Short Stories of the Weird, Wicked and Warped

The Dance

The night had started out dull and boring as Zixnia, or Zix to family and friends, sat with her family watching couples come together for the new year light show that was about to happen. After the excitement from earlier, it was rather boring to Zix and her thoughts kept going back to what happened.

They had arrived a couple of hours earlier than the time stated for the celebration to begin because they wanted to mingle with friends from work before it got too loud to hear anything but music. For a couple of hours, they talked to everyone about everything and Zix's attention kept drifting away from the conversations.

All she wanted was to get her dream job on the engineering team, find her soulmate, and live happily ever after. As the talking died down, she realized that more people had begun to show up and claim tables. Noticing this her mother ran off to claim their own for the night.

They had found a table far enough away from the lift and dance floor to avoid the large crowds and big enough to handle their whole party. Along with her parents, there was her sister and husband to be, Zix's best friend Ariy, and a couple of cousins from Fortuna Base.

Soon the celebration deck was full, mostly with couples of all ages and a few singles floating around. Zix's mother and father would give any man a stern look when they would approach the table to ask for Zix. As soon as the possible suitor noticed the looks on her parent's faces, they would turn around quickly and walk away.

One even went so far as to pretend to be headed towards another table. Waving to an invisible person, talking to the air behind them. After a while, the men gave up trying to get Zix onto the dance floor.

At around nine a group of men exited loudly off of the lift that was reserved for the higher-ups of the station. Just from the first glance, anyone could tell that they had already been celebrating before they got there. One, in particular, she took notice of right away with his red tawny hair, lightly tanned skin, and well-defined muscles that rippled when he walked.

Before she could look away, he had caught her staring at him, a slight blush flushed her cheeks causing a smile to spread across his perfect pouty lips. She quickly looked away to gain control of herself, something drew her to look again. When their eyes had met again he clumsily stumbled to a halt when he missed the step in front of him. His actions caused the others to glance at him in confusion and curiosity. In which he bent down to whisper something in another man's ear.

Both looked at her with differing kinds of expressions, one of curiosity and one of menace. She inhaled sharply at the look of hatred on the shorter man's face. The shorter man nudged a different one in the shoulder and pointed towards her table while whispering to him. In a matter of seconds, all seven men were staring at her and her family, some with boredom and others with curiosity.

"Snookums, do you see how that large group of men is uncivilly gawking at our table? I wonder why they are staring at us like that. Do you suppose they know us?" Mother asks father with a bored but loud tone while blatantly pointing at the group.

He turns to look in the direction of her dainty finger. "Darling, I do not know any of them and I do not think that they are looking at us but rather at Zixnia," He replies unphased by her new pet name for him, she is always coming up with something random. The other night she called him her love bunny, everything choked on that one.

"Zixnia, do you know any of those rude men that are staring at us, they are causing me to be unhappy? Would you be so kind as to tell them that I do not appreciate them staring at us? Be a good dear and talk to them for us since they are around your age and seem to be very interested in you." Zix's mother pushes her out of the chair with a gentle but determined push.