chapter 5 - into the unknown

Matt sat there in his booth, now all the food destroyed. His belly, inflated like a beachball, applied so much pressure to his internals that he could almost feel it pushing up against his spine.
As he looked down at what he had done, his disbelief was overcome with fear. How did this happen? Why was he so hungry? What could drive him to such gluttony which was beyond the limits of his body? He tried to catch his breath. Embarrassingly, it was loud. He sounded like he had just ran a marathon. As he begun coming out of his trans, he scanned the horizon once again. To his horror, he made eye contact with a beautiful blonde sitting at the booth across from him. She quickly turned away and pretended that she wasn't looking at him and returned to her book. But it was clear. That awkward moment of eyes meeting with a stranger was the moment a Matt realized that a strange cute girl had watched him devour this sinful amount of food.
Matt had to get out of there.
He straightened up to try to get up, but he realized that this time, standing up wasn't going to be so easy.
''UUUUGHHHH!''
He had actually let out a sound of anguish and helplessness.
He was too full to move. Too full to get up. And what is worse that the cute girl, had actually seen and heard him make that sound. Her face now wearing an awkward uncomfortable look, she kept looking at him with the corner of her eye and looking back at her book. Matt didn't know what to do.
Trying again, taking care to be quiet, he slowly moved the mass of his body up. As he was shifting himself off the seat.
He grabbed the table for support and lifted himself off the seat. As he stood up, he felt that the bottom of his belly, was a little colder than usual and his t-shirt felt a little tighter. His belly was so inflated and distended that his t-shirt had no more cloth to cover it fully. Matt felt self conscious and zipped up his hoodie as he made his way to the washroom. As he was walking he could feel the weight of his gut, telling him to sit down. He had difficulty breathing. His stomach felt heavy as if it was filled with lead, rocking left and right as he made his way to the washroom. He didn't need to go, he just needed to asses the damage.
He was relieved that there wasn't anybody there. He gazed into the mirror with confusion and terror. His hoodie, which was always a little bulky on him was stretched out in the middle, with the zipper line begging to break apart. It looked like he was trying to smuggle a regulation size basketball under his clothes. He looked pregnant. Not like he had a beer gut, he looked full blown, 9 months pregnant. He hesitantly unzipped his hoodie and discovered that his t-shirt had ridden up and he could see the bottom of his gut. He turned to the side, while looking out for anyone walking into the washroom. His body was enormous. He couldn't believe how he was even able to stand. He lifted up his t-shirt to examine the stretched skin and the inflated beach ball that was his midsection. He was in awe. He didn't think a person could eat as much as he did.
He heard the washroom door squeek. He quickly put his shirt down and pretended to wash his hands as someone had walked in. Matt quickly left. As quickly as he could anyway. His walk had turned into a lazy waddle. He wanted to make his way out of the cafeteria as quickly as possible. He grabbed a tray and held it against his gut in hopes that nobody would see his shame. As he was just about to walk out of the doors, he saw several boxes of pastries on the the way out with a note on them that said: ''Day old, free to take''. He didn't even think twice about it. He dropped the tray and grabbed the several boxes of assorted patisseries.

Matt woke up on his bed. He was groggy. He was going through the first few seconds of morning amnesia. He found himself cozy and comfortable under the pile of pillows and blankets his mom had packed for him. As he opened his eyes, a curious sight appeared in front of him. There were more food boxes in his room than he remembered. A couple of pizza boxes, Chinese delivery. A few more that he couldn't account for. He had this odd feeling that he was missing some time. As if there was a complete blur. Maybe it was just a dream. Maybe they were boxes he forgot to throw away. Matt shrugged and turned on his laptop. As he ran some shows in the background, he checked his email.
There was 12 messages.
Matt freaked out a little. He was very punctual with emails. He never had more than one or two unanswered. He started opening them.
''Hi Matt, since you missed yesterdays class....''
Matt, being the academic stickler he is had never missed a class in his life. It was an email from the teachers aid, catching him up on assignments. Matt went to the other emails. They were either the from other classes or they were from class mates in his study group asking if he needed notes.
''What the hell?!'' Thought Matt. Did everybody have a class that I was not aware of? How can this be?
Matt checked the times when the emails were sent. Monday 02:02 PM , Tuesday 11:41 AM , Wednesday 3:20 PM, Thursday 12:59 PM
''It's Monday! How can this be?!'' Now Matt was really panicking. He quickly googled time and date.
''Friday, 12:01 PM''.
Matt was shocked. He had lost an entire week. What the hell had happened? He had all of a sudden moved an entire week in time that he could not account for. He checked his phone.
19 messages, almost all from Jen.
''Where are you?''
''Answer your phone?''
''What happened?''
Matt slowly was coming out of it. Bits an pieces of his memory begun to emerge. He remembered, eating.
He remembered going to the cafeteria. It could have been any other day but slowly memories of eating mountainous piles of food and going through delivery menus had begun to surface. He remembered that he had almost been in a trance the whole week, constantly shoveling food into his stomach, literally doing nothing but eating. To the point where he skipped all of his classes to focus on gluttony.
He started putting two and two together. Memory loss. Increased appetite. He was no biomolecular engineer but he knew that it had something to do with the compound Jen had injected him with. This was unnatural, unreal. The only thing that he could do at this time was call Jen. He gabbed his phone and dialed. It rang twice.
''Oh my god! Babe, where have you been? I've been trying to get a hold of you all week!'' Exclaimed Jen.
''I don't know'' replied Matt. ''Babe! I missed a whole week!''
''What do you mean you missed the whole week? Where have you been''
''Babe, I can't remember!. I literally missed the whole week. I just woke up right now, thinking it was Monday! It's Friday! I can't remember what happened the whole week. Apparently I missed all my classes!'' I've just been here!''
''I came to your room! I dropped off food! You weren't there!'' I checked the library! I thought you weren't talking to me Matt!''
''I have no idea what happened! It's like I was in a trance!. When did you last see me?''
''Babe, you're scaring me.''
''I'm scaring you? How do you think I feel right now?''
''Babe, I'm coming over!''
''Is it possible that the compound can cause memory loss?''
''Babe, I'm coming over now! Are you at your dorm?''
''Yeah, I am. Is it possible that I suffered memory loss? Brain damage?''
''Brain damage, no! Of course not! I would never give you the compound if I thought it was a risk!''
''Then what the hell happened Jen?!''
''GOD! I don't know! I said I'm coming over ok!'' Jen yelled back to Matt. Matt didn't want to start an argument so he responded calmly.
''Ok, some over.''
''Ok, love you!'' Jen hung up.

Matt, in a hell-storm of fear and confusion sat up on his bed. As he did, he noticed that something was out of order.

For one, he felt heavier. His body moved sluggishly more so than what he was used to. He sat up on his bed and felt that his lower body didn't move with ease. It felt like he had weights strapped on to his torso and hips. Matt halted for a moment. He was trying to understand what was different. He felt around his body and moved his hand around his belly under the comforter.
Things were different. When he put his hand down and felt around, what was once a layer of fat over his muscles and bone, there was none of the ladder to speak of. His body jiggled. It was soft and the muscle wasn't there.

Matt stripped the comforter off his body. What he saw, took a moment to process. His small belly had grown twice it's size. His belly, now an inflated ball of fat, sat on top of his thighs and spread out. He moved to the edge of the bed. At least he tried. When he tried to move with his usual dexterity, he noticed that he was now heavier than how he usually felt. Instead of moving his body in one move, he dragged his butt on his bed towards the edge in several moves. As he did, he could feel that his muscles were being overworked. He sat on the edge of the bed to realize, his belly wasn't the only problem. His thighs spread across the bed like a bag filled with jello. His hips had gotten larger. Significantly larger. As he sat on his bed with his, now too big to hide belly, resting on top of his legs, his thighs jutted out to the side, past the width of his shoulders. Even though he had his legs spread, his inner thighs were still touching each other. His legs had turned into bags of fat with no definition to speak of. His penis was buried underneath the fat of his lower body, under his belly and between his fat legs.

Matt was shocked. He couldn't believe what he was looking at. He thought for a moment that what he was seeing, wasn't true. He started grabbing the mountain of fat that was now his body. Checking to see if it was actually attached to him. He grabbed his belly, his thighs, his hips and squeezed. It was all there. He was bigger. He was so much bigger and fatter.