Don't Drink The Gene Juice

1

Seth followed his two friends into the darkening woods.  The cold February air bit at his face, as he tried to hide the rest of his body in his thick jacket.

Despite being late winter, the looming shadows of the pine trees gave a Halloween, horror movie vibe to the world around them.

Made sense, considering what they were about to do was monstrous.

"Gosh, did we really have to do this in February Skyler?" Wyatt asked, shoving his hands firmly into his coat. "Couldn't we have waited until everything thawed?"

"Oh it'll be alright," Skylar said. "We're gonna be warming up soon. Besides, it's my birthday, and it seemed like a fun way to celebrate."

"Well let's get going with this," Seth said. "My balls are freezing off."

Their boots crunched against the frosted dead leaves of the forest floor, and eventually, they came to their usual hangout spot in the forest.

It looked really eerie, looking nothing like it did in the Summer. The firepit had a trace amount of snow covering it. Anything that wasn't covered in snow was covered in dead leaves.

"Well," Wyatt said sarcastically, "I don't know about you, but this seems like a great way to celebrate a birthday."

"Well if you were to just give me access to your bank account," Skylar said, "I'd happily change my mind and we could go play basketball on the Moon instead."

"C'mon you two," Seth shivered, "Let's get this started so that we can hopefully start warming up."

"Agreed," Skylar said with a devious grin.

They all dug in their pockets, pulling out similar looking dark colored bottles, with a discernable liquid inside.

"Well," Skylar said, "bottoms up."

He went to unscrew the cap, but anticlimactically, they all had a hard time doing so, with their freezing fingers and all. It was also hard cause' the light was dim, and it was hard to see how to undo the protective cap.

"Got it," Wyatt said.

They got their caps off, and hesitated a moment.

This is safe, Seth reassured himself. We did our research. Everything will be alright.

He downed the contents of the bottle, and very nearly spit it back up.

"Augh!" he grunted, sticking his tongue out in disgust.

Wyatt made a similar reaction. Skylar tried to hide his own sickening feeling to look tougher, but it was still very apparent.

"I wonder if they have a different flavor depending on what you picked," Wyatt said.

"Maybe I should've chosen to become a sentient cheesecake," Seth said. The mere action of talking was making him feel sick.

Even though the logs around the firepit didn't look dry at all, Seth and his friends felt compelled by their bodies to sit down.

Wyatt groaned, and clutched his stomach. "I thought fun things you weren't supposed to have made you feel good first, and then bad later."

Skylar was about to crack some joke, and then suddenly looked really naseous.

"Don't puke on us now," Seth struggled to smile.

Skylar looked like he got close a couple of times, but never blew chunks.

After several minutes, Seth thankfully felt the nausea subside.

"Okay," Skylar admitted it, "that was awful. But I hear the first time is the worst."