Cooking Winter Rotten Fruit

Rewriting prompts.

-I used to play a little game of prompts, you put words in hat, words from someone else, pick three and write the prompt. This is a prompt I remastered from the archives.
-Genre: Horror

Flesh, its game twisted in my teeth as I chewed. My hands glide along the wooden cutting board and the smell of mildew softens the air—the moisture of winter. Mist dabbles on my legs as I wander aimlessly in the kitchen. Smoke festering in circles beneath my boots but, I can’t feel the fire. I can’t see the burning in my eyes when I close them to quieter thoughts. 

A pomegranate split open with its heart resting and rotting on the counter. Colored eye drop beads opened up and spilled its guts to the side. Bitter blood, the magic of the dead. My fingers caress the holes where the pieces in between used to live, thrive. From the small window of my hut, I could see the sky yellow orange, plumes of smoke breaking away from the grey. Manipulating the crevices of the fruit, I hear the muffled cries at my side. Air vibrated hungrily, his aura deteriorating from my sight, pink and summer warmth. 

His lips pucker words, “Forever.” 

Plucking out a bead from the pomegranate, I slip it between my lips. In seconds, I’ll crush it against my jagged teeth. Splatters bitter, the hotness electrifies you. A shadow in the corner of my eye, shakes gently, careful to not upset the monster in me. On the nape of my neck, I feel the shivers of predators and the hunted. Hope waned on me, he was a no-name scavenger. It did not escape me how the wrongness of his pain felt. 

Invisible links that twist in unspoken desires. There’s a well that lives within his body that he cannot see. My finger nails slice his forearm and blood forms in my mouth from the injury. I slurp up the abscess, this stranger in the alleyway. His maker probes the rest of his body for death. They cannot take from me yet.

Symbiotic the bubbles and the cells form fresh ligaments on my skin. Rebirth, and the healing of old wounds. Past selves die away with his memories, shadows rise before they fall. There’s no pain in the craft, but his warmth is desirable. Black beady eyes stare at me and through my naked face. Bones cleaned. Porcelain sheer body parts reflected by the veiled moon. The shadow's face comes under the candlelight presenting itself to me. A gift, a little treat. I watch him bite through the leather of his belt, spit swabs down his chin, his drool slowly falling to the floor.  

My nails are colorless scalpels that pull apart the skin into grafts. Sounds of felt ripping off scratchy fabric. It irked and annoyed my senses when I listened to it. When I see the layers, underneath the body, I discover his blood prickling colors of dewy pink spring mornings. His dried up prune skin screams inaudibly in my direction. Every slice leaves behind burning, little trails of black marks. 

Removing the gag from his mouth, I watch his jaw open methodically. His body flops, a slithering fish is unable to breathe. At the palm of his hands are paper scribbles about the sins of men being washed from his soul. A salt bridge, a secret for men to skirt past their lies, they are the forgiven. This magic lives for the damned, I feel no regret.

Behind me, I whisper, “Where have you wronged?” 

“...Is this hell?” He blurts out as blood splatters against the soil. 

“Unfortunately for you, no. What secrets did you decide to keep?”

Behind me, I pluck another bead from the pomegranate and shove it into my mouth. His decibels struggle to make words from the pain of losing all of his skin. I hear him wincing and sniffling with each pressure of his distorted body. The shadow grinds his teeth until they break. Turning to look further into his eyes I see some reflection of thought. Coiling in his mind, he seems to barely grasp the gravity of the situation. A glimpse, a sharp hushed threat. 

Huffing through his booming heartbeat, I hear him call me death. 

“Death doesn’t meddle with my work. I’m afraid the end is coming. Tonight is a feast and you’re my main course.” 

“What happens when I don’t exist?” Oh, existential dread, a common human fear. Philosopher’s psychobabbles that went on for centuries. 

“Your state of consciousness will remain. Somewhere. But it'll be time before we achieve that together.”

Plucking the pomegranate, I pull more pieces crumbling them between my fingers. The crispness of the pith withering by my touch. In my mother’s tongue, I imagine them to be muscle ligaments snapping. Flicking my fingers together, I rip more parts of his body away. Why can’t this man understand what’s happening to his body? He relaxes his head against the metal panel above him and laughs. Insanity has come, and this is the last thing I wanted. Companionship is romantic, after all.

“Can you make this painless? Or make me something else?”

Crushing the pomegranate bead with my jaw. “Do you take me as merciful?”

Rubbing the blood down my neck, it begins to ferment on my skin. Walking over to his body this was an inquiry, I didn't anticipate. Resting my finger over his frontal lobes, the pearls of consciousness billowed out from his mind into mine.

In the dream state, we traveled in his memories. Smells of mustard, baking spices, and the mead of frothy bread. Skin the color of light brown and jade green eyes chipped small before expanding into rings of light. In a bed of tall grass, he laid against the nipping morning. Goosebumps formed on his arms, as he turned to match my eyes. Searching for empathy he touched the faint empty. His fingers caressed the weaving of muscles, my loose veins the feeling of leather felt. 

My hands grew into sharp weaponry. Ice pointed daggers shot through his frail flesh. Every puncture soaking up the rawness of his humanity. My tongue climbed down his throat, licking the organs and his body embraced my pain, the graciousness of my fruit. Blood and bile slipping down my mouth, the gooey parts of his pie. Biting through his bottom lip, I ripped pieces from him. My world is full of cruel things, cities of ash. Communities of collapsed centuries, his face sighs with the blood loss and our exchange. Pushing my hand through his chest and pulling at his heart he screams, words of gibberish and gratitude. Prey finding solace in the closed tunnel, the twilight frame shift of our eternal hour. 

Snapping my fingers, we return to the reality, and I begin to pluck at his limbs from the pomegranate, its changing shade from the pureness of its original color. The fire at his legs swelter, and char his body. He's only alive, and enduring the act because I allow his survival. His fresh carcass, my mustard flower. His words slur to the vibration of his skin, wrinkles form on his face. Drained, he stares at my eyes. Galaxies turning in flagrant tenebrosity. Together, we both have an offering to the Gods. Maggots climb from the holes of his body, weakly he sighs. Lust made marrow.