Skip watched a woman place an egg on his tray.

     She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

     "Here." Skip shoved a bowl of kloval in front of her. "Take two if you want. Three. Whatever."

     She wore only the thinnest of robes. 

     She smiled and, as she did, she opened her robe in front so that Skip could see her glorious, naked body.

     "Try my lumec egg," she said with a voice as soft and soothing as a babbling brook. "It's better than kloval. It's better than anything."

     "Well, we'll just have to see about that, miss...miss..."

     He reached for the egg she brought.

     "I can't let you do that, Skip," Claudia said. "I need you to live."

     "Yeah. Yeah." Skip picked up what he saw as a purple egg with black, pulsating veins that ran along its surface. It smelled like it was already rotten.

     She was so fucking beautiful, though. If she wanted him to eat the egg, then he most certainly... 

     "Skip! Don't make me jolt you! That is not a gorgeous naked woman standing in front of you right now! That is a sirubus! One bite of that 'egg', and you'll be dead within seconds, after which she'll have ​you for lunch."

     "Oh, I'm sure you're..."

     "Say cloca, Skip."

     "You know, mom used to..."

​     "Humor me. Say cloca."

     "Well, okay, cloca, but..."

     The most beautiful woman Skip had ever seen suddenly transformed into a creature slimy and scaly with half a dozen tentacles wriggling all over the place and with a skull the size of a beach ball, half of which was an open maw of razor sharp teeth. It went to leap at Skip when four security bots rolled in to snatch the creature and drag it out of the cafeteria.

     "We're not in Kansas anymore, Skip," Claudia said. "Remember that."

CONTINUE