Cutlery for the quiet ones

Trigger Warnings: Psychological decay, implied cannibalism, disturbing ritual imagery

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They told me the house would be empty.

Just a simple inheritance transfer, they said. Sign a few papers, look around, maybe take something sentimental before the city tore it down. No one told me about the table. Or the place settings. Or the whispers that began when I touched the silver.

I didn’t even want the house.

It belonged to my great-aunt Meryl, whom I’d never met but was told had a “taste for solitude.” That’s how my mother put it, her voice faltering like she was biting down on memory. She never talked about Meryl growing up—only mentioned once, in passing, that she used to throw “strange dinners” on nights when the wind changed.

They said she died peacefully.

They didn’t mention the dining room was still... set.

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There were six chairs, evenly spaced, polished and perfect despite the dust. Six plates, bone-white and wide, with gold-rimmed edges. Six sets of cutlery, laid out with surgical precision—forks aligned, knives glinting in the fading light.

But there was only one wine glass.

And it was full.

A deep red. Still shimmering.

As if someone had just poured it.

I remember standing in the doorway too long, long enough for shadows to lengthen across the carpet, long enough for something inside me to tug, softly, like a thread unraveling in my skull.

I told myself to leave.

But my feet moved on their own.

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There was a dusty photo on the mantle. Meryl in her twenties, standing beside the same table, except every chair was occupied—blurry silhouettes in old-fashioned clothes. No faces. Just impressions. Like the lens refused to capture what it shouldn’t have seen.

In her hands, she held a knife.

It looked exactly like the one on the table now.

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It started with a sound.

A faint clink of silver on porcelain from the chair to my left.

Then a quiet exhale from the chair across.

I didn’t move.

Didn’t speak.

The table had guests now.

I couldn’t see them—just heat distortions in the air, outlines of hands that lifted forks. Shadows that twitched just past the corner of my eye. The wine glass floated a few inches up, tilted back.

Something drank.

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One by one, the knives began to move.

Scraping.

Carving.

But the plates were empty.

No food. No flesh.

Just the suggestion of feasting.

The noise was unbearable—wet, chewing mouths and the crack of cartilage, accompanied by the dull scrape of silverware on china. The scent of raw meat filled the air. My stomach turned.

Then they turned to me.

Not with eyes—there were no faces. Just presence. Cold. Curious. And hungry.

A whisper slithered across the linen like a fingernail on glass:

“It’s your turn, dear.”

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I didn’t want to move. I shouldn’t have moved.

But my hands, shaking, reached for the fork.

Then the knife.

They moved on their own.

My fingers mimicked the others.
Cut.
Lift.
Chew.

I gagged on nothing. Still I swallowed.

The taste was… familiar. Like bone marrow. Like ash. Like guilt.

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The walls pulsed in and out with my breath. Or theirs. I felt them breathing through me. I wasn’t eating—I was being hollowed out, spoonful by spoonful.

My skin prickled. My fingernails darkened. Something inside me opened its mouth, and I couldn't close it again.

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When the others vanished, the air didn’t change.

It stayed thick, wet. The room stank of butchered things and ritual.

Only one knife remained on the table. Longer. Sharper. Stained.

There was a note beneath it, yellowed and cracked:

Cutlery for the quiet ones. Use only when necessary.
They never leave hungry.

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I stumbled out of the house that night.

But I never really left.

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At first, it was just noise—cutlery tapping in my dreams, the echo of six plates being scraped clean.

Then came the shapes.

Figures seated in train windows. In café corners. In reflections behind my own.

Faint, but clearer with each day.

Each one looked a bit more... like me.

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I stopped eating. Didn’t stop them.

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I began setting my own table—six places, like before. I don’t know why.

Guilt? Fear?

Or maybe I was preparing.

Each night they came.

They didn’t knock. They didn’t speak.

They just sat.

Their features grew sharper. Neck bones. Chins. Wetness glistening on their lips.

I gave them nothing.

They came anyway.

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Last night, they brought a new knife

Sleek. Surgical.

With it, a note written in something darker than ink:

Feed us. Or join us.

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I don’t sleep anymore. I don’t eat. I don’t leave the kitchen. The chairs are always full now, and I never remember opening the door.

Sometimes I catch my own reflection in the cutlery. It doesn’t move when I do. Its mouth is always open.

Waiting.

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Tonight, I will cook.

I don’t know what.

But I will.

For them.

For me.

For the quiet ones.

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I think I’m becoming something else.

A placeholder at the table. A husk with a heartbeat. A host.

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I used to think the cutlery was just silver.

Now I know it’s ritual.

And it’s hungry.

And it knows my name.

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