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“I can’t wait.” Emma looked at me nervously, her anticipation obvious on her face. I simply looked at my girlfriend and nodded. Emma was a shy, soft-spoken girl with clear, electric-blue eyes and a delicate face framed by sleek blond hair. I found myself often wondering how I came to be her boyfriend- me! With somebody like her! A girl so sweet and kind and smart that the first time I saw her, I never had a chance. Thankfully she somehow liked me.
We were sitting in her room, alone in the middle of the night. Emma had invited me over to her house- but not officially, since neither of our parents approved of each other (for some odd reason). So, Emma had snuck me in literally through the back door. With a little bit of trouble, of course- I’m not exactly the stealthiest ninja ever. I had to focus very intently on my feet the whole way up to her room as her parents snored quietly from the bedroom across, and even then I tripped on three separate stairs on the way up, jumping up guiltily after every fall. Fortunately this elicited nothing else but a smile from my girlfriend.
And as for the exact reason why me and my girlfriend were here together in the first place…
Emma was digging into the closet. She stopped suddenly, then slowly turned to face me with a slight, hesitant grin on her face. In her hands was a black thing, shaped like a bodysuit or costume of some kind, made of a dark material that was shiny and hard and flexible and leathery all at the same time. Some of its surfaces looked like plates of body armor. Other parts looked weird and upraised and almost skeletal- like bones, ribs.
It was an Alien xenomorph costume.
“You have it!” I excitedly whispered. My girlfriend and I both had an interest, almost a passion, for the Alien franchise. It had been about three weeks after we had first met when Emma had come up with the idea to get a xenomorph costume. We would pool the money together for it and then buy it from an old costume shop a few streets away. It was an old, faded store which seemed to sell almost every kind of costume possible. All the costumes and masks were of a dazzling and pristine quality, and were sold for knock-off prices- but nobody ever seemed to visit, even during the Halloween season.
Which it was, of course. Emma had always wanted to “be” and xenomorph, and she had taken the opportunity one day, when her parents had both left for an appointment at some meeting or another, to take the money that we both had slowly collected and buy a costume. I hadn’t seen it until now- Emma had only told me about it during our rare encounters at school.
“Yup,” Emma nodded, beaming a little. She held it out, inviting me to admire its contours and frightening (and deflated) shape. “The man sold it for only fifteen dollars, and handed me back the rest! I couldn’t believe it!” She shook her head, a bemused look in her pretty eyes. Then her expression brightened. “Oh. And here’s the one hundred dollars that you put into it.” She reached into her pocket and gave me a wad of wrinkled tens, fives, and ones.
I accepted it absentmindedly, my attention fastened upon the costume. It was remarkably well made, looking almost like the Alien drones in the movies. There were the back spikes, the bony and sharp tail, the claws… Emma turned it around in her hands and I frowned. There wasn’t any back zipper of any sort. How were you supposed to put it on?
“He also gave me something weird,” Emma added softly. She offered me the suit and I took it, still slightly confused at the absence of a back opening. Then out of the corner of my eye, Emma reached down to her bedside nightstand, took out a small key, unlocked the single drawer, and pulled out from it a few glistening dark gold vials sloshing with liquid.
My attention was immediately drawn to them. “What are those?” I asked.
Emma shrugged. “The shopkeeper gave them to me. He said that I’d need them along with the costume. He didn’t really explain anything…” She held one up. On the side of the vial, printed in clear, bold letters, were the words “Drink Me”.
“How very… Alice in Wonderland.” Then I frowned. “Drink me?” I widened my eyes at Emma. “Drugs?”
“What..? No!” Emma stifled a short laugh. “At least, I don’t think so. I read the ingredients, I couldn’t recognize anything addictive or dangerous there. Actually, I really couldn’t recognize them at all…”
I took the vial and handed Emma back the costume, squinting to read the small print.
Avicembetimine Hydrobimorphiate
Glucolar Tysclavin
Cellular T-Depositary Reengineering Compound
And the list went on. I skimmed through. I never really liked science, so I had no idea if any of those were real or fake. They sure sounded real to me- but hey, I was an uneducated peasant. I trusted Emma, though. She had A’s in mostly everything.
I laughed at the last line and handed it back to her. “Vitamin C… hah. So, are you going to try the costume out?”
“To tell the truth…” Emma frowned uncertainly at the vial. “I’m not so sure about the vial. But I definitely want to try out the costume!” She smiled at me. “But… don’t you want to try it out?”
“Nah…” I waved my hand indifferently, although to be honest I really did want to try that costume out. But Emma could go first. “You were the one that came up with the idea first. You get the honors. And oh!” I put up a finger and winked at her. “I almost forgot! Do you have a TV in your house?”
“Yeah… It’s in the basement. Why? Do you want to watch something? I mean, I guess that’s possible. My parents” She gestured, “won’t be able to hear us down there.”
“Cool!” I grinned. I felt a little giddy. “’Cause I brought a little surprise…” I reached into the little backpack that I had brought with me, and pulled out a disc. “The original Alien DVD!”
Emma smiled and took it. “Digitally remastered, no less!” She hugged me. “Sounds exciting.” Then she looked down at the costume.
I looked down at the costume too. “So. What do you say?” I asked. “Watch Aliens as you wear an Alien costume?”
“Totally fits my nerdy personality,” Emma muttered, then blushed.
We made our way downstairs, slowly sneaking down to the first floor and then across the living room, where there was a TV but also a surround sound system (not the best of ideas when you’re trying to watch a movie in the dead of night, in somebody else’s home). Then we tip-toed across the hallway leading to the door, then went down into the blackness of the basement. Emma shut the door behind us and I suddenly went blind.
“Um,” I whispered to Emma, “Maybe you could turn the lights on? It’s a little spooky here.”
“Spooky is what we want, right? It is Alien after all.” I heard Emma rustle past and pick something off of the floor. Then there was a click.
“Lantern? Who uses those nowadays?” I asked, more at ease now that I could actually see.
“It’s electric,” Emma replied, unfazed. She led me over to the couch and to a modestly-sized TV. I gave her the DVD and she went down to her haunches to start up the movie. When she was finished and ready to play it, Emma stood up and looked at me in the lamplight.
“So…” I scratched my head. “Do you want to put the costume on? Erm?”
Emma looked at me strangely. “Do you want to look at a girl in a xenomorph costume that badly? Are you weird or something?”
I started to protest, but she waved it away with a small, tinkling laugh. “I’m just joking. I want to see myself wearing the costume, too.” She looked at the TV, which was running the main menu options. “I guess that means we’re both weird,” she added more softly.
I looked away, ears hot at the tips. “So, um, anyway, how are you going to see yourself in that costume?” I asked. “I don’t see a mirror around here.”
Emma shrugged. “I’ll see myself in the TV screen, I guess.” She giggled a little, then bounced over to the costume. “That didn’t make any sense!” I softly called after her. She paused and looked at me thoughtfully. “Yeah, I guess it didn’t,” She admitted. “I just get excited about things like this. You know, when you get to put on a costume, or when you get to see yourself transform into a xenomorph before your own eyes?” She shivered a little. “It’s weird, yeah, but…” She looked away. “Exciting.”
We stood there awkwardly until Emma finally took the last few steps, picking up the costume. She walked back.
“You never saw the mask on this thing, did you?” She queried quietly. I shook my head, and she proffered me a huge, smooth, black shape, with a domed forehead that stretched back impossibly far like a curved bullet. The front was framed with snarling fangs.
My hands grew sweaty, as I looked into the maw of a ruthless, predatory drone.
“Sweet, isn’t it?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I responded through dry lips. “Yes, indeed.”
Emma watched me as I hypnotized myself with the mask. Then she snorted quietly and snatched it from my hands.
“I need to suit up,” Emma said. “I’m stripping, so don’t look. On peril of your life.” I obediently looked away. Then I lifted my eyes. By coincidence, the lantern had been positioned behind Emma, and I could see her shadow quickly taking off her clothes and revealing her physique. I reddened and made to look down, but then stopped. Emma was slowly pulling on the xenomorph costume, represented on the wall as a bony, hard, jutting mass. It enveloped Emma from the waist up, inch by inch, until she had both arms and legs in it and had pulled it up to her chin.
“Okay, you can look now.”
I turned to meet a bizarre sight. From neck down, Emma had been replaced by a bestial, monstrous nightmare, black and shiny, with rigid armor and insectlike carapace shell armor. Her fingers ended in talons, her chest replaced by an exposed rib cage, a deadly looking tail coiled around her feet. The image of a perfect- and lethal- hunter.
Then there was Emma’s kind, smiling features bobbing right over the monster’s (or Alien’s) body.
“This is great!” She exclaimed exuberantly. Then Emma winced at the loudness of her voice. “Sorry,” She whispered. “But this is great!” She held up her claws in front of her face and wiggled them like an array of many knives. Then she looked down at her body, examining the intricate designs on her bodysuit, the spine-like structure of her tail. Then Emma did a little spin, letting her tail whip out like a razor-edged flail.
“Argh!” I silently screamed as I dove to the side, and Emma giggled as she pounced on over to help me up. Then she sank to her haunches with a mischievous look on her face. “Oh, am I going to love this!”
I laughed with her. “You’ve changed,” I told her. “You’re way more giggly and bouncy and lethal than last I noted.”
“Side effect,” Emma shrugged. “Where’s that mask?”
With some difficulty we searched around, groping in the alternating-light-shadow rays cast by the lantern. Emma finally located the mask and held it up, mouthing “Score!” to me. We got to our feet and I took the mask in my hands, walking behind her. Emma reached back and pulled her hair into a makeshift bun, fastening it with a little rubber band that she had whisked from out of thin air. Then she relaxed and let me pull the mask over her head.
I couldn’t see what I was doing to the front half of the mask, so I let her adjust as she pleased while I slowly slid the misshapen head onto her. Soon her bun was obscured by an anvil-like headpiece that flared out a few feet back. I let her adjust the front of the mask a little, then tapped her shoulder. “Turn around?”
Emma did.
The effect was so magnificent, I unwittingly stepped back a little. The snarling jaws, the second mouth inside the first, the blank but cold expanse where the eyes should have been… It was perfect. Just like the movie. She really did look like a real Alien. It sent nervous jitters throughout my body, and I let myself close my eyes for a second to imagine that Emma was, in fact, a real Alien. I opened my eyes again, telling myself that there was a dangerous, cold-blooded living weapon was staring right at me. My nerves told me to run, and I felt the rush of adrenaline.
“Don’t indulge yourself too much,” Emma’s voice was muffled from underneath the mask. “We still have a movie to watch, and I am going to do my best to scare you when you aren’t looking.”
I nodded, still transfixed. Then I shook myself out of it and laughed- maybe a little crazily- as the adrenaline rush faded away somewhat.
We settled down on the sofa- at least, I settled down, slouching in my usual manner, while Emma perched in order to avoid flattening her tail and messing with the costume. I pressed play on the remote (Emma’s gloves restricted her from doing anything particularly agile with her fingers), and we watched with bated breath.
The volume was way down, but the movie was still great. The first scene with the chestburster never failed to get me, and I jumped a little. Emma toppled over, and I leaned over to catch her. We ended up in a bizarre position that would probably have made most passerby struggle for comprehension- A frightened boy hugging an Alien drone. But Emma righted herself with a muffled ‘thanks’ and we continued to watch.
It was when we first saw glimpses of a full-grown Alien drone that Emma began to desire a little more.
“It still doesn’t feel real,” Emma grumbled from beside me. “I can’t feel a tail and my head is stuck where the alien’s neck is supposed to be. That’s not right.”
“Well, what did you expect?” I asked, a little distractedly. “You to become a full-grown, honest-to-goodness Alien?”
“I wish,” Emma said softly.
We watched a little more, admiring the on-screen Alien’s smooth grace and lethality. Then Emma muttered something, taking off her mask and undoing her bun. Her face was tinged slightly red from the heat of the mask.
“Hmm?”
“Nothing,” Emma replied. “I’m just going to get those vials from upstairs. See what they do.”
“Mmm-hmm,” I said absently, only registering the ‘upstairs’ part of the sentence. “Be careful. I don’t want to get thrown out of your house at midnight by your parents.”
“Who would?” Emma earnestly replied.
She was back in a few minutes and slightly out of breath. She sat back in her perch next to me, draping a clawed arm around my neck and shoulder. I shuddered a little at the menacing sight draped on my upper arm, but continued to watch the film intently. So for the most part, I missed when Emma downed one of the golden vials in one inaudible gulp.
A few more minutes passed, and Emma started to grumble again at how nothing had happened. She pulled the mask back on, which quieted her complaining, and began to watch the film with me. Her arm was still over my shoulder.
After about ten minutes, I heard Emma make a strange noise.
“What was that?” I asked, my eyes glued to the screen.
“Feel sorta funny…”
“Don’t throw up, we’re not even at the bad part yet,” I jokingly teased her. But she didn’t reply. Just sort of groaned. Then there were a few pops, like the cracking of dozens of knuckles at once, and I jumped. The sound had come over from Emma. I glanced towards her. What had that sound been…?
“Emma?”
Emma sat stock-still, frozen in her crouch on the sofa. Her arm- still draped over me- was stiff, like the arm of a statue.
“Emma?” I felt panic slowly rising like an expanding bubble to my chest. “Emma? Please, talk to me, what’s wrong?”

I froze in shock, eyes popping. Because although that had clearly been Emma… Emma hadn’t spoken a single word out loud.
“Em…Emma?”

“Emma? H…How are you speaking in my head? What’s happening? Is this some sort of j…j…” I stuttered to a stop as Emma slowly turned her head towards me.
No, the Alien had turned towards me. Because it now bared its teeth, saliva running down its lipless maw and dropping slowly, plink, plink, plink, onto its bodice of armor. A broad expanse on the cruel, predatory face, devoid of eyes, nevertheless stared me down and instilled fear in me like an egg from a Facehugger.
I jolted.
“Shit!” I yelped, scrambling back. I forgot that I had been sitting at the end of the sofa, and dropped onto my back on the hardwood floor. The impact knocked the breath out of me, so that I couldn’t scream. I instead scrambled back, adrenaline pumping, sweat forming at the palms of my hands, mouth gaping uselessly. Because that thing at the other end of the couch wasn’t Emma. No, she had been wearing a costume, but that thing was alive! A living, real Alien! I opened my mouth to scream again.

There was Emma! I had heard her in my head, somehow? Perhaps it was her ghost, her spirit that had been torn from the ruins of her body by this monster!
“Emma!” I called, panicked. “Run! There’s an Alien here! Oh my God, it’s a f-”

The Alien pounced.
Powerful leg muscles propelled it forwards into an impossible horizontal spring, and it landed right on top of me, punching me back. I slammed into the ground, vision going back for a second, and an icy cold hand was gently placed over my mouth.
No… it’s going to suffocate me slowly… Or implant me with a Facehugger… Or rip my body open… No, please…

I gagged through the hand.

I clawed desperately at the Alien.

Suddenly, thankfully, by some sheer luck or heavenly intervention, the Alien sprang back a little and let me go. I laid spread eagled on the floor, trying to choke some air back into my lungs, and looked around.
“Emma…”

“Run…”

The Alien waved at me to get my attention. That was when things started to click.
My face must have been priceless. The Emma-Alien-thing gave a growling laugh and sat back on its haunches. I painfully propped myself up with my elbows and tried to steady my frantic heart. But little did I do. “What was that?” I gasped. “My god, are you Emma?”
The thing, the horrible Alien- no, Emma- sweet, shy, pretty Emma- whipped its tail around a little as it inspected itself.
“You’re a damn Alien!” I nearly shouted, and my mind rang with a .
I lowered my voice and continued weakly. “Emma… what the hell?!?”

Emma finally sat back against the side of the couch, her bony tail now more flexible and curling up beside her side to make more room. She sat, embracing her shins with her knees tucked up to her chin. Or at least, her fanged mandibles.

Emma shivered suddenly, and her back spines (which were flattened against the couch) twitched nervously.

I finally maneuvered my way to the least painful sitting position possible and raised what was hopefully a soothing hand. “Hey, it’s okay,” I said. “Don’t worry. It’ll be fine.”
The Emma-voice in my mind sounded like it was about to cry.
“No, look ,it’ll be fine,” I said, raising both hands now as I got to my feet. “Look, let’s… let’s just finish the movie first. Enjoy things. We’ll worry about the small details-” I winced “Later…”
I put a comforting hand on Emma’s shoulder. It was like touching ice-cold iron, and I flinched a little. Although I tried to hide it as best as I could, Emma still noticed, and she looked noticeably more miserable.
“Hey,” I said, pushing away any disgust or fear I had left, “Come on. Sit with me. You did say you wanted to become a real Alien. Well, your wish came true! Come on, enjoy it for a little while and I’ll try to think of some way to fix it. I’ll fix it, I promise.” And with that half-inspiring speech, I gave her a hand. It was a mark of Emma’s trust and earnestness that she took it at all.
I crawled back onto the couch again, with Emma back beside me- looking still the same as she had before, but noticeably more alive. Her tail wavered back and forth, her teeth baring, the second mouth aggressively pushing forth, then retracting. I instantly felt sorry for Emma- trapped in a new body, an unfamiliar body, with no guarantees of getting back into her own. She must be hyperventilating in there. No- not in there, it wasn’t a suit or costume- she was simply just hyperventilating. Traumatized.
Of course, I felt a little envious too. She was a full grown Alien, now, a real one. Something I had guiltily fantasized of once in a while.
We watched the movie in silence. This time Emma huddled next to me like some forlorn predatory extraterrestrial puppy, quavering intermittently. Her slack, dangerous jaws were unable to stop drooling onto my feet and onto the hardwood floor, but I forced myself to ignore that. Instead I tried to stroke her shoulder comfortingly, taking care not to impale my fingers on her new body.
Finally, we were watching the ending scene and the final battle. I watched as Ripley outmaneuvered the Alien and flushed him out of a porthole, ramming him into the side of an engine and then incinerating him there. I felt a whimper of telepathic sympathy from Emma’s mind. And then a few more minutes, and the movie was over.
We sat there for a few more minutes. I stared at Emma after a little while, and she looked back. I could do little but catch my breath- the effect of the slavering maw, the eyeless face, the perpetual grimace of ‘I’m-going-to-kill-you-puny-human”- it was all stunning. Even after sitting with Emma for the rest of the movie, I could do little but just boggle at her newly changed form. It was hard to believe that the black terror leaning on me had once been my cute, shy, and rather unthreatening girlfriend.
“What are we going to do about this,” I breathed. It wasn’t really a question. I had no idea what to do.

We sat there in silence, Emma’s worried purr reverberating through the basement.