Our Little Secret

One sniff from the plate that was set in front of me, and I knew something was wrong. I had had enough of the babying, the hushed voices in the darkness. I wanted, I needed, answers.

I stuck my fork into the fleshy meat, like a pitchfork into hay, its foul smell wafted around the room, so close I could have gagged.

“What is this?” I demanded, repulsed by its appearance, pushing the food away from my body in the direction of my partner.

He was quiet but unafraid to speak his true feelings. Dark circles had started to grow under his eyeballs, and over the last few nights I was starting to suspect that he was becoming sleep deprived. He didn’t look up from his plate, his head practically mushed deep in the meal. All he did was stab his piece of meat with his knife, as if operating on a subject.

“Hello? Are you even listening to me?”

He didn’t answer, pupils rolled into the back of his head.

I slammed the cutlery down on the table with force, making the objects upon it jump in the air.

“Huh?” He barely managed to say. His face now looking straight into my piercing eyes, demanding answers.

“My god! You look dreadful!” I barked, getting a good look at him.

His skin was pale and see through like tracing paper, it looked as if his skin couldn’t even hold his face together. The large purple bags underneath his eyes were starting to look normal.

“I’ve been busy…” He mumbled.

“You still didn’t answer my question… what is this?”

He mumbled something to himself, stabbing the meat substance with his fork.

“Pardon? I didn’t quite catch…”

“What does it matter?” It felt as though he was staring into my soul, and all I could concentrate on was his utensils, stabbed into the meat, its blood juices dripping off the plate.

“What are you not telling me?” I was beginning to retreat inside my shell. For the first time my bellowing voice seemed softer, while I felt more frightened than I had in a long time.

His dark, under-eye bags sank deeper into his skull. He looked down through his pupils, sinking lower into his chair like a deflated balloon, pulling the fork out with both hands and slamming it down on the table in front of him.

He sighed deeply. “You really want to know?” There was a rasp in the back of his throat and his now calm demeanour scared me.

I nodded my head violently; my head and heart were at odds, I needed to know but dreading what was going to happen.

“The truth is either boring or terrible…” I muttered to myself, glaring at the piece of meat swimming in blood on my plate.

“Hmm?” He answered straightening himself up, back propped against the chair.

I shook my head. My eyes fell from the plate to my partner looking back at me with boredom in his eyes.

“Nothing.” I quickly said. “Please, go on.”

“If you’re sure…”

“I am.”

“Before I tell you, you mustn’t judge or interrupt.”

“I wouldn’t.”

“Okay…” He moved his entire body forward, his elbows pressed upon the table, dragging his chair forward so its legs screeched.

“Recently, I have been bored, well, I suppose you could say rather melancholy. My mind feels as though it has been ripped apart by demons, which is leading me to feel agitated when I wake. I must do things with my hands… but woodwork and crafting aren’t enough! I needed more! Then I came across cookery and flavours but my demons still plagued me, every night. They told me I had too…”

He broke for a pause. His fingers shaking like leaves in the wind, stopping himself he pushed each hand on top of the other, like playing cards, but every way the hands still shook.

I was terrified myself, but with my own hand I grabbed his and pressed it, squashing it like a fly.

“Go on.” I gently encouraged him.

The man gawked at our hands touching, however, turning his attention towards me, he continued. “One night, deep within the early hours, when the owls hoot, the voices from the veil spoke to me, splurging terrible, awful things… the only thing I knew to drown them out was too exterminate the problem…”

I was barely moving, my entire body frozen to my seat, my hand stuck upon his, struggling to know what to think. I let him speak some more.

“It was so sharp, so easy to slice through flesh and all they did was plead for their lives. I couldn’t. If I wanted to take back my own life, I had to destroy one in return… then feast upon their corpses.”

Tears fell from his cheeks, pulling his arm away from my grasp, while I looked upon the meat with distain. The flies around it gathered in their droves as it seemed he hadn’t refrigerated his killings.

“Why didn’t you confide in me?” I quivered.

“They told me I couldn’t… I mustn’t. I …” He stopped mid-sentence and looked above him; his eyes tightly closed.

“Not now…” He grumbled to himself. “Not her.”

I tried to move my body, but I was stuck like glue to where I was sat.

“No one must know.” He explained. “It’s our little secret.”

It seemed he wasn’t talking to me but to IT. The knife glistened to show my horrified reflection. He snatched it and held it up in the air, plunging the dagger into my fleshy hand.

I couldn’t scream. I could feel the blood pouring out like a fountain, bleeding on the tablecloth.

There was little from that moment I could remember, there was no pain or screaming but the feeling of being cut in