what’s inside.
An offer she could never decline, even if it meant being devoured whole.
She is surprised by this small town. Though it looks haunted at night, it feels strangely alive in the morning. The people smile at her in a way that doesn’t reach their eyes—like they know something, like they’re used to seeing strangers pass through and never return. They show her where to eat, where to walk, where not to stay too long. But no one talks about the house. And Enid never asks.
She wanted to, of course. But she knows the way desire works—how it feeds on your impatience, how it spoils when spoken aloud.
The more you reach for something, the farther it hides.
The more you crave the taste, the more the hunger eats you alive.
So she learns to hold it in.
She clenches her stomach, trains her heart to endure the ache. She tells herself to wait—to starve a little longer—because this hunger feels different. It’s not like the others she’s had to silence. This one feels like it could fill her. This one feels like it could end her.
She has no place to stay.
Turns out, this town doesn’t have motels, or maybe it just doesn’t want her to rest. The clerk at the store tells her the rooms are all “taken.” The old lady at the diner says she could “try again next week,” then laughs like it’s a joke only ghosts would understand.
So she lives in her car for now—two nights of restless sleep and metallic dreams. She showers in a public bathroom that requires a meal to get in. The food is tolerable; the coffee is cold; the soap smells like iron. Her arm still aches where the bone cracked, already patched by a local medic with hands that trembled too much to be human.
She tells herself it’s fine. It doesn’t feel bad, not really. Pain is familiar. Hunger is home.
But the thought of that woman won’t leave her.
She’s seen her only once—only once—but her mind keeps replaying that moment like a song she can’t stop humming. The voice, the eyes, the way she stood by the wall, watching her trespass like it was a test she needed to fail.
Enid could’ve walked up to the front gate again—she already did—but the small one at the back haunts her more. The one the woman mentioned, use the smaller gate next time.
She wonders if it’s real, or if she imagined it, if the whole encounter was a fever dream fed by her own hunger.
But she doesn’t have to wonder for long.
A loud knock at her car window pulls her from her thoughts.
The sun is setting, drowning the streets in gold and gray.
Another knock, harder this time. Enid lowers the window, irritation crawling under her skin.
“You can’t park here,” the man says, voice flat, eyes unreadable.
“I could pay for parking,” she offers, “how much do you—”
“No can do.” His voice cuts through her sentence like a knife. “You need to go around the back where people won’t see you. The more you stay here, the more they’ll see you as a feast.”
A feast.
The word hits her in the gut like a prophecy.
She wants to laugh at the irony. She is the hunger, and yet she’s the meal too.
She understands what he means. She’s too visible here, too exposed. Out in the open where eyes follow her like she’s already being portioned and served. And so she swallows the irritation, pockets her wallet, and asks,
“Where can I stay then?”
The man looks at her, pity softening the edges of his gaze. Then, slowly, he points.
“Go straight. When you see the red lamp, turn right. Keep driving till you see the big black house. Park behind it. There’s a space there. Safe enough.”
Enid memorizes every word.
She knows where that path leads.
Destiny—or something hungrier—wants her there.
“Thank you, sir,” she says, smiling, though her mouth feels dry.
He steps back, still watching.
“Be careful out there,” he calls as she starts the car, but it sounds more like a warning than care.
She’s used to that tone.
The tone people use when they mistake her for a tragedy waiting to happen.
She drives off. The headlights carve through the dimming road. In the mirror, she sees the man still watching until he fades into the dark. The red lamp appears soon after—a pulse, a signal—and she turns right.
Then she sees it.
The house.
It’s bigger than she remembered. Darker too.
Dead trees curl around it like claws. The air feels colder, denser, as if she’s driving into a throat ready to swallow her. The sky folds into itself, and the silence becomes something living, breathing.
“What the fuck is this place…” she murmurs, slowing down.
She finds the open space the man mentioned. It’s tucked behind the house, hidden from sight. Safer, maybe. Or maybe just more secret.
She parks, the engine ticking softly as it cools. Then she steps out, breathing in the scent of damp soil and old wood.
The night hums quietly around her.
She feels it again—the pull.
That gnawing pulse under her ribs, that craving that hums like a cello string, steady and low.
Her feet move before her thoughts can stop them.
She walks closer to the house, tracing the cracked walls with her fingers. The stone feels cold, like touching a corpse. She follows the wall until she finds it—the small gate. The one she was told about.
It’s real.
It’s waiting.
Inviting.
Her hunger growls inside her, deep and primal. She can almost taste it—the air, the dust, the decay. She pushes the gate, and it groans open, echoing into the quiet like an exhale. She steps in, slow, deliberate.
Something inside her spine shivers.
Something whispers, welcome home.
The air inside is different—heavy, metallic. She doesn’t need to see the ghosts to know they’re there. She feels their breath on her neck, their eyes behind the curtains. The house feels alive, breathing through its wounds.
She walks deeper.
The moonlight drips through the cracked roof, guiding her steps.
When she reaches the back door, she hesitates. Her hand hovers over the knob.
She could leave. She could still go back to her car, drive away, forget.
But hunger doesn’t forget.
It calls, louder than reason.
Her hand twists the knob. The door gives way with a tired groan, and she steps inside. The scent of dust and something sweet—old wood, dried fruit, forgotten perfume—hits her. The light isn’t bright but enough to show her the way.
“Hello?” she whispers. Her voice echoes, bouncing off empty walls.
She follows the sound, the flicker of faint light ahead, the rhythm of something faint—music? Yes, music. A cello, low and mournful, the kind that crawls beneath your skin and fills you slowly, like blood.
The melody wraps around her, lures her deeper.
Until she sees her.
The woman.
Sitting in the half-light, bow gliding across strings, eyes closed.
The music stops.
So does Enid’s breath.
Silence—then a shift. The woman tilts her head slightly, enough for Enid to see her face. That same calm, unreadable face. The kind you could mistake for mercy until it smiles.
“You see,” she says, voice soft but sharp enough to cut through the dark,
“I told you—it’s easier to be led in than to break your bones to push yourself through.”
And Enid—hungry, shaking, haunted—feels it in her bones.
The recognition. The calling. The ache.
Something in her wants to run, but something far stronger wants to stay.
To be consumed.
Or to consume.
And for the first time, she doesn’t know which one she wants more.
Act 5: A taste
“You’re alone?”
It’s obvious, clearly in front of her, and this place screams loneliness. Enid just wanted to confirm, she wanted to fill the silence with something — a voice, a question, an answer. Her words trembled in the air, as if afraid to disturb the house’s heavy breathing. Every echo felt like a heartbeat too loud, too human, in a place that forgot what warmth sounded like.
“Are you alone?” The girl asked back, her tone steady but edged with something almost curious. She stood up slowly, her shadow stretching against the flicker of the candles. The black dress she wore drank every bit of light that dared to touch her — it clung to her like darkness sewn into skin. It took Enid’s breath away, that sight. It made her want to bang her head against the wall, just to forget, just to see it again for the first time — to relive this strange, aching awe over and over, until it burned itself into her memory like a scar she’d willingly keep.
“Yes, I’m not from here.” She gestures to the town, looking around. The place doesn’t look like a home. It feels like a body that’s already been emptied out. There are sheets draped over the furniture, as if someone wanted to bury the house alive — to keep its bones still and untouched. Enid wonders who covered it, and why the act of hiding something could look so tender and cruel at the same time.
“Figured. You’re the only one who has the guts to come this close. Clearly, you don’t live here.”
She walks closer. Not too close — but close enough that Enid almost, almost backs up. But she doesn’t. She stands her ground, eyes meeting eyes. The same hollow, the same quiet, the same kind of emptiness that knows how to look back without blinking.
She’s just like her — empty bodies trying to cheat life. Empty mouths pretending they don’t starve for touch.
“Your arm,” she pointed out, gaze lowering to the bandage, scanning it as if her bare eyes could see through to the broken bones beneath. The tone isn’t harsh, but there’s no pity in it either. Just observation. Understanding. Precision.
“Oh yeah,” Enid laughed, raising her broken arm, trying to hide the sharp pain that bolts through her system. She’d almost forgotten about it. Almost. The dull throb reminds her that she is still human, still breakable, still painfully here.
She forgot she’s not yet healed — and maybe she never really will be.
“Your bandage is poorly done, that’s why it’s still hurting. It’s not really a high fall.”
The woman steps closer again. For a moment, Enid thought she’d be devoured right there — swallowed whole in that dim kitchen air, bones and all. But she doesn’t. She walks past her, just close enough that their shoulders touch, a whisper of skin meeting skin. The friction is electric. Enid almost collapses from the contact, the way a body gives way to hunger when it’s starved too long. She almost surrenders. Almost lets herself be eaten by the moment.
“Follow me,” the woman says — not asks. Commands. And so she does. She obeys.
She follows her through the hall, through air that smells faintly of dust, metal, and old smoke. The walls hum softly, as if remembering voices long gone. The house feels alive — or maybe it’s just Enid’s pulse pounding in her ears. She doesn’t understand this pull, but she doesn’t question it either. There’s a rhythm to her steps, like she’s tracing a path she’s walked before in another life.
And for a moment, she swears she’s ready to follow this woman through hell if that’s where she leads.
“Sit there.”
Enid does what she’s told. She sits at a stool in front of the kitchen sink. She watches her move — quiet, fluid, like a ghost who has long accepted she’s haunting. Her fingers move with grace, reaching for a small box of medicine, avoiding every creaking corner of the floor as though the house bends for her.
Enid thinks — if this place is haunted, then this girl is the ghost that keeps it alive. The kind that doesn’t scare, only lingers.
Enid doesn’t really know what this feeling is. This place, this house, this girl — they give her something she’s never received her whole life. Not comfort, not affection, not safety — something older, sharper. Something she can’t quite name but knows she’ll never forget once it’s gone.
“Arms.”
The girl demands, and Enid obeys. She offers her arm like a ritual, like an act of worship.
A first part of surrendering.
She watches her touch her arm carefully — slow, deliberate. The sound of scissors slicing through old bandage feels like breath breaking. Enid never really thought about what it means to offer something. Never really understood what it’s like to be consumed, piece by piece, until there’s nothing left to guard.
Her whole life she’s been searching for what she wanted, what she needed.
But she never knew what it felt like to be wanted — to be needed.
And now, with every brush of those cold hands melting the tension in her skin, Enid feels something close to being seen.
She watches her move, her focus, her silence. It feels like being devoured in slow motion. It doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t even sting. Instead, it fills her with a strange, quiet warmth. The woman doesn’t just fix her arm — she heals her, without knowing where the breaks truly are. She just knows how to take care of something — of her.
“You’re staring.”
The voice cuts through the trance like a knife that doesn’t bleed, only hums.
“You’re beautiful.”
The words spill from Enid’s mouth before she can stop them. They sound raw, unpolished, too human. She hadn’t planned to say them, but maybe they’ve been waiting somewhere inside her — aching to be set free.
The woman’s brow lifts slightly, her dark eyes flicking toward her.
Enid stares back. At the eyes, the freckles, the mouth that looks like it could both ruin and save her.
She’s craving. She’s hungry. She wants more.
And it’s confusing — how can she taste her just by looking? How can something inside her be fed by a gaze?
She tastes different — not bitter, not too sweet. She tastes like something Enid never had before in her entire life —
She tastes like home.
And the word feels alien on her tongue. Her body doesn’t know what to do with it. Her tongue trembles; her heart misfires. Home isn’t supposed to taste like this — heavy, dangerous, forbidden. But she swallows it anyway, as if it could fill the void she’s carried all her life.
Her body craves, and for a moment she feels almost satisfied. But the feeling is fleeting. When the woman lets go of her arm, stepping away, Enid’s body reacts faster than her mind. Her hand shoots out, tugging at the woman’s sleeve before she can leave. The desperation is shameful, almost primal — a silent plea.
Please, more.
More.
Please.
“I’m Enid.”
The name falls from her lips like a confession, fragile and alive. Her fingers almost brush the woman’s wrist, and she swears the air between them trembles. The woman looks at her hand — not touching, not pulling away either — as if studying it, as if her gaze alone could burn holes straight through the skin. Enid feels marked, branded by the way she looks at her.
Please, more.
More.
Please.
“Wednesday.”
Her eyes lift, meeting hers again. The name tastes like smoke and honey when she says it. It lingers in the air between them — a promise, a warning, a wound.
“There’s a room over there,” she says softly. “Stay if you want. But not for too long.”
Enid’s fingers loosen their hold, the fabric slipping away from her touch. It hurts. It feels like gravity itself is pulling her back into emptiness. She can taste her own blood on her lips, as if the words she’s hearing just stabbed her through the chest.
She doesn’t care if she leaves. She doesn’t care if she’s asked not to stay.
All she can think is that she doesn’t want this feeling to end.
Enid didn’t know what to feel. She was invited here, yet she was told not to stay too long. It’s cruel, it’s tender, it’s everything she’s ever known.
And then, Bruno’s voice returns — loud, echoing through the corners of her head.
“You’ll forever be alone.”
“You’ll forever be alone.”
“You’ll forever be alone.”
“Why can’t I stay?”
Her voice is small, trembling, but it makes the woman stop — her back still turned, her breath almost breaking the silence.
“Because I’m planning to burn this house down.”
She looks back, just slightly, enough to catch Enid’s expression — that flicker of disbelief, of confusion, of hunger. And maybe she feeds off it a little, the way one starved soul recognizes another. She sees it all in Enid’s eyes, and Enid can taste her own craving like ash.
But she won’t give it to her.
She can’t.
She’s as hollow as Enid, as empty as her.
She has nothing left to offer — except a roof, a heartbeat, a few nights before she destroys everything again.
“Leave early if you can. I don’t want you to burn with it.”
And just like that, she turns and leaves her standing there — hungry, trembling, craving.
Enid watches her back fade into the dark, each step pulling something vital out of her. And for the first time in her life, she realizes — she hates the sight of someone walking away.
It feels like flesh being torn apart, piece by piece. Like swallowing her own pride, her own beliefs, her own hunger until it poisons her.
It tastes disgusting — nothing compared to what she just had a moment ago — but it will suffice. For now.
Because she needs strength — strength to make a decision no one ever taught her how to make.
Strength to choose something she’s never had before.
She’s staying.
She won’t leave until she’s full, until she’s satisfied, until she no longer has to beg for more.
She won’t leave until she consumes her — bones and all.