"Thud... thud... thud..."
A rhythmic, monotonous series of dull, unsettling impacts echoed through the excessively spacious kitchen with its cold marble floor.
A broad, heavy meat cleaver, its keen edge gleaming coldly beneath the overhead light, rose and fell over a thick wooden chopping board, producing dull thumps as it cut into dense fresh meat.
The sound grew louder in the cavernous space, where only stainless-steel kitchenware reflected the cold light, taking on a primal, violent rhythm.
The man holding the knife was a chef.
He was thickset, wearing a leather apron covered in unidentified stains, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows to expose muscular forearms likewise covered in grease and tiny burn scars.
His face, beneath the lone spotlight casting its pallid light over the workbench, looked indistinct. Only his focused, almost numb expression was visible.
He was handling piles of cut meat before him, dark red and finely grained, deftly sorting them, dicing some, slicing others, and pounding the rest.
A complex mixture of smells filled the air.
There was the pungency of spices, the cloying smell of warming fat, and the crisp scent of freshly cut vegetables, but beneath them all lingered something more fundamental and more disturbing: the sweet, bloody smell of fresh meat, only far too strong, far too "fresh."
The chef hummed.
A vulgar, tuneless little song, carrying the accent of the local Hive City's lower levels, spilled indistinctly between teeth blackened by cooking fumes and mingled with the chopping.
As he hummed, he casually picked a small piece from a pile of diced meat, tossed it into his mouth, and chewed slowly. His Adam's apple bobbed, and his face showed the concentration and satisfaction of someone savoring a delicacy and assessing its doneness.
Then he continued working. The broad blade rose again