I retreat to the opposite corner of my tank, pull my legs up to cover my eyes. A. friend stands before Itsy’s tank, watching her molt again as she records a video, speaking her callous observations aloud, as if Itsy can’t understand her. I observe the way A. friend presses her hand to the glass when she’s excited by the unexpected. A. friend enters the lab and moves toward Itsy’s tank. Meza is the author of Our Love Will Devour Us and writes speculative fiction from a not-haunted Victorian house on the coast of Northern California.