Vacation Plans

Little wisps of fog charged at the windshield of Angela’s Corolla as it wandered in the night, deep in a maze of paved-over indian trails, wagon paths, and modern blunders bored through a forest as dense as it was ancient. A thick leafy canopy reached around the road like a grasping hand. The Corolla’s dim, foggy headlights served as a surrogate for whatever little moonlight could reach the tarmac below. She was looking for a gravel road.

Angela made the turn and winced as rocks pelted the underside of her car. She had been driving for hours already, and with only some few minutes left before she would finally reach her cabin. This was the follow-through of her long-planned sabbatical. A week to unplug, relax, and reconnect with nature. The idealized vision played in her head like a troupe of dancers: soft and warm birdsongs to forget the earsplitting shrieks of ambulance sirens, the murmuring trees to swallow up the maddening shouts of neighbors and their spouses, and the warm sun to smile down on her instead of an overbearing manager staring her down. She so longed for this vacation that she nearly connected with nature head-on. She always wondered if tires would screech on a gravel path, but the answer was as definitive as it was negative. Her car lurched to a stop mere inches away from a fallen tree blocking the road.

“Perfect, ” was the only thing she could muster herself to say. She turned the engine off and pocketed her keys. Somewhere in her glove compartment there was a-- aha! A flashlight! Quickly checking her passenger doors and locking them, she climbed out of her car and locked her door. The flashlight was pitiful, to be honest, but it was better than nothing. There was no way her little car could get around the log. She walked to the back of her car and opened the trunk. Everything she needed was packed away in an external frame backpack, which she bought specifically to feel more outdoorsy. At least it was coming into use. She closed the trunk, tossed her bag over the tree, and climbed over it herself. Perfect.

She hadn’t expected this, and if she had she would have worn something else. Her sandals were a nightmare on gravel, and the nike short-shorts and tank top screamed “Open Season!” to any and all mosquitoes within a mile-radius. Not to mention the straps cut into her shoulders, and the waist strap was ready to slice her in two. She kept herself going with the promise of an idyllic lakeside cabin, and the threat of driving back home.

By the time Angela reached her rented cabin it was far too late at night and she was far too exhausted to care about how idyllic it was or wasn’t or how peaceful it would or would not be. All she cared about was the expectation of a bed and eight hours of sleep. After fumbling with the keys, she pushed the door open and dropped her backpack, then shut and locked the door. It was a one room cabin, complete with a bed next to a kitchenette across from a fireplace. At the center of the room was an olive green loveseat facing the fireplace.

“I don’t even wanna know how many shoestring horror movies happened here.”

Thirty-six, and none of them good.

The air in the cabin was thick with dust, and everything looked ready to crumble into even more dust. But that involved things that were not a bed, and those things were beyond Angela’s concern at the moment. Without any hesitation, she stripped off her sweat-dampened clothes and tumbled onto the bed without so much as pulling the sheets over her.

The witching hour struck. Someone stirred within the old cabin. Something had changed. The peaceful and solitary life it had grown accustomed to was suddenly shattered, and it was very, very frightened. The room chilled, nearly imperceptibly, apart from the goosebumps that washed across Angela’s naked body. It watched Angela sleep and deliberated on how to deal with this potentially lethal threat. What is that thing? It’s so huge! Why is it here?

A faint blue light traced the edges of the cellar door under the loveseat. The door slowly rose until a crack small enough for a mouse opened. A little more blue light spilled into the room, but it was too soft to wake the intruder. The cellar door opened further, and a small creature of no more than six inches height crawled out. It had a definite humanoid shape, though there were no indications of eyes, mouths, or any other defining features. The figure appeared genderless --it lacked any of the basement equipment needed for baby-making, or the upstairs equipment for baby feeding-- yet it oozed an inexplicable femininity. On it’s back were a pair of blue butterfly wings that carried the figure aloft to the edge of the mattress.

“What is it?” The fairy asked in an ethereal voice.

It fluttered to Angela’s face and looked at the teeth in her open mouth.

“Sure looks dangerous, though.”

The fairy studied Angela’s body. On second thought, it didn’t seem like much of a threat after all. It was big, but not hairy like other animals were. All it had was a patch of long yellow hair on its head and some curly hair between its legs. At least it didn’t look that scary. In fact, it looked anything but scary, once the fairy got used to its size. What were those huge fleshy things on its chest? They’re as big as its head! The fairy extended a pensive hand.

“I wonder what they feel like?”

Angela snapped awake, thinking that someone dropped an ice cube on her tits.

“What the fuck?!”

“Eek! Retreat!”

The fairy launched itself off the bed and flew behind the loveseat.

“What the fuck was that?!”

Angela pulled a sheet off the bed and tossed it around herself. Was someone spying on her with a drone or something? Are drones even that small?

“Hello?”

She tiptoed toward the loveseat. That’s where it went, right? She didn’t really know what she expected to see, but when she peeked behind where she could have sworn it went, the last thing that would have crossed her mind was a small blue fairy.

“Hello?”

“Eek! Don’t eat me!”

The fairy blew a big cloud of glittering dust in Angela’s face, then flew away. Angela coughed and spluttered.

“That was a fairy! I swear to god, it was a fairy!”

According to the Faustus University Encyclopedia of Magical Creatures, fairies are tiny humanoid sprites capable of casting all manners of rudimentary elemental spells, and are highly valued for the dust they produce. When refined, it can be used for a wide variety of potions, but raw it is a dangerously potent and utterly bizarre defence mechanism.

Angela’s stomach developed a paunch.

Fairy dust is akin to a squid inking, used as a means to get away from potential predators. However, while ink confuses predators, fairy dust is meant to utterly immobilize. Even a pinch of it when inhaled is more than enough to ruin an unlucky mage’s day.

Angela walked back to bed and tossed the sheet on the mattress. Her stomach was definitely growing, but Angela didn’t notice it until she sat down on the bed and realized that the bottom of her stomach was grazing her thighs.

Since cures for acute fairy dust poisoning are hard to come by, it is imperative that all fairy hunters and alchemists know what to do in case it happens.

Angela screamed and pushed on her stomach, which only responded by swelling faster.

First and foremost is to stay calm and collected. Fairy dust works faster if the heart is beating rapidly. Second is to get indoors as soon as possible, or if not possible, to tie oneself to a firmly rooted tree.

Over mere seconds, her flat belly developed a paunch and then swelled out to Angela’s knees. Her breasts, thighs, and rear began to grow as well.

“Oh my god! What’s happening?!”

Angela groaned and squeezed her belly again.

“Make it stop! I’m not a balloon!”

And as a last warning, no matter what, subdue, capture, or evade the fairy at all costs! Fairies are fickle, unpredictable creatures at best, and at worst they can be downright vicious.

Angela’s breasts, which were large before, quickly ballooned into her face. Her butt lifted her off the mattress while her thighs pushed themselves apart, squeaking like rubber as they swelled. Angela rubbed her overfilled stomach, and crossed her ankles to force her legs together.

“This isn’t real! This can’t be real! I must be dreaming, or delirious or something! Oh god, but I’m so tight, I feel like I’ll burst! It has to be real! Why does it have to be real? Why is it happening to me?”

Angela’s rear, already bigger than her massive breasts, lifted off of the mattress. Angela flailed her legs and arms, but they just as soon started swelling like the rest of her body. Her legs grew wider and wider, and shorter. Her belly dominated her globe, devouring her legs and arms into its curvature.

“Stop! Stop growing, please! I-- UF!”

She smacked into the ceiling.

“I can’t get any bigger!”

Her breasts peaked in size, each a third as big as her belly, and started shrinking into her expanding globe. All she could do was stare at the fading paint on the ceiling and bemoan her fate.

“I’m gonna pop! Like a party balloon! Just a bunch of scraps and pieces all over the place!”

Her body groaned as the swelling slowed to a painful crawl.

“Oh god! What’ll they do with me? They won’t even know it’s me, won’t they? They’ll just sweep me up with a broom and… Oh god!”

“Don’t worry, it should be stopping.”

“What?”

The fairy fluttered into Angela’s limited view.

“The inflation, dummy! See? It’s already stopped.”

“Oh, thank god! I’m alive! I’m not gonna die! I’m not gonna die!”

The fairy glowed pink in embarrassment.

“I’m sorry you got so big. I didn’t know you were so harmless!”

“What?”

“I mean, if I’d known you were this dumb, I wouldn’t have been so scared in the first place.”

Angela clenched her distant fists.

“Really?”

“Yeah, sorry. I’ve just never seen your kind before. I’ve dealt only with big, hairy, four-legged animals.”

“That’s great. So, are you going to deflate me?”

The fairy drummed on Angela’s skin.

“Hmm… Yeah, I guess so.”

The fairy then promptly flew out of sight.

“Hey! Where are you going?”

“I’ll get around to it eventually!”

“What?! You can’t leave me like this!”

“Do you want to be left as a pile of scraps? I can do that right now, if you want.”

“No! No! No, that’s fine! I’ll wait, I’ll wait!”

“Thought so. Be back soon!”

Angela sighed and listened to her body creak and groan. Why did this have to happen to her? Maybe that fairy really can’t deflate her. Maybe it would have been better to pop. Better than a life of… this. If that fairy really is going to deflate her, it had better be soon. Spending seven days as a balloon squished against a ceiling wasn’t what she had in mind for a vacation.