Two

This story's theme is Gabrielle by Ween.

A chorus of enchanted voices filled the restaurant, accompanied only by the quiet flickering of the candles. Beneath these candles lay red lacy table covers, the ends of these table covers elegantly falling near to the floor. Amidst this sea of loquacious people sat a single quiet couple, whose candle seemed to flicker a bit less vivaciously and whose table cover seemed to droop down and sag against the floor. On one end of the table there sat a man, a man with light blue skin and hair carefully tied into a fishtail braid; on the other end of the table was a woman, with skin of a similar hue and short, orange hair which perkily stood atop her scalp.

The couple quietly ate their food, with no playful foot rubbing between the two nor any flirtatious chit chat. The man went to his glass, taking a long sip of red nectar from the cup, gulping down every last drop as it slid reluctantly down the side of the glass. After a long moment of contemplation, he put the glass back down, turning his attention back to his food. After another strained moment, he spoke.

“I got a new job offer today.”

The women looked up at him, eyes bright.

“For what? You're already the captain here.”

The man nodded back, looking back to his glass to see if he could swallow some more time. No such luck. He took a bite of the meal below him – it was some hideous gunk imported from the Planet Yardrat, considered a delicacy by some and despised by more. He stomached the food and wiped off his mouth, as he was always careful to keep his face clean. He turned his attention back to the woman, speaking again.

He sighed. “I don't know much... I'd be working with Lord Frieza-”

“Frieza? Really?” she replied, her voice breaking away from her normal monotone.

The man nodded.

“How much does it pay?”

“Gah – it doesn't matter. Look, we've gotta discuss this. Can we get out of here?” the man growled, realizing that a restaurant wasn't the place to have such an important conversation.

“Come on, tell me! What are you gonna do?”

“Shush women, I'll tell you in a minute!” the man snapped, gesturing for attention from the restaurant.

“No, tell me now! I don't know anybody who's worked with Frieza!”

“It's some type of planet trading job – I don't have a fucking brief on it, okay? I can show you the job description when we get home.”

“Planet trading? Sounds important! Must be high profile. How big's the raise?”

“Is that all you can think about, the money? I'll tell you all about it later – can we just leave here for now?”

The woman hardly paid attention to her, as she was overwhelmed with fantasies of what her planet trading boyfriend could give her. The vacations, the houses, the fame – all the luxuries associated with such a prestigious job!

“When do you get to start? Are you going to get to meet Frieza and everything?”

“I said I'd tell you later!” the man yelled. The voices in the background stopped as he yelled, their heads turning to face him. He grimaced, shaking his head slightly, before standing up and grabbing his girlfriend by the shoulder. Without paying, he hurried himself and his woman out of the diner.

Walking her to the side of the building, he threw her against the side of the building, clearly frustrated.

“Zarbon, what the hell?” the woman shrieked, beginning to run away from him.

“Will you let me talk for a damned second?” Zarbon replied, breathing quite heavily. “Alright, listen, okay?”

The women nodded, half in fear and half in curiosity.

“Look, Frieza, he wants me to come work with him, but it's... it's not that easy.”

“Well, what, then?”

“He wants our planet. He wants to trade it.”

The women looked at him for a moment, as she registered what he had said. At first, a small look of confusion was painted on her face – but then, after a moment, a look of pure astonishment spread across the women's face.

“You're not going to let him take it, are you? He'd kill us all!”

Zarbon snarled. “Well, what the hell am I supposed to do? I know better than to disobey Frieza.” His tone lightened. “But – I've got good news! You can come with me – you can live with me! On his ship!” Zarbon felt good to finally tell her the news, now that he'd gotten the bad news out of the way. It would work out okay, it would. He and his girlfriend could live the rest of their lives okay. He'd save them both.

“Are you kidding, Zarbon? Is this some kind of joke?!”

“No, it's not! We can live together!”

His girlfriend stared at him with disgust. “You'd let your whole family die like that? Just to save yourself? All your friends, my whole family, everyone we know? You'd trade them for your own skin?”

Zarbon grit his teeth. “Look, there's nothing I can do about that. You're coming to live with me and that's it.”

“No, I'm not! I'd rather die than do that!”

These two sentences unleashed a myriad of emotions from Zarbon, as he finally rose to a tipping point. He began to yell again, this time louder and with more force. “Do you understand what I've given to you? Your whole life? A house? Money? Every single thing you've wanted? And you won't fucking keep going with me now?” Zarbon took control of the woman as his face rounded out, the skin which held his face together stretching as far as it could go. His muscles grew dramatically in size, completely disproportionate to his body. His once beautiful face disintegrated into a repulsive amphibious grimace.

“You'd rather die than come with me? Is that it?”

With a single swift movement, he bludgeoned her against the wall, cracking her head open against the cement wall. The blood leaked down from her skull forming into a puddle at the intersection between the wall and the ground. Zarbon, though, was not satisfied – he took the woman and threw her away, hurling her toward the open road to the right.

It took a moment, but Zarbon came back to his senses. He felt his face shape back up, his muscles contracted, and his breathing slow down. He looked around at what happened, coming to the eventual realization that he had been the cause of it. He shed not a single tear, though, as he fled from the scene.

Zarbon came to a stop several miles away, a run which took him mere moments. He sat down, knowing what he had done. It was not his first transformation – he had hoped the one before would be the last, but now, it had come back, at such an inopportune time. The monster within, surging back up for another feast.

Zarbon wondered where to go to from there. He knew one thing, though – it wasn't anywhere on the planet.

Endnotes

 * This story is 1,222 words long.