Ch. 58 | New Beginning 16: Pizza

The room beyond could’ve come straight out of one of those luxury apartment ads I’d occasionally seen on TV’s. Polished marble gleams beneath my boots, covering the entire floor. Thick rugs cover sections of the floor, paintings line the walls, and expensive-looking furniture fills a sitting area large enough to comfortably fit most of my old home inside it. Do all Security officers get to live like this? Now I was genuinely looking forward to seeing where they planned to put me. If my place was even half as nice as this, I’d consider it fucking paradise.

I slowly look around.

“What the hell?” I blurt out, completely blown away by the sight in front of me.

It seems to completely fly past Alysa’s ears as she hurries toward the kitchen counter, where a pizza box sits waiting.

“Ah! There it is,” she exclaims, her face lighting up.

She quickly scoops it up with both hands and carries it over to a low glass table surrounded by several enormous sitting bags.

I follow cautiously after her.

“No way. Don’t tell me this is your room.” I say incredulously as I wave my hands around in the air.

“Sure is,” she replies casually.

I look around again, and the sheer luxury of the place makes my head spin. I already knew Security officers made bank, but I never imagined they would be living in palaces as well

Alysa drops onto one of the bags and practically sinks into it. She then opens the box, and the smell of melted cheese and grease immediately fills the room.

My stomach betrays me with a loud growl.

Alysa looks up at me.

I immediately drop my gaze, hoping she doesn’t notice the heat creeping into my face.

“I’m not even that hungry,” I mumble. “Probably just an upset stomach or something.”

Evidently, my stomach wasn’t very keen on playing along, as just a second later it let out the loudest groan I had ever heard. I swear to God, the traitor is gonna get purposely starved for this.

“Mmm, you eaten yet?” Alysa asks while stuffing another bite of pizza into her mouth.

I didn’t know how to respond without making myself even more embarrassed, especially since I was too scared to even look at her now that I could feel my face burning.

“I kind of did, actually.“ I reply quietly.

She pauses mid-chew and raises an eyebrow, clearly confused by my answer.

“I did run for like half an hour, and then I turned into a giant fucking monster. I didn’t really think about it before, but I guess transforming like that works up more of an appetite than I realized.”

Alysa makes a sound of agreement as she chews a mouthful of pizza, her cheeks puffed so much that she resembled a hamster. She reaches for another slice, then pauses halfway. Her eyes narrow as a grin slowly spreads across her crumb-covered face.

“You wanna race?”

I blink at her.

“Where did that even come from?”

“First one to finish their half wins.” She says as she pushes the pizza box my way.

Without even thinking, I blurt out straight away, “That might be one of the dumbest things anyone has told me today.”

“What’s wrong? Scared you’re gonna lose?” she asks, wiping the crumbs from her face with a smug little grin.

It’s such an obvious attempt to bait me that I almost tell her to go screw herself. Almost.

But after the last two days, plus today's “exercise,” I was left tired, starving, and frankly desperate for something stupid enough to occupy my brain for a while, so against what little better judgment I have left, I reach for a slice.

“Fuck it. You’re on.”

Alysa’s grin widens.

“Three, two—go!”

What follows is one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever willingly participated in. Whatever dignity either of us had disappears by the time we get to the second slice. Within moments, we were shoving pizza into our mouths like starving animals, barely finishing one bite before cramming in the next and reaching for another slice. Alysa nearly chokes twice. I actually choke once. Somehow, neither of us takes this as a sign to slow down.

And somewhere between coughing, swallowing, and watching Alysa nearly inhale a piece of pepperoni, I start laughing. At first it’s just a snort I can’t hold back, but then another slips out, and before I know it I’m laughing so hard that I choke on my food again.

I can’t even remember the last time something this stupid made me laugh like this.

Cheese sticks to Alysa’s cheek, and as I raise my finger to point it out, I notice that they were smeared in oil and sauce. That’s right, my long, black, armored fingers were covered in that all familiar greasy muck.

Wait, what ?

I stare at them for a second before it hits me that I’m still fucking transformed. Somehow, I’d gotten so used to this body that I’d stopped noticing it altogether. The armor, the claws, the extra weight hanging off me—it no longer felt like something foreign wrapped around my body. It just felt like me. Barely an hour ago, I could hardly move without being painfully aware of how alien everything felt. Now I’d just spent the last several minutes stuffing my face with pizza without even realizing there was anything unusual about me at all.

That was... probably not a good sign.

I glance down at my armored hand again.

I really fucking hope this thing isn’t planning on replacing the original body permanently.

“Hey.” I turn toward Alysa, sounding a little more accusatory than I intended. “You didn’t think it was worth mentioning that I was still transformed ?”

“I figured you’d notice eventually.” She says while looking annoyingly amused. I thought the giant armored claws might’ve tipped you off, and you seemed pretty comfortable. Didn’t wanna ruin the moment.’’

Okay, she was really asking for a smack right now. And I would have absolutely smacked her right here, and now had she not been a direct fucking superior of mine. And while I might not have been particularly good at keeping my mouth shut, but hey, at least I knew how to keep my hands to myself.

Unfortunate, as it was, but keeping this job mattered a hell of a lot more than the satisfaction of wiping that grin off her face. I guess that warranted me switching back to my usual tactics, which I made a point to avoid, but before I could think of a sufficiently snarky response—

“I wonsh!”

Alysa throws both arms triumphantly up in the air, still chewing the last mouthful of pizza.

I lean back in the sitting bag, rubbing the middle of my nose.

“Go die in a ditch, you fricking jerk.“ I mutter under my breath.

Alysa swallows down the last of her pizza with visible effort.

“Worth it.” She says as she gulps down a glass of soda.

When I look back into the box, there’s only one slice left. Alysa spots it a second later, and the way her eyes immediately snap toward mine tells me everything I need to know. So naturally, I reach for it first.

“Hey.”

The warning in her voice only makes me hesitate for a moment before I pick up the slice and tear it neatly in half.

Alysa’s mouth drops open. “What the fuck did you do that for?”

I have to fight back a smile as I lift one half toward my mouth. “Do what?”

“You know exactly what!” She points accusingly at the mutilated slice in my hand. “That was the last one!”

I glance at the pile of crusts scattered around her. “You’ve already eaten enough pizza to feed a whole family.”

“So? What does that have to do with anything?” she asks, clearly annoyed.

“So I think you’ll survive without one more slice,” I said, giving her my best unimpressed look.

“That’s not the point!” she shoots back, looking genuinely offended now. “You don’t fuck with the last slice.”

“Hey, you already declared yourself the winner. Don’t start getting all sore loser now just cause you missed a slice,” I say, unable to keep the grin off my face.

“What?! I didn’t miss it. I left that one on purpose!” Alysa shoots back defensively.

“Sure, sure. I believe you,” I say, doing absolutely nothing to hide the smugness in my voice.

“No, you fucking don’t, you liar.“ She says while looking appalled. “It was an offering to pizza gods.“

“A fucking what ?“ Now it was my turn to be appalled.

“The pizza gods. Who else? I keep them happy, they keep the pizza coming. Besides, I don’t even pay for it. I just tell Maya I’m hungry and she brings me some.”

She says it with complete sincerity.

Oh Maya, you poor thing.

I shake my head and hold one of the halves out to her. I certainly wasn’t going to waste perfectly good food on some imaginary deity, and if she didn’t want it, I was perfectly fine finishing it all by myself. She continues glaring at me for another second, as though accepting it would compromise some deeply held principle, before finally snatching it from my hand.

“Fine,” she mutters. “I’ll let it go, but only this once.”

The seriousness in her voice catches me off guard. She really is serious about that whole pizza god thing. If she took her actual job half this seriously, maybe we wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place.

Alysa seems entirely too pleased with herself as she sinks deeper into the sitting bag and takes a huge bite from her half of slice.

“Mhm,” she hums through a mouthful. “Last one always tastes the best.” And then adds. “Just what one would expect from an offering meant for gods.“

At first I was gonna argue, but after seeing the look she gave me, I just shut up and took a bite, and honestly, I couldn’t really disagree with her. Even though they did come from the same box, there was in fact something special about the last slice.

Maybe Alysa was onto something with the whole pizza-god thing.

Jesus Christ.

I swear to the actual God, I could practically feel myself getting stupider just for entertaining that thought for a moment.

A sudden choking sound from Alysa drags me out of my own head.

“Fucking gods,” she sputters between coughs. “Fine! No more pizza for you assholes. You can all choke on maggots for all I care. I’ll just find something else to eat.”

As it turns out, the line between devoted worshipper and blasphemous heretic was exactly one slice of pizza wide.