Information

Ganache
Legacy Name: Ganached

The Cream Blob
Owner: Haunted

Age: 12 years, 2 months, 1 week

Born: February 26th, 2012

Adopted: 12 years, 2 months, 1 week ago

Adopted: February 26th, 2012

Pet Spotlight Winner
November 1st, 2013

Statistics

• Level: 2
   
• Strength: 10
   
• Defense: 10
   
• Speed: 10
   
• Health: 10
   
• HP: 10/10
   
• Intelligence: 0
   
• Books Read: 0
• Food Eaten: 0
• Job: Unemployed

February 2012:

You wander through the dimly lit caverns commonly known as "the Underground." Although the scant amount of people you see don't seem outright hostile, you still don't entirely feel comfortable with your new "undead" status.

Clutched in your hand are hastily scribbled directions to what your friend assures you is a "discreet place" to get what you desire. You examine the directions again, committing the turns to memory before hastily shoving the ripped paper back in your pocket. Wouldn't do to be caught getting lost, nobody likes being the noob.

A left, another left, and a right turn later, you find the entrance to what must be the new underground "commerce district." Your eye is immediately caught by the ramshackle white building that looks suspiciously like an old church. There doesn't seem to be much business in the district, because there's nobody around as far as you can see. You check over your shoulder to make sure the coast is clear, and then commence an inspection of the blue marquee stapled haphazardly above the door of the building.

You wonder what might lie inside a building called "The Philosopher's Store" but decide against going inside. While one part of you is morbidly curious, the sane part of your mind reminds you that there's a good probability that whatever is in there would probably cause Aristotle to clutch his wig, kick up his sandals and hightail it above-ground.

A dull feeling of warmth pulls you out of your reverie, and you notice that to the right of the building there's a rather cosy-looking fire burning merrily in a furnace. You take a few hesitant steps towards the reassuring warmth before being startled by a tall gaunt man eating what appears to be a rather moldy sandwich.

"You want make something?" he asks you. You notice that he does not bother to chew or swallow when he poses this question, so you get the oh-so-pleasant view of his half-masticated sandwich while he speaks.

"What?" you mutter, rather unintelligently.

"You want make something?" the man asks again. "Have many good things to make, but my recipes is secret. You want make your own recipes?"

You manage to avert your eyes this time while he speaks, so that you actually have a chance to hear his question. The word "recipe" pings through your brain, and you remember what brought you down to the underground in the first place.You shake your head, staring down at the decaying scraps of flesh that used to be your feet, unwilling to look into the man's worn-leather face. "I don't have any recipes," you mumble, "just a hunger that needs satisfying."

The man pauses his sandwich consumption for the first time since he appeared in front of you. This abrupt change startles you into looking full at his face. He appears to be sizing you up, head cocked to one side, eyes roaming over your pale and rotting features. "Hungry?" he asks, his face becoming slightly less hostile, perhaps even a little smug.

It takes every ounce of courage you have, but you manage to nod your head. You will not be shamed, not down here. These people are supposed to be your commrades. You manage to jerk your head in the opposite direction from where you stand. "I saw what appears to be a bakery..." you begin, but silence yourself when you see him start to shake his head rather vehemently.

Afraid that if he continues this action his head will actually snap off of his fragile neck, you ask, "What's wrong with that place?"

He reaches out a hand and grasps you by the elbow. You start to pull away automatically but change your mind when you feel the skin around your elbow start to slip dangerously away from muscle and bone. He pulls/drags you away from the direction of the bakery, behind the furnace. With one last longing look over your shoulder at the bakery, which is fading in the dim light, you follow the gaunt leather-faced man into the darkness.

He leads you a short way away from his dilapidated area towards a small cavern that you would never have noticed if not for his incessant pulling. A flimsy, moth-eaten afghan of faded pinks and purples covers the entrance. There appears to be no light coming from within the cavern, and you wonder, not for the first time, if this haggard zombie has got some shenanigans planned for the fresh meat now in his grasp.

You manage to dig your feet in the ground and assert yourself, wrenching your elbow out of his painful grip. You take a second to rearrange the skin that's left on your arm into some semblance of normalcy before you demand, "Where are you taking me?"

He reaches for you again, but you stand your ground.

"You hungry?" he asks, waving what's left of his sandwich in front of your face.

The smell, a sort of sweet stench that would've turned your stomach only a few short weeks ago, makes your mouth water. You nod your head, unable to form words with all of the saliva filling your mouth.

He reaches for you again, while simultaneously pulling the sandwich out of your reach. "You hungry," he nods, "She have food. Good food. Zombie food."

You look again back towards the way you came, but he shakes his head vigorously again. "You no want that. No good."

He parts the curtain with his sandwich-filled hand, dissappearing behind the holey blanket. "Good food," he says again, and you have no choice but to follow the voice.

Behind the blanket is a small cavern carved into the root of a giant tree, much like the bakery you noticed in the heart of the commerce district. You see that a few shelves are carved into the walls of the cave, and lined up on each shelf are a few bundles wrapped in leaves and what appears to be old clothes.

You take a few steps closer to the shelves and your nose is assalted with smell. Blood, and honey, sugar and maggots, innards and caramel and vinegar-pickled eyeballs. It's a symphony of smells that sets your head spinning and your mouth watering.

Just as your fingers begin to close around the package nearest to you, a tiny voice comes from the darkest corner of the cavern.

"Hello"

You whirl around towards the sound, eyes squinting in the darkness. "Who's there?" you demand.

An enormous shadow emerges from the darkness. You shrink back a few steps from the sight. As your eyes adjust to the darkness you see that the gigantic person you've just shouted at is nothing more than what appears to be a little girl, she is holding the hand of the leather-faced sandwich-eating zombie, which is what caused their shadows to merge and frighten you.

When the girl steps into the dim light, you recoil slightly before your shame makes you step back towards her. Although slight, she is no pretty little girl. Perhaps once, maybe, you can see the beauty in her clear green eyes, but her savaged face makes it impossible to appreciate her fine eyes upon first inspection.

She smiles shyly at you, and you notice then that she's wearing what appears to be a rather worse-for-wear set of bakers clothes. A moldy hat, patched apron and ragged dress indicate that she's been down in the Underground for quite sometime.

When you make no further move toward or away from her, she begins to speak. "Zosi says you're hungry?"

You notice that her English is much better than that of her companion and immediately warm up to her. "I am," you say, smiling and nodding at this tiny, cherubic-looking zombie. "I've been infected for about 2 weeks now, and nothing I get from the food shop seems to quench my hunger pains."

She continues to nod and smile, taking a few more steps towards you. You appreciate her encouragement and continue.

"...I was so ashamed to admit what I'd become, I basically locked myself in my house. But then one day, my friend, who'd also been infected, stopped by and mentioned that he'd heard of a place underground that caters to" you stop, gulp, and decide to power on - "our kind."

Both the tiny woman and Zosi continue to smile and nod vigorously. Zosi's head is shaking so ominously that you hastily continue your story, praying that you finish before his head bounces right off.

"...So he scribbled me some directions that he got from a friend of a friend, and here I am." You stop, aware that your tale was rather...anticlimactic. Zosi and the woman continue to stare at you, so you take a deep breath and plow on. "I mean, Co-my friend-" you stumble over your friends name, deciding it's better not to name-drop around these parts - "gave me directions to Fantine's you see, we both really enjoyed what she made at the Bake Stop..."

The reaction to the name Fantine is almost visceral. The woman immediately takes a giant step toward you. This time, however, it's not a friendly step, but a decidely unfriendly one. She stops nodding her head and begins shaking it from side to side, whipping what little hair she has left back and forth across her face. Her once quite beautiful green eyes close into near slits, her teeth clenching audibly.

"No!" she screeches at you, head whipping dangerously from side to side. "NO. You don't say that name to me."

"Fantine?" you say, clapping your hands over your mouth almost immediately after.

"NEVER" the girl says, reaching up to grab fist fulls of her hair, which she then rips out and tosses on the ground. "NEVER. SAY. HER. NAME."

Zosi grabs her around the waist and shoulders, pulling her into a full-body grasp. She struggles mightily against him, kicking and screeching, gnashing her teeth and howling while he attempts to subdue her.

He retreats with the struggling woman back into the dark corner of the cavern. Before he is out of sight he shoots you a dirty look that chills you to the core. You can no longer see what's going on, but from the sounds emanating from the dark corner you can tell that she is still furious.

After a few minutes the angry swearing dies down to a quiet keening and you begin to wonder if the gaunt man has hurt the tiny woman.

When the sounds quiet further still to a low snuffling, the leather-faced zombie appears out of the darkness.

"Eat," he says, bony fingers pointing at the shelves behind you. "Eat now. She be back soon."

When he reaches the end of his little speech the zombie Zosi reaches behind you and grabs a bundle off of the shelf. Without bothering to remove the packaging, he tears into the parcel with his teeth, biting off a great chunk of crunchy pastry and swallowing quickly as if he'd never eaten before in (after)life.

Sensing that you aren't likely to get much more information out of this taciturn zombie, you join him in consuming some of the tiny woman's tasty-smelling wares.

A few minutes pass before you realize you've consumed quite a bit of this woman's products. The second that the first morsel hit your stomach, it was as if the nectar of the gods had been baked into the small square of dough and viscera held in your hands. Like a parched man led to a riverbed you slaked your blood-thirst on everything in this woman's shop. Every delicious bite ate away at the mass of hunger that had resided in your belly since the great epidemic turned you a few short weeks ago.

The ripped and torn packages crackling around your feet alert you to the woman's prescence. While she seems more subdued than the last time you saw her, her eyes are hooded and she appears wary of you. She attempts to smile at you reassuringly, however it only appears on one side of her face, and is marred by the fresh blood that drips from the raw spots that dot her head.

"Sorry if I frightened you," she whispers, now bashful. "I can't help it."

You look up at her, pausing long enough to chew and swallow another bite of delectable offal. "Is it because of Fan..." you trail off without finishing as Zosi begins shaking his head violently from side to side, silencing you.

The girl nods at you shyly. She takes a step towards Zosi and reaches for his hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. "It's okay," she says to him. "I owe our new friend an explanation."

Zosi leans over and begins furiously whispering in the tiny woman's ear. You would give anything to hear what he is saying, he's being positively loquatious with her now, but common curtesy prevents you from leaning in closer to hear.The tiny woman listens while Zosi talks, but when he's finished she shakes her head once, plants a kiss on his leathered cheek and squeezes his hand once more. He shoots you one last chilling look before shuffling off towards the curtain.

"I wait there," he says, pointing towards what you assume to be the location of his warm furnace. "You find me when finish."

You nod at his retreating figure, then turn toward the tiny woman. Her previous outbreak makes you somewhat wary about approaching her, but you figure that since you're technically already (un)dead, it can't really hurt too much if she tries to go at you. She gestures towards what appears to be a make-shift bench dug into the cavern wall and offers you a seat.You sit down next to her, maggoty pastry in hand, and listen to her tale.

"I'm so sorry for frightening you earlier. It's just that when somebody mentions -" here she takes a large gulp of air before continuing "..her, I get a little anxious."

You want to remind her that her little episode was hardly what one would call "a little anxious" but wisely refrain.

"You see, a long time ago, back before I died, I dreamed of becoming the world's greatest baker. I loved to make things, all sorts of things. Not just pastries and pies, but sandwiches and quiches, tortes, macaroons, petit-fours, all kinds of things. But I was so shy. I couldn't start my own business, I couldn't face the idea of having to actually talk to customers. My boyfriend, Josiah -" here she looks fondly at the tattered curtain, and you imagine the grizzled zombie waiting for you outside as a handsome young lad named Josiah. It's hard to picture, so you shake the image from your thoughts and return to her story. " - convinced me that the best way to make something of my love of baking would be to apprentice somewhere. Of course I had heard of - " here she pauses again, her left eye twitching ominously," - Fantine, who hadn't, but she was already in the big leagues then, having just opened the Bake Stop, and I was sure she wouldn't be interested in some one like me. I kept baking my goodies for my family and friends, and of course Josiah, who was just as ravenous when he was alive as he is now - " she pauses to giggle quietly, " - until one day there was a knock on my front door. Standing there was, well, you know who. All red hair and pink apron, smiling kindly down at me."

"She told me that she had been given some of my cookies as a gift for Christmas and thought I had talent. I was immediately taken with her, of course, and agreed to go apprentice at her bakery. I went to bed that night thinking I was the luckiest girl in the world." Here she laughs, but instead of a musical giggle, this laughter is canned, with a bitter edge.

"The Fantine that the world sees and the real Fantine are two different people, you see," she leans closer to me like she's imparting some important secret that I can tell this tiny woman believes. "In the front of her bakery she's all swishing politeness and giggles, but behind those swinging doors she's a MONSTER. All of her interns had to work day and night, night and day, tirelessly creating new and unique recipes that had to pass Fantine's inspections. She was cruel and merciless if you displeased her. My first week there she threw a pan of fresh-out-of-the-oven cookies at my face." The girl points to a small circular burn scar on her mottled skin. You lean in close to get a good look and then back quickly away.

"Whatever recipe she deemed 'acceptable' she immediately passed off as her own. I remember how happy I was to have created my first Fantine-approved recipe. It was for banana whoopie pies. I had spent six months making and baking and remaking those whoopie pies, just hoping to please her. When she made the announcement that they were going into her cookbook I was overjoyed. Until I realized that there was going to be no mention of me whatsoever. She passed off my whoopie pies as her own, and when I asked her why, she told me to keep my mouth shut or I'd be out of a job; that I was a nobody, and that I was lucky she had found me and saved me from a life of nothing."

"I was so disillusioned. This woman who had been my hero turned out to be little more than a dictator in a pink toque and stylish Crocs. I couldn't eat, couldn't sleep, even my baking started to fall off. Poor Josiah didn't understand what was wrong. I couldn't tell anybody about how horrid Fantine was, who would believe me?"

"One night, after a particularly awful day in the bakery, I was walking home when it started to rain. The streets were strangely empty, even though it was the time of the afternoon when everybody was on their way home from work. I chalked the deserted streets up to the chilly February rain. I had been slaving away in the kitchen for so long, I hadn't heard anything about the epidemic, you see." She smiles knowingly at you. You nod and smile in return, remembering your own infection just a few short weeks ago.

"I couldn't see well through the pouring rain and took a wrong turn somewhere. I don't remember much after that, just waking up in the pitch-black. The rain had stopped. I somehow found my way home without running into a single soul. Josiah had left a few frantic messages on my answering machine, but luckily for me I passed a mirror before I picked up the phone. What I saw frightened me so much I passed right out." You nod some more knowingly, urging her to continue.

"I came to a few minutes later and knew that I couldn't let anyone see me like this. Not my family, not Josiah, and certainly not little Miss Pristine, Fantine. I turned on the news and watched the growing epidemic with horror. Titania McGee reported that the residents of Shadowglen were the culprits of this massive epidemic. I knew immediately where I had to go. "

"I sent a hurried text to Josiah telling him what had happened and where I was going before I tossed my cell-phone in the water and made my way, heartbroken and alone, to Shadowglen. I didn't feel at home here, I had no family or friends to speak of, but at least I was accepted. The major upside was that I no longer had to deal with Fantine and her demanding arrogance."

"My first year I spent examining all of the caverns. They weren't very developed back then, you see, no real commerce district like there is now. Just little huts and shanties where groups of zombies gathered. I fed my hunger in the most base way possible, feeding off of raw human flesh. As a zombie of discerning taste, I found it despicable, but I had to go on."

"The following February brought me Josiah," she looks longingly at the moth-eaten curtain, smiling for the figure just beyond it. "He had changed too, and with his physical change he adopted his new name, Zosi. He isn't as handsome as he once was, but I love him more now than I ever did. Now we could be together. I showed him how to feed, and although he found it as offensive as I did, we knew we had to eat that way in order to survive."

"One day a food truck wandered in to Shadowglen. He must've gotten lost, or been given bad directions. Zosi and I jumped on the chance to feed on this man. The smell of his blood mingling with the tart smell of lemon meringues and sweet caramel drops made my mouth water. Zosi looked up at me, his face covered in viscera and flour, and I had an epiphany. Maybe I never could've been the best baker alive, not with Fantine around, but I could be the best dead baker ever."

"I started small, with the ingredients we stole from the food truck, making some cookies with bones and pickling eyeballs. It turns out that Zosi and I weren't the only ones interested in finer cuisine. Word spread like wild-fire through the underground and soon our little shanty was full of like-minded zombies, day and night, looking for something a bit more refined than brains tartare."

"That was the happiest year of my undead life. We ran a little bake-shop out of a cavern we carved into a giant tree, right in the center of what is now the commerce district. Other shopkeepers opened stores around mine. I know it's bragging, but I like to think that Zosi and I started the whole wave of civilized zombies."

She pauses, her soft smile turning into a bitter frown in an instant. You find yourself completely absorbed in the girl's story, leaning in to hear every last detail.

"And then I started to hear whispers. Skitters, another zombie who set up shop just around the corner, had fallen in love with a human. I admit, I was happy for him at first, if not a little puzzled by the turn of events. How could a zombie and human possibly be together? I didn't think too hard on it, as I had a busy, booming business to run. Every year more and more people got infected, and it was my personal mission to feed them all."

"When I heard that the woman Skitters loved was Fantine, I was shocked. But after awhile, when the shock wore off, I realized that it wasn't really all that surprising. She was a monster, you see. Even though she was beautiful on the outside, she was still a horrible monster on the inside, and only a monster can love another monster."

"After I heard about Fantine and Skitters I made sure to pay extra close attention to the gossip that I heard in my shop. Some of the fresher undead had all kinds of information to impart; how Fantine's baking had dropped off, that she closed the shop during weird hours and couldn't be found for days on end. None of this bothered me, and I admit, selfishly, that i had hoped that Skitters would just succumb to his nature, eat her brains and be done with it."

"And then word reached me that she was making new items in her bakery again. Only this time the items had the customers running for the hills. Finger sandwiches with real fingers baked instead, blood pudding straight from the source," she raises her eyebrows knowingly and you nod. You had heard the same thing.

"When she closed up shop above ground I knew that things were getting serious. Word had it that she had been infected with some strange zombie mutation. That her store's customers had dried up and there was a "closed" sign placed on the door. I spent my days pacing around our little hovel, Zosi following worriedly in my wake, trying to reassure me that she couldn't hurt me again."

"But hurt me she did. Two weeks ago I went to my hollowed-out tree stump to open up shop and saw all of my belongings unceremoniously dumped on the sidewalk. A boarded-up sign over the entrance of my shop said 'Space available.' Within a week Half-baked was up and running, and it was as if I'd never existed."

Here the girl stands, wringing her hands and pacing like a feral cat in front of you. You know her story is coming to an end, and you rise to prepare for what might very well be a hasty retreat.

"She did it again," the girl says, starting to shout. "Her and that creepy-tongued green faced bastard. They stole what was mine as if I never existed. Like Milky Brain Puffs and Rotten Flesh Cream Creme Puffs were her invention! I have been relegated to a dark corner to try and push my recipes on unsuspecting freshly-made zombies like I have some secret to hide."

She turns on you, and you immediately throw your hands up, dropping what was left of the mashed pastry in your grip. She grips the lapels of your shirt, her mottled, angry face inches from your own.

"I. HATE. FANTINE." she spits. "And if I ever get my hands on her oozing pink neck, I will throttle her until she chokes on her own buttercream. Until she's dead. Again." She shakes you hard with each word and you feel your flesh start to separate with each jarring jostle.

While she pauses to catch her breath you manage to unwind your shirt from her vise-like grip. Backing away a few steps you mutter your thanks for the pastries and scurry toward the curtain before she can get going again.

Outside Zosi waits for you by the furnace. You know that he can tell by your face what you've just heard, just as you can tell by his face that you are not the first person to go running out of that tiny cavern behind the commerce district.

"Come." He takes your elbow and steers you back towards the main thoroughfare.

You thank him as you part, although you aren't sure what, exactly, you're thanking him for. It's true that the girl's pastries, pies and cakes were delicious, but you're not sure just what to make of the rest of the experience. Who could believe such a crazy story?

You are thinking so hard about what you've heard that you don't notice that you go out of your way to avoid the hollowed out tree to your right, even though the smells coming from inside the little building are quite enticing.

Profile by: Slavic
Story by: Haunted
Story Edited by: Hope
Full-body Art by: User not found: mtakasugi
Zosi/Ganche Couple Art by: Choco

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