Jared McConnell had always been the kind of guy people called “compact but dangerous”—five-six on a good day, built like a coiled spring, a natural sprinter and obstacle racer who lived for mud, bruises, and adrenaline. He wasn’t the tallest, but he was always the toughest.
The trip to South America was supposed to be another story to brag about. A jungle endurance race, a remote course, a week off-grid. What he hadn’t planned on was the snake—iridescent black, fangs like needles—sinking itself into his calf before disappearing into the brush.
He woke up in a hut, surrounded by a circle of weathered faces and painted skin. The tribe’s healer fed him bitter teas, packed his leg with pungent herbs, and whispered things Jared didn’t understand. They kept touching his chest, his arms, as if checking for… something. But all he could tell is that he was healed.
He tried to thank them, but never could communicate with them, and nobody in the race knew of a tribe in that jungle.
When he finally got home, the bite had healed completely. But things started changing. Slowly but surely, changing.
First he noticed he wasn’t winded on runs anymore. Then his shirts tightened as his body grew and put on muscle. Then his shirts failed.
He was six feet tall, shredded, powerful.
Things accellerated: after a couple of months he grew to six-nine, thick, superhuman muscles. He was close to doorframes - top and sides!
Not long aftrer, he tried to just avoid them entirely. His body grew the way storms roll over mountains—slow at first, then unstoppable.
Two months after that, he was impossible. A closing on nine feet tall, weight over a thousand pounds, shoulders like boulders, muscles on muscles, layered in ways no anatomy book ever predicted.
He couldn’t step into his house without cracking something. The mirror (the part he could see, anyway) didn’t show a man anymore—it showed a colossus trying to fold himself into a human life.
And his… changes... "right below the belt"?
Jared blushed every time he caught sight of himself. Let’s just say “unreal” didn’t begin to cover it. Towels became useless. Jeans stopped existing. Even gym shorts begged for mercy.
Sometimes he wondered if the bite had poisoned him—or if it was just something the tribe had expected, or perhaps feared.
But now, whenever he looked at his new body… the power, the scale, the impossible strength…
He couldn’t deny one thing:
Whatever he’d become, he liked it.