Carly endured his spiel, intrigued by it bizarre quality and the chaos which made his words a mad tangent. As a whole, it made sense, but she tried to trick herself into going in circles around his speech, desperate to find no similarity whatsoever. She wanted to be as dissimilar to him as possible. So far, though, she was losing.

Her nose scrunched unhappily when he offered her the fork. Reluctantly, she grabbed it, and she took a slow half-step up to the skillet where the egg rested. As Tzich found vacation at the window sill, she analyzed the delirious concoction below. It was gruesomely discolored, and the stench made her wretch. She took his advice, went quiet, and looked at the disturbed egg.

“It’s big,” she nearly mumbled, eyes still screwed onto the thing with gross interest, “the mess of colors. I can smell sections and then a blend. Like a puzzle. I can put them together and take it apart.”

She could taste it without putting it on her tongue. Momentarily, she didn’t find the flavor awful, but compelling, because she could taste individual sects—fish on one side, onion in its own enclave, a smattering of pepper. She could feel where the potential in the egg had once been, but then had failed. In a daze, she took a small bite of the egg and put it in her mouth.

And then humanity crashed down on her.

Immediately, her eyes widened and she seized up, then she dove to the sink. She spit out everything and felt her stomach tighten and convulse, and she took handfuls of water and gulped it down. She tried to scrape her tongue clean with a napkin, but it was to no avail.

“Fuck,” she growled, “that was horrible. What’s wrong with you? Are you trying to poison me?”