027 - presently

It would have been a pretty delicious drink, if it weren't for the dead fish in it. And to make matters worse, there was that weird living creature they had also added.

"Why did they add that?" The boy wondered to himself. The drink tasted good, but he could taste the faintest tinge of dead fish in every sip. And that living creature.

"What is it, anyway?" It was something like a small dinosaur, but even if it were possible that it was somehow a living representation of a type of animal that had been extinct for millions of years, it didn't look like any dinosaur he had ever seen.

"And what kind of dinosaur could live purely in a drink, anyway?" He poked the plastic cup as he watched the little beast swim around. "It can't be sanitary, at the very least, that creature must be doing its...business...in the drink, and then I'm drinking it. This is so gross."

He continued to walk down the street, sipping at his dead fish and living creature drink. "Why would the proprietors of a drink stand even possess the ability to put some rare or previously extinct creature in their drinks?"

He paused mid-step. "And why were they laughing the whole time?" He was so full of questions.

The tram pulled up to its stop and the boy got on. He took a seat, and was astonished that no one seemed to notice he was drinking a bizarre concoction that included a dinosaur-like animal swimming around. Another sip, he couldn't stop sipping.

"Even worse, what am I supposed to do with this little guy after I finish the drink? That's a terrible responsibility, I can't just throw it away or he will probably die, but now I have to keep it as a pet? Who knows how long it will live for?" He sighed. "I guess I'll have to take care of it."

He thought that sometimes a conscience was a terrible thing to have. Suddenly, the beast in his cup began to grow larger. In fact, it quickly outgrew the size of the cup, and soon the plastic cup bursted open, spilling what was left of the drink (and the dead fish) onto the boy's lap. Now he had a weird dinosaur-like thing sitting on his lap, looking at him. It was roughly the size of a small dog.

"Great, how big is it going to get?" the boy wondered to himself, yet again. "That drink sure was a terrible choice."

The creature bit him on the shoulder.