In the desolate, wind-swept heart of Blackwater, where the sun's feeble light seems ever on the verge of surrendering to the encroaching gloom, there stands a house—no, a ruin, a shadow of what was once surely a place of some esteem. Its shattered windows gaze like hollow eyes into the tangled woods, and its weary walls lean as though heavy with the weight of the unspeakable.
This was the residence of the singular Bardara Q, a woman known more for her eerie hospitality than for the sordid legends that clung to her like the ever-present mist that drifted through the town.
It was in this wretched abode, forlorn and decrepit, that I first made the acquaintance of the notorious Bardara Q, and where I tasted—forgive me, even now my hands tremble to write it—her famed and feared stew. Oh, what fools we mortals are, driven by curiosity into the jaws of madness! For it was not mere hunger that drew me into that abode, but a desire—nay, a compulsion—to uncover the truth behind the rumors that swirled like ravens about her home.
Upon my arrival, I found the house bathed in an unnatural stillness, broken only by the distant moan of the wind as it wound through the twisted branches of the forest.
Bardara herself met me at the door, her form as gaunt and brittle as the house itself. Her eyes—dark and gleaming like polished obsidian—seemed to pierce through the very fabric of my being.
Yet it was her smile, that ghastly smile, stretched thin and sharp across her pale visage, that unsettled me most. It was the smile of a woman who knew far more than she ever let on, a smile that concealed a thousand horrors in its folds.
“Come in,” she whispered, her voice a silken rasp, as though unused to the formality of speech. “You must be weary from your journey. I shall prepare for you a meal unlike any you have known.”
Her words chilled me, though I knew not why. I entered, drawn inexorably forward as if by invisible hands, and found myself seated before the crackling hearth, the flames casting long, serpentine shadows upon the walls. And there, from some unseen recess of the house, arose the smell—the rich, intoxicating aroma that had been the subject of so much fevered gossip.
Ah, that smell! It seemed to fill the very air with a warmth, a seductive pull that lured the senses into submission. It was at once familiar and yet deeply unsettling, a scent so savory, so primal, that my mind faltered in its attempt to place it. Meat, yes, but of what kind? A voice within me, faint and trembling, whispered that something was amiss, but it was drowned in the overwhelming tide of hunger that Bardara’s stew awakened in my soul.
When she set the bowl before me, her eyes gleamed in the firelight—those inhuman eyes, deep and fathomless. The stew, thick and dark, bubbled in its earthen vessel, sending up tendrils of steam that coiled like the exhalations of a tomb. I hesitated, the spoon heavy in my hand, but her gaze held me fast, and her voice—soft, coaxing—urged me onward.
“Eat,” she said. “You will find no better fare in all of Blackwater.”
And so I ate. The first taste was... indescribable.
The texture of the meat was unnervingly tender, almost dissolving upon the tongue, leaving behind a flavor that was both exquisite and repugnant in its depth. It was a taste that seemed to linger in the soul, not just the mouth—a flavor that called to the basest instincts of man, stirring something dark and ancient within.
My mind recoiled even as my body craved more. I ate again, and again, the stew filling me with a sickening satisfaction I could neither explain nor escape.
As the meal wore on, the world seemed to shift, the shadows lengthening and deepening as though alive, crawling across the walls in slow, deliberate movements.
I could feel them watching me. And then, there were the whispers—faint, just at the edge of hearing, like the murmurs of distant souls. I strained to listen, but each time the sound seemed to slip through my grasp, lost in the heavy silence of the room.
It was only as I neared the bottom of the bowl, spoon clinking against the dregs, that I found it. My heart lurched, my blood turned to ice, and my breath caught in my throat as the spoon unearthed something hard—something that should not have been there.
I stared down into the murky depths of the stew and saw it—a fragment of bone, small and pale, its jagged edge stained dark with the broth.
I could scarcely comprehend what I was seeing. But then, as if summoned by my horror, the truth rose from the recesses of my mind, like a corpse pulled from the depths of a grave. That taste—that forbidden taste—was not the meat of any creature I had known, not the flesh of lamb or cattle or wild game.
No! It was human. Human flesh. The missing travelers, the rumors that spoke of those who had vanished into the night—now I knew where they had gone, and what had become of them.
They had been consumed, not by the earth or the forest, but by Bardara Q’s stew. The very essence of those lost souls now simmered in the pot, their flesh the gruesome sustenance she served to her unwitting guests.
My throat tightened, the bile rising, but before I could speak—before I could flee—Bardara was there, standing behind me. Her shadow stretched long and unnatural, her breath hot against my ear as she whispered:
“Eat well, traveler. For tonight, you feast—and tomorrow, you may be the feast.”
Her words were a death knell, the final toll of the bell that would mark my doom. I rose to flee, but my legs—weak, trembling—could not bear me. The room spun, the shadows dancing in mocking delight, and as I collapsed upon the floor, my vision swimming, I saw her smile—cold, sharp, eternal.
And so it was that I, too, became part of the legend of Bardara Q and her guest house in Blackwater. My tale, like those before me, would fade into the mist, swallowed by the same darkness that claimed so many. And yet the stew, the terrible, monstrous stew, would live on—forever waiting for the next fool brave enough to taste it.
コメント