I don't really believe in ghosts but what I saw that day changed everything, not just my opinion but me. Lara was the love my life, I was ready to do anything for her. Fuck. I was in love, I still am.

When she told me she wanted to move to Rhode Island cause New York was too "peppsih" for her, I complied. Being a freelancer, it wasn't a tough decision for me to make. We bought a tiny but magnetic Victorian house. An enormously windowed two-story home. What amazed me, however, was the amount of amount of Crosses scratched onto the interior of the home, nothing a little laminating couldn't fix (Hey! I am a Christian too but this would've freaked out the guests) It was a great deal, the realtor even accepted for us to buy it at half the price. Should've known there are no free meals.

Lovemaking was great. Life was great. When Max, our new puppy, first began to scream at night, he was only a month old. Lara claimed that the dog must always sleep with us on the bed since it was missing its family. Her gentle kindness is what attracted me to her in the first place.

One day, while I was finishing up my work for the day, I heard a loud thump come from downstairs. When I went there I saw Lara had dropped a burnt casserole on the ground and was sitting next to it crestfallen. Like a good husband, I went to console her.

"But...but I just put it in 5 mins ago, how is this possible?"

"Hey, it's alright lets just order something "

"No" she said with a stern voice, I had never heard before. "I'm gonna make you soup".

"Okay, as you like, sweetie. You should know that when I was admitted to the hospital for typhoid, they offered me only soup to eat for two weeks. It was the worst experience of my life, please try not to make it like that"

She giggled, I loved that, and then went to work.

The soup. it wasn't half bad, it was just plain soup. For the next few weeks, every alternate day she made soup for us. Not that I'm complaining, but it was...weird.

One day, I wanted to surprise her by ordering Chinese from her favorite franchise, she didn't knew existed in this part of the world. Honey duck wings, drumsticks, I ordered it all and before dinner time, placed it on the table. Excited and , to make it even more cute, I made Max sit on the table. When she came downstairs from her 7 pm bath, I saw her gentle little face turn sinister, believe it or not her eyes became black when she saw the table.

"What's this?"

"Your favorite hon, its from hungry panda"

"My favorite is soup, throw this shit out" she said coldly

When I say my heart broke, I drove nearly 7 miles to get it for her. But, I tried again

"Let's eat this today. we'll have soup tomorrow or if you want we can have some soup after this as well"

"No" the kind of no I hated

Max, sensing the tension jumped of the chair and started going under the table. She saw him move or It saw him move, she leaped towards the little baby and held him by the throat. I lost her that day, I lost the woman I loved that day.

"Throw it all away or you wont get to see this little shit anymore", it was almost as if she hissed.

Max was trembling, Lara's fake nails digging deep into his throat. In terror, I picked everything up and threw it in the dustbin, Max was closing his eyes by now, I begged her to leave him and I swear I saw her smirk. She released him and his little body fell on the floor. I rushed towards him and started caressing him. The bitch went on to the stove and mechanically started making soup, .

When I took Max to the vet next day, I told them he got entangled with the curtain ropes.

The vet informed me that he was startled by what transpired because all the appropriate veins in his neck had been injured; a few extra seconds, and he would have met his maker. This made my spine tingle. She was prepared to snap the young Pomeranian's neck like a twig.

That day I found myself driving extra slow to the house. the woman I couldn't stop myself from meeting became what I resented the most. I considered divorce, but I loved her more than that. Again, big mistake.

When I reached home with Max hiding deep in my arms, there she was watching a sitcom, her expression was blank and she held a cup, a red cup. a red cup with soup in it. Disgusted, I took Max with me to the guest bedroom, locked ourselves in and went to sleep. Don't know whether she noticed me or not.

At around 2 I woke up. Max was whining in the blanket. Something was banging on the door. Although not too loud, it had a metallic feel. Unlike in horror films, I was terrified and did not want to investigate. I went under the blanket. held Max tightly and waited for it to stop. It didn't. Went on for an hour until I dozed off.

Next morning, I opened the door and saw a ladle on the floor, but not just that, there were red human like footprints not just on the floor but on the wall, on the celling, everywhere. Taking in a deep breath, I followed the footsteps and they stopped near the Master bedroom, the only room we had put a cross in. I broke down, I sat there on the floor and howled, the woman I love turned into this soup-loving psycho-maniac because of me.

After what seemed like hours, I felt a wet tingling on my face, it was Max. I picked him up and followed the footsteps which went straight to the attic. We had left it close, with two paddle locks, cause there were too many spiders in there and we didn't want to spend more money on renovating it. When I went inside, and I don't think I'll ever move on from this. I saw dead birds, dogs, cats, squirrels and other animals, their bodies were flipped inside out, with no minute wasted, I puked. Max leapt from my arms and ran outside.

I decided to investigate further and lit up my phone's flashlight, and there she was, naked, sitting in the corner of the room, doing something. With tears in my eyes I went up to her.

"Lara...baby come back to me"

Nothing

I moved forward

"Please, we'll get help. you'll be fine. I've read about cases like these. People get obsessed with something up to an extent that its hard for them to leave it. I'll find you the best doctors in the town."

Nothing

"Fuck, I'll sell this house even, a new life"

This did it. She turned around, her face red, something brown and slimy, what I consider to be brain matter, on the side of her lips.

She was holding a dead squirrel in her hand, trying to drain it of its blood and pouring it into the big soup stockpot we had recently bought.

Wait

Wait

No, this isn't possible. The soup was too good for it to be this. My entire world started coming down. I felt like puking.

Lara smirked and said the last thing I ever heard from her mouth.

"We think its time to move on to humans"

That was it.

With whatever energy I had left, cloudy eyed, I ran outside. At one point I felt something pat me on the shoulder but when I turned around there was no one there. I ran out of the house, Max greeted me with a jump.

Police told me the house belonged to the biggest land owner in the town. He had around 20 slaves and had left them all to die in the tiny attic of this small house right around when the revolution started. With nothing to eat, they would break each other's fingers and lick whatever was inside. Unfortunately, not one of them survived. Surprisingly, the land owner also passed away shortly after, ironically, while having soup. The house had become and urban-legend and many people had drawn crosses on its walls to keep evil at bay. True or not, I don't consider those slaves to be evil, it felt as if they were being tortured even after their deaths.

I rented an apartment and returned to NY with Max. Lara, was never found.

I want to prepare soup as a tribute to her, something I nearly always eat these days. It never tastes exactly like hers, though, no matter what I add to it. Also, surprisingly, I always have this strong urge to kiss Max these days, especially on the throat, I wonder if...