Absorption

The sciences always fascinated you, but biochemistry was the most interesting of all.  While others believed in machines and computers being used to enhance themselves, the idea that the human body already had near-limitless innate potential that could be unlocked with a mere injection was indescribable.  While you were never able to enter the field professionally, being an office assistant at the largest biotech research firm in the state was enough to sate your interest by proxy.

Breakthroughs did not come fast, but they were all remarkable in some way, only serving to cement your faith in the field.  Yet over time a seed of desire was planted in you, and you began wanting to see the these advances first-hand and have them change you personally.  Thus you began looking into them, finding out what they did as you entered data on them and, after a change in hours to the night shift, carefully learning where they were stored.  After a few weeks of this a new project was completed; it showed limited practical applications, but to you the promise was nothing short of miraculous, to the point where even losing your job at the facility paled in comparison.  So one night, you made your move, slipping through the halls and into storage.

"Cutaneous hyperpermeability and hyperelasticity and boosted cellular aquacontineous capability."  The description is a mouthful, but you know what it means in plain terms.  A dozen vials lay in storage, the fluid inside a deep blue, concentrated and pure.  No fewer than all of them would suffice.  You collect them, placing them down on the counter before retrieving a jet injector.  Slotting one vial into the back, you raise it to your neck and pull the trigger.  A sudden chill passes through your entire body, leaving as quickly as it came, and your skin begins to tingle.  It must be working, you think, replacing the empty vial with a new one.  Two, three, four... the vials stack up, until the last of them empties into you.  Setting the injector down you give your skin a pinch, pulling it and watching it stretch.  Perfect, you think to yourself.

Leaving the storage you head back into the lab and walk towards the emergency shower.  You step under the faucet and give the knob a full twist, and water begins beating down on you.  Your clothes immediately grow soaked, but suddenly there's a feeling of growth as the water is absorbed into you.  Your shirt strains against you as your belly swells, growing to fullness then beyond.  Diamond-shaped gaps appear between buttons before they pop off, exposing your growing body.  Soon the water builds up elsewhere, your sleeves and pant legs growing tight before the stitches tear, and your shoes growing snug before being pushed apart.  You grin as your line of sight rises higher, the stream of water hitting you in your puffed-up chest.  In a series of snapping stitches and popping buttons your clothing gives away, pulling apart as you grow within it.  They hang on by a few strands, but with a single flex they tear apart and fall in a pile around you.

By now no water from the shower hit the floor, instead soaking into you as it runs down your body.  You give your stomach a slap, grinning as you feel the water inside of you shake from the impact.  There's a weight and roundness to your body; at first glance you look fat, but there's a smoothness to it that fat doesn't have.  Beyond that, it's too mobile; as you move you can feel it flow within you, an extra bit of momentum when you gesture or turn.  Not only are you round, you're tall, half again as much as you normally are.  Unfortunately, the shower is starting to take too long, and even if it didn't, you wouldn't want to grow so large that you couldn't use the doors.

You stoop and squeeze through the door into the hallway, the top of your head inches from the ceiling.  As you plod down the hall your body shakes and jiggles with every step, and you wave to the security cameras as you walk by, thinking to yourself about how shocked the night shift must be.  Reaching the lobby you step into the fountain, your feet swelling slightly as they draw in water, with the rest of your body following soon after.  Within seconds the fountain sputters, letting out a hiss as the pool dries up.  Over too soon, you think, as you leave the building, bending forward as best you can in order to fit through the door.

The full moon gives you enough light to see your reflection in the building's windows, and it's a sight to behold: Puffy fingers and toes on swollen hands and feet, your limbs tapering up in wide cones.  Your backside is round, practically defying gravity, and your massively bloated belly gives your torso a teardrop shape.  You estimate yourself to be about eight or nine feet tall, and nowhere near full, though there were several ways to fix that.

You exit the lab compound, stepping over the automatic barricade at the entrance and walking down the center of the road, head turning to the sides every so often in search of more sources of water.  After about fifteen minutes you spot a wide pond, and you step off the road, crossing a short patch of grass before wading in, your body sucking in water the second it went below the surface.  The pond is surprisingly deep, coming up to your waist, and you can feel your legs and backside flare outward.  But without fail, the water fills the rest of you as well, belly and arms growing in surges.  Your point of view rises higher as the waterline falls, and you laugh to yourself, running your hands across as much of your bloated form as you can manage.  Within minutes the pond is reduced to a mud-filled recess, its contents now a part of you.

You lumber out of the pond and back onto the road, your longer legs quickening your pace.  You pause every so often at fire hydrants, pushing them over with your foot and standing on the torrent of water, soaking it up for a bit before continuing on.  By the time you reach town you're nearly four stories tall, wider than the road you're walking on, and so heavy your footsteps cause the ground to shake just as surely as they set your entire body in motion.  Unable to let your arms dangle by your sides you've taken to resting them on the shelf of your gut, looking pleased with yourself as onlookers stare at you in a mixture of fear and awe.

In the distance you hear a low rumbling, and you look up to see a mass of heavy clouds blowing in.  You briefly consider lying down and soaking up the coming rainstorm, but you think better of it and continue walking.  It's a long way to the ocean, after all.