Between Echoes of the Machine: When Desire Misses Its Mark

Jason adjusts hins 'gloves' and says,
I'm Going to end you!

When two friends decide to test an alien device capable of recreating the ideal companion each of them secretly wished for who they dreamed of having by their side, the line between curiosity and consequence becomes dangerously thin. Especially when the machine decides that one of them will become that ideal.

Jason yanked the lace glove with an irritated snap, heat rushing up the features of his new face — a face he definitely wouldn’t have chosen if he’d known the machine would malfunction on his turn.

“I’m going to end you,” he hissed, the voice far too velvety to match the threat.

Aaron stepped back, hands up.

“Wait, wait… I didn’t do anything! The deal was simple: use the weird alien machine to become the ideal version of the girls we always wanted to talk to but never had the courage. And you didn’t complain at all when it was my turn!”

Jason clenched his jaw, the red ribbons on his transformed body trembling with his sharp breaths.

“I didn’t know the machine would stop working on my turn.”

“And how is that my fault?” Aaron shot back, brushing his freshly transformed hair aside. “That was our deal. It could’ve happened to me, too! I’m the one who could’ve ended up in that ridiculous outfit you made me wear!”

He stepped a little further away — though not as far as he wanted.
Because there was something strange about the way Jason was looking at him. Something that wasn’t just frustration.

What Aaron couldn’t quite tell — and what Jason might not even realize — was whether the “I’m going to end you” held an actual threat…
…or whether there was the faintest shift in tone, a subtle heat, a seductive undertone that made absolutely no sense.

After all, there was one advanced function in the machine they had completely ignored:
“gradual emotional impulse and mental pattern adjustment.”

And that adjustment… had already begun.