Sanity Is A Performance - Part 1.
disclaimers: This story contains extreme graphic content, explicit adult themes, and disturbing material. It is strictly intended for readers aged 18 and older. If you are a minor or are offended by explicit, dark, or violent material, please exit now.
content warnings: +18, sam winchester/reader, sam/reader, sam winchester/you, y/n insert, extreme gore, cannibalism, patricide, necrophilia (implied), murder, animal death, dubious consent/drugging, psychological trauma/child abuse, graphic violence, body horror, consumption of human flesh, incestuous undertones (consumption of father), explicit sexual content, rough sex, supernatural elements (werewolves), dark romance, degradation, blood play, death, daddy issues, religious trauma, psychological horror, horror themes.
📍Lawrence Memorial Hospital, Lawrence, KS.
Valerie and Silas Vance, Mother and Father. Your mother, cooing at their newborn baby—at you… Peacefully resting against her tense, sore chest. Your father’s smile was sweet, loving… to the nurse, to his wife, to the family gathered outside… But whenever he saw the glimpse of pink from the baby blanket that swaddled the newborn, something in his eyes dimmed… Silas always wanted a son to continue the long, ongoing, hard-shelled men in the Vance family… His chance was gone. Raising two children wasn't realistic on an already strained middle-class budget in the late '80s. So the son he'd imagined—the one he'd teach to shoot, to fight, to carry on the Vance name—would never exist.
His smile was half-assed towards you, not his beloved wife… It wasn't Valerie's fault you were a girl—The doctor had explained that before you were even born. He knew that, yet that wouldn’t change the hostility he would treat his daughter with.
From age 2, when you could form words and very stupid sounding sentences like
“Mama, milk now” or “Da-”
It was Silas to you, to everyone. Well if your father had a son then he would be more than blessed to be called dad, but when it came to a daughter… If you had vanished your mother would be mourning the loss of her child. Silas on the other hand… he would be thanking The Lord he had one less mouth to feed.
Getting yelled at by your fath-
became normal. Hearing your mother tell you she was proud of you became normal.
You learned early that love could sound two different ways.
You went to an all girls school, where everyone was expected to be well-mannered, respectful, kind, and show no hostility. Like little dolls with matching uniforms, pigtails perfectly tied, all wearing the same plastered smiles…
Going to an all girls school was not the brightest idea your mother had for you… Being degraded and scolded by your father warped your idea of affection. You mistook cruelty for attention, and attention for love. You spent years believing that if someone cared enough to hurt you, they cared enough to stay.
You didn't know any better. You were a child. Children are supposed to believe the people who raise them.
You had left home in November of '04 after turning eighteen.
From being degraded and hit, scolded and shouted at by Silas, and from being praised, loved, and comforted by Valerie... you left home believing you finally understood how the world worked.
That's what you believed. That's what eighteen years had taught you.
So what was likely to happen?
You didn't look for kindness.
You looked for familiarity.
Familiarity felt safe, even when it hurt.
You mistook fear for excitement.
Every relationship seemed to follow the same script you'd memorized as a child, and every time it did, some part of you thought, This is what love is supposed to look like.
At the age of nineteen, you stumbled upon a newspaper advertisement that boldly proclaimed: 'Will do anything for 500 dollars!' At that moment, you were deeply engrossed in a fascination with extreme horror films—obsessing over the graphic depictions of gore, cannibalism, and the macabre consumption of flesh. You were a shattered, innocent girl of nineteen, deceived and forsaken, who had begun to discover a perverse comfort in suffering and an unsettling affection for the harsh realities of cruelty. Compelled by this dark curiosity, you dialed the number, obtained the address, and drove to the house... He had a peculiar idea in mind when you expressed your interest.
"My limbs and skin regenerate... at an astonishing rate... I will sever my own penis in front of you, prepare it as a meal, and serve it to you while you masturbate..." he proposed. And you, entranced by the bizarre allure of it all, agreed to go along with his shocking plan...
That was the moment everything began to unravel…
You once met a man quite similar to Silas and hit it off instantly… but as he found out about your…
Fetishes he was weirded out…
You managed to persuade him in his drugged state to strangle his beloved childhood dog while you captured every moment on film. Just as the tension reached its peak, you revealed the horrifying truth: earlier that very morning, you had buried his real mother alive in the backyard. The pitiful whimpers he had been hearing were not from the dog, but from her, which meant that in the heat of passion, he was unknowingly suffocating his own mother's final breaths while losing himself inside the woman who had orchestrated this twisted scenario.
You encountered a married man whose wife was on the brink of death, and you saw your opportunity. For months, you stealthily swapped his heart medication with hallucinogens, warping his perception of reality until he could no longer tell what was true. You then manipulated him into believing that his hospice-bound wife was actually you, disguised with a mask. In a twisted game of seduction, you led him to smother his own wife with a pillow, all while he thought he was engaging in a perverse fantasy. As he reached the peak of his dark ecstasy, you unveiled the horrifying truth by donning the flayed and preserved face of his wife, riding him to completion atop her lifeless body…
Nobody except the men knew this about you, they all tried to report it to police but… damn… the police thought they were insane. So it was who you were behind closed doors. You weren't the saying
“Lady in the streets but a freak in the bed”
“Lady in the streets but an animal, cannibal in the bed…”
You didn't know it was INSANE and UTTERLY WRONG… You thought it was… right…?
Novembers were no joke in Kansas; they really made an entrance. Starting your new job at a diner in Wichita—about a 2 hour and 30 minute drive from your hometown of Lawrence—gave you an out, to really see the outside world, aside from what you grew up thinking was normal… a normal you thought every girl lived through.
To make matters worse, your boss's personality was painfully similar to Silas’s…
Rude, Crude, and a shameless dude.
You had a male co-worker who was currently untying his apron since his shift has ended.
you are surrounded by men.
Oh, and just as your internal thoughts were screaming about the overwhelming number of men currently invading your workplace… two more walked in.
And a somehow even taller man.
Both carried their own kind of baggage,
The tall one, a wallet and a gun tucked tightly into the waistband of his denim jeans.
The even taller one carried books and a jacked up laptop that has seen better days.
You smoothed down your uniform, grabbing a notepad and a pen.
“Hello! My name is Y/N and I’ll be serving you today! Are there any drinks I could get you two started with?” you said cheerfully, a soft smile you presented… knowing your boss was watching
“I will have a beer” the tall man said, barely glancing up from his menu while licking his lips at the burger page, which you noticed and grimaced but quickly schooled your expression.
You soon after jotted that down into your notepad muttering “One 16oz beer…” under your breath.
You turned your head expectantly towards the taller man.
The tall man nudged the taller man “Sam..” the tall one grunted under his breath
“Oh my gosh Dean wha-” Sam started as his gaze was slowly about to drift to dean to tell him off, but then he paused as he looked up from his lore book and saw the woman before him—you.
“I am so sorry ma’am… What was that question again?” he asked with an expression you didn't think was possible for a man to make.
You furrowed your eyebrows, knitting them close together at how he was polite like your mother… and not hostile like Silas.
“I-” you cleared your throat, still baffled “Anything you would like to drink to start off your evening, sir?”
The man you now knew was Dean, (thanks to the taller man’s comment, who you came to find out was named Sam), snickered and kicked Sam from under the red and white checkered booth and mumbled under his breath “Little Sammy being called sir… pshh…”
Sam pursed his lips at Dean and mouthed something that was hard to tell but seemed like a “shut up…”
And Sam turned to me with a soft but exhausted smile and said “Coffee, Black.” he said as he shielded his lore book page on vampires.
“And two sugar packets..!” he quickly added, ears turning a faint pink from embarrassment.
You smiled “One beer and A black coffee, two sugars coming up!” you said and clicked our pen, then turned on your heel and headed to the kitchen to whip up those orders.
Hours had passed and Sam & Dean didn't seem close to done with their stay at this mediocre diner. You were now the only worker since you had a closing shift,on your first night too…
They ordered more, more burgers, more salads, alcohol, and caffeine for fuel to continue their research… You noticed by the 3rd order they used different cards with different names on them each time, all people that you have noticed have been pronounced dead in local newspapers, but you didn't sweat it. Money is money and that's something you’re learning quickly.
“Wichita is one of the most vampire populated cities in Kansas, Dean… we have to ask around” Sam said before taking a bite into his salad
Dean was nose deep in a burger treating it like a woman in bed “hm? Oh the case. Yeah… I was thinking about using the names Agents Chlamidya and Herpes…? Ehhhh? Whatchu think?”
Sam smacks a hand over his forehead “That's obvious we are fake,” Sam sighed “really Dean? Agent STD and Worse STD? Your a child”
Dean scoffed “Im older than you” he protested
“Yet you’re dumber” Sam shot back.
You were in the back eavesdropping, washing a few dirty dishes while eyeing the clock to see when to kick them out.
You finally built up the courage to walk up to them once more without having to be called over by them
“Hey.. I wanted to let yall know we-” you paused since you were solely running the diner currently, you clicked your tongue before finishing the sentence “I am closing up soon. Managers orders” you said rolling your eyes unintentionally
You smiled and once again turned on your heel and retreated to the back of the diner to eavesdrop again
“Dude, Sam. That chick is perfect, I’m assuming she lives in Wichita so… maybe she can give us some information.” Sam raised an eyebrow at Dean's statement then smiled very… puppy-like
“I love you sometimes, Dean… that's the smartest thing you’ve said ALL night.” Sam waved his hand and pointed to the table and mouthed “Check?”
You came over with the check and this time he gave you cash, a 20 dollar bill with a torn corner of a napkin saying “604-555-0165. Give me a call - Sam”
📍Your Apartment, Wichita, KS.
You stared at the torn napkin for three hours.
The twenty-dollar bill sat crisp and untouched on your thrifted nightstand, but that scrap of paper—that you held between trembling fingers like it might bite. And maybe it should have. Maybe anything that promising should come with teeth.
You didn't call that night. Or the next. You worked your shifts with your eyes glued to the linoleum, waiting for them to come back. For Sam to come back. Dean had that hungry look—hungry in the normal way, the way men looked at burgers or women or things they wanted to consume—but Sam? Sam looked at you like you were a language he was trying to learn. Like you were text.
They didn't come back to the diner. Of course they didn't. They were hunting vampires or pretending to be federal agents with venereal diseases or whatever the hell that conversation meant. You'd eavesdropped on enough to know they weren't normal. But normal, you'd learned, was just a mask people wore to hide the rot.
You called on the third night. November 25th. 11:47 PM. Your hands smelled like fry grease and bleach.
"Hello?" His voice was deeper on the phone. Tired. You heard rustling, like pages turning.
"Black coffee, two sugars," you said. Then, quieter: "You left your number with the check."
A pause. Then: "You called."
"I wasn't sure you would." You heard him shift, heard what sounded like a motel room door closing. "Most people don't."
"No," Sam said, and there was something in his voice—not fear, not revulsion, but recognition. "No, I don't think you are."
The first date was a disaster.
You suggested a horror movie because that's what you knew. Blood on screen, screaming, the copper scent of fear that always made you feel hungry in ways you didn't understand. But Sam had looked uncomfortable in the theater lobby, shifting his weight from foot to foot, and finally admitted in a voice barely above a whisper: "I see enough scary things for work. Could we maybe... just get coffee?"
So you walked. November had turned the air sharp enough to cut, and Wichita's downtown was dead after 9 PM. You walked past closed storefronts and he told you about books—about lore, though he called it "research"—and you found yourself telling him about your mother. About Valerie. You didn't mention Silas. You didn't mention the men. You didn't mention the dog or the wife with the flayed face.
You told him you liked the way suffering looked on film.
He stopped walking. Looked at you with those brown eyes that held too much sadness for someone so young.
"Why?" he asked. Not judgmental. Curious. Genuinely, terrifyingly curious.
"Because it's honest," you said. "Pain is the only honest thing people feel."
Sam was quiet for a long time. Then: "I used to think that too."
The calls became nightly. You'd wait until your shift ended, until you scrubbed the grease from under your fingernails and washed the smell of burgers from your hair, and then you'd dial that number from the napkin—now pressed flat in your wallet like a holy relic.
He talked about Dean. About their father. About things that went bump in the night and the responsibility of stopping them. You talked about Lawrence. About leaving at eighteen, five years ago. About the way your mother's love felt like a Band-Aid on a bullet hole.
"You never mention your dad," Sam said one night. You were lying on your apartment floor, staring at water stains on the ceiling that looked like Rorschach tests. It was November 28th, nearly a week since the diner.
"He's not worth mentioning."
"Don't." Your voice came out sharp, jagged. "Don't do that. Don't try to fix me."
Silence hummed between you. Then: "I'm not trying to fix you. I'm just... listening."
You'd never had someone listen before. Not without wanting something. Not without wanting you—the you that moaned at blood, that collected teeth in jars, that kept Polaroids of faces frozen in final moments.
But Sam just listened. And slowly, terrifyingly, you started wanting to tell him more.
The third date, he kissed you.
It was terrible. Sweet, clumsy, his nose bumping yours, his hand trembling where it cupped your cheek. He pulled back afterward, eyes wide, like he couldn't believe he'd done it.
"I'm sorry," he breathed. "I shouldn't have—"
You grabbed his collar and pulled him back.
His mouth tasted like coffee and peppermint and something else—something that reminded you of church incense and old books. You kissed him harder than he kissed you, because you didn't know how to be gentle. Gentleness was a language you'd never learned. But Sam didn't pull away. He just met you where you were, careful, careful, like you were made of glass.
After, sitting in his car outside your apartment, he traced the scars on your knuckles—old scars, from Silas's belt buckle, from breaking mirrors, from one memorable night with a man who liked knives.
"Who did this to you?" he asked.
"Different people," you said. "Different reasons."
And God help you, you almost did. The words sat heavy on your tongue—the dog, the wife, the mother buried in the backyard, the taste of flesh that wasn't yours. But instead you just turned your hand over, let him trace the lines of your palm like he was reading your future.
"I've done bad things," you whispered.
Sam was quiet for a moment. Then: "I've done worse."
You didn't believe him. How could you? He was soft where you were sharp. Kind where you were cruel. But when you looked at him—really looked—you saw it. The weight. The guilt. The way he carried himself like a man waiting for punishment.
"We're quite the pair," you said, trying for a smile that felt wrong on your face.
"Yeah," Sam agreed. "Yeah, we are."
By mid-December, you'd fallen into a routine that felt dangerously like happiness.
Breakfast dates at diners that weren't yours. Phone calls that stretched until 3 AM, whispered conversations about nothing—about everything. He learned that you hated roses but liked lilies, that you could recite every line from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, that you slept with a knife under your pillow.
You learned that he had nightmares. That he talked in his sleep—Latin, sometimes. That he flinched when you moved too fast, like he expected to be hit.
You didn't hit him. You wanted to, sometimes, in that old familiar way—the way your skin itched when things got too soft, too safe. You wanted to test him, to see where he broke. But you didn't.
Because when you were with Sam, you weren't the girl who buried mothers alive. You were just... Y/N. The waitress. The horror fan. The twenty-three-year-old with the scarred knuckles and the soft spot for tall men who read too much.
He made you want to be good. And that was the most terrifying thing of all.
You were at his motel room—he'd been stuck in Wichita on a case that kept going cold, some vampire nest that wouldn't stay put—and you were lying across his chest while he ran his fingers through your hair. The laptop hummed on the desk. Dean was out, "getting supplies," which you knew meant whiskey and women.
"You ever think about leaving?" you asked, tracing patterns on his sternum through his thin t-shirt. "This life? The hunting?"
"Every day," Sam admitted. His heartbeat was steady under your ear. Thump. Thump. Thump. "But I can't. It's... it's what I was raised for."
You propped yourself up on one elbow, looking down at him. He was so beautiful it hurt. Not in the way the men you'd hurt were beautiful—fear had its own aesthetics—but in a way that made your chest ache with something you'd never catalogued before.
"What if you can't save everyone?" you asked.
His eyes darkened. "I know I can't. I've... I've lost people. People I loved."
Sam's hand found yours, laced his fingers through your scarred knuckles. "You don't," he said softly. "Not really. You just... keep moving. Until the moving becomes living."
You leaned down and kissed him, and this time it wasn't terrible. It was slow, deliberate, like drowning in warm water. His hands moved to your waist, tentative, asking permission with every touch. You gave it. You gave him everything—your mouth, your neck, the hollow of your throat where your pulse hammered.
And for the first time in your life, you made love without blood. Without pain. Without the copper taste of fear.
Afterward, lying tangled in motel sheets that smelled like cheap detergent and him, you realized something terrifying:
Genuinely, stupidly happy. The kind of happy that felt like a threat. Like the universe was watching you, waiting to punish you for wanting something good.
Sam was tracing circles on your shoulder, his breathing evening out toward sleep. You stared at the ceiling and thought about the men you'd destroyed. The lives you'd taken apart like puzzles. The part of you that still woke up some mornings craving the sound of screaming.
He doesn't know, you thought. He doesn't know what you are.
And beneath that, darker: He would leave if he did.
You should tell him. The honesty felt heavy in your chest, a stone waiting to drop. You should tell him everything—the regeneration, the meals, the dog, the mother in the ground, the wife's flayed face—and watch him recoil. Watch him run. It would be kinder, in the end. Kinder to him. Kinder to whatever future victims your hands itched to create.
You curled closer to his warmth and let him sleep, and you told yourself—just one more day. One more date. One more phone call. Then I'll tell him. Then I'll let him go.
You'd always been good at lying. Especially to yourself.
The phone rang at 6 AM. You were already awake—you rarely slept through the night anymore—so you answered on the first ring, expecting Sam's voice, soft and rumpled with sleep.
"Y/N." Not Sam. A woman's voice. Familiar in a way that made your stomach drop.
Valerie was crying. You could hear it in the hitch of her breath, the way she said your name like a prayer. "It's your father, baby. It's Silas. He's... he's dead."
You sat up in bed. The room tilted. "Dead?"
"Last night. In his workshop. They say it was an accident, but..." She sobbed, a wet, broken sound. "I need you to come home. I need my daughter."
You sat there for a long time, staring at the phone in your hand. Silas was dead. The man who'd made you. The first cruelty you'd ever known. Gone.
You should have felt relief. Or grief. Or something.
Instead, you felt hungry.
Your hands shook as you dialed Sam's number. He answered on the second ring, voice alert despite the early hour—always alert, always ready for disaster.
"I have to go back to Lawrence," you said. Your voice sounded distant, even to yourself. "My father died."
A pause. "I'm so sorry. Do you want me to come with you? I could—"
"No." The word came out too sharp. You softened it. "No, I... I need to do this alone. But I'll call you. I promise."
"Y/N." His voice was serious now. "If you need me—if anything feels wrong, if you need to talk—you call me. Anytime. Day or night. Okay?"
You packed that morning with mechanical precision. Knives. Rope. The Polaroids you kept in a shoebox under your bed. The little vial of pills you used when you needed someone compliant. You told yourself you were just being prepared. Just being safe.
But as you drove the two and a half hours back to Lawrence, back to the house where you'd learned that love and pain were the same coin, you felt something dark uncoiling in your chest.
And you hadn't gotten to kill him.
You arrived at the house on Mulberry Street.
It looked the same. That was the worst part. The same peeling paint, the same overgrown lawn, the same workshop out back where Silas had kept his tools. The same porch swing where Valerie had rocked you when you were small enough to fit in her lap.
Valerie met you at the door. She looked smaller than you remembered. Older. Her eyes were red-rimmed and swollen, but she smiled when she saw you—that same smile from your childhood, the one that said I'm proud of you even when there was nothing to be proud of.
"My baby," she whispered, pulling you into a hug that smelled like lavender and grief.
You hugged her back, mechanical, your eyes already scanning the house over her shoulder. "Where is he?"
"They took him to the funeral home this morning. The coroner said..." She pulled back, wiping her eyes. "He said it looked like an animal attack. But that's impossible. We live in the suburbs. There are no wolves in Lawrence."
Your blood went cold. "Animal attack?"
"In his workshop. There was so much blood, baby. So much blood."
You smiled before you could stop yourself. Valerie didn't notice—she was crying again, burying her face in her hands—but you felt it stretch across your face, sharp and involuntary.
You'd spent five years trying to escape this house, this life, this version of yourself that mistook cruelty for love. You'd found Sam—sweet, patient Sam—and learned that hands could touch without hitting, that mouths could speak without screaming.
And Silas had died bloody.
"Mom," you said, your voice strange in your own ears. "Why don't you go lie down? I'll make tea. I'll... I'll take care of everything."
Valerie nodded, grateful, trusting, and shuffled toward her bedroom.
You stood in the hallway of your childhood home and listened to the silence. It hummed. It sang.
Your phone buzzed in your pocket. A text from Sam: Made it to Lawrence okay? Thinking of you.
You stared at the message for a long time. The little bubble of kindness, floating in the dark.
Then you turned the phone off, walked to the kitchen drawer where Silas kept his spare keys, and went out to the workshop to see where your father had died.
The blood was still there. Brown now, old, but unmistakable. It painted the walls in patterns that made your breath come short. It smelled like copper and salt and possibility.
You stood in the center of the room and closed your eyes.
And you realized, with a clarity that felt like coming home, that you were never going to be the girl Sam thought you were. You were never going to be saved. The best you could hope for was to pretend—for a little while longer—that you were worth saving.
Your hands found the workbench, the tools Silas had used for his carpentry. The saws. The hammers. The knives.
You picked one up, felt its weight, and wondered what Sam would say if he could see you now.
Later, you thought. I'll tell him what to do later.
But first, you had a funeral to plan.
📍Lawrence, KS — Vance Residence.
You didn't sleep that night. You sat in the workshop until the sun went down, running your fingers through the dried blood on the concrete floor, collecting flakes of it under your nails like rust. It was Silas's blood. The same blood that had pumped through the heart of the man who made you, who broke you, who looked at you like you were a disappointment from the moment you drew breath.
The thought came to you not as a whisper but as a certainty, settling into your bones like a key into a lock. You'd spent five years running from what you were. Five years pretending that the hunger wasn't real, that the cravings were just trauma, just damage, just the broken wiring in your brain that could be fixed with enough therapy or love or Sam's gentle hands on your shoulders.
But standing in that workshop, surrounded by the evidence of your father's violent end, you felt the truth rise up in you like a tide.
You weren't broken. You were built this way.
And it was time to stop pretending.
The funeral home was called Hartley & Sons. It sat on the edge of town in a converted Victorian that tried too hard to look comforting—white paint, rose bushes, a sign in looping script that promised "Dignity in Death."
You walked in at 2 PM wearing a black dress you'd stolen from a thrift store in Wichita. The fabric itched. Your hands were steady.
"May I help you?" The funeral director was a soft man with soft hands and a mustache that looked like it required weekly maintenance.
"I'm here for Silas Vance," you said. "I'm his daughter."
"Oh, of course. Mrs. Vance called earlier about the arrangements." He consulted a ledger, his finger tracing down names. "We're preparing him for the viewing tomorrow. Would you like to see him?"
You smiled. It felt natural. "Yes. But I'd like a moment alone, please. To say goodbye."
"Of course. Of course." He led you through a hallway that smelled like lilies and chemical preservation, past closed doors behind which you could hear the hum of refrigeration units. "Room three. I'll give you your privacy."
He walked away, shoes squeaking on the linoleum.
You waited until his footsteps faded. Then you tried the door.
Silas lay on a gurney in the center of the room, covered by a white sheet. The coroner had done their work—the body had been cleaned, the wounds catalogued, the jaw wired shut to keep his mouth from sagging open. Animal attack, they'd said. But looking at him now, you saw the truth in the ragged tears at his throat, the way his chest cavity seemed too hollow, too empty.
Something had eaten him already. Something had beaten you to it.
You pulled back the sheet.
His eyes were closed, thank God. You didn't think you could handle him looking at you, even in death. His skin was waxy, gray-tinged, the color of old candles. The wounds at his neck were deep, exposing tendon and bone, and you could see where something had worried at the flesh, tearing it in jagged strips.
You should have felt something. Grief, maybe. Relief. But all you felt was the hunger, gnawing at your insides like a second mouth.
You looked at the door. Locked it. Checked the window—facing the alley, no witnesses.
The funeral home had tools. You found them in a supply closet: bone saws, scalpels, embalming equipment. You worked with the efficiency of someone who had done this before, because you had. The man with the regenerating penis had taught you things about anatomy. The married man whose wife you'd worn had taught you about butchery. You were a quick study.
Silas had always said you were worthless. That you'd never amount to anything. That you were a waste of space and food and air.
You were about to prove him wrong on at least one count.
You took the tender meat. The thighs, mostly, and the upper arms—places where the muscle was still intact despite the attack at his throat. You worked carefully, methodically, separating flesh from bone, setting aside the pieces that were too damaged or too close to the wounds. You needed about three pounds. Enough for a stew. Enough for a family dinner.
The rest you left. Let them bury an empty husk. Let them lower a casket that weighed nothing into the ground.
You wrapped your prize in plastic bags from the embalming room, tucked them into a cooler you'd brought in your car, and walked out through the back door. No one stopped you. No one even looked up.
You were just a grieving daughter. Just a girl saying goodbye to her father.
You cooked in your mother's kitchen while she slept upstairs, sedated by the pills the doctor had prescribed for her nerves. The house smelled like lavender and death, but you were about to add something new to the bouquet.
You'd learned to cook from necessity. From the men who wanted to be consumed, who wanted to watch you eat them while they touched themselves. You knew how to render fat, how to break down connective tissue, how to make even the toughest meat fall apart with enough time and enough heat.
Silas was tough. He'd been tough in life, all hard angles and rigid expectations, and his flesh reflected that. But you were patient. You browned the cubes in butter first, getting a good sear on all sides, then deglazed the pot with red wine—Silas's favorite, a cheap Cabernet he'd kept in the cellar for special occasions.
You added onions, garlic, carrots from the garden. Thyme and rosemary from the window box. Salt. Pepper. Bay leaves. The aromatics filled the kitchen, sweet and savory, covering the underlying gaminess that you knew was there but that others wouldn't recognize.
By 6 AM, you had a stew. Rich, dark, the meat so tender it fell apart at the touch of a spoon. You tasted it—just a sip of the broth—and moaned despite yourself. It was perfect. It was him. All his cruelty, all his disappointment, all his hard-shelled masculinity, rendered down into something nourishing. Something that would become part of you.
You ladled it into a ceramic pot, the one your mother used for Sunday dinners, and set it in the refrigerator to rest.
Then you showered. Scrubbed under your nails. Changed into fresh clothes.
And waited for your mother to wake up.
And soon later she did...
"Baby, you didn't have to cook," Valerie said, but her eyes were bright with gratitude. She sat at the kitchen table in her robe, looking small and fragile, and you served her a bowl of the stew with a slice of crusty bread.
"I wanted to," you said. "I thought... I thought we could use something comforting. Something from home."
Valerie took a spoonful. Blew on it. Tasted it. "Oh, this is lovely," she said. "What is it? Venison?"
"Something like that," you said. "A... wild meat. I found it at a specialty butcher in Wichita."
"It's tender," your mother said, taking another bite. "Almost sweet."
You ate your own bowl slowly, savoring every mouthful. The meat melted on your tongue, rich and complex, layered with the wine and the herbs but underneath it all, unmistakably Silas. You could taste his bitterness. His resentment. But also, strangely, his fear. He'd died afraid. That was the best part.
"This reminds me of his beef stew," Valerie said softly, tears gathering in her eyes. "Do you remember? He used to make it when you were little. Before..."
Before he decided you weren't worth loving.
You ate in silence for a while, the two of you consuming the man who had shaped your lives in his image. You wondered if your mother could taste the truth. If some part of her, some animal instinct buried deep beneath the civilized veneer, recognized what she was eating.
But she just kept spooning it in, crying softly, saying how good it was, how comforting, how much like home.
It tasted like home. It tasted like the end of something.
📍Lawrence Memorial Cemetery.
The funeral was small. Just you, your mother, a few of Silas's coworkers from the plant, some neighbors who came for the free food and the gossip. They buried a casket that was mostly empty, lowered it into the ground while a priest said words about forgiveness and eternal rest.
You stood by the grave in your black dress, your hand in your mother's, and you didn't cry. You couldn't. You'd already swallowed your grief. You'd already digested your rage.
Afterward, back at the house, Valerie took to her bed with a migraine. You cleaned the kitchen, scrubbed the pot until it shone, threw away the bones you'd kept in the freezer for later disposal. You were wiping down the counter when your phone buzzed.
You stared at the screen for a long time. Three missed calls. Five texts.
Y/N, whatever you're dealing with, you don't have to do it alone.
Your thumb hovered over the call button. You could tell him. Right now. You could say: Sam, I cooked my father and fed him to my mother. Sam, I've done worse than you can imagine. Sam, I'm not the girl you think I am—I'm the monster under the bed, and I'm so tired of pretending.
You could tell him about the dog. The wife. The mother in the backyard. The taste of Silas on your tongue, copper-sweet and righteous.
You could tell him everything, and maybe—maybe—he would understand. He'd said he'd done worse. He'd said he recognized something in you. Maybe he would see this too. Maybe he would stay.
The phone rang once. Twice.
"Y/N?" His voice was rough, relieved, worried. "God, I've been trying to reach you for two days. Are you okay? Where are you?"
"I'm at my mom's," you said. Your voice sounded strange. Distant. "In Lawrence."
"Is it... is it bad? The funeral?"
You looked at the empty pot on the stove. The clean dishes in the rack. The house that felt less like a prison now that Silas was inside you, now that you'd finally taken something back from him.
"It was... clarifying," you said. "Sam, I need to tell you something."
"Anything," he said. "I'm listening."
You opened your mouth. The words were there, lined up like soldiers, ready to march out into the light. I eat people. I kill them. I wear their faces and bury their mothers alive and I just cooked my father into a stew and it was the most honest thing I've ever done.
But then you heard your mother's footsteps upstairs. The creak of her bed. The sound of her crying, muffled by pillows.
And you thought about Sam's hands. His gentle hands. The way he touched you like you were precious. Like you were worth saving.
Tell him, a voice screamed in your head. Tell him before it's too late. Before you hurt him too. Before he looks at you the way Silas did, like you're nothing but a disappointment.
"I miss you," you said instead.
Silence on the line. Then: "I miss you too. When are you coming back to Wichita?"
"Soon," you lied. "A few more days. I need to make sure my mom is okay."
"Okay," Sam said. "But Y/N? If you need me—if you need to talk about anything, anything at all—I'm here. No judgment. I promise."
You closed your eyes. The tears came then, hot and sudden, streaming down your face. You didn't make a sound. You didn't want him to know you were crying.
"I know," you whispered. "I'll call you tomorrow."
"Okay," he said. "Okay. I... I care about you, Y/N. You know that, right?"
You hung up before you could answer.
You stood in your mother's kitchen, surrounded by the ghosts of meals past, and you realized that you were standing on a precipice. Behind you was the life you'd built with Sam—the possibility of normalcy, of redemption, of learning to be human. Before you was the abyss. The hunger. The thing you'd been running from since you were nineteen.
And Silas was inside you now. Literally. His cells becoming your cells, his cruelty metabolized into energy, his DNA breaking down in your stomach acids.
You had a choice. You could go back to Wichita. Tell Sam everything. Let him try to save you. Let him love you into something better.
Or you could stay here. Dig deeper. Find out what had really killed Silas—because you knew, you knew, it wasn't an accident, wasn't an animal. Something else was hunting in Lawrence. Something like you. Or something worse.
Your phone buzzed again. A text from Sam: I'm here. Whatever you're going through, I'm here.
You looked at the message for a long time. The kindness in those words. The hope.
Then you turned the phone off, walked upstairs to check on your mother, and started planning how to find whatever had killed your father.
Because if something was hunting in Lawrence, you wanted to meet it.
And maybe—just maybe—you wanted to eat it too.
