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It was disorientating. The feel of his once soft skin turning hard like rock, the ache of his skull where horns now protruded from bone, flesh, and hair. But he figured he could deal with it; he’d dealt with large shifts in the past. When his dad left. When his mom would have nights where she would cry loudly enough that it kept Jim up. When the darklands pushed him to a near-constant state of panic. When Tobes and Claire were angry at his abandonment. Turning into a troll didn’t seem that bad. Right?
Jim didn’t know at first. His body wasn’t his own. His features were no longer those he could recognize; he flinched when he saw himself in the mirror. But he was still Jim. He had to be as much. People called him Jim. Arrrgh, and Blinky, and his mom. They knew he was Jim. So maybe he could be okay. Being a troll was just like puberty. Yeah, just like puberty. Weird puberty. The thought was somewhat comforting.
He was still cooking like he used to. The motions were still there, years of cooking for his mother and Tobes, and unfortunately, Stickler; it left him with enough latent memory that the alterations in his limbs weren’t too challenging. He was happy with the normality. For dinner. It was a weird feeling to be happy to just sit down with his mom and have a meal. It was just a meal. Maybe it would be the last. Maybe this would be the final thing he could cook for her, before Gunmar. Before he. He didn’t want to linger on it for too long. It would be a worse repeat of the letters he wrote when he fought Draal, but this time, the threat felt more severe and final.
Oh well. Why ruin a good home-cooked meal with negative thoughts? He cut a chunk of medium-rare beef off, a good-sized morsel. He already knew it would taste delicious. Pepper, salt, a little garlic, the herbs would twist with the buttery taste of warm beef. His mind knew what his dishes were like. He took the bite, and it was like a screeching crash of two cars. His mind expected one thing while his tongue supplied something foul. It tasted like pus and bile, like the meat had been left out for too long and had started to putrify on the inside. His eyes glanced down and were met with the sight of perfectly fine meat. He could hear his mother’s concern, and he tried to brush it off. Salt. It needed salt. Maybe that would save it. It didn’t.
He held back the gag as his stomach twisted. He smelled the dish. What was it missing? What? He had listened to cooking shows and read the books. He knew what chefs used. Jim knew he knew.
Then he caught a whiff of the fork. Something about it smelled………..Savory? Maybe. His stomach growled, and the want for food strengthened. He took a bite. It tasted so good. The fork. The fork?! Panic ran through Jim as he tried to hide the moment from his mother, excusing himself to the kitchen. It smelled comforting in the kitchen. The spices, the oil, the appliances. He didn’t know what came over him. The wooden spoon, the utensils, and the stupid blender his mother had gifted him on his birthday. It all tasted divine. Then his mother’s shock cut through the moment, and he got defensive. Maybe it was the shame of the moment, the reality of what he was doing. But he snapped.
In the dark of his room, he realized he wasn’t himself. What chef ate his own appliances? Could he even cook like he used to? He couldn’t enjoy the food he once spent so much time mastering. He was good at cooking. Good at making other people happy with his meals, providing for them. His chest hurt when he realized how gargantuan this transformation was. This was him now. He couldn’t ever be a chef again. The one thing he was good at was irrevocably gone forever. Maybe it was stupid to be worrying about the loss of a possible career when the end of the world was right around the corner. But he was a teen, dealing with too much, with too little time to process the loss of his identity. It was all too much.