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Eight and Seven's plan should have gone off without a hitch, sneaking into the Maw's kitchen, and stealing food from under the Twin Chefs noses and notice. They'd made the trip so often that it was practically considered a milk run after so many successful attempts. And yet, all it took was but a single slip up for them to get cornered.
Caught at last, those monstrous child killers had no intention of being gentle...
While one of the Chef's gave Seven a brutal thrashing, slamming him up and down against a cutting board and knocking the poor, bruised boy senseless, Eight wailed, trapped within the hand of his brother, loud enough to draw both of their cruel attention. She begged them to stop hurting her best more-than-just-a-friend, and in response to that pathetic plea, they shared a dark, knowing smirk.
Seven was layed down on the board, unmoving, and Eight's wrists were bound together in front of her with a bit of cooking twine, making escape more impossible than it already was.
Not that she'd ever intend to run away and abandon Seven.
Released, Eight crawled over as quick as she could to cradle Seven's head in her lap. She leaned over, listening for his shallow breaths, and wept into his shaggy hair.
A loud enough 'clink' drew her focus. At a glance, Eight spotted a chipped, jagged piece of porcelain from a broken plate. Confused, she stared up at the Chef who'd placed it next to her. He mimicked cutting down his chest with one hand, and repeatedly flexed his closed fist with the other.
His message couldn't have been more obvious...
Eight gasped. She shook her head, refusing to comply outright.
The other Chef snarled at her defiance. He pushed Eight back on her butt, ignoring her futile attempt to reach out for Seven as he lifted the boy up high by his skull.
His agonized screams were particularly horrible. Trapped within the Chef's tight, vise like grip, he squeezed hard enough that blood began leaking from Seven's nose above to drip down upon Eight's crying face.
"Stop! Stop hurting him!" Eight shouted.
The Chef shrugged, pretending as if the duration of Seven's torturous pain wasn't entirely in his own control. But then again...
"I- I'll do it," she weakly sobbed.
Despite her supposed powerlessness, it was up to her to protect Seven from further suffering. He was layed down again next to Eight, and the Chef gave a pointed look at the piece of porcelain lying by her side.
Shivering over what she needed but hated to do, Eight bent down, picked up her makeshift knife, and straddled Seven's hips. They'd long been quite intimate, sleeping next to each other, letting their affectionate touches linger, and sharing chaste kisses.
Eight leaned over and softly planted her last on Seven's lips. "I'm sorry," she whispered, heartbroken. And with that apology out of the way, she broke his heart.
Eyes squeezed close, arms raised, Eight's aim was true nonetheless. She brought down the shard, hard, and drove it into Seven's chest, just below where his ribs separated. His body jerked with a shuddering gasp, yet he couldn't resist as she yanked her arms back, halfway to his navel.
So much blood already, Eight despondently tossed the shard away. She looked up at the Chef, who moved his hand in a circle, encouraging her that it was too late to be squeamish now. Thus, she dove right in.
Eight pushed her bound hands into the wound she'd opened and reached up under Seven's bony ribs. Warm wetness soaked the sleeves of her magenta sweater while she fumbled about. But in spite of searching blindly, she didn't have far to go before cradling what the Chefs wanted her to find.
And with a hard tug, Eight ripped out Seven's heart. It beat once in her shaking hands before going still, and the boy whom she loved breathed his last with a dying rattle of a rasp.
One of the Chefs plucked Seven's tiny heart from her grasp, bringing it over to a nearby stove where he lit a burner and placed a pan atop it, same as the heart.
Never inclined to be wasteful, the other other Chef shoved Eight off Seven's fresh corpse. He removed the boy's clothes while he walked over to his meat grinder, and the fact that there was a metal shackle on his skinny leg didn't escape the Chef's notice.
It took hardly any effort at all to snap the much smaller boy's ankle and slide off the cuff. A necessary step, given how that piece of metal could have easily jammed up the grinder's teeth, which he promptly fed Seven into.
Feet first.
Eight hugged her knees, unable to block out neither the visceral sounds of crunching bones nor squelching flesh. She merely rocked back and forth, and watched, catching her final sight of Seven's slack, lifeless face disappearing from view, commiting the result of her sinful mercy to memory.
Better that than to focus on the ground meat coming out the other end as a sausage. Just another one among hundreds before.
Probably more.
The Chef who'd been cooking Seven's heart nudged Eight's arm with a saucer. And lying in the middle, was the meal he prepared especially for her.
Her just deserts for the troubles she had caused them..
Eight didn't want to partake, but maybe if she complied, the Chefs would make whatever they planned to do to her next quick. And without Seven in her life... why bother delaying the inevitable?
It still disgusted her that his heart smelled similar to the many delicious meals she'd cooked for both of them in the past. Yet she picked up the well done muscle, and without further coercion, took a bite.
Eight tried not to think about the gamey flavor that was Seven, coating her tongue.
Oh Seven...
Back when they met and before she knew it, he'd stolen her heart. She never expected to steal his in turn though.
But for all the precious ingredients Eight had previously stolen from the Chefs, by the sounds of their sharpening knives and preheating oven, it was abundantly clear how they were about ready to steal her pitiful life that was empty and no longer precious away from her...