The Box
A Musculonomicron Tale
Written & edited by Amnoartist
The time? Four-thirty-five in the afternoon. That meant Hayford’s museum would be closing in the next twenty-five minutes. Willow had been pacing through the premises for the past hour and she hadn’t found it yet. Reading articles online, keeping tabs on it, she knew it would be here for everyone to see, though only for a few days before being moved elsewhere for its tour. Willow always held a fascination with it. Hayford’s townsfolk would just see it as a cute little trinket, be ignorant. But Willow knew better, the stories her mother told her as a girl forever seared into her mind. Like everything else on display at the museum, what Willow sought had a storied history. Legends, even.
“Come on, where the hell is it?” Willow didn’t mean to butt shoulders with the woman passing by. Really. She was just so fixated on finding this damn thing that it drove her existence ever since she set foot in the building, not thinking about anything, let alone clearly. She looked at it so often online that every minute detail was crystal-clear even in her mind’s eye, right down to the exact shade of color of every piece, almost as if she could actually see it. If she were here with her, Willow’s mother would without doubt be acting the same way. But—
It wasn’t here, was it? Considering how little time there was before the museum closed, maybe it had already been locked away for safe-keeping before being transported to the next one for its tour. Willow was too late. That was the only logical explanation. Willow’s mother would’ve at least been proud of her for having gotten so close to such a piece of history. But Willow didn’t see it that way. How could she have gotten this close only to have the opportunity snagged from her? What did she do wrong? Maybe shouldn’t have taken a pit-stop for lunch after all. Fuck.
Now sat on one of the benches, Willow wasn’t exactly in a rush to go home, or worse still, do much of anything. She slumped, crippled by despair and self-hate for having been so close. Some passers-by looked down at her, but she didn’t notice, her eyes magnetized to the floor staring blindly, shutting herself off from the rest of the world. She would get up, in time — surely? It was just…
“Fuck.” In a way, it may have been a good thing for Willow that she had looked at her object of great desire for so long that she could perfectly replicate it in a sketch, but to her that knowledge would just be a sick taunt. It wasn’t enough to be able to draw it. Not now. She had to see it with her own eyes, to know the thing of legend was more than so. And maybe, if lucky enough, she might actually get to hold it. No! No, that was wrong of her; such a priceless piece of history should never be touched. Especially by such an insignificant and corporeal form as her.
At least, that’s what her mother warned.
The woman’s voice wasn’t registered until the third time she spoke, her words becoming clearer as Willow eventually broke free from her trance of self-pity. She wasn’t quite ‘there’ yet for responding verbally, though did take notice of the woman’s outfit, a three-piece suit with slim-fit pants, buttoned vest, single-breasted blazer and matched pumps, all in black. The name tag on her right lapel was ‘Linda.’ It wasn’t that much different from officewear, but there was a clear sense of professionalism and authority about her. She was probably the museum’s curator.
“Everything okay?”
Willow wiped the tear away from her cheek. God, it was embarrassing to think seeing that damn thing meant so much to her that it made her cry when the opportunity was missed. The woman didn’t seem bothered though, not that she was none the wiser. “Oh nothing. Just missed out on seeing something, that’s all. I’ll get going now.”
“What did you wanna see? What’s your name?” Kate was intrigued by Willow in a way. Not much was said about what she missed out on, but what had been held a weight of passion for history Linda didn’t think much people had these days. Sure, people who visited museums looked at the stuff on display, but could anything be said about whether they actually cared about any of it? Willow was different and Linda knew that.
“Uh, Willow. I…I wanted to see the box.” That was all Willow said, her filled with the belief it wouldn’t matter anyway.
“The box?” Linda felt compelled to help the crushed young woman. It was obvious Willow had gone above and beyond to get here, but her answer was just so vague. There were just so many box-shaped objects on display that it would take over an hour to go through them all. “That’s quite a problematic description. We have quite a few items on display with that shape.”
This was when Willow’s enthusiastic, almost obsessive — no, it was obsessive — knowledge of the box came into play. She could envision the object when describing it in perfect detail as though it were right in front of her. “It’s cube-shaped, no bigger than five inches and small enough to hold in your hand. Made of wood with gold edges. Each of the six sides has runes etched into the wood, almost Lovecraftian.”
Twiddling her thumbs nervously, Linda was hesitant to respond, almost as if she didn’t want to. But her eyes lit up when she noted Willow’s perfect detailing of the object she sought. There only was the one box matching that description. “Oh, that box.”
Willow’s misery shifted to something more positive akin to hope. It was as if Linda was trying to say, without explicitly doing so, that— “Do you have it? You do, don’t you?”
“We do. It’s just not on normal display anymore. We didn’t think many people had enough an understanding of the object to warrant that.” Linda could see Willow wasn’t exactly appreciative of that response. She wasn’t exactly angry. Rather, it seemed to Willow that Linda here wasn’t as conscious of the box’s history as she should be. “Even then, there isn’t a lot of history surrounding it, but what little of it there is…is dark.”
“Can…I see it?” Willow was fairly certain she was pushing her luck here, but was closer now than ever before. Her heart paced like a drumbeat, filled with a renewed sense of hope she just might be lucky enough to see it now. That was all she wanted to do: see it, look upon it with her eyes for a few moments, then leave.
There was no harm in looking, surely? Willow seemed harmless enough. Linda thought that much was true. Reminded her of her own daughter, in a way. Just a few minutes wouldn’t hurt. Sure, the museum was closing but nobody would argue with the curator. “Just a few minutes then.”
Willow’s eyes lit up. It was as if her streak of luck had found a new lease of life, bounding across the exhibit floor like a bunny rabbit, she was so excited. Her mother really would be so proud of this moment, if she were here. In point of fact, she probably was there already in a way, looking over her daughter’s shoulder in guidance. She watched Linda turn the key on a door that led into a hallway away from the main exhibits.
“You’re very lucky to have found me when you did, Willow. In the short time the box has been on display here at Hayford, those who wanted to see it would have to pay a large sum in advance.” Linda didn’t see herself as an extortionist. In fact, she took as much pride in her work as Willow was curiously passionate about the box. Even then, it object was such a rare piece of history that it was almost premium. She saw an opportunity there. “But even then I don’t think they really cared for it. Then I met you.”
“Oh, I’m sorry I don’t have any money. How much wo--”
“You’re missing the point. You care, Willow. It’s obvious you care about the box’s history, which is why I’m letting you see it for free.” Linda knew that if Willow were just another individual who had money to burn, the situation would’ve been very different right now. The curator knew Willow wouldn’t be the kind of person to say the same stuff as all the other soulless well-heeled folk. “On that note--”
That was when Willow saw it. The box, carefully encapsulated in a perspex display case in the middle of the room it had all to itself. No other object in the museum was that lucky. No other object in the museum was that special. The duo paced closer so Willow could see it up close, and sure enough, every detail matched the one in her mind’s eye. The plaque was blank.
“—what do you actually know about it? You call it ‘the box,’ but it has a proper name. Do you--”
“The Transmutation Configuration,” Willow blurted out in confidence. It was hard to forget a name like that, especially when her mother mentioned it every day for the past two decades. It was perversely ritualistic how often the box was brought up. Most people would think her mother was crazy for talking about something so much, but that was all Willow knew for the most part. “Mum used to say constantly.”
“And its history?” Linda queried, curious.
“Well, as you said, there isn’t a lot to it that can be confirmed, but what is known is dark. Like, really dark.” Willow swallowed, as if fighting back the buildup of bile in her gut. Some of the stories she’d heard about the Configuration were truly, truly fucked up, to the point where she’d lose sleep sometimes. There was the situation with the whole cult built around it, if that was to be believed, HP Lovecraft’s involvement that helped with inspiration for his stories. A whole lot of shit.
“Tell me.”
Willow seemed surprised. She didn’t think thee would be much point in recalling the stories to Kate. If she was the museum’s curator, and knew of the Configuration’s existence, then she would certainly know the stories surrounding it. “Are you sure?”
“Of course. We both know you care about this. But how much?” Linda seemed sterner now that before, as if her personality had shifted, her friendliness stripped away to expose a darker, truer layer of herself. “In my line of work to know is to care. So show me how much you care. Tell me.”
Willow didn’t know where to begin. Sure enough, there weren’t many stories to choose from, but what was there were textured and layered in ways that provoked some sense of curiosity in even the most sinless of people. She supposed the best place to start was the beginning, but for the Configuration even that was vague. For that particular detail there was no telling legend or myth from truth.
“There’s the story about how it was made. Some theorized it was built by a sorcerer during the Dark Ages, which the Roman empire sought, treasuring above the Holy Grail. It was said the Configuration’s supposed ‘dark beauty’ drove those who looked upon it mad.”
“Yes, I have heard that story many times.” It was clear Linda had expected to hear something a bit more…obscure, disappointed by Willow’s readiness to impart a tale most if not all people aware of the Configuration knew. But she could see Willow didn’t believe in that story. The runes etched into the box’s sides dated further back, before even the Prehistoric era, older than time itself. “What of the markings on the wood? Anything to say about them?”
There were quite a few things one could say about the runes. The most obvious one was that they acted as inspiration for HP Lovecraft’s Cthuvian, archaic symbols nobody could make much sense of. Even the most curious individual like Willow couldn’t make neither heads nor tails of the language etched into the box, forced to make do with the famous writer’s fictitious, almost blasphemous alternative. “Well, one thing’s for sure, it’s definitely a language not from here.”
Linda smirked, impressed by Willow’s insight. She had thought to prod the young woman further, to see just how much knowledge bubbled inside her head. “Not from here? That’s rather vague, don’t you think?”
Willow could see what Linda was doing. She didn’t mind being used as a proverbial guinea pig in the hopes of showing off knowledge she felt could be useful. Willow felt not enough people knew about the Configuration. It was just as much a piece of history as the Bible. In fact, she felt the box was more important. If her theory about the runes was right, that just might be true. “Here being this world, this plane of existence. Whatever the Transmutation Configuration is, it’s from out there.”
Linda had always thought that to be true, her own theory she felt was too ludicrous enough to be true. But now that she heard someone else share that same view, maybe she was right after all. Knowing that, Linda was positively giddy.
“The box is a tangible piece of history. But it’s more than that, isn’t it? It’s--”
“Familiar,” was Willow’s casual yet confident reply, grinning. “If the stories surrounding it are to be believed, the Configuration’s nothing more than a crude genie’s lamp.”
“Exactly. But even then the stories surrounding it are dark and twisted.”
Willow didn’t believe absolutely everything about the box and its perceived wish-granting power, but she was smart enough heed the warnings surrounding it. In truth, it was probably just a bunch of hocus-pocus, but better safe than sorry.
“If the desire is strong enough, the Configuration grants your wish,” Linda explained. “But--”
“—something of equal value is taken in exchange.” Willow knew that much from her mother’s incessant reminder over the past two decades. It’d now been seared into her brain like fire to flesh. “Even then, you don’t get to choose what.”
A disconcerting pause was shared between the two women.
“Well, if you believe in that stuff anyway,” Willow cut in, breaking the silence.
They each shared a look at the Configuration, the rune on the one side looking back as though staring intently, teasingly. All those stories. Surely it was all, really, just a bunch of hocus-pocus. It had to be. There was no way none of it was even remotely true. Linda was especially curious about it though, her fingers rolling with a curious, almost lustful want.
“Why don’t we take it out its case, let you hold it for a few minutes, eh?” Linda could see Willow wasn’t quick to share in her enthusiasm, looking at the box warily. She knew the stories surrounding the supernatural object had to be all nonsense, but wasn’t eager to test that expectation either.
“Are you crazy?”
“What’s the worst that could happen?” The case unlocked, Linda took the Configuration in her hand. Curious. For something so small, it was rather hefty, like a blunt object. The runes on each side were clearer to examine but no easier to understand. A distinct split ran down the middle. “The stories are all just a bunch of bull so people wouldn’t touch it.”
Willow wasn’t so sure about that, but clearly Linda was resolute in taking the box for a test run, refusing to heed the warnings. She wiped dust off the golden edges and smiled. In all her years working at Hayford museum, this was her first time holding such a storied object. She did, at one point, come close to touching Tutankhamen’s sarcophagus, but that was before her years as curator.
Her anxiousness notwithstanding, Willow couldn’t help but feel curious, jealous even, of Linda’s first-hand experience in holding the Configuration. The older woman didn’t do much beyond look at it with a smile, thumbing the edges carefully. “Well?”
“It’s heavier than I thought it’d be, a bit unremarkable this close up.”
“No. No, I mean, are you gonna…you know…”
Linda offered a glance at Willow, which was quickly followed by a stern, almost knowing silence that felt almost unsettling for the younger woman. Soon enough though, that austere expression formed into a snicker that killed the tension. “What, wish for something? I said I wanted to hold it. And you called me crazy.”
Willow was, for the most part, relieved, but a part of her seemed almost let down by Linda’s response. She was literally holding the Configuration in her hand, an object supposedly akin to a genie’s lamp, and chose to be wasteful of the opportunity. Thinking about it, there was no way the warnings something of equal value taken in return were true. “Pity. Seems like a waste to hold something supposedly that powerful and not take the chance at least.”
Linda scoffed. Surely that young woman wasn’t trying to goad her? The guts of that girl! The funny part was Willow was right. Why come this far not to hold it and see if a wish could be granted? And to heed her own words, what was the harm in trying? Linda shrugged. She did have an idea for a wish. Sure, she liked old objects and the history behind them all, but they didn’t pay the bills so much as she liked them too. What was history compared to wealth?
She closed her eyes tight, thinking hard about her desire for not just wealth, but infinite wealth, mountains of money stretching skyward, so high she’d crick her neck when looking up at it, yet would only be a pathetic fraction of its grand totality. Linda did genuinely think rubbing the Configuration like a genie’s lamp would help, thumbing the sides covetously.
After a moment of silent pleading…
“Well? Did it work?” Linda queried, her blinking open.
“No,” Willow said flatly. She didn’t know what Linda had wished for, but didn’t need to, to know it didn’t work. She pointed at the box, her finger dangling above the split running down the middle. “If the stories are to be believed, that middle partition is supposed to open up and the runes glow gold like the edges. What did you wish for anyway?”
“I know didn’t work because I’m not at least wearing that mink Versace coat I saw online.” Linda’s disappointment was immeasurable. She shouldn’t have put much stock in that bull about the box’s power. It really was all just nonsense, wasn’t it? “Wanted to be rich beyond my wildest imagination.”
“It doesn’t work like that. Remember, it’s called the Transmutation Configuration,” Willow explained. It was clear her words didn’t mean much to Linda though, the woman’s response a confused glance with a furrowed brow. “Transmutation refers to the body and mind. If I wanted to be taller or smarter, the wish might be granted, on the assumption it does actually work. Material wishes such as wealth, won’t.”
“But I don’t want to be taller or smarter,” Linda complained.
“Then I don’t know what to tell you.”
Linda groaned. Then she had a thought. “What about wanting to be younger?”
Willow postulated. “That could work. But again, the wish and desire have to be strong and true enough. If you’re asking this wish to be granted just to prove the thing works, it won’t.”
“Fuck.”
“Hey, I didn’t make the rules.”
Linda’s confidence in the whole thing was shaken enough to lose interest. Still, she promised to let Willow hold the box at least. She didn’t have much hope in the way of the wish-granting element being true at this point, even after the girl’s explanation. She handed the box over.
“Your turn, for whatever it’s worth.”
Willow’s heart felt like it was tearing itself asunder with excitement. After years of incessantly been fed stories of its existence and fabled great power by her mother, she finally had in her possession the Transmutation Configuration. Though notwithstanding that, now the young woman had found herself betwixt a whole new problem: deciding what to wish for, assuming the thing even worked as told. The crux of the issue was that the box always chose the wish most desired to be granted, and in some cases even the individual didn’t know what that was, as many as they may have had.
It was a gamble.
She thumbed the box’s edges, contemplating whether to choose this wish or that one. Being a couple of inches taller wouldn’t hurt. That way Willow would finally get the attention of some girls she liked. But then, was that wish powerful enough to be granted? Did she really want to be taller or—
“Well come on then. Since you’re so smart, show me how it works,” Linda fretted.
Now Willow knew what it felt like to be goaded. A sigh, her eyes were closed tightly as she placed a hand on either side of the Configuration, thumbing the golden edges softly, thinking deeply about that one wish. And then—
—nothing. Absolutely nothing. Not even so much as a feeling like a sixth sense that had Willow think she was different, hairs on the back of her neck standing up. Absolutely nothing. She was distraught. Coming all this way to have her hopes crushed, renewed, and then destroyed again was cruel.
Linda scoffed. “Should’ve known that was all a bunch of--”
Then, with a deep ethereal thrumming, the box’s middle partition opened just as Willow had previously described, revealing a purple crystal encased within. It was beautiful. Just…so, so beautiful. The pulsing continued, and with it, the crystal vibrated with energy, glowing brightly. So brilliantly did this crystal shine that it almost hurt Willow’s eyes, but she didn’t care, too entranced by the unearthly stone.
“—shit.”
The runes on the box’s sides then shared in the glowing, but not with the golden hue Willow mentioned, rather a shade of purple parallel with the crystal. Linda watched, frozen in disbelief as Willow’s magnetic stares persisted through the swelling rise in energy, catching the younger woman’s expression shift from shock to elation as a smile spread across her face.
It was over almost as quickly as it had started. The purple light that had only just filled the room was gone, the crystal’s power fading to nothing as it was safely bound again, the Configuration’s sides closing back into their original position. Willow’s feeling, which she couldn’t possible describe, was also gone just as quickly.
Then, again, a pause was shared between both women. Neither of them knew how was best to react to what just happened. All they could really do was look at one another with a certain, knowing expression, one only they could share amongst themselves.
“Okay, so…” Linda was a bit slow in her words, still trying to process all that. “…I’m not as knowledgeable about the Configuration as yourself, but I’m pretty sure it worked this time.”
Willow’s breaths were ragged, slow, as if she was coming down from a high. In just bearing witness to something as amazing as that, why wouldn’t she feel that way? Linda was right, too. It had to have worked this time, surely. She was surprised to have gotten some of the details wrong though, like the runes glowing purple, not gold.
“I guess so,” she said softly.
“I guess so,” Linda repeated sarcastically. Clearly she was looking for details. Whatever it was, Willow’s wish was strong enough to be granted. “Well? What’d you wish for?”
Truthfully, Willow felt embarrassed by the idea of telling Linda her wish. In fact, if that was the case, then it couldn’t have worked. She would’ve known otherwise, would’ve felt different. Or, perhaps in the off-chance, maybe it was one of those wishes that slowly came true over time. Be that as it may, Linda wasn’t going anywhere.
“I wished to be stronger. You know, mentally, sure of myself, confident.”
That certainly wasn’t what Linda had expected. In fact— “That seems a bit…wasteful, don’t you think?
“Huh?”
“I mean, you could’ve wished to be, I dunno, a celebrity or something. You know, literally turn yourself into one of those actresses you see on TV like--”
“--Not everything’s about fame or fortune. I used my wish the way I knew was best for me.” Willow argued. She could see why someone would want a wish like that to be granted. But that wasn’t her. She was happy living her quiet little life with her mother…before she died. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t be a celeb, if the wish is strong enough.”
The box was held out for Linda to take, but she didn’t immediately grab it like before. Willow had thought she was taking time to mull over her wish, making sure it was desirable enough to be granted. But no. After a few moments of pause--
“Say, uh…when you wished to be stronger, did you mean having bigger muscles, too?”
Willow was confused by Linda’s words. Whatever did she mean by them? Then, driven by curiosity, she looked down at her sleeve that was undoubtedly tauter than previously. Her arm held upright, Willow noticed a firm bulge rise from the sleeve, which was then quickly torn apart as the bicep burst clean through like nothing, revealing a newly-sculpted peak.
“Holy fuck!”
“Yeah. Didn’t think that was part of the plan.”
Linda took the box from Willow, who had now become entranced by her transformed self. Unless it wasn’t already obvious, her wish had been granted, but she failed to be specific with the terms. Willow then pulled into various bodybuilding poses — first, a double bicep pose that pushed the muscles bigger than before, just an inch or two, but enough for the fleshy sinews and tendons to be felt under her soft skin as they expanded. Then, a leg out to the side, forcing her compact trousers to shift as they, too, grew. It was curious though, how she didn’t have any prior knowledge, yet seemed to know how to perform those poses so expertly.
“This is amazing!”
Linda had taken the first moment to look, but quickly lost interest, no matter how firmer Willow’s glutes had clearly gotten. It was time for her wish now, but couldn’t figure out what it would be. Even then, she now realized it was important to be specific. Did she want to be a celebrity? And if so, who? After all, she could turn into a guy if she wasn’t careful with the details.
Willow, meanwhile, was distracted by herself, feeling the clear surge in confidence that had come with her new body. So this was what bodybuilders felt like? God, it was orgasmic just to feel her own body up, her crotch twitching with excitement. She had thought to reach down and play with herself no matter what Linda had to say, a hand reaching down. She stopped though. Seeing a nail hang loose from her finger, she pulled it free, only to inexplicably tear some skin from the limb as well. It stung for a few moments, though in time Willow was soon back to her self-centeredness, shifting instead to more posing.
Linda’s wish was set. And it wasn’t to be a celebrity. No. No, what she would wish for was certain to make her a celebrity in its own right, a god even. She would be one in seven billion to hold the status she craved. It wasn’t wealth. Least not in the traditional sense. But certainly with that wish’s fulfillment that would come hand-in-hand, a bonus to it all.
She thumbed the box’s golden edges once again, closing her eyes even tighter than before in the hopes that would help the wish become truer still. And then—
“What’re you doing?” Willow’s voice was deeper now, her tone wrought with a concern she didn’t think to ever feel again. But seeing Linda hold the Configuration— a certain, almost perverse jealousy choked her.
“You’ve had your wish. It’s my turn now. I’m gonna live forever, be immortal and young again.”
“I’m not done yet. Give it back!”
Linda scoffed. Fat chance that was happening. Willow’s wish had been granted and Linda was patient enough to wait her turn. She was owed this now, and Willow wasn’t going to take that away from her, no matter how strong she’d gotten. Even then— “What do you mean you’re not done yet? Look at the size of you! You’re bigger than Arnold was in his prime, what more could you possibly want?”
Willow’s wish hadn’t turned out the way she’d envisioned, but had come to appreciate the unexpected results more. There was something…attractive about the conundrum that was the box’s power. Her hand twitched. “More. I want more!”
Linda hesitated. Willow looked like she’d gone cold turkey, as though the granting of her wish had made her addicted to the prospect of making more. That, in turn, made Linda think twice about her own wish. But if it became true, why would that matter? Could one honestly say they’d pass up on an opportunity such as theirs, even with the questionable consequences? “I think you’ve had one wish granted too many.”
Willow stepped closer, merely a few inches away from Linda. She could snatch the box from her right now if that so pleased her, but retained a modicum of patience around the powerful object. Her biceps swelled, growing still. Why could she possibly want more when still reaping the benefits from the initial wish? And to think, where would they end? “Linda, please, give me the box back.”
“No!” the older woman retorted sharply, recoiling with the box in-hand like a child holding their precious toy. This was her opportunity for something great, not Willow’s. She wasn’t going to ruin that, even as with her every hot exhale her pectorals rippled. “You are not taking this away from me!”
“I said…” Willow reached out to grab the box, holding one end covetously while Linda pulled the other, resulting in both women fighting over the storied object. Though, now, it was more than that. They weren’t just fighting amongst themselves for a wish, but over ownership of the Configuration. Whomever possessed that, they realized, would have access to eternal wishes, regardless of the consequences. “…give me the fucking box!”
“It’s mine!” Linda didn’t possess even half as much strength as the comparatively godlike Willow, but still managed to put up a fair fight over the box. Willow was quick to temper, a vein the size of a finger rising to the surface of her temple. It was a disgustingly perverse, twitching thing. “It’s in my museum, so it’s mine.”
“I don’t care!”
What came next, Willow didn’t mean to happen. Or, deep in the back of her darkened, obsessed mind, perhaps she did? There was no way to know for sure, but it happened, oh, so quickly. The motions coming in a blinding pace, Willow’s temper had taken control, raising a fist to sock Linda clean across the jaw. The action was simple enough for anyone to do, but came with such strength that Linda stumbled and dashed the back of her head on the sharp edge of the box’s display case. Slumped, with blood trickling down the nape of her neck, it was anyone’s guess whether she’d just died.
Willow didn’t care. Least not that she once again had the Configuration in her possession. She knew what was most desired. As big as she had gotten, growing still even as she held the powerful object in her crazed hands, Willow felt she hadn’t grown big enough to satisfy her needs, her perverse wants. Her quadriceps buckled in their expansion, the veins layered underneath thick as steel rods throbbing incessantly as though they shared in the young woman’s need for more.
But Willow didn’t just want more. She wanted it all — to be as big as humanly possible and keep going until all sense and logic had lost meaning. It was impossible to discern what made her feel that way, what made her want that wish, that goal for more, but it was what she wanted. Anything else was trivial — wealth, fame, immortality, none of it was what she sought, only more mass. And more still, only to seek more.
The box’s middle partition opened again, revealing the crystal within glowing more vibrantly than before. It knew Willow’s wish and that the price, something of equal value, would have to be given in exchange. Would she accept the consequences, no matter how dire they may be? It offered a glimpse into that future, into the price that needed paying — perverse, grotesque, inhuman and final…but perfect. Oh, it was so perfect!
A crazed smile. “Something of equal value, be damned!”
The crystal pulsed, as if responding to the fact Willow had so passionately accepted the terms for her wish’s granting. But something happened then, that Willow was too obsessed with her desire to see. The crystal changed from its piercing purple to a violent red, filling the room. But she kept her smile as the crystal’s power could be felt coursing through her, hearing a voice coming from the stone’s center, the heart. Willow couldn’t understand the distorted and indecipherable tongue, yet agreed to the words anyway, with the hopes that her wish would be amplified tenfold. A thousandfold, even.
She could feel it now, her body beginning to swell anew. What little remained of Willow’s clothing was quickly wrought to shreds, exposing her bulging, pulsating nakedness. What power was felt previously had been amplified to a level nobody could describe in words. Even the feelings were different. There was pleasure, yes, but so much of it that the word wouldn’t — couldn’t — do it justice. As her veins blackened Willow felt nothing but pleasure and lust as her expanding muscles pressed against her skin. This was what she wanted, and it felt so goooood!
It was perverse. There was nothing even remotely normal about what was going on. Willow’s wish for more, constant growth may have come true, but she was deaf, blind and dumb to the darker realities that laid underneath. The blackening veins notwithstanding, the young woman’s skin had begun to flake and tear itself apart from so much meat being piled on at once, whole inches at a time. Her skin creaked as if to cry out in pain, wanting desperately for it to stop. But Willow had wished for this, as her quadriceps bubbled to swell into grotesquely misshapen mounds of meat even artists couldn’t accurately mimic, the horrific — yet perfect — mountains of flesh bulging with an inhuman want for more of itself.
Willow’s voice had deepened further, her pleasurable moan malformed into something so monstrous it begged the question whether she was even human anymore. But that didn’t matter to her, only growth, even as her own flesh started eating away at itself, tearing, pulling, shredding to make space for the growth that saw no end in sight. It was if her body was eating itself to fuel her need for more size. Willow was numb to all of this, the black veins on her cheek bulging as she smiled manically, feeling her biceps balloon to such an inhuman size she couldn’t move.
“MMMMMOOOOARRRR!”
And more was willed into existence, at a pace quicker than before, quicker than what Willow could mentally process. Her pectorals jutting outwards with so much mass that there was enough meat to make a whole other human. Now two. Three.. Five. Oh god, this was perfect! There was so much mass to be had, to gain. Her back had broadened so much in such a short time it felt as though it was being pulled apart.
It was. Her skin acted as though it had a life of its own, trying to pull itself free from her as she grew, but even the slightest movement was enough to add inches on her frame, which, in turn, only made her want more, more and more. There was no stopping this train.
Soon enough what little skin there was left had given way to raw bone exposed to the elements, breaking and shattering under the inhuman weight that was Willow. The snapping of that bone was violent, something she’d never come back from, the pain muffled only by the swelling meats that drove her will to live. In her unyielding pursuit for mass, Willow was moment-by-moment dying, and she had no idea. Had no care in the world. And she still had not enough to please her.
Without so much as a caring blink in response, Willow’s bones suddenly gave way, allowing her body to drop into one massive, bulging pile of mass. The Configuration rolled off to the side, closing back into its original position. The mass slowly spread across the floor like one would spread butter on toast, the meats rippling as they burgeoned further.
Linda had bled out at some point throughout all this, her limp corpse angled just a couple of inches from the pile of muscular meat that was, until recently, a college girl with a curious interest in an obscure piece of history and legend. It didn’t take long before Linda’s face started getting swallowed by the mass, making it even bigger than ever, not just wider but taller, an indescribable mound of growing meat that growled as it feasted, its shadow beginning to cover the room, flesh taking up space on the walls to spread.
The box. It just laid there at the side, in the dark corner as if to watch the former Willow engulf the room — intently…
