Arriving home, Marcus called out, "Mom, I'm home," and then waited a couple minutes, but breathed a sigh of relief when it became apparent that neither his mother nor his father was home at the present.
Heading into the kitchen, feeling hungrier than when he had left the mall, he made a beeline straight for the fridge. On the write-on/wipe-off board magnetised to the front of the appliance he found a note from his mother telling him that she was working late, again, and that his father was out of town for a business meeting. Ignoring the note, Marcus opened the fridge side and began to browse the contents.
As he pulled open the meat drawer and started to scarf down the five packages of sandwich meat, he thought about the amulet and how it might have given him what he wanted, just not in the way he thought it would have. Grabbing the package of bacon and ripping it open with his teeth, he asked himself, "Are the transformations always slow," but found himself drawing a blank as he reached for the five pounds of raw hamburger.
Eating the hamburger in three quick bites, Marcus didn't give a single thought as to what he was eating as he dropped the package of bacon to the floor, along with a container of sandwich meat he had ripped apart with his teeth, and then turned his attention to freezer half of the side-by-side refrigeration unit.
As he pulled open the door to the freezer, he thought, "So hungry," he gazed into the misty depths and after a moment, pulling out a ten-pound page of frozen chicken and a whole, frozen turkey.
Dropping both to the floor with a loud "THUNK" he paused for a moment, trying to come to terms with what he was doing and what it was he had just eaten. But then he smelled the processed meat that was lying in the sandwich container and dropping to all fours, he reached out in a greedy manner and pulled the bologna toward him. As he did so, he slurped up a couple slices of the back like a couple pieces of spaghetti, his hungry for raw meat over ruling his senses.
Half an hour later, sated, thinking about how the only thing of his meal that had given him trouble was the wrapping of the frozen turkey, he looked at the chicken and turkey bones lying on the floor and after a moment, burped richly.
Gathering up the remains, he dropped them into the trash bin and for a couple seconds just stood and stared into the garbage pail. After a moment, he thought, "With all that I've just eaten, you would think that I would look a little fatter," as he found himself confused by the fact that, if nothing else, he appeared to be skinnier then when he had started to gorge himself.
Heading for his parent's bathroom, he stepped on the scale inside and gasped when the digital readout only went as high as eighty pounds.
"But," he thought. "I should weigh something like a hundred and fifty three pounds," as he thought about the last time he had weighed himself. "If not that, then certainly more," he amended to himself as he stepped off of the digital scale and gazed into the mirror above the sink.
After staring into the reflective device for a couple seconds, Marcus reached for the small, hand-held mirror his parents used for their personal facial grooming. Holding it up and behind him, he shifted it about until he could see the back of his head, thereby seeing the two growths that had grown in place and what were clearly a set of both horns and a set of ears. But then, something else caught his attention and setting down the hand-held mirror, Marcus gazed into the main mirror.
After a moment of searching for what was wrong with his reflection, he absently traced the image that was on the Amulet of Zulo and, turning sideways, he thought that what was off was that his clothes appeared to be baggier then when he had put them on this morning.
Removing the medallion from around his neck, he asked himself, "Is this part of the transformation? Losing weight instead of gaining it?" and setting the amulet down on the sink, he thought, "What sort of dragon am I turning into?" as he approached the scale, deciding that maybe it had more to do with age and less to do with the species of the mythical creature he was becoming.
"I mean," Marcus reasoned. "I am only a teenage. So it stands to reason that I would become like a juvenile or a youngling dragon," as he stepped onto the scale.
Again, he weight shot up to eighty pounds, but then the digital readout started to drop before finally settling at seventy-three point five pounds. Stepping off the scale, Marcus gazed into the mirror and wondering how small he was going to be. Stepping away from the sink, he suddenly felt his pants slip and grabbing them before they could drop down round his ankles, he asked himself, "Do I really need pants anyway? Especially if I am turning into a dragon?"
Finding himself unable to answer such a question, he trudged out of the bathroom and heading back to the kitchen, he sat down at the dining room table and absently began to tap his finger on the table.