Bellflower Extract 2 (Patreon)

So you know how I said I kept writing & rewriting sections of the last two chapters? Here are some of the bits & bobs I had saved as reference points. Attempts & alternate versions of things that kept leading to dead ends. Most of these were just situational in that I didn’t entirely know exactly how to stage them all meeting up & getting food. While some of it is in here, I didn’t save much of the trial & error dialogue portions of the actual conversation because I was able to kind of hammer that out as I went.

Don’t try to read these in any sort of continuity, consider each chunk it’s own like… pocket universe or something, all during the meeting to bring Holly into the fold. In fact, I added bracketed portions at the beginning of each as a way to provide a bit more context for each chunk.

Mostly sharing to, one, show I wasn’t lying when I said I was trying to make something work, & two, maybe give a little extra context to what I was trying get across in terms of character personalities, inner monologue, etc. But there are some better portions giving more descriptions of the girls’ weight & things as well that I’m sure some folks would certainly be interest in too.

Originally, I was going to add a few images to this post. While I started sketching Bellflower characters from the moment I started writing it, the results were always kind of mid with the exception of one Rachel that was like… ok. But then with my experimenting, I tried plugging descriptions into AI prompts & got some pretty interesting results. I tried to make them look photographic, & not base them too much off of any one person, making them unique, realistic ways to visualize the characters. The thing is, given my personal policy of never pay-walling straight AI content (given its nature), I decided I didn’t want to post it with chunks of story I wanted to save exclusively for patrons. So in the very near future, I will include a public post with some images of Rachel, Holly, & crew that I’ve been using to help myself visualize the characters.

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[Holly is left at the table with Marissa as the girls slowly start coming back with food from the counter]

Rachel set the tray in front of her, but Holly seemed frozen in deep, somewhat troubled thought.

“Not hungry really.” Holly muttered, staring into space.

“C’mon,” Rachel sighed. “You know for a fact you’re going to be. And the wrap? It’s like the leanest, healthiest thing they’ve got. Everything else is grease.”

“Well I didn’t pick this place,” Holly rasped without looking, with something of a slow, but somewhat seething tone.

“I got the same thing for myself. If you don’t want it now, save it.” Rachel took her seat, scooting herself in, next to her sister. “Because you know you’ll be hungry later.” Holly was unmoved, still staring down at nothing in particular, with a consternated look.

“I… just want to go home.” She pushed under her breath.

“What?” Rachel asked, a bit taken back. “Why?”

“Hol, we haven't even get to the crux of things yet.” Deidre sighed.

“I do NOT like being put on the spot!” Holly sneared, upset with the both of them.

“You’re not on the spot, hun.” Deidre leaned in, trying to invoke her sterner voice. “We’re here because we…”

”We’re trying to save you from being fattened up for slaughter by some crazy computer bitch!” Rachel snapped.

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[Another where Holly is left at the table with Marissa as the girls slowly start coming back with food from the counter]

“How are you holding up?” Rachel asked Holly, leaning in, crunching on a potato chip.

“So your sister’s not much of a talker, is she?” Marissa squeaked with a chortle, taking a bite of her own wrap, but with double meat.

“She’s usually the life of the party,” Deidre sighed. “Usually.”

“Where were we?” A returning Fran asked with a huff, trying to wriggle back into the booth. Mikayla waited patiently so she could retake her seat too. Apparently, they all had gone with wraps of some sort.

“Just the important bit,” Deidre snarked.

“I…” Holly attempted. Everyone listened in, but the words were taking their time. Coming out shakily. “I’m not…“ She took a deep breath. “It wasn’t a computer that made me fat! I… did this. To myself.” She said forlorned.  ”How can you be so sure?” Marissa snarked. “When it’s not just you…?”

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[Shortly after arrival, Rachel puts Holly on the spot to describe her experience & what happened when she dropped her phone]

“Oh… No. Don’t you… not this-“ Holly sneered in her sister’s direction. There was a humility in her wavering tone. As if she was about to divulge some sort of secret.

“What do you mean “not this?!” Rachel fired back. “You were so distraught over all this just last night!”

“And I distinctly remember you had stuffed your own damn self to near oblivion!” Holly growled. Rachel’s cheeks reddened, not entirely proud of herself. Last thing she needed was to give Mikayla more ammunition to be cross at her. 

“Yeah well-” Rachel struggled to reach a solid follow-up. “We’re all here because of you! The floor’s yours…”

”Me?!” Holly squealed. “I’m only here because YOU lied to me!”

“Don’t let them scare you off. They get like this sometimes.” Deidre repeated to the rest of the women for a soft laugh.

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[Mid conversation, Holly is doubtful]

“So…” She looked to Rachel again, as she remained conspicuously quiet. And she didn’t look as though she was ready to contribute. Holly leaned into the table to ask her question, to ask it softly, given how… batshit it sounded. “You all think the same way she does? That living there’s… tricking us? Into getting fat?”

“Seemingly by design.” Mikayla said flatly.

“Design?” Holly asked, befuddled.

“Sedentary jobs & slowing metabolisms can only account for so much,” Deidre chimed in. “But if you really pay close attention, everyone’s like… ballooning! And worse? Completely oblivious to the fact!!”

“I definitely wasn’t anywhere near a quarter of a ton when I first moved in, let me tell you.” Marissa feigned a laugh. “Hell, not even a third of this!”

“Do you remember,” Rachel finally chimed in, Holly craning her thick neck almost enough to get whiplash. “There was that time you went to check in on Courtney?”

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[Holly gathering her thoughts as she & Marissa wait for the others to come back with food]

It didn’t help that Holly was feeling a bit hungover this whole time. It was hard to parse all of her thoughts, given how they were all so… swimmy. She noticed feeling like this before too, the other day when she first lost her old phone. At the time, she figured it was just the stress of the situation. Her chair, her outburst, the phone-

Wait, was it because she was again without her phone? Was it… somehow like… hypnotizing her? Was that more evidence backing up their wild theories?

“It’s a lot, right?” Marissa squeaked, seeming to be a bit empathetic. In her stupor, Holly had almost forgot she was still sitting there off to her side. Almost, because there was certainly no missing her. But given that, her size is kind of what kept her from joining the others as readily. To spare her the indignity, Deidre, in her matronly way, offered to bring something back for her. Save her the hassle of extricating herself from the booth, waddling up, & then trying to wedge herself back in.

Still a bit shyer than usual & slow to realize how long it was taking to acknowledge the comment, Holly could only offer up a timid nod. When the large pale woman smirked & looked away, impatiently wondering where her food was, Holly looked her up & down without trying to make it seem too obvious.

The goth girl was taking up an entire booth with her wide, flabby frame. No longer dressed to provocatively highlight the darkness of her soul, the athleisure wear she had squeezed herself into were purely for comfort & well, probably the last few items of clothes she had that had any semblance of fitting. Holly could in some ways sympathize, despite not really understanding the preference for goth wear. Pasty white flesh seemed to bubble out wherever it could find purchase, resembling almost bread dough a bit more than skin. And once again, sympathetically, Holly often worried her fluff would poke through too, constantly adjusting herself, today especially.

To punctuate her impatience for food, Marissa took a deep, heaving sigh, which seemed to make the feeble booth creak beneath her. With her dark hair, Holly could only think how she didn’t look too dissimilar from Courtney, aside from how she carried her weight & the heavier, albeit slightly sloppy, eye makeup, a little too intricate for such fat fingers & rushed.

“So whatcha thinkin’…?” Marissa seemed to press, noticing her glance but not trying to call her out on it. “About all this…?”

“I- I just…” Holly stammered. “I don’t know.” She shrugged with a deep sigh of her own.

On one level, she was still quite peeved at her sister. Rachel had lied to her. Straight up. And managed to get Deidre, her boss, to go along with it, bringing her to this sketchy, hole in the wall, piece of crap sandwich stand, surround her with strangers from the building, point out just how fat she was in front of everyone, & blame it all on crazy conspiracy theories! But she didn’t want to get into all that with this girl, seeing as she was one of the strangers. Still, despite Holly always being a bit put off by goths, the girl’s empathy seemed disarmingly earnest.

Hell, all of the women did. Even Mikayla in her own, colder way. They seemed to truly believe all this stuff they were saying. As batshit insane as it all sounded. And they actually seemed to be truly concerned for her, even if she didn’t know them. Between that, & her own inability to really counter anything being said? Maybe she should hear them out, at the very least. She continued.

“I’m like… interested… in hearing what you all have to say but like…”

“Yeah I remember thinking it was so wild at first too.” Marissa squeaked. “And there’s some big chunks of the puzzle we don’t know for sure. But tangibly…? The parts we can see? With our own eyes?”

They had made quite a few valid points for sure. Everyone around the Bellflower, seemed kinda bigger. Just in general. And like… growing. Back before Rachel came to stay with her, it was just like background radiation to Holly. In the corner of her mind. Something she could sorta see happening, but tucked away almost. Never in a way she could quite articulate. And when she had gotten bigger herself, she chalked it all up to the creature comforts. The building was supposed to be the lap of luxury. State of the art too. A privileged & pampered lifestyle, filled to the brim with amenities! Like the world class gym… that had been under construction for months. Huh. It seemed like every time Holly tried to reasonably push back against these girls’ claims, it’d be something else that jumped out at her, only reinforcing their points!

And as far as all that growing? It wasn’t just her though. Her friends. Deidre? Courtney had started out kind of chubby when they first met. But she had gotten so, so big. Impossible to ignore big.

Only reinforced by Rachel’s initial observations. She seemed keen to talk about it all. From the jump. But Holly, being so self conscious about her own weight, something she always tried to dismiss or blow right past, paying any attention to it, just felt so… rude.

“Why?!” She eventually muttered. Marissa perked back up. “Like I don’t get it. Why would she want to go through all the trouble to like… do that though?” Holly asked, her brow deeply furrowed while trying to a cap to her volume, the words leaving her mouth were going to sound crazy. “Fatten up the people that live in the building?”

“Penny’s not a “she,” Mikayla sighed, coming back over with what looked like some kind of wrap on her tray. She was trying to maintain some level of patience, having just met.

“Whatever,” Holly waved away. “What kind of like… motive would sh- it even have?”

“Um well-“ Marissa trailed. “Those big chunks of the puzzle we don’t know that I was just talking about…?”

“Admittedly? That’s kind of like the billion dollar question.” Mikayla sneered off to the side as she stood. To Holly, she seemed like the kind of woman that always wanted to have an answer for everything. And not having one for this one ate at her severally. Still, for Holly? Given how crazy this all was, she needed something. Any sort of justification.

“Yeah,” Francesca replied with a sigh as she shuffled back over, her ears keen to the conversation. “We don’t know why that seems like its goal. Just that, well… it is happening. I mean… just look at us. Each of us!” Mikayla had been standing to the side, waiting to let Fran in so she could retake her seat too.

“Holly,” Deidre was right behind her, kind of putting on her bossy tone. A tactic to give her full attention. “You do like living at the Bellflower, right?” She handed Marissa what looked like another wrap. The large goth girl’s expression soured.

“Aw just a wrap?” She whined. “I’ve been so good though.”

“Just a wrap.” Fran replied commandingly, her friendly tone fading to shoot daggers, as she lowered herself back into her seat. Holly tried to focus her attention back to Deidre.

“I mean… I love it.” Holly “Er… I…” She double thought her kneejerk response in the face of the opposition. In light of present company, she second guessed tempering her words. Deidre waved her consternation away. It seemed she had gotten the response she was hoping for.

“Because everything’s essentially perfect. Nothing to clean. Nothing to worry about. Hell, ordering delivery as if through telepathy?” She listed as she sat back down across from her.

“Ye- yeah…” Holly nodded.

“So if things are so perfect, why such heavy turnover?” Deidre pushed. “All from just employees from the one building! I mean, you’ve seen it in our own department. It was one of those feelings, you know? In the back of your mind. Why do so many people, living in this luxurious ultramodern smart condo suddenly, very abruptly just up & move away? Usually after… growing- so much.”

“Housing… market…?” Holly stammered at a guess. “Maybe life’s too good? Spending too much money on food?”

“None of the condos are being foreclosed on.” Mikayla interjected just seconds before biting into her light dinner.

“Yeah, doesn’t seem like it. By all appearances, people just pick up & leave. The way Courtney did.” Deidre shrugged. “At least that’s what it looks like to the casual observer. From the outside, looking in.”