Marie only had a few precious seconds before the other Marie returned, so she plucked a vial from the box without reading its label. Quickly, she poured a good amount into the plate of food, thankful that the liquid was clear and tasteless. She replaced it in the box just as her duplicate walked back into the room.
"Hey, why don't we try some more of these vials first?" she asked her double in order to cover up the reason she was standing in front of the box.
"We split up so we could eat, remember? We can play with them later." She hopped up on the chair, grabbed a fork and started eating. The Marie near the vials slowly walked to the kitchen and got another fork from the drawer, eyeing her double closely for changes.
A few seconds later, the Marie at the table put down her fork. "I feel funny," she said, clutching her belly. As her body began to widen, she looked at the other Marie. "You put something in this, didn't you?"
Suddenly feeling guilty for her selfishness, the other Marie shifted a foot around and looked at the floor. "Maybe," she mumbled.
"I am SO telling when Mommy gets home," she said before breaking into a fit of moans. As the other Marie watched, she felt a chill run down her spine. The way she was dividing...it looked just like how she had split in two the other times before! Had she accidentally thrown in, against one-thousand-to-one odds, the female human vial?!
With the splitting complete, both new Maries couldn't fit on the chair and fell off either side. They hit the floor with an echoed "OOF!" and rubbed their bottoms. Then they eyed the other Marie with a nasty glare.
"Uh oh," she gulped. She quickly turned and ran out of the kitchen. The other two pursued until they got to the bedroom, where the first Marie slammed the door shut and locked it.
The newly-doubled Maries banged on the door, then looked at each other. Because their minds were still fresh from the split, they operated relatively in-synch. They understood what they needed to do without speaking a word, marching to the kitchen and continuing to eat their meal.
Now FOUR Maries were pounding on the bedroom door, hoping to break it down. "This isn't getting us anywhere!" one of them said in frustration.
"I know," said another one. "We've got to think of something else!"