Once upon a dark and misty evening, I decided to surprise my husband, Alex, with a dinner that I thought would be special—something he’d never forget. I’d been experimenting with new recipes, especially fascinated by old, mysterious cookbooks with ingredients that almost seemed supernatural. In particular, I’d found one dusty, leather-bound book that had caught my eye. The page I opened to featured a recipe titled “The Whispering Stew.”
The recipe was oddly specific. It asked for ingredients like “dark honey from the mountains” and “salted leaves of the midnight laurel,” things I’d never heard of. But, strangely, every ingredient was somehow already in our pantry, despite never remembering buying them. So I got to work, chopping, stirring, seasoning, as the ingredients bubbled and boiled, filling the house with an aroma both delicious and unsettling.
Finally, dinner was ready, and the stew sat steaming in our best bowls on the candle-lit table. Alex walked in, his face lighting up with surprise, though his smile quickly faded when he caught the scent in the air. “What… is that?” he asked hesitantly.
“Just a little surprise! I found an old recipe,” I replied, taking my first bite and marveling at the strangely rich, earthy flavors.
But Alex’s face went pale as he lifted his spoon, eyeing the stew with discomfort. He took one small sip, then dropped his spoon back into the bowl with a look of disgust. “It tastes… wrong. It feels… alive,” he muttered.
Suddenly, I started feeling it too. The room grew colder, and shadows seemed to gather around the edges of the candlelight. I looked down at my bowl, and for a moment, I thought I saw faces—faces whispering things I couldn’t understand, just beneath the surface of the stew. Each time I blinked, they vanished, only to reappear moments later.
Then came the voice—a soft, eerie whisper from nowhere and everywhere, echoing through the room, saying, “Thank you for feeding us. We were so very hungry.” The stew in our bowls began to churn as if something were rising from its depths.
We ran from the table, abandoning the meal, and locked ourselves in the bedroom. But for the rest of the night, we could hear the faint sound of whispers echoing from the kitchen, a dark choir growing ever hungrier.
The next morning, the stew and the cookbook had disappeared without a trace, as if they’d never existed. Alex never brought up the dinner surprise again, and neither did I. And sometimes, just sometimes, I can still hear those faint whispers when the night is darkest, wondering if they’re waiting for another meal.
The days that followed that eerie night were filled with unease. Alex and I barely spoke about the dinner; it was as though the memory itself cast a shadow over us. Yet, we couldn’t shake the feeling that we’d been… watched, even as life returned to normal.
One evening, while cleaning out the pantry, I felt something cold and metallic brush against my hand. I pulled out a small, ancient-looking spoon, tarnished and rusted, but unmistakably one I had used to stir The Whispering Stew. I hadn’t remembered keeping it, but there it was, tucked behind the spice jars. Attached to its handle was a small note in handwriting I didn’t recognize, reading, “We will come again when we are hungry.”
Chilled, I showed Alex the note. He insisted we throw it out, spoon and all, far from the house. We buried it deep in the woods at the edge of town, covering it with stones, hoping to leave it there for good.
Months went by, and the nightmarish memory finally faded. We even laughed about it once or twice, convincing ourselves it had all been some strange coincidence, a trick of the mind.
Then, one night as we were about to sleep, I heard it again—a faint, familiar whispering drifting from the kitchen. When I went to check, the pantry door stood slightly ajar, and there, lying in the center of the floor, was the spoon, polished and gleaming, as though it had been waiting for us.
And the whispering? It simply said, “We are hungry… again.”