Chapter 4

After a short time, my headache started to fade and my mind was getting clearer, I started to inspect my surroundings. I was kept captive in a sort of warehouse turned into an epidemic crisis cell. Around me, I could see a lot of beds with shapes of very fat women under the blankets, some of them where so huge, the bed could barely contain them. All seemed to sleep, willingly or not.

What was I doing here anyway ? It seemed that I was the only man in custody, what was wrong with me ? I had to get out of this cell and find out, nobody had the right to kidnap people like this, even for safety reasons. Somebody had to answer me, I was searching for a way out when the plastic door opened behind my back ...

- It's nice to see someone familiar around here !

I turned back quickly to discover our family doctor, Ms. Alexander. Actually I wouldn't have recognized her if she didn't have her white blouse on and the same smile she always had when I was going to her for a checkup. She was so big now, her once skinny fourty year old in perfect shape body, had turned into a big mass of fat. Even with her small size, she was looking like she was weighting 300 pounds to say the least. Her flat chest from the past was also forgotten while she was carrying amazing D-cup breasts.

My amazement passed, I suddenly realized that I had no clue of how long I slept. And I also had no clue of where Tania and Valerie (memories of the episode in the room were coming back to me) were. I hoped they treated them good. Once again, I was thinking that the ones who treated us like that hadn't heard the last of me.

- You look tired for someone who slept for three full days, said with a gentle smile Ms. Alexander, bringing me back from my thoughts.

- Three days ?! I was in shock, but then I thought it would probably be my best chance to get answers, so I opened the fire. “What did they do to me during all that time ? Who are “they”, by the way ? What's wrong with all these people and what are you doing here ? Where is my girlfriend ?”

- Come down, I will tell you as much as I know. Her face, suddenly revealed how much these three days, unlike me, she didn't get much sleep. “But first, I should tell you not to worry, Tania is alright and so is Valerie, they even look better than you do.” Her soothing smile was back again, for the twenty years I knew her, it had always the power to calm me down, it had always been like this since I was a child. She was the only woman my mother trusted, even if I felt that she was a bit jealous of the doctor.

Then she began to explain what happened while I was playing Sleeping Beauty.

Ms. Alexander told me with her legendary calm voice, all that she knew. I Learned from her that the epidemic was spreading around the world. In three days, more than ten million women across the globe were touched by what they were calling “the fat virus”. Doctors from everywhere were working together to figure what this disease was about but were still in the fog. It seemed that nothing was going wrong with those infected aside the weight and the health amelioration and all of them seemed to have nothing clear in common. They didn't even know where it was exactly coming from, it seemed to have started from everywhere at the same time.

She also told me that some paranoids were even thinking about a terrorist attack, which confirmed to be unlikely due to the wide spread of the virus. Laughing, she even told me that some lunatics were thinking about alien attack, the idea was definitely amusing her scientific mind.

The other strange thing about the virus was that it seemed to stop acting after three to four days, but in some rare case, women affected at the beginning were still growing at the moment. The image of these over inflated women immobilized by their fat was must have been such a sight, I thought to myself with dreamy eyes. Ms. Alexander seemed to have noticed that I was loosing my attention, her expression suddenly changed in a very subtle way.

Hoping she didn't read through me, knowing me so well, I changed the course of the discussion asking who the hell was behind my brutal kidnapping. Angry again, I was able to think straight, but her face didn't seem to go back to normal, she was still looking at me with insisting eyes. It was so weird, but I put that on the account of her immense fatigue. After all she was on the deck for apparently long hours and being infected, she ought to be a bit scared herself...

I learned that my aggressors were no secret governmental organization but simply the army, sent by panicking officials. This intervention was already making quite a fuss with the public and half of the “prisoners” have already been sent home, the others, willingly, stayed in observation, too scared to what might happen to them once alone at home.

She finally told me that I was officially free to go and I , like all the victims of this mess, would be invited to talk to the lawyers defending our case against the state which she encouraged me to do.

But before going she had to take again a sample of my blood to be sure nothing was wrong, even if she doubted anything would be, the “fat virus” infecting only women. Knowing my fear of the needles, she proposed me, like always, to take the sample in my butt cheek, avoiding me to see anything. It was so reassuring to have something so normal happening in all this madness.

But things were not going to be so simple...