The Innocent Bystander (Part 2)

[florida20]

This was originally supposed to be a single part but, after a few calls for another chapter, I changed my mind…

Part 1

I could only stare at the man cut from bronze standing in front of me. He panted deeply as if he’d just completed a marathon and his eyes glowed with power. Mitchell stared at me with a smirk on his face. It made me uncomfortable. And with good reason; the gawky 5’10 kid who couldn’t have weight more than 160 now looked like a 6’2”, 225 pound bodybuilder.

“Get me some clothes,” he ordered, breaking the silence. It was enough to open my floodgates.

“Holy fuck, Mitchell,” I sputtered. “I mean, what just happened? You’re huge. I couldn’t have believed it if- I mean- Dude, I-“

Mitchell raised his hand in a silencing gesture. It worked. “Get me some clothes,” he said again. “Locker room.”

My imagination ran wild as I darted out the door. Mitchell was my friend ,right? He could make me like that, right? A wave of anticipation swelled in my stomach as I raced down the empty hall to the locker room. I imagined what I would look like with another 60 pounds of muscle; it felt so real I could almost taste it.

I knew why Mitchell sent me to the locker room and when I pushed my way through the double doors into the physical fitness area, I ran to the back corner and into the laundry room. I go to a private school and one of the amenities to justify the tens of thousands of dollars in tuition our parents spent was a daily washing of all the PE gear. I rummaged through, found the largest t-shirt and shorts combo I could find, and raced back to the bathroom like a dog fetching a stick for his master.

Reentering, I saw Mitchell flexing in front of the mirror, the muscles in his body rolling over one another like steel waves crashing on granite rocks. Without a word, he took the clothes and put them on. They fit awkwardly: tight in the shoulders, loose at the waste, and shorts doing nothing to hide the striated ravines in his quads.

“So how’d you do it?” I asked, knowing I was still behaving like an excited puppy.

Mitchell took a moment away from staring at his own body and looked at him, his mouth working in thought.

Shit, I thought. Even the muscles at the back of his jaw are ripped.

Finally, he said something which crushed me in a way I didn’t know possible. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said with a shrug of his mountainous shoulders and began to make his way out the door.

My jaw hung open as my stomach crashed back down from its perch in my chest. The giant walked right by me and left the bathroom and with his departure I saw my fantasy evaporate as quickly as it had flooded my mind. Stunned, I made my way back to the classroom. Mitchell wasn’t there. And no one seemed to notice.

My world was upside down. The excitement of it all had overpowered the complete absurdity of the situation. As the former emotion faded, I began to question what I’d seen. It was obviously impossible. No one could transform like that. Obviously impossible.

I drifted through the rest of the school day, lost in my own thoughts. Am I insane? Did I fall asleep in class and dream it? By the time the bell rang, signaling the end of the day, I had my mind made up to see for myself. I knew where Mitchell lived. My little brother, Eric, was friends with his little brother, Toby. Both were freshmen and had driven Eric to his house dozens of times.

Ten minutes later, I pulled my truck up to their house. Mitchell’s Accord was in the driveway but there was no sign of Mitchell. I sat there for a few minutes, trying to gather the courage to get out of the car. While staring longingly at the sprawling ranch style house, my heart nearly leaped from my throat when a rough knock sounded on my passenger window. Turning I saw Toby’s face grinning through the window.

I exhaled the breath I didn’t even realize I was holding. “Fucking twerp. You scared the shit out of me,” I scolded as I opened my door.

After jumping down from my truck, I walked around the front while continuing to talk as I made my way towards him. “Since you’re here, is your brother home? I wanted to-“ I cut myself off. The Toby I knew was no more than 5’5” and 120 pounds...soaking wet. He was as average as Mitchell had been.

This was NOT that Toby. Although his face was the same (a youthful face beneath a shaggy mane of hair similar to his brother’s), the rest was out of a health magazine. He was as tall as my six feet and looked about two hundred pounds of solid muscle. He wasn’t professional bodybuilder sized but he looked amazing. His pecks were big enough to bench press twice his bodyweight a dozen times. They didn’t have the ridiculous striations or veins Mitchell had developed but they cast a deep shadow on his abdomen. Six perfect abs bulged from his midsection and they were framed by a perfect and smooth set of obliques. Un-flexed arms the size of Nerf footballs each had a solid vein running down their center and were capped by shoulders the size of softballs. Sweat beaded and ran down the deep lines of his body as if he’d just completed a jog. He had that familiar confident smirk of his older brother plastered on his face.

“You were saying?” the muscle kid asked, his early pubescent voice at odds with his overly developed body.

“You too?” I asked in spite of my brain. “How are you guys doing this?”

If anything, the smirk only broadened and Toby raised his hands, interlocked them, and rested them behind his head as if stretching. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Toby said cockily as he unnecessarily flexed his biceps and produced bulges the size of baseballs. He stretched his etched abs and revealed a perfect “V” which ran down to and behind the seam of his shorts. His lats flared like wings.

After the mock stretch was done, he lowered his arms. “Well, I think it’s time you left,” he said.

Anger welled up inside of me. I would not be chastised by a damn fourteen year old prick. “Where’s your brother,” I said as menacingly as I could but it was for naught. Toby was already walking towards me as If I were already gone. He “accidentally” bumped my shoulder with his as he walked by, sending me backwards as if hit by a car yet not phasing him in the slightest. I watched him saunter up to his house as if I wasn’t standing dumbfounded behind him and was mesmerized by the sun-cast shadows which danced across the rippling bulges of his back.

I was confused. I was furious. I was…at a complete loss. I left. I went home. And I pouted until it was time to sleep.

The next few days were torturous and I began to wonder if the only person with a sense of reality was me. Mitchell walked in class the morning after his change and showcased every bit of his new body with a tight white wife-beater and a pair of board shorts. The bulges of his abs were completely visible even behind the fabric of his shirt and his pecs seemed like they were trying to break free. The visible oprtion of them rippled with striations as they rose above his low collar, each pec glistening on either side of the deep ravine between them. People whispered of course, shocked that he’d been hiding such an amazing body behind baggy clothes. I couldn’t believe it. Was I the only one who knew him for the scrawny kid he was supposed to be? He caught me looking at him and gave me that smirk. And he flexed his softball sized arm for good measure.

But what could I do? Tell on him? I kept my thoughts to myself. My curiosity didn’t waiver though. The next day I happened to walk by Toby, who was suddenly the king of the freshman class. He walked by me dressed in a polo shirt tight enough to burst with a flex of his arms. He gave me a cocky head nod as he passed, the cables in his neck writing under his skin. I grew more desperate for answers each passing day. And desperate times called for desperate measures…

* * *

“But I don’t want to go,” Eric protested.

I did my best to calm down my little brother. “You swam at his house every day last summer. Why do you not want to go now?”

Eric shrugged in the way every fourteen year old does when he doesn’t have an explanation for his actions.

“So call him and ask to come over,” I urged.

Eric was a small boy for his age and life had made him used to being coerced to other’s bidding. He looked at his big brother with disgruntled eyes but made his way to the phone. He dialed still looking at the brother he idolized and trusted.

“Hey. Is Toby there?” he asked the voice on the other end. “Yeah. Okay…Hey, Toby. Can I come over and swim?...Okay…Okay…See you soon then…Okay…Bye.” Toby put the phone down. “Don’t know why you’re so pushy about this,” he mumbled.

“I just want you to find out how he got do big,” I said, instantly regretting the bluntness of my request. “But don’t tell them I wanted to know.” Dammit. Regretted that too. My brain wasn’t working like it should.

Toby looked at him with his head cocked to the side. “He’s just working out. I mean, his brother is big so it makes sense he would be too, right?”

I threw up my hands in frustration, the physical culmination of everyone’s blindness. But I said nothing about it, knowing I had already said too much. “Just go because I asked you to. Could you do that for me?”

Eric ran up and hugged me, his head barely reaching my chest. He looked up at me with the smiling eyes of a kid brother. “Okay bro,” was all he said before he went upstairs and changed into his bathing suit.

Five minutes later, he was out the door and on his bike heading for Toby’s pool on a warm Saturday afternoon. They were friends. They would share the secret, right? The minutes ticked by, each feeling like hours. Noon became one became two and I became annoyed that this was taking so long. Why didn’t I tell him he needed to be back in an hour?

I pictured them in the pool, buff Toby and his monster older brother sharing their secrets with my little brother. The excitement grew in my stomach again. I flexed my own muscles and imagined them bigger; even bigger than Mitchell’s. The thoughts helped the time race by and by six o’clock I heard the door shut and my brother announce he was home.

I jumped off the couch and ran to meet him in the foyer. He was dry and dressed only in his board shorts, his formless body slightly shivering in the relative coolness of the house. “What took so long?” I asked, trying to keep annoyance from my voice.”

“They asked me to stay for dinner,” he said, smiling. He made as if to go up the stairs to change out of his swimming gear but I stopped him.

“So what happened?” I asked.

Eric looked at me inquisitively before turning and walking back down the stairs. “Well, they just laughed when I asked how they got their muscles so I didn’t ask again. They’re big though. And strong, too. Toby let me punch his stomach as hard as I could and he didn’t even budge. My hand still hurts too.”

My shoulders slumped and my dreams were crushed yet again. I felt small and feeble. My desperation was creeping into my psyche; even my brother was looking beefier. My heart skipped a beat and a bit of terror crept into my brain. I turned and looked at my brother.

“Why are you staring at me?” Eric asked innocently.

Was he taller? I asked myself. Are those the beginning of abs?

I shook my head and looked again. No, I thought to my relief. That’s just a trick of the overhead light. He’s still the hundred pound little guy I can pin without effort.

Dejected, I turned and made my way to the kitchen. I made it a couple of steps before my brother spoke.

“I feel kinda funny,” he said, mostly to himself.

The butterflies came back and I slowly turned, really looking this time. Those abs were real. They weren’t the abs of a bodybuilder but my little brother now looked like one of those people genetically guaranteed a sculpted midsection. His arms looked leaner, not muscular but definitely an improvement from the shapeless limbs he once had.

“What’s wrong?” Eric asked, confused and a little scared. I understood why; my face must have looked like I’d seen a ghost. I couldn’t speak; I could only watch as small pecs suddenly grew out of his ribcage and small bumps bulged out of his shoulders.

Eric tilted his head curiously, completely unaware of what was happening to him. “Is something wrong?” he asked, his voice shaking.

The creases in his abs grew deeper as muscles swelled from his tiny arms and his back grew wider. He may only be 120 pounds now, still normal for a fourteen year old, but it was a 20 pound gain from his former size and it was all muscle on his five foot frame.

Eric finally diverted his attention from me to himself when he started getting taller. It started with him looking down and his hands and arms extending in shock. “What’s happening to me?” he asked innocently, fear still etched in his voice.

He continued to grow in every direction. 130 pounds. Small traps started rising from his shoulders and his upper legs, now visible beneath the hem of his shorts, began to widen. 140 pounds. Striations formed in his shoulders and chest and they continued to expand.

“Oh,” he moaned as his hands raced to his growing chest. 150 pounds. He grew taller. 5’5”, 5’6”. He put his hands gingerly on his bulging abs and looked curiously at his biceps when they flexed .

He smiled. “This feels good,” he said, the fear in his voice replaced by a growing craving. “This feels really good.”

The built kid became a muscle teen right before my eyes as his lats expanded and his neck grew thick. 160 pounds. I saw teardrops form above my little brother’s knees and grow wide as other creases formed around the cabled muscles of his legs.

“I’m a tank,” Eric said breathlessly. His eyes blazed in wonder. 170 pounds. 5’9”. His triceps flared from the backs of his arms and veins bulged from his forearms and the base of his rock hard abs. 180 pounds. “Oh, yeah,” he said breathlessly. He looked at me.

Then it happened. And we both knew it.

The look in my brother’s eyes changed somehow. I was no longer the big brother; someone he looked up to and considered his hero. In one second that changed; maybe forever. He was the big brother.

His whole body continued to swell, covered with writing muscle. His chest bulged from his torso like an expanding balloon. He looked like a 190 pound teen bodybuilder ready for a competition. He flexed his arms and an 18” rock bulged from his arm.

“Look at me!” Eric ordered and he flexed every muscle he could. His body exploded with bulges and veins. His board shorts were stretched at the thigh ready to burst as legs built from an oak tree swelled beneath the seams. By the time he stopped growing, my little brother was a solid 6 foot 200 pounds of sculpted muscle. His chest heaved breathlessly but Eric’s attention was solely on feeling his own body. Getting used to it. Making it his.

In spite of myself, I reached forward and touched his chest. It was steel. My brother looked down at me (literally) and laughed, voice filled with fire. And before he could do anything about it, Eric’s hands reached beneath my armpits and he lifted me effortlessly in the air. “I could bench press a car,” Eric said passionately.

“Eric stop,” I said, suddenly filled with panic. But my little brother only laughed harder and began using me for military presses. “I’m serious.” But I was helpless as he pushed me up for rep after rep. His delts and shoulders bulged with power as he handled me as effortlessly as a pillow. I struggled against his massive strength but wasn’t able to budge him at all. Finally, he put me down, face giddy with excitement.

Face red with embarrassment and fury, I stepped back. “How did this happen?” I asked, voice strong with a week of frustration backing it up.

My brother looked at me and raised his eyebrow. Then he smirked and my heart fell. I could have said the words before he spoke them.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

[phoenix]

Great stuff, liked it alot!

[Otaru_grower]

What a great twist so far. I love it. I love the mystery of it. Thumbs up from my review.

[hshunk]

Glad you choose to continue the story! Looking forward to part 3!

[Aronymous]

A liked this part a lot! looking forward to the next one.

Now you've done it. You've created a plot that calls out for a resolution!

[xboy]

another great chapter, hope you decide to continue!

[silvershadow]

I actually hate this I feel sorry for him. I mean that's good you got this reaction out of me but ya...Its a good story but at the same time its not cool he has to witness this over and over. I'm curios if they realize he even remembers them going through the change. Maybe it bends reality and they don't realize he can see it.

[elysiumfields]

Loved it.Always prefer the other characters getting big.

[philat99]

I'm liking this, and wonder where you're taking us.

[Ross_Geller]

I loved it!!
Great Job

[theseventhwave]

Awesome story! I am very eagerly anticipating the next part.

[Mass Driver]

At one point or another it just starts to come off as being mean.
Maybe I missed something.
Is the main character a brainy nerd that looks down on people less inteligent than he is?
Did he treat his friends badly?
Wasn't he in the very same boat the two brothers and in fact his own little brother, were in? I swear the minute he bullied his little brother into seeing Eric, I skipped to the end.
I lost all urge to read the middle part you spent so much time on crafting up.
I got to the part where his own brother smirks at him and denies haveing any idea why he suddenly grew so much bigger. Bigger than his older brother.

Honestly. Is this guy really such a jerk that his own friends feel not the slightest urge to share the wealth. Muscle bulging wealth but still a high value.
I know a lot of people like stories where the older bossy brother gets a taste of his own medicine. In many cases that seems like justice in the story telling world.
Doesn't always end up working that way in the real world.
But we write how we want the world to work.
At least I hope we do.
Stories are our way of making sense out of our imagination and sense of the real world.
Sometimes the craziest things are the truth.
Many times Hope is the miracle that sees us through.
I just hope there are a few chapters where the main character either gets some friendly help growing bigger, or we finally learn why even his own brother just turns his meaty bulging back on him.
Yeah muscle growth.
Keep Writing, Man.
I still think you can really write.

MD

[Mad Dog]

Dude, love this concept. Don't listen to the people asking to let the MC grow along with everyone else. In fact, just keep growing them bigger, leaving him in the dust~

[growingboyslc]

Keep going!

[xboy]

No continue?

[florida20]

The third chapter is in progress but I haven't been able to work on it in a while. I've been juggling a lot these last few months.

[R Chris Cooper]

Originally Posted by Mass Driver

At one point or another it just starts to come off as being mean.
Maybe I missed something.
Is the main character a brainy nerd that looks down on people less inteligent than he is?
Did he treat his friends badly?
Wasn't he in the very same boat the two brothers and in fact his own little brother, were in? I swear the minute he bullied his little brother into seeing Eric, I skipped to the end.
I lost all urge to read the middle part you spent so much time on crafting up.
I got to the part where his own brother smirks at him and denies haveing any idea why he suddenly grew so much bigger. Bigger than his older brother.

Honestly. Is this guy really such a jerk that his own friends feel not the slightest urge to share the wealth. Muscle bulging wealth but still a high value.
I know a lot of people like stories where the older bossy brother gets a taste of his own medicine. In many cases that seems like justice in the story telling world.
Doesn't always end up working that way in the real world.
But we write how we want the world to work.
At least I hope we do.
Stories are our way of making sense out of our imagination and sense of the real world.
Sometimes the craziest things are the truth.
Many times Hope is the miracle that sees us through.
I just hope there are a few chapters where the main character either gets some friendly help growing bigger, or we finally learn why even his own brother just turns his meaty bulging back on him.
Yeah muscle growth.
Keep Writing, Man.
I still think you can really write.

MD

MD you are reading much too much into the character of the narrator (a brainy nerd that looks down on people less intelligent than he is). I see him as an observer, albeit a jealous observer, trying to get to the bottom of the mystery. You obviously never had a younger brother that idolized you because although Eric is reluctant to call Toby he would do anything for the big brother he looks up to. Of course the narrator is shocked when lifted after his little brother grows. The narrator probably lifted his little brother in a similar manner and playfully tossed him around.

I think this is an innovative and well written story. The narrator sees the muscle growth step by step and when Mitchell, Toby, and Eric have finished growing their physiques are the new reality to everyone else. [COLOR=#a6a6a6]“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” [/COLOR]every one of them said.

The narrator knows what has been happening but he doesn't know what caused the change and he definitely wants in on the action. If the narrator does get his wish to become a massive bodybuilder, my vote would be to let the mystery continue. In other words--Was it something he ate? Was it something he touched (like a medallion). Was it a genie in a bottle? Was it from swimming in the pool? Was it sun tan lotion? It could be dozens of other things that should be left to the imagination. All we know is that the growth occurs at Mitchell and Toby's house.

I don't want to tell you how to write your story but if the narrator does grow he should look out to us the readers and say, "I don't know what you're talking about!"

Keep writing and go with what is in your gut. Listen to the critics with an open mind and remember that you are the storyteller.

[alanindy]

Giving this another bump. Anxiously awaiting the continuation.

[xboy]

totally agrre

[cutlerfan]

I'm sorry but there has to be a reason for this growth or reality change or whatever. I have a strong dislike for conspiracy and this story appears headed that way. Please Please Please explain why and how this alteration happens to these people! I hope this doesn't sound critical but the writer/scientist in me keeps asking WHY?

[Aronymous]

Originally Posted by cutlerfan

I'm sorry but there has to be a reason for this growth or reality change or whatever. I have a strong dislike for conspiracy and this story appears headed that way. Please Please Please explain why and how this alteration happens to these people! I hope this doesn't sound critical but the writer/scientist in me keeps asking WHY?

Well I for one think it adds tremendously to the mystery of the characters and storyline. I do hope it gets reveiled some time (soon) though.

This is a really good story. We want more, we want more!