Archive of Our Own ^beta

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.

Chapter Text

Act 6: Hunger ll

She can’t sleep.

Enid might’ve admitted that she’s had longer, more peaceful sleeps in her car — even if she woke up with her back screaming in pain and her neck stiff like stone. But inside this room, wrapped in sheets that smelled like old dust and lost time, under an atmosphere so heavy it felt like it was pressing on her lungs, she just couldn’t.

She almost did — almost — before her nightmares arrived again, slipping through the cracks of her rest like they’ve been waiting for their cue. Waiting for her to close her eyes, so they could crawl back into her head and remind her what she’s running from.

It isn’t the bed. It’s the comfiest — dust-filled — bed she’s ever laid on. It’s the silence. Too loud not to notice. Too thick not to choke on. The sound of her own breathing feels foreign in her chest, the branches tapping at the window like bony fingers, and somewhere, tangled between them, she swears she can still hear Wednesday’s voice. That low, deliberate voice.

She wonders where she sleeps. Why she’s here in the first place. Why she wants to burn the house down — why anyone would.

The house is far beyond saving, she thinks. If someone really wanted to live here, they’d have to tear it all apart — brick by brick, beam by beam — and start over. Maybe that’s what Wednesday feels like. Maybe that’s why she wants to destroy it. But her face doesn’t say ruin; her voice — the one Enid already memorized — speaks of certainty, of cold resolve. It doesn’t shake. It doesn’t lie.

After a few turns, a few sighs, Enid gives up trying to sleep. She sits up, picks up the jacket her father left her — the last tangible warmth she ever owned. The last thing that smelled like home. Her last reminder of being chosen, of being loved. She can still smell him faintly, faded into the threads, and sometimes she dreams that he’s sitting beside her in the driver’s seat, talking about nothing and everything — how he wished he could’ve left first, before her mother.

It’s like a drug, she thinks. Something she keeps taking, even when it stops working.

She leaves the room, guided by the dim light of her phone, wandering through the house like it’s a labyrinth designed to keep her lost. Her fingers trail along the walls, over vases thick with dust, old portraits half-hidden behind cobwebs. The air tastes like old secrets. Then she reaches the fireplace. Above it, a portrait shrouded in black cloth. Something inside her wants to uncover it, to see what Wednesday is trying to bury, but she doesn’t. Instead, she gathers wood and paper, whispering quiet curses as she struggles to light the match.

When it finally catches — that small, trembling flame — she almost jumps. But then she whispers, “yes,” soft as a confession, feeding the fire until it grows steady.

She sits before it, jacket wrapped around her shoulders, inhaling that faint illusion of comfort — that burning scent of false warmth. She curls up, knees pulled to her chest, and stares into the blaze. It flickers like a heartbeat.

She thinks about how everything in her life feels temporary — how easy it is for people to leave once they’re full.

No one ever stays long enough to share their heart with someone who’s starving.

Enid’s always the last one to have the plate — the scraps, the leftovers — and that’s why she has nothing.

The fire crackles, spitting small sparks, and she wonders how easy it would be to just lean closer. To let it burn her memories, her doubts, her jacket, her skin. To let it take her whole. She almost does. She almost reaches out, wanting something to hurt her enough to feel real again. Wanting to be consumed by something that at least wants her.

But the voice behind her is warmer than the flame — not burning, but hollowing her out, reaching into her chest and scraping against her soul.

“I see. You’re one of the ghosts now.”

Enid turns slowly.

Wednesday stands there — hair unbraided, robe tied loosely, her expression unreadable. There’s something intimate in the way she carries herself, as if even standing still is an act of control. She stands beside her for a moment before sinking down, sitting beside the fire with perfect, deliberate grace. Her movements are so precise, so delicate, that Enid feels clumsy just by breathing too loud.

Enid can’t stop looking at her. And Wednesday — Wednesday feels it. The fear near her, the craving, the pull.

“Can’t sleep?” Wednesday asks. Her voice cuts through the silence. Enid turns her head slightly, meets her eyes — dark, depthless. You can see yourself in them, if you stare long enough.

“Mmm,” Enid hums, hugging herself tighter. “Nightmares.”

She says it like an admission, but it feels like a sin. Something ugly, something that shouldn’t be seen.

“Too bad,” Wednesday says quietly. “This house can only give you nightmares.”

Enid looks at her again. Wednesday stares straight into the fire, her expression cold, but her eyes — her eyes are alive, bright with something unspoken. She looks like she could command the flames, make them swallow everything in a single breath.

“Why stay here then?” Enid asks softly. She doesn’t know why she needs to know, only that she does. She needs to know what Wednesday is made of — pain, hate, grief — and why Enid still wants a taste of it.

“Not for long,” Wednesday says, bitterness curling in her voice. Enid could almost taste it — sharp, metallic. She turns, meets Enid’s eyes, and it feels like she’s staring straight through her, setting her ribs aflame from the inside. “I came here to ruin what’s left of my past. Then I’ll go.”

“Why burn it?” Enid presses. She feels the desperation crawling through her like hunger, like she’s holding out an empty plate, begging for more. Begging to be filled with something, even if it hurts.

“It’s better that way.” Wednesday’s eyes flick toward her, giving her a small taste of truth. “You probably wouldn’t understand. You run away from your past instead of burning it.”

That burns more than the fire ever could.

Enid clenches her fists, feeling the heat crawl under her skin. Wednesday smirks faintly, the corners of her lips sharp enough to cut.

“My past built me,” Enid spits quietly. “I can’t just ruin it because it’s full of shit.”

“So you run instead?” Wednesday leans closer, voice lower, hungrier. “You let it follow you — haunt you — just to feel something chasing you. Just to feel like you’re worth being wanted, even by your ghosts.”

Enid’s jaw tightens. Her heart bleeds a little. She wanted this — this closeness, this tearing open — but not like this. It hurts being seen. It hurts more being devoured by truth.

Wednesday looks at her like no one ever has.

Not like her mother’s regret, not like her father’s neglect, not like Bruno’s deceit or Yoko’s performative affection.

Wednesday looks at her like a meal. A slow, deliberate meal. Like every inch of her is worth tasting — broken bones, open wounds, bleeding heart and all.

For once, Enid feels full — not from comfort, but from being wanted enough to be consumed.

“I choose my own ways,” Enid says finally, her voice trembling. “And I’ll stick with them.”

Wednesday smirks, savoring the defiance like it’s the final bite of something forbidden. “That’s you,” she murmurs, standing up. “And you’re wrong.”

Enid doesn’t move. She doesn’t look back. She can hear Wednesday behind her — not gone, but not near. The air feels heavier, thicker, as if her presence burns without touching.

Enid stays in front of the fire, watching the flames lick upward, feeling them crawl into her chest. The warmth hurts — but it feels like something she can finally keep.

Behind her, Wednesday watches too — arms crossed, leaning against the wall. Her eyes are fixed on Enid, and the fire reflected in her gaze looks alive, almost tender. Like she’s studying how emptiness can look so beautiful when it starts to burn.

“You’re staring,” Enid says, not turning around.

“You’re beautiful,” Wednesday replies. Her voice doesn’t tremble — it never does. It lands soft and heavy, like a knife sliding into the heart.

And in that moment, Enid feels something inside her melt — not from pain, but from the quiet realization that for the first time, someone saw her ruin and still found it worth keeping.

Someone looked at her rot, her scars, her hunger — and didn’t flinch.

Wednesday doesn’t just see her. She tastes her. She keeps her.

And she won’t let her burn.

Act 7: Sweet Treat ll

Six Weeks

She’s been staying in this house, in this town, for six weeks.

Time moves differently here—slow, heavy, like the air itself refuses to let her go. She’s learned the names of people who never really look at her long enough to remember hers. The woman who sells fruits by the road calls her darling, her palms always red-stained with pomegranate seeds. She even gives her discounts, says that Enid’s smile makes the fruit sweeter, the color deeper.

Of course, it’s a trick. The smiles are fake, drawn soft across her mouth but empty inside. She’s good at it—pretending, blending, surviving. She can’t offer joy; she doesn’t even know what it feels like. But she’s glad to have something to bring back—not home, but to the house. To her. To Wednesday.

Being with Wednesday feels like something she can’t quite name.

They sit across from each other at every meal, quiet and composed, the silence between them both unbearable and sacred. She never sees Wednesday step outside, as if the sunlight itself would wound her. But she often watches her pacing the garden, walking through the rows of dead flowers—withered things that still hold a kind of beauty only she could carry.

It suits her, the decay. The dying petals, the brittle stems.

And still, Enid imagines her surrounded by things that bloom.

So when she passes a garden on her way back—a small one whose owners are away—she lets the impulse take her. Reckless again. Her arm is fine now. Wednesday was right: the fall hadn’t hurt her as much as the wrong hands that treated it. Since Wednesday touched her, fixed her, it’s like her bones learned the shape of warmth again.

Now she climbs a smaller gate. The risk feels almost tender. Her eyes lock on a single rose, red like something breathing. She reaches for it, and of course, beauty demands pain. The thorn pierces her finger; the blood wells up and runs down. It burns, but she doesn’t stop. She plucks it, clutches it like a secret, and hurries away before anyone can see.

She runs back—heart hammering, breath uneven. In one hand, a plastic bag of pomegranates; in the other, the rose. A thin line of blood trails down her wrist, glistening in the faint light. She doesn’t care. For once, she feels alive—excited to offer something, to give something that doesn’t require pretending.

Inside, the air is heavy with the smell of metal and smoke. The fireplace still burns low. The cello rests silent in the corner.

Then she sees Wednesday—in the kitchen, sitting by the table, sharpening a knife with slow, patient precision. The sound—steel against steel—echoes faintly.

Panting, Enid walks closer until she stands before her. Wednesday looks up, raising one brow, her expression unreadable, her dark eyes flickering like a blade catching light.

“Here,” Enid says, setting the bag down. “The vendor said it’s sweet.”

She picks one pomegranate, holding it out, but Wednesday doesn’t take it. She only watches. So Enid places it in front of her, then lifts the other hand—the one with the rose, her smile small, almost trembling.

“I picked it for you,” she says softly. “You can throw it away if you want… or put it somewhere.”

Wednesday’s gaze lingers—not on the rose, but on Enid’s bleeding hand.

“You’re bleeding,” she observes.

“Oh—yeah. Just a thorn. I didn’t notice.” Enid laughs lightly, brushing it off. She sets the rose beside the fruit. Her blood stains the table faintly, the mark small but vivid.

Wednesday studies her, silent for a moment before speaking, her tone low and certain.

“You’re the type who doesn’t care if you hurt yourself just to get what you want.”

It isn’t an accusation—more like a truth spoken aloud.

Enid frowns a little, confused. She goes to the sink, washing her hand. “It doesn’t really hurt,” she says. “See? It’s gone.” She shows the faint mark, water still dripping down her wrist. Then she picks up the pomegranate again. “I know how to open this without making a mess. You have to be careful, slow. If you rush, it bleeds too much. You have to treat it like—like you’re opening a heart.”

She takes the knife from Wednesday’s hand, careful with its weight, and begins.

“See?” she says quietly, slicing the fruit open. “Gentle. Like cutting a heart.”

The blade glides through the skin. The red inside spills out, dark and wet. It stains her palms, runs down her fingers, marking her skin like something sacred. She doesn’t flinch. She just works slowly, removing each seed, collecting them in a bowl. The fruit bleeds, but beautifully.

Wednesday watches her the entire time. The motion. The focus. The reverence. The way her hands move like she’s performing an ancient ritual.

“All done,” Enid murmurs. She tastes one seed; the sweetness bursts open in her mouth, staining her lips. “Hmm. Yeah, it’s sweet. Here, have some.”

She offers the bowl, but Wednesday’s eyes never leave her lips. The red that lingers there, the way it glows against her skin.

“Like a heart, you say?”

Wednesday takes the bowl, but doesn’t eat. Instead, she sets it aside, rises slowly, and steps closer. The air changes, thickens. Enid feels it—the pull, the quiet gravity that always comes before something breaks.

Wednesday’s hand finds her collar, tugging her forward until their breaths touch. Her voice, when it comes, is soft and sharp all at once.

“You make it sound so delicate,” she whispers. “But hearts—hearts are meant to be devoured.”

Then she kisses her.

It’s not gentle. It’s consuming. The kind of kiss that steals the air from your lungs and replaces it with hunger. Enid gasps, then melts, her hands gripping Wednesday’s sleeves, leaving red fingerprints from the fruit she’d just torn apart. Their mouths move together—urgent, breathless, tasting of pomegranate and something darker.

She moans when Wednesday bites her lip, licks away the blood like it’s honey. The taste between them is thick, alive. Enid’s body trembles as Wednesday deepens the kiss, devouring her like she’s something rare and fleeting.

Wednesday doesn’t just kiss—she takes.

Everything Enid offers, every piece of her given freely. Every reckless choice, every bruise, every wound. All the little violences she’s done to herself just to feel close.

And Enid lets her. Wants her to.

To take.

To consume.

To remember.

When Wednesday finally pulls away, her breath is steady, her lips red and glistening. Enid’s heart feels raw, hollowed out, but alive in a way it never has before.

Wednesday licks her own lips, savoring the last taste, her voice soft but certain.

“Yeah,” she says. “It is sweet.”

Then she leaves her standing there, trembling, lips parted, blood and fruit staining her skin.

Enid doesn’t follow. She can’t. Her knees are weak, her chest heavy. Her mouth tastes like iron and sugar. Her pulse burns.

For the first time—after all the running, the pretending, the searching for warmth in strangers—

With one kiss, one bite, Enid finally knows what it means to be wanted.

Wanted enough to be devoured.

Act 8: Craving ll

She can’t help but dream about it—the soft lips, the taste of it—of her.

She lays there in the dark, replaying the scene again and again until it stains her mind like blood on silk.

She thinks it’s not true, a fever dream conjured from longing, but the bruise that still blooms on her lip where Wednesday bit her aches like a secret confession carved into her skin.

Enid touches it sometimes, presses against the sting, as if pain could explain why it felt so right.

She tries to find reasons—any reason—for why Wednesday did that.

She saw how Wednesday looked at her.

That gaze wasn’t human—it was hunger dressed as restraint.

There was something lurking behind her eyes, a quiet storm of emotion that Enid had never seen before, something ancient and unspoken.

She tries to convince herself it was nothing, just a trick of the moonlight, just a lie her heart wanted to believe. But every time they get close, every time their breath collides, the air between them hums and trembles like the moment before lightning strikes.

The yearning burns through her veins, a raw, violent craving—as if their bodies were carved from the same sin, separated only so they could spend eternity trying to devour one another. A magnetic pull—destiny’s cruel little joke—designed to tear them apart only to make them crawl back, desperate to be whole again.

And now this is it.

Enid has found her.

Wednesday has welcomed her in.

Does she want her? Of course.

Does she need her? Perhaps.

She has never felt this kind of hunger before.

Her empty body willingly lays itself bare, offering everything to someone she’s not sure will take it.

But Wednesday doesn’t just take—she offers back. And though both of them are hollow in their own ways, their voids align, their absences fit together like teeth sinking into soft flesh. They give what they can—a piece, a pulse, a breath—to make the other complete.

It’s like clawing her heart out, bleeding it dry, holding it up as an offering. Enid imagines Wednesday doing the same—tearing open her chest, her black heart glistening like onyx, trembling, still beating—and placing it in her hands.

She wonders if love is meant to feel like this: the ache of being consumed and the relief of being devoured.

She needs to know the truth.

She needs to find where she stands.

Should she stay?

Should she run?

Either way, she’s burning this place down.

If Enid decides to leave, she knows the fire will swallow everything. There will be no coming back, no retracing steps through the ashes. Wednesday will become another ghost, buried among the ruins of her memory—like her mother, her father, Bruno, Yoko…

But she hates that.

She doesn’t want to bury Wednesday with the rest of her pain.

Wednesday isn’t a scar to hide.

She isn’t a memory to escape from.

She’s the wound Enid would gladly reopen just to feel alive again. She’s the hunger that makes her human.

She’s the taste Enid would keep biting until her mouth filled with blood and devotion.

Words can’t hold what she feels—so she lets action speak.

She rises from the bed, the air cold against her skin, and walks out. The house moans around her like a living thing, every hallway a throat swallowing her whole.

She moves through it, searching, desperate—up the stairs, through narrow doors, shadowed corridors.

The walls seem to shift, whispering her name. She opens doors one by one, but Wednesday is nowhere to be found.

Until she reaches the last one—the biggest room.

Wednesday’s room.

Her hand trembles on the knob.

She takes a breath, lifts her foot, steps inside.

The cold greets her first, followed by silence—heavy, endless, like the pause before a confession. The air is thick with absence.

On the bedside table lies the rose she picked earlier, its petals bruised and blackened at the edges. It’s beautiful in its dying. But it’s not what she’s looking for.

Enid moves forward, brushes her fingers against the bed sheets—smooth and untouched, as if waiting for a body that never came back.

The room feels like a coffin, and she’s half-expecting Wednesday to rise from it, pale and eternal.

She walks toward the tall window, its glass catching the moonlight like a blade.

She places her palm against it, and in the silver reflection, she sees her—

down there, outside, beside her car.

Wednesday stands barefoot under the moon, still and silent, staring up at the sky as if whispering to it.

Enid’s heart twists, tears at itself.

Her chest burns with something sharp and tender. She presses a hand to her heart as if trying to tear it out again, to offer it once more—and this time, she does.

She runs.

Down the stairs, through the halls, the floorboards screaming beneath her steps.

She’s no longer running away—she’s running toward her.

When she reaches the back door, her breath is ragged, her pulse frantic. She throws it open without thinking, the night swallowing her whole. She walks toward Wednesday, each step a prayer and a promise. She knows Wednesday feels her coming—she always does.

And without turning, Wednesday speaks.

Her voice cuts through the quiet.

“Took you too long.”

Enid doesn’t answer.

There are no words for this, no language for a hunger so sacred it hurts. So she steps closer, closer still, until she’s standing right behind her. Wednesday doesn’t turn—she’s waiting. Inviting her. Daring her to ruin her, to give in, to feed the desire that’s been gnawing at their ribs.

Enid takes her wrist, turns her around, and pulls her close.

And then she hugs her.

It’s not gentle.

It’s desperate.

Bones crack. Hearts collide. Two broken pieces trying to fit back together.

Her heartbeat thrums against Wednesday’s chest until they fall into the same rhythm, a single pulse shared between two monsters who never learned to love gently.

Wednesday moves—slowly, uncertainly—before tightening her grip, locking her arms around Enid’s neck like she’ll never let go again.

The contact is electric, suffocating, divine.

A craving finally met, a famine finally fed.

And for the first time, Enid feels full.

She closes her eyes, breathes in Wednesday’s scent—dust, rain, smoke, and something faintly sweet—and lets the moment devour her.

For once, she is not starving.

She is being eaten alive, and she welcomes it.

“Tell me…” she whispers, her lips brushing against Wednesday’s ear. “You feel it too.”

There’s no answer, only the tightening of arms, the burying of a face into her neck.

Then a voice, faint, fragile, almost breaking

“I asked for something alive to enter this house…” Wednesday’s breath trembles. “And you came in, lighting the fire.”

And that’s all Enid needs to hear.

That’s all it takes to feed the hunger.

A love that finally eats her back.

Act 9: The invitation ll

Devotion seeks more than a touch, a taste, a fall.

It longs to consume, to breathe every part, to dig through bone, flesh, and skin until nothing remains but the essence of belonging.

That was how Enid felt, the moment she was led inside the dead house—its silence humming like a forgotten hymn. A cold hand promising warmth, an empty heart offering something whole. All her life she had never known what it meant to be fed well. She had only tasted broken promises, swallowed spoiled lies, and endured the bitter sickness of disappointment until she was left hollow, starving for something real. She learned to survive on the echoes of affection, never the meal itself.

But now—for the first time—she wasn’t running. The voices that once screamed fear and doubt fell silent, replaced only by the sound of Wednesday’s breath filling her mind. And she did not regret it. Not the surrender, not the offering. She would do it a hundred times over.

To be eaten.

To be consumed.

Every step she took felt like a prayer, a secret melody guiding her to heaven’s edge. Her hand gripped something that did not disappoint. Her heart beat for someone who no longer felt dangerous to risk it all for—though she had already risked it, unknowingly, from the very start. That reckless impulse that made her climb in, break her arm, bleed just to offer a rose—it was never just for attention. It was hunger, pure and unrelenting.

And Wednesday—oh, she had given everything from the beginning. The invitation. The fixing. A bed to rest in. A flame to light. A kiss to claim.

Wednesday craved her—more than Enid could ever imagine. And Enid had no idea.

So when Wednesday led her toward the bedroom, it was a final vow—an unspoken covenant to seal their hunger, to feed at last on what they had been starved for. Who could resist such a holy invitation?

To be consumed.

To be fed.

Before Wednesday could open the door, Enid pressed her against it. Her body towered over the smaller one, every breath between them heavy with unspoken questions, every touch a trembling answer. Enid’s shaking hands crawled up to Wednesday’s face, palms cupping her cheeks, thumbs brushing across each freckle—memorizing her. Enid stared, drinking her in, devouring every piece her eyes could reach.

It burned.

Enid was Wednesday’s fire—and she loved to turn into ashes just to feel her warmth.

Her lips, her eyes, her nose—every part of her was a sin for the unobservant. But Enid saw everything.

And Wednesday let her. Because she did the same. The silent begging for more, the drowning in blue eyes that pulled her into oblivion—she let herself sink until the air was gone. Her hands searched for anchor and found Enid’s shoulders—heavenly in their steadiness—and held tight. There was a hint of aggression, a need to close the distance, to feel skin on skin until the ache subsided.

Her cold body yearned for heat, and the sun stood right before her—her Enid.

Wednesday outshone Icarus in her craving for the sun, and unlike him, she touched it—did not flinch—even as she burned alive.

To be consumed.

To be fed.

“I once dreamt of this,” Enid whispered, her thumb brushing Wednesday’s lower lip, eyes hungry to devour. “That’s why you feel familiar. Like I already knew you, even before we truly met.”

It was true. Wednesday felt like a broken piece of her—the missing part she’d been searching for all her life.

Wednesday smiled faintly, a surrender, a promise, an invitation. “I asked for you,” she confessed softly. “Made deals with the devil to give me something real.” Her grip on Enid’s shoulders tightened as she pressed her forehead to hers. “Maybe that’s why I let you in—to welcome you home.”

Enid nearly wept at the sound of that word—home—a word she had never known the weight of until now. And when words fell short, action became her only language. So she kissed her. Gently. Slowly. A kiss that was not lust, but liturgy—a prayer made flesh.

A broken melody finally found its rhythm, composing a song that made the house itself come alive. They were its heartbeats—the pulse of its monstrous stillness—two bodies making a burning ruin feel like home.

The slow rhythm deepened, leading toward the inevitable—the feeding of two starved souls. The hunger grew desperate, the air thick with yearning. They kissed like tomorrow would refuse to come. Their heads tilted, seeking the perfect angle to ignite what was hollow within them. Hands roamed, claimed, whispered possession with every trembling touch.

Mine.

Mine.

Mine.

A moan escaped Wednesday’s lips, and Enid caught it like a sacrament, like a sweet fruit. Without breaking the kiss, Enid’s hand found the doorknob and turned. Success. She held her tighter, grounding her in the air, refusing to let her fall. Wednesday would never have to break bones to feel wanted again—Enid would make sure of that.

With a swift motion, Enid lifted her, carried her to the once-coffin bed—a plate now offered bare, true, and real. She laid her down gently, guiding her head as Wednesday pulled her close, unbothered by the weight pressing atop her.

Mine.

Mine.

Mine.

Their lips parted, barely, as though magnetized—longing to reconnect. Enid looked down at her as if she were the most precious thing in this desolate world. Wednesday looked up at her, willing to burn it all to keep that image alive.

A love that devoured them both.

Slowly, Wednesday tore away what still covered her skin—like peeling back flesh to offer her heart bare. Enid watched, reverent, memorizing every inch, every breath. She rose and straddled her—mirroring her devotion, her offering.

No more masks. No more skins that weren’t their own. Just a bare heart for a bare soul. Each careful movement was a ritual of unveiling—of peeling away everything false, until only truth remained to be tasted.

Like a pomegranate prepared for offering—delicate, sacred, blood-bright—they opened themselves to one another. They revealed every hidden scar, every ugly bruise, every piece bitten off by the world that once lied to them.

Bare. Naked. Nothing but the reflection of a dying planet and two beating hearts within its void.

Yet still, they looked at each other hungrily. With desire. With ache. With the kind of hunger that promised death if left unfed—and they were done starving.

After all the times Enid ran, and the times Wednesday burned, they had finally found one another. Their rhythms matched, their hunger aligned, their ruin made whole.

A love that eats them both.

And so they did.