Jubal was having a worse time than his mother. He was using his phone to do a little research into hybrid transformation, in between distracting stabs of sharp pain in his throat, he belly, his chest , and his thighs.

He’d never been particularly interested in them before, and now that was biting him in the butt. He needed to know what was happening to him. So he searched, and started tapping links and skimming articles, leaving the most promising ones open and tabbing back to the search list as he went, scouring the internet for new information.

Engrossed in what he was reading, Jubal barely noticed the taste of the food he was putting into his mouth. Bacon, eggs, peanut butter sandwiches, toast with butter and jam, it was all a blur of nutrients as he learned about hybrids. Fats, proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals, he swallowed them all and chased them with water (and juice, and milk, and a bottle of vinegar that his mother put down for a minute, open, and that he drained without thinking about it).

Gatherer hybrids had the most painful transformations, suffering from internal changes and feeling searing pain in their abdomens, mouths, and throats. Hunter type hybrids had transformation pains surrounding their backs, and sometimes the tips of their fingers and toes. Guard type hybrids usually had cosmetic changes, painful skin that erupted with armored plates. Since Jubal was experiencing pain in his abdomen and throat, he was probably turning into a gatherer. The pain in his legs was a little bit confusing, though.

Tapping a link to a hybrid’s personal account of what it felt like to change, Jubal took a bite out of whatever he was holding in his off hand. The food slid down his throat and caught on something. It wasn’t uncomfortable, and he didn’t have any trouble breathing or anything, it just… wasn’t going down all the way.

Moving almost on autopilot, he took another bite of what he now recognized as being a head of lettuce. He chewed and swallowed, and the food caught the same way, in what felt like the same place, leaving him with two bites of chewed lettuce just sort of… sitting there, in his throat but not. Under his throat. He was still really hungry, though. He kept eating the lettuce, feeling it build up without going to his stomach, which was starting to feel painfully empty.

Almost impulsively, he flexed his throat – was it still his throat? – around one of the lumps like he was swallowing it a second time, and was rewarded when it slid off to the right and down, then dropped into his growling stomach. Jubal set to tearing into the lettuce head, dropping a chunk of food into his stomach every other bite, trying to draw out his meal. It was surprisingly comfortable to have food waiting to be eaten. Like the safety of having a full refrigerator that he could raid any time he felt hungry, or the feeling he got when he looked into the pantry and saw box after box and can after can of shelf-stable food instead of bare shelves and cobwebs.

When the lettuce was gone, Jubal noticed that his mother had put a large bowl of pea soup in front of him, as well as what looked like a stack of leftovers in sealed containers. He picked up the bowl of soup and drank it in one long go. Then he opened one of the containers, finding a chunk of moldy, blue lasagna. His stomach should have turned, but it didn’t.

Logically, he shouldn’t eat that. On the other hand, he had just read that hybrids were nearly impossible to poison and hardly ever got sick, and it smelled really good. Maybe he should just lick it, and if it tasted as bad as it looked like it should, then he would set it aside and not eat it, simple as that.

It tasted really good. Like, he wanted it, bad, and his tongue was already wrapping around it, but there was no way that was going in his stomach. Also, he was pretty sure his tongue wasn’t supposed to stretch like that, or be blue and purple, or wrap around moldy lasagna and pull it into his mouth, which stretched (he wasn’t sure how) around the lasagna, allowing him to swallow it whole. It landed next to the soup and chunks of lettuce, safe and soundand his.

He had no idea what he needed it for. He didn’t feel any particular urge to drop it into his stomach.

Jubal downed the rest of the leftovers. Yesterday’s beans were great. The elderly spinach that was more fungal fuzz than salad leaf was…also great, but in the different way that made him much more inclined to hold onto it than to digest it. Once he ran out of leftovers, he went back to his phone and typed a question into the search bar: hybrid eats rotten food.

First, he skimmed the results. Then, Jubal slowed down and read more carefully. Words and phrases stood out: “usually doesn’t”, “might, if starving”, and “I didn’t know hybrids could throw up from disgust, but” were among them, though the same summaries also mentioned that it was completely safe (usually), and often tasted as terrible as it did to humans.

He sat up straighter and put the phone down. Then, he picked it up again and opened a word document that he could type in when trying to speak only produced a soft squeaking sound and a high pitched hum from somewhere inside his chest. He typed out I don’t think the internet is going to tell us what kind of hybrid I am. Then, he waited for his mother to come back to the table so he could show it to her.