The morning after John Lafferty had excreted the black egg he went into the bathroom to take his shower and in the mirror he saw that he had a massive tattoo of a black bird on his back. He went out of the bathroom to show the tattoo to Laura, who hadn't slept all night and with the added insomnia was not prepared for more bizarre news from her husband. The tattoo that had magically appeared on his back had a dark and menacing quality to it, just like the black egg that he had excreted which now sat atop their chest of drawers in their bedroom on a cushion. Everything that she had ever believed had been shattered in an instant. Her faith, which had informed her decision making her entire life, had been made a mockery of, and now mysterious events were happening within her home one after another and she was without anything to help her make sense of it. She couldn't talk to anybody about what was happening, not without sounding ridiculous, and John was too excited about being proven right for her to communicate any of the concerns she had about what had entered their home. The black egg was pure evil, she could feel it, it didn't portend anything good for them and she wanted it out of their lives entirely. At a loss for what to do, Laura did what she had always done when faced with a situation for which there were no clear answers, she prayed. She knelt down on the floor and prayed to God for him to rid their lives of the evil that had entered it and for John to hurry up and see the evil in their home for what it was.

"Why are you doing that when you know that your words are falling on deaf ears?" John emerged from the bathroom and interrupted her.

"I'm doing it because it's all I can do, because you refuse to see the truth about that egg."

"And that truth would be?"

"That it's evil, it's demonic."

"I know it's evil."

"Then get rid of it!"

"I can't get rid of something that is so closely tied to the goose, don't be insane."

"Listen to me, nothing good is going to come of that thing being in our home, we have to get rid of it."

"Don't worry, it's not going to be in our house any longer, I'm taking it to put it in the vault."

"No, that's not enough, it needs to be out of our lives completely, you need to take it and throw it in the ocean or something."

"It's just an egg, it can't actually do anything."

"Eggs hatch, the malevolence that I am feeling emanating from that thing is going to come out, and then what?"

"This isn't an ordinary egg, if you'd hold it you'd feel that it's not hollow, it's solid, so your fears about something hatching out of it are unfounded."

"Please, John, we have to..."

"Stop," he said to her, so coldly and menacingly that Laura feared he would get violent with her if she didn't obey him.

John had never spoken to her that way before, and she had never seen such a dark and threatening look on his face. The egg already had him under its influence. It was too late, and from what Laura was feeling emanating from the egg its influence over her husband was only going to grow stronger.