Page 27 of Aftertaste

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AFTER VISITING THE Food Hall, Maura gets worse. So your Hunger does, too.

It’s simple math: the more your Living suffers, the more their life is ravaged by your death, the worse you crave. And Maura? She’d been wrecked enough to die.

You watch the changes taking hold. Your fingertips first. The ends of your hair. They aren’t solid anymore, but dimmed. Fading to shadow. A bulb, burning out.

You’ve got to fix it. You need to see her again.

You need that Aftertaste.

So you redouble your efforts. Eat more. Chew faster.

Nothing helps.

You feel time slip through your fingers, a fistful of sugar, and you get desperate enough to try anything. And still, when the new soul arrives, with his big talk, his slick smile, his assurance that Yeah, going back’s easy—I seen it; my guy does it , you don’t entirely believe him.

But then other souls you see around, Hungry ones, start to talk.

You hear rumors, that the New Guy’s legit. That he used to be a chef and knows all about food. That there’s someone on the other side working with him. That they can bypass the Hall, summon Aftertastes on demand.

That they can smuggle you through.