The End of All

Rays of light shone through the sky as a lone woman stood in the middle of a field. Something about this scene felt very familiar to her. Time seemed to be at a standstill, nothing daring to change lest the scene become shattered. There was not a sound to be heard but in the air hung a heavy feeling that made her want to scream out. In front of her sat a hill, a single stone path winding its way up towards the top where an old wooden building rests. 

A voice tugged at her conscience, ‘I have to talk with Daddy. He wants to tell me something important.’ Her body began to take shaky steps forward against her own will, slowly walking down the beaten stone path. She was able to regain some of her control when she passed by the remnants of a burnt building, the only thing remaining was the foundation underneath, another whim beckoning her to check it out.

She approached it with caution, something felt incredibly off about the space she was occupying. Like everything was simultaneously real yet also a figment of her imagination. As she passed into the threshold of the building, she was greeted with the sight of a charred floor and ashes in the air that made it hard to breathe. Clearly something had set this place on fire, but who did it and why they did it was still unknown. The first, and only, thing that caught her attention was a book, neatly placed beside a stone fireplace that was still fully intact. 

The book looked newly made, a very stark comparison to all the ashes and burnt wood that was strewn about the place. She took it in her hands, fingers dusting over the gold lettering on the front that read ‘Nutritiousness of Meat’. Odd, yet still very intriguing.

Meat is life.

Even the ash people who were populating this world before us knew that.
Each time they killed an enemy in a battle, they tore out the liver and heart of the fallen and ate them together with their family.
By doing so, just as everyone knows, the strength of the beaten enemy is passed on.
But as we are living in a time in which eating fellows is nonsensically seen as barbaric,
We, the friends of the bloody meat, have to settle for animal sources.

Confusion riddled the young woman’s face, everything becoming even more unclear as she continued on in this place. She placed the book back down where she found it and began to walk back to the stone path, hurrying along so she could shake off the odd feeling that seemed to come with this place.

As she approached the beginning of the incline two things lay on the dirty path in front of her. A second copy of the ‘Nutritiousness of Meat’ book and then a doll that looked suspiciously like something someone would practice voodoo on. This place was seriously giving her the creeps now. She began to pick up her pace after taking a few cautious glances around, the idea of possibly being watched was striking her. She could feel her skin crawl by even just considering the idea.

But even as she felt the urgency to get to the top, she was still drawn towards the sight of a towering statue beside something that looked like a grave adjacent to almost the top of the hill. Before she could even stop herself, her feet dragged her towards the grave as she lifted a hand to softly run over the words engraved. Her brain felt too muddled to comprehend any of them though, all of a sudden the words seemed to stall on her tongue and a foggy sensation seemed to pass over her brain. A quick glance to the side revealed a letter which her shaky hands made their way towards. As she unfolded it she found it was written in a different language, one that she could currently comprehend.

Oh Lord, oh Maker,
I can hear You calling. I feel Your love, I know about Your sacrifice.
Without You, I am nothing, a twig on the currents of time, a sheep without shepherd.
Free me from my vices and forgive me my trespasses.
Forgive too my wife and my child,
Deliver me from my pains
And bless us with Your everlasting mercy.

Even though she could read the note, she could find no sense of relief over it. The hair at her neck stood up as she was even more alarmed than before, something she didn’t think was possible.

An audible cough was heard from the top of the hill, followed by the crack of something the woman deemed as wood, hopefully. She very shakily made her way to the top of the hill, hand clutching the note hard enough to make it crumple within her grip. The scene she was met with was that of a tall man dressed in commoner’s clothes. In his hands he clutched an axe, while piles of wood were gathered on the floor around him. Everything about it seemed normal, except for the fact that blood was evident on the tree stump that was being used as the chopping platform. Where the blood came from she couldn’t even begin to guess, and wouldn’t be given the opportunity to wonder because the minute she was spotted he began to talk to her.

“Oh, hey there, I didn’t even see you coming! So, how did it go? Did you find it?” He looked at her with expecting eyes, a look that was meant to convey warmth but only caused more seeds of worry to plant their way into her brain.

The response found its way tumbling out of her lips before she could even stop herself, “What is this place, daddy? Where are we?”

“Where are we? We’re at home, silly, where else would we be? Just mommy, sister, you and me. Now tell me, how did it go? Did you find it?” The words were much more forceful the second time out of his mouth. The woman could feel her mind blank as she tried to fit the pieces of this puzzling conversation together.

“No… I didn’t,” She supplied as an answer as the words lit up her mind. 

“No? Hm, pity… maybe you’re simply looking in the wrong places, did you ever think of that?” His gaze burned into hers, the sinking feeling becoming even more prominent. “Ah, well… who knows. Say, why don’t you go inside and see if you can help mommy with the cooking… The Creator was kind to us today and sent a big, fat elk right in front of my bow. Alright?”

With that the man turned his attention back to his task at hand while he picked up another piece of wood and dropped it onto the platform. Rigidly, the woman took a few steps away, taking in the look of the house beside her. It was very old she found out, as the wooden steps up to the door creaked beneath her weight. When she reached the top the door swung open without even a warning, and she cautiously took a step inside. 

The place looked homely, but homely in a serial killer way. The walls were adorned with unsettling imagery of human organs and haunting paintings of cannibalism. Not wanting to uncover anymore horrifying secrets, the woman walked into the kitchen. The fireplace was lit, casting a soft glow over the entire room. There was the carcass of an elk laid out in the middle of the room on a rug, blood pooling around it as the odor of death wafted throughout the room. 

She found herself tensing and straightening up as she heard whistling, a sign that the man her brain referred to as daddy was on his way to the kitchen. The sound, as much as everything else she’s encountered, was unsettling. She turned towards the door and waited with her anxiety peaking for him to walk through.

He stopped in front of her, smiling wide, “My my, I totally forgot what a mess I left in here. But I was right, wasn’t I? A real gem we’ve got here…” He placed a hand across her shoulder and spun her around to face the carcass. “Well then… Let’s waste no more time and get to it, shall we?” He gave her a squeeze on the shoulder.

Once again, her mouth opens involuntarily, “But… what about mommy and sister?” She would just have to accept at this point that she has no control over herself at the moment.

“What?” He took his hand off of her shoulder and took a step back. He shook his head like he was laughing and then continued, “Now would you look at that, I totally forgot about them. They’re dead, don’t you remember? You murdered them back then, both of them.” 

She could do nothing but stand there frozen. All of her senses completely shut off and she stood there paralyzed in fear. That felt like a huge accusation, saying that she killed people she couldn’t even remember. But she could not rebuke, no words would come out before he kept talking.

“But hey, no use crying over spilled milk, right?” His creepy smile being directed back to her. “At least that means there’s more meat for the two of us. You still remember how to do this, right? First, off with the skin, slice up the belly, then out with the entrails.”

He took steps forwards deeper into the kitchen, rummaging around for something. “I’ll go look for a nice, sharp knife in the meantime to cut off the head. I don’t think either of us wants to eat that, do we?” A laugh shook his entire body as if he wasn’t aware of the silent crisis the woman he passed was experiencing. 

“But I didn’t kill them, daddy, it was the masked men!” She cried out, almost whining, sounding much younger than she was. She tightened her fists and felt her eyes water, so many emotions bubbling up that she couldn’t tell which one she was experiencing the most. 

“Oh, silly… what’s this again?” He returned to rummaging throughout the drawers, “We both know that’s a lie, you did it. I remember it all. First, you set this horrible fire to your sister’s crib… She screamed and screamed and mommy heard it, but when she finally got there, nothing was left of her but burnt flesh. And- Oh gosh, do we really need to go through this again?” He sighed as if this was the most taxing conversation he had ever had. “You know how sad it makes me when you do this!” 

He stood up, a sharp knife in his hand that he jutted towards her, almost like he was threatening her. “You killed them, period, and no matter how often you tell me you didn’t, it changes nothing- You hear me, nothing! Now please, let’s start cooking, I am so bloody damn hungry!” 

She couldn’t catch the outburst as it came out for a second time, “But I didn’t kill them, daddy, it was the masked men!”

“By the Creator’s name…” He snarled out, stabbing the knife into the wall of the house and then slowly began raking it down the wood. “Why are you telling these lies? Isn’t it enough that you murdered us? Do you really have to bother me over and over with your stupid, pathetic, and pointless whining?!” 

 He let out an exasperated sigh, clearly done with the conversation, and began muttering angrily to himself. “You know… Sometimes I wish the Creator would have made me just a little less merciful, just a little less… pious. Because then I would have realized that you were tainted by sin long before any of this had ever happened.” He turned towards the window that held a view outside, the sun since gone down, and continued out. His anger growing more and more apparent with each word spat out. “And instead of raising you, feeding you, and loving you like a father does, I would have put you in the horse trough right after you were born. Yes… Yes! I should have killed you. I should have just killed you!” 

The woman pleaded and begged for her legs to let her move, to let her run away from this horrifying scene that was unfolding in front of her. But her body did not accept it, she was still frozen in terror.

“Just like you killed us. And now… Now you think you’re safe because we’re all under the earth, don’t you? Well, listen up, ‘my child’, You are wrong! And do you know why? Because the dead don’t forget! Do you hear me? The dead don’t forget!” Every single word was louder than the last, his voice booming at this point. The fireplace exploded with a spark and soon the room was engulfed in flames. “Now enough of this useless chatter, I’m bloody starving! Bring me the meat, you spoiled brat, bring it to me!” 

The man took wide strides towards the carcass of the elk, unphased by the fact that flames danced over everything including his skin. He was too blinded by anger to care. The woman felt panic fill her body while bile rose in her throat. But no matter how hard she willed her body to move it refused to listen to her. She was stuck in place forever.

“Bring me a nice, crisp piece of meat! Bring me a nice, crisp piece of meat! Bring me a nice, crisp piece of meat! Bring me a nice, crisp piece of meat!” He chanted while tearing at the rotting flesh of the elk’s meat. The flames kept rising higher and higher, there was no escape. The air became too heavy to breathe in anymore and then the last thing the woman remembered was blacking out.