X
Literature
XenoGirl: Unmasking a Monster Quinn always slept more easily when she spent the night at Natasha’s house. It wasn’t as if she struggled to sleep at her family’s place by any means. There was just something intensely calming about sleeping in Natasha’s oversized bed with her. Especially on occasions where Natasha insisted upon showing her a horror film before bed. Which was more or less every time Quinn spent the night. She didn’t get too scared by them.
At the age of twelve, she understood that the monsters in the film were entirely fictional. Or, in the case of animals like sharks, written to be far more irrationally monstrous and hungry for humans than their real-life counterparts. But fictitious or not, the well crafted tension and atmosphere of some of the films could certainly sometimes get under her skin.
That night, Natasha showed her the film “Alien”. The slow-burn pacing, and the unsettling ambience of the music blended with the utterly alien set and creature design all successfully unnerved her. Though she wouldn’t tell Natasha this. Quinn knew that she’d sleep soundly that night beside her friend regardless of how frightened the film was in the moment. But partway through the night, the silver haired tween still tossed and turned, trying to get comfortable and fall asleep completely.
Accidentally, she rolled over to Natasha’s side of the bed. But she didn’t collide with her friend’s body. Something about this absence of collision snapped Quinn out of her restless attempt at sleeping. She looked around, her eyes more or less able to make out everything thanks to the light of the moon and a nearby street lamp shining dimly through the window.
Natasha was nowhere to be seen. Quinn frowned at the piggy bank on Natasha’s nightstand designed to resemble a facehugger egg. She knew it was fake, but its mildly backlit silhouette strangely didn’t help calm her nerves. It was then that she noticed that the bedroom door was wide open, and strewn violently across the doorway were Natasha’s shredded pajamas. A tense shiver ran down Quinn’s spine, but her fear for what might have befallen Natasha fiercely overpowered her fear of monsters and the dark. She trepidatiously swung her legs over the edge of the tall bed-frame and hopped to the floor as quietly as she could.
Carefully she tiptoed across the room, trying to avoid stacks of DVDs and VHS tapes that she could scarcely make out with her eyes. Trickling through the silent house though, were faint rhythmic sounds that made Quinn pause to listen carefully. They were subtle sounds, like the faint ones you heard when a person was walking and the fabric of their clothes slid or crinkled against itself. Normally you’d pay no attention to them. But they were the only sounds Quinn was paying attention to, and she knew there was something unsettling about the nature of these sounds. They were…wet, almost organic in nature. She heard a rapid series of them and then a meaty thump through the walls. Like something was stumbling down the halls and bumped into the wall.
Not wanting to let her imagination get the better of her, Quinn told herself that it was probably just a tired Natasha out in the hall, sleepwalking back to her room after using the bathroom. She closed her eyes and assured herself that this had to be the case, and began to backpedal towards the bed so she could go back to sleep. That was when she inadvertently stepped on a shorter stack of VHS tapes. The tape her foot was on slipped off the stack, causing her to tumble backwards into a few other stacks of movies. “Crap!” she quietly hissed to herself.
The wet sounds she’d been hearing from the hallway ground to a halt, and the entire house fell unsettlingly quiet after the loud clatter Quinn had caused. The girl stared terrified at the room’s open doorway. An imposing rectangular void of darkness untouched by the faint light piercing through the window. Never taking her eyes off it, Quinn crawled backwards towards the window where she’d at least be able to see her surroundings. She sat against the wall under the window, tucking her knees to her chest and locking her arms around them. Nervously, she peeked one eye over the tiny gap between her knees to continue watching the doorway.
Her heart was racing so much that she couldn’t hear whether the wet noises had resumed or not.
From the void emerged a pair of vibrantly glowing green eyes. They had no pupils, yet Quinn knew they were staring directly at her. She still couldn’t see whatever these eyes belonged to. But she knew that whatever it was, it was approaching her slowly, as the eyes grew larger. They barely bobbed during the approach, as if they were gliding towards her.
Quinn wanted to scream, to cry out for help… but she was utterly petrified with fear.
Desperately hoping this was just a dream she closed her eyes and buried her face in her hands.
“One… Two… Three… Four… Five… ” she counted in her head, before removing her hands from her eyes to look. From the shadows, a gaunt arm with elongated talons and dark oily skin reached out and gently forced its palm against the carpet.
Whimpering, Quinn curled tighter than ever and started whispering under her breath for help.
“Na-Natasha… Mr. Xander… someone please! Help me!”
“Quinn, what’s wrong? It’s me!” she heard Natasha’s voice gently respond from directly in front of her. Her face wet with tears, the girl glanced up with hopeful eyes. “Natasha?”
Inches from her was a massive, unhinged maw of fangs wide enough to swallow her whole head. Within the maw, was Natasha’s calm, smirking face. “What’s up?”
Quinn fainted.
——
An adult Quinn ceased tossing and turning violently in her own bed and sat up slowly, scooting backwards across the sheets so she could lean up against the wall behind her bed. It was mid fall in Seattle, so she was eager to bury her upper body under the covers again to keep warm. But between the heavy sounds of rainfall peppering her apartment’s balcony and the vivid nature of her dreams, sleep was proving difficult tonight. She reached over to her nightstand to tap her smartphone’s screen. It lit up her room, and Quinn squinted her eyes, cursing herself for having turned the brightness so high. After lowering the brightness, she saw that the time was eleven forty-six. “Fuck… this rain has been going on for seven hours.” she sighed, rubbing her eyes as she leaned back into her mound of pillows. “How the hell does Natasha find it so easy to sleep through rainstorms?”
As Quinn rolled onto her side and adjusted the covers so that she was more snug, there was a startlingly loud series of sounds from her apartment’s balcony. First there was a massive, meaty wet thump of something big landing outside. This was followed by a crash of what was likely one of her potted plants being knocked over and a deep hissing sound. One not dissimilar from the one Quinn often heard in her nightmares… The nightmares about that night she spent at Natasha’s so many years ago.
What followed was a pronounced, heavy dripping sound that lasted for a considerable amount of time and stood out from the symphony of rainfall and water dripping that Quinn had previously been hearing. When that sound stopped though, that was it. Quinn’s balcony was entirely silent now. She stared unblinking at the curtains across her bedroom that obscured her view of the balcony. Perhaps she imagined those sounds. Quinn wanted to convince herself to ignore them and go back to bed. After all, her balcony’s sliding glass door was locked.
If “something” landed on her balcony, there was no way it could get to her, right? Besides, given how close she was to Puget Sound, it was probably just a seagull or some other large coastal bird that was trying to find shelter from the rain. But a bird would’ve had to be pretty damn massive to make those sounds. “Ughhh…” Quinn groaned, angrily throwing her covers off and hopping out of bed. “Fuck it!” Still in her pajamas, she paced across the room with purpose in her eyes, grabbed the edge of the heavy curtains and violently pushed them aside to reveal an alarming sight on her balcony.
Startled by the sudden movement of the curtains and scrambling to cover herself with her arms, was the pale and shivering nude body of Natasha Xander. Despite the balcony light not being on, in the moonlight Quinn could see that there wasn’t a single solitary drop of moisture on her skin, and her hair was perfectly dry. She had to be dreaming this. There was no way Natasha was nude and dry on her balcony in the middle of the night during an unending torrential rainstorm. Quinn felt almost detached from the scenario she’d been confronted with due to its absurdity. She’d started to internally theorize what could have led to this or if she was somehow being pranked, when she saw Natasha’s eyes.
Her genuinely terrified eyes. It was a specific look that Quinn only remembered seeing one other time on her friend’s face. Back when her father passed away. She slid the door open quickly. “Natasha?! What’s wrong? What the hell are you doing on-Ooofff!” Quinn gasped as Natasha stumbled forward and embraced her in an incredibly strong hug. The sudden gesture and the strength behind it initially alarmed her, but she recognized that something bad must have transpired and Natasha needed this embrace badly, so she gently returned it.
They held the embrace for a good minute, and soon both girls were shivering from the stormy air blowing in. “Y-y-you b-better have a g-good reason for b-being on my b-balcony in your b-birthday suit in the middle of the f-fucking night!” Quinn awkwardly stammered.
Natasha’s embrace relaxed and she pulled away a bit, looking out into the storm, her body poised like she was about to take a sprinting leap over the side. Quinn tightened her grip on the redhead’s frigid arm. She finally returned her gaze to Quinn and sighed before finally opening her mouth to speak for the first time. “I… I do have an explanation… for everything. There-” she choked on her words, visibly shaken at the prospect of unveiling whatever she’d been holding back. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you about… for a very long time. And I- ATCHOOO!!!” she sneezed violently, the recoil yanking Quinn a foot out onto the balcony.
“God damn it! Get inside already!” Quinn snapped, dragging Natasha in by the arm and sliding the door shut as well as the curtains. As she did so, she shot a few glances at Natasha’s bare body. It was nothing she hadn’t seen before, but in the few months they hadn’t seen each other, Natasha must have spent all that time at the gym given how easily she pulled Quinn outside when she staggered backwards. She couldn’t recall her tall, lanky horror nerd of a friend having such an athletic physique before. “Alright, here’s a blanket to warm yourself up!” Quinn said, tossing a folded bundle of fleece at her friend before heading to her dresser. “Now… Do I need to lend you some of my clothes, or did you stash your outfit somewhere on my balcony earlier?”
Natasha looked up at the silver haired girl with a face of confusion as she wrapped the blanket snugly around her body. “I… excuse me?”
“What, do you honestly expect me to believe that you somehow made it all the way to my apartment balcony in the nude during a freaking rainstorm?” Quinn scoffed.
“I mean… I wasn’t exactly nude. I-” “Not exactly?! The hell does that even mean? Why the hell did you come here like this, Natasha?! And why the fuck have you been so quiet? Ignoring my calls and texts for over a month! I’ve been seriously worried about you-”
“I KNOW!!!” Natasha bellowed at a volume which startled her oldest friend.
“I know, I know… I’m sorry. I’ve- I’ve been a really selfish, piece of shit of a friend. I just- I don’t know… After you got into college and moved out of your parents, I was really… envious of you. I’m such a damn fuckup compared to you. Still living at my Mom’s, working the same damn job, and doing nothing productive with my life. Just watching stupid horror films and dressing as monsters. I- I… I felt like I was holding you back, so I-”
Natasha’s explanation was cut short when Quinn paced up to her and slapped her lightly across the cheek. “Don’t say that, Natasha. Don’t even think it for an instant!” she yelped, throwing her arms tightly around the girl in an almost angry, but incredibly earnest hug. “We’ve been best friends for over a decade now. More than that… practically sisters. It doesn’t matter that we’ve taken different paths through life. Your love for horror films, your job at the video store, and the way you bring Patricia’s incredible monster suits to life at conventions… NONE of those things are valueless. Don’t ever lie to yourself by calling them stupid hobbies or unproductive ways to spend your life. You’re the coolest fucking person I’ve ever known, and I couldn’t imagine living a day in a world without you in it!”
There were tears welling in both of their eyes as Quinn’s face grew closer to Natasha’s. Seeing many fathoms deep into each others’ irises, it was as if they both instinctively knew what was coming. Neither of them were afraid of it this time. They weren’t scared away by adolescent preoccupations about how the world around them would react. In this dark apartment, all of that was drowned out and washed away by the storm outside, and their slightly chapped lips pressed passionately together.
The kiss was over in an instant, and the two girls continued to stare into each others’ eyes. It passed by so quickly, they weren’t sure if they had imagined it after years of repressed feelings. So they lunged into one another and locked lips again to ensure they weren’t dreaming. They hungrily made out with visible inexperience for a few minutes before they were finally both convinced this was no dream. “Wow… fuck… Is this really hap-” “Happening?” Quinn finished with a smile. “I… believe it is.” The two embraced each other in a hug, but this time it was different. They truly had become one, and felt like they melted together in each others’ arms. “Your Mom is going to be so fucking peeved…” Quinn chuckled. “I really don’t care what my Mom gets peeved about anymore.” Natasha sighed.
“I… I really hate to interrupt this amazing moment, but I still really have to tell you something, Quinn.” she explained, biting her lip as these words came out. “Wait, what? You have another bombshell you’ve been scared to drop for years?” Natasha folded her arms tightly around herself under the blanket as she turned away. “Yes… This one, I’ve been scared to tell you for almost a decade now. I tried so many times in the past… and every time I got too scared to reveal this part of myself to you. Because I wasn’t sure you’d be able to handle it… and I was fucking terrified of what would happen if you… rejected this part of me.”
Quinn was about to respond and give Natasha some words of assurance to coax her into telling her whatever she was scared too, but decided to stay silent and let her work her way up to it herself. “Quinn… do you remember that time you slept over at my house? You were twelve at the time, and I was thirteen. We watched Alien together, and later that night, you had a nightmare where you were being stalked by a Xenomorph-like monster that turned out to be me.” Quinn nodded slowly, unsure of where this was going. “Yeah, the XenoGirl Nightmare we used to call it. I still have that same dream sometimes. I had such an overactive imagination… I was so convinced that it had really happened.” Natasha’s brow furrowed and the corners of her mouth dropped into a very uncomfortable frown. “It…I-It…” She took a deep breath. “It wasn’t a dream, Quinn.”
Quinn jumped to a conclusion and immediately responded. “Oh! So you did dress as a Xenomorph and scare me that night? I had a feeling that was the-” “No Quinn!” Natasha snapped, tears welling in her eyes. “It wasn’t a costume. I… I… I inherited this… thing… from my Dad.” “Th-thing?” Quinn raised an eyebrow.
“Yes… My Dad was an orphan. He never met his family, so he didn’t know what was wrong with him or what our… I guess “condition” was called. But when he reached puberty, he developed this ability to manifest some sort of living monster suit from within his body. Like, it would grow out of his pores and coat his whole skin, and alter his body a little to make him more… Anyway, I inherited this trait from him. When I turned thirteen, I started… waking up with the skin of a gross monster. My father taught me to learn to control it and told me never to reveal this side of myself to anyone. Not even my Mom and brother know about it. I… I wanted to share it with you though. I thought you’d think it was cool or something. But when I frightened you like that… The way you looked at me while I was like that… I never wanted to see you look at me like that again. Like I was some sort of… fucking monster…”
Quinn was at a loss for words. This all sounded pretty outlandish, but it did offer some explanations for how vividly she remembered the events of that night, and she could see that Natasha was genuinely tearing up as she explained all of this. “Natasha, is… is this really true?”
Her redheaded partner gazed at her with the saddest emerald eyes she’d ever seen on that face. Natasha stood up straight, at what must’ve been almost eight feet. The blanket covered her body, but wasn’t long enough to conceal a pair of massive dark talons which made Quinn’s eyes go wide. Natasha sighed. “Please don’t scream, Quinn. It’s… It’s time I show you what I really look like. Please don’t scream…”
She let go of the blanket, which dropped swiftly like a curtain in a magician act, revealing her monstrous body. Natasha shifted nervously, avoiding eye contact with Quinn, whose stare felt like a laser carving lines into her dark leathery hide. She took her massive winged arms and folded them around herself like a bat. Part of her wanted to pull her mask on as well, to hide her face. But she actively tried to avoid donning it now, lest she frighten Quinn any further. “So uh… I guess this answers your question of how I got onto your balcony naked.” she awkwardly joked. Almost two minutes of silence passed, and from her peripheral vision, Natasha could tell that the silver headed girl’s jaw was comically agape. But she hadn’t said anything, and from this, Natasha could tell she was still struggling to process and accept that her oldest friend was… also a monster.
“I can see you still need a little time. Which is… totally fair.” she said as she started to step over to the balcony door. Acting on her subconscious discomfort, Natasha felt the fleshy purple mass of fangs and tentacle hair that was the mask climbing up her neck and slithering comfortingly over her scalp as she slid the door open and stepped out into the cold.
“I’m… sorry I spoiled this moment between us, Quinn. P-please don’t tell anyone about-” Natasha stopped as she felt Quinn’s small hands tightly grasp her long, spade-tipped tail. “Are you kidding me? Did you think everything I said about how I feel about you was flowery, made-up nonsense?! You think learning that you’re a tall, sexy beast would make me think less of you somehow?” Quinn confidently said, gently tugging the tail to coax Natasha back in.
“You… you think I’m s-sexy like this?” Natasha stammered, the mask making her inquiry sound deep and raspy. She turned around and found Quinn standing atop her bed so that they were at eye level with each other. “Come here, Natasha.” Nervous, but a little confident, she slid the door shut with her tail and crossed the room to the bed in only a few paces due to her size. Each tentacle of her hair twitched anxiously with every step she made. At the bedside now, Quinn’s warmly smiling face was only a foot away from her massive maw of fangs.
Quinn reached out with her arms and held Natasha’s monstrous masked head in her hands. There was a cute chirping sound as Natasha leaned into the touch, and a few of her tentacles coiled gracefully around Quinn’s arms. “You may not look human now. But you shouldn’t view yourself as a monster Natasha. You’re still yourself underneath.” she told her, gripping both jaws of the mask and attempting to pry them apart. Natasha recognized what she was trying to do and willed the jaws of the mask to allow it. “It’s what’s inside of a person that matters…” Quinn said with a teary smile as she wrenched open the jaws and found Natasha’s face within. She leaned in and planted the most genuine kiss on her monstrous girlfriend’s lips.
