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Author's Note: This story has exactly 666 words.
So I just went to that fancy restaurant that opened up recently. Yeah, Illusio’s. Let’s just say it was nothing like what I was expecting.
This was one of those places where you had to make a reservation, so I saved up some cash, paid the deposit, and showed up at the time they gave me. I couldn’t afford any fancy clothes, so I went there in a shirt and jeans. I was afraid they would have some sort of dress code, but they didn’t seem to mind. The receptionist was a tall, scrawny man with sunken cheeks, thin lips, beady eyes, and a bald head. He led me to my table and I sat down. Just before he walked away, I noticed that his eyes were yellow, but I didn’t want to be rude by asking him about it. I assumed it was some rare medical condition, so I ignored it.
Shortly after I got situated, a young and slender waitress with dyed red hair handed me a menu and asked for my order. I had never seen her around town before. I figured she just moved in from some city far away. I looked through the menu and saw that most of the items were quite expensive. I went with the cheapest thing they had: a plate of spaghetti. Even that was a bit pricey, so I hoped it was damn good.
While I waited, I looked around. The walls were painted white, and white marble columns held up the ceiling. The floor was made of that same white marble. Elegant statuettes stood atop pillars that were lined up against the walls. Bejeweled chandeliers hung overhead. I turned around and spotted the head chef through the kitchen window. He had a body like a sack of potatoes and his bald head gleamed as if coated in olive oil. Everyone around me seemed to be enjoying their food. I looked down on my table and noticed a peppermint. Assuming it was left there to tide me over until my food arrived, I unwrapped it and ate it. It was kind of stale and had a strange aftertaste.
After about five minutes, my order arrived. The waitress put it on my plate and lifted up the lid. Then my stomach turned. The spaghetti I ordered turned out to be a plate of worms. Blood was used in place of sauce. Instead of meatballs, it had eyeballs. The worms wriggled and the eyes looked at me. I turned to the waitress to complain, only to discover that her skin turned tomato red and a pair of tiny conical horns stuck out of her forehead.
“Please enjoy the food,” she said before walking away.
It was then I noticed that the white marble turned green. The elegant statuettes were replaced with hideous gargoyles. The chef now had puke green skin, sharp tusks, crooked horns, and a pig-like nose. Someone’s lasagna had become a chunk of bleeding flesh. They neither minded nor noticed. My appetite was completely gone. I wanted to scream, but I didn’t want to cause a scene. I rose from my chair and was about ready to bolt out, but I didn’t want to be rude, so I paid for my food, left a tip, then slowly walked away.
On my way out, the receptionist said, “Thank you. Come again.” I looked at him and saw that his skin was red just like the waitress. His yellow eyes gleamed and he had two curved horns sticking out of his forehead. I exited without saying a word. While walking to my car, I looked through the window of the building and noticed that everything was back to the way it was when I first entered. I shook my head, got in my car, got back home, and now here I am. I have no idea what caused me to see all of that. Must have been that peppermint. All I know is I’m never going back there.
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