Foodstuff

The humanoid body continued to burn like a candle.

Trevor couldn't see anyone inside that dark room because of the fog. His head jerked to the sides, trying to find some position that would allow him to see more details of the situation.

'Shit. I can't see anything right, what the hell is Liman doing? Does he actually like to devour human flesh?' Trevor's neck moved back, along with the rest of his body that stayed away from the door by a few meters.

'It makes no sense. Even if Liman was a cannibal, I doubt he would do something so brazen. It would be silly of me to doubt his intelligence.' Trevor was standing in front of the door with his arms crossed behind his back, looking up at the familiar charcoal-fueled lamps on the ceiling.

'Is this really Liman's room?' Trevor also wondered if Sarina had tricked him. He looked to his right, the hallway was empty: there were no visible holes or crevices, which made Trevor wonder if there were other types of sensors monitoring him.

'But what types of sensors? At where? How many?'

The black-haired lad felt like a small pawn on the chessboard being controlled by invisible hands above his head. His lungs swelled and deflated, making the little amount of black mist that leaked from the doorjamb move sideways.

Trevor was about to come up with more theories when something changed.

His keen senses picked up the sounds of footsteps, which stopped suddenly.

'Don't tell me…' His damn eyebrows didn't even have the time to twitch before the door opened!

A middle aged man appeared before his eyes. The man was smiling warmly at Trevor, sending shivers down the latter's back. Under Trevor's startled gaze, Liman appeared holding a beautiful piece of fatty meat in his right hand!

"What a coincidence, it's a really nice surprise to see you here, Trevor! Come in, come help yourself and eat while we talk here about those things we promised to tell you later." The lights emanating from the charcoal-fueled lamps in the ceiling glowed, reflecting the oily liquid present in that delicious-looking piece of meat.

'Coincidence? You shameless son of a bitch!' With every laugh Liman gave as he looked at Trevor, made the green-eyed lad feel like jumping on the first one's neck and slaughtering him in a bloody pulp wasn't the worst idea.

Still, only Trevor's eyes widened. The rest of his face remained icy cold.

The middle-aged doctor walked back into the room, no longer caring about Trevor. The door remained open until Trevor twitched the corners of his lips slightly and walked into the room, closing the door behind him.

"Dr. Liman, I'm curious. What is this thing in the center of the room?"

"Oh, are you talking about this thing that looks like someone's body? Hah! Don't be too surprised. This damn thing is a new human variant that recently appeared in the southern region of our Pequi Republic, it's pretty rare. Want to taste a piece?"

Trevor laughed heartily. "You must be kidding, how can I eat something this good for free? I wonder what could lead you to spend so much to celebrate like that." He also didn't miss the opportunity to try to change the subject.

The person in question also decided not to continue with the conversation's previous course. "Well, who knew the first person to hear the news would be you. Turns out Emona and I are going to get married next month! Isn't that great?" The oily liquid ran down Liman's face as he gnawed greedily at the bright red flesh.

"It is! it's really my luck to be able to wake up to witness the wedding of yours. My most sincere congratulations to the happy couple." Trevor bowed subtly towards Liman, to which the latter responded with a nod.

"Trevor, have a seat. I'm going to the kitchen to call Emona so we can talk about the pending issues." Liman pointed to two comfortable chairs covered in white leather that faced each other. In the middle of these two armchairs, there was a simple circular glass table.

Trevor went to sit while Liman walked towards the kitchen. Time passed quickly, and made the guest feel that he was indeed welcomed by the guests. He didn't even have the time to find the most comfortable position in his seat before the new couple arrived.

Emona wore simple clothes, her bust was covered in a white top that outlined her curves along with pink short shorts that exposed her calves and part of her thighs. Trevor also managed to see something that her white coat had covered before: a huge tattoo that came off her right shoulder and extended to the elbow of the same limb.

"Hello, Trevor." Emona then sat down next to her suitor, who stuck at her like hot glue on a summer's day. "Liman told me you didn't eat the food I cooked, did I do something wrong without knowing?"

The female doctor wasn't wearing any underwear, Trevor who was in front of her could see things that the tight white tank top she was wearing failed to cover. However, in his eyes, this woman only appeared to be the corn that lured the birds into the trap.

"Far from it. I think I must have expressed myself badly, the truth is that since I woke up, I haven't felt hungry." Trevor said simply in his voice, even though he saw the obvious ploy. 'But what does Liman want with this? What's so special about this food?'

"Haha, let's go, Trevor. Don't make that slight, my wife prepared the meal with so much love that it would be a shame if no one but me could try her food." Liman rested his left arm over Emona's shoulders and pulled her close to him.

'Okay, there is another possibility: he is testing me. But what does resisting these things have to do with having superpowers?'

"I really don't think I'm feeling as hungry as you tw-!" His calm expression collapsed as his stomach betrayed him, roaring like a lion through the wet savannah! Trevor sketched helplessness at the couple, twitching the right side of his mouth as he scratched the back of his head with his right index finger.

Emona smiled at the noise, and Liman beside her laughed heartily. "lad, looks like at least your body is more honest, hahahaha!" The middle-aged man just stopped laughing to take more bites of the delicious meat in his right hand.

"Even though he was hungry, I think Trevor was just too embarrassed to eat more of your food, my dear." Liman spoke with his mouth full, stepping on every sign of politeness expected during a proper dinner.

"Hmm." Emona muttered, moving her head up and down repeatedly, causing the rest of her body to shiver along to follow the shake of her head: which included that bulge on her chest that her white tank top did a terrible job at hiding.

"Very well, you got me." Trevor said, reaching out to grab the food in front of him. The plate above the round glass table contained plenty of meat, mostly of which came from that humanoid body Trevor failed to recognize.

He took the piece of meat with his left hand, holding it by the tip of the protruding white bone that emerged from the muscle tissue of the human variant, which was roasted just long enough to kill most of the germs: there was still plenty of juiciness in this piece of appetizing looking meat.

Trevor opened his mouth and bit down hard on the meat.

The white bone was held firmly in place as he chewed the food that had just entered his mouth: tasty liquid ran past his lips and threatened to spill onto his brown pants, to which Trevor reacted by using his tongue to lick up the juices that trickled towards his chin.

'This is really good. In fact, it's much better than I thought.' His stomach was also glad to have work to do. Blood flowed to the digestive organ, making Trevor feel tired even without any actual physical exercise.

"Thank you so much, in addition to being a doctor, you are also very skilled in the kitchen, Dr. Emona." His Adam's apple rose and fell like an elevator in a busy office building as he spoke while eating.

"I'm grateful you liked it. So, can we have our conversation after we're done eating?" She was the only one among the three who retained any education during the dinner.

"Of course." Trevor replied before taking another bite.

In that way, minutes passed and were being registered by the hand of the golden clock: that was exactly to the right of the circular glass table's center. The latter object became more weightless as time passed, since every now and then a hungry hand would snatch the food that lay on its smooth top.

The circular table then became as light as it could: there was no more food on it.

Liman opened his mouth, exposing bits of meat that stuck to his teeth here and there.

"Trevor, as I said before: you and the others volunteered to participate in an experiment that aimed at awakening superpowers. Me and Emon-!" A strange noise interrupted him. Liman suddenly began to sob! Forcing him to drink water from his metallic cup to get out of such an embarrassing situation.

Emona, who was on his right side, decided to take her place in the conversation.

"As my fiance was saying, he and I were the remaining researchers on a large team. At that time, he established this research group along with his old friend, Dr. Huari, and called the rest of us to help. Our goal has always been to understand the origin and development of these supernatural phenomena based on logic."

Emona wiped her pink lips with a piece of napkin as she continued her speech. "Initially, we sought to understand all the records about these phenomena available in our Pequi Republic database. The results were many, as it was difficult to differentiate something that could be a coincidence from something absurdly abnormal."

The middle-aged man beside her sighed in relief, drawing Emona's attention for a few seconds. Liman did not have the misfortune of dying eating the food his bride had prepared as a way to celebrate their future marriage.

"As I was saying, it was tedious and difficult. Our research didn't bear any real fruit until we came across reports of a legendary witch from 30 years ago who had the ability to heal people using nothing but a few dirty rags and some pretty words." Emona's voice carried a sheer mocking tone that reverberated through the four walls of the luxurious room.

"This unique finding allowed us to gain government support. Unfortunately, when the search parties were sent out to hunt that Witch five years ago, all the tracks that led to her were already gone."

"Wait, why didn't you guys do this search back then?" Trevor used a toothpick to try to remove the bits of food that got stuck in between his teeth as he spoke.

This time, the person who answered that question was Liman, who had recovered well from the sob. His skin had regained its healthy pink hue.

"Who the hell would believe in the words of some poor homeless from the Northeast region? Not only this report, but many others were discarded. Our research group was the first to take these cases seriously to the point of seeking witnesses and evidence."

Emona nodded, recounting the series of events again. "Once the government recognized that there was some truth to that, in addition to sending out smaller-scale search teams: in order to not to draw too much attention, they also made it easier for us to get volunteers."

Trevor noded, he also stopped cleaning his teeth.

"What I don't understand is how you guys suddenly lost so much in the short period of 3 years. The change of a single research director shouldn't affect the foundations of a research project as important as the one you just described to me."

Trevor's inquiry caused the two doctors to sigh.

It was time for them to spill the beans on the ground.