Death by 100 Cuts presents: Ergot

For your reading pleasure, we present one of the 100 tales imparted upon the Scabbed Scribe to dictate for our forthcoming book. Perhaps we will unveil more..

Good bread, sweet meat, good God lets eat.

I say this after having filled my belly once more. We all jumped for joy the day Husband brought fresh baked bread back home. I questioned how we, in our penniless pauper life, could afford such extravagance and he confided in me that it was to be discarded, presumably due to slight staleness. Neither myself nor the children had any qualms and we feasted merrily, eager to fill our empty stomachs.

This would prove the last. They refused to eat any more, citing a strange almost fungal aftertaste. I thought nothing of it and consumed our meal heartily. True with some chagrin as I watched my family continue to waste but they simply would not eat any more. Guilt struck me as their quite audible hunger pangs rang across our tiny hut, perhaps more so than usual due to their appetites being stimulated.

I continued to eat the bread, seeking more in the mud slathered village streets. It was not my fault they refused it. Nor was it my fault when they began to change, when my beloved family became… monstrous. I cited it as their weak bodies lacking the strength to repel a demonic invader. Nonetheless I wept as they grew fangs, fur, became more beast than human. They patronized me by declaring that I was the one who was suffering, changing. Such audacity! And so I did the only thing a good, merciful wife and mother would do and slew them where they stood. It was easy. Their bestial forms seemed to grant them no additional strength and they fell quite easily

Husband and children gifted me one last providence: the gift of variety. For now I had a meal other than slightly stale bread. Waste not, want not. To add another saying, beggars cannot literally be choosers as I consumed the tainted, stringy flesh.

And so I sit, satiated. I can hear the angry beating at my door, the villagers who would condemn me as an abomination, a loup garou, an affront to God. If only they understood.

I face my aggressors with a peaceful heart for my family suffers no longer from hunger, nor demonic presence and my belly is quite full.

I lick the red off the palm of my hand, hold my belly and wait for them to break in.

Good bread sealed my fate. Thank the Lord that I just ate.