The Ritual - Halloween Special!

Robert woke up in darkness. He didn’t know where he was or how he’d gotten there. The last thing he remembered was stepping outside after a night at the bar, and then something wet covering his nose and mouth, and then blackness.

He could tell he was lying on his back, so he tried to get up only to find his arms and legs bound. He struggled but found his bindings to be unyielding. The rest of him could move, and he tried to squirm his way out of his confinement to no avail. He was trapped, alone and in the dark.

Or not. He could see a faint light in the distance. It was moving toward him, the slight sound of rustling fabric along with it. From what he assumed to be a hallway leading to his darkened room came a person holding a single candle. The light was just barely enough to make out the silhouette of the hooded figure, his body shrouded in robes and shadows. He came to where Rob was trapped and stopped. Rob realized he was on a raised platform of some kind as his head was at the hooded figure’s waist.

He stood there for a few moments and then all around him candles began to burn brightly, illuminating the whole room. Rob couldn't make out the man’s face but he knew it was a man beneath the robes, and that the room he was in was sparse but cavernous, with bare stone walls covered in candles surrounding him.

Then Rob looked to his arms and legs and saw that he was tied to a table with thick ropes. More disturbing was the fact he was completely naked, and painted on his chest and belly were strange red markings he strained to make out from his reclined position. He thought he could see a red circle and within it some kind of star. A pentagram.

Rob’s blood suddenly ran cold as the full import of the situation finally struck him. He shouted at the man, pleaded with him to untie him, to let him go, to not do whatever it was he intended, but his words fell on deaf ears. The hooded figure said nothing for several minutes. Then he began to chant in deep, sonorous notes.

Now Rob truly began to panic. He yelled and screamed for anyone to help him, but no one came. A deep despair fell over him as the man continued to chant. And then he stopped.

Confused, Rob looked over to see why he'd ceased chanting. Nothing seemed to have changed - he was still holding the candle, face still obscured by the hooded robes he wore. There was silence for another moment, and then the man held the candle over top the markings on Rob’s torso until a single drop of melted wax fell right in the center of the pentagram.

As soon as the wax struck his skin Rob felt an intense burning sensation flow from his chest all throughout his body. It felt like his skin was on fire, like it was at once both being flayed from his body and being burnt away with a blowtorch. He screamed, and then wept as the burning continued unabated.

Then through the pain he heard a voice. It was far away, but getting louder. It said only a single word; “eat”. He looked over at the hooded figure but his mouth hadn’t moved. Rob couldn’t tell where the voice was coming from, or why it was commanding him to consume, but it was getting louder and louder as he writhed on the table in unimaginable pain.

And then something else. With the pain and the voice a new feeling emerged, one that Rob couldn’t explain. He looked down to see the runes on his chest glowing an eldritch glow, but also something strange - his stomach seemed to be shifting, the skin moving as though something were inside him trying to get out.

Rob would have screamed right then had he not felt a sudden lurch deep within him, like something had let go in his abdomen. In horror he watched as his stomach surged forward, going from a flat washboard to a beer belly in seconds. Then the burning sensation on his skin seemed to spike as the rest of him followed suit, his arms and legs thickening, fat pooling in his cheeks and chest. In moments it looked like he’d gained 50 pounds, going from athletic to overweight in the blink of an eye.

“Eat,” the voice said, louder now, sounding as though it was being spoken from just behind Rob’s head, but no one was there. The robed cultist simply stood mute, his gaze never leaving the glowing runes on Rob’s now rounded belly. “Eat,” it said again louder still, and the runes began to glow even brighter.

Another internal lurch and again Rob felt his flesh advancing, his belly rising higher and higher as he looked on in utter panic. He could feel the weight of it as it grew, how it spread out under its own mass, how the lowest part had already folded over to begin seeping toward his groin. Then the rest of him swelled, his entire body widening, his restraints beginning to dig into his ever-thickening ankles and wrists. Looking down he could see his chest had become twin peaks capped with puffy and enlarged nipples, rising up almost as high as his now gigantic belly.

The hooded figure nodded once and left the room, the sound of his robes rustling the only noise to mark his passage. Rob barely noticed his absence he was so shocked at what had become of him. His body was unrecognizable, having grown past merely fat and well into obesity. Everything felt heavy and thick, sending a bizarre sense of motion that he realized was the near constant jiggling caused by every tiny move he made. Rob could no longer see over the crest of his own stomach, but he could feel how his thighs touched and rubbed together despite his legs being splayed apart. He could feel his jowls touch his chest as he tried to peer downward, and how the skin at the back of his neck bunched and folded when he laid back down, unable to keep lift his head long enough to look downward for long.

All the while the voice became louder, more frequent, more insistent. “Eat!” It commanded, “EAT!” His guts roiled, and he now knew the voice wasn’t from without - it was from within, pounding into his brain, ordering him to consume anything, everything. He was so impossibly hungry he felt he would pass out from starvation if he didn’t eat something soon.

Rob heard a rattling sound as the hooded figure returned pushing a cart. On it was a tank with a small hose attached. Once he’d rolled the cart to the end of the table nearest Rob’s head he took the hose and held it before his eyes. “My master requires sustenance, and you will provide it,” he said quietly, and then brought the end of the hose down towards Rob’s mouth.

At first Rob tried to resist, but then he caught the faintest whiff of something sickly sweet from within the hose and his hunger grew tenfold. He opened wide and gladly accepted the plastic tube into his chubby maw, his tongue desperately searching for the source of that wonderful aroma.

Rob heard the sound of a pump starting, then a flood of deliciousness entered his mouth and he was immediately swept away on a wave of sweet and savory delight. He couldn’t place the flavour, like ice cream, french fries, and hamburger all at once, but it was the most amazing thing he’d ever tasted, and he wanted more.

He sucked. He sucked like his life depended on it, like he was trying to get the delicious goo inside him faster than the pump was already making it slide down his gullet. He could feel it begin to fill his stomach and yet no matter how much he swallowed it was never enough. “More! More! Eat more!” Rob heard the voice command, and he obeyed.

As whatever food was being pumped into him, Rob felt himself swell once more. Rather than the sudden surge it had become steady, gradual, his belly simply rising higher and higher with each laboured breath he took. The burning sensation on his skin had subsided slightly, but his bindings now cut into his wrists and ankles painfully. Then it stopped, and Rob realized he’d grown so large the ropes had simply snapped.

His arms and legs now free, Rob tried to bring his hand to his face. The weight of it made even that simple movement almost impossible, but he managed to keep the appendage over his head just long enough to see how his hand and an arm had become so swollen with fat it looked like he’d been stung and had an allergic reaction - everything was enormous and puffy, and still growing thicker by the second.

“Eat,” the voice commanded again, and Rob dropped his arm and simply gave in to the sensation of his stomach being filled, every passing moment stuffing it larger and larger. It was never painful as it should have been, but instead oddly pleasurable. It went beyond mere satisfaction and soon became bizarrely sexual. Between thighs that had long since squished together and beneath a belly that had folded over to nearly completely conceal his groin, Rob felt his cock become aroused, stiffening until he could feel the head mash into the lowest portion of his gut. With each swallow he felt his wobbling belly rub the head of his cock, and the sensation was beyond ecstasy.

“Yes… Yes…” the voice breathed, triumphant, no longer feeling the need to boom commands as Rob continued to suck the nourishing gruel. He continued to grow larger and larger. Nothing could be seen past the titanic belly that seemed to fill his vision at even a glance downward. Then even that was taken away by his advancing triple chin and the fat surrounding his face. He couldn’t move his legs any longer. Nor his arms. His only movement was the constant motion of his body as each desperate gulp brought yet more pounds to his already impossibly large frame.

At some point he came. He could tell what little space remained between his thighs and belly had become slickened with a substance other than sweat. It hardly mattered. All that mattered was that he eat. And eat. And eat.

The last thing he heard before darkness took him was the voice’s booming laughter.

The cultist stood and waited. The pump had run out of food some time ago, just after the man he’d kidnapped had breathed his last. He’d grown so large his flesh had begun to reach the edges of the raised dais he’d been lying upon, his love handles nearly sinking to the floor - although calling them that implied a certain form they no longer possessed. It was disgusting, and yet beautiful. And necessary for his master to return to this world.

The runes had long since been swallowed up in the many folds that adorned the corpse, but from within the mass of rippled flesh shafts of red light began to shine through. They became more powerful with each passing moment, bathing the entire crypt in eerie red light. Every candle was snuffed out at the same time just as the blob-like body began to stir.

Fat that had been dead flesh began to ooze and move like liquid, drawing itself first inward before solidifying into a roughly man-shaped mass, but impossibly broad, as though someone had taken a body and stretched it to be 10 times wider than it should. Hands that were previously invisible behind draping fat grew to become the size of manhole covers. Feet became the size of sidewalk slabs. Arms like telephone poles, legs like ancient redwoods, and a body that swelled into that of a giant.

Now that the cascading flesh had receded the eldritch runes revealed themselves on the creature’s massive, dome-like torso. The red light was practically blinding at first, but then dimmed slightly so the thing’s features could be seen. At first it appeared like a giant golem made of clay, but as the light diminished the hooded man could see the solid and smooth features begin to take on the texture of thick, bestial skin. Its dome of a middle began to sag, folding over the thing’s lap as nipples appeared, and then a cavernous belly button. Crag-like folds appeared on its back and sides, denoting love handles and enormous man-tits, and between slab-like shoulders a piggish face appeared, its many jowls replacing any neck it may have had.

Then the giant’s eyes opened. There were no pupils, no iris, merely a red glow. It lifted impossibly large legs from the dais and stood, towering over the hooded man. He did not cower, no - instead he looked on in adoration.

“You,” the creature - the demon said. “You have summoned me.”

“Yes, lord Balagus, I am your humble servant,” the cultist said before kneeling, head bowed. He heard the demon grunt a very guttural, piggish sound, before he felt something on his head. It was just one of the demon’s fingers.

“You,” came the demon’s slow, baritone voice, “are pathetic.” Balagus then flicked his finger, making him tumble backward and causing his robes to open, revealing a thin, emaciated frame.

The cultist collected himself and stood before addressing the demon once more. “Yes, I know - that is why I wish to serve you, so you can remake me in your image!”

Balagus stared down in silence, his red gaze inscrutable behind his fat features. Then he stepped forward, his bulk causing the very ground to shake with each crashing footstep, and with a single finger pressed the cultist to his knees.

“Suck,” he commanded, and at first the cultist wasn’t sure what the demon meant. Then he looked directly in front of him and saw that beneath the demon’s mountainous belly was an equally sizable cock, and it was rising.

The cultist immediately wrapped both hands around the arm-sized organ and vainly attempted to suck at its slit, hardly being able to fit even a small portion of it inside his mouth. He still sucked, and as the enormous cock grew to the size of his own leg he began to taste the beasts’ pre. It was a sickly sweetness that once on his taste buds was something he couldn’t get enough of.

As he sucked the demon’s pre began to work. First the bare flesh of his ribs filled in, then arms and legs until his bony frame was smooth and full. Then it swelled further, slipping past healthy to overweight in seconds. Robes began to spread and then rip as they failed to contain the growing man, and by the time the demon came, showering his worshiper in seed he was easily 400 pounds.

The cultist used yellowish demonic seed as a bodily lubricant as he eagerly played with each no feature of his morbidly obese frame. He seemed especially enamoured with his sagging tits and belly. The demon stared at the formerly pathetic human and then smiled a sinister smile.

“You will be my first acolyte,” Balagus decreed. “You will help me bring a gluttony unseen to this world.”

“Yes,” the acolyte replied as he came all over his gut.