Chet swiftly abandoned Walker as soon as they arrived at Egor’s shop. He suspected that Chet still held something of a grudge toward him. Walker wasn’t surprised, so did he.

The plastic bag that he clutched in his bag had long gone cold and sloshed slightly as he made himself comfortable on the front steps. Inside sat globs of what Walker could only guess was part of an organ. Bloody discharge seeped out of two ping-pong ball-sized chunks of tissue. Like fine hair, capillaries poked out of the pus. Oddly enough, when he threw it into the bag it smelled relatively sweet, like maple syrup.

He poked one through the plastic expecting it to squish beneath his finger. Instead, it shuddered.

He let go and it fell to the wooden step and bounced before settling near his feet. He eyed the thing. It rhythmically expanded and contracted.

He rubbed his face, “I’m tripping balls. This can’t be happening.”

Walker avoided providing it any more stimulation and re-texted Egor and twenty-two shivering minutes later, he arrived.

“Just the man I was looking for,” Egor exclaimed, however, his face didn’t match his enthusiasm. Dark bags hung under his eyes, and his cheeks dropped over the corner of his lips.

While Egor ushered him inside the lab Walker caught him eying the contents of the plastic bag.

“Have something of value for me, or did you interrupt my work for nonsense?” Egor asked, his previous polite tone replaced with harsh condescension.

Walker dropped the bag onto the central lab table with a plunk, “Almost an hour ago this thing came out of me. For the last few days, I’m either coughing, dizzy, or not breathing. My cheeks, tongue, and throat feel like pulverized beef. Tell me what to do.” His voice was calm, like the computer reading the heart rate of a dead man. His steady timbre didn’t derive from anger nor a sense of fear but from emotional drainage.

Walker didn’t have it in him to inflect the proper tone inflections.

Egor stared at the contents of the bag then returned his gaze to Walker, “Your little friend, Chet, wasn’t he supposed to join you?”

Walker frowned, “What?”

Egor tapped his white coat pocket, “You indicated in your text that you could barely move. I inferred that someone helped you here and since it was either the girl or the boy I went with the boy as you don’t seem to have the proclivity to ask a woman for help.”

“He left.”

Egor shrugged then pulled out a backless stool from under the table and examined Walker’s biological expulsion.

Egor pulled out surgical gloves from his coat compartment, “Mmm, fascinating.”

Walker clutched his stomach and pulled up a stool beside him. It didn’t feel particularly fascinating to him.

“So, what’s-”

Egor shushed him.

Pursing his lips, Walker steadily spun in the stool and examined the walls. He wasn’t keen on staring at whatever horror came out of his body now that he was settling down.

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

“I have varied news,” announced Egor who had stood up, rounded a cabinet, and unlatched a refrigerator container.

Walker peered over the countertop, “Good or bad?”

Egor returned with a silver briefcase with the chemical health hazard symbol engraved over the top, “Depends on one’s perspective.” He picked up the bag with tongs, “mind if I dispose of this?”

“I guess.”

Satisfied, Egor unclasped the briefcase and retrieved a cylindrical glass vial about the size of a measuring cup with a steel top and bottom. He slid the contents of the bag into the unscrewed vial, placed it back into the briefcase, and locked it back in the refrigerator. Egor slipped off his gloves and disposed of them as well.

“I’m losing my patience,” Walker said.

Egor clasped his hands together like an excited schoolgirl, “Those were tumors.”

Walker gaped, “Tumors.”

“Yes. Exciting isn’t it.”

Walker shook his head, “No it's not exciting it's fucking terrifying. Cancer?” He jumped off the stool, and his head spun.

“No, I believe they are benign. Non-cancerous, I think you may be on the precipice for something truly biologically extraordinary. If I could just take a couple more blood tests…”

“No. No more tests. Tell me what’s going on.” Walker’s neck flexed involuntarily.

Egor rested his hands into his coat pockets, “Okay, no problem. Some contexts. Solid tumors usually fall into two categories. Malignant and cancerous.”

“Cancer invades, malignant stays,” Walker finished.

Egor chuckled, “Common knowledge. Easy. But tumors have different aspects. Some tumor development resembles developing organ processes. Others? Tissue remodeling. I’m nowhere near an oncologist’s expertise in cancer but what I do know…” Egor poked Walker’s chest, “Is anatomy.”

“Stardust,” Walker said.

Egor nodded, “Yes. I believe that those-” he pointed at the refrigerator where the tumors resided, “are the failed organs your body attempted to create to distill and filter the poison still circulating your body.”

“If those are failed versions then can I assume that there are successful versions?” The question was senseless, he knew the answer.

“Seems logical. Especially since you’re not the one in that refrigerator right now,” Egor replied.

Walker hopped out of the chair and paced around the room, “But, how? Stardust can’t change biology. They’re rocks. Inorganic.” His tongue raced to keep up with his mind, “I’ve been reading about them, there are no experiments that show stardust can create biological change. What type would it even be? Nuclear?”

“Good guess. If it was nuclear, you would have spontaneously combusted or leaked enough radiation to give everyone in the neighborhood cancer and hideous children,” Egor said.

Walker paused, “What?”

“Genomic disorder joke, ignore me.”

He thought about it some more, “So chemical energy then. Others don’t make sense.”

“Easy enough connection to make,” Egor chided. “But you’re right. The Stardust that the moss catalyzed from was of the chemical variety.” He whipped out his phone and sent a few texts before continuing.

“Have you ever heard of the Miller-Urey Experiment?”

“Vaguely,” Walker responded.

Egor scoffed, “The Miller-Urey Experiment was a chemical experiment in the mid-twentieth century. They simulated what they thought a prebiotic Earth’s atmosphere would be at the time: water, methane, ammonia, and diatomic hydrogen,” he counted off his fingers one by one. “Through sealed tubes and vials, he utilized heat, cooling, and most importantly, a spark, to synthesize amino acids.”

“Organic material.”

Egor snapped his fingers, “Exactly! Miller’s sealed vials held over twenty different amino acids, more that naturally occurs in our genome. While it's debated whether those conditions were actually accurate for a prebiotic earth, the fact is that Miller demonstrated that through abiotic conditions life can occur. Is it so far a stretch that Stardust, one of the most mysterious and powerful materials in the known universe, can do something similar?”

Egor’s face contorted, “Bah, those morons. You either accept or reject science, there is no belief.”

Walker thought about this.

Time ticked by as Egor impatiently tapped his foot while Walker formulated what he wanted to say first.

The words came out slowly, like molasses, “You’re telling me one thing, but I feel another. Honestly, even if I am healing, I don’t know how much more…” Walker’s voice cracked, his calmness shattered.

Egor’s harsh voice broke the silence, “Maybe this will ease your qualms. Let me take some blood and tissue and I will tell you exactly about what’s changing.”

He stretched out his arm and Egor eagerly retrieved the equipment.