To say the interview would change the trajectory of his whole life would be an understatement. Edren had moved everything to this new city, which had stamped its logo on every building and billboard including the one that flickered neon blue outside his empty blue apartment. A company city. One riddled with drone cars buzzing back and forth through its clogged arteries, leaving no room for a restful night.

Last night he’d drank to the point of blackout. It was the last time he could. He could barely stand in front of the mirror without puking as he tied his long black hair into a haphazard bun and shaved the stubble off his chin. At least his new job was basically guaranteed, and this interview was a short one for the sake of formality. 

Though he could barely remember anything from last night, he remembered the dream. The creature was there—an amorphous void blob with hundreds of eyes.

He’d been seeing this creature in his dreams for the past several weeks. He’d come to consider it a friend. He fondly called it “Carl.”

“So yeah. Interview’s tomorrow—or when I wake up. Maybe it’s already tomorrow,” he told the creature.

“I see. I wish you luck, Edren,” Carl said with that strange double voice, one high-pitched and one low-pitched, which echoed through his head like he’d been dropped in the presence of a god.

“Thanks, Carl. And I’m just gonna keep calling you that until you give me your real name, you know.”

“You’re ready for the power of zei, it seems,” Carl said.

There was a brief pause, and then Edren asked, “So… that’s your name? Zei?”

Carl chuckled. There was hope for an answer, but it changed the subject as it always did. “It’s too hard to explain. But you will feel it soon. You will become zei. And zei will become you. But whatever that is is for you to decide.”

“I don’t understand…”

Edren was sucked away from the recollection of the dream when he keeled over and emptied last night’s half-digested chow mein into the sink. “Crap. I need to last this.”

He hauled his suit-and-tie-clad body vessel to his drone car. He noticed when looking at his pale face in the rear-view mirror that he wore eyeliner that he was certain he never put on. When had that appeared?

He didn’t think much about it. Switched on the car and hovered off to the interview, joining the thousands of other drone cars heading in the same direction.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

* * *

He began to feel like zei when he saw that zei had grown a pair of tits. The HR assistant called for Edren to join the General Manager in the next room. The assistant didn’t seem to notice Edren’s large pair of tits contrasting huir otherwise masculine body shape. Or maybe he simply didn’t care. Edren shrugged it off. Followed the assistant into the next room.

I must be still drunk, zei thought as zei slumped on the leather couch across from the General Manager. A mirror stood at the corner of the room. Zei could see in it, oddly, half of huir face had become round in a “feminine” way. Not just in appearance—it even felt like the bones in huir face had literally morphed. Would zei even be able to talk like this?

The general manager, a tall, brown-skinned woman wearing a pair of large, round glasses squinted at Edren as zei adjusted enself awkwardly in huir seat.

Zei prepared to be questioned about not looking like huir resume photo. Zei pressed huir lips tightly together and smiled. However, the General Manager merely looked back down at Edren’s resume. “Hello, good to see you again, Mr. Edren Stregis.”

Edren looked back at the mirror. Huir shoulder had turned into a potted plant. One of the sharp succulent kinds.

When zei didn’t answer right away, the General Manager questioned, “Everything okay? You’re looking a bit pale.”

“Yeah! Great!” Edren blurted. Zei jolted hearing the way huir voice sounded like it’d been rendered through a radio full of static. I could be even paler, zei wanted to say, and zei did in fact, turn paler. Zei could see the blood flowing under huir skin.

It was clear, by now, only zei was seeing these changes.

“Well, I don’t have much time, so let me get right to the questions,” the General Manager said. “You can call me Maru…”

And so the interview went on. Mostly the same questions from previous interviews. What is your experience? What made you choose this job? Can you perform these tasks?

“But as you know, you basically already have the job,” Maru affirmed.

“Right…” Edren responded. Huir entire head had been turned into the chow mein that zei’d puked up earlier. Huir legs had also lost all their bones. Not like zei needed those for an office job anyway.

“That being said, I want to go over the basics. You’ll be living in, and only in, our company-issued apartments from now on. I assume you’ve already moved in?”

“Of course.”

“Alright. And as for health insurance, you promise to only use our company-issued insurance.”

“Couldn’t think of any others, anyway,” Edren answered cheerily as huir whole torso morphed into vapor except for the bones, barely holding it together in the shape it used to be.

“Any questions, then?”

“Um, so about the pay—”

“We don’t talk about that here. You can take it up with HR,” Maru said, plastering a cryptic smile on her face. Yes. The HR, which got back to inquiries in 20 to 30 days. Edren was aware. Maru continued, “I think we are being very generous by providing you with free housing and health insurance.”

“Yes. Right…”

The interview finished with Edren asking no questions. Zei left the interview building with a contract. Parts of huir body kept morphing over and over again into incoherent animal parts, plants, and objects. Zei grew big with every other step. Zei shrunk with the others.

Zei heard Carl’s voice echo in huir head: “So, who did zei make you?”

Zei smiled. It was the smile of the sun with a lizard face. Zei asked, “Does it matter? I have a job now.”