Ascent, The

Warning: This work is of a graphic nature. Readers who are sensitive to blood should proceed with caution.

The Mariana Trench, seven miles below the ocean's surface. After 200 meters, there isn't enough light to sustain photosynthesis. After 1,000 meters, less than 1% of light remains. At 11.03 kilometres, there's nothing but dark -- darkness and pressure. 15,750 psi. 108,600,000 pascales. One thousand atmospheres. Enough force to bend titanium.

At least, there would be nothing but dark. Instead, light blue and green light pods shine a dull glow against the ocean floor. Broken wires and burnt out lights flicker with a weak amber. The remains of the first deep-sea science rig known as DS1.

Step back thirty minutes. Seven crew members sitting ill at ease around a blue and grey monitor array. Back and to the left, Chief Dive Officer Jen Weiss sits and scribbling ascent details on a sheet of graph paper.

"This is DS1. Tether, what's your status."

Static and silence.

"They fucking up and left us!" blurted a rig mechanic.

"That's impossible." scoffed his cohort. "If they drop the tether, they can't get it back."

"We can float it up."

"Also impossible," he fuddled about for gum. "We haven't got anything that will make it that high. After fifteen meters, air volume octuples. You know what that word means? Doubles and redoubles, three times."

"I know what the word means, goddamnit."

The rig mechanics traded back and forth for a while, proposing progressively more preposterous schemes.

"A multi-stage setup. Fill one balloon with enough air to get bouyancy for the end. Fill another with less air, so it can be expanded enough to take over when the first one goes. The--"

"Enough," Jen chimes in. "It's likely they're just having technical difficulties right now. Even if we decide on a solution, there's nothing we can do until the head of the tether makes it down here. We've got air for a few days, so we can sit tight for a while."

Silence again. The mechanics, geologists, and oceanographers flashed each other glances. Jen stayed erect, but internally she was kicking herself for the outburst. She was right, strictly speaking, and she knew it. However, Jen wasn't much for attention, especially that of her peers.

"Agreed." Slowly, the murmur of consent spread across the group.

Their CO stood. "Stand ready. When word comes in I want everyone to act at the drop of a hat. It's unlikely topside hauled anchor, but we need to be ready for any contingencies. Keep the ideas brewing, and we'll see what we can make of this. Dismissed."

The crowd dissipated. Jen began a dignified march back to her quarters in Unit 2. A thud and whining groan eminated from the observation deck. Then, madness.

Jen scrambled amidst the confusion, managing a flimsy grasp on a torn section of the side wall. Bubbles and flashes from dying bulbs cut visibility down by a considerable amount. As a diver, underwater travel was nothing new. She righted herself as best as she could and peered around for an air tank. 120 seconds of consciousness, she noted in a mildly self-appreciatory way. "Emergency tanks in the wall. Stay calm. Where is the wall? Smashed. Okay, next room." She navigated across the hall, a task made difficult by the lack of ballast and ceiling. People above a certain percent body fat float in water. Jen, at a pudgy 30%, was one of them. This is quite beneficial under circumstances where drowning is a threat. Here, not so much. Deep sea divers spend weeks decompressing from a mission. Go up too fast and nitrogen bubbles build up in blood vessels, particularly those around joints. (Thus, 'the bends'.) Drop atmo too fast and you explode. Simple enough. Hand over hand, Jen plodded along the side ridge of the facility like an upside-down cliff crawler. The blue hall lights rippled across her soft, chubby cheeks and reflected in her brown eyes. Closer. Closer. Unit 4, Christie's room. She wasn't in, but her emergency mask was. Jen eeked over to it and, grabbing the case door with her thighs, strapped the mask to her face.

Air.

She breathed deep and closed her eyes. The unit was small. SCUBA gear matches pressures to allow people to breath easier, and at this depth, it wouldn't give her more than 30 minutes. Next on the list: ballast. Jen peered around the room for ballast blocks. A few weights and she could walk on the floor again, maybe find the others and help. "Ah." She got a glimpse of four blocks laying in the center of the room. She'd have to make a dive for it -- swim like a madwoman against the bouyancy force and grab the blocks. "It's that or find another set." She paused.

"Fuck it."

Jen coiled herself up, set her sights, and sprung forward towards the weights. The water absorbed most of her forward momentum, but it was enough. With one arm she snagged the weight belt and... continued upwards? "Houston we have a problem." She clamped the weight belt around her waist and swam frantically for a structure on which to hold. "What the fuck is wrong with you fatty? Just dive for it! No fucking problem. Fuck fuck fuck fu--" she swam onward, fighting the cold and numbness in her arms. Her strength was sapped. She felt a paralytic shock surge through her, the terror of imminent destruction sucking away her strength. Her heart fluttered and her arms lost coordination. Somewhere in her panic stricken mind, a mild twitch of eroticism tingled. The rush of adrenaline triggering some sort of depraved lust for the onslaught of undoing. CONTACT! ANTENNA! Her mind snapped back immediately as she grasped hold of an antenna at the top of the complex. Safety, sort of.

Jen's grip weakened as the adrenaline wore off. 20 meters down near the broken remains of the dive pool, another diver struggled with the weight belt. Jen watched in silence as the figure fumbled and dropped the belt in a paniced rush. It was Sarah, her colleague and friend of circumstance. They hadn't much in common, but they were both here. With the men outnumbering the women on the rig 4 to 3, they felt some sort of subliminal obligation to stick together. Sarah was a sweet girl -- young, and very Irish. She had dark red hair and brown eyes, a cute face with a big smile, and a nice set of hips. Her breasts, while miniscule compared to Jen's, were not lacking. From the looks of it, she was in the pool when all hell broke loose. She was wearing parts of a diving suit. Without thinking, Jen reached out her hand and grabbed her ascending friend.

In doing so, the added upward force yanked her from the antenna. They were both headed topside.

In the dim blue-lit expanse below, the full severity of the even dawned upon them. Topside hadn't lost the tether, they'd lost the armature too. A 3 meter wide cable, a crane, and a support ship came crashing down on the facility. Air in the hull must have slowed the descent enough to throw them off guard. The cable landed hard. The crane landed harder. DS1 was ripped open like a sidewalk scrape, bleeding oxygen and crew members into the darkness of the sea-sky.

10.950 kilometers.

Back to darkness, the last glimmer of the station lost to the murkiness of the water. Jen felt a bloating feeling in her chest and stomach. She probed herself with her left hand, still holding Sarah's hand tightly. There was minor bulging in her abdomen, but nothing that couldn't be explained by her clothing. She was wearing a black cotton sleeveless t-shirt and sweatpants. The wetness of the cotton could explain the extra fluffiness. She hoped.

10.930 kilometers.

The bloating feeling in her stomach increased. It was getting hard to breath, even with the respirator. A check of her belly revealed it to be noticably larger than a few moments prior. Her shirt wasn't tight yet, but it wasn't loose. She fingered about the weight belt and realized why it hadn't held her down. It was a utility belt. The blocks were nothing more than padded pockets with repair trinkets in them.

10.910 kilometers.

Jen's belly bulged outward, pulling her t-shirt tight against her skin. Her chest felt bigger, too. Most of the bloating feeling seemed gone, too. She attributed the phenomenon to the water temperature. Sarah squirmed a bit, grabbing Jen's other hand and putting both on her belly. Sarah was bigger than Jen, and strikingly gravid. Jen's heart went out to her ballooning colleague. She pulled Sarah close and hugged her, her belly pushing softly into Sarah's.

10.800 kilometers.

Their ascent quickened. The expanding air in their bodies increased bouyancy forces. Jen recoiled from thought as the pressure in her belly overtook her mind. She rubbed her abdomen slowly, trying to alleviate a bit of the stretching discomfort. Back to idle thought, she played about with the utility belt, drawing from it a stick light. She cracked it and shook, immediately regretting it. She was huge. Pregnant-looking at the least and probably bigger. She looked over at Sarah who was exploring her own figure. They traded glimpses of simpathy and mild amusement.

09.500 kilometers.

Sarah's belly pushed forward, impossibly huge. She tried to join her hands in the front and succeeded only in groping the sides of her tremendous gut. The swelling spread, spilling into her waist and hips. Her love handles were already gigantic. Sarah's snatch began to bulge inside the wetsuit. Her hips pulling it tight from their newfound volume. She looked like a water baloon being filled from a tap. Sarah arched her back slightly as she filled up. Her hands made large, slow circles on her stomach.

"Is she getting off to this?"

Jen's belly had pushed out just as far as Sarah's, but her hips weren't nearly as tremendous. Instead, Jen's breasts bulged forward, straining her gigantic bra. Her plump, fat breasts were ballooning out. She was easily a G-cup, possibly more. "Poor black bra. Boobies too big for you, too, eh?" They giggled slowly in the water, glimmering spheres in the green light of a glo-stick.

08.000 kilometers.

Sarah swam closer, as best she could. She wrapped her thighs around Jen, much to her surprise. Sarah giggled, her fat snatch rubbing up and down Jen's leg as she ripened. "SHE IS GETTING OFF!" Sarah's body stretched and contorted. Her stomach began to merge with her swoolen thighs and hips. The wetsuit looked ready to explode. It did, ripping cleanly down the middle and showing a stretch-mark covered ball of flesh.

06.400 kilometers.

Sarah groaned. Her stomach pulsated and her mound fattened up. Jen's breasts snapped her bra, and her belly consumed the rest of her torso. With no place left to stretch, Sarah's chest grew and broke free of her bra. Her arms filled up, slowly merging with the rest of her torso. She could barely hold on to Jen, her plump pussy rubbing franticly against Jen. Sarah's thighs were too huge to keep closed. The pressure forced them apart. Jen noticed this and, coming to the aid of her soon-to-pop friend, grasped her still-trim ankle and rubbed her snatch. Sarah convulged, reeling with pleasure. Jen failed to comprehend precisely why her friend was so aroused.

05.000 kilometers.

Sarah had stopped growing. Her gravid form leaft no place in which to do so. Her body pulsated slowly with the beat of her heart. Like an overfull balloon, her lack of expansion did little to show the build up of internal pressures. Jen watched in horror as her friend's skin finally gave way. Sarah writhed, her hands flapping away as she doubled and redoubled in size. Her arms and legs now jutted outward, forced by the decreasing water pressure and availability of skin. Her leg twitched, and she exploded. Air bubbles large and small flew upwards with a tremendous clip. The blast was tremendous enough to nearly disintegrate her colleague. Whatever bits of person may have been left fell to the bottom before the bubbles cleared.

No longer captivated by her morbidly huge friend, Jen looked back down and noticed the full extent of her bloating. She looked 9 months pregnant with a 400 pound woman. Her breasts now bore more semblance to hot air balloons, stretching upward and bobbling on the shelf of her gigantic belly. Her butt and thighs, largely unnoticed to this point, were starting to pull her sweatpants tight around her taint. It dawned on her why Sarah was getting off as much as she had.

04.000 kilometers.

Jen's back arched as her stomach swelled. Her lower body, hips, thighs, and pussy blimped outward, filling every space inside her overstretched cotton sweatpants. She giggled in place, swaying her hips and trying desparately to stimulate herself before the pressure popped her open. She lowered a hand to her mound and rubbed. Her eyes rolled back and her legs twitched at the immense pleasure generated by her bloated pussy.

03.000 kilometers.

Jen's torso started to merge with her thighs and upper arms. Her hands bloated up, preventing her from closing her hand. The added pressure forced her arms to her sides and spread her legs wide. She tried to move, to overcome the thousands of pounds of pressure forcing her skin outward, to bend her body enough for one more orgasm.

Her upper hips merged with the sphere of her belly. Her arms merged up to the elbow. Her cheeks pushed outwards, obscuring her vision. Bigger. Bigger. Bigger.

Her skin creaked. Her body widened. Her sweatpants and shirt tore at the seams, tattered pieces of black and grey cotton drifting like leaves in turbulent air.

01.000 kilometers.

Light. She could have sworn this was light. Could it be this bright a kilometer down? Her tremendous figure was bathed in a dim yellow on a choked sun. She struggled against the constraints of her gravid figure. Her clitoris swelled as the internal pressure overtook her skin's resistance. The pleasure of distention overtook her mental resistance. She felt her body surge forward larger than she would have dreamed possible. Her mind numbed and ripples of pleasure waved through her once again. Her body could strain no more, and she burst in a spray of particulate matter and blood. Organ fragments and viscera spreading outward into the ocean.