The Ascent

Chapter 1 - Late

Jonathan quickly swiped his key card as he entered his office building - late for work. He rushed over to the elevator bank, hurriedly pushing the up button, hoping to arrive before his boss realised he wasn't there. His boss was looking for someone to promote, and Jonathan desperately wanted it to be him.

He waited impatiently for what felt like forever until he heard the dinging sound and one of the doors slid open. The inside of the elevator was similar to most others with a mirror on the back wall and a grab rail around the middle of the car. Jonathan got in and pressed the button for the 72nd floor repeatedly as the doors slid shut. The elevator and the display counting the floors began to tick up wards.

G...


1...


2...


There was a second display below this that read 180 (90), and as the elevator assended, Jonathan noticed this number raised by 10 (5) for each floor. If his mind wasn't so preoccupied with getting to work, Jonathan would have questioned what this display was counting or why it had been added seemingly overnight.

By the time the elevator was passing the fifth floor, Jonathan noticed how tight his shirt was around his middle and by the time the sixth floor came it only seamed to get worse with his belt cutting into his sides forcing him to loosen it by a couple of notches. By the eighth floor, he found himself undoing the belt completely, and by the ninth, his few of his buttons popped off, ricocheting off the elevator door.

Jonathan turned to face the mirror and saw his middle rounded out into a heavy gut hanging out of his shirt. It then lurches even further forward, and his clothes become notably tight around the rest of his frame

The displays read 10 and 280 (140) and a disturbing realisation hit Jonathan that the second display was his weight at it was rising by 10 lbs/5kg for every floor...

After some quick maths, Jonothan discovered that with 62 more floors to go, that's another 620 lbs/310kg. He darts over to the control panel trying to find the emergency stop, but it wasn't there infact no buttons were there. They had disappeared!