It's not that bad, you reassure yourself as you head out.
Sure you used to run to college every day and make it in five minutes. Now...now its about a thirty minute walk and if you try to run your knees scream and your heart thunders. But it's not so bad for you.
You're walking at least, unlike everyone else who's gotten so, so lazy. Its probably why you can still walk. The sight of your Mom, fitness fanatic and state beauty queen the year you were born heaving her gelatinous body onto a scooter is worrying but...that probably won't happen to you...right...
You waddle on, a little slower than the day before. When you first realized you were waddling you freaked, but by that point no one else cared. You were always far fitter and thinner than the norm, cross country champ and cheer captain in high school and hadn't planned on gaining a freshman fifteen at the town's college.
Instead you gained a hundred and fifty pounds and it wasn't yet November. Worse, it was about half to a quarter of what everyone else had gained.
It had started in June, noticing that the concession stand at the pool you life guarded at was doing good business. And that everyone, be they middle aged moms or recent graduates was showing a bit of extra weight.
You didn't think much about it...until you were fooling around with your quarter back boyfriend and noticed he had a beer gut coming in. Until you went shopping with your cheer team for bikinis for the float trip and they were all too chubby for the store, as was the clerk. Until you heard grunts upstairs and went up to find your attractive, fit reporter mom laying on her back trying and failing to zip her slacks up over a pot belly.
You really freaked out when you noticed in mid june that your life guard bikini was pinching and your daily mile time was rapidly increasing. Finding out you'd gained twenty pounds since graduation was bad...you resolved to diet and lose them all...
But then came the government emergency order. Words like outbreak, pandemic and quarantine were announced. Tanks on the exits to town, drones and helicopters filling the air, hazmat soldiers going door to door. Conspiracy theories abounded, rumors about crashed satellites or derailed toxic waste or bio weapons or even, ludicrously, some profaned statue at a museaum. Why no one knew, the CDC was still puzzled it was happening in your town and were making no progress, but at least it wasn't spreading. Four months later and you were all still quarantined...and it was getting bad inside.
The government was flying in food and supplies, although clothing was in tight demand given the growth rate. Most people were still working, although not doing a very good job. The biggest people, the ones who could barely stand up and needed wheel chairs to get around, they could only do the simplests computer tasks.
Everyone was getting lazier and lazier. You're the only one you know of still trying to exercise, everyone else just avoiding it. Your boyfriend gives the excuse of wanting to avoid injury, even though he needs your help to stand up anymore. At the start of summer he was ripped, now he's a blob with moobs bigger than his head and a cock hiding apron gut. At first he'd been devastated but as he got too fat to run or lift, he just gave in, now all he does is eat and play video games.
Thinking of it makes you hot and bothered. Just like your cheer co captain, a leggy red head who made you work for hottest girl in the school title. Now she's a freckled ball, wider than she is tall. Her knees and ankles swell when she stands up and her garbage bag size boobs keep her from standing up straight. She has to use a walker now and is on the waiting list for mobility scooters.
Your mom was the first to get one. The ex-model local news anchor inflated on camera, in June the camera always focused on her boobs, now she's too wide to fit in frame. She doesn't really report anymore, just eat on camera and the ratings have sky rocketed along with her weight.
You're huffing and puffing by the time you get in, the thought of their fat, unhealthy bodies making you desperately wet. Only to find that your professor has cancelled class. She was a leggy British professor of ancient anthropology and now it turns out she got stuck in her car and couldn't get out. You see panting fire fighters oh so slowly cutting her out of the car. It takes all of them to get her on a gurney and the ambulance barely makes it off, she's gotten so fat.
Left behind in the ruined car, a stone statue from the paleolithic. A bulbous female figure, with ancient runes on it. Papers in her abandoned brief case say it may be the origin of the curse and that with careful study it can be used to reverse it.
You pocket it in your hoody and waddle towards the local donut place. Along the way, you debate tossing it into the river. On the one hand, you're a lardass.
You've turned from leggy cheer captain to 275lb pear. Your cellulite coated legs clap and wobble, you don't have ankles anymore and need two cheer skirts to pin around your door jammer hips. A pregnant looking gut sags over your belt and your tits are barely D cups, your triple chin bigger than your boobs. You're pre diabetic and starting to binge eat like everyone else.
On the other, thinking of how fat everyone else is, of how your mom can't walk for her size and can barely talk due to how full her mouth is, of how your boyfriend's moobs are bigger than your head and thanks to the estrogen you've been giving him almost giving milk, of how your old co captain has invited you over for a pizza and beer night to watch some porn and see where things go...
You don't chuck the statue over the bridge...but you reserve the option. After all, you've got a while until you need a scooter....