Emma's Growth Spurt, Chapter 38 (Complete) (Patreon)

Hey ya'll! Thanks for waiting for this one - I really hope you enjoy it!

Coming up this month: new chapters of The Shrink, The Reveries of Aaron Cooper, Melissa's Breakthrough, and The Abatement of Kyle Trinter! Plus new chapters of East of Eve and The Witches of Kappa Gamma Delta for the $17 tier, along with a few more art-based short stories! Stay tuned for a fun May ahead <3 <3

Chapter 38

“Emmaaaa!” called Dr. Jeltzin through his megaphone, huffing and puffing along with the rest of the scientists as they tried in vain to keep up with her, “Slow down!  Wait up for us!  I know you’re…I know you’re eager…but let us catch up!”

Emma had been cruising at a brisk walking pace for the last few minutes, just enough to get her heart rate up.  The morning sun was warming her skin, and the clear, pristine desert air seemed to infuse her with energy as she took massive deep breaths in through her nose, letting the air blow out of her mouth as she continued to walk.  This was it – this was freedom.  This is what it was going to be like soon, for her and Daniel: a gorgeous sunbaked desert spread out in front of them, dotted here and there with little oases, building up to a gigantic horizon with snow-capped mountains in the distance, and who knows what adventures beyond.  

She hadn’t felt this happy in a long time, and it wasn’t even because she had been in a bad way at the Facility.  Far from it – Emma had been thoroughly enjoying herself with Daniel (having amazing sex sure didn’t hurt), she had gotten herself into the best shape of her life, and, perhaps most dramatically, she had taught herself to fully embrace her new size, which had been increasing at an even more rapid pace recently.  

70 feet…and one inch.  That had been her height this morning, and even though she had just been measured an hour ago, Emma knew that she was already taller, and bigger.  She could feel it everywhere, in her bones, in her muscles, even in her skin.  The little beads of sweat that had formed on her forehead weren’t all because of her current exertion; she was in far better shape than that.  No, she was fully aware, because of the sweat on her forehead, because of the telltale tingling, heat, and soreness throughout her body, that her growth was accelerating.  The weight scale an hour before had clocked her at 123 tons, which had made Emma lighten up with amusement.  

“123!?” she had giggled.  “Wasn’t I 114 just a day ago?”

As she stared up at the snow-capped mountain peaks in the rapidly-approaching distance, she thought about everyone’s awestruck and uneasy expressions in response to her question.  None of the scientists had answered her, even though she knew her numbers were correct.  In the span of a single day, she had gained almost 10 tons.  It wasn’t just all the food she was eating (which was plenty).  It couldn’t have been.  Within her body, within every cell, something mysterious was taking place, something that the scientists hadn’t been able to figure out.  She was still growing, with no signs of letting up…and it wasn’t just a slow, steady growth anymore.  She was starting to grow faster.

The sound of Dr. Jeltzin’s voice had registered in her mind, but she hadn’t dwelt on it long enough to actually decipher the words.  Even when they spoke through a megaphone, it was getting harder and harder to hear the little people try and talk to her.  Daniel was the exception, of course – she always had ears for him, and it helped that he often sat quite close to her ear when they talked.  But, if Emma was being honest, it was getting harder to hear him too.  She could hear the little sound of his voice, but it took extra effort to translate those sounds into meaning…it was like she had to remind her brain that what she was hearing wasn’t the sound of a little squeaking animal, but rather a human voice.

‘Well…they are like little squeaking animals, though, aren’t they?’ she chuckled to herself, staring off across the rolling desert in front of her.  The warm sand felt amazing under her bare feet.  For the rest of the group, their feet would have burned before too long if they had touched the sand, but for Emma, it just felt pleasantly warm and smooth on her soles; and whenever she stopped walking to give the group time to catch up, she took great pleasure in burrowing her toes down 6 feet or so deep into the sand, where it was beautifully cool to the touch.  

She stood there like that now, her toes burrowed deep down, having registered that Jeltzin had begged her to stop.  Had that been a minute or so ago?  She had no idea.  Turning back to look, she put her hand up to her mouth and giggled.  They were so far behind – it looked like a mile or so – to the point where the little group, which consisted of Daniel, Dr. Jeltzin, Alison, Dr. Farley, Dr. Ossford, Dr. Clinebell, and a few others…well…they almost looked like little ants, their figures distorted by the heatwaves coming up from the sand, kicking up a tiny cloud of dust as they made their way toward her.

‘Guess I’d better just chill here for a second,’ Emma thought, putting her hands on her hips as she wiggled her butt a little, sinking her feet deeper into the deliciously cool sand underneath the warm upper layer.  For bottoms, she was wearing a pair of extra-stretchy black soffes that Miss Bisset had specially made for her, which were barely able to wrap around and contain her huge thighs, her wide hips, and her voluptuous ass.  Emma loved these soffes, since they made her feel extra-big and pumped because of how tight they were, but she now knew better than to get too attached to her clothes.  As a top, she was wearing one of her trusty white t-shirts, also crafted by Miss Bissett of course, and she gently tugged on the bottom fabric, letting some refreshing breeze inside, before letting the shirt snap back in place.  Emma had to smile and shake her head a little – just a week or so ago, this exact same shirt had been oversized, hanging on her arms and shoulders almost like a bedsheet.  And now, even though Miss Bissett had made the fabric extra-stretchy, Emma knew that the shirt wasn’t long for the world.  

‘Heh, who knows?’ she thought to herself as she watched the group slowly get closer.  ‘It might not last through the day, if this spurt keeps up.  They’ll get to see me topless…wouldn’t be that big of a deal though, since I’ve been tits-out all the time recently.  Farley tries soooo hard not to look at them…but that’s a losing battle for him!’

Right on cue, she felt a particularly intense heat surge up inside the core of her femurs, quickly spreading throughout her butt, her lower back, and then up to her arms and shoulders.  Emma bent down slowly and put her hands on her thighs, grimacing down as the sweat began to make 3-foot-wide craters in the sand below.  She didn’t mind…really, she didn’t.  In the past months she had come to embrace the pain of the growth spurts, to the point where it really didn’t even register as “pain” in her mind.  But in rare moments like these, when the heat in her bones and muscles was particularly intense, her brain focused laser-like on the sensations wracking through her body, waiting for them to stop.

When the spurts did subside, as this one began to after a minute or so, Emma felt a sense of euphoria, similar to the way she felt after a particularly intense workout.  She straightened back up and wiped her brow, taking several more deep breaths as she put her hands back on her hips, grinning at the group that hardly seemed to have made any progress in getting closer to where she was.  

“Come on, you guys!” Emma called, cupping her hands around her mouth.  “You can’t be that slow!”

About 500 feet to her left-center, a small collection of oasis palm trees shivered, their leaves and branches bending and vibrating like they were being blown by a gust of wind.  For a moment, Emma was puzzled, since there was, at most, only a very light breeze blowing.  It took her a few seconds to realize that the palm branches were actually shaking and bending in response to the sound of her voice.

‘Oh wow…!’ she thought, a different kind of warmth beginning to spread in between her legs.  Her body’s response was automatic – the realization that her voice was that powerful was instantly arousing.  For months, she had been cooped up in the Facility, unable to experience nature in its various forms, and as a consequence she hadn’t realized the raw energy that her voice could convey.  When was the last time she had raised her voice?  Like, really raised it?  Sometimes she would call out, like when she had broken the bed the night before (heh, hilarious), but even then, she made sure to keep her voice down as much as possible.  Daniel’s little eardrums were her primary concern, but she also didn’t like the thought of hurting anyone else’s ears either.  And with all those concrete walls in the Facility…she knew that it wouldn’t take much.  But out here in the desert, in this huge, untamed landscape, she was free!  She could actually belt out her voice a little.  It felt so good to finally stretch her vocal cords for once!  

“Watch this!” she called to the group, pointing to the trees to her left as she grinned from ear to ear.  “Watch those trees!”  She figured that they were still a good half-mile away.  The sound would disperse enough – she wouldn’t hurt their ears.  

“HEY!” she bellowed at the palm trees.  “HEY, KINDA WINDY TODAY, HUH?”

The trees shook and bowed even more this time, almost like they were nodding in assent to her question.  Emma smiled playfully, delighting in the little game she was playing, and was trying to think of more silly things to yell at the trees when she looked back at the group, squinted her eyes, and saw that they all seemed to have put their fingers in their ears.  

‘Oh…oops,’ thought Emma, ‘Guess I was a little loud for them, huh?  Oh well…’

One of the group had run out ahead of the others…and the sun flashed off the implement in his hand…the megaphone.

‘That must be Jeltzin,’ thought Emma, amused, ‘Running out to tell me not to shout anymore.’ 

“Sorry…Sorry!” she laughed in a softer, more normal voice, putting both hands in the air like she was guilty.  “That’s my fault…just having a little fun!  Didn’t realize it was that loud!  I won’t shout again.”

She put her hands back on her hips, amused, but there was also a slight tinge of annoyance and…what was it…mistrust…in the back of her mind.  They were still like, a football field-and-a-half away from her!  No way that they were that sensitive from such a distance.  Were they really all that soft and…delicate!?  Or were they just trolling her, playing some kind of a practical joke?  Maybe that was it.  

But just then, another heat wave passed through her bones, and she leaned forward slightly, her hands on her hips, weathering yet another spurt out as she felt fresh beads of sweat spring up on her forehead.  This time, the growing pains actually made her feel directly aroused.  The knowledge that she could bend trees 500 feet away with her voice combined with the tightening sensations of her shirts and soffes around her limbs, her stomach, her butt, and her breasts…and Emma felt a sudden surge of new awareness about how powerful and huge she was becoming.  Without even caring that she was doing this in full view of the entire approaching group, she reached slowly down and pinched her swelling pussy lips together through her soffes, giving them a quick tug and shake before gently wedging her clit in between her middle and forefingers and rubbing herself with slow, definite purpose.  

She wasn’t trying to be lewd; she was just aroused, and wanted to lean in and indulge it a little…as a bit of gratification, but also as a kind of reliever for the stress her body was currently undergoing.  With all the weight and the pressure of the more frequent growth spurts, fewer things felt more relaxing than releasing a little sexual tension.  If she had been holding Daniel in her hand, she might have just stuck him inside her, not caring at all who was watching.  He was there, somewhere in the slow ant-crawl of people coming at her in the distance.  She didn’t like thinking that he was just one of the black dots in that crowd; it made her feel unsettled, and even slightly queasy, so she pushed it out of her mind, focusing on taking big, deep breaths in through her nose and letting it out of her mouth, taking care to blow above the approaching crowd so that they wouldn’t fall down.  It really did feel nice out here in the desert…and the sun felt amazing on her skin, with the hot sand gathered up around her ankles and the cool sand caressing her toes 6 feet underneath.  A light breeze was blowing, and behind her, the snow-capped mountains towered, ready for her to climb them.  

‘It’s really…a nice day…’ Emma thought to herself, sighing out as she continued slowly rubbing herself.  ‘It’s a good day.  No matter what happens, no matter what weird stuff pops into my mind, I can always just…just remember the sun on my skin, and the breeze on my face.’

She looked back up at the Facility, a huge but paradoxically nondescript structure that was built into the mountain.  It was already a few miles away, looking quite small against the rock, and Emma stared at it curiously, feeling a strange mixture of emotions.  That place…it had been her home for months and months now.  But, in a way, it had been her prison too.  Most of the time it hadn’t felt that way, though.  A great deal had happened there – she had grown so much, not just in stature, but mentally as well.  When she had been taken there, her mind had been broken, and she had felt like a shell of a person.  Her relationship with Daniel had been in tatters…she had had a breakdown in front of her family, ripping the roof off like she had and screaming…Emma hated to think back to it all.  But it seemed so long ago, like it was almost a different lifetime.  In between then and now was so, so much – all those sessions with Alison, those workouts with Dr. Jeltzin, test after test with Dr. Farley and Dr. Ossford, getting closer with everyone at the Facility, god, Aiden…her little teddy bear!  She had almost forgotten about him!  But, of course, the most important thing was that Daniel had come back to her.  He made everything okay.  And he was why, despite the uncertainty surrounding the future, Emma couldn’t actually worry too much.  One way or another, they’d be together, and that was all that mattered.

The slow crawl of the crowd had finally caught up to Emma, and she smiled down at them, remembering that she had still been slowly rubbing herself this whole time.  She took her hand away, not because of any concern for propriety, but instead just because the burn of her most recent spurt had faded, and she didn’t need the feeling of release anymore.  If she had been able to perceive the faces of everyone down below, she would have seen a number of embarrassed glances exchanged, though no one wanted to say anything with Daniel there.  For his part, Daniel had grown to admire Emma’s blunt displays of nudity or sexuality around the other scientists.  At first he had interpreted them as a direct challenge to their authority, but gradually, he had come to realize that it was much more simple than that.  These days, when Emma wanted to walk around naked, she walked around naked…and whenever she wanted to masturbate, she just…well, masturbated.  It didn’t matter to her in the least who was watching, or what they thought about it.  Staring far up at her, as the massive pillar of her body was impressively illuminated by the sun, he only hoped that her spurts weren’t too painful.  He could see the huge 3-foot splashes of her sweat pinged in the sand all around her.  His heart throbbed a little for her, even as he reasoned that maybe some of that was just because it was hot out in the desert.  

“Alright Emma!” Dr. Jeltzin called up to her through the loudspeaker, “We finally caught up, haha…if we just take a right here and go around that big rock, I think you’ll see something you recognize!”

“Ooooo, I wonder what it could beeee!” Emma giggled, bouncing up and down on her toes as her feet churned up truckloads of sand around her feet.  Even though she knew what she was about to see, she was enjoying the whole charade of this “field trip.”  She almost clapped her hands, but hesitated, remembering that doing so would definitely hurt everyone’s ears.  Instead, she took off again, bounding right around the rock in just a few strides, even though the rock itself had been a few hundred feet away.  As she rounded the huge, jutting formation (which was about 100 feet tall…Emma could almost reach the top on her tiptoes, which she tried to do), a small desert valley opened up before her, and Emma saw it – the wooden telephone pole that had been a part of her “photoshoot” many months before.  There it was, lonely and windblown as it stood in the sand…and Emma felt another well of emotion bubble up inside her.  What was it!?  Nostalgia?  Sadness?  Some kind of strange happiness for how far she had come?  She really had no idea – maybe it was everything at once.  

‘That was before Daniel came back to me,’ she thought suddenly.  ‘I was in a totally different headspace…my god…and I thought I was big then!?  Hahaha…wow…’

She had already recovered from the sudden emotional barrage, and was striding towards the telephone pole, eager to see how she compared to it now.  Paradoxically, the closer she got, the smaller it looked, and when she finally reached it, she just stood there for a few moments, gaping down at the 35-foot pole that, only a couple months before, had been as tall as she was.  Now…it barely even came up to her hips.  Gingerly, she stepped forward, not wanting to disturb the surrounding and too much, and stood next to it.

“Geez…is this…is this really the same telephone pole from before?” she asked, as the rest of the group came around the rock formation.  

“We knew you’d be surprised!” laughed Dr. Jeltzin.  “But it’s absolutely the same one from the shoot a couple months back!  If I recall you had 24-inch heels on at the time, so you were a couple feet taller!”

“A couple…feet taller…” murmured Emma, reaching her hand down and closing it slowly around the top of the pole.  Her arm was nearly at full downward extension – that’s how far down it was.  “Yeah…”

She hadn’t been prepared for the size dysmorphia she was suddenly now experiencing.  It was one thing to have occasional flashes of disbelief when she realized that her fingers were way thicker than Daniel’s legs, or when Dr. Ossford had casually mentioned that her 45-foot hips had the same circumference as a tractor-trailer.  Those were crazy moments of clarity, for sure, but up until now, nothing had blown her mind quite like this.  That photoshoot from a few months back was still so clear in her mind – it had been a wonderful day.  She had felt so sexy, so empowered in her size.  Those 24-inch heels had made her 2 feet taller than the pole, and she remembered making a big deal out of leaning on it, copping all those sexy poses, making kissy-faces at the camera…the whole nine yards.  She remembered thinking then that she was on top of the world, that she had finally reached the pinnacle of her own self-confidence.  Her Onlyfans had been raking in millions of dollars a month (and…still was? The past month, she had barely even thought about it), and she had finally, truly come to terms with her enormous size.  That photoshoot still stood out in her mind as one of the key moments when she had embraced the fact that she was now a giantess.

‘And look at it now,’ Emma thought to herself, absorbed in her recollections as she fingered the pole.  Even though it had been deeply hammered 6 feet into the sand, she was already starting to twist it loose.  ‘There’s just…no way…’

“This can’t be right,” she suddenly said out loud, looking down at the assembled group and furrowing her brow.  “It’s…I mean, this thing is way too small.  The real one must be somewhere else.”

“No…no, this is the right one, Emma,” answered Dr. Jeltzin immediately, shaking his head.  “Like I said, uh…we knew you’d be…you know, surprised.”

“I’m not…surprised,” she muttered, her fingers still absently working on the pole, twisting it left and right as the disturbed sand began to gather in piles around its base.  “I’m…I don’t know what.  This just can’t be the same one.”  

She stopped her movements abruptly and shot a sly look down at the scientists.

“You guys aren’t pranking me, are you?”

“Not a prank, Emma,” Dr. Clinebell cut in, taking the megaphone away from Jeltzin and stepping forward.  “We promise.  Here…just look around at everything.  Maybe it’d help if you sat down.”

Emma stared down at him, not understanding at first, but then a spark of recognition passed over her face and she slowly, gently sank down towards the sand, bending her legs outward as she effortlessly collapsed into a cross-legged sitting position.  As she descended, the entire company instinctively backed up a few paces.  They behaved this way not because Emma’s movements were sudden or unhinged in any way; on the contrary, they were almost impossibly fluid and smooth.  But however expertly-controlled her movements were, and however accustomed the company was to being around her, she had simply been growing too fast for them to get used to the sheer, colossal magnitude of what her movements actually looked like – when she was descending into a sitting position, it felt like an enormous sequoia tree was about to plunge down directly on top of them.

“Ohhhh…ohhhhh-kay,” Emma was nodding, now sitting down comfortably in the sand, her soffes and t-shirt even tighter on her now, “I think I see what you mean now.”  The top of her head was now even with the telephone pole, just a couple feet below where she had stood full-height before, with her 24-inch heels.  As a result, she could now see things from the perspective she remembered, and it was all coming back to her.  

“Heh…wow, I remember it all now,” she laughed, shaking her head as she gripped the top off the pole with her hand, playfully shaking it back and forth a few feet as she talked.  “I was facing this way, with the mountains in the background, and you all were taking pictures, and then I…like, I actually leaned against the pole, like this.”  

She “leaned” into it playfully, causing the entire pole to bend sideways towards the desert at a 45-degree angle, before pulling it right-way-up again.  

“And then…” she giggled, “I had to go pee over there by the rocks!”  She pointed, but then her finger fell a little.  Was she mis-remembering?  No, wait…it hadn’t been her that had gone behind the rocks.  It had been…Aiden.  That was the second time Emma had thought about him in the last few minutes, when she hadn’t thought about him before for weeks or even months.  Her “little bear.”  He had just been whisked out of her life.  Why was that, again?  Emma started to feel the dull tickle of anxiety start to drip inside her.  She couldn’t really recall – except that maybe it was something about him being fragile…too fragile to be around her, or something…?   

She could hear someone saying something to her through the loudspeaker, but she registered that it wasn’t Daniel and didn’t listen.  Daniel…he hadn’t been here with her last time.  She had seemed so happy, posing and everything, soaking in the sun and standing tall, but really, she hadn’t been happy.  She couldn’t have been!  A gaping hole had been left inside her, a hole that only one person filled.  

Suddenly, Emma stood back up.  She was vaguely aware of a few people collapsing to the ground in front of her…maybe more than a few.  Little squeaks and shouts.  But in an instant almost all of that was out of her earshot, and she was looming back over 70 feet above them all.  She pointed down at the crowd of people beneath her.

“Where’s Daniel?” she asked, point-blank.  “Daniel…you’re in there, right?”

Peering down, scouring the little figures for the one she wanted, Emma saw everyone struggling to their feet.  What was their deal?  Had they all just fallen down at once!?  What for?

“Emma!” came Dr. Clinebell’s stern voice through the megaphone.  “Don’t jump up like that!  You scared us!”

“Where’s Daniel?” she demanded, ignoring what he had just said.  There was an edge to her voice now, and for the first time in a while, she could truly feel herself getting angry.  If they didn’t want her to move her body the way she wanted to, then they shouldn’t stand so close to her!  None of them, NONE of them, could understand the anxious flash of emotions that had just flared through her mind, nearly leaving her feeling sick to her stomach…and the worst part was, she didn’t really even know why.  There were faint memories, distant echoes in her mind, that she could have worked to recall, but she didn’t want to.  There were things…so, so many things she didn’t want to remember.  

“I’m here!” came the only voice in the world that she wanted to hear, and she immediately felt the sickness in her stomach begin to dissipate.  She blinked and bent down towards the little figure that had separated itself from the others…and apparently Daniel had a megaphone of his own, or had taken it from Dr. Clinebell.  Emma reached straight down, gently but firmly wrapped her fingers around his body, and, taking care not to give him whiplash, brought him up to her level as she straightened back up.

“Oh thank god,” she whispered at him, bringing him close up to her face and nuzzling him gently on the chest with the soft tip of her nose.

“What’s wrong?” Daniel asked her, speaking in a low voice through the megaphone.  But the next moment, with a little pinch of her fingernails, Emma had taken it away from him, crushed it into a little plastic pancake, and flicked it 500 yards away, back toward the mountains.  

“I don’t want you to talk to me through that thing anymore,” she whispered to him.  “It makes you sound too much like…like them.”  She indicated down to the rest of the crowd.  “I’m…I’m sorry Daniel…just sitting down like that…a lot of things kinda came back to me, and I remembered last time I was here…I didn’t have you.”

“Well, I’m here now,” he declared firmly, speaking moderately loudly, since she was holding him rather close to her face.  His heart was racing.

“I know…I know you are,” she breathed, nuzzling him again.  “I just…I don’t know, I got paranoid or something.  All I could see was this crawling little group of little…things…down there, and I knew you were in there but I wasn’t SURE if you were in there, and actually I just didn’t WANT you to be in there, and –”

“Hey, hey,” Daniel said, keeping up the bright energy in his voice, determined to calm her down, “I get it, Emma!  You don’t need to explain.  I’ll…I can be up here with you for the rest of the trip.”

Emma blinked at him.  All of a sudden she felt the hot swell of tears beginning to well up, and for a couple seconds her lower lip trembled.  But then she closed her eyes, took a deep breath in through her nostrils, and held him tenderly to her cheek, moving her face slowly up and down against his body.  

“Thank you,” she whispered.  “I can’t even tell you…I don’t know what just happened there.”  After a few more seconds of soft, full-body cheek caresses, Emma opened her eyes and held Daniel still in front of her face, blinking the remnants of tears out of her eyes.

“I feel silly!” she laughed at him, wiping the tears away with her free hand.

“Don’t feel silly!” Daniel exclaimed, straining his body forward in earnest as he kicked his legs a little.  “Emma…listen…the stuff you’ve had to deal with…no one else can even imagine it.  No one in the world.  No one in history.  And you’ve gotten through it – it hasn’t been easy, but you’ve gotten through it.  And…I’m so proud of you.”

“Now you’re gonna make me cry again!” Emma laughed, shaking her head.  Daniel saw her face contort between her bright smile, and the twitching, trembling strain of suppressed pain.  He desperately wanted to make her feel better, but could only watch in midair as she weathered the emotional storm.  It didn’t take long, though, for her smile to win out again, and she brought him up close to her face again, kissed him, and whispered:

“It’s just this place…and all those memories getting to me,” she murmured, pausing before adding, “And them…down there.  They’re really starting to creep me out, Daniel.”

“They are?” he asked, wondering how much of their conversation could be heard down below; Emma was making it a point to keep her voice down, which was unusual.  She really did seem to still feel paranoid about something.  “How so?”

“Just the way they move,” she said in a low voice, glancing down at them briefly before looking back up at Daniel.  “I hadn’t noticed it much before…but now that we’re out in the open, it just…ugh, it really gets to me.  And the thought of YOU in the middle of that slowly creeping little mass of…stuff…”

“Of people,” Daniel corrected gently.

“Well, yeah…” Emma shrugged, “Right…but all the same.”  She tightened her fingers slightly around his body.  “I’m so glad you’re up here with me.”

“Well that makes two of us,” Daniel chuckled, his eyes going carefully over the huge panorama of her face in front of him.  She seemed to be all right now, but there was still something lingering in her eyes, a bit of hesitation, like she was still uncertain about something.  

“How about it, Emma?” came Dr. Jeltzin’s cheerful voice over the megaphone.  Even though Jeltzin was Daniel’s favorite scientist at the Facility (along with Alison, since he knew they both cared deeply for Emma), he couldn’t help but wince at the sound of his voice.  He had seen Emma’s face flinch, very briefly, almost too briefly to notice, but he had seen it – it wasn’t just irritation.  It was an indication of something deeper…and even though Daniel wasn’t quite sure what it meant, he could feel the truth of it in his bones.  Emma was reaching the end of the line with these people.

“How about what?” Emma responded cheerfully, smiling down at the company below.  “Sorry, Daniel and I were having a conversation.”

“Not a problem at all, of course!” nodded Jeltzin earnestly.  “I had just asked if maybe you were interested in taking a few more pictures by the telephone pole?  You know, for old time’s sake?  As a fun little comparison, just to show how far you’ve come since then?”

“Huh…you know what?” Emma chuckled, “I think I’ve got a better way to show that.”

Still holding Daniel in her right hand, she reached down with her left, wrapped it around the top of the telephone pole, and yanked it straight out of the earth, scattering a little cloud of dirt and sand in the process.  And then, stepping around the group below, she gently deposited Daniel on one of the sturdy rock formations about 80 feet up.

“The best seat in the house,” she joked to him, winking, and then she strode away a few paces, so that she could be well clear of everyone.  Holding the telephone pole over her head, one hand wrapped around either end, she arched an eyebrow down at the scientists.

“I think all of you had better cover your ears!” she advised, smiling.  “You too, Daniel!  Okkkkaaaay, ready?  Three, two…one…”

CRACK

In one simple, twin motion, Emma flicked both of her wrists outwards, and the telephone pole snapped straight in two, as if it had been nothing more than a twig in her hands.  The break was so clean that there weren’t even any shards of wood that flew up into the air, but the truly incredible thing about the feat was that she hadn’t even moved her arms – it was just her wrists.  The loud crack cut through the air, and even though everyone had heeded Emma’s warning and covered their ears, they could all still feel the shockwave of the sudden snap go through their bodies.  The next thing they knew, Emma was holding two 20-foot poles, one in each hand above her head, her eyes fixed straight ahead at the horizon past the Facility, her face blank and expressionless.

Dr. Jeltzin had been about to utter some congratulatory exclamation through the megaphone, but, seeing the look on her face, he slowly lowered it away from his mouth, letting it hang by his side.  The rest of the company was silent for a while, and a restless, uneasy energy stirred amongst them.  A few moments later, Emma simply dropped the broken poles down at her feet, strode up to where she had left Daniel, and fished him back up again, setting out at once for the mountain in front of them.  A few scientists in the company moved to follow, but Dr. Clinebell silently held out his hand, indicating that they should stay put.  

“Why’d she do that?” came Alison’s voice after a while, sounding almost helpless.  “I thought…I was sure…that she’d get a real kick out of coming back here and comparing herself.”

Dr. Clinebell walked over to her and put a hand on her shoulder.

“Don’t beat yourself up about it, Alison,” he said gently.  “You know her very well, and the two of you are close…but you’re not a mind-reader.  And I’m positive that she’s had at least two more spurts since we’ve set off this morning…that could be an added complication to the array of emotions she was obviously going through.”

“Poor girl,” Jeltzin sighed, uncharacteristically sad, shaking his head.  “You could just see it on her face.”

The company retreated a little back to the shade of the large rock formation, leaning against it or standing in its shade as they watched Emma’s figure, a mile or two now in the distance, begin to scale the snow-capped peak in front of them.

“At least we got to come out with her on this one last, uh…fun little trip,” said Dr. Farley, speaking more to fill the silence than for any other reason.  “Before the end.”

The sun was high in the sky, reflecting brightly off the desert sand, a stark, burnt-orange contrast to the deep azure blue of the cloudless sky.  The scene itself was bright, but it could not have contrasted more sharply with the mood of the assembled company, cowering in the shade of the rocks.  Jeltzin had his arm wrapped around Alison, and her head was bowed forward as she shed tears onto the sand.  

“We’ve failed her,” she cried softly, her body shuddering with emotion.  “Everything…just everything we’ve tried…it hasn’t been enough.  For all our efforts, we haven’t been able to help her.”

“Now Alison,” Jeltzin said softly, hugging her to him, “You know that isn’t true.”

“It is!” she blurted, blinking up at him in rare, unfiltered sorrow.  “You saw the expression on her face just now…she’s starting to break from reality again.  She’s starting to doubt what’s real and what’s not.  She may have had a good few months where the routine of the Facility kept her stable…kept her mind at ease, you know?  Gave her things to focus on.  But now…she’s about to leave, and…it’s all coming back to overwhelm her and…”

Alison turned her face into Jeltzin’s chest, continuing to cry quietly.  The other scientists looked around at each other, some of them confused, some dejected, some merely resigned.  Dr. Farley was one of the ones wearing a confused expression.

“She’s…about to leave?” he asked blankly, looking at Alison and then around to the rest of the scientists.  “Do we, uh…do we know that?”

Dr. Clinebell slowly turned and gave Farley a deadpan look, raising his eyebrows slightly, as if to say, ‘Seriously?’ but he didn’t say anything out loud.  A few of the other scientists were shrugging and shaking their heads, in a dual motion of helplessness.  

“I mean…how much longer can she stay in that hangar?” Dr. Ossford asked simply, spreading his hands in front of him.  “She broke the bed last night…her feet have started cracking the concrete foundation…and as to her height…”

He fell silent.  Everyone knew that the ceilings at the Facility, at their highest point, were 70 feet.  The top of Emma’s head had been brushing lightly against it right as she had stepped out of the Facility to begin the “field trip.”  

“Yeah, I don’t think anyone here thinks that she’ll be able to stand up straight when she comes back in today,” Dr. Ossford finished.

“If she’s even coming back today at all!” exclaimed Alison, wiping away her tears as she regained control of herself, stepping away from Jeltzin.  She looked up towards the mountain.  Even though she was miles away now, everyone could see her enormous form, deftly scaling the rocks.  It was surreal, watching her climb.  The mountain itself made her look so small…tiny, even.  But they could still see her, and that fact alone hit home how truly huge she was becoming.  

“She’ll come back today,” Dr. Clinebell declared calmly.  Alison turned to him, blinking incredulously.  

“How can you be so sure?”  Her incredulity suddenly morphed into anger.  “How can you be so sure of anything anymore, Clinebell!?  You’re the one who said there’s no way she’d grow past 50 feet!  Jesus, look at her now!”

“Yes, I grant you, I was wrong about that,” he chuckled, “But I know she’ll come back tonight.”

Alison spread her arms, shaking her head.  “Why?  Why will she come back!?  She’s outgrown everything…outgrown us all…she won’t even be able to stand up straight.  At her size she can get nutrition from pretty much anywhere – trees, the ocean, wherever – you remember how she was eating things before we took her away from that farm.  So…what makes you think she’s coming back with us?”

The angry energy of her question hung on the air.  Dr. Clinebell smiled sadly, stepped forward, and put his hand on Alison’s shoulder as she continued to stare up at him defiantly, with a searching pain in her eyes.  His answer was simple:

“She hasn't said goodbye.”

Ten thousand feet up, Emma had just sat down on a large stone, breathing heavily in the cold air as she stared up the rocky slope that stretched out above them.  Scattered all around were the white-dusted beginnings of the snow that capped the mountain, and the jagged rocks above them seemed crouched, bent in expectation for this new and unusual visitor.  A cold breeze was blowing, not quite in gusts, but more powerful than a breeze.  

“Gotta just…take a breather for a second,” Emma gasped, chuckling in self-deprecation as she deposited Daniel down on a smooth stone at her shoulder-level.  “Heh, all that weight training was all well and good, but my cardio is totally shot!”

“I mean…it really doesn’t seem too shabby to me,” Daniel remarked, meaning to say more, but Emma had bent in closer, putting her hand to her ear as she said:

“What was that again?  Sorry, the wind’s kinda blowing a lot.”

“I was saying how…uh, you just basically climbed the whole mountain!” Daniel replied, louder. 

“Not quite!” Emma winked at him, turning to look up at the summit, which looked only another thousand feet away, and well within striking distance.  

“Well…climbing ten thousand feet in like twenty minutes isn’t bad,” Daniel finished, smiling as he shrugged.

“But I’m, like…totally winded!” Emma laughed, shaking her head at herself as she looked down at the stony ground from her sitting position.  “It feels almost like I never work out or something.”

“It’s the thin oxygen!” Daniel exclaimed, suddenly understanding why she was breathing so hard.  

“The thin…oxygen!?” she asked, turning to him, completely perplexed.  “What’re you talking about?”

“Emma…haha, like, I don’t think you realize how high up we are!” Daniel laughed.  “Even at 5,000 feet elevation, people feel the effects of thinner oxygen, and this mountain is like 11,000 feet, and we’re almost at the top, soooo…”

He trailed off, eyeing her hopefully, like she would be able to appreciate his point.  But Emma just sat there, her brow furrowed down at him, not seeming to understand.  Daniel felt a bit of a sinking sensation in his stomach – did she really not get it!?  It wasn’t terribly complicated.  Surely she could grasp the simple concept. 

“So you’re saying…” she began carefully, “That the oxygen…the freaking atmosphere…is already thinner up here!?”

“Yessss!” Daniel laughed, nodding earnestly.

“But…we’ve been climbing for like twenty minutes,” Emma murmured.

“You’ve been climbing for twenty minutes,” Daniel corrected, smiling at her sincerely.  “There’s no way anyone else would be close to where we are now.  But there’s the peak of the mountain, Emma…right there.  It can’t be more than 1,000 feet or so away.”

Emma looked back up at the peak, her lips pursed, as she descended into deep thought for a few long moments.  Daniel sat there, waiting patiently.  The sinking feeling in his stomach had abated somewhat – he understood that what she was experiencing was more size dysmorphia, another version of what she had been dealing with, in various forms, for quite some time now.  

‘But this time,’ he thought, looking at her stare at the top of the peak, ‘She’s experiencing…like, reality dysmorphia…’

“So I’m that big now,” she said softly, breaking the silence as her eyes scanned the clear blue sky overhead, “That I’ve just hiked up into…into a different part of the atmosphere?  Without realizing it?”

“Well…I’m not sure about that, exactly,” Daniel answered, leaning hard into the humor he knew Emma enjoyed, “Since I’m not quite clear on where the stratosphere or heliosphere or whatever begins…I mean, like, if you wanna get really technical, I’m not sure where the official NASA boundaries –”

“Oh my god,” Emma giggled, taking her pinkie and spearing Daniel gently in the chest, pinning him on his back as she wiggled her finger playfully, shaking his entire body with her single digit, “You are such a nerd!”

They both laughed as he fought back, punching and biting her finger as he strove to overcome her strength.  But there was more than enough force in her pinkie to easily subdue him, and Emma just sat there, still giggling, delighting in watching Daniel try in vain to overcome her.  When at last he was exhausted (which was sooner than usual, because of the thin air), they both sat there for a few minutes in quiet contemplation.  The view from their ledge was beautiful – the vast, hazy orange of the desert spread far below them, and, far in the distance, they could see the rock formations which housed the Facility…which only looked like a tiny white dot from where they sat.  Emma had turned to look back up at the peak, but Daniel was still lost in thought.  Even though he had been joking about “stratospheres” and “heliospheres” and such, the scientific terms had set his mind down a certain path…a path that didn’t altogether lead somewhere pleasant.

‘We’re so far away from it now,’ he thought, ‘But…what if she keeps growing…and growing!?  And…never stops??  She’ll grow up through the atmosphere…she’ll cause earthquakes every time she moves…the planet won’t be able to contain her.  She won’t be able to survive…and no one else will, either…’

He saw how dark these thoughts could become, so he turned away from that avenue in his mind.  Emma was 70 feet tall right now…not 70,000 – it was going to take a long time to get to that point.  He needed to do what Alison always told Emma to do: take it one day at a time, and not get ahead of things.

“How about it, then?” asked Emma, shooting him a determined grin as she took a great breath in through her nose.

“How about it?” Daniel repeated, tilting his head at her in expectation, not understanding what she meant.

“The top!” Emma exclaimed, pointing up at the peak.  “The summit!  We’re not done with the hike yet!”

Daniel blinked up at the snow-capped peak.  From his perspective, it sure did look imposing.  Plus everything was all covered with snow up there. He didn’t see a clear way up, but he suddenly felt the mountain beneath him trembling as Emma shifted her weight, picked him gently off his rock, and stood up.  She clasped him in her hand, holding him up to her eager face.

“You wanna come with me, right?” she asked earnestly.  “All the way to the top?”

Daniel stared at her, feeling an almost unbearable affection for her.  The feeling was tinged with something else too…maybe sadness…maybe even a bit of fear…but the overpowering, dominant emotion was unquestionably positive.  Staring at her huge, excited face, it was easy to swallow his fears.  Emma had this.  She had him.  He even allowed himself to feel a bit adventurous…intrepid…daring.  What if she slipped and fell?  What if they both toppled down the mountain?  In the moment, Daniel wasn’t worried about that.  If it happened, it happened.  At least they’d be together.

“All the way to the top,” he nodded, grinning at her.  Emma’s face cracked into an even wider smile, and the next moment, she had dropped Daniel in between the huge, pillowy cushions of her enormous breasts, making sure he was good and secure in there before swinging off into a rapid climb up the face of the mountain.  Daniel set his jaw hard, the cold air burning his eyes as he felt the immense motion of her gigantic body working, pulling, and flexing.  The peak was steeper now, so Emma was actually having to get hand-holds on the rock, testing it for sturdiness before she pulled herself up.  A few times, the boulders gave way and went crashing down the mountain, but each time she had made sure that her footholds and handholds were secure.  She was climbing with speed, but not with abandon.  But from Daniel’s perspective, it was all insanity.  But he trusted her.  Behind his body, he felt the mighty hammer of her heart, warming his body even in the sub-freezing temperatures as they went higher and higher.

‘That’s what this is,’ he realized suddenly.  ‘People have “test falls,” but this…this is a “test climb.”  And I want to be here with her.  I want to get to the top.’

The top came sooner than Daniel expected.  With one last mighty wrench, Emma pulled herself up the final crag, and there they stood, on the slightly-plateaued peak of the mountain, surveying the vast expanse of land before them. 

“That was quick!” panted Emma, smiling as she saw Daniel turn his little head to look up at her.  “Whooo, we DID it, Daniel!  I’ve been staring at this peak every day for soooo long…oh my god…and here we are.  We’re actually HERE.”

“We’re actually…here,” Daniel repeated, staring with awe down at the desert and distant mountain ranges where they had come from.  He wasn’t quite sure what “being here” meant exactly, but in this moment, he didn’t really care.  The scene was gorgeous (even though the air was so cold!), and he was nestled in between the warm, fleshy weight of the largest breasts in the world.  

“Okay, now the moment I’ve really been waiting for…” Emma breathed.  Daniel could feel her heart beginning to beat even faster, so fast that it actually began buzzing his body through her chest.  The moment she had been waiting for?  What moment did she mean?

Inhaling deeply through her nose, Emma turned around and Daniel felt her breath leave her body in a long, drawn-out exhale.  It was an exhale of awe.  There, spread far out below them in a shimmering array of reflected sunlight that stretched out to the rounded horizon, was the sea.