Professor Eichel's voice is enough to jolt him out of his dazed state (although not entirely). He has to take a second to go through Professor Eichel's words before they sink in properly.

"Why?" He ends up asking. There's a part of him that's strangely reluctant to leave the eggs. He could almost call it a protective instinct but...it's not a true protective instinct, is it? It's likely something artificial, just another way the creature in the pool had tampered with his mind.