There was screaming, but the wails sounded distant and disconnected to the reality of his immediate situation.
His lobster's body acted autonomously, thin walking legs scrabbling futilely against the stainless steel walls of the pot while Dan had a couple of truly sickening moments to fully process the destructive capacity of water brought to the boiling point on a crustacean body. Blood and viscera cooked quickest, turning to a superheated, clotted paste while fried nerves and ganglia overloaded and short-circuited, the shutdown escalating in a unstoppable cascade once it got started. The most visible manifestation of 20 minutes in boiling salty water was the state of his shell, which changed from a mottled look of dull blues, grays, and greens to a vibrant cherry red.
By the time the tongs manipulated by the chef removed Dan from the water and placed him on a serving platter, Dan existed as a delicate patina of consciousness without the ability to affect any sort of reaction since all actions other than a sort of fascinated observer were denied him.
A waiter whisked Dan, the platter, lobster-cracking implements, and a ramekin of melted butter off to the customer.
Dan's nightmare continued when he managed through some fucked-up ultra-sense to "see" his smiling father, looking rather hungry and eager, as he picked up the lobster implements and deployed them with a gourmand's skill. A wail of "No, dad, no!" barely vibrated the molecules drifting in the air between the table and Dan's parent.
Kat arrived early for her party and walked right to the restaurant's lobster tank. After a couple of inquisitive taps on the glass failed to get a response from any of the captive crustaceans, she did a quick count. "Uh-oh. There are fewer lobsters in..."
"Kat!" Her dad had noticed her and waved to her. She made her way dutifully to his side but stopped suddenly, aghast, at the scene of a shattered shell on a wide serving platter and ramekin now empty of all but a smear of congealing butter.
"Dad!" Kat squeaked. "Did you have lobster?"
"I certainly did," he answered, forking up another bite. Before he enjoyed the morsel, he paused. "Want a bite?"
Kat went a bit more pale than her usual complexion. The little freak-o had actually...
"It's really good," her father tempted her.
Although she felt somewhat ashamed, Kat bent over the table and took the bite from her dad's fork. It was, she decided, delicious.
She took a little pride in becoming part of her sicko sibling's ultimate fantasy.
For her parents, however, she concocted a tale that Dan had found the calling of wild lobsterdom too powerful to resist. "There was a lady lobster," she shamelessly invented, figuring Dan would have gotten a kick out of going out with a score. Her parents got to hold on to the hope that the day might come when Dan would grow tired of life under the sea and return to his human family once again.