The Unfinished Meal

A decade has passed since the night my family first set foot in that narrow house in Shah Alam, a temporary shelter while our permanent home was being completed just down the road. My father, a retired customs officer, had taken a post in the city, and we had exchanged the misty highlands for the sweltering lowlands. I was barely eighteen, restless and resentful of the move. The house was a two-story terrace with a small, cramped kitchen at the back and a dining area that opened into the living room. Nothing about it seemed unusual, just another fading paint job and creaky floorboards.

The day we moved in, I had a petty argument with my mother over some unremarkable thing—perhaps the arrangement of furniture or my refusal to help unpack. I stormed off, skipped dinner, and retreated to the spare room at the end of the hallway, the one closest to the kitchen. I fell asleep to the sounds of cicadas and distant traffic, my anger still simmering.

I woke in the pitch dark, unsure of the hour. My room was stuffy, and I could smell something cooking—fried onions and garlic, a familiar scent from my mother’s kitchen. I heard the clatter of pots and pans, the murmur of voices, the rustle of newspapers. It sounded like my family had gathered for a late meal, though past midnight seemed odd. I assumed it was morning and that I had overslept.

Groggy, I swung my legs off the bed and shuffled toward the door. My hand was on the knob when I realized the voices were not quite right. They were the right voices—my father’s low chuckle, my sisters’ giggling, my mother’s gentle reprimands—but they were slightly off, as if each word came from a mouth that was not quite in sync with the lips forming them.

Curiosity and hunger overcame my unease. I opened the door a crack. The hallway was dark, but light spilled from the dining area, casting a warm rectangle on the floor. I could see the edge of the table, a spread of dishes, the back of my father’s head as he sat reading a newspaper. My sisters were facing the TV, but the TV was off. My mother was at the kitchen doorway, her back to me, stirring something in a pot.

I pushed the door open wider and stepped out. The floor felt cold, the air still. As soon as my foot touched the hallway floor, the sounds stopped. Completely. The pot stopped clattering. The newspaper stopped rustling. The laughter ceased. It was as if someone had hit a mute button.

I stood frozen, my heart thumping. ‘Mom?’ I called softly.

No answer. The figures remained in their positions, but no one turned. I took a step forward. The silence was heavy, pressing on my eardrums. I called again, louder. Still nothing. Then, slowly, my father lifted his head from the newspaper, and I saw his face. It was my father, but his eyes were black, hollow, like empty sockets filled with darkness. My sisters turned in unison, their heads moving at the same angle, their features blank. My mother, still at the stove, began to hum a tune I recognized from my childhood—a lullaby she used to sing. But her voice was flat, monotone, and the kitchen behind her was pitch black, not the bright, cluttered room I knew.

I heard a sound from the kitchen, a wet, sloshing noise, and the smell of raw meat overpowered the onions. I saw my mother’s hand dip into the pot and come up with something dark and dripping, which she placed on a plate. She turned, finally, and I saw her face too. Her eyes were the same black voids, and her mouth was stretched into a grotesque smile, too wide, with teeth that were too sharp.

‘Come eat,’ she said, in a voice that was not hers.

I stumbled backward, my heart racing. I wanted to scream, but my throat was tight. I turned and ran down the hallway, past the shadowy figures that seemed to slide out of the walls, past the family portraits that had not been there before, past doorways that led to rooms that did not exist. I burst into the living room, where the real world should have been, but the living room was not the one we had. The furniture was different, the walls were covered in thick dust, and there was a figure standing in the corner—a tall, thin man in a black suit, holding a large, old-fashioned camera.

He raised the camera, and I heard the click of a shutter. A flash blinded me. When I could see again, he was gone, but the room was silent. The sounds from the dining area had ceased entirely. I heard the front door open, and my mother’s real voice, angry: ‘Where have you been? We’ve been looking for you. It’s past midnight, and you didn’t eat dinner.’

The lights flickered on. My mother stood in the doorway, her eyes normal, her face flushed with irritation. Behind her, my father and sisters looked on, concerned. The room we were in was the same, yet felt different—as if the air had been sucked out and replaced.

I tried to explain, but my words came out jumbled. They dismissed it as a nightmare, a result of skipping dinner. I didn’t sleep the rest of the night. The next morning, I saw the pot on the stove, still scraped clean, and a plate with a half-eaten meal, as if someone had started to eat and left. The family insisted they had all eaten at seven and gone to bed early. No one admitted to making that food, or leaving that plate.

A week later, we moved to the bigger house just down the street. I thought I had left the nightmare behind. But last night, in my new house, I woke to the sound of my mother’s lullaby, hummed softly from the kitchen. I crept down the stairs, my heart pounding, and found a plate of steaming food on the counter, and a note in handwriting I did not recognize: ‘You never finished your meal.’