I'm writing this out in hopes that whoever reads this will figure out the truth, and that I'm not crazy.
I know it's a long shot, but I need to explain myself.
I don't care how many times I have to defend myself.
I'm not insane.
What I saw was real.
And what I did was all for my own safety, and the safety of my family.
I didn't want them to be killed.
But no one believed me.
They locked me away.
They called me a murderer.
They called me a cannibal.
It's horrible in here.
The smell of sterilising chemicals in my cell and the constant talks with doctors who think they can help me.
But they never listen.
They never understand.
No matter how many times I explain it all to them.
They say I'm making it up.
They say I'm trying to hide my true feelings.
My true motives.
After a while, I just had to nod my head every session to whatever they said.
"Yes, I understand I'm insane", I would say.
"Yes, I understand what I did was wrong", I would say.
I knew what I did was wrong, but they'd never believe me when I tell them I had no choice.
They nod and agree with what I say, but I see it in their eyes.
"She's clearly delusional", they're thinking.
"She's clearly imagining all this in her sick little mind", they're thinking.
But I'm not sick.
The world is sick.
There are things out there that we as a species haven't discovered yet, and when we do discover them, they will disgust us.
We try to reason with ourselves 'it's not true'.
But it is.
It all is.
They live among us.
They force us to do terrible things.
To the ones we love.
To the ones we hate.
This is the reason why I'm not insane...





Me and my family were very well brought up on manners.
They weren't exactly the richest family, but we had a decent property, and they had a great respect for decent civilised behaviour.
They kept their lawn well trimmed and decorated.
Our house was filled with the finest ornaments and furniture.
We all had a real taste for the etiquette lifestyle.
Perhaps it was just what we wanted out of life.
What we prided in most was my parent's gourmet cooking.
Every meal we had was amazing and different, and bursting with flavour.
We'd take great care in preparing the table.
We had no need to eat at a fancy restaurant.
In fact, my parents even owned their own restaurant!
My parents were the best cooks around.
And the dinners at home were the best I'd ever had.
But unfortunately, my parents were also very generous and charitable people.
You wouldn't think this was a bad thing, but being charitable has it's downsides.
As I very quickly discovered.

Laura was her name.
The daughter of my mom's best friend.
She was a college drop out, and recently lost her job.
Her family wasn't exactly like ours. They had much lower standards than us, and Laura was by far the lowest of the low.
She lost her job because she got into a fight with another employee.
A physical fight.
One that ended quite badly for both of them.
But mainly the other employee.
Because of that reason, she was fired, and now her parents want her to get back onto her feet and get a new job.
Laura blamed her parents for her mistake, and moved out of the house.
And now she was moving in...with us.

I tried to be friendly.
I tried to be courteous.
And at first, she seemed friendly enough.
But it was all a front.
She treated the house not as if she were a guest, but if we were all her servants.
She did nothing all day.
She lounged around in my bedroom with her shoes on.
She'd smoke weed in the living room.
She constantly be on the phone with her boyfriend.
I swear I even found a used condom beneath the couch.
She had invited strangers around my parent's house.
She had invited strangers around for sex.
Into my own house!
Without anyone's permission!

And her eating habits.
Oh God.
They're the worst.
Enough to put you off your food.
She treats the dining table like her own personal pigsty.
If that wasn't bad enough, she has no respect for my parent's cooking.
Says she's "not into all that fancy crap".
So she uses my parent's money to buy Chinese takeout for herself.
And eats it in front of us during dinner!
When all the effort my parents put into the food, laid out in front of us, and she just eats her junk food!
It's like performing blasphemous pagan ceremonies inside a church!
That was the last straw for me.
Her complete disrespect for my parent's and their hard work.
I wanted her to leave.
But it had only been three weeks.

Two months had passed, and my patience with Laura was wearing dangerously thin.
My parents were either wilfully oblivious or they genuinely enjoyed her company.
The latter part worried me if it was true.
She was the most unlikable person I could ever have the displeasure to meet.
I wouldn't have even called her a person.
More like a creature.
A low-down, filthy, disgusting, selfish, manner-less creature.
I would often find that thing sleeping in my bed with her shoes still on.
Or in the living room, high off her ass.
She wasn't even attempting to find a job.
And every time she sat down to eat her disgusting junk food at the table, I felt like I was going to be sick.
I couldn't stand it any longer.
I wanted her out!
I wanted her out!
I wanted her out!


One night, I heard a noise downstairs.
It almost sounded like a muffled scream.
Laura's scream.
I thought that she had brought home another loser boyfriend to sleep with.
And this time, right under my parent's noses!
No.
I remembered my parents were out for the night.
They wanted to try out a new restaurant in our neighboring town.
I assumed they just simply wanted to get away from Laura and eat in peace.
I didn't blame them.
I had to cook for myself, while that creature Laura ordered an entire pizza for herself.
She asked if I wanted some, along with some weed.
But I refused.
And I made my answer clear.
Clear enough that she never spoke to me for the rest of the evening.
I went to bed, but my parents weren't home yet.
And now the creature has taken the opportunity to invite her sort of scum to have sex with as a form of retaliation.
I wasn't going to take it any longer.
I grabbed my bath robe and slammed my bedroom door as I left, to show I meant business.
I wanted the noise to rattled the house.
To rattled her wits.
I stormed down the stairs.
No longer was I going to stand for her behaviour.
I flew open the living room door.
It was going to end.
She wasn't there, so I storming into the dining room.
Right here..
Right now..
This very night..
It was all going to stop!

I froze..

I fainted..

What I saw in that room..

..I was not expecting.


I woke up.
I was seated at the dining table.
A knife and fork in hand.
In front of me, tied up hand-to-foot on a silver platter......was Laura.

She had been stripped naked, forced onto her stomach.
Limbs tied up behind her.
Her hair had been completely shaved off.
And an apple was lodged into her mouth.

I should have ran.
I should have moved.
I should have done anything but sitting completely still and waiting for the inevitable.
But I didn't.
I just sat there, staying.
I could have saved Laura in that time I just sat there.
But I didn't.
I was too scared.
Too surprised.
I thought this was all a weird dream.
But I soon found out it wasn't.
Not at all.
It was all too real.
But no one would believe me.

I heard a shuffling noise from the kitchen.
A lot of shuffling, like a large crowd of people.
Now I was panicking, but my legs were too weak to stand.
Laura was panicking too, but she couldn't even speak, let alone scream.
The door to the kitchen slowly creaked open, but I couldn't see anyone or anything in the pitch-black darkness.
The only like I saw were the candles at my dining table.
Two small candles, lit like they always would be during dinner.
They weren't enough to illuminate the darkness beyond the table.
I waited for someone to emerge from that open doorway.
Waiting for the inevitable torture to commence.
But no one came out.
Nothing.
But now I heard the footsteps closer.
A soft pitter-patter across the dining room floor.
Like the feet of a toddler.
No..several feet.
A crowd of tiny, invisible feet.
I looked on the ground in every direction, but I didn't see a single soul.
Until I spotted a few small shadows, just beneath the table.
Right by my feet.

I then screamed as a dark shape leapt up onto the table.
It was the size of a toddler, like I imagined.
It even wore what looked like footed pajamas made from a brown burlap sack.
But the face was what terrified me.
That pale, enlarged, rounded face that stared at me, lit up by the dim candlelight. 
It's head was round like a soccer ball, and that pale face poked through a two-horned hood, tightly knitted around it's large head.
The sunken-in blackened eyes reminded me of a jack-o-lantern, with glowing irises set inside, almost like hovering rings.
The rest of the face was almost featureless, save for that mouth.
That impossibly hideous mouth.
Large and riddled with sharp, almost bone-like teeth, that sat above the lips, and curled inward, all around it's gaping maw.
Like a lamprey's mouth.
When it spoke, the teeth rattled and shook, like piano keys.
But the lips never closed.
Those large dark eyes stared blankly, showing no visible emotion.
Those glowing ringed irises were always focused on me, where ever the little monster walked, they were always glued on me.
The little...thing...spoke.
I said it was sorry.
And it hoped that I could forgive it.

Then it called me "My Lord".

I was confused.
Lord?
There were so many other things to be puzzled by, but for some reason that thing calling me Lord puzzled me the most.
I asked it why it called me that.
The monster apologised again, and told me it will explain itself, as their race was a secretive one.
A race of beings that worshipped humans.
They saw humans as gods.
They were called the Hungris.
They named themselves many centuries ago, after hearing the same word uttered by our ancestors.
The one Hungri in front of me called himself the High Priest.
The Spiritual Ruler of my household.

He told me Hungris were a primitive race, barely intelligent enough to survive.
Hungri's craved food constantly
They would eat anything and everything they could.
And as a result, many would die.
As a result of poisoning, malnutrition, trying to eat inedible materials, and many even succumbed to cannibalism.
But when the early Hungris observed how humans ate.
And saw how bountiful they were with an almost endless means to get food, and the many ways to eat food...
...they adopted their ways.
They learned from them.
They worshipped their dining rituals for years to pass.
And their numbers slowly rose once again.
The human race had inadvertently saved an entire species with their unique methods of eating food.
And as a result, the Hungris had based their entire culture on food and eating.

The High Priest pointed to his belly, and I hadn't even noticed until now.
Their was a circular cut in the burlap garment, just around the stomach, exposing it.
But that was just the belly itself.
The organs..
The organs were also exposed!
I could see the entirety of the High Priest's digestive system.
All encased in a transparent sac of flesh.

He explained that Hungris were very proud of their enlarged, bulging, see-through stomachs.
But they were most proud of the healthiness of their organs.
As part of a coming-of-age ceremony, young Hungris would shave the top layer of flesh from their stomachs.
And rest of the flesh and translucent fat moulded around the organs as a form of shell.
Protecting the precious stomach, and at the same time, revealing it for all to see and admire.

They treated dining like Sunday Mass.
They would not eat until the humans they were living with would.
They would watch, from cracks in the floors to holes in the walls.
And they would then copy them.
Copy their actions.
Copy their traditions.
Even copy their meals, getting the ingredients anyway they can.
It was a huge risk for them, but it was worth it, as they said.
They explained how the gods, as in us humans, would punish them for revealing themselves to them.
As many past Hungris have suffered the wrath of the gods for merely being seen.
As cruel as it sounds, I can see their point.
Anyone would see this as little hellspawns and would try to get rid of them through any means.
I would've done the same if I wasn't seated at the table as still as a fear-driven statue.

The High Priest told me they would only emerge from hiding, and to speak to the gods, when it was very important.
And this was one of those times.
For there was a blasphemer in our midst.
A false god.
An evil god.
A tasteless, vile, repulsive god.
Laura.


They said they had observed her actions, and how she disobeyed the sacred rituals of both dining and etiquette.
Many of the Hungris beneath our house almost choked on their own food because of her.
And the religious congregation were simply disgusted.
They consulted the High Priest to speak with the gods.
And that is exactly what he did.
But he wished to speak to the one god who sought vengeance on the blasphemer.
The daughter of the food makers.
Me.


But I didn't want this.
I wanted Laura to leave, but I didn't want her to deserve that fate that she got.
The fate I apparently decided for her.
The fate that I gave her.

The High Priest told me that there was only one course of punishment for the blasphemer.
And for that, the entire household congregation was called in to take part in the ceremony.
There was about twelve or thirteen, including the High Priest.
All wearing similar burlap sacks for clothes, with different assortments of muted colors.
Some had simple hoods, some had sewed-on horns.
All had the same horrifying face.
Those jack-o-lantern eyes.
Those lamprey mouths.
They all were ready.
Waiting.
Around the table, with knives and forks at the ready.
Just like me.
I wanted to put them down, but I was scared.
What if they saw me as a blasphemer too?
And who knew how many of them were inside the house?
Waiting for me to attempt to run.
I'd be caught.
I'd be tied up.
I'd be placed on a silver plate, just like Laura.

Laura was crying now.
She had no idea what was happening.
She had no idea what was going to happen.
I knew.
I knew what they wanted me to do.
And I was going to vomit.
But nothing came of it.
The High Priest knelt beside me.
He told me he felt his pain.
He told me he had to devour his own son when he blasphemed. 
But we all must make sacrifices.

More Hungris emerged from the kitchen, brandishing sharper knifes.
They crowded around the table.
All looking at me.
Staring at me.
They began banging the cutlery on the table in unison.
Creating a steady beat.

The High Priest began chanting at me.
"Eat. Eat. Eat. Eat."

I looked at Laura.
She looked back at me.
She was scared.
So was I.

"Eat. Eat. Eat. Eat"

I was scared of what would happen if I did.
I was scared of what would happen if I didn't.

"Eat. Eat. Eat. Eat."

The banging became louder.
The chanting became angrier.
Soon the others joined in:

"Eat! Eat! Eat! Eat!"

Laura struggled for freedom.
I didn't.
Laura had learned from her mistakes.
I was only just about to make my biggest one.

"Eat! Eat! Eat! Eat!"

My parent's would be back any minute.
They had to be.
They had to come back to stop it.
They only came back..
..when it was far too late.

"Eat! Eat! Eat! Eat!"

Too late for excuses.
Too late for reasoning.
Too late for words of any kind.
Too late for me.
Too late for Laura.

"Eat! Eat! Eat! Eat!"

Now I'm here.
Now I'm alone.
Now I'm hungry.
Very, very hungry.
My meal should've been here at any moment.
Where was my meal?

"EAT! EAT! EAT! EAT!"

Where were they?
Had they left me alone?
Where they doing this on purpose?
Why are they so late?

"EAT! EAT! EAT! EAT!"

I'm all alone.
I've been left alone.
I've been abandoned.
Abandoned to die.
Alone.
Alone and hungry.

EAT! EAT! EAT! EAT!

Who was saying that?
Was it me?
was it them?
Had they found me?
Oh God, I betrayed them.
I left them alone!

EAT! EAT EAT! EAT!

No, they wouldn't hurt me.
I did what they asked.
They're here to save me.
They must be!
But why are they chanting still?

EAT! EAT! EAT! EAT!

Why are they chanting still!?

EAT! EAT! EAT! EAT!

Oh God, please, stop it!
Stop the chanting!

EAT! EAT! EAT! EAT!

EAT! EAT! EAT! EAT! 

EAT! EAT! EAT! EAT!

EAT! EAT! EAT! EAT!