Big Science

They'd been dating for 6 months when Jordan finally agreed to let Steve see his place of work, an nameless, nondescript lab in the middle of the city. The walls of the room where Jordan worked in were lined with small plastic bins, each containing one or two lab mice. Only the silhouettes of the mice were discernible through the semi-opaque bins. Some were scurrying about and some were sleeping. The couple walked across the entire wall, Jordan stopping a few times to tell Steve the nicknames he'd given some of the mice. Steve had loved animals since he was a child and he admired  Jordan for expressing compassion for these animals, almost like he was telling him about his pets.

The final bin at the opposite corner of the room from where they started was peculiar though. You couldn't see the inside of it at all. It appeared to be a different kind of plastic from the rest. When steve asked about this bin Jordan didn't have an answer. It didn't look like that this morning, he said. Suddenly Jordan's eyes grew wide as he stepped back from the bin. "Oh my god" he said before placing his hands on Steves shoulders, gripping tightly and slightly shaking him. "Stay here for a second, I need to go tell someone about this!" Jordan darted out of the room leaving Steven with the wall of mice and the mysterious opaque bin. He couldn't tell if Jordan was excited or frightened by whatever realization he had just come to.

Steve moved closer to the bin and saw white fur poking out of the top. In fact, fur was jutting out all of the edges of the bin. It quickly dawned on him what was going on as quickly as it had hit Jordan; the bin wasn't a different kind of plastic, it was actually just completely filled to the top with something. Steve audibly gasped and the shapeless mass writhed around inside. "Is that a whole mouse?! Is it ok!?" he asked himself. "Can it breathe!?" As quickly as he ran over and tried to release the animal from the tight confines, a huge, muscular mouse arm flung out of the bin and slashed his left hand. Taken aback by this he roundhouse kicked the bin back shut knowing whatever was in there wouldn't be able to pierce his thick boots.

Steve inspected his hand and was surprised to see so much blood. The red liquid oozing out of him made him dizzy. He looked up at the ceiling feeling very nauseous and lightheaded. Something was wrong. His ears were ringing, his heart was beating the fastest it had ever, and his knees were about to buckle when he suddenly felt a sudden heat came over him. The room was suddenly an oven and he instinctively started removing his clothes to try and cool off. "Where's... Jordan..." was his last thought as he halted removing his pants and surrendered to the heat that began morphing his body as quickly as it had the mouse...