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Alan3257 10/7/25| 04:34:56 #47561984
Okay, so before you start reading this, I need to tell you one thing: Adrian Nelson is a liar. If you're ever in the upper east side of New Jersey and you run into him, don't trust a word out of his mouth.
No, I don't work at a restaurant where the owner cuts himself to pieces every night and serves it to customers.
No, I am not six foot four even though I really wish I was.
No, I am not a licensed exorcist, and no, I do not discriminate against the undead.
Next thing: Don't ask that many questions either. Investigations often lead to some… troubling discoveries, to say the least. If you happen to catch the boss cutting off his fingers and deep-frying them, just politely remind him to wash his hands and go about your business. Better yet, don't say anything at all.
If you do come inside Cannibal Chin's, you'd be greeted with the smell of fried food and depression. The floor will more than likely have a few loose french fries strewn about, which I would not recommend touching. Most of the benches and chairs have bloodstains on them which are… mostly fake? Honestly, so many things have died in here I can't really remember what stains are real and what ones are part of the aesthetic.
There are a few dozen missing person's posters near the register. Don't pay attention to those. There's a fairly good chance they've made it out of here okay.
If you decide to dine in, there's a good chance that you'll see something… strange. Exactly what you'll see depends on the day, really. Different creatures float in and out of here so often I've stopped keeping track.
Occasionally ghosts will descend from the ceiling and steal your food from you. The policy states that we can offer you one free meal and warding salts per visit in case that happens, but the ghosts will just mess with you again if you get another meal, so it's probably better to just try again another day.
If you drop something on the floor and don't pick it up, consider it lost. There's a disembodied hand that skitters on the floor, scooping up fallen french fries and whatever else you may have dropped from the table. His name is Fredrick, and he will bite you if you try to stop him. Best to just let him do his thing.
If you go into the bathroom, you may spontaneously lose all of your teeth. As far as I know, it doesn't hurt and Fredrick always cleans up… eventually. I'm not really sure what he does with them, but I'm certain it's not pleasant. Company policy is to offer you replacement teeth but they're a pain to gather and even worse to put in. Your teeth will come back on their own in about a year. Give or take. I think.
There's also a good chance I'll be your waiter, server, and cashier. That's because, well, aside from The Cook, I'm the only one that bothers to show up here on a regular basis.
Don't take it the wrong way if I'm dismissive of you, especially if you order off of the backside of the menu. Ghosts are notorious for dining and dashing, and I can never tell who is dead and who is alive anymore. I guess being incorporeal makes it difficult to carry a wallet? We accept ghostcoin. Dickheads.
There's something underneath Cannibal Chin's too. I can't really talk about it, company policy and all. All I can say is that the only person that's ever opened the door to the basement (which isn't always there) is the owner.
That is, until a few days ago when I saw Adrian go down there after him.
I know what you're thinking: "That asshole got himself killed so he doesn't have to show up to work!" Believe me, I'm inclined to agree, but the last time I tried to call out dead I got yelled at by the owner for a solid four hours and still had to come in. Being dead is no excuse to miss work. If you see him, tell him he needs to come in and then walk away.
But more on this later, I've got a few impatient customers to deal with and I really don't want to be the reason we get closed down. Again.

Alan3257 10/7/25 | 07:56:43 #47561985
Right now you're probably contemplating the big bad thing dwelling in the basement. And right about now is when I would remind you that asking too many questions is punishable by, well, I can't get into the details because of the policy but I assure you it's terrible.
Adrian hasn't come out of the basement yet. It's been… a few hours at least. The owner came up a while ago and when I asked him about Adrian, he looked at me and gave me the classic corporate answer:
"Don't worry about it."
Which I found odd because the restaurant isn't a chain. We shouldn't have corporate slogans.
Either way, I didn't want to be responsible for serving an entire restaurant's worth of patrons every day. I can't afford to quit because I need the money for rent, and I can't afford the stress because I'll probably have a mental break down before too long. Which leaves me with one option: I've got to go down there and find Adrian.
The door to the basement was actually where it was supposed to be for once. I asked The Cook for a knife or something before I went down, but all he gave me was a dirty look and a vial of blue liquid. I guess he wanted me to drink it. I threw it away when he wasn't looking. There's no way I'm eating anything on the menu, and I'll shit the golden egg before I eat anything that isn't on the menu. There's a reason I pack my own lunches.
Downstairs was something straight out a horror movie. I'm talking all the stereotypes; dark, dank, spider webs all over the place, smells like shit, you already know. It was warm down there though. Like, abnormally warm. Especially because the owner keeps the thermostat so damn low all the time. It was like walking into a sauna, except much, much dirtier.
The ceiling down there was low. If you weren't careful, you'd bang your head on the lower hanging pipes or get your hair caught in a spider web. The floor, despite being made entirely of concrete, creaked as you walked across it. The room wasn't much larger than the restaurant by my estimate.
It reeked of mold and old grease, which only got worse because of the heat. There were barrels and old boxes lined up against the walls, labels suspiciously missing. I would have checked what was in them, but I had a feeling that following the policy was the best option here.
Good thing I did too, because I knocked one of the boxes over by accident and a shit load of teeth poured out.
Somehow I feel like Frederick is involved.
I couldn't see Adrian or his body anywhere down here either. Maybe he's stuck in one of the boxes, or maybe he's in a few of them. I didn't know. All I knew was that I couldn't afford to die down here. I can't pay rent if I'm dead, plus ghosts get docked pay. Some kind of living-undead wage gap or some shit.
I heard something scurrying behind some boxes and damn near had a heart attack. Actually, I might have had a heart attack just then. I don't really know what they feel like. I activated the flashlight on my phone and pointed it to where the noise had come from, and a saw some weird thing dart into a crack in the wall. I only caught a glimpse of it, but I could have sworn it had tendrils.
Well, Adrian is almost certainly dead. Whatever the fuck that thing was must have killed him. Which is a pain in the ass for me because now I have to wait until his ghost decides it's time to manifest and haunt the restaurant so I can have a little bit of help. Who knows how long that's gonna take?
At the very least, he can't call out of work if his eternal soul is bound to haunt this place.
I turned around and tried to go back upstairs but something was keeping me down there. Some force tugging on the concepts and thoughts in my mind, pulling my nerves in a way that made it impossible for me to move my legs in that direction.
"Mnphf?!" I said.
I turned around, but there wasn't anything there. Just more cobwebs, darkness, and spiders. Then I started walking. Well, not me, but something highjacked my mind and made me start walking. Whatever that thing was also made me turn off my flashlight. Right about now, panic would have set in but I've learned over the course of my many, many years working here that panicking only makes problems worse.
I tried to look through the darkness to see what was pulling me, but it was, well, dark. I could barely make out some five-fingered creature standing there against the wall. The thing was roughly human-shaped, and I mean that in the loosest way possible. It had two hands, at least. One of them was on my shoulder and guiding me toward that thing on the wall. I could see a toothy grin staring at me through the darkness, the whites of its teeth reflecting off the trace amount of light that was in the basement.
"Hey," I said, "If you let me go, I'll give you a lifetime discount on everything on the menu on your next visit!"
There was no response.
"How about unlimited free refills?"
Nothing.
"What about an endless supply of french fries?"
The force that was driving my legs suddenly stopped. The creature's smile parted as the words leaked out of its mouth. It's breathe was foul, like a crusty sock left to ferment in the back of your closet. I could see a long, slimey tongue moving around inside of its mouth. It stared at me with the same eyes your classmates would if you did something embarassing in school.
I think that was the most disturbing part of this whole ordeal.
"Jumbo size?"
"I- I mean I'll see what I can do. The rules are pretty tight, and the owner is a bit of an assh-"
The creature's smile faded and the force that was playing tug of war with my mind brought me closer to it. I could feel a thousand hands clawing their way up my body, pinching my skin and tugging at my hair. I cringed as I felt the hands pry my mouth open and they started pulling my teeth out. Each tooth came out with a meaty, bloody chunk attached to it. If I could have screamed then, I would have, but there was too much blood collecting in my throat.
I don't remember what happened after that. I think I blacked out from the blood loss or shock or something. I woke up in the bathroom, all my teeth still missing. I saw Fredrick poking my cheek. I guess that's the only way you can really check on someone if you're just a disembodied hand. I would have asked him how I ended up there, but without vocal cords, I doubt he would have been able to answer me.
After I got up, I heard someone else enter the bathroom. I turned around and tried to hide the fact that I had just lost all of my teeth to a demon.
"Oh, hey Alan," Adrian Nelson said, "You look like shit. What happened?"
Now, I'd love to tell you what happened next but I've already given way too many details and I don't need the owner getting into a fit. Quick summary: Adrian got his lights punched out, my teeth grew back, we clocked out and agreed to not go back into the basement unless it was an emergency. I wish I could tell you more, but like I said, I really need this job. At least now I won't have to work alone.
And on the off chance you meet Adrian Nelson anywhere on the street, just remember that he's a liar. No one ever comes out of that basement. No one except the owner.