Chapter 47: The Unnatural Pressure
A searing pain shot through my fingers, but I barely registered it. It was a distant, unimportant signal drowned out by the roaring, single-minded need to consume. The monstrous hunger overrode everything. I snatched the scalding hot piece of potato from the pot and shoved it into my mouth. My mouth immediately erupted in agony, but still, I chewed. I swallowed. A low, pained groan escaped my lips, but the beast inside me was relentless.
“Parula! What are you doing?!” Jared’s voice, sharp with alarm and a new kind of fear, cut through the red haze of my hunger. He lunged forward, his face pale, and yanked me back from the pot with a strength I didn't know he possessed. The sudden motion, the shock of his touch, was enough to break the spell.
“Cough, cough!” I scrambled for the bucket of cold water, plunging my face into it, gulping down the cool liquid. Then I thrust my hand into the bucket, the icy water a blessed relief on my throbbing, blistered fingers.
“Parula, are you alright?” Jared asked, his voice now filled with a deep, fearful concern. He was looking at me as if I were a stranger, a madwoman. And why wouldn't he? Even for a starving child, grabbing food from a boiling pot with your bare hands was not normal.
“I’m sorry,” I stammered, turning away from the pot, unable to look at it, unable to smell the rich, tempting aroma. I was afraid that even a glance would be enough to lose control again. “I’m… I’m not well. Just… just leave me be for a moment.”
“But… what about the stew?” he asked, his own hunger warring with his fear of me.
“It’s fine. It’s almost done,” I said, my back still to him, my voice a strained whisper. “Just stir it, and add about a third of the pot full of water.” It was a simple potato and sausage stew, a common meal for the poor. It should have had more spices, more flavor, but we had to make do. The taste I'd had, the searing, agonizing taste, was good. I couldn’t look. I had to talk him through it, explaining what a third of the pot looked like, telling him to cover it with a loose piece of board. He could manage that much. He didn't question me. He had seen my frenzied eating last night. He knew, now, that I had a strange, uncontrollable reaction to food, a dark hunger that defied reason. He just nodded grimly and did as I said.
The wait for the water to boil was an agony of a different kind. But as the moments ticked by, I realized something strange. My reckless act hadn't harmed me as much as it should have. My mouth, which by all rights should have been a raw, blistered mess, felt… fine. Completely fine. Yet my fingers still throbbed with a dull, angry ache. Wounds in my mouth healed instantly, while a simple burn on my hand lingered? The logic of it was alien, a violation of the natural order. This body did not heal like a human body should.
And then I heard it. A strange, rattling sound. The heavy wooden board covering the pot began to jump and clatter, rattling against the dented rim with a frantic energy. It wasn't the gentle puffing of a normal stew; it was a violent, unnatural pressure building from within. But that was impossible. It was just an open pot, not a sealed pressure cooker. Steam was constantly escaping from the uneven gaps between the board and the dented rim. How could the pressure be that strong? Jared, however, seemed to think it was normal. With a practical ingenuity born of a life of making do, he simply placed a heavy brick on top of the board to hold it down. But the feeling of wrongness lingered. The pressure… it wasn't natural. But my fear of the hunger, of the monster within me, was still too great, and I pushed the thought aside.
“Parula, it’s ready,” Jared said. He lifted the board, and a cloud of fragrant steam filled our small hovel. The stew was thick and rich, the potatoes and carrots tender, the sausage, now browned and savory, lending its fatty goodness to the broth. My stomach roared. The beast stirred. But I clenched my jaw, my hands balled into fists. “You eat first,” I said, my voice tight, my eyes fixed on the floor. “I… I can’t trust myself. You eat until you’re full. Then, and only then, I’ll have what’s left.”
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