Halloween Shorts #3 - Trial of the Warrior

Kyle made his way into the gym, practically skipping. But then, he’d always had a bundle of energy, and he usually found a good way to expend it was a morning run. He’d done it since he was teenager, and at this point, he was a star running at the state college, already being talked up as an Olympic contender. He usually preferred running the streets and parks around the college campus, but the weather that morning was heavy rain, so he figured a run on the treadmill would have to do instead. He picked out his favorite spot, not too far off from a mirror that he would occasionally check to preen a bit. He was in excellent shape, six foot four, lean and trim, and handsome to boot. He got on the treadmill, popped in his earbuds, set a moderate pace for a warm up and started his workout.

Little did Kyle know, but he’d begun jogging right into a bit of a trap, that had been laid by an ex-roommate of his at the college. The man’s name was Greg, and Greg was decidedly not an athlete. In fact, he was the opposite of one, spending most of his time in the archives of the library, pouring over archaic texts for his anthropology, or sociology, or religious studies, or whatever. Kyle hadn’t bothered to learn much about him. As soon as he saw Greg’s physique, he’d decided he wasn’t worth knowing. Greg was quite large, weighing in at around 300 pounds, and quite a few inches shorter than Kyle was. This had made him a target of endless nagging, almost like Kyle was afraid that Greg’s fat would somehow crawl off of him and onto his own body. He would ridicule him for eating, scold him for not exercising, and when he found out that Greg was gay, that was the final straw. He became convinced that Greg was going to try to molest him—after all, how could anyone, woman or faggot, resist him? The accusations had amounted to nothing, though Greg had been traumatized by the whole scandal, until the two of them had found new housing accommodations. Greg, though, wasn’t one to let such callousness go unpunished. His particular research interest was in ancient religions, rituals, and curses. Much of it was superstitious bullshit, but a few held actual power. One in particular was particularly tailored to Kyle, in Greg’s opinion—the trial of the warrior.

In this ritual, warriors of a tribe were faced with their greatest fears. If they overcame them, they would emerge stronger, fearless, honorable warriors of the tribe. If they failed, well, their fears would consume them, leaving them as hollow shells of their former selves, cursed to be haunted by their own terrors for the rest of their life. Greg had crafted the spell so it would trigger the next time Kyle went for a run on the treadmill. Kyle picked up the pace, keeping up easily as he warmed up. However, it was a few minutes in that Kyle felt like something odd was happening to him. He seemed to be getting a bit winded and tired already, his clothes wouldn’t quite settle on him right, and it just seemed like it took so much more effort to get going this morning. Usually his morning burst would kick in, but not today for some reason. He was about to call it quits and get off for a bit, just to assess, when he looked over in the mirror, let out a gasp, and nearly tripped on the machine.

He was fatter! Not a lot fatter, but when you were as thin and lean as Kyle was, a little went a long way. His body was rapidly losing definition, his cheeks puffing out slightly, his thighs losing their gap. He was about to get off, when the music in his earphones crackled, and were replace by a voice:

Warrior, this, is your trial. You fear weight. You fear that it will hold you down, pin you so you can never get away, and so you have spent years trying to outrun it. Now, it has finally caught you. Run, warrior. Run! Run for your life, for your body, for your strength, for your freedom! Stop, and it will consume you. Show us, warrior. Show us that you have the strength to resist it, and you shall be rewarded. Run—Run!!!

The last command was almost a scream of static, as the music returned. Kyle felt the tread start moving faster under his feet, nearly tripping him up, the front raising to a slight incline. He reached out and tried to lower it, tried to slow it down, but machine was no longer responding to his input, only to the curse put upon it. He looked over at himself, huffing and puffing now, and saw that he was even fatter now. He wanted to cry, he wanted to scream, but he knew if he wasted energy on either of those things, he would lose himself. He would panic, and he didn’t know if this was a hallucination, he didn’t know if what he’d heard was real, but he was too determined to give up now. He pushed on, focusing on his breathing, setting his pace, trying to conserve as much energy as he could. He would beat this nightmare, he would. He wouldn’t let this ruin him, he wouldn’t!

The machine kept pushing him, ticking up the speed, pushing up the incline, and each time Kyle felt himself slow and falter slightly, he could feel it, the weight piling on him in a matter of moments. He would catch himself and drive harder, but each time it caught him, it only got harder. He looked at the screen for any indication of how far he had to go, how much he had to run, but there was nothing, the screen glitching out and displaying nothing. His earbuds turned to static again, and a new voice this time:

Come now, Kyle. No need to run. I’ll catch you. I’ll hold you forever. You’ll see. You’ll see how happy I can make you. You won’t have to run ever again. I’ll make sure of it. I’ll make sure that you’re big, and fat, and lazy, you’ll be my prisoner, and you won’t even mind, soon enough. You won’t remember being any other way. You’ll be happy. A happy pig, and big, fat, lazy piggy, that’s all you’re going to be when I catch you, and I’m going to catch you, Kyle. You can’t keep it up. You’re so tired. I hear how hard you’re breathing. You’ll breathe like that when you get up in the morning, huffing and puffing and panting—

It wouldn’t stop. He pushed himself harder, running as hard as he could, going faster than the tread now, feeling the mechanism respond. The voice grew more distant—he was getting away! He pushed harder, feeling a little bit of the fat fall away from him, but he’d lost too much energy, and in his delight at a small amount of progress, his foot caught on the tread, and the next thing he knew, he was falling, rolling on the mat as it spun under him, throwing him off the treadmill and onto the floor, and something was on him, pressing down on him, swallowing him, engulfing him, and even as he tried to push against it, there was nothing he could do.

It took all of his energy to get back to his feet, but it was too late. He wasn’t in the gym anymore. He was in a dorm room, a dorm room he knew was his, but gone were his trophies, his running gear, all of it. There he was, standing in front of a mirror, a gross caricature of himself. He had to weight at least four hundred pounds now, the lard sagging off him in every direction, he cried. He sobbed, he weakly slammed a fist against the mirror, even as he could hear it, the voice inside him, laughing at him, taunting him, teasing him for his loss, telling him he’d never escape it now.

The door opened, and there was Greg, holding several bags of fast food. “I see the piggy’s out of bed,” Greg said with a sneer, “I bet you’re hungry for breakfast, aren’t you, you fucking pig?”

The hunger overwhelmed him. Kyle tore into the bags like he hadn’t eaten in days, scarfing down everything he could find, horrified to find that his gluttony was making him hard, was making him feel sexy, and horny. He could do nothing as Greg pushed him onto all fours and started fucking him while he kept stuffing himself, losing himself in his new desires, and before too long, the old Kyle was gone. All that remained was Kyle the pig, the gainer, the cumdump—always fat, always hungry, and always horny.