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Devil’s Food Cake

From Oven to Fork

By Jordan GillettiPublished 3 years ago Updated 3 years ago 2 min read
5
Devil’s Food Cake
Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash

I’m not sure how I became sentient. I just know that I am aware—fully, truly self-aware—right now.

My origin story is made up of a hodgepodge of pieces. Flour. Butter. Salt. Sugar. Eggs. Cocoa powder. Milk. Baking soda. Essentially, I'm a combination of starches and sugars, fats and leavening agents, all married in precise ratios. Exterior heat allowed me to rise slowly, creating bubbles of carbon dioxide. The gluten in my veins was perfectly textured—slowly beaten into my batter, but not overworked.

I'm perfectly moist. Sponge-like, if you will—the result of a careful dance of ingredients in the oven. If measured or mixed incorrectly, these ingredients would've turned me into a solid brick, a mealy lump, or a chewy, under-flavored slab. A single misstep and I wouldn’t have become me.

Did you hear that beep? I think it means I am ready.

The oven door opens and I feel the heat begin to escape me. A pair of hands—carefully padded and protected by floral mitts—cup my pan gently. I am lifted in the air and then gently placed on the stovetop.

Instinctually, I know that I have to cool. Let the heat finish escaping. Let my body settle.

Settle.

Settled.

I find myself upside down and dizzy. The hands have picked up my pan—my house, my home, my shell—and turned it. The tap tap tap rings loudly until I slide out of the pan, leaving behind the residue of my edges.

A large, flat knife begins to stroke me, coating me with frosting. The frosting is thick and buttery. Each new glob creates a peak of sweetness upon me, like a dressing gown. My exposed edges are covered in a matching hue; the frosting is chocolate—just like I am.

I feel delicate.

Beautiful.

Loved.

A knife cuts into me. I want to scream, but I don't know how. The hands are much crueler without the pillowy padding of oven mitts. I'm greeted with a second cut, which crosses my midsection to meet the first. A metal server slides underneath me and pulls out the slice.

I am split in two: two bodies, two consciousnesses, two paths.

My slice is shimmied onto a small plate while the rest of my body remains agape in horror. The plate is carried across the room, with my slice atop it.

At my new location—a tabletop—a fork is inserted into the edge of my flesh, along the raw corners of my wound. I feel the pain both near and afar, like the aching of a phantom limb.

The fork is lifted into the air, with a tiny chunk of my body atop it. That piece of me—torn twice from its whole—is shoveled into the muggy cavern of this torturer's mouth.

Every molecule of me groans as it hits the tastebuds. Each receptor stings me with a zap like a greeting from an angry bee. The teeth grind me down further, undoing all of careful crafting from my time in the oven.

The immense pressure of a swallow pushes me downward into the throat. The cilia tickle, and I am momentarily distracted from my pain. I fall deeper down, into the esophagus. Bubbling stomach acid begins to singe me.

I lose consciousness of the tiny chunk, just as a new chunk is created by the severing of the fork. I brace myself for the repeat.

Why can I see this? Why can I feel this?

Am I cursed?

Maybe I am of the devil.

I am called Devil's Food Cake, after all.

Horror
5

About the Creator

Jordan Gilletti

I like to pretend that I’m a writer.

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