Chapter 5 - The Poisoned Feast
Eleanor’s hand trembled so violently she could barely lift the silver fork.
"Is... is something wrong, son?" she whispered, her voice fluttering with a newfound, cold dread that wiped away the warmth of the room.
"Nothing is wrong, Eleanor," David said smoothly. He walked around to the opposite side of the table, pulling out a chair and sitting down facing her. He rested his elbows on the white tablecloth, folding his long fingers together in a steeple. "You're hungry. We cooked this specifically for you. It would be very impolite not to finish it."
In the dark shadows beyond the ring of tungsten light, a faint click echoed.
It was the quiet, mechanical sound of a camera shutter resetting. Eleanor’s eyes darted toward the darkness. She caught the brief, momentary blink of a red standby light mounted on a tall tripod hidden near the velvet curtains.
They weren't just feeding her. They were recording her.
Why? her mind screamed. What is this place?
"Eat," Arthur’s voice came from the shadows behind her shoulder.
The smell of the steak, which seconds ago had smelled like heaven, now made her feel violently ill. But the sheer physical compulsion of her starving body betrayed her. Her hand, acting on raw survival instinct, plunged the fork into the thick, juicy beef and brought it to her mouth.
The meat was tender, rich, seasoned with garlic and black pepper. But beneath the savory surface, there was a faint, metallic tang—a bitter, chalky under-taste that lingered on the back of her tongue like aspirin crushed in sugar.
She chewed slowly, forced to swallow under the unblinking gaze of the two men.
"Good," David murmured, watching her throat move as she swallowed. He reached into his apron pocket, pulled out a small black smartphone, and checked the screen.
"The engagement metrics are breaking records," David said to Arthur, not bothering to lower his voice. "Comments are rising at twelve hundred per minute. 'God bless this restaurant.' 'Faith in humanity restored.' We’ve received twenty-two thousand dollars in direct super-chats in the last six minutes."
"How is the payment gateway holding up?" Arthur asked from the dark.
"Flawlessly. The offshore routing protocol is scrubbing the donor origin points. By midnight, the funds will be converted into untraceable digital vouchers."
Eleanor stopped chewing. The piece of steak sat in her cheek like a lump of wet clay.
"You're... you're making money?" she gasped, her voice thick and slurred.
May you like
Suddenly, her vision swam. The bright tungsten light above the table seemed to stretch upward, twisting into a long, swirling tunnel of white radiance. Her limbs felt heavy, filled with wet sand. The prickling warmth in her fingers turned into a total, numb paralysis that crept rapidly up her forearms.
"Of course we're making money, Eleanor," David said, leaning across the table, his face looming large and distorted in her failing field of view. "Charity is the most profitable commodity on earth. People don't pay for food; they pay to feel like they aren't evil."
