It felt like she had a hangover. A dull sting resonated in the cavities of her skull and her body was sore. Everything was too bright, the leather blinds pulled up high on her windows, and something was burning. She couldn’t tell whether or not the ache in her stomach was hunger pains or sickness, but the overdone smell had filled her room up to the ceiling and made her nausea do somersaults. Groggily, she sat up, slumped over the edge of the bed for a minute, and got up. She pulled on a previously worn turquoise v-neck and didn’t opt for pants.

Last night’s events weren’t at the forefront of her mind, but they hadn’t been forgotten. They nestled tight behind her eyeballs, biting, but not necessarily bringing anything to the surface. 

Walking down the stairs all bruised up wasn’t an easy job, what with her awkward and stiff gait, but she grabbed onto the recently polished wooden railings and made her way down. When she hit the small square of tile at the bottom, the odor forced itself up her nostrils, and she frowned, confused.

“Mom?” she called out skeptically. Her mother never burned anything—and on the rare occasion in which she did, it smelled a hell of a lot spicier. This wasn’t necessarily a bland smell, but it wasn’t her mother’s. She found herself analyzing the stink like an array of colors, almost primitively, and once she caught herself she bit her tongue and pushed it off.

In the kitchen, Tzich stood—most things splattered across the counter, and a murder of incongruous ingredients spilt across the stove and floor in front of it. Her eyebrows narrowed and an outburst brewed on the horizon of her expression.

“I told you to get lost!” she crowed. “What did you do to my kitchen? Christ, what are you making?”

Whatever it was, it cackled and hissed at her, and she groaned dramatically at it.