The Abysmal Biscuit (Finish The Story #50 Entry)

Opening by @f3nix

The awareness of the box's contents dripped slowly in Joelle's mind, coagulating like a graceless Rorschach's blot. Bones. Tiny tapered bones, standing out against the mahogany bottom.

The unusual item jolted on the worn chair, reacting to the vibrations of the old diesel-powered train. The convoy, the last of his lineage, still fulfilled its duty along the Brașov-Sighișoara route allowing students to return to their homes every weekend. To the rhythm of joints and sleepers, the whiteness of the remains continued to dance tremulously before the eyes of the young woman as the frames of her glasses slipped slowly from her nose.

In a tinkling clink of bracelets, the student closed the lid of the box and moved away as far as possible from it, crushing herself against the seat's padding. The lazy air of the air conditioner stuck to the bottom of her dry throat an acrid plastic taste.

And then she saw him. The old passenger had returned and was staring at her through the windows that led from the corridor of the car to the cabin. She listened to her own scream erupting and fill the cramped cab.

"I didn't want to scare you, young lady."

"N-not scared. No worries, sir." Somehow, Joelle managed to gather the few polite words her manners demanded. She could not have said how long he had been watching and if he had seen where curiosity had taken her. The glasses, temples up in the air, laid on the seat beside her.

The old man was tall and lanky, his burnished skin resembled the ancient scales of a dragon. Dressed in work trousers and a raw cotton shirt, he gave the impression of being one of those peasants whose families had inhabited the Carpathians for centuries.

Joelle's gaze passed involuntarily from the man to the funeral urn disguised as a biscuit tin: the representation of a merry-go-round in a lacquered colored wood and graceful workmanship. The children were swirling with their bent busts, perhaps because of the speed of the carousel. Their mouths were wide open and their hands clung to the poles skewering the horses. With a lump in her throat, she remembered the fleeting memory of just a few hours before, when a train was huffing at the central station and a gentle old man asked her help because he couldn't open the cabin door. She felt like something ruined down from her lungs to her guts.

"I see that you like my craft." In the silence, she could detect the old man's fingers caressing the box inlays.

"It's adorable. A gift for a grandchild?" Joelle realized only now that the object was his only baggage. In the warm twilight, the colors of lacquered wood seemed even more lively. The conifers thickened on the sides of the train, sliding quickly to the edges of her field of vision.

"Oh. A gift, says the young lady. Like a toy, perhaps?" The old man's eyes were two black bottomless pits. His gaze had slowly become vitreous like that of a deep-water fish, yet at the same time penetrating.

"Yes, a toy. I like how you see it, miss." The passenger continued, his voice getting thinner.

Only then, Joelle realized where they were heading: the train had just passed the old mill and would soon pass through the tunnels beneath the mountain.

"You may have noticed how I depicted all these children. Observe, miss, between a horse and the other: they are not alone." By pronouncing the last vowel, which he abnormally prolonged, his voice tone had become a slow and drawling rattle.

It was still too early for the wagons' lights to turn on and the tunnels were preparing to swallow the convoy.
A sound of nails carving into the wood tore the thoughts of the young student.

My Ending

Yellowed nails had forced themselves into the crack, prying open the box’s flush lid. In a sudden jolt aided by the train, it came free, drawing Joelle’s attention back to the inlay. Her eyes felt fixed on the seemingly empty space between the contorted children. It was a nothingness that looked back, an abyss that seemed to reach into her core, resonating through her.

He reached his gnarled fingers into the box, retrieving a small bone and placing it against his lips. Pausing for a moment, the old man tipped the open container towards her, the darkness of the short tunnel already engulfing the first wagon.

“Would the young lady care to try a biscuit?”

The slow, dripping pace of his words, the gravel of his voice against the rattle of the tracks, scraped down her sternum like sandpaper.

Bones carved to soft tips oscillated in the writhing rhythm of the train, rising and falling in a shuffle for attention. Every part of Joelle willed her hand to jerk away, to gather her bags of washing and change carriages, but she didn’t.

Instead her slender wrist, jingling with stacked silver bangles, lifted her hand, her ringed fingers betraying her as they dipped into the box.

Darkness rushed into the carriage as Joelle groped the smooth bones, every cell in her body screaming for her to stop. The sickening horror, prickling heavy through her, only intensified moments later when the wagon lights came on.

Joelle saw her fingers gripping what looked like a carved bone, tipped in the flattened diamonds of fine knife work.

The man across from her slipped his ghostly biscuit between his lips; the hard crunch of teeth grinding through bone torn through her insides. It ripped something away, leaving her with a sense of slow, settled calm. Her hand brought the biscuit to her own parting lips.

“They're such sweet biscuits miss, you’ll be sure to love it.”

The blackness outside the window seemed to swell with the same deep nothing as the blank space on the box. The darkness pushed in on her, pressing the undeniable bone against her tongue.

Joelle couldn’t stop her teeth breaking it. Sharp shards splintered into her cheek, fragments forcing their way into her gums until the sweet iron of blood overtook the dry tang of calcium.

Each grind of her jaw seemed to intensify the delicious flavour, her mouth watering as the shards struggled down her throat.

The tunnel was coming to an end. The abyss, clamoring at the windows, swelling in the dark wood of the box, surging in the old mans hollow eyes; anticipated its momentarily resurgence.

The lights flickered before turning off.

For eternal seconds, the blackness embraced the carriage, lulling Joelle into it's soothing depths.

“Please may I have another biscuit?”

“Another biscuit? The young lady wants another. I like this one.”

The wagon broke free of the tunnel, daylight - suddenly alien feeling, drenched the cabin, illuminating the cracked skin of her fellow passenger.

“The box, it’s needs refilling, and of course… we get the scraps… won’t you help me feed it miss?”

This is a real gem of an opening, so very much to go off, lego levels of potential! With a bit of rearranging and tweaking, came in at 517 (I think) on the words. I tried to leave this a bit open as to exactly what that question at the end means, hopefully the story carries well enough for that to work. Part of me wishes I had gone another way entirely, but in the beauty of FTS, I still get to see plenty of endings <3

This is an entry to #finishthestory held over on @bananafish - this is one of a few regular contests so give the page a follow. This round we have this hint packed opening by @f3nix and we have the wonderful @brisby at the helm for the fantastic 50th edition! Every entry wins this round so head over to the post and give it a go!

Photo Credit taken by Pixabay User pixel2013 who has a crazy amount of popular photos, plenty begging for a story!

_{I did some last minute editing before posting and cleared the tags so I couldn't accidentally post early, and when I put it back, wrong autocomplete for f, so accidentally under the foxtales tag as well, sorry about that one!}