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Jon’s mind was foggy. He didn’t recognize the dark room he was in, nor could he remember quite how he’d gotten there or why there were thick ropes binding his wrists and ankles to his chair. The air was still and dusty, like the room had been abandoned for ages. As his eyes adjusted to the dim lighting, he could see what looked like wax figures lining the walls in various states of completion; some were missing limbs or faces while others looked almost alive. None of them felt as empty as they should.
A sudden blinding light accompanied by a loud noise like heavy stage lights in an empty theater ripped him away from his confused inspection of his surroundings. He couldn’t see anything as the rhythmic clicking of footsteps getting nearer sent him into a panic. Was this whoever had kidnapped him? Were they here to hurt him? Was it another monster?
“Archivist! How good of you to visit!” Jon might not have remembered how he came to be tied up in that unnervingly large room, but it certainly wasn’t because he was visiting. “It gets so lonely here without any living, breathing humans. You are still human, are you not?”
Of course he was human. What else would he be? As the owner of the voice and the footsteps stepped out of the dark and into the harsh light of his singular spotlight, he realized who it was. Or rather, what it was. Nikola, avatar of the Stranger, lifeless mannequin with a painted-on grin and an obsession with garish circus motifs. She bent over and inspected him, turning his face to either side with a cold plastic hand. Jon wanted to spit at her, to growl and tell her to let him go. He wanted to fight back but he was too paralyzed with fear to do anything other than shake helplessly and whimper when she touched him.
“Don’t be afraid, Archivist. I’m not here to hurt you. I just want to get an idea of what I’m working with.” Her cheery voice held an air of almost professional detachment. She didn’t care about Jon, just… whatever it was she was looking at.
“What do you want from me?” He finally managed to choke out a few words, though they didn’t sound quite as threatening as he’d hoped.
She crouched down and undid the knots holding his wrists in place and on instinct Jon pulled his arms defensively towards his chest. “I want your skin of course!” He could have sworn her false smile grew wider as she said that. “Now, would you like to take your shirt off yourself, or do I need to help you?”
“Actually, I’d rather keep it on.” Why did she want him to take his shirt off?
“That wasn’t an option. If you don’t cooperate, I’ll have to use force, and it won’t be pleasant for you.” She reached for the hem of his sweater, but he flinched away and slowly pulled the soft fabric over his head. He didn’t want this monster touching him any more than was necessary.
He could practically feel the disappointment radiating from Nikola as she took in his bony figure. Jon had never been particularly fond of his body, and he really didn’t like to put it on display like this. He had always been shorter and thinner than his peers, a wisp of a boy too tiny to physically defend himself. But instead of obsessing over it, he had a tendency to just forget about it. He could go days without remembering to eat or shower or otherwise take care of his physical form, and it had left him emaciated and weak and with a body he was far from proud of. His joints were all sharp and his ribs poked through his skin. Not to mention the vast amount of scars he had recently collected. Scars that, when he saw them in the mirror, made him feel broken and abused. This cold inspection wasn’t helping with his confidence either.
“How much do you weigh, Archivist?”
He glared at her, offended by the unnecessarily intrusive question. “Why?”
“How much?” His attempt at compulsion hadn’t worked, and she seemed unfazed. Her voice hadn’t changed tones whatsoever. “Is it less than fifty kilos?”
“Forty. Why?”
She shook her head. “You’re too small. Your skin will never fit.”
A tiny flicker of hope sparked in Jon’s chest. If he was too small, then that meant she wouldn’t be able to use his skin for her ritual. And if she couldn’t use him, maybe she would let him go. He opened his mouth to ask, but before he could get the words out, she was gone and he was once again alone in the spotlight, surrounded by darkness, dust, and wax.
The flicker sputtered and died. It was foolish to think she’d ever let him leave alive. She’d either kill him or complete her ritual and leave him to suffer in a world ruled by the Stranger. Neither option was desirable. The best he could hope for was that somebody might find him before his corpse was no longer recognizable.
He sat in the deafening silence, waiting for his captor to return. He didn’t know yet whether it was worse to be alone or to be in the company of monsters.
“I’m back, Archivist!” He hadn’t had to wait long, as less than five minutes later, Nikola’s voice echoed through the otherwise empty room and sent a shiver of discomfort down Jon’s spine. Her disappointment seemed to have vanished and was replaced with her typical, sickeningly cheery demeanor. “I brought you something. Do you like chocolate?”
Before he could respond, she popped a bite-sized chocolate bar into his mouth and handed him five more before pulling out an absolutely massive bottle of lotion and pumping some of it into her plastic hands. The chocolate was stale and her artificial hands were icy cold as she massaged the lotion into his admittedly dry skin. He was thoroughly uncomfortable, but he didn’t have the energy to protest. He was exhausted and hungry, so he swallowed the rest of the disgusting snack and closed his eyes, pretending it was somebody else touching him. Maybe Martin. That might have been nice, to be massaged by Martin. Nikola was saying something about finding him something better to eat tomorrow, but Jon couldn’t hear her. He was too busy drifting into a hazy and dreamless sleep and doing his best to avoid his unpleasant reality.
****
The next day, she had come back with more lotion and something more closely resembling a meal. It was still unappetizing and hardly nutritious, but it was better than nothing. Evidently, neither Nikola nor any of her minions had had the need for food in a long time, and they were out of practice in caring for somebody still alive. That thought made Jon uncomfortable, the idea that he was the only living creature in this horrid place.
Eventually, they figured it out, though Jon had to question their definition of a balanced diet. Different iterations of fast food for every meal couldn’t have been healthy, but it was all they brought him. So that was what he ate. At times it made him wonder if they even knew other types of food existed. Somehow he Knew it wasn’t poisoned, so he didn’t have any issue accepting it, but he would have killed for a salad.
It was a week after he’d been kidnapped when Nikola handed him a paper bag with three greasy hamburgers. She always brought his lunch personally when she came to lotion him, but usually it was only one ‘meal’. Once or twice she had brought him two, but never three. He wasn’t sure how to react. “Nikola, this is a lot of food. Do you really want me to eat all of it?” Jon tried to puzzle out any sign of intention from her plastic face, but it was as rigidly expressionless as ever.
“I know what I’m doing, Archivist. Eat your meal.” Her tone was commanding and unimpressed.
She began to lotion his legs as he pulled out the first burger. It was, well, it looked yucky, to say the least. Made his stomach turn. He didn’t want to eat it. He was sick of hamburgers, but he had learned the hard way that if he didn’t finish the food she brought him, she’d meticulously feed each bite to him by hand until it was all gone, and that was honestly more unpleasant than the food itself.
Before he even took a bite, the grease was dripping down his fingers and making a mess of him. He briefly wondered if they brought him such greasy food just so it would drip onto his skin and moisturize it more. The flavor wasn’t much better than its appearance. It wasn’t awful, but he’d had better. A lot better. This just tasted like processed meat and old cooking oil. It reminded him of the Flesh: meat is meat, and this was unspecified meat if he’d ever tasted it. He considered requesting something different for next time, but he didn’t need to have the help of the Eye to know whatever else they brought would be just as bad if not worse.
He tried his best, but he could barely make it through the first two before he was beyond full. He was a small man with a smaller stomach and two whole burgers was too much for him. Nikola always had him strip to his underwear whenever she lotioned him, so he didn’t have much of a way to tell if he was really as bloated as he felt, but if the way his boxers were starting to dig into his skin was anything to go by, he probably was. He unwrapped the third, hoping to avoid being force-fed, but he wasn’t sure he could do it. His stomach hurt and the thought of eating any more made him feel sick. Why did she insist on making him eat so much?
He choked down the first bite, hating the way it sat so heavy in his belly. His skin felt tight around his abdomen and he could feel how firm his belly was when Nikola’s moisturizing massaging moved up from his legs to his torso. She pressed lightly over his bloated stomach as she worked and it forced up an unfortunately flavorful bubble of gas. Jon groaned softly and dropped his head, trying to fight off a wave of nausea. His body wasn’t used to such fatty foods, and certainly not in these quantities.
“Do I need to help you, Archivist?”
“No, I…” He stifled another weak burp. “I can do it. I just need to digest first. There’s not any room.”
****
It was difficult, but Jon managed to finish all three burgers within about an hour. When he was done, his belly felt stretched to its limits. It took the rest of the afternoon for the pain to subside. Then he did it again the next day. And the day after that. Gradually, his stomach grew to more easily accommodate all the excess food Nikola kept bringing him. When he was able to eat all three without hurting himself, she increased his daily dose to four and eventually five, in addition to the hearty breakfasts and sugary desserts he was required to eat. Jon felt constantly full, and his captor wouldn’t let up on his regimented and sickeningly unhealthy diet, no matter how much he complained.
Soon it was obvious how all that grease and sugar was affecting his body, and he realized with a settling sense of dread what the Stranger’s plans for him were. Nikola had called him ‘too small’ when she first got him there. Now, looking at how soft he was getting, it was clear that she was trying to fix that. He undoubtedly had more skin than before. It had been barely over a month, and already his bony joints and exposed ribs were hidden under a thin layer of fat. He was quickly reaching what might be considered a healthy weight for his height, a significant change compared to how underweight he had previously been. Though, how ‘healthy’ the weight was was debatable.
What had first tipped him off to how quickly he was gaining weight was his sweater. He was used to even petite-sized clothes hanging loosely from his tiny frame, but now it fit how he imagined most people expect their sweaters to fit. It even lifted up a little when he, somewhat reluctantly, gorged himself on his massive meals, revealing a thin strip of well-moisturized skin at the base of his full tummy.
Nikola was thrilled when she started to see the results of all her hard work. “You’re coming along wonderfully, Archivist! At this rate, your skin will be ready to wear well before the dance is scheduled to begin.”
He hated to admit that his skin was in better condition than it had been in years, and he hated even more that he craved the praise and attention she gave him. He knew she only cared for the skin she planned to steal from him, but it made him feel wanted, an emotion he wasn’t used to. So if she wasn’t letting him go, then he figured that the pain of a perpetually overstuffed belly was worth it to stay in her good graces.
And it wasn’t all pain. The sensation of her cool plastic hands against his warm skin as she rubbed the lotion over his full and bloated stomach, the way she paid special attention to moisturizing the growing stretch marks on his sides, the approval in her voice as she cooed over how nice his skin was, those were all good things. Those were all things that made his captivity almost bearable.
****
If Jon was a healthy weight after a month of Nikola’s treatments, two months more and he was nearly twice his starting weight. His clothes fit well enough to still be considered clothes, but they didn’t do much to keep him covered. Even in the mornings, when his belly was empty, his sweater left a good couple inches of skin exposed and the waist of his trousers dug painfully into his skin. He didn’t like to keep them buttoned anymore. When he was full it was even worse. His sweater would ride all the way up to his chest, leaving his exposed, fatty belly to spill obscenely into his lap over the clasp of his trousers that wouldn’t close even if he wanted it to. He wasn’t used to the way his weight shifted when he walked or moved, not that he had much reason to walk there in his dusty prison. He wasn’t used to his thighs rubbing together or being able to comfortably rest his hands atop his tummy when he sat.
The room he hadn’t left in three months didn’t have any mirrors, but he was sure he was unrecognizable as he scarfed down enough food to feed a family in a single sitting. Every day. At one point, the Eye had let him Know that he was eating well over 3,500 calories a day, and even that was being generous. It was almost enough to gain a pound a day, and he’d completely given up on protesting. His own actions disgusted him, but what else was he supposed to do? It was obedience or torture, so he willingly took the meals he was given and let Nikola care for his skin like he was a child who couldn’t properly care for himself.
He told himself his compliance was because he was waiting for her to relax enough to let her guard down so he could make his escape, but he knew that was a lie. The real reason was because fighting was ineffective and exhausting. He knew he’d never be able to get out on his own. Not to mention that he’d developed a bit of an addiction to food. It was almost comforting to stuff himself to the brim and lay down to nap, warm and full, his mind hazy and his stomach making calming gurgling noises as he digested. He would eat and revel in the soft pleasure of being filled so completely, massaging away the incidental pain of his abused stomach. So what if it made him look like a gluttonous pig? In that state, he could almost forget that he was the prisoner of an eldritch fear god who wanted to use his skin in a ritual to end the world. Instead, he was just somebody who was warm and loved and fed, the kind of somebody that some small piece of him had always longed to be.