The Life and Times of a Mass Monster

The Stretch Mark Chronicles

[bullvolution]

"The Freak Squad"

The automatic doors sighed open at 10:02 AM, and every employee near the front instinctively looked up.

Not because the store was busy.

Because Evan had arrived.

The blue-and-yellow Best Buy polo looked less like a uniform and more like industrial fabric under tension. The collar sat high against a neck so thick it pressed into the seams, while the sleeves—already custom ordered in the largest size the store could get—clung around upper arms that looked vacuum-sealed into the material. Management had tried getting him proper white short-sleeve dress shirts for consultations, but after three failed orders and one visibly defeated tailor, they’d given up.

So now he just wore the polo.

And stretched it to its engineering limits.

At six-foot-four and somewhere north of 500 pounds, Evan moved through the Magnolia audio section with the careful awareness of a man who understood his own gravitational pull. The polished floor creaked faintly under each step. Veins rolled beneath his forearms as he adjusted a display speaker with absurd gentleness, thick fingers turning precision knobs like a mechanic handling jewelry.

A customer wandered into the aisle.

Mid-thirties. Browsing posture. Curious but defensive. The universal body language of someone who planned to say, “I’m just looking.”

Evan intercepted him with a professional smile.

“Morning, man. Looking for home audio?”

The customer glanced up—and up a little farther.

“Uh… maybe. Just checking stuff out.”

Evan nodded, folding his arms carefully. The fabric across his chest tightened so much the stitched Geek Squad logo distorted.

“Well, if you want my honest opinion, this setup over here?” He gestured toward a gleaming stack of speakers and a receiver. “This is the first system in the store that actually sounds like a theater instead of pretending to.”

The customer laughed a little. “That expensive, huh?”

“Depends what you mean by expensive.”

Evan crouched beside the subwoofer.

The movement alone was absurd. His thighs compressed against khakis strained nearly white at the seams, forearms flexing as he lifted the forty-pound unit one-handed and slid it forward like it was empty cardboard.

“You ever go to the movies and feel the bass in your ribs?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“That’s displacement. Most soundbars fake it. This thing doesn’t fake anything.”

He tapped the cabinet with a knuckle the size of a walnut.

The customer’s skepticism started cracking.

Evan could tell. Years on the sales floor had taught him the exact moment curiosity overtook budget discipline.

He stood again, slowly, the polo tightening across his torso as though the motion alone might split it apart.

“Tell you what,” he said. “Sit down for thirty seconds.”

The demo room dimmed.

A scene from an action movie rolled across the screen.

Then the sound hit.

The subwoofer thundered—not loud in the cheap way, but deep, controlled, physical. The couch vibrated subtly. Glass shelving hummed. Somewhere outside the room, a coworker muttered, “There goes Evan again.”

The customer’s eyes widened.

Evan grinned.

“That’s only at forty percent.”

“Jesus.”

“Exactly.”

The customer looked back at the price tag with the haunted expression of a man realizing he was about to spend far more money than intended.

Evan leaned casually against the wall.

At least, he tried to.

The drywall popped softly behind him.

He straightened immediately.

“Anyway,” he said smoothly, pretending not to notice, “we can also bundle installation.”

[bullvolution]

Night Feed

At 3:07 a.m., the house belonged to him.

Not legally. Not emotionally. But in the strange geography of shared houses and sleepless nights, ownership passed to whoever was awake when everyone else had surrendered. At that hour the walls softened, clocks sounded louder, and every refrigerator bulb felt like a spotlight meant for one performer.

He moved down the hallway in nothing but a pair of black briefs.

Old enough to know better, young enough not to care. Broadening awkwardly into something heavier than the version of himself everyone still pictured. Shoulders arriving faster than restraint. Appetite arriving faster than reason. Hair flattened on one side from sleep, eyes half-open, body running on instinct more than consciousness.

The floor creaked under him in places he knew by memory.

He paused outside one of the bedroom doors, hearing the low rumble of a friend snoring on the other side. Another room leaked blue light from some forgotten television still playing to no one. The house was full of people, but at this hour they were only shapes behind walls.

Then he continued.

The kitchen waited in darkness except for the digital clock over the stove glowing green: 3:08.

He opened the refrigerator.

Light spilled across him...cold white over bare chest, over stomach still warm from bed, over thighs thickening month by month with the quiet labor of lifting and eating and sleeping hard. He squinted into the shelves like a diver peering into deep water.

Leftover chicken.

Half a pie.

Milk.

Three eggs.

A container of rice.

Someone’s takeout box with a name crossed off.

He took all of it.

There was no menu in moments like this. Only momentum.

The counter became a worksite. Fork scraping ceramic. Microwave humming. Cabinet doors opening and closing with increasing confidence. He ate standing first, then leaning, then bracing one hand against the counter as if the act itself required support.

The hunger was never where he thought it would be.

It wasn’t in his stomach exactly. It lived lower, deeper, in bone and tendon and whatever hidden machinery had been dragging him bigger all year. He could eat until his belly tightened and still feel the appetite waiting underneath, patient and unconvinced.

He cracked the eggs into a mug and drank them because cooking felt too slow.

He tore into cold chicken with both hands.

He spooned rice straight from the container, swallowing before chewing fully, eyes half-lidded, somewhere between animal need and sleepwalking ritual.

When the fridge door swung open again, he caught his reflection in the dark microwave glass.

Bare chest. Full mouth. Black briefs. Shoulders wider than last summer. Waist thicker, arms fuller, chest carrying a density none of his friends had noticed because growth happened gradually when seen every day.

Face still young.

Body no longer interested in staying that way.

He stared for a moment.

Then kept eating.

Because morning would come soon enough with group chats and errands and jokes shouted across the living room. Someone would complain about missing leftovers. Someone would ask if he wanted to hit the gym later. Someone would say he looked bigger lately and mean it casually.

But at 3:12 a.m., none of that applied.

At 3:25 a.m., his appetite was quieted for now.

When he finally shuffled back down the hall, the kitchen behind him looked lightly raided...doors not fully shut, crumbs on the counter, milk left sweating on the table.

Evidence of growth.

By sunrise, no one would know exactly what had happened.

Only that he seemed a little bigger again.

[bullvolution]

The sun hasn’t even fully cleared the horizon, and already the logistics of the day are weighing on you like the literal tons of muscle you’ve cultivated. In your world, progress isn't just measured in the gym; it’s measured in the strategic failure of every piece of the world you interact with.

Here is the daily ritual of a man who has outgrown the world.

The Morning Strategy: Tactical Dressing

You don't just "get dressed." You execute a sequence of movements designed to prevent a failure of your wardrobe.

Phase 1: The Lower Body & Friction Management

Before fabric touches skin, you address the heat. Your inner thighs are so massive they lack any "daylight" between them; walking creates immediate, searing friction. You stand in a wide sumo-squat to apply thick layers of anti-chafe lubricant. Without this, your own muscle would rub you raw within three blocks.

Then, you step into your trousers and pull them only to mid-thigh. This is the crucial window. You sit on a reinforced bench to reach your shoes. If you were to pull the waistband to your hips first, the simple act of leaning forward to tie your laces would create a catastrophic pressure. The sheer volume of your quads and glutes, compressed by denim or wool, would explode outward. You’ve seen it happen: the seams screaming, then the explosive pop as the fabric surrenders to the density of your legs. Only after your shoes are tied do you stand to hoist the pants up, using a heavy-duty leather strap to "shelf" the waistband above the massive shelf of your glutes.

Phase 2: The Upper Body & Compression

The dress shirt is a lost cause, a cotton cage you must "thread" yourself into. Because your biceps and triceps have reached a circumference where they no longer bend comfortably inside a sleeve, you must keep your arms straight like steel pillars as you slide them in.

Starting from the bottom, you button upward, but the physics change at the pectoral shelf. Your chest is a granite expanse that refuses containment. You reach the "Chest-Button Ceiling"—the final three buttons remain open, a permanent V-shape exposing the upper reaches of your torso. Any attempt to force them closed would turn the buttons into high-velocity projectiles. Even the middle buttons act as a slow-motion chokehold, the collar digging into your windpipe as your traps flare into your jawline. You live in a state of mild oxygen deprivation just to look "professional."

The Commute: The Human Sardine

The subway is where your size becomes a public utility. You don't just enter the train; you displace it.

The Squeeze: You wedge yourself into the car, your lats so wide you occupy the space of two average commuters.

The Inertia: Because your mass is so concentrated, you don't "sway." When the train lurches, you are a structural steel beam. People don't just lean—they collide with you. They bounce off your deltoids like birds hitting a skyscraper.

The Suspicion: You feel the constant thud of shoulders and bags against your back. You start to wonder: Is this accidental? Or do they just want to feel the impossible density of something that doesn't budge? You stand there, a motionless pillar of muscle, while the rest of the world vibrates around you.

The Identity Crisis: Shacked to the Plan

As you stare at your reflection in the greasy subway window, you feel like you’re cosplaying as a man. This suit, this job, this commute—it’s a costume for a creature meant for more monstrous things. You were built to lift the world, to exist as an apex anomaly, yet here you are, squeezed into a seat, worrying about a seam.

But the cost of the plan—the thousands of calories, the specialized supplements, the endless cycles of growth—means you are shackled to this life. You need the salary to feed the machine you’ve become. You are a titan bound by the very growth you sought, forced to navigate the smallness of humanity while your own body threatens to burst free at every turn.

[bullvolution]

The drop in temperature signals the start of the "Heavy Season." In the lifting world, winter isn't for maintenance; it’s for a caloric surplus so aggressive it borders on biological warfare. As the mercury falls, your mass climbs, and the world—already too small—shrinks even further.

The Seasonal Shift: The Bulk Belly Keg

The "taper" you once prized is being swallowed by the sheer requirements of the bulk. To fuel the relentless growth of your lats and quads, you are consuming upward of 6,000 calories a day. The result is the "Bulk Belly"—a hard, pressurized keg of a midsection that isn't soft, but rather distended by the sheer volume of fuel moving through your system.

Your custom-tailored dress shirts, once designed to accentuate a V-taper, are now screaming under the strain. As you sit at your desk, the fabric over your stomach is pulled so taut it hums like a guitar string. The buttons don't just pull; they bury themselves into the cotton, creating deep radial stress lines that point directly to your navel. You’ve had to start wearing a compression undershirt just to act as a "containment suit," hoping to keep the internal pressure from detonating your wardrobe in the middle of a quarterly review.

The Contact Lens Crisis: The Multi-Day Pivot

Even your fine motor skills are being sabotaged by your own progress. The simple act of putting in daily contact lenses has become a high-stakes tactical maneuver.

Your forearms have thickened to the point that bringing your hand to your eye requires a conscious effort to fold the massive peak of your bicep out of the way. Your fingers, now resembling thick sausages of dense muscle and bone, lack the delicacy for single-use plastics. You’ve wasted entire boxes of dailies just trying to keep them from tearing under the pressure of your touch.

The Solution: You’ve switched to 30-day continuous wear contacts. It’s a medical necessity. You only have to endure the "sausage-finger-to-eye" struggle once a month. The rest of the time, you just wake up and go, grateful that you don’t have to risk poking an eye out with a finger that has the power to crush a gripper.

The Commute: A Two-Day Mercy Rule

The office policy of "two days a week" is the only thing keeping your sanity intact. In the summer, the subway was a challenge; in the winter bulk, it is a gauntlet.

The Layering Paradox: You need a coat to survive the platform, but a coat adds another two inches of width to your already impossible frame. You’ve settled on a sleeveless heavy puffer vest—the only thing that doesn't pin your arms to your sides like a straightjacket.

The Turnstile Trap: You no longer walk through the subway turnstiles forward. You have to "edge" through them sideways, leading with one massive deltoid and pulling your bulk belly in, praying the metal arms don't catch on your belt loops.

The Human Heat Sink: On the train, you are a radiator. Between your metabolic rate and the winter layers, you are radiating a literal cloud of steam. People give you a wide berth, not just because of your size, but because of the shimmering heat haze rising off your traps.

The Survivalist's Reflection

Standing on the platform, waiting for the 4-train, you catch your silhouette in the darkened tunnel glass. With the winter bulk, you no longer look like a "bodybuilder." You look like a natural disaster in a button-down. You are a mountain of meat and bone, barely contained by the threads of modern civilization.

The "chore" of making it in is more than just travel; it is a constant negotiation with a world built for people half your displacement. But as you feel the power in your legs just standing there—the sheer unyielding density of your frame—you know the trade-off is worth it. The world is small, but you are becoming something undeniable.

[bullvolution]

FLIGHT LOG: ATL-SEA // SEAT 12A-12B [REINFORCED]

Subject: Elias Thorne

Current Displacement: 412 lbs (Post-Cycle Peak)

Status: In-Transit / Deep Sleep Phase

I. THE LOGISTICAL FOOTPRINT

The aircraft groans under the localized weight of Row 12. Elias Thorne doesn't sit in seats; he incorporates them. Having long ago abandoned the pretense of fitting into a single space, Elias occupies a double-booked bay that has effectively become a leather-lined cradle.

The Quad-Lock: His thighs, each the diameter of a standard man’s torso, are wedged upward. Because the legroom isn't enough for the sheer length and thickness of his femurs, his knees are driven into the seatback of 11A, creating a permanent indentation.

The Lat Spread: Even in a relaxed state, Elias’s lats flare like the wings of a bird of prey. He has pushed the middle armrest into a state of total structural surrender.

II. ACOUSTIC AND THERMAL ANOMALIES

As Elias descends into a heavy, metabolic slumber, his body begins to function like a piece of machinery.

Observation 01: The Resonant Snore Every inhalation is a violent expansion of his ribcage. His chest, a massive slab of knotted muscle. The sound vibrates throughout the cabin floor. It is a tectonic snore that harmonizes with the 30,000-foot drone of the turbines, making the windows in the exit row rattle.

Observation 02: The Chin-Trap Elias’s traps have achieved such verticality that his neck has effectively vanished. As his head lolls forward in sleep, his chin is immediately caught by the upward surge of his upper pectorals. His own muscle acts as a biological brace, locking his skull in place. He is a prisoner of his own frame, supported by the very mass that makes his life a series of narrow doorways and broken furniture.

III. THE SECONDARY OCCUPANT

In Seat 12C sits a passenger who has been reduced to a footnote.

The Contact Patch: The fabric of Elias’s tank top—stretched to the point of transparency—presses against the neighbor’s arm. The heat radiating from Elias is palpable, the byproduct of a 6,000-calorie-a-day furnace.

The Magazine Grip: In Elias’s hand, a magazine appears to be the size of a sticky note pad. As he dozes, his grip strength remains "active"; the paper is under the unconscious pressure of a thumb the thickness of a cucumber.

[bullvolution]

APEX

When Arthur Pendergast first walked through the doors of Apex Nutrition, he was simply "The Pencil." At twenty-two, his wrists were so thin that his watch slid halfway up his forearm, and his suit—a "slim fit" charcoal number—swamped his frame like a child playing dress-up.

Jim Vance, the VP of Sales, a man whose own neck was a corded column of weathered muscle, looked Arthur up and down and sighed. "Well, Pendergast, you’ve got the grades. Let's see if you've got the stomach for the industry."

Arthur didn't just have the stomach; he had a void that needed filling.

The Early Days: The Vault of Growth

The "Employee Wellness Benefit" was a perk most employees used for a free bottle of vitamins. For Arthur, it was the keys to a laboratory. Two weeks into the job, he showed up at the warehouse loading dock with a heavy-duty trolley.

He didn't just take the standard protein. He took the experimental 'X-Factor' peptides, the raw amino acid powders that tasted like battery acid, and the 5,000-calorie "Mass-Maker" tubs usually reserved for professional strongmen. He began a ritual of "constant consumption." At his cubicle, the sound of his mechanical keyboard was replaced by the rhythmic thwack-thwack-thwack of a wire whisk ball inside a shaker bottle.

The Mid-Point: The Birth of the Pool

By the end of Year One, "The Pencil" was gone. In his place was a 230-pound man whose skin looked like it was being stretched over rapidly cooling lava. The office atmosphere shifted from pity to genuine curiosity, and then to a strange, hushed awe.

Marcus Miller, a senior rep who had previously been the largest man in the building, was the one who started the board. He pinned a sheet of paper in the breakroom titled: PROJECT TITAN: THE PENDERGAST PROTOCOL.

"Ten bucks an entry," Marcus announced to the gathered staff. "Category A: The date he hits 300 lbs. Category B: The date his current chair catastrophically fails. Category C: The final plateau weight."

The bets were clinical and cold:

Marcus Miller bet on 320 lbs: "He's already outgrown the warehouse doors."

Jim Vance bet on 380 lbs: "The kid doesn't have a plateau. He has an appetite for destruction."

The Protocol Evolves: The Struggle for Infrastructure

By Year Two, Arthur was a 290-pound force of nature. This was the era where the "Morning Strategy" became a mandatory survival tactic. He lived in a world of friction and tension.

One Tuesday morning, the office door swung open, and Arthur entered sideways. It wasn't an affectation; his lats had flared to such a degree that a head-on entry risked snagging his blazer on the frame. He reached his desk, and the office fell silent as he prepared to sit. He had to perform the Lower Body Maneuver.

Because his quads were now thick, solid slabs that touched even when he stood with his feet apart, his trousers were under immense pressure. He couldn't just sit. He had to plant his feet wide, grab the edge of the desk to take the weight, and slowly lower himself. If he moved too fast, the air pressure trapped in his pant legs combined with the expansion of his glutes would cause a seam-burst that sounded like a gunshot.

He reached down to adjust his laces—having forgotten his Lower Body Protocol of tying his shoes before pulling his pants to his waist—and the office heard it: the dry, terrifying r-r-rip of a reinforced seam. Arthur froze. He stood back up, face flushed, and walked straight back out to his car to change into his "emergency" pair of 52-inch waist slacks.

Marcus Miller checked off a box on the betting pool. "That’s the first pair of trousers. Jim, you owe me twenty."

The Final Form: 350-Pound Sales Manager

Three years in. Arthur Pendergast is no longer a man; he is a biological event. He stands at 350 pounds of hyper-dense, supplement-fueled muscle.

His daily life is now a series of tactical compromises:

The Upper Body Protocol: He stands before his team in a custom-made shirt that costs more than his first car. The top three buttons are a lost cause; his neck and upper pectorals are so massive that the fabric simply won't meet. His traps have swallowed his collar, making it look as though his head is emerging directly from a mountain of granite.

The Subway Squeeze: Every morning, he shuffles into the subway. He has become the "Sardine King." When the train starts, a man in a slim suit—the kind Arthur used to wear—flies into his side. The man bounces off Arthur’s deltoid as if he’d hit a padded wall. Arthur doesn't even blink. He just feels the "shackles" of his plan—the heavy, rhythmic thrum of his heart, the heat radiating from his massive quads, and the knowledge that he is now a monster of his own making.

The betting pool is long closed. Marcus Miller paid out the final winnings when Arthur cracked the structural base of the breakroom table just by leaning on it during a meeting.

Arthur looks at his reflection in the office window. He is "cosplaying" as a manager, but as his biceps strain against the fabric of his sleeves with every movement of his mouse, he knows the truth. He is an apex predator in a world of prey, bound to this office by the sheer cost of the fuel required to maintain his monstrous frame.

[bullvolution]

APEX: R&D Department

As the new fiscal year approached, the budget meetings looms over the office like a heavy fog—but for Arthur, the real weight was the experimental "Phase 4" compounds the R&D department had begged him to test.

The R&D Introduction: The Biological Buy-In

The meeting with R&D took place in a reinforced basement wing, where the floor tiles were thick industrial concrete. Jim Vance and Marcus Miller stood back like spectators at a launch pad as the lead researchers presented Titan-X. It wasn't a supplement; it was a metabolic requisition.

"We need to see how the fabric of a human frame handles this much density," the researcher said, his gaze lingering on the way Arthur’s neck seemed to flow directly into his massive traps. "The caloric cost is extreme, but the company covers everything—if you agree to the expansion."

Arthur gripped the contract, his fingers so thick he had to hold the pen in a modified fist. To maintain the life of a titan, he needed the salary that only a Sales Manager could command. He signed, effectively mortgaging his remaining humanity for the sake of the "Plan."

The 90-Day Surge: Defying Physics

The following three months were a blur of hyper-accelerated growth. Arthur was no longer just a big man; he was becoming a geographic feature of the office.

Month One: 365 lbs. His internal body temperature spiked. He wasn't just warm; he was a heat source. He had to keep a high-powered industrial fan at his cubicle just to keep from sweating through his blazer in under ten minutes.

Month Two: 382 lbs. Gravity began to feel personal. He noticed that the heels of his leather dress shoes were flattening under his sheer weight. Every step was a calculated impact, a rhythmic thud that caused the water in his coworkers' glasses to ripple.

Month Three: 400 lbs. The scale finally clicked into the fourth century. Arthur stood in front of his mirror, a mountain of granite-hard muscle. He realized he was no longer a person who used furniture; he was a person who tested the structural integrity of the earth itself.

The Morning Logistical Conflict

At 400 pounds, dressing was a high-stakes calculation of pressure and reach.

The Footwear Pre-Load: Because his quads had reached the circumference of tree trunks, Arthur had to address his feet before he ever touched his trousers. If he put his pants on first, the fabric became a rigid sheath that locked his knees in place; bending down would cause his hamstrings to expand with enough force to shear the seams like a hot knife through butter. He sat on a reinforced steel crate, his chest and lats flaring out like a cobra’s hood as he reached for his shoes, his breath coming in heavy, pressurized bursts.

The Fabric Slide: Once his shoes were locked, he stepped into his pants. He didn't pull them up so much as he "wedged" himself into them. He had to use the wall for leverage, sliding the fabric over his glutes with a slow, grinding friction. If the alignment was off by even a millimeter, the tension would snag on the sheer mass of his outer thighs, potentially ending the day before it began.

The Torso Cage: The shirt was a masterpiece of doomed construction. He slid his arms in, feeling the cotton grip his biceps like a blood-pressure cuff. He ignored the top four buttons entirely—his chest was a massive, unyielding shelf that made closing the shirt a physical impossibility. As he adjusted the collar, his traps surged upward, threatening to swallow his jawline.

The Budget Meeting: The 400-Pound Statement

Arthur didn't enter the boardroom so much as he occupied it. He had to turn his torso at a sharp angle to clear the doorway, his deltoids casting a shadow over the entire threshold. Jim Vance stopped mid-sentence, and Marcus Miller stared at the floor, suddenly feeling very small.

Arthur remained standing at the head of the table. He didn't want to risk the mahogany chair, which looked like a dollhouse prop next to him.

"The Q4 projections," Arthur rumbled, his voice vibrating in his own massive chest, "are tied directly to the R&D success."

As he leaned forward to emphasize a point, the strain became too much. A button near his solar plexus gave way with a sharp snap, flying across the room and striking the projector screen. He didn't flinch. He just kept speaking, his massive frame radiating a terrifying, pressurized energy. He was the monster in the suit, the "Sardine King" of the morning commute, shackled to a life of corporate meetings to fund the endless, hungry growth of the machine he had become.

The cosplay was failing, but the 400-pound reality was the only thing anyone in the room could see.

[bullvolution]

He let out a loud belch about half a second after I walked in. The counters were a disaster zone, littered with jagged eggshells and empty protein cartons that looked like they’d been tossed by a bored giant. His back was mostly turned to me, revealing a pair of pink Hello Kitty boxer briefs stretched to their absolute limit over his massive frame—the fabric was screaming for mercy.

In his hand, he gripped a heavy cast-iron skillet that looked like a toy in his palm. He was mid-headbanger anthem when he heard my footsteps. Turning with a grin that could light up a stadium, he chirped, "Hey bubba! I was a little hungry, so I got up to fix some breakfast."

I picked up one of the discarded cartons as he paused to rip the cap off another and down it in three massive gulps. I glanced at the label: 40 grams of protein and 260 calories.

"Dude, how many of these have you had?" I asked, staring at the growing pile.

"Oh man, only like…" He paused, actually using his fingers to track the math. "This is my fourth this morning? Yeah. Just a little something to keep me from wasting away before the real food is ready."

He turned back to the stove, where a ten-egg scramble was already mountain-high and sizzling in a pool of butter.

The Morning "Snack" Continues… He scraped the massive pile of eggs onto a platter—not a plate, a literal serving platter—and shoveled a forkful into his mouth before he’d even sat down.

"You want some?" he mumbled through a mouthful of protein. "I could crack another dozen. I think we’ve still got some bacon in the fridge, but I was gonna save that for the pre-lunch snack."

I looked at the sink, which was already overflowing with more cartons, and then back at the Hello Kitty face currently being distorted by his quad muscles. It was barely 7:00 AM, and he had already consumed enough calories to power a small village for a week.

"I think I'll stick to coffee," I said, dodging a stray eggshell on the floor. "But at the rate you’re going, we’re gonna need to hit the grocery store by noon. And maybe a seamstress for those boxers."

He let out a booming laugh that shook the remaining cartons on the counter. "Size small was all they had left! Besides, they’re aerodynamic. Helps with the gains, bubba. Now, pass me that hot sauce—the big bottle, not the wimpy one."

[bullvolution]

The sun hasn’t even fully cleared the horizon, and already the logistics of the day are weighing on you like the literal tons of muscle you’ve cultivated. In your world, progress isn't just measured in the gym; it’s measured in the strategic failure of every piece of the world you interact with.

Here is the daily ritual of a man who has outgrown the world.

The Morning Strategy: Tactical Dressing

You don't just "get dressed." You execute a sequence of movements designed to prevent a failure of your wardrobe.

Phase 1: The Lower Body & Friction Management

Before fabric touches skin, you address the heat. Your inner thighs are so massive they lack any "daylight" between them; walking creates immediate, searing friction. You stand in a wide sumo-squat to apply thick layers of anti-chafe lubricant. Without this, your own muscle would rub you raw within three blocks.

Then, you step into your trousers and pull them only to mid-thigh. This is the crucial window. You sit on a reinforced bench to reach your shoes. If you were to pull the waistband to your hips first, the simple act of leaning forward to tie your laces would create a catastrophic pressure. The sheer volume of your quads and glutes, compressed by denim or wool, would explode outward. You’ve seen it happen: the seams screaming, then the explosive pop as the fabric surrenders to the density of your legs. Only after your shoes are tied do you stand to hoist the pants up, using a heavy-duty leather strap to "shelf" the waistband above the massive shelf of your glutes.

Phase 2: The Upper Body & Compression

The dress shirt is a lost cause, a cotton cage you must "thread" yourself into. Because your biceps and triceps have reached a circumference where they no longer bend comfortably inside a sleeve, you must keep your arms straight like steel pillars as you slide them in.

Starting from the bottom, you button upward, but the physics change at the pectoral shelf. Your chest is a granite expanse that refuses containment. You reach the "Chest-Button Ceiling"—the final three buttons remain open, a permanent V-shape exposing the upper reaches of your torso. Any attempt to force them closed would turn the buttons into high-velocity projectiles. Even the middle buttons act as a slow-motion chokehold, the collar digging into your windpipe as your traps flare into your jawline. You live in a state of mild oxygen deprivation just to look "professional."

The Commute: The Human Sardine

The subway is where your size becomes a public utility. You don't just enter the train; you displace it.

The Squeeze: You wedge yourself into the car, your lats so wide you occupy the space of two average commuters.

The Inertia: Because your mass is so concentrated, you don't "sway." When the train lurches, you are a structural steel beam. People don't just lean—they collide with you. They bounce off your deltoids like birds hitting a skyscraper.

The Suspicion: You feel the constant thud of shoulders and bags against your back. You start to wonder: Is this accidental? Or do they just want to feel the impossible density of something that doesn't budge? You stand there, a motionless pillar of muscle, while the rest of the world vibrates around you.

The Identity Crisis: Shacked to the Plan

As you stare at your reflection in the greasy subway window, you feel like you’re cosplaying as a man. This suit, this job, this commute—it’s a costume for a creature meant for more monstrous things. You were built to lift the world, to exist as an apex anomaly, yet here you are, squeezed into a seat, worrying about a seam.

But the cost of the plan—the thousands of calories, the specialized supplements, the endless cycles of growth—means you are shackled to this life. You need the salary to feed the machine you’ve become. You are a titan bound by the very growth you sought, forced to navigate the smallness of humanity while your own body threatens to burst free at every turn.

[bullvolution]

Measuring Stick

We didn’t plan it. That’s the part that still bothers me.

We were standing in the corner of the gym near the old chalk bucket, talking about nothing...work, injuries, the way time erodes people differently. He laughed and rolled his sleeve up, gesturing as he always used to, and without thinking I did the same.

Two forearms. Side by side.

For a second my brain refused to process it. I stared the way you stare at an optical illusion, waiting for the trick to reveal itself. But there was no trick. His forearm was solid, trained, human. Veins, muscle, bone...everything where it was supposed to be.

Mine was…not.

It wasn’t just bigger. Bigger would have been understandable. Mine was wrong. Three times the volume, the skin stretched tight and glossy like it had forgotten what relaxation felt like. The veins didn’t branch so much as press, thick cords crawling under the surface as if trying to escape. When I flexed without meaning to, the muscle rose in a slow, deliberate way...less contraction, more assertion.

He noticed the silence.

“Jesus,” he said quietly.

Not impressed. Not jealous. Just… stunned.

That’s when it hit me: there was no comparison anymore. This wasn’t two lifters measuring progress. This was a specimen next to a memory. I felt something detach inside me...not pain, not pride, but recognition. The same feeling you get when you realize a door has locked behind you and didn’t make a sound.

I lowered my arm. He didn’t.

His forearm looked fragile now. Vulnerable. Temporary.

I tried to say something normal. A joke. An explanation. But the words wouldn’t come, because explanations belong to people who still share the same scale of reality. All I could think was how small he felt standing next to me...not just physically, but existentially. Like we were no longer the same species occupying the same space.

He clapped me on the shoulder and said, “You’ve gone somewhere else, man.”

He meant it casually. I didn’t take it that way.

As he walked off, I caught my reflection in the mirror—my arm hanging heavy at my side, pulling at the joint like it was testing its limits. I didn’t feel strong in that moment. I felt separate. Like I had crossed a threshold without ceremony or permission.

That’s the real cost. Not the strain. Not the isolation.

It’s the moment you realize your body no longer belongs to the human scale...and neither, quietly, do you.

[bullvolution]

Leaving the gym was an exercise in spatial navigation. I used to move through this world with a casual grace, but now every step feels like I’m piloting a heavy machine through an antique shop.

The Shrinking World

Everything has become too small. The turnstiles at the subway, the plastic chairs in the waiting rooms, the very air in the hallways. People don't just move out of my way anymore; they recoil, a primal instinct kicking in before their manners can catch up.

I walked down the street feeling the sidewalk vibrate under my weight. It wasn't that I was heavy in the way a boulder is heavy; I felt dense, like matter being crushed into a smaller, more volatile state.

The Architecture: Standard doorways now require a slight tilt of the frame.

The Furniture: Most chairs feel like they’ll splinter if I actually sit back so most of my weight was on my legs in a simulated version of sitting.

The People: They look like blurred sketches, soft and easily broken.

The Unfinished Growth

The most terrifying part isn't that I've changed—it's that the change is still hungry. I can feel the tension behind my ribs, a pressure that suggests my skeleton is merely a temporary scaffolding. I’m not done. Whatever "this" is, it’s still calculating, still expanding, still claiming more of my humanity to fuel its own assertion.

I ducked into a public restroom, desperate for a moment of stillness away from the staring eyes. The fluorescent lights hummed, sounding as fragile as everything else.

The Last Resort

I headed for the back. I didn't even look at the standard stalls; they were a joke, narrow metal coffins that I couldn't even enter head-on. I went for the handicap stall—the "large" one, the one designed for extra space.

As the door swung shut, the reality of my new geography hit me.

My shoulders brushed both sides of the partition simultaneously. The "spacious" interior felt like a pressurized cabin. I had to tuck my arms against my sides—those thick, corded forearms that now looked like structural pillars—just to turn around and latch the lock. Even here, in the largest space provided for a human being, I was an architectural error.

I stood there, head nearly brushing the ceiling, breathing in the cramped silence. I was barely fitting into the world's version of "extra room," and the fire in my muscles told me that by tomorrow, even this wouldn't be enough.

[bullvolution]

The Freshman 150

When I first met my roommate in late August, he looked like he was made of pipe cleaners. At 5'6" and barely 100 pounds soaking wet, he was so slight I honestly worried the industrial-strength fans in the dorm would blow him down the hallway. He was a "shadow student"—quiet, unassuming, and swallowed whole by a size-small hoodie. I figured he’d spend the year buried in the library. I couldn't have been more wrong.

The Foundation: September to October

The transformation started with the shipments. Within the first two weeks, our floor space was gone. He didn't buy snacks; he bought pallets. Industrial-grade tubs of "Mega-Mass 5000" and "Titan Protein" stacked up like a fortress around his desk. The sound of his blender became my morning alarm at 5:00 AM—a thick, sludge-like whirring as he downed 3,000 calories before the sun was even up. He’d hit the campus gym twice a day, every day.

By mid-October, his clothes, once baggy, started to fit like a second skin. He hit 150 pounds—a 50% increase in body mass—but he just frowned at the mirror.

"I think the laundry service is using too much heat," he’d mutter, tugging at a t-shirt that was starting to drape perfectly over shoulders that had suddenly doubled in width. He wasn't just "toning up"; he was expanding at a rate that defied biology. I’d come back from class to find him polishing off a mixing bowl of pasta, only to see him shaking up a protein shake an hour later.

The Density: November to January

By Thanksgiving, the "little size" he thought he was gaining became a local legend. He was 200 pounds of pure, dense muscle. His neck had thickened into a solid column of granite, and his thighs—once like twigs—were now thick, pulsing trunks that rubbed together with every step. He had to buy a "Heavy Duty" office chair because his standard-issue dorm chair had literally snapped under the pressure of his quads.

When we returned from winter break in January, I actually did a double-take. The person who walked through the door wasn't my roommate; it was a wall of meat. He’d spent the break in a "hyper-bulking" phase, walking in at a staggering 270 pounds. At 5'6", he was becoming as wide as he was tall.

"Dude," I said, dropping my bag. "What have you been eating? A cow?"

He turned, a confused look on his face. His neck had practically disappeared into a yoke of muscle. "What do you mean? I just stuck to the routine. I feel like I'm losing my gains, actually. I feel small today."

The 350-Pound Titan: April

By the time the spring thaw hit, he had peaked. He was 350 pounds of sheer, explosive muscle. He was a walking, breathing mountain, his back a map of muscle groups I didn't even know existed. His arms were so thick he couldn't even put them flat against his sides anymore; he just walked with a permanent, massive power-lat spread.

He didn't walk through the dorm anymore; he lumbered. The floor vibrated when he moved. He’d have to turn sideways to get through the doorway, and he’d just grumble about the doorframes being too narrow. He’d rip a shirt putting it on and just mutter about "cheap fabric." To him, he was still the same guy, just "filling out a bit."

The Year-End Blowout

The end-of-the-year keg party was the final act. When he walked in, the music actually skipped. He had to turn completely sideways to fit through the basement door, his massive delts scraping both sides of the frame. He was wearing a shirt that was basically a tarp with armholes, and even that looked like it was under a high-pressure steam blast.

"Thirsty?" I asked, handing him a full pitcher of beer.

"Parched," he rumbled, his voice a low-frequency vibration.

He didn't just drink; he fueled. As the night went on and the beer flowed, the sheer volume of liquid began to take its toll. His rock-hard, six-pack abs, usually carved like marble, began to push outward. By the third hour, his midsection was bloating out—a massive, hard sphere of beer and muscle pushing his XXXL shirt up until it sat above his navel. He looked like a titan who had swallowed a boulder. He patted his distended, drum-tight belly with a hand the size of a catcher's mitt and let out an earth-shattering burp.

"I think..." he paused, "I'm finally starting to fill out. Might actually hit the gym for real next semester."

The Move-Out

The sun the next morning seemed to bounce off the sheer acreage of skin currently occupying 90% of our room. I woke up to the sound of the floorboards groaning as he attempted to sit up. The beer bloat from the night before hadn't gone down; it had settled. His midsection was a protruding, drum-tight sphere sitting heavily atop his massive, vein-webbed thighs.

"Man," he rumbled. "I think I'm coming down with something. I feel... tight. Like I’m shrinking."

It was move-out day, but the room had become a trap. He tried to put on his "going home" outfit, but the joggers couldn't get past his calves. He pulled until the seams literally exploded.

"Unbelievable," he muttered, standing there like a bronze statue of a titan. "Clothes are getting smaller every year."

When it was time to leave, he stood in front of the door frame. He tried to walk through normally, but his shoulders hit both sides of the wooden frame simultaneously with a loud thud. He had to exhale, tucking his chin into his massive traps, and literally force himself through. I watched the doorframe flex and heard the nails groan as 350 pounds of unstoppable mass shoved its way into the hall.

Downstairs, his parents were waiting by a heavy-duty SUV. His dad’s jaw hit the pavement.

"Hey guys," the giant rumbled, tossing his heavy bags into the trunk, causing the car's suspension to bottom out instantly. "Sorry I'm a bit late. I feel like a string bean today. I need to get back on track for sophomore year."

As they drove off, the entire vehicle leaned heavily to the right under his weight. I stood on the curb and wondered: if he thought he was a "string bean" now, what would happen when he came back in the fall?

[bullvolution]

The Whale

They started calling him that quietly at first, the way people test a word before committing to it. A joke passed between mouths that never said it to his face. The Whale. Not because he was slow—he wasn’t—but because space seemed to move around him differently, like the room had to acknowledge him before anything else could happen.

He noticed it in small ways. Chairs that creaked too early. Doorways that felt narrower than memory allowed. The way conversations paused when he entered, as if everyone needed a second to recalibrate their sense of scale.

His body no longer felt like something he had. It felt like something he was inside of.

At night, lying on his back, he could feel the weight of himself pressing downward, a deep internal tide that never fully receded. Breathing became deliberate. Each inhale negotiated for space. Each exhale carried the dull fear that maybe the next one would cost more than it used to.

Mirrors stopped being honest. They showed him shape, but not consequence. The real truth came from reflections in windows, from the way his outline swallowed light, from how people unconsciously leaned back when he stood too close.

He remembered when mass had been a goal. A number. A direction.

Now it was a condition.

Sometimes he imagined himself underwater, moving slowly but with terrifying certainty, displacing everything in his path without effort or malice. A creature too large to turn quickly, too heavy to stop once momentum decided his course.

He didn’t hate the name.

That was the part that scared him.

Because somewhere along the way, the fear had been replaced by acceptance. And beneath that, something quieter and worse...relief. Relief that he no longer had to pretend he belonged to a smaller world.

The Whale doesn’t apologize for the ocean bending around it.

It simply moves forward, and the water learns.

[bullvolution]

The Whale II: Surfacing

The warehouse gym never truly slept, but it quieted near dawn, like a beast lowering its head to breathe. By the time he finished, the place was hollowed out—chains stilled, plates resting where they’d fallen, the echo of his last set still clinging to the rafters.

He pushed the door open with his shoulder.

Cold rushed in immediately. A hard, unforgiving winter morning, the kind that burned the lungs and sharpened every sound. The sky was just beginning to bruise from black into blue, a thin line of sunrise stretching itself awake along the horizon.

He stepped outside.

Steam poured off him at once.

Not breath—heat. It rolled from his shoulders, his back, the thick shelf of his chest, blooming outward in heavy clouds that caught the first light of morning. Each step sent more of it rising, his body refusing to cool, insisting on its own climate. The cold recoiled, turning him into a moving fog bank, a shape revealed only in fragments as the steam parted and re-formed.

The Whale, surfacing.

His skin prickled, not from chill but from contrast. Inside him, everything was still burning—muscle engorged, blood loud in his ears, heart working like it was meant to power something larger than a man. He felt enormous out here, uncontained by walls, his mass finally allowed to declare itself against open air.

The concrete creaked under his boots.

Each step carried weight and inevitability, a slow procession toward the parked car at the far end of the lot. Frost clung to the windows, but the glass nearest him began to sweat before he even reached it. He caught his reflection briefly in the driver’s side mirror—distorted, half-lost in steam—and for a moment he couldn’t tell where his outline ended and the fog began.

He liked that.

There was a time he would have rushed, shoulders hunched, embarrassed by the attention his size demanded even from empty space. Now he moved deliberately, letting the cold witness him. Letting the morning learn his dimensions.

By the time he opened the door, the interior of the car felt small. He folded into it carefully, the seat sighing under him, the warmth following him inside like a presence that refused to be left behind. When the engine turned over, the vents fogged instantly.

Hunger stirred then—not sharp, not frantic, but deep. Structural. The kind that didn’t ask if he would eat, only how much and how soon.

He pulled out of the lot as the sun finally cleared the edge of the buildings, light flashing across the windshield. Behind him, the warehouse stood silent again, unaware it had just released something that no longer belonged to enclosed spaces.

The Whale drove home slowly, steam still rising from his shoulders, already thinking about the next meal, the next expansion, the next moment when the world would have to make room.

And it would.

It always did.

[bullvolution]

The Whale

They started calling him that quietly at first, the way people test a word before committing to it. A joke passed between mouths that never said it to his face. The Whale. Not because he was slow—he wasn’t—but because space seemed to move around him differently, like the room had to acknowledge him before anything else could happen.

He noticed it in small ways. Chairs that creaked too early. Doorways that felt narrower than memory allowed. The way conversations paused when he entered, as if everyone needed a second to recalibrate their sense of scale.

His body no longer felt like something he had. It felt like something he was inside of.

At night, lying on his back, he could feel the weight of himself pressing downward, a deep internal tide that never fully receded. Breathing became deliberate. Each inhale negotiated for space. Each exhale carried the dull fear that maybe the next one would cost more than it used to.

Mirrors stopped being honest. They showed him shape, but not consequence. The real truth came from reflections in windows, from the way his outline swallowed light, from how people unconsciously leaned back when he stood too close.

He remembered when mass had been a goal. A number. A direction.

Now it was a condition.

Sometimes he imagined himself underwater, moving slowly but with terrifying certainty, displacing everything in his path without effort or malice. A creature too large to turn quickly, too heavy to stop once momentum decided his course.

He didn’t hate the name.

That was the part that scared him.

Because somewhere along the way, the fear had been replaced by acceptance. And beneath that, something quieter and worse...relief. Relief that he no longer had to pretend he belonged to a smaller world.

The Whale doesn’t apologize for the ocean bending around it.

It simply moves forward, and the water learns.

[bullvolution]

The Granite Wall

The gym floor was a symphony of clang and grunt, but the epicenter of the low-level chaos was always around Barry.

Barry wasn't just big; he was architecturally immense. His frame was a walking monument to synthetic hormones and single-minded obsession, but his chest—his chest was legendary. It was less a muscle group and more a geological feature, a double-slab of high-definition pectoral mass that jutted out from his sternum like the hood of a classic car. When he flexed, the ridges of his abs disappeared beneath the sheer, granite-like protrusion of his lower pecs.

He was currently waiting for the squat rack, leaning back slightly against the cold steel of a pillar, catching his breath between sets of calf raises. He was wearing one of his signature, excessively tight stringer tank tops, the fabric strained beyond its structural limits. Sweat clung to the deep, horizontal crevices that sliced across his upper pecs, making the surface glisten like wet stone.

That's when Marcus, a wiry young powerlifter known for his anxiety before a heavy lift, approached him, gripping a bottle of chalk.

"Hey, Barry," Marcus mumbled, his eyes darting between the enormous weight on the nearby deadlift platform and Barry’s impossible chest.

Barry nodded, a low rumble in his throat.

Marcus swallowed hard, then took a deep breath. He didn't ask. He didn't need to. This was ritual. Marcus raised his right fist, coated lightly in chalk dust, and drew it back.

The Stress Ball Ritual

The first time it happened, Barry had almost taken offense. It was clumsy, almost insulting. But the guy had hit a personal record (PR) right after, and the superstition had solidified faster than fast-acting protein. Now, it was just a fact of life.

Marcus brought his fist forward and didn't punch, but delivered a firm, open-palmed thwack right against the center of Barry's left pec.

The sound was less a slap and more a dull, fleshy thud. Marcus's palm rebounded slightly, the muscle dense and unyielding—like hitting a heavy, spring-loaded medicine ball. The impact barely registered on Barry.

Marcus immediately looked relieved, rubbing his hand. "Thanks, man. Wish me luck."

"Go get it," Barry murmured, already staring straight ahead, the massive pec still vibrating almost imperceptibly from the impact.

Minutes later, Marcus was screaming as he locked out a 500lb deadlift. The ritual worked.

The success, of course, brought more pilgrims.

Next came Leo, a competitive bodybuilder, always concerned about his symmetry. He was doing a chest day, and he needed a final burst of intensity before attempting his final, heaviest set of dumbbell presses.

"Big B," Leo said, his voice reverent. He didn't use a fist; Leo was more delicate. He reached out and used the flat of his knuckles to deliver a gentle, measured series of bounces against the lower sweep of Barry's right pec.

Bum-Bum-Bum-Bum. Four quick, rhythmic contacts. The pec muscle quivered slightly with each contact, the sheer density of the tissue forcing the muscle fibers to absorb the impact like a high-tension drum.

"For pump luck," Leo explained, stepping back, already feeling the mental surge.

"Sure."

Leo walked off, hitting his PR set with an animalistic intensity, dropping the dumbbells with a ground-shaking roar.

It was grotesque, yet it was undeniably effective. Barry had become the Anvil of PRs.

The interactions weren't limited to just simple hits. A newcomer, unfamiliar with gym etiquette, once stared at Barry's massive collarbones, wondering aloud how his neck supported the weight. Barry had simply shrugged, which made his massive traps bunch up obscenely high.

He knew the limits of the ritual now. He knew he was big enough that a soft, focused impact wouldn't hurt, but the act itself provided the psychological jolt his gym-mates needed. It was a transfer of energy, a brief moment of tactile connection with a physical absolute—a mountain of muscle that defied reason and gravity.

He was just reaching for his own set of wrist wraps when a tiny woman named Chloe, who trained Olympic lifts, approached him. Chloe was focused and deadly, but always needed a minute to center herself before a heavy snatch.

She didn't use her hand. Instead, she produced a tiny, bright green rubber ball—a stress toy she usually kept clipped to her bag.

"Barry," she said, her voice strained with focus. "Can I?"

Barry sighed, resigned. "Go ahead."

Chloe took the little rubber ball, held it high, and with a short, controlled flick of her wrist, she bounced the stress ball directly off the center mass of Barry's chest.

Boing. The ball hit the granite pec, rebounded sharply, and Chloe caught it with a fierce, satisfied grin.

"Perfect density," she whispered. She gave Barry a serious nod, tucked the ball away, and walked to the platform to attempt a weight she hadn't touched in three months.

Barry watched her go, rubbing the spot where the rubber ball had hit. It was slightly warm. He didn't feel shame or pain, only the strange, dull satisfaction of being functionally necessary—a man so impossibly large that his body had ceased to be his own, becoming a lucky charm, a density test, and a stress reliever for everyone else in the gym.

He finally stepped up to the squat rack, his massive legs waddling slightly, knowing that when he got back to the bench, the line of PR-seekers would be waiting for their turn with the Granite Wall.

[bullvolution]

"1UP"

I bought the handheld at a thrift store wedged between a box of tangled chargers and someone’s old MP3 player. The screen was scratched, the casing warm when I picked it up, like it had been running even though the battery indicator said empty.

At first it was just another training sim. Pixelated lifts. Reps. Progress bars that filled and reset. I played it in bed at night, thumbs aching, telling myself it was just a way to unwind.

On the fourth night, I unlocked a level I don’t remember earning.

The screen flickered once and displayed a message in blocky text:

REST MODE ENABLED PROGRESS CONTINUES WHILE YOU SLEEP

I laughed. Shut it off. Tossed it on the nightstand.

That was the first night I dreamed of weight.

Not lifting it—wearing it. Pressed into me from the inside out. I woke up tangled in the sheets, chest tight, forearms buzzing like they’d been asleep too long. When I rolled out of bed, my calves brushed the mattress frame in a way they never had before.

I told myself it was dehydration. Or soreness from the gym.

I played again the next night.

The new level wasn’t interactive. No buttons worked. My character just lay there on-screen, breathing slowly, his body outlined in faint, pulsing lines. Every few seconds, a soft chime sounded and a number in the corner ticked upward.

+0.3 +0.3 +0.3

I fell asleep with the console still glowing.

By the end of the week, my shirts stopped falling right. Sleeves clung longer. The mirror showed subtle distortion...nothing dramatic, just enough to make me pause. My traps sat higher. My neck thickened like it was being packed from the inside.

The game never asked for permission.

It didn’t need to.

Each night, the level deepened. The room in the game grew darker, quieter, like a lab or a shrine. Sometimes text appeared:

ADAPTATION IN PROGRESS STRUCTURAL COMPLIANCE ACCEPTABLE

I started waking up before my alarm, heart racing, skin tight like it didn’t quite fit anymore. My hands felt heavy resting on my chest, as if gravity favored them now.

I tried not to play one night.

I lasted an hour.

The thought of the game sitting idle felt wrong—like interrupting something mid-sentence. When I turned it on again, the screen flashed red for the first time.

PROGRESS DELAYED DEFICIT DETECTED

That night hurt.

Muscles cramped in places I didn’t know could cramp. My jaw ached. My back felt swollen, unfamiliar. When I staggered into the bathroom at dawn, the scale number jumped once, then settled somewhere it had no business being.

I didn’t stop playing after that.

I couldn’t.

The level stopped showing numbers. It didn’t need to quantify anymore. The character on-screen barely resembled the one I started with...thick, sloped, proportions skewed toward something heavier than function.

Sometimes I’d wake up and feel my pulse in places it never lived before. Under my arms. Across my lower back. Along my stomach, stretched firm and round, rising and falling like it had learned a new job.

The game began saving automatically.

One morning, I noticed my reflection lagging behind me slightly, like it needed an extra moment to catch up.

That’s when I understood.

The game wasn’t changing me while I slept.

Sleep was just when I stopped resisting.

The handheld sits on my nightstand now, permanently plugged in. The screen no longer dims. The level name is gone, replaced by a single word that pulses gently in time with my breathing:

CONTINUE

And every night, I do.

[bullvolution]

Morphs from: https://x.com/morirenasmenage?s=21

Restricted Access

Anthony hated airports now.

Not for the crowds or the delays, but for the way everything was designed to expose margins…how little tolerance there was for excess, for bodies that no longer agreed with standard measurements.

He walked carefully through the terminal, adjusting himself subtly with each step. His thighs rolled forward and inward in a rhythm that demanded attention. The shorts he’d chosen that morning had seemed like a good idea at home…lightweight, flexible, breathable. In motion, they betrayed him. Each stride tugged the fabric higher, forcing him to slow, to re-calibrate the angle of his hips so the friction didn’t become punishing.

Thirty-six-inch quads didn’t walk. They negotiated.

He paused near his gate and shifted again, forcing space where there was none, feeling the heat trapped between muscle and muscle. Around him, people moved freely…rolling bags, tapping phones, existing without having to think about their own anatomy as a structural problem.

Anthony finally lowered himself into a chair.

The seat arms boxed him in immediately. He spread his legs carefully, not wide enough to draw attention, just enough to let his thighs breathe. The pressure eased slightly, replaced by a dull ache that pulsed with his heartbeat. He reached into his bag, put on his headphones, and pulled out the book he’d brought for the flight…a habit from before his body had started dictating logistics.

The words blurred.

He stared past the page, eyes drifting to the aircraft visible through the window. The fuselage looked narrow from here. Temporary. Unforgiving.

He imagined the aisle. The seat. The way his legs would have nowhere to go but forward, pressed together, compressed for hours. He flexed unconsciously and felt his shorts tighten again, fabric resisting with a faint warning.

He exhaled slowly and adjusted once more.

How was he going to make it on this flight?

The bachelor party waited in Florida…sun, drinks, laughter, friends who still thought of him the way they always had. But sitting there at the gate, thighs heavy and restless, Anthony felt the familiar truth settle in.

This wasn’t just travel anxiety.

This was the next stage.

His body wasn’t done changing, and the world wasn’t changing with it.

[bullvolution]

Restricted Access - Precursor

Although he should have guessed today wouldn't be the best day for travel based on his morning..

Anthony had woken up to the sound of his apartment heating unit clicking off, the sudden silence jarring after the mechanical drone. He’d blinked at the ceiling, the light outside still muted by the early hour. It wasn't that he wanted it on, but the apartment complex warned not to leave it off with the temperatures dipping so low as to avoid frozen pipes.

The Morning Ritual

"Instructions, Anthony. Get up. Now. We have a timeline." The Voice, an unnervingly clear, almost metallic command in the back of his mind, cut through the residual sleep.

Anthony swung his massive legs out of bed. The floorboards groaned in protest, a familiar sound. He padded into the bathroom. The man staring back from the mirror was barely recognizable from ten years ago. He was a force now, a structure of densely packed muscle and bone.

He moved to the medicine cabinet. "The protocol," The Voice insisted.

Anthony popped the blister pack and swallowed the daily dose of Cialis. It was meant for "performance enhancement" in the gym—increasing blood flow, driving his impossible pumps—but lately, it just felt like a constant, low-grade thrumming under his skin, a warm engine idling.

Next, he reached for the small, heavy object on the shelf: a thick, black cock ring. It was a relatively new addition, part of The Voice's escalating series of physical directives. He slid it into place with practiced ease. The cold silicone warmed instantly against his skin, settling around his already thick base, creating a distinct, pressurized sensation. It wasn't about pleasure right now; it was about adherence, about the constant, inescapable presence of his own body. It was an anchor point for the restless energy the Cialis generated.

He moved to the small makeshift gym in his spare room. An hour of heavy work followed, a session The Voice dictated down to the rep count. He finished, chest heaving, his muscles swollen to their limit.

The Clothing Crisis

Back in the bedroom, the true logistical nightmare began.

His closet was an archive of things that no longer fit. He pulled out the light grey athletic shorts and a lightweight, white t-shirt with red accents. They were the most generous items he owned. As he tugged them on, the fabric stretched taut over his quads and chest. The t-shirt strained across his 58-inch chest, and the shorts vanished into the deep folds of his inner thigh and glutes almost instantly.

The material of the shorts was unforgiving. It clung, and thanks to the ring he wore, the fabric offered a distinct, almost detailed profile of his impressive package beneath. Even without looking, Anthony knew the outline was stark.

He stood for a moment, letting the limited fabric absorb the heat radiating off him. His internal furnace was always running hot, especially after a workout, and the temperature outside in the low 40s felt irrelevant. Sweat beaded immediately on his forehead and the small of his back. The massive amount of muscle on his frame was like a thermal generator.

"Layering is unnecessary and compromising to the physique," The Voice had stated. "Deal with the visibility. It is a necessary friction."

Anthony grabbed his keys and travel bag. He caught his reflection one last time—a mountain of a man in too-small clothes, radiating heat, and looking like he was already dressed for the Florida heat despite the cold morning air.

The Ride to the Gate

The Uber ride was tense. He had to ride in the front seat, tilting the chair back to accommodate his shoulders and spread his legs to keep his knees from jamming the dashboard. He kept his eyes fixed on the window, willing the airport to appear.

He dreaded the lines, the TSA agents, and the inevitable moment when he’d have to fold his body into the unforgiving metal of the security scanner. Every phase of air travel felt like a series of increasingly difficult gymnastic feats.

He’d made it through security without incident, though the TSA agent's eyes had paused for a beat too long on the outline of his groin before waving him through.

And here he now sat...

Boarding Call

Now, sitting at the gate, the ache in his thighs and the relentless heat radiating from him were a constant, physical reminder of his displacement. He adjusted his shorts again, trying to mitigate the friction, hoping the man next to him hadn't noticed the subtle, almost painful flexing of his muscles.

He closed his eyes and tried to focus on his breathing.

Then, the announcement broke the quiet.

"We are now inviting first-class passengers and those requiring special assistance to begin boarding."

Anthony’s heart thumped a heavy rhythm in his chest.

"First call, Anthony. Rise," The Voice commanded, sharp and insistent. "Project confidence. Maintain the image. Move."

Anthony took a deep breath, braced his arms on the sides of the gate seat, and slowly pushed himself up. His body moved with a heavy, deliberate grace. Every muscle fiber protested the shift from rest to motion. He felt the eyes of a few nearby travelers slide over him, drawn by the sheer mass of his frame.

He started walking towards the gate agent, each step a negotiation between his 36-inch quads and the restrictive shorts. The cock ring offered a constant, low-level buzz of pressure, making him intensely aware of his own anatomy, driving the heat and the slight, undeniable tension in his groin. He approached the scanner, his ticket clutched in his huge hand.

He knew what was coming next: the narrow jetway, the even narrower aisle, and the coffin-like seat awaiting him in coach.

He looked down the jetway, a long, unforgiving tunnel to his immediate future.

[bullvolution]

Morphs from: https://x.com/morirenasmenage?s=21

Restricted Access

Anthony hated airports now.

Not for the crowds or the delays, but for the way everything was designed to expose margins…how little tolerance there was for excess, for bodies that no longer agreed with standard measurements.

He walked carefully through the terminal, adjusting himself subtly with each step. His thighs rolled forward and inward in a rhythm that demanded attention. The shorts he’d chosen that morning had seemed like a good idea at home…lightweight, flexible, breathable. In motion, they betrayed him. Each stride tugged the fabric higher, forcing him to slow, to re-calibrate the angle of his hips so the friction didn’t become punishing.

Thirty-six-inch quads didn’t walk. They negotiated.

He paused near his gate and shifted again, forcing space where there was none, feeling the heat trapped between muscle and muscle. Around him, people moved freely…rolling bags, tapping phones, existing without having to think about their own anatomy as a structural problem.

Anthony finally lowered himself into a chair.

The seat arms boxed him in immediately. He spread his legs carefully, not wide enough to draw attention, just enough to let his thighs breathe. The pressure eased slightly, replaced by a dull ache that pulsed with his heartbeat. He reached into his bag, put on his headphones, and pulled out the book he’d brought for the flight…a habit from before his body had started dictating logistics.

The words blurred.

He stared past the page, eyes drifting to the aircraft visible through the window. The fuselage looked narrow from here. Temporary. Unforgiving.

He imagined the aisle. The seat. The way his legs would have nowhere to go but forward, pressed together, compressed for hours. He flexed unconsciously and felt his shorts tighten again, fabric resisting with a faint warning.

He exhaled slowly and adjusted once more.

How was he going to make it on this flight?

The bachelor party waited in Florida…sun, drinks, laughter, friends who still thought of him the way they always had. But sitting there at the gate, thighs heavy and restless, Anthony felt the familiar truth settle in.

This wasn’t just travel anxiety.

This was the next stage.

His body wasn’t done changing, and the world wasn’t changing with it.

[bullvolution]

Morphs from: https://x.com/morirenasmenage?s=21

At least one more adventure for you guys with Brady.

The check sat folded in Brady’s wallet like a pardon.

He felt it every time he shifted…a thin rectangle of permission pressed between leather and muscle. Tuition paid. Semester secured. No more ultimatums. Just momentum.

Campus looked smaller when he came back.

Not metaphorically. Physically.

Doorways narrowed. Railings felt ornamental. Turnstiles at the bus stop required an awkward sideways negotiation that earned him looks he no longer bothered cataloging. His backpack straps bit into traps that hadn’t existed when he’d left in December. The weight of his body had changed the way he occupied space…how long he paused before moving, how carefully he committed to motion.

By Sunday night, the fridge in his apartment was empty.

He sighed and grabbed his keys.

The grocery store doors parted reluctantly.

Brady stepped inside and immediately felt it…the subtle recalibration. Carts drifting wider around him. A mother tugging her child closer without realizing why. The store smelled like bread and disinfectant and something sweet that made his stomach tighten painfully.

He grabbed a cart.

The handle sat too low. His forearms crowded the bar, veins raised and hot against cool metal. The cart squeaked as he leaned into it, wheels correcting their path under the load before anything had been placed inside.

Produce first. Habit.

He loaded without hesitation…bags of rice stacked flat, oats by the bulk, frozen vegetables purely out of obligation. Then protein. Then more protein. Chicken packs layered until the plastic strained. Beef. Eggs by the crate. Milk by the gallon.

Halfway through the store, the cart already felt right…balanced by weight, compliant beneath him.

A man stocking shelves paused, eyes flicking from Brady’s chest to the cart, then away.

“Big week?” he offered, voice uncertain.

Brady didn’t stop pushing.

“Every week,” he said.

By checkout, the belt disappeared beneath food. The cashier scanned in silence, eyes occasionally darting to Brady’s midsection where his hoodie stretched forward, fabric riding up as he leaned to load bags.

The total blinked red.

Brady didn’t react.

The check in his wallet might as well have been fuel.

The food hall was louder than the grocery store.

Metal trays clattered. Steam rose in greasy clouds. The smell hit him all at once…salt, fat, heat. His stomach tightened painfully, then growled loud enough to draw glances.

He grabbed a tray.

It bowed slightly when he set it down.

He moved station to station with purpose. Rice first, piled until the grains threatened the edge. Meat next…ladles heavy, sauce dripping. Potatoes. Pasta. Something fried. Something breaded. Vegetables only because they filled space efficiently.

A worker behind the counter hesitated mid-scoop.

“…You want more?”

Brady nodded.

“Fill it,” he said.

By the time he sat, the tray looked absurd. Food mounded like construction material. He claimed a corner table without asking, chair protesting as he lowered himself down. His thighs pressed against the table edge. His stomach met it.

He didn’t wait.

Fork…mouth…chew…swallow.

Again.

And again.

The noise faded. The room narrowed. All that existed was the mechanical rhythm and the sensation of volume entering him, stretching him, settling heavy and warm beneath skin that had learned to expect this.

Someone nearby whispered.

Someone else stared openly.

Brady didn’t slow.

Sauce smeared his knuckles. Rice scattered onto the tray, then disappeared again. He felt heat build in his chest, breath deepening, sweat forming at his hairline. With every bite, the pressure eased…not hunger, but something deeper. Something structural.

When the tray was empty, he sat back and exhaled.

The table creaked.

His hoodie had ridden up completely now, belly exposed and tight, skin flushed and warm. He didn’t bother pulling it down.

Across the room, a student watched him with wide eyes.

Brady met the look and kept chewing the last bite already in his mouth.

He wasn’t embarrassed.

He was calibrating.

This was the semester. This was the pace. Grocery carts that squealed. Tables that bowed. Plates that vanished too quickly to justify their existence.

He gathered his tray, stood carefully, and felt the familiar heaviness settle deeper into him as he walked.

Whatever he had been before Christmas felt distant now…flattened like a photograph on a couch.

Classes would start tomorrow.

So would the rest.

[bullvolution]

Morphs from: https://x.com/morirenasmenage?s=21

“I will not send you a check for next Spring semester if you don’t come home this Christmas, Brady. It’s been two years since we’ve seen you.”

He locked the phone and let it drop onto the desk. The surface dipped slightly under its own weight when his forearm followed. That still happened. Desks, tables, armrests…objects reacting to him before people did.

Two years.

He exhaled through his nose, already dreading the logistics of travel. Planes weren’t built for bodies like his anymore, not without negotiation, apology, or humiliation. He chose a taxi instead. It felt quieter.

The cab pulled away the moment Brady shut the door, its suspension rebounding like it had been relieved of a burden. Cold air bit at the strip of exposed skin above his waistband.

The shirt he’d chosen had technically fit him once. Now it clung desperately…fabric stretched thin across his chest, sleeves riding high on his shoulders, hemline creeping upward no matter how often he tugged it down. When he moved, the shirt moved with him, refusing to settle, baring the tight curve of his belly every time he breathed too deeply.

The jeans were worse.

Stretch denim, advertised as forgiving, looked like it was fighting for its life. The seams at the thighs were visibly strained, the fabric pale where it was being pulled the hardest. When he shifted his weight, he felt the telltale warning…a faint, stressed creak that told him one wrong movement could end the illusion entirely.

He reached for the door handle and paused.

Then he opened it.

Silence hit first.

His mother stood near the hallway, hands frozen mid-motion. Her eyes didn’t go to his face right away. They tracked downward, involuntarily, taking in the way his shirt rode up, the way his stomach pressed forward, the unnatural width of his shoulders stretching cotton beyond intent.

“Oh,” she breathed.

His father rose slowly from the couch, gaze flicking briefly to Brady’s midsection, then to the doorframe his shoulders had brushed.

Behind them stood Mark and Ethan…his older brothers. Same height. Same builds they’d always had. Normal. They looked like a reference image from a life Brady had outgrown.

“Jesus,” Ethan muttered, not unkindly. Just stunned.

Brady shifted his stance, instinctively tugging his shirt down. It slid right back up.

“Hey,” he said. His voice sounded too deep in the small space.

No one hugged him.

Dinner was an exercise in restraint.

The chair complained the moment Brady sat, wood flexing beneath him. He leaned forward automatically, trying to distribute his weight, the waistband of his jeans biting into his gut as the fabric stretched tighter with every breath. The table edge pressed into his chest uncomfortably. He could feel it with each inhale.

His mother kept glancing at his clothes like she wanted to ask something and didn’t know how.

“You look… different,” Mark finally said.

Brady nodded. “Yeah.”

His father’s jaw tightened. “You can’t keep this up.”

Brady looked down at his lap, at the denim stretched to translucence over his thighs.

“I didn’t mean to,” he said quietly. “It just kept going.”

No one pushed him for details. The evidence was sitting right there, breathing heavily in a too-small chair.

The next morning, his mother insisted on a family photo.

“It’s Christmas,” she said, as if tradition could override physics.

They tried standing first. It lasted all of ten seconds before the couch creaked loudly behind Brady as he leaned back instinctively, legs already aching.

“No, no,” she said quickly. “Sit. Sit down.”

So Brady lowered himself onto the couch with care. The cushions compressed completely beneath him, springs groaning as his weight settled in. His shirt rode up again as he sat, exposing the tight curve of his belly; the waistband of his jeans dug in visibly. He didn’t bother adjusting this time.

His parents stood behind the couch. Mark and Ethan flanked them easily, hands in pockets, bodies relaxed. Normal spacing. Normal proportions.

Brady sat in front of them all, massive and contained only by furniture that clearly hadn’t been built with him in mind.

The photographer hesitated, then adjusted the lens.

“Okay,” she said, uncertain. “Just… hold still.”

His mother forced a smile. “Smile, Brady.”

He tried.

When the shutter clicked, he felt something detach…not pain, not shame, but acceptance. The photo wouldn’t look like a family portrait. It would look like a record of something irreversible.

Later, when he saw it printed, he would notice how the couch looked undersized beneath him, how his brothers seemed farther away despite standing close, how his body dominated the frame even while seated.

Proof that he no longer fit where he came from.

That night, alone in his childhood room, Brady stood before the mirror. Posters from high school still lined the walls, edges curling with age. The reflection didn’t belong in the space.

He pressed his forearm lightly against the glass.

The mirror bowed.

He didn’t pull away.

For the first time, he understood…this wasn’t about strength. Or discipline. Or excess.

It was separation.

And when he left after Christmas…shirt riding up, jeans threatening to fail…it wouldn’t just be a return to school.

It would be a departure from scale itself.