Jess examined the bowl of white something or other and looked up at her friend.
“So, what do you think of it?” Heather asked.
“I mean…” Jess said and then bit her lower lip. “It is by far the most unique piece of food I have ever had.”
“Oh, just try it,” Heather said, “It’s not like I poisoned it.”
“That’s an oddly specific thing, there,” Jess said, but picked up her spoon, and held it over the bowl of the squirming creatures. They were white, and mostly motionless, unless she made moves toward them.
“Not really,” Heather said, her voice tinged with laughter. “It’s not like I said, ‘I did not use arsenic’, or ‘nightshade’, or ‘salted it with the spleen of a bear’.”
“Okay, that last one is worrying,” Jess said, smiling a little. “But, are you sure I can eat this? I don’t want to…you know, die…or something. What if I am allergic?”
Heather snorted. “Just eat it.”
“Fine,” Jess replied and plunged the spoon into the pool of the creatures. Something in her stomach squirmed at the sight of them curling on the utensil, but with her eyes closed, she put them into her mouth and chewed.
“Ugh…” she said, mostly as a reflex. She made no further sounds for a while. After a long silence of chewing, she licked at her teeth. “That…tasted like nothing. What the heck?”
Heather laughed and reached into the bowl to pick up one with her fingers. She let the creature writhe around her knuckles before gulping it down into the depths of her stomach.
“I know, weird, right? And not any calories either.”
Jess stared at them again, arching up an eyebrow. She shook her head back and forth for a moment. “You ever wonder, when you come across stuff like that, if we all live in a computer, or something, and these odd outliers are just that: glitches and bugs?”
Heather reached out and chewed up another. After swallowing, she shrugged. “It’s not something I worry about.”
Jess considered this and ate another—getting used to the action. Getting used to the, almost delightful in its own way, lack of taste.
“Okay, but do you even think of it sometimes just for fun?” Jess asked, the concept still not fully out of her head.
“I think about a lot of stuff for fun, but, not that. Oh, by the way—”
And it was here that Heather’s face changed, moving to a new, or rather old, facial pattern. “What do you think of it?”
“Of what?” Jess said, suddenly confused—even as the situation dawned on her in horrible slow-motion.
“Oh, just try it,” Heather said, “It’s not like I poisoned it.”
Jess frowned and wondered to herself if Heather having put hallucinogens into the food was more likely than the alternative.
—
Coolerbs Writes 