Prompt of the Month - January 2022

TAGS: Unaware Growth, Hyper/World of Hyper, Unconventional Narrative, Minority of One

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When it all began, he genuinely thought it was some kind of prank. It had to be, seeing as the alternative was just too bizarre to contemplate. He would come in every day, he’d find his coworkers to be slightly bigger than they had been, then he’d go through his entire shift trying, and failing, to get people to admit to what was going on. Every time they would look at him as if he was insane, as if nothing out of the ordinary was taking place, and every time, without fail, Taggert simply assumed that he was being mocked in some odd and convoluted manner. They’d all eventually turn around and reveal that it was a prank, a harmless joke, ha ha, wasn’t it funny how he thought that they were actually being serious? They’d all exchange a few chuckles, Taggert would pretend to be mad, they’d turn around and have a couple of beers and then the prosthetics came off, in that order.

At least, that was how it was supposed to go; given the way things actually went, however, the shark began to run out of excuses for why reality wasn’t listening very quickly. First it was a prank, then some sort of weird performance art with no spectators but himself, then it progressed into being a collective delusion; only after did Taggert dare to open that one box in the back of his head with the dreadful truth, a realization his brain had processed a while back but had shunted somewhere that most of it wouldn’t have to worry about the implications. It was, ultimately, the simplest solution, as it required the least amount of moving parts: everyone was being entirely truthful.

There were no tricks, there was no deceit, there was only growth happening all around him, and people who seemed entirely unaware that it was happening at all. To think that such a thing was possible was… hard, to say the least, doubly so considering he seemed to be the only person unaffected by whatever had taken hold of quite literally everyone else around him; it wasn’t just his workplace, but everywhere he went, everywhere he looked at, even through the news and international reports he happened to catch. It didn’t matter where on the planet he diverted his attention, the young office worker would find the same reality regardless of where his eyes landed: people growing bigger, seemingly unaware that it was happening at all.

Naturally, this posed a few difficult questions when it came to the logistics of it all, chief among which was how exactly did people carry on with their day when their bodies were too large for it not to be noticeable? Taggert himself couldn’t even begin to imagine what it would be like if he had to lug around a cock and pair of balls twice their regular size, to say nothing of some of the larger and luckier ones that grew far past that point; he dared not think on how difficult it must be for those with a bust, doubly so whenever it was full and leaking all over the place. It seemed absurd to think that those such afflicted would not notice the fact that their bodies were so radically different, especially when there was leakage involved; surely, at some point, some of them would have to start figuring out that things were wrong, that something was fundamentally not right, and thus wake up to the reality of it all.

He firmly believed that… or, at least, he had, about three months prior to him waking up that morning with a long and defeated sigh, turning over in bed to wonder about what he should do now that he’d officially given up trying to reveal the truth to anyone. Three months spent in a constant uphill battle, three months where all he really could do was attempt to bring everyone’s attention down to their bodies; surely, as he kept telling himself for those ninety days, the best piece of evidence for why the growth was real just happened to be the very things the growth was affecting. Surely, if he was just insistent enough on getting folks around him to start paying attention, they would notice something was wrong.

A lot of certainties were had, and most of them were thoroughly smashed into pieces with about as much ease as his coworkers ripped through cubicle walls without realizing that’s what they were doing; it was almost impressive just how little effect Taggert’s words had on those around him, even more so given the sheer degree of enthusiasm with which he employed them. He would’ve understood if his peers just weren’t receptive to his halfhearted attempts at attracting their attention, but more often than not he was jumping in place, pointing wildly, even on occasion bringing his own signs, complete with huge and bolded arrows just to make sure that no one missed the point.

Yet no matter how many times he pointed, or how often he spent trying to shout about size differences, no one ever took him seriously. Indeed, just by looking at him most people seemed to instinctively tell that the shark was untrustworthy at best, or prone to exaggeration at first; the only times he came remotely close to getting anyone to admit there was a difference came when one of the gators in Accounting offhandedly mentioned he thought one of his coworkers had gotten a “penile extension” performed, and refused to yield terrain when Taggert spent the better part of an hour trying to explain no such thing existed, and said person had merely grown bigger between the legs. Scenes like these became commonplace in his office, to the point where he was ordered to attend multiple therapy sessions to deal with their “workplace burnout”, only for them to do absolutely nothing.

On a deep level, the shark wanted for the damned therapy to work; in fact, he wanted nothing more than to be proven wrong, than for the world to let out a collective sigh before informing him that the prank was over and everything could be returned to normal. At least then he’d have  some explanation, as opposed to the big slab of absolutely nothing he was handed and told to make the most out of. What was he even supposed to do? He tried telling people, shouting at them, pointing at those few who happened to be big enough to plow through walls, even, very rarely, sinking his hands into an ass that was big enough to swallow him, only to be told to get them off before anyone got any bright ideas involving their legal team.

Nothing he did worked, and in fact only seemed to make the situation worse: his hyper-fixation became stronger, leaving him more sensitive to any changes in size, thus leading him to want to expose it even more than before, rinse and repeat until he was practically quivering in his boots at every step of the way along his shift… and out of it, as well. Subways had been hard enough without needing to dodge tits and dicks lunging towards him from every direction; he certainly didn’t need the extra-cramped space, nor the fact that he often found himself stuck between soft mounds of fat rather than a hard plastic surface and a terrible faux-velvet seat.

Even turning on his television had become little more than a constant reminder of everything that was happening to him, a reminder of a reality that he, in particular, would never experience. Coming to terms with his own desires being stoked by what he saw turned out to be the hardest part of it all, since it would have been far easier for him to despise all the burgeoning giants if he wasn’t one himself nor had any intention of becoming one in the future. It was significantly more difficult when at least part of him had been telling him, from the very beginning, that maybe he wanted part of what was happening to himself. This wasn’t true, or at least Taggert would insist it wasn’t, leaving the possibility that the growth process was corruptive very much in the air.

Yet really, what pain was there to be had in it? At least from what he was seeing, everyone else seemed to be enjoying it, at least as much as they could enjoy something they appeared to be entirely oblivious to; maybe he was just imagining it (as was quite likely given his mental state), but the shark could swear that he occasionally saw one of his coworkers shamelessly groping themselves when they thought no one was looking, sinking their fingers into breastflesh or rump, stroking shafts or rubbing themselves between their legs, all without care nor consideration for what context they were in. Be it cubicles or the lunch tables, it happened, and no one seemed to react in any meaningful manner, leaving these brave workplace explorers to moan and whine and very loudly beg for salvation to come, so to speak.

This was, of course, to say nothing of the entirely inexplicable, yet not altogether unexpected explosive growth of the adult film industry, who saw a renaissance unlike anything that anyone had seen before. Yet, it wasn’t for the sizes; since, after all, everyone seemed to think that being so big they couldn’t fit in cars properly was the norm, porn couldn’t exactly capitalize on that. Instead, it would appear that everyone received a ludicrous boost to their libido instead, to the point where Taggert often found himself rounding a corner in his workplace only to find himself face to face with two people who really should’ve known better than to drop trou in the middle of a public hallway when there was a perfectly serviceable closet just a few steps away from them.

Then again, given their girths, that was probably not a possibility, and therein lay the issue: he started treating it normally. It came slowly at first, but as his ability to ignore what was happening and assume it to be fake eroded, so too did his capacity for self-deception. Of course, to the shark, he saw it as whether or not he could remind himself of how things were “supposed” to be, even as the world went mad around him; it was only when he started seeing people doing… well, that, where anyone could see them, that Taggert began wondering whether he was the one going insane.

Sometimes, the minority of one really was wrong, and given how eagerly everyone seemed to be to disprove him, he had to wonder if maybe, just maybe, he was just… not in the right. If everyone growing was indeed the way things were supposed to go, and him being left behind was, for whatever reason, punishment for refusing to see things as they were supposed to be seen. He had to wonder if maybe he should just accept things rather than continuously fight against the current, that maybe he was supposed to let go, and surely, the moment he did, he’d enjoy some growth of his own. But would he though? Would he enjoy it? Would he actually wake up slightly larger every day, perhaps not realizing that it was happening, and feel better because of it? Or would it merely be his new baseline from which to operate, leaving him without the frame of reference needed to understand how much better off he was compared to before?

Thoughts like those filled his mind on a daily basis, and if not for how much work he had to put in at the office (mostly thanks to people fucking all the time instead of getting anything done), he might well have gone insane already. As it stood, he was merely stressed out to his breaking point, just one bad day away from tipping over completely; and when he woke up, then looked in the mirror of his bathroom to see no changes at all, that’s when that day came. A decision had to be made, lest his brain implode from the effort of trying to deal with what he had to deal with on a daily basis, and no matter what the solution chosen was, it had to be final.

Taggert could no longer deal with half-measures or hesitation, he needed to pick a path and stick to it, no matter what it may be; granted, this was significantly easier said than done, seeing as, when he stared himself down in the mirror, he genuinely didn’t know which direction he wanted to take. Should he throw his lot in with everyone else and embrace the fact that the world was growing without him, in the hopes of finding some way of accompanying his peers? Or should he instead pick the path of opposition, to stand against those around him and find a way to return everything back to normality?

A difficult choice, seeing as he saw no hope of modifying himself, yet he couldn’t see himself as one who had the right to decide what everyone else’s sizes should be… yet, at the same time, it couldn’t be healthy, could it? People didn’t just grow several times larger without a good reason, and even then they had to notice it, didn’t they? If it was happening and none were aware, then it stood to reason that either he had gone completely insane, and should be checked into a mental ward, or everyone else on the planet was afflicted by some sort of brain-altering parasite or illness that drove them all to this state of madness. And if that was the case, then not only was it his responsibility to try and help those around him, it was his duty to do his utmost to save people from a predicament they didn’t even know they were in.

Surely, the shark thought to himself as he nodded multiple times to his own reflection, they would thank him later; when the disease was cured and all the afflicted released from their shackles of girth and heft, then they would turn to him and shower him in praise for having been the sole, singular soul who had the ability to resist and fight back against what was certainly a world-threatening, size-based medical condition with stealth characteristics. A nonsensical thing to think, say, or even so much as take seriously, but it wasn’t as if Taggert had any choice in the matter; the rest of the world had gone down their path, and now he had to go down his, nevermind the fact that he was an office worker with no background in pharmacology, chemistry, or biology, nor any of the myriad of specialisations required to begin to understand the underlying cause of what might be taking place.

To a certain extent, the shark was perfectly aware of this, that his decision to “do something about it” was little more than the impotent cry of a young man terrified by change he couldn’t explain or deal with. He knew he couldn’t fix it, but he had to, so he was going to, no matter how illogical or ridiculous that sounded… and the first step to any successful operation was intelligence. Reconnaissance, really, hence why he decided that he would begin by scouting out the average infectee’s behaviour at his office during work hours; he couldn’t exactly just leave his job, and it was a prime location to find people afflicted by the mystery condition, making it a win-win in his books.

Now, how he was going to go about that was anyone’s guess, but a quick brainstorming was all he needed to plot out his steps in further detail: notebooks, paperclips, post-its, and a myriad of markers, colour-coded based on the type of observation they were being used to record. Everything was split into sub-categories of his own making, built around highly specific groupings of behaviour that were, at least in Taggert’s head, designed to give him the most information possible while still being cross-checkable with one another in future statistical analysis (thank heavens he had a free licence from work, or else he might just have given up there and then).

In fact, once everything was written down properly and the pages of notes were gathered up, it almost felt like the most difficult part of it all would be to observe others without being caught; he could have the best system in the world, but the shark still had to physically head out there and take a look at his coworkers, a very close look that some might take offence at, seeing as he couldn’t exactly explain why he was doing it. Or rather, he could, but then they’d think he went completely crazy after starting with his “size thing” again; he’d already had enough trouble convincing his employers he was sound of mind before, he did not need to go through all that again.

Thus, Taggert resolved for a more passive, distant form of observation, one that wouldn’t yield as many results as more direct interference, but one that allowed him to take notes in relative peace and quiet, without anyone bothering him to ask what he was writing on what was clearly not a workplace notebook. Content in his decision, and now having a plan of action for the future, Taggert went to bed, not even thinking about how sore he was all over; he’d be better in the morning, after he was done taking a bath and having a proper breakfast. Indeed, after closing his eyes and seemingly just teleporting eight hours into the future, the young office worker stretched his limbs and rolled out of bed, seriously misjudging how close he was to the edge and ending up rolling onto his back, knocking all air from his lungs in the process. Groaning, the shark anchored himself on the edge of his desk and, with no insignificant amount of discomfort, pulled himself up onto a standing position, grumbling all the while; from there, it was a long trek over to the kitchen, an even longer and more perilous journey to preparing his breakfast, and then finally the respite of a coffee cup that properly woke him up. After a splash of cold water on his face and enough slaps on his cheeks to get his brain to reboot into a more functional state, Taggert gathered his notes, placed them in a binder, then headed out to work, convinced that he was about to make a difference, even if it ended up backfiring on him. Along the way, he saw the usual, the signs that society around him was being warped without anyone realizing it: the immense sets of hips bumping everyone off the crosswalks, the tits and dicks with sufficient girth to cause noticeable waddling, the sheer difficulty most people had in getting into their cars, and the eternal plight that was the public transport network suddenly having to deal with literally anything that wasn’t a best-case, everything-functioning-exactly-as-intended scenario. He squeezed himself into a bus, then squeezed out into a subway train, and only from there did he have the freedom to just walk; yet, this was more than enough to leave him sweating profusely, and even then most of the stains on his clothes didn’t even come from him! Stuck inside a cramped space and surrounded on all sides by hyperactive pudge, that was exactly what he needed after setting his mind on the path to fixing everything; it didn’t help that he was still sore from whatever he’d done the previous night, nor that his body seemed to want to piss him off by walking slower than normal. At least he managed to put up a convincing performance; at least; his coworkers all seemed significantly friendlier than normal, likely as a result of him making an effort to walk into the office with a smile on his face, as if he’d just accepted that he’d never find the answer, and was now more than happy to just carry on the way they usually did. Part of Taggert wished that this was it, that his coworkers were just desperate for him to get to this stage, just so they could pull the rug out from under him (again!) and reveal that the whole thing was one colossal, large-scale practical joke. But no such revelation came, and by the time the shark had an opening to put his observation skills to good use, he had all-but expunged the possibility of fakery from his mind. Instead, he had his empty notebook and a whole office full of folks to people-watch… and there was a lot there for him to see, both figuratively and very much literally. The smallest person in the office, apart from himself of course, was around seven feet in height and had a pair of breasts of such size that it was difficult for them to really wear anything that didn’t reveal a significant amount of cleavage. While others might have a bigger pair in absolute terms, relatively speaking that one was the largest around the workplace, a realization that left Taggert feeling dirty for having reached. It was… well, it wasn’t normal, but it was still a necessary comparison to make, and he was sticking to that choice of words no matter how much his conscience put in a complaint. The rest of the raccoon’s body was about as unremarkable as it could be, since while it did gain some pudge below the waist, it was nothing compared to what had taken place above, and the non-bust augmentations could likely be chalked up to just regular variation. As for those most affected… well, there was a lot of choice there, so much so that Taggert was left almost paralyzed, unable to decide where to direct his attention. There was the twelve-foot head of accounting, a lizardess by the name of Aleksi whose physical form was best described as a gym rat’s wet dream; there was the tiger down at the logistics department who could probably handle all the work himself thanks to how buff he had become, not to mention their regional manager, who mostly just sat in his office having his tree trunk of a dick permanently stuck inside a milking machine just to keep his couch-sized nuts from overflowing. All three were contenders for the “biggest” in the officer, along with a handful of runners-ups that the shark wisely decided to ignore for the sake of brevity (and to lock down on potential loose ends), and all three were… imposing, to say the least. One heard them before one saw them, and were it not for them calling out for anyone in front to not be in front, they would most likely end up trampling a good dozen people each each day. Given the lack of access to two of them, however, Taggert had to settle for the tiger, one Mr. Jones, first name unknown; well, he said unknown, but it was more a case of him never having asked, and with the shark now stuck hiding inside an (hopefully) inconspicuous crate, he wasn’t about to query the man about it, at least not unless he was caught and forced to explain himself. Still, this was entirely unnecessary information, as he didn’t need to know what he was called, but rather, how he behaved, how he acted now that he had a body that was better fit for someone who’d worked every day out at the gym for three decades straight.  Muscles stacked upon muscles, built for raw power rather than functionality, it was hard to deny that it had its own unique, characteristic beauty to it; perhaps, if Taggert had been born with his preferences turned more towards that side of the equation, he would’ve had enough presence of mind to admit to himself that yes, he did find the rippling musculature on full display to be nothing short of alluring, even enticing at times if he were to be fully honest. Thankfully, that wasn’t the case, nor was he at all interested in the way the man’s well-defined tone glistened in even the faintest of light, the sweat beads falling from him  adding to the gorgeous portrayal of a man who was naught but the very definition of physical dominance and masculine perfection. Indeed, Taggert was entirely isolated from such thoughts, hence why that tightness he felt in his pants legs was likely just the result of him being crouched inside a damned crate that was barely big enough for someone half his size; he was lucky he was so flexible, otherwise he might just have compacted himself permanently! Still, he had better things to do, such as obsessively catalogue everything that took place with his test subject for as long as he physically could before someone noticed he wasn’t in his office; hopefully, given that most of his tasks were just about done, yet not quite, this would place him in that sweet spot where he could easily finish off whatever he had to do without anyone trying to pile more work on top of it all. It bought him some time (maybe), time he fully intended to put to use taking down notes regarding how Mr. Jones went about his day job. It was interesting, because the shark hadn’t actually tried doing that before; yes, he spent a considerable amount of time watching those around him, but that was a less a matter of purposeful observation and more him just being lost as he tried to make sense of things from his very limited perspective. He was, ultimately, just a random dude in a world that had stopped making sense a long time prior, and this was perhaps his last attempt at trying to impose some manner of order onto it, through the judicious application of a rigorous observational protocol… which effectively amounted to looking up special forms online, printing out a few, and then calling it a day. He wasn’t a psychologist, so surely he couldn’t be expected to come up with a checklist for abnormal behaviours; frankly, it was nothing short of a miracle that he even got what he did for free, given the state of paywalls everywhere. Nevertheless, he was there, and he had to do something with his time; thus, he sat and watched, taking in every moment of the tiger’s existence, every motion, every little movement, every inch traversed and arm flexed, every crate picked up and dropped as if they didn’t weigh almost as much as a fully grown adult. All while the rippling musculature bulged and pulsated, almost in tandem with the man’s unseen heartbeat, as their body strained against the effort of moving so much junk in such a short period of time. The more effort was put into it, the more sweat came pouring down the man’s brow and shoulders, the more their body shone under the artificial lighting, the more the scent of musk filled the air and left Taggert wondering whether he should be hiding or jumping out and begging to be bent over a table and fucked like an old fuckdoll. Interesting thoughts to have, even more interesting when the shark became aware of them and had to start deliberately fighting against them; he was still insisting on this notion that he wasn’t actually horny, he just needed to be sure that his observations were correct, and the best way to do so just so happened to involve looking at people through peepholes and taking notes while growing increasingly redder on each cheek. No problem there, he could just… look away, he could stop staring at the way that each of Jones’ pecs seem to bulge out further and further each time he had to bend down and pick something, or how their legs became more and more like tree trunks the more he walked around, improved upon by the strain of carrying around a body as massive as the tiger’s. He could look away from the creaking skin and groaning muscle, he could look away from the spectacle of power and overwhelming superiority; he just… didn’t want to, yes, that was it. He chose not to look away, because that was something he wanted to do, not anyone else, certainly not because he was paralyzed and needed to come up with an explanation for it. It was a conscious decision, and he was going to stick with that story to the end of his days, even when the notebook fell from his hands just moments before they migrated southwards to where they could be of better use. Really, it was a wonder no one heard him, though given the racket produced by the building in general, and the tiger’s form in particular, perhaps his own small whimpers were not that noticeable in the grand scheme of things. At least it gave him something to do while he waited for his “quarry” to leave; Taggert was more than certain that his absence had been noted already, but without any official reprimands by way of a phone call or having anyone swing by to ask if Jones had, for whatever reason, seen him in the warehouses, the shark convinced himself that, again, maybe everything was just fine! Maybe he had time to take time, maybe he could just finish up and clean himself off in the nearest bathroom before heading back to the office, trying his best not to look at anyone, lest he attract attention. Miraculously, he made it through the door without interruption, and after a cursory look through his inbox and phone, Taggert had to conclude that, to his amazement, no one had actually bothered checking in on him for the past four hours… though, whether that was necessarily a good thing was still to be seen, not that the young man was eager to find out the truth of the matter. What was important was that he had his observations, written down in poor cursive, shaky lettering, and lacking in any kind of scientific rigour, being little more than the maddened scribblings of a horned-up shark with more dick than brains and a penchant for overdramatizing whenever he was too aroused for his own good. Really, he should’ve discarded the whole thing on principle, but it was either keep it, or have absolutely nothing to speak for his efforts; granted, what little he did have was… inconclusive, to say the least. He had confirmed that those afflicted by the size change were, ultimately, not actually affected by it unless they had reached of outright immobility; even then, it seemed to be variable, given that the tiger down at logistics was absolutely big enough that he shouldn’t be capable of moving, yet he seemed perfectly capable of heaving his colossal amounts of bulk around, seemingly without any care nor concern for the fact that this should be impossible, and the total density of his body’s muscle mass should have left him immobile. At the same time, however, this fell in line with everything else he knew about the rest of those afflicted by the growth plague: that no matter how much they grew, no matter how often they underwent growth spurts, only a very tiny minority actually became grossly overporportioned enough to actually be rendered completely still by their own heft. Even worse was how it didn’t even show up on the news; rather, there were a myriad of specials and reality shows of highly variable degrees of taste that tackled this serious issue, with people treating it as just a normal part of life as they knew it. They didn’t even acknowledge how it happened because folks were growing too large, as opposed to something that actually made sense, like just eating too much. As far as the populace was concerned, everything was as it always had been, and no matter how often they evidence shoved in their faces, they refused to budge and listen to reason. Well, that was going to change; Taggert didn’t almost rip his pants off just to have his intensive research experience invalidated by the apathy of those around him. He hadn’t gone through the trouble of observing a hyper’s hyper while skipping on work hours just to turn around and give up! He was going to find out what caused this unfolding disaster, and he was going to do so… by even further observation. Really, it was deeply necessary; few people understood the sheer significance of actually looking at things before picking them up for measuring. Not that he was going to pick anything up, certainly not tits or balls, no sir; he was one hundred percent in that purely for the scientific value of knowing where the unexplained growth had come from, and implying any other reason than exactly that one was nothing short of slander upon his person! It was entirely coincidental that he just happened to pick Samantha from accounting to be his next target for observation, entirely coincidental that she just also happened to be one of the most well-endowed people currently staffed in their company… and in general as well. Most folk, even with the inexplicable growth plague, were still only blessed with one, maybe two attributes they had to worry about, and while that was more than enough to cause serious mobility issues, it was still circumscribed to the point where it could be easily catalogued. Samantha, meanwhile, was anything but; if anything, her body looked to have taken every wrong cue from the present situation, seemingly pumping up everything by default once it couldn’t decide on which one thing it should focus on. When her tits first start bloating, Taggert could only assume it was a natural progression: she was a bee, and those things did have honey in them, so it only made sense for the head of accountancy to be trailing the sweet nectar everywhere she went. What didn’t make sense, at least as far as Taggert himself was concerned, was how the bee kept growing when she should well have stopped, and not just around her bust either; rather, all of her bwoompfed outwards at a rate that seemed downright absurd, first in height, then heading down to her ass, thighs, and general hip width as well! At times it felt like every day she came in, she did so slightly bigger than before, until the bee was left unable to cross doorways without causing some amount of structural damage, to say nothing of the sheer quantity of spillage that took place wherever she happened to pass; of course, at no point did Samantha herself, or anyone else for that matter, seem to notice what was happening, leaving the shark to pick up the pieces (sometimes literally) and mopping up after his nominal boss. To a certain extent, a small part of him had to admit that he was picking her because of the way she looked; yes, the interest was scientific (or at least he kept telling himself that it was), but there was no reason he couldn’t unite business and pleasure in blissful harmony. He could just be looking at others to take further notes, but honestly, was there any test subject better adapted to the topic at hand than the one, to Taggert’s knowledge, was the most affected by it within the company? In fact, the more he thought about it, the more it made perfect sense that he should be looking after Samantha: she was the one whose condition was most prominent, therefore, she’d be the one whose body and behaviour would yield the most clues! It made sense (somewhat), thus, there was no more reason to delay; while he still had time that shift, and likely the next one as well, the shark was going to observe that colossal bee like a hawk, looking for any detail that might give away… something. Anything really, he had no real plan, and honestly no motivation beyond wanting to look at big thi-actually no, no, he absolutely had a goal, and it was scientific in nature! Observation! That’s what he needed to do, he had to trail Samantha and made sure to get measurements, measure, data, of course, data, that’s what he needed. He needed notebooks, a couple of pens, maybe a pencil, definitely a camera, and the willpower to shadow the woman’s steps knowing full well that, at any moment, she could turn around and knock him cold a great number of things that weren’t her hands. This alone, and quite thankfully so as it allowed his mind to get back on track, let him become baffled at the obvious contradictions yet again; clearly, the rest of the world hadn’t grown to fit someone like Samantha, nor had the average car or door suddenly turn out to be multiple sizes bigger just because people like her existed. Indeed, every single day he had to watch the head of Accounting try to force her way through openings that were much too small for her, openings which had her squeeze herself down to such a degree that the janitorial staff then had plenty to do for the rest of the day. Under normal circumstances, this would be nothing short of eye-catching, perhaps even enough to have the whole building come on down to watch before the bee was sent off in an ambulance to take care of what had to be a horribly powerful allergic reaction; instead, no one batted an eye when Sam spent ten or so minutes getting herself through a door one part of her body at a time, needing to heave one of her honey-stuffed breasts to the other side, followed by the other, than a great deal of shimmying just so her ass wouldn’t get stuck in the doorframe. At no point did anyone do anything about this unless they too needed to use the door… and, even then, most of what they did was grumble about how much time they were losing because the bee was blocking the way. To his credit, Taggert had tried to bring up the fact that Sam was clearly too big to fit through most spaces in the office, and while this had yielded more results than usual, in that people actually recognized that he was speaking the truth, it didn’t end up doing much beyond causing management to issue some meaningless platitudes about accessibility and proper engineering design. Nothing really changed, nor did Samantha herself do anything to address the fact that she needed to slim down or empty out before coming to work; hell, the shark was convinced that the giant bee was deliberately holding herself back just so she’s fill out more, at least judging by how their choice in clothing became ever more provocative over time, raising questions as to how aware the people around him actually were about their predicament. Nowadays, however, things had flipped hard enough that Samantha could very easily just openly flirt with someone and no one else would bat an eye; libido ran so high in that damned building that Taggert was seen as an outcast precisely because he didn’t let himself be guided by his urges for even half a second every day. And, to a certain degree, he himself had begun to question why that even was; confident in his own certainties or not, the fact was, he was just… out of place. He was quite literally a fish a water, and now he found himself being a metaphorical one as well, even more so than when he first showed up for work seven or so years prior and found the whole place seemed to have it out for him as the new guy, at least until he ran with the flow and found his place in the hierarchy. Now though, he felt as if he didn’t even belong at all; nearly a decade of work spent at that company, relationships formed, friendships solidified, and Taggert nevertheless looked around at his surroundings with the sort of expression a new hire might take on, incapable of recognizing anyone he was looking at. Even those closest to him were worried about him suddenly going “kooky”, as they unfortunately liked to put it, being so obsessed with sizes and supposed growth when nothing was actually taking place; it became an open secret around the office that Taggert was really just one bad day away from being sent on medical leave, and Taggert himself couldn’t help but feel that maybe that just wasn’t fair. As he got his notebook out and prepared for a day of trailing the head of Accounting around as stealthily as he could manage, the young shark really had to stop and thinking about just what he was doing: sneaking away from work, likely giving himself a bigger backlog, and all for what? So he could follow a colossus of a bee as she spurted honey everywhere and got stuck moving through doors? Take notes in shaky handwriting that he wouldn’t even be able to read later on? Or, perhaps, scribble on the pages as a sorry excuse for just wanting to admire a body that he couldn’t stop himself from admitting he adored every inch of? Honestly, yes; it’d be disingenuous to claim otherwise, and there was nothing stopping him from admitting that he did, indeed, like to look at large curves while still keeping it purely scientific in nature. At least, Taggert convinced himself that he was still approaching things from a purely rational and methodological standpoint; he wasn’t the one who had to deal with a very conspicuous young shark practically drooling over himself as he walked down the hallway, staying perhaps a bit too close for comfort. Samantha, however, had limits to her patience, and while she certainly appreciated the sudden and very explicit interest, she could only go so far before HR decided to get involved; as a result, Taggert would wake up about ten minutes after the last time he remembered blinking, his head pounding, his body aching all over, and a thick coating of honey covering most of his front. Looking around, he saw that he was in the employee lounge, which was suspiciously empty for what was ostensibly a very slow day. He could hear people outside, and at times even swore his name floated towards him, but most of his energy had to go towards disentangling himself from the syrupy substance keeping him glued to his seat. It was less honey and more some kind of sweet, almost overly-scented glue, one that he could barely rip off himself without sacrificing his shirt in the process. A handful of minutes and tumbles later, he was breathing heavily while anchored against the nearest wall, before turning to face the exit and walking out… to a small crowd gathered outside, most of them giggling and snickering quietly to themselves when they saw their coworker leave the lounge. The reason why became evident when a couple of them gave him a thumbs-up, followed by a few choice words of encouragement that made Taggert blush violently after realizing why he was being stared down by half of his own department; thinking it best to rush back to his office before anyone tried pressing him for details, he slammed the door shut behind him about a minute later, racking his brains for any sort of memory only to come back entirely empty. Worst of all, his notebooks were gone! How was he supposed to pretend like he had a purely scientific interest in the matter if his notes were missing?! Now all he had were his memories, and those were practically useless given what sort of details he was focusing on; he needed to know measurements, not how close the bee’s tits were to beachballs, and numbers on productivity, not just “leaky like a faucet”! So much information, (presumably) lost forever to the sands of time, truly, such a sad state of affairs that could never be resolved, leaving him only with his recollections of standing behind Samantha and both watching and hearing her wobble as she made her way through the hallways; truly, even the notebooks that had been delivered to his desk couldn’t save him, not when they were so sadly lost to an unfortunate shredder accident which left them cut to literal ribbons before Taggert could really do anything to stop him-it. Such a shame, truly, and even more so when one considered that, lacking anyone to really observe, what was he supposed to do now? Would he pick a new target and go after them? Or, perhaps, he was due for a change in tactics, a fresh perspective through which to analyze the conundrum, hopefully one that would grant him the results he sought? After all, he couldn’t beat it, so perhaps if he joined in then he would get better results; everything so far had done nothing but prove to Taggert that the more he fought against what he perceived to be a “wrong” state of affairs, the more the world seemed to conspire to remind him that he was in the dogged minority there, a singular one at that, and he had no real right to tell reality how to run its business. Maybe, he thought to himself as he slumped back into his chair and spun around a couple of times, his problem was that he wasn’t accepting things as true, that he was still, against all sense of reason, trying to pretend like he was in a dream that he could break out of, a riddle he could reason his way out from. If he only stopped and accepted things for what they were, maybe then his brain would snap in the right direction and give him a hint or two? A zen-like moment of insight, perhaps, one where he would see the true shape of the universe and be thoroughly unsurprised when it turned out to be round and full of milk; at least, that’s what the two things pressed against the window to his office where, after one of the executive managers accidentally tripped and nearly crashed through the glass when they landed tits-first on it. Taggert sighed, taking a look out the door, wondering where everything had gone wrong, wondering why he, of all people, was the one chosen by the cosmos at large to remain unblessed by whatever it was that caused everyone to grow so much. Had he done something wrong? Had he committed some grave sin for which he had to be punished? Was he not worthy of being made massive, and his punishment was to be the only person on the planet to realize anything was different to begin with? If that was the case, he had half a mind to go to the nearest church and demand a refund, because no god who would do such a thing was one that he wanted to worship; this was obviously the work of some trickster demon, some random shard of darkness with whom someone else had made a pact with, sealing the fate of all mortalkind in exchange for some unfathomable piece of information that was bound to get them damned to eternity anyway. Faustian pacts never really worked out like they did in the stories… at least, he thought; Taggert didn’t exactly know why his mind went there for a moment, but in all honesty, “deal with the devil” ranked far higher on his list of possible reasons for the growthpocalypse than most other, perfectly sensible options. It would at least explain the memory component, unless viral infections somehow developed the ability to selectively erase self-awareness on a macroscopic scale; it’d be terrifying if it were true, but it couldn’t be… right?

No, probably not. And it likely wasn’t the work of literal Satan either, no matter how badass that made him sound when placed in opposition to the whole thing. Maybe, just maybe, it was just the way things were supposed to go, and him standing in front of himself refusing to accept it was the wrong way to go about things. Everyone else seemed so happy as well; even Samantha, who despite being incapable of moving through most doors without spelling a few pounds of honey, was more than pleased with herself, just as she was before the whole transformation began. In fact, the more Taggert struggled to find an example of someone he’d seen who was made miserable by the sudden growth spurts, the more he consistently arrived at the exact same answer: himself. He was the only one that he had positive confirmation had been negatively affected by everyone becoming bigger than before, and he wasn’t even afflicted by whatever caused the phenomenon in the first place! Rather, his mind had anchored him down to his spot, refusing to let him see past his preconceptions and insisting on imposing an old order on a new world, to the point where he apparently saw stalking other people as a perfectly reasonable thing to do, as opposed to what it truly was. It was nonsense, and no matter how much his own mind fought back against this realization, the shark had to admit to himself that nothing was working; hell, his attempts at approaching it from a “scientific” perspective were naught but the last hurrah for a brain too worried about having to reformat itself to consider the possibility that it might be wrong about something. And it was precisely this internal conflict that led to Taggert standing up and pacing around the office, thoroughly incapable of making up his mind about the whole thing: should he accept it and move on? No, that felt too easy, too simple; he would never be able to just flip a switch and act like he suddenly didn’t give a damn, not the least of which because other people wouldn’t believe him after he spent months obsessing over changes that no one else could see. But he couldn’t remain as he was either; no matter how much he wanted to be the “one sane man” in a world gone mad, was he really? Was he the only sane person on the planet, if he was the only one who refused to move on with his life and kept on clinging to things that didn’t matter? Was he truly sane, when everyone else had simply accepted things and came out the other end happier and more fulfilled because of it? Or had he merely entrenched himself in his status as a minority of one, content in his petty little belief that he alone held the truth about things, that everyone else living on Earth was just too blind to see, but not he, not he! Taggert sighed, rubbing his eyes as he looked back at everything he’d done in the past few months and then promptly turned around to not think about it, seeing as it arose the same kind of reaction as suddenly remembering an embarrassing incident from one’s teenage years. He couldn’t turn the clock back and make it not be, but he couldn’t just ignore it either, not when it had genuinely affected other people: friendships lost, bridges burned, and all because of something that, in the end, didn’t even matter. It would’ve been hilarious if it hadn’t been at his expense, and despite his newfound clarity, Taggert wasn’t exactly in the mood for schadenfreude directed at himself; maybe, in a couple of years’ time, he might look back and chuckle at how ridiculous he was throughout the whole process, but for the time being, all the shark could really do was pull on the blinds and look out the window towards the rest of the office. Hundreds of people worked at that building alone, but one cog in a machine that employed tens of thousands across the country, itself nothing but one company amidst who knew how many operating throughout the planet. Billions of souls, billions of lives, all of them unconcerned with the happenstances of fate, living through their life just as well as they had been before, for better or worse. Only him, in that little office of his, still looked on at this as if it had any observational value, desperately clinging onto anything, literally anything that might allow him to think himself superior to the masses, intellectually or otherwise. Yet, as he watched his coworkers go about their day, doing the same thing they always did, with about the same gusto and complete disregard for protocol whenever it was convenient, Taggert had to ask himself: did anything actually change? Had he gone mad? Was he simply imagining things, and nothing at all had actually changed about the world around him? Did he actually need to take medical leave and check himself into a mental asylum? Unlikely, to be perfectly honest; who’d ever heard of someone having an hallucination that lasted that long and in such great detail, extending all the way to other corners of the world that he’d never been in? Granted, that might actually be the case, but for the first time in nearly a year, Taggert genuinely didn’t care anymore, not when the solution was right there in front of him: acceptance. He could see his faint reflection in the glass smile wearily when the thought crossed his mind, not truly focusing on it as he instead looked on at the rest of the office running just as usual: there were no tramplings, no floods, and while there were certainly spillages and the occasional bump, things just… worked out. He’d never truly stopped to admire how everything still functioned despite how impossible this should be, but now that he had, it was almost beautiful in its own unique, weird way. Like a dance, almost, where every individual member ran through their motions independent of all others, yet never had any point truly got in the way; they may intersect and touch, maybe even knock one another out of their position, but somehow, it all circled back to looking like it was planned from the start. The world worked, against all odds, and as Taggert struggled to remember any news piece that might possibly relate to a disaster taking place as a result of the growth spurts, he, again, came up empty. He certainly imagined many potential calamities, yet somehow none of these ever came to pass, leaving the shark to wonder just how far down the rabbit hole he’d shunted himself. Maybe the whole thing could’ve been avoided if he’d just shut up and accepted it all from day one, but that wasn’t something he could do now; thus, the easiest way out, and indeed the only feasible one as far as Taggert saw it at that moment, was to drop it all. Just… drop it, refuse to engage with it further, and move on with his life for the first time in months, accepting things as they were and simply not asking questions for once. It’d be simpler, more affordable, and less likely to get him committed as well, all things considered; heck, maybe he’d even convince his coworkers that everything up until then had just been one big misunderstanding, that he’d been too stressed and close to burnout, but that a few handy therapy sessions outside of work had begun to clear it all up. This would need him to keep acting unhinged for some more time, but at least now he had the ability to actually control how loony he sounded by deliberately measuring out his weird behaviors; it was strange as well, seeing them as “weird” and not entirely appropriate, but as he further descended into the realm of acceptance, the more Taggert came to see the simple act of not going around poking people about their waistlines and bra sizes as perfectly normal. As, indeed, it had been before the growth spurt happened; it wasn’t as if he ever had the ability to do something like that and get away with it, so clearly there was no reason now would be any different! Nothing had changed, after all, nothing but everyone’s measurements; society was still fundamentally the same, unlikely as that way, so really, it was his own fault for not realizing how off-putting and downright creepy his behavior had been up until that exact moment in time. Just looking out from his window, as well, was something he just then realized was even worse; from his perspective, sure, he was having a solemn moment of self-actualization where he became a somewhat better person after months of denying himself any personal growth, but as far as everyone else was concerned, that creepy shit Taggert was ogling them from behind the glass pane again. Red burst forth into his cheeks as the shark turned around, unable to think of anything to say when people inevitably started asking questions about why he was staring out at the office again. He could be honest, could just say that he was having a bad time but now wasn’t anymore, in that most technical definition of what “honesty” meant; he could make up a white lie, such that he didn’t exactly feel like actually sharing his motives. Or, as he began to understand when no one called him to discipline him about his unwanted observation, he could just sit down, relax, and stop worrying about things. The phone wasn’t ringing, no emails were coming into his inbox, and no one was knocking at his door; there were no raised voices, no angry shouting, not even the slightest bit of righteous indignation being thrown his way. If anything, the office had never quite been so calm ever since the first wave of transformations, and Taggert genuinely couldn’t tell whether it was because that was just the case, or if it was the result of his mind readjusting to a new reality, one he had finally learned to accept. Whatever the case may be, he at least felt a lot lighter, like an actual, literal weight had sloughed off of him and onto the ground where he wouldn’t have to worry about it anymore… though, not so much literally. It wasn’t noticeable at first, but he was feeling a bit strange, almost like his lunch hadn’t quite agreed with him; initially he chalked it up to him quite likely having ingested a significant amount of honey while he was down for the count, but the warmth spreading through him wasn’t at all the sort of thing that he usually felt whenever he had a bit too many sweets to eat. He was stuffed, almost, just like he would be had actually eaten anything of worth rather than yesterday’s leftovers.

Of course, the answer to this was simple, and obvious if only the shark had bothered to learn anything about cosmic irony. Were he to be more versed in the classics, then perhaps he would’ve identified the source of the discomfort for what it truly was, rather than trying to ignore it and hope it would go away after he had a short trip to the bathroom. He would’ve known what would happen to his body going forward, what acceptance of his fate would do to him now that he wasn’t actively fighting it at every step of the way. He would’ve looked down at his swollen belly and oddly puffy man bosom and known that, at long last, the world was giving him exactly what he wanted, exactly what he’d been chasing after for all those months: a measure of peace. Sure, this would have to come in the shape of a larger body and enlarged proportions, but that hardly seemed to matter now that he was finally part of the club.

He could finally get some rest and a proper night’s sleep, at least. Just as soon as he was done growing.