Chapter 2: Gluttony's Maw (Extended)
The room smelled of rot and decay, a nauseating blend of spoiled meat and stale sweat that clawed at the throat. Flickering candlelight danced across the walls, casting monstrous shadows that writhed like the hunger inside Jiro's swollen belly.
He sat hunched over a table piled high with gore—a grotesque feast of half-eaten limbs, torn flesh, and viscera spilling in thick, black rivers. The faces of the dead stared up at him from blood-soaked plates, mouths frozen mid-scream.
Jiro's own face was a mask of feverish obsession. His eyes, glassy and bloodshot, scanned the pile with ravenous hunger, lips twitching in a sick grin.
He raised a chunk of raw muscle to his mouth, teeth sinking through sinew and bone with a wet crunch. The metallic tang of blood flooded his senses, awakening something primal and terrible inside.
But even as he ate, a hollow ache gnawed deeper than his gut. The hunger was a beast without end.
"More," he groaned, voice cracking, "I need more."
His bloated stomach protested, stretched taut and shining, veins throbbing like grotesque worms beneath pale, sweaty skin. But the hunger was not for flesh alone.
Jiro's mind was a twisted labyrinth of craving.
He remembered the taste of a woman's scream, the feel of bone snapping beneath his fingers, the rush of swallowing another's soul whole. It wasn't enough.
He slumped forward, hands clutching his gut as violent spasms wracked his body. Vomit exploded from his mouth—a thick, tar-like sludge crawling with writhing maggots.
But Jiro's eyes snapped open as he caught the sight of the moving mass—black, crawling things that squirmed back into his mouth with a sick, wet sound.
"Feed me!" a voice hissed from the darkness—his own voice, twisted and broken.
He shook his head violently, desperate to expel the parasites gnawing at his sanity.
"Stop! Please!" he choked, gagging on the bile.
But the hunger had become a living thing, a parasite burrowing into his flesh and mind.
His body betrayed him. Flesh began to bubble and rot, oozing foul pus that hissed as it touched the air.
Jiro screamed, a guttural, animalistic sound, as boils burst and worms wriggled beneath his skin.
His fingers curled into claws, nails thickening and yellowing. He tore at his own face, ripping patches of skin until raw muscle bled.
"I am the feast," he whispered, voice cracking, "and the feast will never end."
Blood poured from his eyes as the gluttonous hunger consumed him from inside out.
The candle flames guttered as Jiro's form twisted—half-man, half-monster—his maw stretching wide in a permanent, hungry grin.
From somewhere deep in the darkness came the faintest echo of laughter—a cruel, mocking sound that promised the nightmare was only beginning.