Sam had caught Mark cheating with her best friend on their own couch.
She didn’t yell. She just walked to the bookshelf, opened the old black book her grandmother left her, and spoke the words out loud.
Mark’s body folded in on itself. Clothes dropped to the floor. A pure white hen stood there blinking up at her in pure terror.
Sam picked him up by the legs and carried him to the shed behind the house. She locked him in a small wire coop with a nesting box.
That first night he threw himself against the wire until his claws bled. By morning there was a warm egg waiting. Sam boiled it and ate it while staring at him.
“You wanted to fuck other women,” she told him. “Now you get to be one.”
Days passed. Mark kept laying. Sam collected the eggs every morning. Sometimes she cooked them. Sometimes she crushed them under her heel right in front of the coop so he could watch the yolk run into the dirt.
His parents called almost every day.
Sam answered with a worried voice.
“No, I haven’t heard from him… I’m so scared… Yes, I’ll call the second he shows up.”
Missing posters went up. Search parties walked the woods. Mark’s mother posted crying videos online begging for any news.
Inside the shed the white hen grew quieter. He still laid, but the frantic scratching stopped. Sometimes Sam would open the door, grab him by both legs, and hold him upside down while she talked.
“Your mom cried again today. Your dad thinks you’re dead in a ditch. Isn’t that sweet? They’re still looking for you.”
After two months the novelty wore off. The eggs were smaller. The chicken looked dull and broken.
Sam stood in the doorway one afternoon and decided she was done.
She reached in, grabbed him the way she always did, and carried him to the old chopping block. One clean swing. The body kicked twice and went still.
That night she plucked him herself, roasted the meat with garlic and rosemary, and ate every single bite while scrolling through the missing-person page his mother still updated every evening.
The next morning she swept the shed clean.
Nothing left but a few feathers and the smell of blood in the dirt.