one

My name was Mara, and I had contracted a bizarre illness. Whenever the dead of night arrived, I couldn't suppress the overwhelming urge to consume human flesh. I visited countless hospitals for check-ups, but the doctors all told me there was absolutely nothing wrong with me. They merely prescribed some psychiatric medications, claiming they were to treat my "delusions."

Later, I accidentally met a witch named Lucy. She stared at me and said, "This is a very interesting body, a very interesting disease." So, she gave me a bottle of dark green potion. I hesitated for a moment before taking it and leaving. When the dead of night returned and my illness flared up again—when gnawing on raw pork could no longer suppress my maddening hunger—I drank the potion without hesitation.

Chapter 1

For a week after that, I was fine. But I saw Lucy again in that cabin. She told me that if I wanted the potion to completely cure my illness, I had to fulfill five conditions. I needed to eat the heart of a villain, the kidney of a sinner, the liver of a true love, the spleen of a criminal, and the stomach of a wretched soul.

One early morning, a card was slipped under the gap of my door again. On it, in Lucy's blood-red handwriting, were the words: Have you found it?

I turned my head to look at Ron on the balcony and shook my head once more. My heart still resisted the thought of hurting an innocent person.

In the end, I endured it forcefully for a month...

I remembered that night clearly. The maddening, unbearable hunger swept through my stomach and nerves once again. I knelt on the floor, my fingertips clawing frantically at the ground to distract myself from the cannibalistic thoughts screaming in my head. Beside me, scattered inside the open refrigerator, was fresh, bloody raw pork—the leftovers of my savage gnawing from half an hour ago.

It was useless. Tonight's episode was far more violent than ever before. Chewing on animal flesh only made the starvation ravaging my body even more ferocious. My bloodshot eyes couldn't help but lock onto the doorknob. Because as long as I gently pushed that door open, I could feast on the freshest human flesh. That flesh was... Ron.

Right then, there was a knock on the door.

"Mara, what's wrong?" Ron's familiar, concerned voice came from outside the locked door.

Forcing my increasingly out-of-control body to comply, I pretended nothing was wrong. I opened the door and forced a smile at a worried-looking Ron. "I'm fine, Ron. I was just cleaning out the fridge."

My left hand, hidden behind my back, gripped my right hand tightly to stop it from lunging at Ron's throat. I chanted silently in my heart, No, I absolutely will not turn into a man-eating monster!

Ron looked at my pale face and kissed my forehead. "You look awful. Did your stomach illness act up again?"

I inhaled the familiar scent of sweat on his clothes, grinding my teeth as I muttered an explanation. "It's nothing. Just an old problem."

Ron tapped my head, seeming slightly upset. "Nonsense. Wait here, I'll go find your stomach medicine."

He turned around and briskly went into the kitchen to pour a glass of milk, rummaging for the stomach medicine he had bought previously. Truthfully, I hadn't dared to tell him that this was no stomach illness at all.

The fingertips of my left hand dug viciously into my right wrist as I silently ordered myself, Behave! I looked at Ron's gentle silhouette with a trace of reluctance and sighed. What a shame. This is already the tenth time my illness has flared up this month. If this continues, I will definitely eat him. I need to say goodbye to Ron.

Ron walked back, holding the warm milk, and carefully placed it in my hands. "Drink it. I know you hate the bitterness, so I mixed the medicine into the sweet milk."

I looked into his warm blue eyes and drank it slowly, completely off guard. My fingertips clearly felt the warmth of the glass gradually fading. I clutched the empty glass in my right palm and forced myself to look calmly at his handsome face. "Ron, I'm bored of this. Let's break up..."

As soon as the words left my mouth, my vision began to blur and sway. I struggled to reach out, trying to grab Ron's sleeve, but my hand caught nothing but empty air. Through my hazy vision, I vaguely saw Ron curl his lips into an eerie, twisted smile. "Sleep well, orphan..."

Before I even had the chance to understand what his words meant, my consciousness sank entirely into the dark.

An hour later, I was thankful for this damned body; it had metabolized the drug rapidly. Squinting my eyes, I saw that I was tied up inside a warehouse. The faint sound of ocean waves echoed in my ears. Ron stood with his back to me, holding his phone. His tone was freezing and suffocating.

"The buyer's final payment arrived. She's an orphan, no one will check on her, and her heart matches perfectly. Just like the eight idiots before her, we'll extract it tomorrow and throw the rest into the sea."

I finally understood. The "home" I had craved was nothing but a slaughterhouse. I had agonized over suppressing my cannibalistic instincts for the sake of so-called love, only to find out that what he wanted all along was my heart.

If that was the case, then there was no longer any need for me to hold back...

Ron turned around, his eyes widening in shock.

Before he could even utter a single syllable, a pale hand violently pierced straight through his chest.

My crimson eyes stared directly into his blue pupils. I let out an eerie, soft chuckle. "Surprise."

He slowly looked down at the blood-red heart clutched in my hand. With a heavy thud, his body collapsed onto the warehouse floor.

Without a shred of hesitation, I raised my right hand and stuffed the heart into my mouth.

A familiar card fluttered into my hand, carried by the ocean breeze. On it was written: Welcome to releasing your true self.

I licked my fingertips, still tasting the lingering metallic flavor of blood on my hand.

Lucy's cabin sat in the woods by the coast. I thought it was time to go see her.

But I didn't move.

Because I suddenly realized something.

When I swallowed that heart just now, my stomach hadn't made a sound of satisfaction. I touched my abdomen with trembling fingers. "It... it feels like it's hungry again..."