Molar Mass

Waiting outside the movie theater, Jonas tapped his foot against the ground. He scowled as he watched happy groups walk by. His stomach growled loudly, causing nearby people to look in his direction. Glaring back at them, he wondered where on earth his friend was. It was already 5:30, and they still hadn’t shown up. Just as he resigned himself to watching “Quiero Te Que Mueres” by himself, a voice yelled out his name.

“Jonas! Wait up!” It was the high pitched yell of Pepper. She sidled up next to him and, grinning, squeezed him so hard he could barely breathe. “Sorry I’m late,” she said, “Traffic was awful.” Jonas’ stomach growled once more, and Pepper started giggling.

“Let's just buy our tickets and get in,” Jonas grumbled. After buying their tickets,, the two of them went up to the food counter. Jonas got a large popcorn while Pepper stocked up on more candy than she could eat in a week. As they walked into their theater, they couldn’t help but notice that barely anyone else was there. There were a few other young adults, but it was largely empty. Pepper dragged Jonas off to the very back row. Jonas couldn’t help but groan; they were here for the movie, not to suck each others face off like stupid teens.

“I know what you’re thinking, and I know that you don’t like me like that, Joey. I just don’t wanna be near all those people while I’m afraid! It would be like, totally mortifying.” Pepper was always an arm hugger during scary movies, and while she was confident, her ego was fragile. About an hour into the movie and a tub of popcorn later, Jonas’ stomach whined again. He started stealing pieces of Peppers candy, but she never actually saw him eat it. Curiosity got the better of her, and so she asked him if something was wrong.

“Huh? Uhh, no, of course not. I’m completely fine,” Jonas stuttered out, eyes darting from Peppers suspicious face to the screen and back again. Pepper was chipper, but she wasn’t that dumb. Seeing the candy stuffed into his hoodie pockets, she stuck her hand in and felt something squishy and wet, wriggling around inside the pocket space and lapping up all the candy. To her horror, she realized that it was a giant tongue. She withdrew her hand, wiped it on her jeans, and pulled Jonas out of the theater and into the alley beside it.

“What is that? On your stomach?” Pepper questioned him, but she was getting nowhere.

“Listen, it would be better if we both just went home and pretended this never happened.”

“No! Show me what it is right now, or I’ll tell all your friends about your secret love for romcoms.” Grimacing, Jonas gave in while noting that the light hearted threat didn't fit the situation. He unzipped his hoodie, showing that the shirt he wore under it, along with the hoodie itself, had a hole cut in the stomach area. This was evidently because of the gaping mouth on his stomach, hungry and begging for food in guttural, inhuman sounds. It had enormous teeth, about the size of an phone. Pepper felt sick when she realized that every time his stomach growled so loudly, it was actually this horrific abnormality demanding food.

“It’s so…” Pepper started off, while Jonas dreaded her reaction, “...cool!”

“Wait, what?”

“It is kinda gross, but it's pretty interesting. Can I feed it some candy?” Jonas was perplexed, but he nodded. Pepper offered it a couple gummies that the tongue greedily took, and left her hand in for it to lick until Jonas forcibly pulled it out.

“I appreciate that you’re not screaming, but that’s an easy way to lose some fingers. Trust me, it’s happened before.” Pepper snatched her hand out of his grasp, and she continued to feed it, albeit more cautiously. For the first time in a while, Jonas's stomach felt satisfied. It made an odd purring noise and kept trying to lick Pepper’s hands, but she held them safely out of the way. Jonas started to smile, but caught himself when he realized that she was so close to him. He let out an embarrassed huff and asked her to stand back. Zipping his jacket back up, he led Pepper out of the alley. Upon exiting the alley, they got many odd looks. Dirty minds make popular rumors, after all.

“Were you born like this?” Pepper asked, eyes shimmering with curiosity.

“Yeah, but I don’t know why. Mutation, I guess?” She badgered him with every question under the sun, including “Does it have a favorite food?” and “Do you have to put chapstick on it?” For the record, it loved licorice whips and he hadn’t thought to apply chapstick, though it does occasionally whine from discomfort. Pepper was joyfully talking to him as they walked to her car, until she bumped into someone. A specific and very unwelcome someone.

“Hey babe, what are you doing with this loser? You’d have a way better time with me…”

“No, what are you doing here? You know I don’t want anything to do with you, Castor.” The usually calm Pepper was suddenly prickly, giving her best death glare from behind pink glasses. The taller figure didn’t take her seriously, and leaned in closer to her.

“Hey man, back off. She doesn’t want you here.” Jonas said, defensively. He didn’t know this Castor fellow, but it was obvious that he didn’t take no for an answer. Castor paid no heed to him, so Jonas did the only thing guaranteed to make Castor run for the hills. He slowly creeped up beside him, unzipped his jacket, and let his stomach mouth clamp onto Castor’s left hand. Hard enough to hurt slightly, but not hard enough to leave lasting damage.

“W-what’s going on? Get off of me, you freak!” Castor was panicking and making it worse. Eventually, Jonas’s extra mouth released it’s hold. Castor backed up slowly, then turned around and burst into a breakneck run.

“I could’ve handled it myself,” Pepper grumbled.

“I know, but now he’ll never come near me again. I’m your jerk repellant.” Pepper started to giggle again, losing her foul mood.

“Oh, Jonas, you have something in your teeth.” Jonas took out his phone and checked his mouth in the camera, but didn’t see anything. “No,” Pepper said, laughing, “your other mouth.” Checking his larger orifice, Jonas gulped when he realized just what was stuck between the massive teeth; a fingernail.

“Oops.”