The reservation was for one.

The host smiled too wide, like his face knew no other expression. “Welcome to Sanctum, Mr. Allard. Chef Lucien has prepared something… transformative for you tonight.”

Jonas Allard, food critic, adjusted his collar and followed the host through dim corridors that smelled of rosemary, incense, and something faintly sweet…decay. He’d eaten in every type of kitchen. But Sanctum was different. It didn’t advertise. It didn’t need to.

He’d received the invitation in the mail. No stamp. Just a white envelope sealed with crimson wax, and a single sentence on the card inside:

“Taste, and be made whole.”

His table was in the center of the room, isolated under a beam of golden light. The rest of the restaurant faded into shadows. Other diners sat silently at their own sanctuaries, each one lit like a stage. Their eyes were glazed, movements slow, deliberate… almost… ritualistic. No one spoke. No one needed to.

The first dish arrived without warning.

A raw sliver of something dark and glistening on a bed of salt crystals.

“Beef tartare?” Jonas asked.

The waiter didn’t respond. Just smiled and stepped back.

Jonas lifted the bite to his mouth. The moment it touched his tongue, warmth flooded his body. His hands tingled. Flavors burst in his mouth: iron, smoke, grief, memory… pain. He saw his mother’s hands kneading dough. His childhood dog’s last breath. The salt of tears he didn’t know he still carried.

He swallowed.

The room pulsed.

Chef Lucien entered, carrying the scent of grief with him. Tall, bald, eyes the color of suffering. His chef’s coat was unblemished, stitched with symbols that looked like runes carved into bone.

“You are open,” Lucien said, his voice low and raspy. “Good. Most resist the first bite.”

Jonas struggled to speak. “What was that meat?”

“Unlabeled,” Lucien replied. “We name things to limit them. Tonight, you’ll taste truth without boundaries.”

The second course came in silence.

Appetizer: A seared cube of meat, dense, almost organ, like, nestled in a puree of saffron and fermented lavender. On top, a single white petal.

Jonas hesitated.

Something inside him warned: don’t eat it.

But his body moved anyway.

He took the bite.

Heat. Sweet. Rot. Revelation.

He heard a choir. No, he was the choir. Ten thousand voices sang through his bones, his muscles, his skin shivered. He could see the life of the creature the meat came from: a young man, eyes wide, body frozen in fear. The memory ended with a scream muffled by the sound of a clean slice.

Jonas dropped his fork.

Lucien tilted his head. “You tasted his sins. Impressive. Your special… you’re differnt”

“What the hell is this place?” Jonas whispered.

“A sanctuary,” Lucien said. “For the lost. And for the hungry.”

Course after course arrived, each darker than the last.

Entree: Flesh simmered in black wine, cut into delicate strips. Garnished with ash and whispers of the innocent.

Jonas trembled. He no longer felt fear nor disgust only the desire to consume. His mouth moved before his mind could stop it. He needed the meat. Needed what it gave him: memories, ecstasy, sorrow, meaning.

Between courses, Lucien spoke in his hypnotising voice:

Jonas wanted to flee. But his limbs belonged to someone else now. His eyes couldn’t leave Lucien.

The chef leaned close. “You’re already changing. The others did too. At first, they screamed. Then they sang. You will sing for me too.”

Jonas glanced at the other diners. Their eyes were vacant, smiling faintly. One woman rocked back and forth, whispering in a language he didn’t recognize. Another licked her empty plate, tears rolling down her cheeks.

The final dish arrived.

Main Course: A single rib, carved with symbols, blood still warm. Served with a side of roasted fig and something that looked like… fingernails crushed into salt with a singular white flower on top.

Jonas froze.

This wasn’t beef. Or lamb. Or any animal he’d ever tasted.

“This is human,” he croaked.

Lucien nodded. “Not just human. Chosen. Willing. We do not force our flock. They come to us, overwhelmed by their sins.”

“You’re monsters” Jonas said. “You’re cannibals.”

Lucien placed a hand on his shoulder, gentle as a feather. “We are helping. Consuming the evil opens your eyes. You are changing… evolving into a superior being… this is your calling.”

Jonas wanted to run. To vomit. To scream.

But the scent. The heat. The meat.

He lifted the rib to his mouth.

The room becomes enclosed in a blanket of black.

He was in a field of death camas, the same white flower on the rib, surrounded by faceless figures holding knives. A voice like thunder whispered to him sending shivers down his spine: “The flesh becomes faith.”

When he came to, his plate was clean.

Lucien was gone.

The diners began to stand. One by one, they walked toward a large door at the back of the restaurant, whispering prayers. A golden light escaped from its edges. He moved with them.

The door opened.

A vast kitchen filled with fire and chanting. Chefs in blood-red aprons stirred vats of broth. Bodies, draped in silk, hung from meat hooks. Not slaughtered. Sleeping.

Willing.

Lucien stood in the center, arms open.

“You’ve tasted our truth, Jonas. Now you must choose: leave, and forget everything… or stay, and become the next offering.”

Jonas looked down at his hands. They trembled. But he felt no fear.

Only hunger.

He stepped forward.

And smiled.