Last meal

The scent of delicious food filled his nose as he started waking up, the sound of chains rattling on par with every move he made. The entire room was shrouded in darkness save for where he was seated, an overhanging chandelier at the exact center of a table casting just enough light for both ends and every tray and plate on to be illuminated. While somewhere inside there of the room the sound of classical music came out of unseen speakers, the quality of each piece far too tarnished by the poor quality of the loudspeakers and the rebound of the sound across the room.

Yet his assessment of his surroundings were abruptly cut short by the sharp pain in his head that seemed intent on having scream in pain at the unbearable feeling of his brain pounding harshly against his skull, leaving him wondering if it may just even burst out of it.

In a desperate attempt to try and appease the throbbing pain both his hands shot up towards his head in an effort to massage his temples and lessen the brunt of the worsening headache, however his arms were suddenly yanked back down.

A yelp of surprise and pain escaped his mouth, wrists becoming sore due to his sudden movements.

“Oh, motherfuckers…” A male voice called out from the darkness of the room, tone laced with discontent and frustration. “Why is it that they always seem to do whatever the fuck they want when I specifically tell them to bring them in without hurting him?”

The man stepped into the light, sharply dressed in a blue suit and white shirt, his face immediately being revealed by the overhanging chandelier. They looked very young, somewhere between their mid-twenties or early thirties, but the glint in their eyes as well as their calm and polite expressions towards the bound man teased at their familiarity with the situation at hand.

Passing at hand over their black hair, which seemed to have been slicked back and shine under the light by the probable excessive amount of gel utilized to keep it from puffing out, the young man cursed under his breath before looking back at the handcuffed man at the end of the table and shooting him an apologetic smile.

“Sorry about this, mister Andrews, we are normally more professional than this, but it seems you were an exception to that.” He suddenly spoke, voice filled with guilt, yet there was a very dangerous undertone to it lying just under the surface.

“H-how, how do you know my name?” Adrian asked, his throat sore and painfully dry making each word grate heavily his vocal chords.

A soft chuckled escaped the young man, an amused look flashing across his face as he removed his jacket and hanged in on the back of his seat. “We have been watching you for some quite some time now, so really us knowing your name shouldn’t be as concerning as the other things that we know about you.”

The temperature of the room suddenly became unbearably cold, yet he was the only one shivering after the words had been said. The young man simply stared at him with cold eyes, the unsettling fear that Adrian had initially felt when seeing him enter into view was all but confirmed in his eyes. Whoever they were, it was clear they were extremely dangerous, and just one mistake would cost him gravely. “Anyways, how’s that headache of yours holding up? Can someone get us some Advil and a glass of water, please?”

And just like that, the dark aura around the strange man suddenly lifted, light seemingly returning back to his eyes. The seamless yet jarring switch from very drastic attitudes leaving very little time for Adrian to react, it had been so much to process that it wasn’t until a fake cough brought him out of his musings only to see his captor standing before him, hands reaching in for his pockets.

Adrian’s eyes immediately shut tight at the motion in fear and anticipation. His mind already picturing several outcomes at just could be drawn out of the stranger’s pockets, at how it he was going to die by their hands without a reason as to why. Yet when the restraints on his wrists suddenly went slack and the sound of metal clanking against the hard floor did he open his eyes and look at his kidnapper in absolute shock, but couldn’t even act on it before being scared by the sudden appearance of a glass of water and two red-colored caplets brought by another sharply dressed man who had emerged from the shadows, their face covered by a plague doctor mask.

“Thank you, kindly,” The stranger spoke, flicking the large nose of the mask as he leaned forward. “now go and tell our boss about the idiots on retrieval duty.” The man said nothing as he left, becoming enveloped in the shadows entirely, leaving only captor and prey alone once more.

“Now then, should we start with our meal?”

“Why are you doing this? What do you want?!” The stranger paid the questions no mind, instead just throwing the keys of the handcuffs on the table and heading towards the seat at the other end of the table, expression entirely neutral despite Adrian’s clear apprehension. “Do you want money? Look, I don’t have much, but I can get it for you, just let me go and I swear to God I won’t tell anyone about this… I’ll take this to my grave!”

He chuckled under his breath, hands already handling the cutlery set out before him as he silently chose what to pick from the wide selection of food in front of them. “I never understood why you always jump straight to the third stage, nor why you bargain with something already ours.” The amusement in his voice was quite clear as day, their clear disregard for the growing concern of the older man resulting in the feeling of his stomach dropping. Just being around the dangerous young man, Adrian could feel how everything was sucked in to the twisted and terrifying aura the boy carried around. “Our job is to kill you, nothing else. Now please, eat before it gets cold!”

Adrian saw red after those words were said, how easily his life was being suddenly hanged by a thread by someone clearly deranged and cruel as the man before him. “What the fuck are you going on about?! JUST WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?!”

“We are people paid to kill you because you pissed off the wrong person, and we really don’t care what you did or why you did it.” Setting down a piece of meat on his plate, he used the silver knife to point towards Adrian. “So really, you were just unlucky enough to meet the bare minimum needed for us to accept the job-”

The sound of a plate breaking violently against the floor interrupted the young man, who merely stared back at Adrian unamused despite the loud crash. “Alright then, kill me, just get it over it and do it!”

“No,”

“What was that?”

“I said no,” doing his best to convey an understanding and friendly air about him, his expression switching from neutral and bored to just a sad smile that would have felt sincere had it not been by the clear emotional instability by the sharply dressed stranger. “that isn’t how we do things here; we aren’t just coldblooded killers. This last meal should be proof of it.”

The way that sentence was said so matter-of-factly was the straw that broke the camel’s back for Adrian, slowly breaking down in a fit of choked sobs and laughter. To him there was no reason or logic inside of that room, no humanity whatsoever in the souls of his captors or the person who had given them the order to target him. The only thing he truly was certain about, was that as soon as his meal was over, his life was as good as forfeit.

He was nothing more than a corpse talking about something which had already happened.

“I will be the first to admit, what we do is quite messed up but nothing can be done about it.” Returning back to his food, the strange man tried to steer their conversation from any further outbursts. “Least we can do is humanize the process.”

“Why did this happen?” Was all Adrian could ask, his energy being slowly drained the more he sat in that dark room. “Who asked you to do it?”

“Your wife. I’m sorry.” He stated without a second of pause or hesitation. The harsh revelation weighted on the man’s chest, but only worsen once his captor continued. “You had cheated on her, and in a fit of rage and emotions, decided that this is the only way you could have been punished.”

Hot tears prickled at his eyes as the words echoed inside his head, mocking him for the sins he had committed, for the trust he had shattered and thought could easily be kept intact after something like that. “We of course declined the initial deal, stating that something as such was too drastic to be fair. So we reached an impasse, we would watch for a year and judge if the initial deal would take place or not. You proved to us in that year that said deal would not only stand, but be carried out immediately.

Your sentence, Adrian, was none other than death.”

After that, there were no more words exchanged between them, the room had fallen into an oppressive silence only kept at bay by the sounds of cutlery and plates being moved over the table to accompany them. The strange man who Adrian had never asked for a name had moved on to a second serving, his maroon colored drink filled once more to the brim and glowing under the light of the chandelier.

Looking down at his own plate, Adrian merely stared at the porcelain finish of the dishware, still clean and devoid of the many dishes spread through the entire table. Despite the strong allure of each extraordinary dish and the growing hunger, he couldn’t bring himself to even help himself to drink the offered water immediately after he had woken up. The fact that this would have been his final meal before he was to be killed kept him from eating at all.

“If I don’t eat at all, would that save me from dying?” His question seemed to freeze his captor in his tracks, the mouthful of food bulging slightly to the side of his cheeks as they seemed to process the question.

“Hmph, do you think that will work?” He cleared his throat, lifting his gaze just enough to seem the man just to hear their answer.

Adrian’s mouth opened, yet no words could come out of it. He wanted to say yes, that it could save him from having to allow these paid killers from murdering him under the orders of his wife, that something so easy as denying his last meal could forever keep him alive, if imprisoned inside of that dark room. Yet a voice inside his head knew better, that if he pushed just too far then they would just stop their pleasantries and simply kill him were he sat.

There was nothing he could have done to prevent the inevitable to come.

“No… I don’t think it will.” The response came out in a weak, pathetic voice he was even shamed had been the most sincere he’d been in his entire life.

“If it makes you feel better, you aren’t the first one to ask that. Hell, I doubt you will be the last either.” The stranger said, an indescribable expression flashing across his features as he said that. “But you can stay in this room for as long as you want, whether you starve yourself to death or actually finish your meal, we really don’t care, you are going to die either way.”

Reaching for a dish of golden roasted chicken thigh and potatoes, hand shacking as he did so, a last question hanged around in his head as he began his meal. “Why are you here then?”

“To humanize the process.” He simply said, a childish smile beginning to spread across his face. “I thought you could use a friend before this happened, someone to tell you everything is going to be alright, or just to have one last favors called in before you know what.”

Adrian said nothing, deciding to just take a bite of the mouthwatering chicken set down on his plate, its juices already flowing out and painting porcelain white in a golden tint.

The taste was unlike anything he had ever had in his entire life; it was perfect in every single way possible. So much so that the piece of white meat remained in his mouth for so long before being chewed with a hunger he never knew had gotten so bad because of his focus on the fear and rage he carried moments before. With each bite, with each plate slowly being devoured, the reality of just how futile it is to even do anything about what would happen dawned on him, yet couldn’t bring himself to care in the slightest any longer. ‘Trying to do so was nothing more than a fool’s gambit,’ he thought, reaching for another serving of meats and sides.

Both men, strangers bound to an even more strange situation, fell into a comfortable silence that felt nearly familiar to the two of them. No titles between them, nor a sense of animosity between them any longer, they were no more than two people enjoying a feast like no other.

“Thank you…”

“Daniel,” he replied without even looking up from his food, warmth and kindness seeping through that word alone. “and you are welcome.”

Nodding, despite Daniel not seeing him do so, Adrian merely went back to his meal without anything else to say. Yet from the stuffed sensation at his stomach, he knew this brief peace would not last long.

So deciding to accept his fate, Adrian set down his provided silverware and closed his eyes in expectation. The last sound he ever heard was that of a cocking gun behind him.