And what bliss it is!

(Content warning: cannibalism, details of the act of cannibalism, and a narrator that sees nothing wrong with glorifying it)

There had been no greater ecstasy in the course of his life that could ever come close to that of which shocked through his very soul the first time he brought the flesh to his mouth. Unspoiled by the act of cooking, there was a lingering sweetness to the meat that excited his senses near to the point of giddying, delicious delirium. As he tore through the still-warm tissue, he knew with a resounding certainty that no man that there had ever been, nor ever will be, would ever know the heights of wonder that he had been blessed with in that moment.  

A shaky sigh slipped erratically through Edgar’s viscera-smeared lips, his breath hitching sharply in his throat. His vision danced with stars, swirling patterns that were equal parts senseless and came to him with such a perfect sense of clarity it was as if he had known the secrets that they held his whole life but only now allowed himself to listen. The polite world of restraint and reservation having denied him the chance to finally allow himself to embrace, to understand all that there truly was to the world as it was, not as the false-piety that mankind had chosen to lie to themselves with some desire to appear better than they were. Than the world itself was. It was this sterilization that damned the species, ruined all that lay beneath the pristine façade. 

They were cowards. Never would they allow themselves the chance to embrace their most primal, human urges and Edgar pitied them. Pitied the tragedy of nothingness that they had created for themselves. 

So afraid were they of appearing in any way sincere, that the unfortunate masses never could understand, let alone reach the true heights of love. But no, not he. No, never he. He understood, understood better than anyone, than anything in the world what it was to love. To adore, to worship with such dedication that the very world itself paled in comparison to the blaze within him that shocked the nerves to new, excited heights, and left the mind with the most exquisite of hazy clarities. He knew better than anybody else what it meant to be truly and wildly devoted. 

The sinew snapped in his teeth, stretching and tearing before devouring it with the reverence reserved typically for the religious. How marvelous it was to be able to embrace such a dedication! How woeful it was that so few of his kind would ever know the bliss of it, to become one and whole and complete. Mankind was so willing to live each day incomplete, a gaping hole through their chest spilling out into the world when it was so easy to repair. A wound pieced back together stitch by stitch, emptiness filled with something so wonderfully real. 

It was so simple, he could not fathom why it was those around him seemed so content with playing out such an unfulfilling role day in and day out. He could never, for he was quite certain that it would drive him hopelessly and utterly mad. 

They were mad, he knew this. Each and every one of them. But not he. No, just as he knew that they each were wretchedly mad, he knew that he, alone, held to his sanity like a prize to flaunt to those who had so willingly sacrificed their own in favour of the tedium, the mundanity that they seemed all too willing to embrace. 

The blood beneath his fingernails, claggy and sticky, that painted his sickly features and brightened the dullness of his attire – why must it be that we are doomed to don only the most dull of fashions? Yet further evidence towards the self-imposed dullness of the human condition! – in a way that was doubtlessly lovely to see. The scent was all encompassing, an intoxicating metallic aroma that drew him onwards. He was quite well acquainted with the smell of all manner of fine colognes, having familiarized himself with a range thereof as he could not say definitively that he was all that fond of any of them. This was relevant only because it gave the impression that Edgar was a man of rather precise tastes when it came to his sensory experiences, as was often the case for one with a certain supposed prestige of hereditary – or whichever ludicrous expectations were being tied to one’s name at any given time – which could easily be mistaken for a degree of snobbery. 

In that moment, there was no lovelier a scent he had ever the opportunity to experience than that of the vital fluids that had spilled its crimson across him in elegant waves. He drew his hands, sticky and red, to his face to appreciate the scent in its entirely, the smile of a sleepwalker lost in his own blissful dreamscape curling the corners of his lips so gently.

Once more he delved into the still twitching flesh with the desperation of a week-starved man finally granted the relief of mercy. The force of his desperate onslaught left him choking just once, the violence of the action seeming almost sacrilegious against the reverence of his feast, but bar a low rumble of displeasure at his own foolishness, he did not let this deter him. He needed to bring this to its end. To complete the circle to leave him truly complete. More complete than ever. More complete than any other person who dared walk the face of the earth.

But as all good things did, even this bliss had to come to its end. An end that came with an ache in his overstuffed belly and a sense of resounding wholeness that he had never the privilege of enjoying to its fullest as he did in that moment. 

With a content air, he lingered as if to offer a prayer of thanks before, finally, he could bring himself to draw away and leave. Leaving only the scraps of bloodstained lace of a dress and lily-white bones left to dry and bleach under the summer sun.