Experiment

Lois Lane chewed her lower lip while rubbing her swollen stomach. This was magic. Real magic. A part of her knew she should call Zatanna or Dr. Fate, one of those sorcerous types to sort it out. On the other hand...if she was already pregnant...it wasn't like there was anything worse that could happen, right? It couldn't make her more pregnant.

Could it? She wondered, the reporter's overwhelming curiosity fired.

There was a raw steak in the fridge, ready to cook. Still bloody. Lois peeled the clean tampon off of the statue's belly and took the steak out. Tore through the plastic packaging with her nails, staring down at the raw, bloody meat.

Will this even work? She wondered. Despite being "bloody," she knew the juice in steak wasn't blood—not really. Myoglobin instead of hemoglobin. Still...menstrual blood wasn't just blood either, and it had sucked the tampon clean. Maybe any kind of...bloody sacrifice...was appropriate.

There was only one way to find out.

Lois picked up what would have been dinner, and laid the piece of cold, limp meat on the gravid belly of the idol. Then she sat back to watch and wait. Wondering what it was she was waiting for.

She almost missed it. The steak was still there...but it was becoming duller. A spot of grey around the edges where it touched the stone or clay of the statue. Lois Lane scooched closer, watching the grey spreading...the meat actually shrinking, a little at a time. It was like the statue was drinking the juice out of it, like a kind of vampire.

The tampon hadn't taken long to drain, Lois remembered. The steak was taking longer. Ten minutes went by, and the mass of the steak had shrunk by half, the once robust piece of meat turned into a hard, dry, grey chunk of leather...and after another ten minutes, Lois saw the dried remnant of the steak begin to crumble into a fine powder, which was sucked into the grooves.

Half an hour after she had made her "sacrifice," the steak was completely gone, not even dust remaining. The reporter had the strangest feeling that the statue was looking at her, with that shapeless blob of a head, and there was an odd feeling of...acceptance? Approval? A kind of warmth emanating from the statue...