The Taste Beneath the Sweetness
The elevator doors parted with a warm exhale of scented air. Felix stepped forward first, the cocoa heat curling around him like a living breath. Something inside the walls thrummed softly, rhythmic, too steady to be chance.
The hallway looked polished and perfect, but Felix felt an undertone to it, like a whisper stitched into the stones.
Nia was the only one who caught his unease.
She brushed his arm lightly.
"Felix… you're sensing something again, aren't you?"
He nodded once, unsure how to explain the tingling in his mouth, the phantom taste of bitter chocolate rising like a memory he didn't want.
Aya, Tomas, Lina, and Leo walked ahead, pointing at murals of the chocolate city's earliest days of sugar kilns, cocoa harvest lines, towering chocolate machinery. Beautiful scenes. Warm colors.
But beneath each painting, carved so faint and thin it was nearly invisible, were symbols:
Spirals.
Clawed X-shapes.
Loops that twisted like knotted rope.
Felix's stomach tightened.
He didn't recognize them, but his bones did.
Ambrose Vellum walked ahead with quiet elegance, hands folded behind his back.
"This hallway," he said, "was once the entrance to the upper experimentation suites. A place where Sucrovia's greatest mysteries began."
His voice was too calm.
Too practiced.
Felix didn't trust it.
The Gustation Observatory
The double doors slid open without being touched. Steam curled out in ribbons.
Felix stepped inside and froze.
The room was enormous, circular, its ceiling lost to a swirling haze. In the center stood a wide cacao-bark table, black as cooled obsidian.
Dozens of glass dishes rested on it, each holding a piece of chocolate unlike anything they'd seen before.
Some glowed with inner light.
Some emitted faint crackling sounds.
Some pulsed slowly, like tiny living hearts.
Aya whispered, "This is incredible."
Tomas muttered, "Yeah, if 'incredible' means slightly terrifying."
Leo didn't comment on this because his eyes were fixed on a bowl of molten chocolate that shimmered with silver veins.
Lina sketched the room eagerly, but her hands trembled.Felix didn't move
Because the moment he crossed the threshold, something reached for him.
Not a hand.
Not a sound.
A taste.
Warm. Sweet.
Then sharp—like a secret slipping into his mouth.
His vision wavered.
He tasted the Bitter District again.
The Black Sphere
Felix found himself drawn to one dish in particular: a single sphere of chocolate, so dark it looked like a piece of night carved smooth.Its surface reflected him perfectly.
Too perfectly.
When Felix leaned closer…
His reflection stayed still a heartbeat too long.
Felix jerked back, heart skipping.
"Felix?" Nia whispered. She caught his arm quickly. "Talk to me. What's happening?"
"I don't…" Felix breathed out.
Then stopped lying.
"It feels like something is looking back."
Aya, overhearing, frowned. "From a chocolate ball?"
Lina's pencil froze mid-stroke.
Leo actually took a step back.
Tomas squinted. "It's… not reflecting us right."Felix tasted warmth again.
Then bitterness.
Then—Voices not spoken aloud.
Whispering inside his mind.
"…he returns…"
"…the child opens the door…"
"…Ambrose will see…"
Felix staggered.
Nia caught him.
Aya grabbed his shoulder.
"What's wrong with him?!"
Ambrose Vellum Was Suddenly Beside Them
His hand rested on Felix's shoulder gently.
Too gently.
"Felix," he murmured, "what did you taste?"
Felix's breathing trembled.
He didn't want to answer.
He also couldn't lie to Vellum's eyes.
"I think…"
His voice cracked.
"I think the city is… talking to me."
A silence fell over the group.
Aya and Tomas looked horrified.
Lina's drawing pad slipped from her fingers.
Leo's eyes widened like someone had punched the air out of him.
Nia tightened her grip on Felix's hand, refusing to move away.
Ambrose Vellum smiled softly.
But his eyes sharpened like knives.
"Then," he said quietly, "the city has chosen you."
Felix's heart slammed against his ribs.
The Tasting Begins
Vellum clapped once.
The echo rippled through the room like a shockwave.
Every chocolate dish glowed a little brighter.
Every pulse of the black sphere synced to Felix's heart.
Every taste in Felix's mouth sharpened into something alive.
"Children," Vellum said, "remember this: in Sucrovia, flavor is not simply taste."
He walked around the table, gloved fingers brushing the edges of each dish.
"Flavor is memory."
Pulse.
"Flavor is truth."
Pulse.
"Flavor is identity."
He looked directly at Felix.
"And some flavors awaken what was meant to stay asleep."
Felix's blood ran cold.
Nia tightened her grip.
Aya looked ready to scream.
Tomas looked ready to run.
Lina trembled silently.
Leo whispered, "This is wrong… this is so wrong…"
Felix didn't answer.
Because he felt it now:
Something inside him was no longer sleeping.
And it belonged to city.
Not to him.