The infinite sandwich

**Chapter 1: The Dance of Flavors**

Ted woke up at 6:35 a.m.

Each morning he liked to drink his coffee, and prepare a sandwich for his first meal of the day.

 As always, he rolled out of bed with groggy determination and made his way to the kitchen. He reached into the cupboard and pulled out a polished black cutting board that gleamed with craftsmanship.

"Those child laborers in China are really stepping up their game." he thought darkly, shaking his head.

From the breadbox, he retrieved a loaf, its crust speckled with sesame seeds. As his knife sliced through the crust right in the middle, it emitted a satisfying crackle that spoke of quality baking. "Ah, Lidl frozen bread" Ted murmured, a smirk forming.

The fridge creaked open, revealing a riot of colors in the vegetable drawer. Ted grabbed a tomato, a cucumber, and some pepper, thinking “These are the soul of the sandwich.” Masterfully, the blade sang as it sliced through the vegetables. Each slice was a symphony of motion, as though the blade itself craved a proper challenge.

And as the blade commanded, the hand listened, and the stomach growled.

Next, he reached into the fridge, pulling out a chicken breast, slicing it thin, and a handful of spices from the cupboard.

Ted threw the spices violently towards the chicken breast, it stood no chance.

In the end he tossed the defeated chicken breast onto the grill alongside the bread.

Now all he had to do was get the butter, coat the sandwich with it, and prepare the sauce — a task he approached with reverence.

Sure, for you unknowing readers, a sauce comes in a bottle. Do not let Ted even hear that thought; he’s currently armed, and we’ve all seen what happened to the chicken breast.

He pulled out greek yogurt, a lime, and ketchup ( yes, it’s bottled, but he also made it so shut up), then combined into a concoction so sublime that even the mixing bowl seemed jealous.

The chicken breast sizzled with steam proclaiming its final defeat.

"It is time." Ted proclaimed, almost as if he were a commander awaiting a fight.

He assembled the ingredients into a sandwich so glorious it practically hummed with angelic light.

“Huh.” Ted said, poking it with curiosity. Then he shrugged and ate half of it.

The world blurred. He heard screams, saw fire and a man bleeding to death . A knight’s voice boomed: “He’s alive!” Figures surrounded him, shouting, “Sire, you made it! We thought you were done for!”

Ted just said: “Sandwich.” Then he passed out.

When he woke again, he was back in his kitchen. The half-eaten sandwich sat on the cutting board, still humming and emitting an angelic light.

Ted continued his day, playing video games.

**Chapter 2: Where the Dead Hunger**

Ted’s friend Ron, opened the door, letting himself in the house, calling out as he walked through the kitchen. He froze at the sight of the sandwich, humming faintly.

Curious, Ron went closer and poked it. Shrugging, he took a bite, exploded and reappeared seconds later, exactly where he’d stood.

“ Dude, what’s with the sandwich downstairs?” Ron asked as he stepped into Ted’s room.

Ted barely looked up from his game. “Some weird angelic sandwich I made.”

“I think I exploded.” Ron said.

“Huh. How was it?”

“Best thing I’ve ever tasted,” Ron admitted. “Can I have another bite?”

“No, don’t!” Ted hesitated, then said ”Do what you want, but don’t explode in my kitchen again.”

Back in the kitchen, the sandwich had returned to its full form and was now levitating.

Ron reached for it, mesmerized, out of words, and frankly a little afraid.

Ted grabbed the sandwich first, cut it in two, and handed Ron half. They sat on the couch, eating while watching TV. They passed out.

Darkness swallowed them.

“Can you hear me?” Ron’s voice echoed in the void.

“Yeah, but it’s weird. I hear your words, but not your voice,” Ted replied.

"Did you put something in the sandwich, man? "

"Just what you usually put in the sandwiches. "

Around them all you could see was pitch black. A sound—the soft splash of oars on water—grew closer and closer.

 “Two coins to pass” a disembodied voice intoned.

Ted just grabbed Ron’s shoe and threw it towards the voice.

“Ouch!” it yelped. "Foolish mortals, who are you to dare disturb the dead with all your livingness" the voice roared, the darkness trembling.

Ted took the other shoe of Ron and threw it toward the voice again.

“Dude, stop throwing stuff!” Ron hissed.

"He’s slightly annoying though, and i have 2 more shoes." Ted said.

The voice sounded hit by a second shoe, and his voice made the darkness expand, and heat arise.

"You dare insult me, you foolish mortal, i will make you one with the spiri... " The voice got hit by two more shoes, and it sounded like he fell from his boat.

There was silence for a few seconds.

"You think he’s dead?" said Ron, breaking the silence.

Ted just shrugged, Ron couldn’t see him but he knew he did.

"How do we get out?"

“Sandwich.” Ted said. The word echoed, and they awoke back in the living room once more, this time however, shoeless.

Ron left soon after, saying something about Ted’s sandwiches being “bad news.” But Ted couldn’t care less and after some playing he went to sleep.

**Chapter 3: The Unsalted Cult**

At 6:35, again, the next morning, Ted gets up and goes into the kitchen. The sandwich hovered over the cutting board, spinning lazily. Ted ignored it, made coffee, and started gathering ingredients for another sandwich.

The door slams, pushed by the sandwich.

Ted just stares at it.

"Fine" he sighed, setting a plate on the counter and placing the sandwich on it. It hovered above the plate, stubbornly refusing to land.

He took a bite once more and found himself transported to a narrow, rain-soaked alley made of rubble. The buildings were leaning one on another, concealing support to each other, and creating in their middle a small pathway.

Ted could fit, it was about his size, if only he sucked his stomach up a bit.

In the middle of the pathway a brick retracted from the wall.

He stopped for a moment and considered going backwards, however he heard a humming from within the walls and it sounded familiar, just like the sandwich.

His curiosity grew with the rain, so he continued toward the path. The walls pressed close, their bricks slick with moss. He took one step and a bloodstained hand emerged from the whole, offering a strange herb he’d never seen before.

Ted made another step and gently grabbed it from the figures hand, smelling it.

The hand retracted, and a voice spoke from within the wall.

"You wonder here astray, disoriented, misplaced. We sense you, we knew you before you were to be. Your soul is alarmed, frightened, full of terror.

We wish to pacify it, to quiet down the inner screams and make it once more veracious.

Eat the herb, and the Cabal of Apate will rectify your soul.” it whispered.

Ted considered to refuse, but the herb smell consumed the air, making him delirious and willing to commit to the voices’ commands. He did as he was told, and passed out.

Waking in a white stone chamber, lit up by candle light. Ted could feel heat on his back and wrists, and hear murmurs around him. He tried getting up, but the chains wrapped around his wrists confirmed his fears, he’d been lied to, and betrayed by a random guy on an alley who offered him strange stuff.

"What’s the world come to?" Ted thought. "Can’t even trust strangers giving you free weird weeds..."

Ted looked around, and the voices began resonating, bringing forth a box plated with gold and a satiny look.

The voices started yelling gibberish, but soon Ted began to understand, they spoke in a tongue he’d never heard before and yet he understood. Oblation echoed in his mind.

Offering, he understood. They meant to sacrifice him to the box.

Ted yelled something in gibberish himself, although he was just saying random words, in order to get their attention.

"Santouits, sandoitchi, buterbrod, panino" Ted yelled.

The chanting stopped. One of the figures approaching “What did you say?”

Ted muttered something under his breath.

"Do you speak for the cabal now? Has your mind succumb to madness or are you truly a seer?" the voice said, leaning closer.

Ted muttered again "Sa.."

"What do you wish to share, SPEAK!" the figure leaning close enough now.

Ted looked into its eyes beneath the dark hood, circles of endless horror echoing from within.

“Sandwich” Ted whispered, then grinned.

“Sandwich, baby!” With a headbutt, he knocked the figure out cold. The others screeched, revealing monstrous limbs as they charged, emanating a distinct scream, revealing their hooded faces to be a twisted nonsense of humanity. Eyes with no eyelids , jaws popped out protruded towards the ground, one of them even had a hat, it was also monstrously ugly.

Ted started running towards a wall, however he wasn’t a math guy, and miscalculating, he slammed into it full force and blacked out.

When he woke up, he was back on his couch with a bruise on his forehead. The sandwich levitating now near the TV, watching a cooking show. Ted scowled. “I never liked those.”

**Chapter 4: Unusually Prepared**

Ted woke up at 8:00.

"Strange "he thought. Every day he woke up at 6:35, yet today, betraying his internal clock, he didn’t. He wondered for a moment, but then shrugged it off.

He went downstairs to make his coffee, but yet again he was out. "Huh, I thought I bought some recently". The fridge was empty except for a jar containing an abnormally large cucumber pulsating like a heart.

The sandwich was no where around either, so Ted assumed that it was finally gone for good.

But when he reached the living room, there it was, levitating before the TV. In front of it more sandwiches.

Ted tasted one. “This sucks!” he complained. “You’re terrible at making sandwiches.”

The sandwich didn’t react.

"Where is my coffee?" Ted asked, but the sandwich was still just levitating. He knew somehow that it was ignoring him.

"Alright" Ted said reaching out for it, but it dodged.

Ted frowned. "So this is how it is then." he said clenching his fist and humming the western duel song.

The Sandwich was levitating slightly forward, ready for a confrontation.

Ted ran towards him and threw a knife impaling it into the wall.

"Well, time to eat you now." Ted said, grabbing the sandwich with such force unseen before.

Right when he thought he won, the Sandwich turned into a log, and behind him, the real Sandwich was levitating menacingly.

"When did you have time to watch Naruto!" Ted yelled while trying to catch it.

The Sandwich dodged again, but Ted followed it and finally bit down.

The world shifted once more.

He awoke in confusion, got up and inspected his surroundings.

Ted found himself in the dim lit corridor of a supermarket. Dazed, he wandered the aisles until a clerk confronted him.

“Hey you, you gonna buy something or what?” the clerk snapped.

Ted just ignored him for a while looking around the store, poking the doors and several items from the shelves.

"This is just a piece of crap supermarket..." Ted remarked, expecting more of the Sandwiche’s properties to transport him into bizarre places.

"Yeah, well, i’ d like to see your workplace" the guy at the counter said, slightly annoyed.

Ted briefly looked at him, and continued inspecting the shop.

At first glance, it was quite surely a normal supermarket.

At second glance however, still a normal supermarket.

Ted was visibly frustrated by this, not one time has his sandwich deployed him somewhere so normal, plain, or for lack of better words, boring.

"Buddy , you gonna buy something or what?" the clerk said. Again.

Ted just blinked, drily, and opened a fridge. With precision, he picked a gallon of milk which he opened with one hand, while still staring and started chugging it.

The clerk had some shiny metal plate on his shirt. ’Fred’ it said in shiny letters. Ted pointed at it, and while Fred was looking where he was pointing, Ted reached for another gallon of milk , and started chugging that one also.

Fred grew impatient and looked at Ted directly, with a burning feeling in his eyes. "So that’s how it’s going to be, is it?" Fred said.

Ted just frowned with his mouth still covering the gallon of milk and, with his index finger, poked Fred in the eye.

"Ouch dude, what is wrong with you!" Fred said, while covering his eye. Ted still chugging the milk passively watched.

Fred picked up a mop, driven to hit Ted with it. He made a vertical move quite unnatural for a clerk of a shop, almost befitting a samurai, ready to strike.

Ted just dodged, and with the now empty gallon of milk, he threw the bottle towards Fred’s head. The contact made a very satisfying thud, at least according to Ted.

Fred continued his pursuit. Left and right, he would wield his mop like a sword. Ted dodged each time but got caught by surprise by a signature move he thought only he himself knew. He was met with an index finger in his eye.

"That's my move, you bastard " Ted said, while Fred smirked.

Ted grabbed a broom and the battle was on. The moving air made a swooshing sound and occasionally the sound of wood contacting when they would defend from each other’s attacks.

"Huaaaa!" Fred made a specific Jackie Chan sound, clenching his fist forward with his mop over his head.

Ted just stood near the fridge, picked up more bottles, and started throwing them at Fred.

Fred ran behind an aisle and began to think about his next move. A decision was made and he poured oil on the ground and near Ted’s feet.

The floor was slippery and both of them knew it.       

Fred pushed an entire aisle towards Ted, quite easily too, there was no dodging this time. Ted was scowling and with a swift move of his broom, he started cleaning the oil in front of him to create grip for the aisle to stop.

It worked. But the victory was short lived, for Fred was determined. He climbed on the pushed aisle with his weapon held with both hands over his head and it was sure this time. The mop would strike Ted.

Fred started yelling a battle cry and Ted was in pure shock staring straight up. He got hit directly in the face by the mop and passed out once more.

"Ding" - someone entered the store.

Fred turned toward the entrance when Ted woke up. Surprisingly, he was still in the supermarket, with a mark on his right cheek and a bruised ego.

He sneaked among the aisles and rushed out of the store before getting caught by his nemesis.

Ted went back to his house.

After a 15-minute bus ride home, he unlocked the door and stepped inside. The house greeted him with silence, save for the faint hum of the fridge in the kitchen. He poured himself a glass of water and then sat onto the couch, exhausted.

For a moment, his mind replayed the chaos of the day—the oil-slick floors, the broom-wielding battle, and the strange places he’d been to before them. As he sank deeper into the cushions, a strange clarity washed over him.

It hit him all at once, the realization suddenly settling in.

The sandwich was gone.

Fred stared blankly at the wall, his thoughts swirling with questions he dared not voice. Somewhere, out there in the world, the sandwich still lingered, defying logic, reason, and perhaps reality itself.

And yet, for Ted, it was over.

With a weary sigh, he reached for the remote, clicked on the TV, and muttered to himself, "I’m switching to bagels."

The End