Chapter 512

The old factory stood on the edge of town, a concrete leviathan against the bruised sky. Its windows, dark and vacant, watched the world with a cold indifference. The scent of cloying sweetness seemed to cling to the very air around it.

No one could pinpoint when "GloboFoods" had arrived, only that its influence had become a slow-moving storm. Their processed meals tasted otherworldly. It didn't matter the combination of sugars and salts; they just tasted right.

They satisfied in a way food hadn't before, with an addictive draw that many couldn't, or wouldn't, deny. The populace swelled; bodies ballooned like grotesque parodies. It became an oddity to see a thin frame among the sea of curves and rolls.

At first, the expansion of bellies was laughed at. But soon a sense of dread began to sink into the core. There was something not quite right. Their addiction to GloboFoods went far beyond preference or poor impulse control; it was a need, a gnawing hunger that no other food could soothe.

Our protagonist, a middle-aged man named Arthur, saw the horror for what it was, one of the few still in decent shape. Arthur worked in accounting, and the financial records made something quite clear. Their sales were up over 700% and still climbing each day. This unnerved him to his core.

"It's all connected. It just…feels wrong," he muttered to a work acquaintance, his voice thick with suspicion and a growing dread. "This cannot possibly be healthy for us".

The woman snorted, her face a puffy circle framed by greying hair. "Relax, Arthur," she said, licking the residue of a sweet pastry from her lips. "It tastes good and fills me up. Why complain about that?"

The records Arthur had access to suggested that much of their production of the processed goods had slowed over the past two weeks, as a brand-new line began working behind thick, iron doors with the best security, where few would know what occurs.

"The production slowed but...profits exploded, yet our stock price plummeted. This should never occur!" Arthur stared, frustrated, his focus locked onto the anomalous spreadsheets, attempting to untangle them into something sensible. "It's…almost like they aren't making food for us."

He saw no answers to the conundrum and yet, it continued. With mounting alarm, he watched the reports closely. He tried, with utter seriousness and dedication, to piece together what was happening and came to a gruesome understanding.

Arthur began to make observations, seeing GloboFood delivery trucks turning down alleyways with no store around, vanishing into places with no discernible purpose for goods to go, in areas of town he'd never before explored, yet a creeping chill ran down his back each time.

One rainy evening, Arthur followed one such truck and arrived at a warehouse, older, smaller, and less grand than the main factory. He broke the lock on a side door with tools from his garage, feeling a sense of doom come over him as he crossed the threshold, his footsteps resounding in the hollow space.

Inside, rows of mechanical contraptions that looked like instruments of medieval torture loomed, bathing the place in a hellish red. There was the distinct smell of meat, far more intense and raw, unlike anything ever found at any of their stores. A metallic, coppery scent was mixed within, which made his stomach clench.

And then, the realization hit him, an icy dread coating his tongue, of what was taking place. He'd noticed people simply vanished once their bodies became "ripe", a cruel play on words, in his mind. He knew these people didn't vanish; no, he was within their place of rest, a grotesque farm to process.

The machines worked silently, efficiently. He watched with a grim fascination as plump, heavy bodies were moved on conveyor belts. Fat was rendered into a viscous sludge that slithered into waiting containers. Flesh was processed and minced. Each stage of the process was an unholy display.

He tried to remain unseen and quietly record the horrific nature of it all on his phone but then an eerie quietude fell around him as if something noticed him. With eyes widened, he noticed then the pills. These tiny capsules, glistening with an unsettling gloss, were produced as an afterthought.

They dropped down metal chutes with a sound akin to the click of claws on concrete and seemed so alien in this room that he tried to ignore it but he simply could not. These pills weren't just an oddity, they were the final, perverse evolution of this sick food industry. He moved closer, despite his better judgement.

The scene morphed from simple disgust into a creeping horror that dug into the core of his mind. He moved with extreme focus to see better. The pills moved on yet another conveyor to a smaller area. He followed carefully but he wasn't the most quiet when moving, to his annoyance.

He peered cautiously around the corner and he saw a large, ornate stone altar at the end of the belt, symbols he could not recognize. They pulsated with a vile energy. Something deep within told him that those were symbols of demons.

Dark figures, taller and thinner than any he'd seen, began to shuffle into the warehouse. He couldn't quite see them clearly, like they were just out of focus. But he knew these weren't people, by far. He backed up against the wall, trying to be the unnoticeable fixture in an unseen location, praying he wasn't discovered.

These forms seemed almost fluid. Their bodies contorted in a manner he could only imagine in nightmares. As the pills spilled out of the chutes and onto the altar, the beings let out low moans and grunts. Their hands darted forward to consume the dark capsules like fiends after spoils of war.

He was about to leave to reveal what he knew but one of the figures turned, its dark head cocked as if it sensed a fly near, its eyeless sockets boring directly into him. Arthur's heart lurched, and his breath hitched in his chest. How was he noticed? He had been still, still.

Panic took control as his legs gave in and moved backward but made too much noise. With movements as smooth as tar, they swarmed him and threw him against the factory walls. His head cracked on the concrete, and he felt warmth trail down the side of his face.

He saw them standing around him now and they made him feel nauseous. With shapes of nightmares, a dark ichor seeped down their elongated arms like crude paint on thin frames. There was no thought of reason or bargaining here. There was nothing, just an impending doom.

One figure lifted him with such an impossible force, it made his arms buckle unnaturally. He attempted to squirm from their grip but this seemed to make the beings more agitated, their strange mouths opening into awful grins of razor-sharp teeth. He realized this would not be an escape for him.

The creatures started a sort of rhythmic chant, their language a garbled mess of guttural sounds and unnatural screeches. They seemed to want a song. And there wasn't much to do, so he felt the will slip, the spirit waning from within his form. Arthur closed his eyes, wishing to disappear but could not.

The things threw Arthur onto the altar with more than he deserved. He noticed his cellular device, with the grim images he had just recorded, land near him. For a second, there was a brief surge of triumph within. But it was short lived and a deep void settled within his chest. It wasn't enough.

The beings resumed their chant, a discordant sound that seemed to bore directly into his very soul. They ripped off his shirt and started carving sigils into his chest. Each shallow incision burned, but then his mind became lost in their horrid melodies. They weren't music but a song for the end.

He couldn't fully grasp what was happening, but he saw the meaning unfold right before him. The sigils glowed, pulling a crimson mist that coalesced into thin tendrils. It drew at him, at the marrow of his bones and heart; his consciousness began to feel hazy, losing connection to what he was.

They did something to him. Something permanent. His organs began to boil as these things touched him, and his face was contorted with every breath of unmitigated pain. These figures surrounded him, feeding like leeches on his form with an otherworldly desire, and a horrific satisfaction of completion.

And he was in them. Somehow he understood that; a deep merging, like honey on hot toast, and with this, he saw everything and the purpose to which his life, so trivial, would serve as. He was another source to feed them as others did and soon, the memory of him was all there was.

Arthur was no longer Arthur; not completely. There was no way out of it and he fell prey. Instead, he felt them and what they wished to see and his past of meaning simply dissolved from existence. Now, all was their intent and wish. They showed him how much more they needed to fully bloom.

His human memories were there. He understood their meaning and felt all the meaning to them, even after their tragic endings. His understanding became more and more twisted to fit their terrible logic. It wasn't so awful, being food for a more grand purpose he felt but wasn't truly a thought anymore.

They then forced more pills into the opening within him, pushing deeper into the center. And then Arthur, what once was him, became one of them; he would collect more sacrifices of the overweight people of earth and deliver the pills. Now he could do the same.

The figures ceased their vile cantations. And when Arthur did, they moved once more to the mechanical contraptions, their fluid, impossible bodies moving around with renewed purpose, and it dawned on "Arthur", for all he was.

It wasn't just about obesity, wasn't about the money, wasn't about being seen or unseen or anything humanly imaginable, and Arthur's mind gave way with newfound and unnatural realization. It was always meant for the end. Everything was set up this way. To be eaten. It all ends this way.

The factory seemed to vibrate with dark power, now his new purpose; and with a fluid grace and his very mind turned toward an inhuman logic, Arthur went with the demons to bring another delivery of food. It was finally his duty, the pinnacle to what he was made for. Nothing could be different.