2020 Christmas Tales #12 - Ghosts of Christmas (Future)

Here's the final entry! I hope you enjoyed them all. Here's to putting 2020 behind all of us, and moving onto 2021 with a little bit of hope. 

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It was Mark’s junior year of college, and everything was going exactly as it should, as he’d hoped. He was in the starting lineup of his college football team, the scouts were already talking about him, and if he played his cards right, he would be drafted by the pros right out of school. But then, he’d always known he was destined to be a pro football player, Mark had never been one to let anything stand in his way. But with that confidence, came a certain amount of cockiness, and that had always led Mark to be a bully. In particular, he was always disgusted by fat people. He could make an exception for a linebacker--their fat served a purpose, at least. But anyone else on campus who was on the chunky side was met with a sneer at best, or open ridicule and humiliation at worst.

But for now, it was winter break, Mark was home with his parents, and had just gotten home from the Christmas eve service at their church. Of course, Mark didn’t really believe much of that stuff anymore, but it had been a nice event. Now, he was tired and wanting to get to bed so he could get up for an early morning run. He got into bed, laid down, turned out the light, and gasped when he found...something looming over him in the dark.

What it was, exactly, was difficult to make out. A hooded figure standing at the side of his bed, gaunt fingers sliding their way out of its sleeves, and no face that he could even see in the depths of the hood. He tried to grip the switch to turn the light back on, but his hands were frozen. There was a chill spreading through him, all over him, making his chest tight, his head spin. He couldn’t move, he couldn’t breathe, and he found himself passing out. All he could hear was a thin voice, almost like a gust of wind, whispering to him, “A future, for you...”

And he woke up. Or he thought he’d woken up. He whipped his head around, tried to sit up, but it felt like something was sitting on his chest. He forced harder, rolling to the side, and managed to heft himself up onto the side of the bed--looked down in the morning light, and screamed.

This wasn’t his body! What the fuck was this? He picked up his massive gut--or apron really, with both hands, shook it, and watched the mass ripple around his body, two heavy moobs shaking on his chest. He forced himself up, the sheer effort of it making him feel a bit winded, and waddled over to a mirror on the wall so he could see himself--or at least most of himself. He was too wide to really see all of it, but it was enough to make his face go pale. He wasn’t just fatter--he was older. If he had to guess, he was in his forties or fifties, and he looked like a fucking mess. A thick wiry beard all over his face, uncombed and uncared for. Hair buzzed off at an uneven length. He went to find his parents, looking for anyone who could help him, and found himself in a grungy one bedroom apartment, alone. Alone on Christmas! Alone and...and...hungry...

Something took control of him, opened up the fridge, and started stuffing himself, filling his gut with anything he could find, and as he did, pleasure began to warm his body. He was hungry, and eating felt good, didn’t it? It felt good being this big, it felt good being a pig. He deserved it, didn’t he? A disgusting slob like him? When he was full, he ended up groping around for his cock at the kitchen table and jacking himself off, rubbing his full gut and moaning and grunting, before getting control of himself again--and there, in the corner, was the same hooded figure as before. It came closer, one long finger extended, and just as it was about to touch his chest, Mark gasped awake.

He was back. Back in his room, back in his old body. He was horrified and shaken by how real it had been, that he stumbled to the bathroom and vomited--and despite the fact that his gut should have been empty, more came up than there should have been. He certainly wasn’t going back to sleep after that nightmare--he got himself dressed for a jog, and what would have usually been a leisurely jaunt on a cold morning, became a quicker dash--trying to outrun whatever it was he had seen in the night.

Maybe if he had taken the time to stretch. Maybe if he had slowed down, thought about it, considered his behavior, he could have stopped it. Instead, running through the park trails, distracted, he tripped over a root and went down hard on his knee, hearing something shatter and snap. It was an hour before anyone came to investigate his screaming, and he spent the next few days in the hospital--his knee demolished.

He didn’t get to play the rest of the year, as a junior, and the scouts moved on. He tried to play his senior year, but while he didn’t have much of a limp, his performance was no longer pro worthy. He dropped to the second string, and when he started gaining weight, his coaches dropped him entirely. The next Christmas, despondent, he went to sleep, only for the ghost to appear again, along with another vision. The same vision--and now Mark realized it wasn’t a dream, it was his future. He tried to avert it, but the weight kept coming. His grades had never been great, and without athletics, he found himself jumping from job to job, the weight always creeping up, and as much as it disgusted him, he found himself enjoying it all the same. The freedom, the sloth, the gluttony. He soon found himself the target of the same ridicule he’d dished out in his youth--and it only served to turn him on more. He started looking for men to degrade him and abuse him, even better if they would help him get even bigger. And each Christmas, his future would haunt him, forever more.