Her Monsters Called To Mine

He looked at her from across the candlelit dinner table. Her blushing cheeks so beautiful and alluring in the soft, warm light of the restaurant as soft music played from the live band. He had waited so long for this moment, and it was finally here. He fingered the little velvet box in his jacket pocket, thinking of the moment he saw it glinting in the glass case at the jewelry store. It was perfect, just like her. But now that it was time for the big event to take place, his legs seemed to have turned to jelly, and his heart was pounding in his chest.

What if she said no?

What if she says yes?

What if this all turned out to be a wonderful dream, and he would wake up the moment before it happened?

"My love, are you alright?" Her delicate hand had reached out to him, gently squeezing his arm, "You look so pale. Are you sick?" "No, dearest!" He said a little to boisterously. Clearing his throat, he tried again, "Excuse me, no, I'm just fine. A little warm in here is all." She smiled so brightly and compassionately, "Then, let's go to the balcony for a moment. Our food won't be here for a few minutes." Balcony. Right. All he had to do was stand up and not immediately fall to the floor from nervousness.

She intwined her arm in his and the walked together through the open french doors out onto the antique, but well-kept wooden balcony that overlooked the ocean below, the sun already turned darker shades of orange as it slowly sunk beneath the horizon. "... out here, isn't it. My love?" He gave himself a little shake, "I'm so sorry, dearest, my head was elsewhere." She giggled softly, kissing him on the cheek, "I said, do you feel better out here?" "Y-yes," he stammered, "In fact, this is probably the happiest I've ever been, and I... I want to make it last forever." She narrowed her eyes in confusion, "What do you mean?"

This was it.

This was the moment he had dreamed about for so long.

He took her hand as his other reached into his jacket pocket, pulling out the little black box. He sunk down to one knee, and he watched as her face slowly turned from confusion to total surprise and wonder, a small gasp escaping her lips. "I have loved you for so long, and I want you in my life forever. Will you marry me?" He opened the box to reveal a glimmering princess cut diamond ring that shone bright with the colors of the setting sun.

A moment...

Then two...

Her eyes began to swim with tears. She couldn't look him in the eye. His heart was quickly sinking. This isn't at all what he expected, "My dearest, are you-" "My love, please stand up. I have to tell you something." He didn't rise at first, but begrudgingly came to his feet, "I don't... I don't understand. I thought you wanted this, too." "I do!" She began to wail, "I'm so sorry. I didn't expect you to do this tonight. He was going to tell you, but I've been so ashamed." "My dearest, whatever it could possibly be, I will never stop loving you!" "But you will!" The tense silence could be cut with a knife. 

She hung her head, the tears now openly falling, "I've been keeping a horrible secret from you. Because I know when I tell you that you won't love me anymore. You'll never want to see me, again." So many scenarios flashed through his head as his heart pounded in his ears. He surprised himself to see that he was actually starting to get angry, " What is it? Tell me now."

She kissed his hands and his cheek, then took a step backward away from him. She reached her beautiful hands up, which had held his so many times, and ripped away her face. Like water boiling over the edge of a pot, a black, shiny mass poured out of her skin suit, tearing it away like tissue paper. Her golden hair fell in golden heaps to reveal large antennae, her ears adorned with dangling earrings fell away to a grotesquely small head with hundreds of beady black eyes. A large, solid black armored body rose up above him like a cockroach emerging from its dark hiding place. Six, long, spidery legs emerged from her sides, stretching out from being cramped against her body.

His heart was about to burst in my chest. All he could do was gap open-mouthed at her towering form, unable to move or say a word. When she spoke, it was a reedy rasp like a sharp wind through haunted trees, "Now you know! This is my true form! Just go, my love. My heart will always belong to you." The large roach-like insect fell down to its belly and began to quickly scamper across the balcony through the screaming onlookers as it began to climb down the support beams out to sea.

"Wait!" He suddenly shouted. She felt a hand grab onto one of her back legs. He was leaned far over the railing, desperately clinging to her, his eyes begging her to stay, "Please... don't leave." Her many eyes widened, reflecting his enigmatic face. She slowly crawled back onto the balcony, careful to make sure he didn't slip and fall. He wrapped both his hands around her foreleg, because that was all he could reach, "My dearest... I am very surprised to see your true form, and i love you all the more for it." She gasped, bringing her free leg to her pincers, "My love... but... I don't-" "Please," he insisted, "I'm surprised at your appearance, but not because you're not human. It's because... because..."

In a flurry of passion, he reached behind his left ear and pulled at the hidden zipper. His flesh suit falling away as his green, slimy scaled body rippled and tore out of his false skin. Fangs glistened with venom dripping from his open maw and horns curling behind pointed ears. At the sight of him, she reared back in shock, bracing herself against the balcony railing, "But! You're a-!" He nodded, "I am your species sworn enemy." "A Cthu'th'blrgd! But I should have known! A Skive can recognize a Cthu'th'blrgd from a light year away!" He stepped forward and took her hand, "Unless he shielded his light essence using a flux capacitor rigged with a neo-hydralux cylinder power core."

She blushed, "Oh, I... um... Have you been following me?"

He took her hairy forelimbs into his serrated claws, "Yes, my dearest, from the rings of Saturn to the moons of Malkizadar's fourth star, I have pursued you... because... because I love you more than you can ever possibly know." She embraced him, resting her head on his neck pouch, "But our families... they will never understand. We can never return home." He lifted her face towards him, careful not to drip venom into her many beautiful black eyes, "All i need in this universe is to know that you love me, too." "I do!" she shouted, clicking her pincers excitedly, "I love you more deeply than all the oceans of the Prism galaxy!" A tear of acid glistened against his cheek, "Then I have everything I need."

Once again he knelt down to one knee, showing her the princess diamond ring which now spakled with the last rays of twilight, reflecting all the stars and galaxies he crossed to be with her, "Will you marry me and create a hybrid spawn to consume this world and the next?" Her many eyes burst with tears of joy, "Yes! I will! I will marry you!" 

In the usual custom, he sank his fangs deep into her back joint as she consumed part of his life force to show that they were one entity before the Old Gods. They lived over 100,000 years of perfect ecstasy, consuming all organic matter and creating zombified slaves of the human race. They gave birth to millions of hybrid offspring atrocities that drank blood and spat venom, watched as they flew out into the universe to consume other worlds, their parents fiercely proud. And as the Earth burned in sulfuric gas hellfire, all trace of humanity and creation obliterated, he took his love into his arms and whispered into her ear, "Let's do it all again. I would live all my lifetimes with you." Her head cradled against his chest crest, careful not to impale herself, "Yes, my love, let's live a thousand lifetimes again." And claw in foreleg, they left the Earth as the planet imploded and burst into a million glittering pieces as they flew out into the great unknown.