Steal My Protein Powder Enjoy the Pig Formula!

After my roommate secretly drank the protein powder I kept in our dorm,

her weight shot up from 100 pounds to 135 pounds in just a single month.

She literally cried and accused me of poisoning her.

What the hell did you put in here? Are you trying to kill me?!

I let out a cold laugh. When you were busy stealing it, why didn't you bother asking what it actually was?

What she didn't know was that it wasn't protein powder. It was a rapid fattening formula I had custom-mixed for my lab pigs.

Harper Vance stood by my desk, clutching the empty plastic tub in her hands, tears streaming down her face.

"Chloe Miller! Did you put something in this powder?!"

She had visibly bloated.

Her once-sharp jawline was now completely round, her collarbones had vanished under layers of puffiness, and the rolls around her waist practically spilled out of her pajamas like rising dough.

I closed my lab notebook, slowly looking up at her.

"Who told you to steal my powder? Did I force it down your throat?"

"So you admit it! You did put something in there! You wanted to ruin me!"

Her voice pitched into a shrill shriek. "Youre an Animal Science majoryou spend all day with farm animals! What kind of sick chemical did you mix into this? I gained thirty-five pounds in a month! Thirty-five pounds!"

She slammed the empty tub onto my desk.

I didn't even flinch.

"Ill ask you again. Who told you to touch my stuff?"

Harper choked on her words, her face turning a furious, blotchy red.

Our other roommate, Maya Brooks, poked her head out from her bed, took one look at the drama, and quickly pulled her curtains shut.

Someone walked past our door in the hallway, their footsteps pausing briefly before hurrying away.

Harpers voice suddenly dropped, her eyes darting around nervously. "II just thought it was regular organic protein powder. You left it sitting there and weren't using it, so whats the big deal if I had some? Roommates are supposed to share. Why do you have to be so incredibly petty?"

I stared at her.

"Share."

She sure loved using that word.

Last semester, she ate a whole pint of organic strawberries I left in the shared fridge, claiming she "didn't want them to go to waste."

She took handfuls of my expensive imported vitamins every single day, claiming she just "needed some extra nutrients."

She even wore my limited-edition designer hoodie to a frat party and brought it back reeking of cheap beer and weed. When I asked why she didn't ask for permission first, she scoffed and said, "Its just a hoodie, Chloe. Youre not gonna die."

Every single time, she called it "sharing."

Every single time, she took it for granted.

When we first moved in, I thought she just had a few boundary issues. Everyone has flaws, right?

Back then, I was naive. I figured we had to live together in this suite for a couple of years, so there was no point in making things tense.

So I let it go. Every single time, I let it go.

But being passive never makes a bully back down. It only makes them take more.

Midway through freshman year, my mom ordered a massive, five-pound box of premium Rainier cherries from Whole Foods and had it shipped to me.

The box was huge. I kept it in the corner of our shared kitchen, planning to savor them.

That afternoon, I went to my chemistry lecture. When I came back, the box was completely empty, with nothing left but a few crushed, rotten stems rolling around at the bottom.

Harper was lounging on the couch, picking her teeth. Seeing me walk in, she smiled. "Oh, Chloe, those cherries were so sweet! I invited the girls from next door over, and we finished them."

A fifty-dollar box of imported cherries, and she just "invited the girls" to eat them.

"Why didn't you text me first?" I stood at the door, my keys still clenched in my hand.

"Oh, come on, I assumed you bought them for the suite anyway," she said, rolling over on the couch. "Dont be so dramatic, Chloe. Were practically sisters."

Sisters.

Hearing that word roll off her tongue made me physically sick.

I stared at her, wanting to scream, but in the end, I said nothing.

It wasnt because I was scared. It was because I felt it wasn't worth the energy.

Screaming over a box of cherries? What would that even solve?

She still slept in the room next to mine. We still had to see each other every single day. I didn't want to turn our dorm into a war zone.

But now I realize that when you refuse to treat someone as an enemy, they just treat you as their prey.

"That wasn't protein powder," I said flatly.

### Chapter

I tapped the empty plastic tub on my desk. "Its a weight-gain supplement I formulated for my experimental pigs. The main ingredients are high-fructose corn syrup, soy lecithin powder, a concentrated Vitamin B complex, and yeast extract to stimulate their appetite. I mixed the recipe myself specifically for my animal growth performance study."

Harpers face drained of color, going from flushed red to ghostly white.

"You... what did you say?"

"I said," I emphasized every single syllable, "youve been eating pig feed for a month."

She froze, her mouth hanging open like a gasping fish.

From behind her curtain, Maya let out a loud snort of laughter before quickly covering her mouth.

Harper suddenly spun around and bolted into the bathroom.

I heard the toilet seat slam open, followed immediately by the sound of violent, soul-crushing gagging.

I didn't bother to go check on her.

I sat back down and opened my lab notebook.

I had spent two entire months perfecting that weight-gain formula.

Every single batch had to be weighed down to the milligram, mixed to a 95% homogeneity, and scanned under near-infrared to ensure even nutrient distribution.

I had mixed five tubs in total. Four were already in the university barns with my test subjects. I only brought the last tub back to my dorm because the lab lockers were full, and I needed a place to store it temporarily.

I had put a label on the tub.

A bright white label with bold, red letters.

"FOR LABORATORY ANIMAL USE ONLY. DO NOT CONSUME."

Harper wasn't blind. She saw it.

She just didn't care.

The horrible sounds from the bathroom finally stopped.

She dragged herself out, gripping the doorframe. Her lips were pale, and her eyes were watery and bloodshot.

"Chloe, you did this on purpose! You left that thing there and didn't warn me just so you could watch me make a fool of myself!"

I looked up at her.

"The warning label was huge. Are you illiterate?"

"The font was tiny! No one reads that!"

"It was in bold, red, half-inch letters. How is that tiny?"

She stomped her foot, tears spilling over her flushed cheeks.

"You tried to poison me! Im going to the Resident Director! Im reporting you for poisoning a student!"

"Poisoning?" I snapped my notebook shut. "Do you even know whats in that formula? Corn syrup, soy powder, yeast extractit's all food-grade ingredients. The worst it'll do to a human is pack on the pounds. Its not toxic. What are you going to report me for? Making you fat?"

She opened her mouth, but not a single word came out.

I stood up, grabbed the empty tub, and shoved it back into her hands.

"If you feel so wronged, go ahead and report me. Let the whole campus know youve been stealing and eating pig feed for a month, and that's why you gained thirty pounds."

She held the tub, her entire body shaking with rage.

Maya finally climbed down from her bed, grabbed Harper by the arm, and started pulling her out of our room.

"Okay, okay, let's just go get some air. Stop fighting."

At the doorway, Harper suddenly whipped her head back, her eyes red and venomous.

"Youre going to pay for this, Chloe."

The door slammed so hard the walls vibrated.

I sat on the edge of my bed, staring at the closed door for a few seconds.

Pay for it?

Sure. Bring it on.

The next morning, I went to the university barns to feed my pigs.

My subjects were twelve Yorkshire-Landrace crossbreeds, divided into four groups.

The control group got standard feed, while the experimental groups got varying percentages of my weight-gain formula.

Every pig had an ear tag with a registered ID. I could recite them in my sleep.

This trial had been running for nearly four months. I weighed them weekly, took blood samples, and logged their daily feed intake and fecal scores.

My data book was almost full. I just needed the weight data from the final two weeks to complete my senior thesis.

I had just poured the feed into the trough when my phone buzzed in my pocket.

It was an alert on Snapchat from our Resident Director, Mrs. Harrison.

"Chloe, Harper, Maya. My office. 3 PM today."

### Chapter

I didn't reply.

I just kept feeding my pigs.

Mrs. Harrisons office was on the third floor of the student services building. The door was half-open.

When I arrived, Harper was already sitting inside, her eyes swollen like bruised peaches, and her mother was sitting right next to her.

I had never met her mother, but one look told me they were definitely cut from the same cloth.

She had the same round face and petite frame, though her mother was significantly wider, sitting in the office chair like an immovable boulder.

Mrs. Harrison gestured for me to sit and rubbed her hands together anxiously.

"Chloe, thanks for coming. Harpers mother reached out to me regarding a situation in your suite. She claims you kept hazardous substances in the dorm, which has caused Harper some health issues."

"It wasn't a hazardous substance."

I placed my lab notebook on the desk. "Its experimental animal feed for my research project. Every ingredient is food-grade, and the formula is fully cleared and registered with the University Animal Care and Use Committee."

I flipped the notebook to the approved biosafety registration page and slid it across the desk to Mrs. Harrison.

Mrs. Harrison looked down, scanned it, and then looked up at Harper's mom.

Her mom snatched the notebook, aggressively flipped through a couple of pages, and slammed it back down on the desk.

"I don't care about your little science papers! I want to know one thing: my daughter drank your garbage and gained thirty pounds. How are you going to take responsibility for this?"

"Why should I take responsibility?" I looked her dead in the eye. "She stole it. I put a warning label on the container, and she chose to ignore it. She stole and consumed something she shouldn't have. Why is that on me?"

Harper's mom slammed her hand on the desk and stood up.

"What is wrong with your attitude, young lady?! What did your little label even say? 'Animal feed'! How is an ordinary college student supposed to know if that means it's for pigs or humans? Youre an Animal Science majorbringing farm feed into a shared student dorm is a violation in the first place!"

Mrs. Harrison quickly tried to de-escalate. "Mrs. Vance, please, lets keep our voices down and discuss this calmly."

"Calmly? My daughter gained thirty pounds! Thirty! She was a gorgeous girl, and look at her now! How is she supposed to go out in public? How is she supposed to date?!"

Harper sobbed loudly on cue, her shoulders shaking.

I looked at her, suddenly wanting to laugh.

She wasn't crying because she felt bad about stealing. She was crying because she got caught.

She wasn't afraid of being unhealthy; she was embarrassed about gaining weight. And her mother wasn't fighting for justice; she was fighting to save face.

Mrs. Harrison sighed and turned to me.

"Chloe, you do bear some responsibility here. School policy states that laboratory experimental materials should not be kept in residential halls. That was a lapse in judgment on your part."

"The storage lockers at the animal center were completely full. It was temporary. I sent an official request to our department group chat on WhatsApp, and Dr. Sterling approved it."

I pulled up WhatsApp on my phone and showed her the screen.

The timestamp was crystal clear. I had sent the temporary storage request along with a photo of the labeled tub, and Dr. Sterling had replied with an "Approved."

After reading it, Mrs. Harrison's face turned incredibly stiff.

Harper's mom didn't care about the proof. She just waved her hand dismissively.

"I don't care about your little group chats! I want to know what you're going to do about my daughter. Thirty pounds! How is she supposed to lose that? How is she supposed to fit into her clothes?!"

I almost laughed out loud.

Thirty pounds of fat, and she was acting like I owed it to her.

She was the one who shoveled it into her own mouth, spoon by spoon.

"Mrs. Vance,"

I kept my voice as cold and steady as possible. "Your daughter stole a tub of my experimental research materials. Under university policy, at best, this is a roommate theft dispute. At worst, its unauthorized tampering with active research materials, which violates the universitys academic integrity and biosafety codes.