Gains

My lungs burned. I felt like I was dying.

Gasping like a fish out of water, I plonked myself down on the bench and tried to blink the flashing lights out of my eyes. I gripped my knees and tried to focus on breathing. My body shuddered, my heart pounded.

Worst of all, I felt like a failure.

I’d thrown everything I had at this. I was eating right, hydrating, taking supplements, getting my sleep, but still, since the accident, my body just wasn’t the same. The old personal bests were out of reach, unattainable, like they belonged to someone else.

I caught sight of the scar on my knee, protruding from my shorts, and felt a stab of bitterness. I hadn’t even been driving that night. I was a passenger, blameless, and yet I was still suffering for it. Where was the justice in that?

My heart sank further and further as it slowed. I’d never get back to that glory. I’d never be as strong or as fast as I had been.

I took a careful swig of water from my bottle, feeling like I was recovered enough to take on liquids. The last thing I needed was to puke in the middle of the gym and embarrass myself further. I was already huffing harder than anyone else. I could feel the looks. The side-eye. The muttering.

I sucked in my gut, but it was no use really. There was no hiding the paunch. Years and years of fitness ruined by one night on a wet road. I seethed.

“How’s it going, man?”

Riley. The absolute last person I wanted to talk to in that moment. I looked at him over my shoulder and gave a no-committal nod, hoping he’d take the hint and go away.

“Still rough, huh?” He wasn’t good at hints. He plonked on the bench next to me, making sure to man-spread as far as possible. I hated Riley. I hated his attitude, his voice and his face, but most of all I hated his healthy body.

“Why don’t you let me help you, man?” He dropped his voice. “I hate seeing you struggle like this. I know you’re having a rough time.”

That stung. If a big dumb rock like Riley noticed how hard it was for me, that confirmed all my worst fears. Shame gnawed at me. “I told you before. I don’t want to take any of that crap.”

“I’m not talking about steroids, man. This is just a pill. Boosts your metabolism, that’s all. Take one, eat a load of protein, and it’ll help your body gain and retain the muscle. Nothing shady.”

“So, I can buy it over the counter?”

He made a face. “Not yet. It’ll be approved though, real soon. My guy hooked me up with some stuff ahead of time.” He shut up quick and made sure to flex as a couple of girls passed us. I hated him even more and hated myself for wanting what he had. “Look, life dealt you a crappy hand. You didn’t deserve it, right? Why not even the score a little? Life’s not playing fair with you, why play fair with it? Just think about it, alright?”

I found myself surprised by this level of insight from Riley, but quickly frowned it away. I’d never taken anything illegal, and I wasn’t about to start. I struggled up from the bench and hobbled to the lockers, my knee and back on fire with every step.

I didn’t bother turning the lights on when I got back to my apartment. I didn’t want the old trophies looking down on me from the shelf.

Instead, I grabbed a bag of ice, slumped onto the sweat-stained couch, and pressed it against my knee. My lower back was twinging in that all-too-familiar way that meant it might lock-up at any moment, but it would have to wait. Knee first, then pop some damn painkillers and get in the bath. Pathetic. I couldn’t even go for a simple workout without a system of measures in place to deal with my broken body afterwards.

Furious, I thrust myself up from the couch, only for my lower back to lock painfully and bring me crashing down with a yelp of pain. My bulk hit the coffee table, impacting my ribs painfully and sending me rolling across the floor.

I lay there, hissing in pain, and loathing my weakness.

I couldn’t do this anymore. Riley was right: life hadn’t been fair on me. Why shouldn’t I take a shortcut for once?

The pills were in an innocuous little brown bottle with a safety lid. They might have been anything.

“Take one and then load up on protein,” Riley had said. “Only one per day.”

“How much?” I’d asked.

“I’ll cover this one.”

“Right. First dose is free.”

“It’s not like that, man. I just want to help you out. One bottle should be enough to get you on track. You take these bad boys and you won’t need any more.”

I didn’t believe him. Why would he help me like that? But I also didn’t care. I was desperate.

I opened the lid and looked down at the pills, dubious in the face of actually taking them. Small, white and plain. What had I been expecting? An evil face on them or something?

I met my gaze in the mirror but only for a moment before the double chin and fat cheeks had made me too sick to keep looking. I took the damn pills with a gulp of water and went to make food.

The hunger hit me about half an hour later. It was pretty intense, like I hadn’t eaten all day, but a hefty plate of chicken and eggs seemed to do the trick. I sat down and waited for whatever awful side effects were due me. I expected nausea, diarrhoea, headaches, and sweating. What I got was nothing at all. I got hungry again after a couple of hours, so I grabbed a couple of protein bars, but other than that I felt fine.

I hit the gym again the next day. I knew it was stupid to expect results immediately, but I was still disappointed when I slumped down onto the bench, just as weak and defeated as the day before.

It wasn’t until I got home and made for the ice that I realised I wasn’t hobbling. Dumbfounded, I prodded at my knee. No swelling, no pain. Straightening, I twisted a few times back and forth at the waist. No complaints from my lower back either. My muscles were tired, but I wasn’t in agony. Surely it was too good to be true? A single pill couldn’t achieve what all that surgery and physio hadn’t. It just wasn’t possible.

I went to the bathroom and scrutinised the bottle, as though there’d be some clue to this miracle there. It was just as plain as before. I hesitated only for a moment before I took another pill.

That night I ate five chicken breasts, a pile of scrambled eggs, and slept solidly for ten hours. As usual, I dreamt about the slick road, the swerve of the car, the scream of metal, and the pain. I woke up expecting pain and found none. In fact, my body felt good for the first time in over a year. I got up, I stretched and flexed and felt strong. I even felt taller, the slouch gone from my spine. I was elated.

And starving.

That morning I cooked and ate pretty much everything in the fridge. I should have felt bloated and lethargic afterwards but instead I felt like I could run a marathon. Grinning, I grabbed my kitbag and headed back to the gym.

The next few days were more of the same. My grocery bill went through the roof, but I didn’t care. My body felt strong again. I recovered from exertion almost immediately, which meant spending more and more time in the gym. By the fourth day, I was hitting three big workouts in the space of a few hours. My muscles swelled, my veins pumped and my lung capacity increased. I knew it was impossible, but I felt the fat burning away. I could swear the double chin was fading and the gut was shrinking.

My skin felt a little tight, stretched under the pressure of new muscle inside but, besides the hunger, that seemed to be the only side effect and it was a price I was definitely willing to pay.

Riley gave me a knowing nod when he caught my eye, but I was too happy to care about his smugness. He was too busy flexing in the mirror to come and talk to me. I had to give it to him, he was seeing some real gains. I wondered if he was taking the same pills and, if so, how long he’d been on them. One bottle was all it would take, he’d told me. Panic struck me as I realised I didn’t know how many pills I had left. I didn’t want to stop feeling this good. After so long feeling awful, I deserved this.

I rummaged through my bag and, after checking no-one was looking, I opened the bottle. Only three. That was no good. I’d have to get more. I needed them.

I glanced over at Riley but he was talking to a group of people. I’d have to wait to get him alone.

I ended up waiting outside the gym. There was a café across the street and the lure of hunger was too much to bear. I wolfed down a pile of pancakes and watched the doors like a hawk, waiting for Riley to leave. Hours passed. I ate two omelettes in that time. The gym emptied, but Riley never left.

There was nothing for it. I needed those piles. I’d have to speak to him whether there were others around or not. I paid my bill using my credit card – I’d already emptied my bank account on groceries – and headed back over to the gym.

The lights were off inside.

I frowned. The place was 24 hour. I’d been there at all times of the day and night and never seen the lights off. For a second, I was worried I’d missed Riley leaving and the gym had been closed for maintenance or something, but the door was unlocked.

I stepped inside and a strange smell hit me. Thick and cloying, kind of metallic. My stomach rumbled even though I’d just filled it.

“Riley?” I called.

No response. I walked further into the darkness, peering around the machines. I heard a whisper of something, a noise I couldn’t identify.

“Riley? Are you here?”

I strayed further from the streetlights out front and deeper into shadows. The noise came again. It was wet somehow, a tearing sound. I squinted in the gloom.

Riley’s body was enormous, a swollen red lump quivering in the dark. He was hunched over, the muscles of his back bulging like they’d been inflated with air, grown to ridiculous proportion. They’d burst through his skin. There was blood everywhere. The floor was sticky with it.

Riley gave a long groan, and a shudder swept his mountainous form. I realised the wet sound was him chewing. Beneath him on the mat was a woman. I knew right away she was dead. Her eyes were empty, her mouth hanging open. Riley’s face was buried in her guts. Her limbs flopped as he tore deeper into her.

Tearing slick dark tissue free with his teeth, he leaned back and moaned in pleasure, his face plastered with her insides, jaw working furiously.

I staggered back in horror and nearly tripped over the leg press machine, making a loud clang. Riley turned his eyes on me.

The sound he made was one of wordless primal hunger. If there was any human voice in there, it was crushed by the muscles of his throat. He lunged at me, faster than I would’ve thought something of his size could move. Before I could get out of the way, he hit me hard, bringing me down beneath his blood-slicked bulk. He was impossibly heavy, incredibly strong. His breath stank of raw meat, blood and bowels. I gagged as he brought his face close to mine.

His body rippled as the muscles started to swell again. They were growing right in front of me. His jaw clamped shut, blood oozing between his teeth. His neck locked, and then his spine, forcing him into a rigid crouch over me. Tatters of his skin hung around his waist like a shredded skirt.

He let out a long low noise, a scream trapped inside his growing flesh.

His right arm snapped under the strain, a white shard of bone popping through the flesh in a spray of pressurised blood.

One of his eyeballs popped, oozing down his cheeks.

His teeth cracked and shattered, turning his chin into a gory waterfall.

Then there was a deeper, louder crunch and he slump forward, pinning me beneath his bulk once more. He didn’t move again, but his muscles continued to swell. I felt the breaking of his bones as they were splintered by the pressure.

Try as I might, I couldn’t lift his body. It smothered me, hot and wet and making sounds like popping candy.

I couldn’t get to my phone. There was no one to call. I couldn’t barely breathe.

My stomach rumbled.

“Oh no.”

The hunger hit me hard, crumpling my guts and stabbing me with pangs. I clenched my jaw tight, but Riley’s blood was already in my mouth.

“No!” I told myself, with all the effort I could muster.

It wasn’t enough.

Riley’s flesh pressed down on my face as his body expanded. My lungs burned. My body shuddered and my heart pounded. There were tears in my eyes as I started to chew.