Nameless Ghoul

The Breakfast Ordeal

The human Sister stopped in and cleaned up Itzal’s wounds. She was as gentle as she could be, but it stung like fuck and by the time she was done, he was not doing too well. Having someone so close to him for so long whilst he was in pain was difficult and he could feel a low level of panic welling up.

The next ordeal was breakfast.

A kitchen ghoul had left a breakfast banquet. An entire table had been laid out with various pastries, pancakes, fruit, bacon, eggs, toast, coffee, juice, and condiments.

The others were piling their plates with the foods, but Itzal hung back, staying in his seat in an armchair by the wall. Sunshine had stopped by as she had a free morning and had heard about what happened, so she wanted to check that he was okay. She had hung around to see if she could be useful. Plus, she said, the breakfast was tempting.

She came over to him with her plate.

“Aren’t you hungry? You should grab something before the boys eat it all. They eat like horses! What do you want? I’ll go make a plate up for you.”

She gave him an expectant smile, and he wasn’t sure what to say. The simple question should not be causing him this much stress. His mind couldn’t focus on making a decision. He'd never had a choice in these kinds of things before. Itzal had never had a choice in anything before. Something as mundane as deciding what to eat was making him feel so overwhelmed that he was starting to panic.

“Erm... I’m not sure? I’m fine, I’m not that hungry anyway,” he stammered out, just as his treacherous stomach growled and gave him away.

He was absolutely starving.

For the umpteenth time since they met, she seemed to realise that he was struggling and she smiled a warm smile at him.

“Why don’t I go and make you a plate up, and you can just leave anything you don’t like, okay?”

He breathed a sigh of relief and nodded. He was thankful that the others were lost in their own conversations and in eating their food to notice him having a minor meltdown in the corner over what to have for breakfast.

Sunshine soon returned with a plate which had pretty much one of everything. She went back to the table to fetch him some coffee and some orange juice. She set them on the small table nearby and sat down on the chair next to his.

“There you go. The pancakes are amazing, by the way, I’d recommend you try those first.”

He thanked her and took a sip of the juice before grabbing the fork she'd left him and cutting a piece of the pancake. It was drizzled with syrup and butter. When he took a bite, he closed his eyes and moaned in appreciation as the flavours exploded on his tongue.

“You like?” she said with a satisfied smile.

“Wow, yes! These are fantastic!” he said through another mouthful.

She chuckled.

"Ha, it’s like you’ve never had pancakes before!”

“I haven’t,” he replied.

She seemed shocked at this.

“You’re kidding me? You’ve never had pancakes before? Wow! So if you’ve never had them, then you don’t know how to make them either?”

“Nope,” he said. “I can make toast and heat something from a can, but that’s about it.”

She sighed softly and then a sparkle lit up her eyes.

“If you get some free time tomorrow, I’ll show you how to make them. They’re really easy. You can come up to the ghoul lair and we can use the kitchen there. I’m sure Papa will agree it’s ok. There's a rehearsal in the afternoon but I’m free until lunch. I’ll come and get you in the morning?”