Omen in a Cookie

Fortune Cookies can foretell scary things.

Prize Prompt: The thing you’d find most ominous if it were inside a fortune cookie.
Line Count: 24
Word Count: 161

A crisp shell breaks with gentle snap,
Steam from lo mein still clouds your lap.
Among sweet crumbs and candied glaze,
A slender slip begins to raise.

No lucky numbers here to find,
No prophecy of hearts aligned.
Just one short line in ink so black;
"Beware the blade that brings you back."

You laugh it off; how quaint, how sly,
A fortune made to mystify.
Until you spot it, cold and slight:
A miniature scythe, gleaming white.

Tucked where no charm should ever be,
A curve of death in porcelain tea.
No paper crane or koi in flight,
Just harvest steel in candlelight.

What baker hides such cursed sign?
What ancient chef crosses the line
To stir the past, or twist the thread
Between the dining and the dead?

So sip your soup, but mind the door.
The scythe is near. It asks for more.
And those who break the cookie's seal
May find their next course far too real.

Written for "PromptMaster !"