Witching Hour, The

The Halloween party at Derrick's couldn't be more perfect.  Why? Because Cyndi told me she was coming as a "fat witch." Not only would this be the perfect opportunity for me to prod her about my suspicion but it would also be the perfect opportunity to try my reagent combo if she was willing.

I showed up in a vampire costume with just enough cliche to get me in. Fortunately, my party attire was the last thing on my mind.  

Cyndi had arrived before me and she was impossible to miss.  There she was in a hallway, literally filling it up with her fat witch suit.  Her head seemed comically out of place atop the black ballooned torso.

A quick once-over convinced me that the suit was a carefully constructed labor of love. The blimp-like body was perfectly contrasted by a huge orange belt which in turn was complemented by matching striped tights and sleeves on limbs that were nearly starfished out.

"NICE costume!" I exclaimed as I approached her, trying to curb my enthusiasm to at least respectable levels.  "Yeah, pretty amazing, huh?" she said as she giggled and patted her sides. Her own enthusiasm was difficult to hide.

As the night progressed, we became inseparable, moving from room to room and briefly socializing with everyone before we found our own spot in a hallway on the second floor, overlooking the other guests.  At some point, Cyndi finally began to shift the conversation from small talk back to her costume.

"This isn't bad ya know," she said introspectively as she rubbed her sides and looked down at her belt.  "What isn't?" I stammered, barely able to contain my excitement.

“Here it comes! She's into expanding. She wishes she was a friggin' blimp!” my inner voice shouted in triumph.

"Looking like this...being round and big.  Not bad at all,"   she remarked as she raised an eyebrow, waiting for my response.

"I think it's...well, it's pretty awesome.  In fact, imagine if you actually were like this."

She smirked and stared at me briefly.  "I think..." she whispered then paused.  "...I'd love it."

I leaned closer and whispered, "What if you could blow up? Like an actual balloon?"

"Uh, hello?  Not yeah but FUCK YEAH!” she snapped, growing visibly more excited as the conversation progressed.

"I'm pretty sure you can do it and I think I know how,” I said as I leaned back and withdrew several vials of the masterpiece I had concocted over the semester.

Cyndi's eyes grew as big as saucers and she immediately hopped up, grabbed my arm and pulled me into the closest room, closing the door behind us.

"This is a reagent combination I've been working on.  When this liquid is combined with this liquid, it causes a buildup of gases as well as an increasing rubberizing effect."

“And? That means?” she squeaked.

"It means you swallow this vial and when you're exposed to this other liquid, you basically become a living balloon."

"Just like that? I'll just start swelling?  How big will I get?  Will I pop?"

"Well, honestly I have no idea... about any of that.  As far as I know, the reaction should have a limit, like any other.  You'll stop swelling at some point.  I just don't know when."

She took a step back, creased her brow and reached out her hand abruptly.

"Gimme. Now," she said.

"Wait, wait! How about this?  Remove the fat suit inside your costume and then take the mixture.  You'll gradually start to fill the costume again and then some."

"Sounds like a plan.  Gimme a few."  She headed into an adjacent bathroom and returned, clasping the now emptied costume to her body so it wouldn't fall completely off.

"A little help here?  I can't open the vials myself like this" she said as she nodded at the chemicals and opened her mouth, sticking out her tongue.

I quickly emptied the first vial onto her tongue and she swallowed the mixture, puckering and gagging as she did so.

"Holy shit that's awful! Next!" she exclaimed as she bounced up and down anxiously.

Surprisingly, the next vial produced a more agreeable effect.

"A shame it didn't taste like blueberries, " she remarked with a smirk.  "Well, now what?"

"We wait and see what happens.  You should start..."  Before I could go further Cyndi's face lit up with an ear splitting grin as she put her finger to her lips, shushing me.

"Listen!  I can feel it!"

Sure enough a faint hissing noise was rising from her torso.  The loose folds of the costume began to shuffle as Cyndi slowly but surely expanded beneath them.  Her shoulders and arms steadily widened as her waist grew in girth.  The shocking orange and green tights, once as loose as pants, were quickly approaching their original tightness again.  She no longer needed to hold the costume up as her body now filled it further and further.

"Well?  What's it like?" I asked.

"It worked!  I'm...I'm growing...and I feel..." she whispered excitedly as she walked towards a mirror, stroking her belly, "...AMAZING!"

"Look at me!  I'm filling up!” she said as she twirled around and spread out her arms.   “I bet I'm gonna get HUUUUUGE!”


By the time we made it downstairs Cyndi had reached her original size when she was simply all costume.  Now she was all balloon and she was still growing.

"This is PERFECT!" she whispered.  "No one really notices yet.  Just wait!"

The party provided the perfect opportunity for her to throw around her ever-increasing girth.  She wedged herself through doorways, bumped into groups, and generally began to take up more and more space, relishing every second of her ever-increasing mass.

Soon, after several run-ins with her, partygoers began to take notice that Cyndi was increasingly larger each time they encountered her.  Finally, Lila, one of Derrick's friends spoke up.

"Cyndi!  Is your costume like, blowing up or something?"  A crowd had already started to form around her as she then smiled wickedly, ran her hands as far over her rounding belly as she could, and said, "Absolutely!"

And with that, Cyndi seemed to swell even faster.  Her eyes widened and she managed a nervous laugh momentarily before her torso suddenly blimped outward, her belly knocking aside a pool table and her limbs pumping up into huge cones.  With a loud whooshing and an almost frightening stretching-creak noise, the pace of her growth suddenly doubled then tripled.

Cyndi rapidly doubled in size. Every crease in her costume vanished. Her head quickly sank into her body as she rose towards the ceiling and her arms bid a quick farewell as they merged into the growing blimp she had become.  Somehow, by a miracle, her belt seemed to magically keep pace with her frightening expansion.

"Gettin' bigger!"  shouted Cyndi from above as she neared the ceiling.

"I don't think she's gonna stop!" screamed a terrified girl watching the spectacle from the kitchen.  "Everybody get out!" shouted another partygoer.  “FLEEE!” hissed a gamer as he grabbed unopened snacks and exited the back door.

Panic gripped the party as it dawned upon all that the growing witch-blimp in Derrick's living room had no intention of slowing down.  I made a dash for the closest door as Cyndi's body continued to expand, filling the room, pushing aside furniture and leaking into hallways and beyond.

Mystified, we watched from outside as what seemed to be a black hot air balloon consumed Derrick's house.  Cyndi's body blocked the front door, filled the foyer, and pressed against windows briefly before splitting the glass in search of more space.

And then with a torturous clash of splintering wood and mortar, Derrick's house was torn asunder.  The roof erupted, flinging shingles and insulation as Cyndi's body surged forth, her tiny head visible for a only moment before sinking back into her still swelling body.

The crowd was in a full panic.  Terrified students fled in all directions. Neighbors who had been alerted by the ruptured house hurried their families into vehicles as the gargantuan hissing orb swelled larger and larger.

As curious as I was frightened, I evacuated the area as well, running a number of blocks away but continually looking back.  Her growth was absolutely unbelievable.  I had no idea my reagent could have been so powerful or so unpredictable.  

I was as thrilled, as I was frightened.  Would Cyndi pop?  If she didn't pop would she engulf everything?  Had I created a masterpiece or brought on an apocalypse?  

As I stood at what I assumed was a safe distance and pondered the ethics of my experiment, I noticed Cyndi was becoming airborne.  As big as several city blocks and still growing, she gradually began to lift upwards.  As she slowly ascended,  I realized the winds were pushing her from the suburbs towards the heart of the city.

I began to walk, then jog, then run back towards her increasingly planetoid form.  As I grew closer, I could see from the impossibly gigantic belt's movement that she was now rotating through the sky as she swelled.

Out of breath, I finally arrived at the ruins of Derrick's house.  Standing directly below her was like standing below a small moon.

I was overwhelmed with a combination of awe mixed with jealousy and frustration.  The loud hissing that echoed through her immense body almost mocked me.  She was swelling bigger by the second high above me and I was merely a spectator to the process now.

As she rotated down towards me I could see even her head had grown in slight proportion to her body.  Tucked between massive folds of her blimped body, her pumped up cheeks were the only thing keeping her head from sinking totally in it seemed.  Was she shouting or laughing?  Both it seemed.

“BIGGER!  Gonna...AHAHAHA...get...so MUCH...AHAHAHAA...BIGGER!” she screamed from above.  “SO HUGE...AHAH...GROWING!  GRROWINGGGG!”

A mixture of dread, curiosity, and arousal overcame me as the gargantuan Cyndi headed towards the city like some sort of inflating Death Star.  I imagined her continuing to expand, dwarfing the city as she grew and grew, laughing, flattening everything in her path as she became an all-enveloping balloon goddess.

But something else happened.

With a thunderous snap, Cyndi's belt broke. It flew across the horizon, landing on some unfortunate suburb miles away as her body immediately shuddered.. A high-pitched hissing erupted from her as she fell into a rapid descent, doubling in size before she crashed into the ground.

The gargantuan blimp wobbled with pressure a few moments, growing in several struggling bursts of size as if she fought to expand even larger.  Despite what I knew was the inevitable, I stood watching in the open. I couldn't miss the result of my efforts and the culmination of my dreams.

Cyndi's explosion was more magnificent than I could have ever dreamed of.


EPILOGUE

Cyndi woke up with a slight headache, staring up at the full moon, and somehow still in her witch costume.  Off in the distance she could see the familiar outlines of the city's high rise buildings.  The lights were her last memory before she found herself sprawled out on what seemed to be a golf course.

She grinned at the city lights on the horizon.

It was time to find a better belt.