Glow

"What are they?" I couldn't even try to keep the horror out of my voice, but he didn't notice; he seemed curiously naive to many emotional nuances, and anyway he was too busy beaming at the strange things hanging from the ceiling.

"They are my children. Our children, now. Look, you can see their hearts beating!"

I swallowed my revulsion and looked more closely. There was indeed a pulsing at the core of each transparent chrysalis, burning blue and white in an embrace of molten gold. Really the things should have been beautiful, but they filled me with dread. They were just... wrong.

"They... they don't... look... like you..." I offered. It was true. Monstrous he might be in habit, but in form he was perfectly human- and an attractive human, at that. Or would have been, if there hadn't been something vaguely uncanny about those perfect, deep blue eyes. But these things... honestly they didn't even look like mammals- they were more like... computers... strange, organic computers...

"Of course they do," he said evenly. Then he turned to me, smiling. "Oh, you mean they don't look like my current shell! Well no, they don't- I constructed this because I thought it would be more pleasing to you than my natural state. But once they've finished their incubation period I'll let you design bodies for our children, and then they can look as much like me or like yourself as you please- although I hope you'll chose a mixture of the two."

The implications of this short speech made my vision go gray- I involuntarily sagged against him. He held me up with a firm arm.

"Yes, the miracle of birth is rather overwhelming, isn't it? I'm only sad no one was around to witness mine."


(Glow)