Death by Chocolate

Ruth was busy mixing a bowl of batter. Round and round her whisk turned, motored briskly by her nimble hands. Totally in the zone, she never once tore her eyes away from her work. She seized an egg and cracked it in half, before adding it to the bowl of batter. She went on whisking the contents.

Whisk, whisk, whisk, whisk. Her resolve was unfettered.

An oven flashed its green light and beeped behind her, so she put down her bowl and marched over to it instantly, pulling out a tray with a chocolate cake from it while using some mittens she wore beforehand. She placed the tray on a counter with nearly a dozen other chocolate cakes that had accumulated over the past few hours and spun around to go attend to yet another machine in the kitchen.

“Jesus Ruth, do you ever give your self a break?”

Ruth turned to the exasperated voice and found that its source was a red headed teenage boy in a jean jacket filled with buttons and pins, Fred. He was one of her only friends at their culinary school as she had ensured that her social circle was kept at a tight circumference; her studies were to be her first priority.

Ruth just shook her head quietly as she smirked, never once pausing her whisking.

“You can take a break now exam season is finally over, you know?” He idly dipped a finger into a bowl of chocolate and popped it straight into his mouth. “Literally everyone else is out having fun. You should be doing the same,”

Ruth rolled her eyes. “Fred, you know how much this all means to me. I can’t put aside my work for even a minute; I need to be at the top of my game to be taken seriously around here-”

“Ruth...news flash; every one here shares the same sentiment! However, at least they know when to switch off for a while and have fun,” Fred heaved himself onto a counter and crossed his legs.

Ruth simply sighed deeply and walked away from him to attend to yet another batch of chocolate cake. She couldn’t bear how many times she’d messed up the recipe. To others, each cake probably seemed fine. But to her, each batch always had something missing. It seemed like Fred would never get it; her desperately urgent work ethic. No one seemed to.

“Fred, I need to prove myself to the heads here. You have no idea how much I want to get noticed and be given a chance to show them what I have got,” Ruth shrugged irritably, getting increasingly stressed. “And I won’t exactly accomplish that anytime soon by wasting even a second not perfecting these recipes, now will I?”

Fred gave her a pitying look. Sometimes he wondered what had made her this way; a workaholic who was always on edge, trying to prove herself to everyone and no one all at the same time.

Ruth chuckled at his silence. “Just shut up about all that and try my chocolate cake, okay? How does it taste? Moist, dry? Too sweet, too bitter?”

Fred cut out a slice of chocolate cake with a knife and took a huge bite. He moaned with genuine satisfaction, “This is incredible, holy shit! It’s great, Ruth,”

Ruth instinctively swept his compliments under the rug. “Please, you’re just saying that to be nice,” She cut out a slice for herself and sampled it as well. “It tastes bland...it isn’t right. It just isn’t-”

Fred hopped off the counter. “Look, Ruth, I get that you’re under a lot of stress. But everyone deserves to take a breather once in a while, even over achievers,” He touched her shoulder. “Cause if you don’t, you’ll burn yourself out. And believe me, crazy shit goes down when you get burned out,”

Ruth absorbed his words but shrugged his hand off anyway. “It’s never happened to me. And it never will. You worry too much, Fred. I’ve told you a million times; I’m fine,” She forced on a grin for good measure. “You said it yourself; exam season is over. So go out and have fun without me,”

Fred pursed his lips but let out a breath in defeat. “Whatever you say, captain,”

And just like that, he left her alone in the empty industrial kitchen at their school.

An hour passed by soon enough yet Ruth barely noticed. While working steadfastly, her thoughts slipped to something else.

‘They all keep telling me to slow down,’ She thought, then laughed bitterly. ‘It’s clear they weren’t raised by perfectionist asian parents always breathing down their necks-’

Suddenly, the lights above her flickered. She gave it a brief glance but returned her attention back to her work. However, the lights faltered again and the room’s radiance slowly dimmed. Ruth scrunched up her eyebrows in confusion.

“Did we bust a fuse or something?”

Just then, at the corner of her eye, she saw something moving in one of the bowls on a counter. She edged closer to it, slightly alarmed by the increasingly flickering lights surrounding her. Taking a gulp, she peered into the bowl tentatively before letting out a breath of relief when she found that its chocolate contents were totally still.

“Sometimes, I swear, I’m so stupid-”

But out of the blue, the chocolate leaped out at her. Shrieking, she backed away. In her corner, she ogled in horror as the chocolate along with some in other bowls began slithering towards the numerous chocolate cakes littered on the counters and merged into a grotesque figure. Ruth shook violently and her vocal chords couldn’t work.

The creature shrieked at her and Ruth scrambled away in fear. Searching for a weapon, she settled for a knife and brandished it in front of her. Yet, the creature simply snatched it up and absorbed it. Ruth tried throwing other kitchenware at it but it absorbed them also. Hence, Ruth yelped and fled while it slithered after her, leaving a trail of chocolate cake and sticky goodness in its wake. The creature finally cornered her and Ruth trembled, completely helpless.

Then it occurred to her, ‘Try water.’

So in a last ditch effort, she raced over to a sink, yanked its faucet and shot water towards the creature at full blast. It pierced through it and left the monster in a shrieking fit. Triumphant at her small victory, Ruth went on spraying water at it. Gradually, the chocolate monster melted and melted, until it was no more. Ruth let out a breath of disbelief, stunned that she’d really defeated it. She noticed that the lights had stopped flickering, making the room well lit again.

“Hey, I think I forgot my car keys here and-”

Ruth looked over her shoulder and found a speechless looking Fred at the kitchen’s door. “What the hell happened in here?”

Ruth finally acknowledged the mess all around her; kitchenware was strewn all over the floor while water and chocolate dripped down from every crevice of the room.

Ruth sighed, wiping some smudged chocolate off her cheek, “You were right; crazy shit really does go down when you’re burned out. I think I’m ready to take a break now.”