Special Thursday

The huge kitchen bustling with activity, chefs and waiters working in alignment to deliver quality dishes to diners, the sizzling sound filling the air and the clinking of plates made Ivan gaze in awe as if he had seen a masterpiece.

He had never expected Denny's Steakhouse to have this many chefs, from the outside it seemed like a rundown place that had acquired a reputation for it's delicious food, especially the Special Thursday steak that had diners flock from far off just to taste a steak so divine, that they never hoped to get in any place and that was the main reason he had joined Denny's Steakhouse as a trainee chef.

Huge lines had always discouraged him to give the Special Thursday steak a try, even when he gathered enough courage to stand for more than an hour in the tiring heat, he could not get his hands on the steak, it was all over when his turn came.

He had been a regular diner at the steakhouse and everything they made was delicious, his inner chef had always been surprised how they managed to make everything taste great, from the steak, to the sides and the special sauces, no matter how hard one tried or how picky they were, they could never find a single flaw in it.

But the Special Thursday steak was something that even the food critics who had tasted all the great food the world had to offer and those that had been regular patrons of the steakhouse called it divine, something that was so delicious that it could only be described as otherworldly, their choice of words left Ivan bitter, he felt his life was worthless if he could not taste a dish so divine!

Working in that huge kitchen proved to be more tiring than Ivan had expected earlier, at the end of the day he felt like a slave, the only difference being he was getting paid and the slave didn't get any, his back hurt from all the work and he was on the verge of giving up when he happened to taste the sauce made for the Special Thursday steak, there was a little extra sauce left and since the head chef was pleased with his work he let him taste it.

The symphony of tastes it created on his tongue was something otherworldly, just as the food critics had described, it was truly divine but more than that it had a refreshing taste to it, he tried hard to grasp what was the main ingredient behind the sauce but it left him dumfounded!

It tasted a bit of berries, it had a hint of sweetness and sourness but it was not like the berry sauces he had made during his training, it had a peppery taste to it too, but not too much, maybe pepper wasn't the main ingredient he thought.

The taste of the sauce made him endure all the boring tasks and the tiring nature of the work, he hated crowds but that never struck him on thursdays because his eagerness to try the special steak wouldn't let him remember anything else!

Sadly for him the only part of the special steak he could try was the sauce but that was enough to give him an idea of how the whole dish would taste, there was something else that had started to bother him the more he noticed.

The head chef was a very eccentric man, he wanted everything to be perfect but he was beyond a perfectionist, it didn't please him that the dish came out looking perfect and tasted great, he was obsessed with how the dish smelled, even if it had a tantalizing aroma to it, he wasn't pleased, it didn't just have to make a person hungry as they smelled it but they should get an idea of how the dish looks from the smell.

He felt sorry for the chefs who had to work under the bizarre instructions of this eccentric man and counted himself as lucky to be in his good books but how long he was going to be pleased with him, he couldn't say, he just wished he got to taste the special steak before he was fired.

One wednesday as the chef was preparing the sauce and the steak for the upcoming thursday, he felt the urge to look at the preparations closely to get an idea of what the dish was made of, perhaps he could make an imperfect version of the dish and even if it was imperfect, it would satisfy him as a chef.

He knew it was forbidden for trainee chefs to go near the special steak preparations, that was a rule he had learnt on the first day at the job, he couldn't get away with it even if he claimed it was a mistake, it made him nervous but as he remembered the taste of the sauce, he forgot about his anxiety and slowly crept near.

As the chef went for a break, he saw his chance and looked closely at both the sauce pot and the marinated steak, he expected to find either a combination of daily but unexpected ingredients or some exotic ingredients but what he saw confused him.

The sauce was dark red with a metallic smell to it and the meat even though was marinated in a combination of spices which he guessed from the smell was paprika, thyme and basil, smelled weird, it was unlike any meat he had seen before, was it some exotic animal?

He picked up a spoon and scooped out a bit of the sauce, the chef had left it to cool so it wasn't boiling hot, but the taste made him gag, he felt his mouth fill up with a metallic taste, it felt like he had sucked rusted metal, he threw the spoon aside in disgust.

This was the same sauce that tasted so divine?, he couldn't believe what he had tasted, but weirdly enough it seemed familiar, he tried to recall where he had tasted it, did it remind him of something rotten he had accidently eaten?, chills went up his spine when he recalled that the metallic liquid he had tasted was blood but it was definitely not the taste of animal blood, it was human blood, what was it doing in the pot!

It suddenly struck him that Gregory was missing since two days, in his eagerness he had failed to notice his fellow trainee hadn't been seen since monday, he shook his head at the idea that it was the blood of his fellow trainee, maybe he had gotten it all wrong, he took another spoonful of the sauce.

But before he could taste it, he heard the head chef asking him did he finally uncover the secret, he dropped the spoon in horror, as he turned back, he saw the head chef was smirking, he looked around and knew he had been pushed into a corner, he wanted to buy his way out of it but his mouth wouldn't utter a word out of fear.

He had been paralysed by fear, as the head chef walked up towards him, he knew he was about to meet his grim end at the hands of this eccentric man, his mind imagined what would have happened to poor Gregory, as the head chef grabbed his shoulder, everything went blank.

Denny's Steakhouse was more crowded than usual that thursday, diners were eagerly waiting for the Special Thursday steak, chefs were busy plating the steak with the sauce and the sides and waiters were running to catch up with them, it was a sight to behold and he smiled as he looked up at the crowded steakhouse, as he poured the sauce on the steak he was pleased to know that he was no longer a trainee chef, those boring tasks were behind him, he was now in charge of making the special steak and that knowledge greatly pleased Ivan.