One day, unusually for her, Vueko found herself thinking about food. At first it was merely a stray thought, one that crept up on her as a simple observation, something that should have come and gone in an instant. She was, as she tended to be for lack of other options, she thought to herself with a drooping smile, at the bottom of her deep dark pit, watching the village above go about its business. She had been listening in on a conversation between two random villagers going on about this and that until just when they were getting to the good part and she was really starting to get into the topic they had started on, they had decided to stop where they were and go get lunch. Vueko, with her eyes and ears in every corner of the village she desired, could have followed them with ease and listened in when they resumed, but had without even thinking resigned herself to letting it go, her curiosity to be unsated. She then made the mistake of asking herself: why? If she could track them every step of the way (not in a creepy way, she ever self-consciously reassured herself) why give it up?

She then had to consciously remind herself of the simple answer: it was because they were heading for one of the village’s restaurants, and that meant there was going to be food there. Therefore, she couldn’t go in, and that was that. Normally it would have stopped there, just like it had all the other times over the many, many years she had been trapped in the dark pit of sludge that had been created upon the birth of the strange village that lay at the sixth layer of the Abyss. She had no idea just how many years it had been since the village was populated, when the first visitor arrived and was transformed into a Hollow when they gave up on their desire to delve deeper and became conquered by any other earthly desires their new form now expressed, or just when it had turned from a small community of the original group she had been a part of and when it became a bustling village of its own. Originally she had been able to chronicle the history of the village, but over time it had turned into a blur of events, and it was starting to feel like it had been this way all along. She knew that there was a particular resident who was obsessed with the passage of time and discreetly carved the days, months, seasons, and years onto the walls of their private corner, but she deliberately avoided peering at it. At the end of the day, she didn’t really want to know how long she had been here, and no matter how many years passed, she especially didn’t want to think about food.

Oh, darn it, she thought ruefully, ever mild in manner. She had gotten successfully distracted by her reminiscing and had almost forgotten about food, but had accidentally looped right back around to it. And now that she was thinking about it, it was stuck in her head, and trying to not think about it was only going to think about it more. It was as if a large signboard had been planted in her pit, and now she was trying to pretend it wasn’t there, knowing that every time she turned around it was going to be waiting for her. In the end, she decided that rather than try to bury her head in the sludge and ignore it, it was a good a time as any to think about food.

A good place to start would be the fact that she hadn’t had anything to eat since she first woke up in the pit, shackled to it, trapped by the sage Wazukyan, although she didn’t resent him for it. By this point, she wasn’t quite sure what she’d do if she were let out, anyway. Not eat, probably. What had happened to her was enough to put somebody permanently off their appetite, and that was exactly what had happened to her… was how she preferred to put it. In reality she’d experienced hunger just the same as anybody else, and had been positively starving for the first stretch of her isolation. It was her deepest shame that no matter what, she just couldn’t overcome her body’s natural desires, and there were few stronger than the desire to eat. Fortunately she’d had no choice in the matter than to eternally fast, and after what felt like weeks but might have been months or even years, she simply stopped feeling hungry. Or perhaps it was that she got so used to being hungry that she forgot what it was like to not be hungry? Either way, she shrugged. She felt nothing, and that was for the best. Whether it was because it would reignite her hunger or her trauma, she had unconsciously avoided watching the villagers eat, ignoring or avoiding the signals sent to her through her network. It left some blind spots, but she was sure she wasn’t really missing out. Even if she had really wanted to know where that conversation was going.

Vueko leaned back at little, letting out a sigh of relief. That had gone better than she thought, thankfully. Just a simple stating of the facts. She and the concept of eating had a mutually exclusive relationship, and that was the way it was going to be forever more. Now she could go back to not thinking about food, just like before. At least, that had been the plan, before her foreseeable future of miserably wallowing at the bottom of a deep dark hole was rudely interrupted.

“Yo! Vueko! You getting hungry down there?”

The sound of an actual human (or close enough) voice pierced her like a spear had been plunged into the pit, and she found herself flailing and stammering, so startled she could hardly remember which way was up. Eventually she was able to get her neck to crane upwards, where the pitch blackness was broken by a red and white face that looked more like a mask, one that she had only ever seen in person once, but could never forget. She was being stared down at by the sage Wazukyan, the one who was responsible for putting here in here in the first place, and although his new face was expressionless, she could practically feel him grinning smugly down at her.

“Wh, w-w, wh…” Vueko nearly coughed, using her voice for the first time in who knew how long, having to relearn on the spot how to form words with it. Her visitor patiently waited for her to become coherent, which to her credit took her less than she’d thought it would.

“What are you doing here?” She said hoarsely, Wazukyan’s grin widening despite his lack of actual expression.

“I thought I’d check in on an old friend! How’re you doing, by the way? You comfortable down there? That collar’s not giving you a crick in the neck, is it?” He asked, with a rather irritating tone of voice, that tone that said no matter what he asked you he already knew all of the answers, and letting you respond was merely an act of politeness.

“I-I’m doing just fine, thank you.” Vueko said nervously, feeling like this politeness was a fraced. She opened her mouth to say more, but nothing came out, leaving the two with an awkward silence. She wanted to say more, perhaps something clever like that he should come down here and see for himself, maybe stay a while. Unfortunately Vueko didn’t have the personality for barbed comments or cathartic retorts. She could only stare up fearfully, wondering what he was about to do. In the end, all she could make was a lame, obvious statement. “You aren’t just here to say hello though, right?”

“Figured me out, have you? Nothing gets past you, no matter how many years pass.” Wazukyan laughed, scratching the side of his head with one of his many slender fingers. It seemed like Wazukyan hadn’t fixed his problem of being condescending in the friendliest of tones, and she still couldn’t figure out if it was a genuine compliment or not.  “Well, I’m sure it’d be fun to chat for a while, but it’d be a bit rude of me to show up unannounced and not even bring a present. With that said, here!”

Wazukyan’s head vanished for a moment, then reappeared as she heard another now-unfamiliar sound, one that came back to her before it even hit the sludge with a splash. She didn’t even need to look at it to recognise the sound of falling, unfurling rope, but when she did, her eyes widened further than she thought possible. She looked straight at it, then followed the string all the way up to Wazukyan, who held the other end and beckoned for her to take it.

“Wazukyan,” She said with an uncomfortably dry throat. “What’s this?”



“This? It’s a rope. You’ve been down there for a while, so I guess I’ll have to give you a refresher. You can use it to-”

“Why are you giving it to me!?” She demanded more fiercely. “Why now? Why after all this time? Why’d you even put me here if you’re just going to let me out now?

“Well, the idea just came to me.” He shrugged. “Seemed like a good a time as any, right? Now come on, up you go, don’t keep an old man waiting.”



Vueko stared dumbly at the coarse, reliable rope, then instinctively shied away from it.

“I-I can’t.” She said, turning her back on it.

“Sure you can.” Wazukyan cheerfully called back. “Just grab on and try not to slip!”

“I can’t!” She almost wailed. “A-And even if I could, you forgot about the collar! It’ll-”

Vueko didn’t have time to finish before she heard another splash. The collar that chained her to the pit had fallen away, and now there was nothing stopping her from leaving but herself. Before she knew it, Vueko had her hands on the rope, and clung so tightly you couldn’t have pried her off of it if you tried. Wazuykyan pulled her out of the pit agonisingly slowly, complaining the whole way. It seemed that despite his mass of arms he lacked much physical strength, and it was only the fact that Vueko was light as a feather stopped him from running out of steam halfway. Vueko was used to years passing like they were mere minutes, yet every second she spent being raised out of the pit felt like a million years for every second. But both had something in common: before she knew it, it was over. Vueko laid almost flat on the ground, taking a few seconds to react to being dragged up and over the edge before she instinctively scrambled forward until she hit a wall, pressing her back flat against it as far away from the edge as possible.

“See?” Wazukyan wheezed. Physical strength hadn’t been his forte even during his adventuring years, and living the easy life for longer than a human lifetime hadn’t helped. “That wasn’t… so hard… was it…?”

Vueko didn’t know what to say. Her heart was thumping, and she winced at the trace amounts of light let into the room from where Wazukyan had come. Actually seeing things for herself rather than through the filter of signals she had eventually figured out how to interpret as sight was a near-forgotten experience to her, one far more vivid than the compromise she had been living under for who knew how long. No matter how much she had told herself that she deserved it over the years, the moment she was out she was struck with an almost animalistic desire to never go back in, to kick and scream if she were forced. She looked at Wazukyan cautiously, knowing better than anybody that he was well aware of this.

The two were silent, although for different reasons. Vueko had no idea what to do or say now, while Wazukyan grumbled and wheezed like an old man who had thrown out his back. The question remained for Vueko: why now?

“You’re probably thinking to yourself: why now?” Wazukyan said, and Vueko knew that it didn’t take the gift of foresight to read everything she was thinking just by looking at her face. Slowly, pointlessly, Vueko nodded.

“I already told you, didn’t I? Can’t we say that’s good enough?” He offered, and Vueko’s skeptical face was his answer. “Well, alright, there was one other thing that I was hoping you could do for me now that you’re out.”



Vueko gulped. There it was, the catch. She braced herself for all manner of horrible requests, wondering what she could possibly be asked to do, knowing that if Wazukyan let her out, she was unlikely to be able to bring herself to refuse. Finally, after an agonising pause, came the words that would seal her fate:

“Why don’t we go get something to eat?”

–

While Vueko could have bragged that she intimately knew every nook and cranny of the village from the comfort of her hole, actually seeing it in person had her gawking like it was her first time there. Which, to be fair to her, it was. She clung to Wazukyan’s cloak for dear life, shrinking away from every villager who spied her with curiosity, attempting desperately to not make eye contact, or contact with whatever passed for eyes on the various hollows. Former humans of every shape and size loomed over or under her, and she couldn’t help but react fearfully to each one of them. Not because she was intimidated by their forms, but because she was intimidated by anything that counted as an actual person. The village itself winded in every direction, and were it not for her guide she would have found herself as hopelessly lost as a newcomer. It didn’t help that this was her first time seeing it from her own eye level, rather than the discreet viewing angles of her helpers.

Thankfully, Wazukyan had predicted this reaction from her, and had provided a baggy roughly humanoid set of clothes with a large hood that obscured the fact that she was, at least from the outside, a normal human. She wasn’t quite sure who or what had worn it before, but it had four holes for limbs and that was good enough for her. She had been gifted the outfit and a healthy bag of the coins the village used as currency in exchange for most of the enormous length of hair she had amassed. She had been wary of accepting gifts from him for fear of incurring the wrath of the village’s value system, but he had assured her that he’d get more than enough value out of a heap of healthy human hair. Another reason to keep her human-ness to herself until she figured out a suitable cover story for why she hadn’t changed…

They soon approached one of the village’s restaurants, a quiet one as per Vueko’s nervous request that they not go anywhere too packed. She felt a pit in her stomach as they drew closer, but before she could raise her voice enough to suggest that maybe they could postpone it until she had gotten settled in, she was caught in a vice grip by several of Wakuyan’s hands and dragged stumbling over to a barstool, which she reluctantly settled herself into, knees locked together and constantly fidgeting, glad that she was several spaces away from the only other customer in the building, who seemed completely unconcerned with their arrival.

The hole-in-the-wall establishment was run by an unfamiliar figure to Vueko, an octopus-like Hollow with more limbs than she could count alternating between the front counter and the dish he was cooking up, and his face was… where was his face, exactly? She couldn’t tell if he was turned towards the kitchen or towards them. And that smell, the odour that emanated from the pot he was stirring it was… Vueko realised she wasn’t able to describe it. Was it good? Was it bad? It had been so long since she smelled anything edible that she wasn’t sure she could tell apart the foulest stench from the most enticing aroma. The only thing she knew was that whichever one it was, she didn’t want it in her, in fact, she should stand up right now and-

“Vueko? You’re up!”

“Huh? O-oh, I’m, I’m so sorry!” Vueko babbled out, realising that she had been staring down at the counter mumbling incoherently to herself and avoiding looking at anybody while the cook was trying to take her order. She glanced around helplessly, attempting to shrink into her seat, and eventually gave in.

“I’ll have what he’s having, please.” She said meekly, and was soon greeted by an orange bowl of… whatever it was. It had chunks floating in it, she could say that much about it. Was it vegetables? Meat? She hoped it wasn’t meat, as the very thought of it nearly caused her empty stomach to hurl. If she ate this, would she even be able to keep it down? Did she deserve to keep it down? She knew she could live without it… probably. She wasn’t sure how her body worked outside of the pit, and if it needed sustenance or not.



“He’s gonna get mad if you don’t start soon.” Wazukyan helpfully whispered to her, and if there was one thing Vueko was vulnerable to, it was pressure. Jumpy and nervous from actually being in the village, her impulse to avoid conflict was momentarily greater than her guilt and complicated internal struggle, and with shaking hands, she dipped her spoon in and raised it to her mouth. She closed her lips around it, and before she even swallowed, tears started spilling uncontrollably from her eyes, falling into the bowl beneath her as she spooned in another mouthful, then another, her hands moving as uncontrollably as her tears.

“Is it that good?” The octopus chef asked awkwardly, pausing from the ingredients he was dicing to stare at her devouring her meal. Buried memories of just how much she had treasured every meal on their journey to and through the Abyss resurfaced, and she felt a deep, painful hunger that she had grown so used to she hardly noticed start to fade away, and knew that it would be unignorably painful if she ever tried to return to it .How had she ever lived with it for so long?

“It’s good!” She almost sobbed, and to her side, she didn’t notice Wazukyan’s all-knowing smile, as if his job here was done…

–

Vueko’s first weeks in the village, or perhaps months given how time seemed to pass endlessly quickly in it, were strange mixture of liberation and seclusion to Vueko. Once the rush of being freed wore off, Vueko’s naturally introverted personality asserted itself, her social awkwardness amplified by not having talked to another person in many, many years. Words struggled to leave her lips at the best of times, and she had a variety of questions she’d rather not have asked of her right now, or preferably ever. Wazukyan had helped her settle into her own comfortable house of sorts, with the bare minimum of amenities required to call it home sweet home, then unhelpfully wandered off to whatever it was he did all day. He’d always been suspiciously good at avoiding her network of eyes and ears, and she wasn’t sure if that was because he had something to hide, if he did it for his own amusement, or if it was all a big coincidence. You never could tell with him.

Not that she minded not having to spend more time with that creepy guy, she thought as she tugged her hood down until she nearly blinded herself, preparing to head out for the day. She was considering poking holes in it, given that it was such a habit. The more she thought about it, the more she liked the idea, there was no risk of exposing her obviously human face that way and inviting those unwanted questions and the inquisitive eyes that seared into her flesh. She was just about to fetch the sewing kit and scissors she had bought from the marketplace and slice out some eyeholes when she froze again. What if it made her look creepy? She didn’t want people to think she was creepy. What if she became famous as that creepy hooded figure skulking around the village all day? Hiding herself too much would only make her more suspicious! And what if other creepy people thought she was a kindred spirit and wanted her to hang out with them, creeping everybody else! It’d be awful!

She found herself huddling up on her bed, the rough, cheap mattress stuffed with the local equivalent of straw and patchwork blanket feeling luxurious compared to her memories of roughing it on whatever harsh terrain the Abyss could provide purchase for her bedroll. The mere experience of having a bed was novelty enough for her. It was refuge for her whenever she was too scared to go out into the village, consumed with idle thoughts and anxiety. Today was one of those days, where something seemingly minor would completely drain her desire to go outside and experience the relative freedom she had finally be granted. However, while her neuroses could have kept her curled up under her blanket for weeks, her body had the strength and determination her mind didn’t, a stalwart gatekeeper that stood with arms crossed at the door to prolonged solitude whenever she tried to flee back into it.

And so, unsatisfied with Vueko’s cowardly decision to to stay in today, her body voiced its objections with a loud grumble, a deep moan from her stomach that demanded attention. She clutched her belly, immediately unable to deal with the discomfort. Ever since she had eaten that first meal her appetite had roared back to life, demanding no less than two, quickly then three square meals a day, or it would pound on the walls of her stomach, filling her with that deep longing for filling and flavour. Lately it was getting so bad that she even found herself thinking about snacking! She wriggled around for a few minutes trying to ignore it, but found herself with precious little strength of will to withstand her body’s urges. And of course, it wasn’t just the

 And so, with her hood low and her back hunched, she crept out of her home and into the village once more. In contrast to her self-consciousness, few paid attention to her as she shuffled through the streets, all the way back to the restaurant Wazukyan had shown her to before. Since her arrival she had sampled every cafe, restaurant, and inn she could find, but this one was usually quiet, and was for now her default option when she wasn’t feeling brave enough for the more popular establishments.

Unfortunately today business was booming, and she shuffled up almost hip to hip with several of the other customers, apologising profusely when she brushed against the Hollow next to her, a frog-like creature that sat on the seat on all fours, occasionally flicking out his tongue

“I-I-I’ll have the s-same as last time.” She stuttered out, barely audible over the other chattering customers.

“You’re gonna have to learn to speak up, missy. I ain’t a mind-reader.” The stern chef chided her, only just barely able to hear her.

“S-s-sorry…” She said even more quietly. The chef rolled whatever counted as his eyes while the frog next to her snickered, causing her to pull her hood down even further. Thankfully it wasn’t long before her meal arrived, three bowls of steaming hot stew that set her eyes glittering. The frog gave her an incredulous look, as one bowl was more than enough to stuff somebody like himself. The figure seemed diminutive under the hood, yet they had a hell of an appetite. He was even more impressed when she devoured it in record time, eating like a woman possessed before happily ordering a fourth bowl. Vueko had always been the type to eat like she didn’t know when she’d eat next, limited only by the scarce meals available to her. It was a sensible tactic when she was being barely fed by her abusive father figure, or on a long voyage where rations were spread as thin as possible, or the Abyss, where meals were never guaranteed in the first place.

Coupled with her being unable to bear being hungry once more, she had started stuffing herself to capacity, enjoying the flavours the village had to offer until she ran out of room. It wasn’t something she thought much of, figuring that if she ate more now she’d have to eat less later, minimising her exposure. The idea that it might be the start of a bad habit never occurred to her, as she was too busy enjoying herself to think about any long-term consequences besides perhaps that she might run out of her initial funds faster than she would otherwise. And, well, she’d cross that bridge when it came.

Unfortunately she was enjoying herself a little bit too much, and had drawn the attention of the frog-like Hollow, whose eyes had inevitably gone from the bowls she was rapidly emptying to the mouth that was doing the deed, and there was a limit to how far down her hood could go before it interfered with her ability to eat. Vueko was bathing in the afterglow of her meal, wondering if she could go for a fifth bowl or if she should save what remained of her stomach capacity for a trip to a nearby cafe when she became uncomfortably aware of the frog staring at her even with her limited peripheral vision, and made the mistake of turning to him.

“You,” He said, in the old tongue that marked him as one of the older Hollows, “You look human. Are you human?”



Vueko froze, going pale and her eyes darting around to see if anybody had heard him. Thankfully his croaking voice was rather slight, and nobody else had noticed.

“N-no, of course not!” She whispered, leaning in towards him. “Why would I be?”

“Then why do you have a human face?” He asked the obvious question.

“It, it just looks like it! It’s a coincidence, really! It doesn’t look that much like it.” She pulled her hands back into her long sleeves, hoping to pass as an indistinct and only vaguely humanoid figure beneath the cloak, and not somebody who clearly had human hands. Being bipedal wasn’t out of the ordinary, but an actual humanoid figure was definitely in the minority of the diversely twisted shapes humans would transform into.

“It sure looks like it to me.” He said simply, Vueko sweating. He squinted at her, but eventually made some sort of shrugging motion, and turned back to his meal.

“I guess not. You look too young, too.” He mentioned. “The young’ns speak a different language. Can’t make heads or tails out of ‘em.”

“I know, right?” She laughed awkwardly, then paid and left as quickly as she could. It looked like she’d go straight home after all, feeling like this was too close a shave, although she was forced to acknowledge that she was going to have a good answer to a lot more questions like that if she was going to live a normal life here. She knew that she couldn’t cower forever, particularly once she was well established as a regular at the many eateries she frequented.



She rubbed her distended stomach, nursing her digesting breakfast. She had pushed it out so far that if she arched her back you could see the slope of it through her dress, although not the cloak she had on top of it, keeping even herself from noticing it. What she especially didn’t notice was that by now after so much overeating, that particular distention didn’t seem to be going away…

—

Vueko triple-checked the entrance to the open bath before she was satisfied, gently drawing the curtain closed once she was satisfied that her privacy would go uninterrupted. The village had a few natural hot springs scattered around it, with the largest being the most popular, and the smallest being the least popular and naturally the one Vueko currently preferred. After finding herself followed by a particular villager who was attracted to unique scents she had become instantly profoundly aware of her body odour and sought to thoroughly rectify it beyond mere basic hygiene, scrubbing the years of pit-dwelling out of herself as best she could. Vueko had initially settled for scrubbing herself down in her room, but the allure of a hot, comfortable bath had been too much to resist, and so she found herself regularly bathing whenever she felt she could get away with it.

For a while she had considered buying her own bathtub and settling for heating her own water, but this proved to be a logistical problem too much of a pain in the behind to conquer, and it had immediately drawn attention to Vueko’s first problem: she was running out of money. She had been given far more by Wazukyan than she had initially thought, enough to keep her fed for months, as food was cheap and plentiful. Personal possessions were another issue, and something as ostentatious as a bathtub would have eaten up too much of her remaining funds. What she would have to do once she ran out was an ongoing stress in her life, one temporarily forgotten by stuffing herself, although the stress soon returned knowing that she soon wouldn’t have the money to distract herself in the first place. Well, she’d cross that bridge when she came to it.

Her oversized towel draped over her head kept her relatively anonymous in the period between undressing and bathing, but it finally gave way to her naked form, hitting the ground next to where she dipped her toe into the gently bubbling hot water, sighing in appreciation as it surrounding her body, spilling over the side momentarily as her weight filled the pool. The first time she had bathed she had barely disturbed the waters, but now she caused a notable surge, and the reason why was obvious as soon as she disrobed: Vueko was, to put it generously, getting to be noticeably full-figured. When she had first emerged from the pit she was all skin and bones, dangerously underweight and stick-thin. The first few weeks of good eating had remedied this, quickly filling her out back to a healthy weight, or at least the one she was used to as an explorer. But of course, she didn’t stop there.

Vueko flew past her original weight, then well above the heaviest she had ever been in her life up to that point. If she had paid much attention to it she would have realised that her skinny body wasn’t entirely natural, the result of scraping by her entire life, and that in a better life she might have identified herself as being more full-figured, perhaps even a little above the average weight of a woman her size, with full cheeks and broad hips.That was all good and well, but her appetite only grew more voracious after restoring herself to a healthy weight, too used to good eating to do anything besides double down. Vueko had grown into a weight she could have never imagined herself becoming: Fat.



It was plain for the world to see once she stood bare to the world. You could see her pooching pot belly, the part of her that stuck out the most thanks to her perpetually distended belly. Vueko brushed it off whenever she saw it, assuming that she just hadn’t finished digesting her last meal, not knowing that by this point the only difference between that round gut when it was full or empty was just how taut it was to the touch. Vueko’s strategy of stuffing herself to the brim had backfired on her. Each time she did it she stretched out her stomach, causing it to expect more to satisfy her next time. Three bowls turned into four, four plates turned into five, and it wouldn’t be long until five was just a warm-up. She got hungrier faster, and not all of it was purely physical. Once she expected three meals a day she spent all of her time between meals looking forward to the next one, and was disappointed if for one reason or another she missed out on one of them. One time she overslept and missed breakfast, making up for it with brunch rather than the more sensible option of simply waiting a little longer for lunch. Eventually something had to give, and that thing was the rest of her body.

Her waist was creased at the sides, visible love-handles forming as her ass grew comfortable and cushiony, a noticeable wobble to it with each step, enough for one to sink their hands into. Her thighs were similarly plump, enough for the insides to press gently against each other in her usual timid pose that unconsciously sought to make herself as small as possible. Yet her body rejected this concept, growing larger by the day as her once bony arms grew soft and supple, and her cheeks grew round, with a touch that implied a slightly spoiled image, rather than the pitiable one she had lived with up to this point. She was on the precipice of going from plump to outright fat, and it was a line she seemed to be sprinting over without a care in the world.

It was this weight that caused the water to surge around her when she stepped in, and remarkably, even though Vueko had managed to double her weight since she left the pit, she paid little attention to it. She occasionally noted that she was softer than she used to be, but never thought about it for long. Perhaps ruminating on it would have spoiled her fun, caused her to think to herself that all those happy meals came at the cost of her figure. But if she had debated it, it would have raised an important question: did she really need her figure? What good was it in a place like this? It would have been an interesting internal debate for sure, but not one that Vueko was about to have any time soon, instead focusing on the immediate pleasure of the hot water surrounding that plump body, her swollen cleavage half-submerged, more than soothing enough to quell her perpetual self-consciousness and take the risk of exposing herself.

Of course, even with her carefully selected hours, she wasn’t completely alone. Inside the hot spring with her was a formless, seemingly eyeless slug, one who seemed to be here at every possible opportunity. It turned its head towards her to greet its companion, Vueko returning a crooked smile and awkward wave before it turned away from her, paying her little attention. It had never spoken a word to her, and she wasn’t sure if it could talk, or simply chose not to. What she knew about it was that it desired heat, and as a result the bath was a natural home for it until it was kicked out by the manager who kept the place clean and provided towels and soaps for a small fee. She knew that it draped itself in heavy blankets when it left, and lived in the hottest, most humid part of the village. It was a strange existence by human standards, but completely ordinary for the village, and it seemed to be perfectly satisfied.

Many villagers were like this, Vueko reflected outwards, rather than inwards. Their bodies were transformed to the shape of their desires, although some were easier to figure based on looks than others. Maintaining your personality exactly as it used to be wasn’t guaranteed once transformed, and many acted as bestial as their new bodies, for better or worse. Perhaps it was better to be satisfied with one core desire, something that you could enjoy over and over without ever once getting tired of it. Something like that was necessary for a seemingly eternal life inside such a tiny environment, after all. And what point was there to living like an ordinary human when your body was transformed beyond recognition? Vueko arched her back a bit, stretching out and thrusting her prominent gut forward, before happily settling back in. There were worse ways to live your life, she supposed.

The curious thing about it from an outsider’s perspective was how single-minded they could be, to the point of what appeared to be obliviousness. No matter how strange or off-putting that desire may be, they would charge headfirst into it, ruled by it, ignoring the short or long-term consequences of chasing it. It didn’t matter how they appeared to others or what might become of them, everything was second to satisfying that desire. Being as self-conscious as she was, Vueko couldn’t imagine herself acting like that, she thought as she wriggled her portly hips, starting to salivate slightly as her thoughts drifted towards her next meal…

–

“This is really good today! Did you do something different with it?” Vueko said between mouthfuls of the savoury broth, finishing the bowl and stacking it atop her other two.empty ones. By the time the chef had time to register her compliment and turn around to answer her, Vueko was waiting expectantly for her fourth, and it was hard to say no to those wide, innocent eyes the same way one couldn’t resist giving just one more treat to an excitable puppy.

“Nope, it’s about the same as always.” Moogie answered honestly, the tentacled chef minding her pot with her extendable hair-like appendages.  “Maybe you’re just gaining a particular appreciation for my cooking?”



“But I’ve always appreciated your cooking.” Vueko said innocently, once again endearing herself to the motherly chef. The girl was always so on edge, right up until she had a spoon or fork between her lips, at which point a weight was lifted from her shoulders, and weight was sent directly to her waistline. Moogie had a lot of questions as to what a seemingly normal human was doing in their village without giving up their original form and becoming a Hollow, questions that the redheaded girl stuttered her way out of answering whenever they were brought up, until she finally gave up on it. She was probably hiding something under that big cloak she wore all the time, anyway, and whatever it was she was hiding got bigger and bigger every time she saw it. Moogie was a stout, plump woman herself and didn’t mind seeing another humanoid with some meat on her bones, but Vueko’s face was starting to look wider than hers…

Another villager entered Moogie’s restaurant and went to sit down to Vueko, who unsubtly wriggled her seat slightly away from them out of habit, only for Moogie to shoo the newcomer away.

“Sorry hun, seat’s reserved.” Moogie explained, Vueko’s ears perking up.

“Um, reserved for who, exactly?” She asked, ready to vacate her seat in case it was somebody she’d rather not sit next to.

“You don’t know? I thought you were here to meet them.” Moogie asked casually, while a pit began to form in Vueko’s crowded stomach. “They came in here asking if somebody who matched your description had been hanging around, said they wanted to catch up with you. Said you were hard to get ahold of these days, and I said you could probably find them ‘round one of the eateries any time of the day…”

Moogie trailed off as Vueko began to swing her head around wildly, eyes gazing out of the doorway as they tugged their hood tight over their face.

“W-w-what time did they said they were arriving, again?” Vueko squeaked.

“Round about lunchtime, I suppose?” Moogie pondered, then laughed heartily. “And I said for Vueko, that covers most of the day-”

“I have to go!” Vueko stumbled to her feet, nearly falling over as she fished through her pocket for enough coins to cover her meal. If she dined and dashed, she’d be in more trouble than just her mysterious visitor. She slapped them down onto the counter with a clatter, then sprinted for the door, stomach churning and belly wobbling from the sudden exertion. Unfortunately, it was far too late for her to make a stealthy exit, and she found herself staring directly into the huge eye of the last person she wanted to see right now.



Vueko hesitated for a fatal second, enough for both to see each other's faces, then bolted. She nearly bowled several smaller villagers over, her cloak fluttering behind her as she searched for some way to vanish into the depths of the village and hide out in her house until she figured out what to do next. Unfortunately for Vueko, she lasted about twenty seconds before her sprint turned into a run, then a job, then a wheezing lumber as fifty or more years of no cardio caught up with her.

To make things worse for Vueko, she couldn’t mask her lumpy figure, her hips forming a pear-shaped silhouette that stood out from the unevenly shaped crowd. At a certain point, attempting to hide yourself made you even more conspicuous, a fact that haunted Vueko as she was swiftly hunted down by a familiar furry figure. Rather than simply catch her from behind it moved to overtake her, cut her off, leave her with no choice but to confront them and stare them dead in the eye. Vueko found several escape routes ahead of her vanish, forcing her to stumble into a side-alley as her last resort, no longer caring if it would take her anywhere useful as long as it served her in the immediate short-term, a line of thinking that had gotten her into this mess in the first place.

Vueko attempted to escape through a narrow gap between abodes, but her lingering mental image of herself as skinny and slippery was betrayed by her meals catching up with her as she soon found her hips running out of room, hips rubbing against the walls, then being pushed flat, squishing upwards. WIth her head turned back to scan for her pursuer rather than ahead to see if she could actually make it through, she was abruptly jammed, without any wriggle room to move forwards. Whimpering, she wasted a few precious seconds trying to force herself forwards anyway, succeeding in inching forward and only making her situation worse by the time enough brain cells fell into place to try going backwards.

She grunted as she tried to pull herself backwards, intending to turn herself sideways and hope she could suck in her gut enough to squeeze through, only to find herself firmly, decisively stuck. Her feeble muscles lacked the strength to dislodge herself, at least as fast as she needed to. Her plump, drooping arms were as thick as any bodybuilder’s, yet lacked the strength to do more than shovel more food down her greedy gullet. Curiously, Vueko lacked any sense of regret that she had engorged herself to such inconvenient proportions, only that she hadn’t picked a wider escape route.

Yet even if she had been able to wriggle free, her intended route had already been cut off. The one she was eager to avoid stood at the end, then slowly walked down the alley, with more than enough room for her to approach her without so much as brushing her fur against the sides, being less than half as wide as Vueko was. Without any other choice, Vueko was forced to stare into the huge, single eye of Pakkoyan, her oldest living friend who looked simultaneously furious and teary-eyed at her.

“H-hi, Pakkoyan.” Vueko mumbled, laughing awkwardly as huge beads of water started to hit the ground in front of her. “H-h-have you been doing well?”

–

“...and that covers just about everything, I think.” Vueko said, exhaling deeply as she finished recounting the story of where she had been and what had happened to her in the enormous span of time between the two last seeing each other. She shifted uncomfortably… no, quite comfortably in fact, nestled in one of the enormous cushions that littered Pakkoyan’s humble home. After the both of them turned into blubbering messes at their reunion and Pakkoyan’s many questions had been unable to come out through her tears, she had helped dislodge Vueko and taken her hand in a vice grip until she had been dragged all the way to Pakkoyan’s home, where the two sat down and Vueko finally got her up to speed. She had spent all of this time carefully avoiding her, but now everything was to be out in the open.

All in all, it hadn’t been as long of a story as Pakkoyan had expected, although her throat was still raw after doing more talking than she had since… well, probably during the trip as well. She had been a prominent figure in the expedition, but she wasn’t exactly giving inspiring speeches during it. It had been kept even shorter partially due to Vueko omitting a few key details. In Vueko’s version of the story she had simply found herself in the pit, without any mention of Wazukyan being responsible. It cast him in a rather favourable light as a result, stumbling onto her eventually and freeing her on the spot. Vueko could tell that Pakkoyan was skeptical of certain details such as those, being wise to not trust him as far as she could throw him. However, to Vueko’s relief she didn’t grill her over it, having a lot to take in otherwise. Vueko presented her lack of physical transformation as a mystery to herself as well, putting it aside as a question for later.

“I see.” Pakkoyan said, although uncertainty was clear in her voice beyond the relief that Vueko seemed mentally intact after such an enormous period of time in solitude. “That sounds like it must have been really hard, Vueko.”



“Oh no, not at all!” Vueko hurried to reassure her. “It was actually totally comfortable down there, I wasn’t lonely or anything! In fact, it was probably harder for you! You had to build up this place, I just had to sit down there and watch…”

Pakkoyan was utterly unconvinced by this, but for the sake of Vueko decided not to press it any further. The last thing she wanted to do was to say anything that might push her back into reclusion. Instead, she focused on the most pressing question.

“Either way, that doesn’t answer everything.” Pakkoyan changed the subject back to her explanation.

“L-like what?” Vueko asked nervous, leaning back on her cushion, wondering what was in it. Whatever it was, it was huge, plush, and large enough for Pakkoyan to curl up in if she wanted. There were a number of them in the house, each with differing sizes and consistencies, likely different compositions of stuffing within. Even Pakkoyan’s bed was more like an oversized pillow than a traditional mattress, which seemed to suit the furry creature she had become. Vueko wasn’t really bothered by the bizarre shapes the Hollows were warped into so much as the awkward situations those forms and desires could create, but it was something of a comfort to see her friend in a form that wasn’t too far off from her original, relatively speaking.

“Like why you didn’t come see me!” Pakkoyan wasted no time in stating the obvious, climbing onto Vueko and giving her a massive accusatory stare, Vueko’s slouch being her undoing as it allowed Pakkoyan to lean over her and push down on Vueko’s big belly to pin her in place. “You got out months ago! And don’t say that you were trying to hide, every restaurant, inn, and cafe in the village knows your face!”

“W-Well, that was, you know, because, you know…” Vueko tried to mumble her way out, but her old friend was having none of it.

“Did you not want to see me? Did I do something wrong?” Pakkoyan sniffled, and Vueko was hit with the most powerful puppy-dog-eye she was likely to experience in her life. It wasn’t fair that Pakkoyan had ended up this cute and fluffy, as if just to guilt her harder in this moment…

“Of course not!” Vueko hurried to clarify, waving her hands and tipping herself back even deeper into the cushion until she was nearly flat on her back, Pakkoyan perched atop. “It’s just that it’d be, you know, it’s been so long that it’d be really awkward just showing up and saying “Hi, I’m okay! I’ve just been in a deep dark hole for fifty or so years!”, and then you’d want to introduce me to all of your new friends, and I’d have to explain everything to everyone, and…”

Pakkoyan seemed briefly taken aback at the pettiness of her reasoning, then giggled uncontrollably. Vueko laughed along awkwardly, Pakkoyan wiping a tear from her eye.

“I don’t know why I expected anything else.” Pakkoyan laughed, sighing in relief and curling up atop Vueko’s plush form. Vueko’s words died in her throat, and she merely laid back, content for her lightweight friend to treat her like another one of her cherished cushions. As far as Pakkoyan was concerned, she seemed even more comfortable than the cushion she was lying on. Something about the way her body sunk into that belly, and could nestle her head between her breasts…

Vueko wasn’t sure how much time had passed with the two lying there enjoying the physical contact that Vueko had lacked for all those years, until the silence was rudely interrupted by a deep groaning and rumbling from her stomach.

“Ah, s-sorry!” Vueko nearly sent her tumbling off as she flailed and tried to pull herself upright. “This doesn’t usually happen to… okay, it does, but usually there isn’t anybody around to hear it! Besides, I just used up all of my energy, um, running away from you!”

“You hungry? Don’t worry, I’ll find something to eat.” Pakkoyan laughed, deftly hopping off of her and onto the floor. She returned a few seconds later with a small container of what looked like dried meat. She passed it to the now upright Vueko, whose eyes lit up at the sight of food and greedily grabbed an entire handful, Pakkoyan blinking in surprise at how she seemed to shove as much into her mouth as possible, rather than nibble on them one by one like she herself would have. Her broad, cherubic cheeks puffed outwards as she went back for another few, her usual self-consciousness gone, seeming to pay no mind to how gluttonous she looked in front of her friend.

Vueko paused, looking like she had suddenly remembered that Pakkoyan was there too only after she had swallowed her first mouthful.

“You want some?” She held out the container to Pakkoyan, as if it hadn’t been hers in the first place.

“I’m alright.” Pakkoyan shook her head, watching in enraptured curiosity as what was meant to be a few weeks worth of snacks to tide over her tiny stomach between meals vanish into Vueko’s gut like it wasn’t even an appetiser. There was something entracing about it and how happy she looked during it, so different to her usual gloomy self…

“I should have asked earlier, but…” Pakkoyan decided to address the elephant in the room, Vueko looking upwards innocently from her snacking. “How did you get all this?”

Impulsively, Pakkoyan grabbed the hem of Vueko’s skirt and flipped it up, Vueko yelping in protest as she was bathed in the bulging milky flesh that Vueko kept perpetually hidden. Perhaps hidden was inaccurate, as although it was obscured, it was undeniable. Anybody could tell the proportions of her bulk just by looking at her, even if they couldn’t see the body itself beneath the cloth. But the average villager would have assumed that it couldn’t just be fat, she was surely hiding something else under there. But there was no mass of tentacles, no extra arms, no strange shape or bushy fur coat. Once unhidden, there was nothing but soft, subtle, undeniable fat.

Her massive eye passed over her her cushiony thighs, her pillowy gut, the love-handles that her dress settled back over, and finally and those chubby cheeks that defined one’s first impression of Vueko upon looking at her. Once the surprise wore off, as Vueko was more startled than anything, Pakkoyan being the last person she minded showing her naked body to, Vueko’s eyes turned from Pakkoyan to herself. Vueko looked down at herself, and the strangest thing was that to Pakkoyan, she looked like she was only just now noticing that she was outright obese.

“I guess I put on a little weight since I got out.” Vueko laughed slightly, rubbing the back of her head. “The food up here is so great, after all. It’s not that much though, right?”

The audacity of her statement nearly floored Pakkoyan. Vueko, who had been all skin and bones as long as she had known her, had doubled, no, tripled in size, maybe more! And she didn’t seem to think it was a big deal? She had already lost interest in Pakkoyan’s shocked expression, turning her attention back to fishing the last few scraps and crumbs out of the box. Pakkoyan stared at her childlike expression, her devotion ot her task. The stress had melted off of Vueko’s face, and it was a face that Pakkoyan found that she couldn’t get enough of.

“Hey, have you got any more of this? It’s so nice, I could eat it for days!” Vueko said happily, and Pakkoyan believed her. Realising that once she ran out of food to eat the spell would be broken, Pakkoyan scurried off to her pantry, looking to scavenge anything she could find. She came up with a few more dried fruits and biscuits, not exactly prepared for guests. Once she had them in Vueko’s hands, she laid back, laid flat over Vueko with her chin resting on her belly. It was the softest part of her, and she could watch her shovel more food into her mouth from here and take in that wonderful expression. Vueko found this to be a rather odd position, oblivious to her friend’s intent, but shrugged it off, figuring that Pakkoyan was probably like this with other people as well.

“So what’ve you been doing for work since you got back?” Pakkoyan asked, deciding to fill in the gaps in her knowledge. Vueko had covered what she had done since she entered the village, but the way she put it made it sound like she had alternated between hiding and eating and little else.

“Oh, you know, this and that here and there.” Vueko said vaguely. “I’ve just been doing any odd jobs I hear about, you know, things I can do without going out in the open. I’m still good at sewing, which is good because some of the other villagers don’t have hands…”

“And you can support yourself just on that?” She questioned, Vueko looking a little awkward.

“Well, just barely. I’m having to cut back to just three meals a day lately.” Vueko admitted. “I had a lot of money to begin with, but it’s been running out, and I’m spending more than I’m earning. I know I can’t keep myself hidden from most of the villagers forever, but…”

“Well, you won’t have to worry about going hungry anymore!” Pakkoyan declared, her tail wagging. “I’ve got plenty of savings, and I can help you get any work you need.”

“R-Really?” Vueko perked up. “I mean, you don’t have to…”

“I insist!” Pakkoyan said intensely. Seeing Vueko’s obese but otherwise human body had made her realise that whatever had made her seemingly ageless like the rest of them, there was a possibility that she could leave the village. If she ran out of money or was otherwise pushed into a corner, she might consider leaving, and the thought of losing Vueko again just as she had regained her was terrifying. She had lost more than enough friends, and had no desire to lose another. But Vueko seemed perfectly content when she was well-fed, which was also making her incredibly fat, out of shape, and most importantly, soft. And Pakkoyan couldn’t help but think that she wouldn’t mind if Vueko got a little softer…

–

“Alright, I’m heading out for lunch!”

Vueko brushed the crumbs off of her clothes as she, with a lot of huffing and puffing, climbed off of the cushion she had sunken into, waving goodbye to Pakkoyan one with one hand as she habitually went to adjust the hood of a cloak that was no longer there. It had been a few months since she had reunited with her friend, and a couple of months since she had made the conscious decision to stop hiding her face, but if there was anybody whose old habits die hard it was Vueko. Her red hair had by now grown back to the more extreme length she was used to, hanging somewhere around her hips as she had never bothered to cut it since she had left the hole, and was currently not her most distinctive feature. She had been worried about exposing her human face and she had indeed drawn much curiosity when she went public and the rumours of a human-faced resident were confirmed, but she had successfully avoided hard questions about it, and had a wingman to cover for her. Any villagers who got a little too inquisitive would receive an extremely stern one-eyed glare from Pakkoyan and quietly drop it, figuring that Vueko was just yet another oddity in an odd, odd place. Many were too concerned with fulfilling their own desires to worry too much about the appearance of another.

Vueko’s increased confidence could be see by the way she walked, now a more natural stride rather than the huddled shuffle she had taken on before, trying to reduce her footprint even as she expanded outwards into a room-dominating mass. Were it not for her chunky thighs her legs no longer would have rubbed together with each step, her head tilted downward and her eyes flickering away from any potential contact. Vueko stood, by her standards, tall and proud, which was to say still somewhat awkward and eager to avoid talking to anybody if she could get away with it. For all her attempts to remain relatively inconspicuous even after abandoning her cloak, it was the one thing that she didn’t change that drew the most attention and had already piqued the curiosity of many, and it was her uncanny ability to be spotted stuffing her face at most hours of the day. If you wanted to find her eating it was a question of where, not when, one of the most notorious characters in the village for her sheer unchecked gluttony.

As a result, it turned out that her seemingly human form was not her most distinctive feature. Depending on who you asked that distinction would have belonged to her bulging breasts resembling the ripest fruit the surface world had to offer, each as big as her head even on an overall apple-shaped body and able to demonstrate their bounce through the thick, warm fabric of her dress. Others would have argued that clearly the gut they rested on deserved this honour more, drooping down past her waist and assuring that she needed to use the full length of her arms to reach any dish placed on a table in front of her. A third party, if consulted, would have made the case that the wobbling shelf of an ass she had bestowed upon herself with her copious gorging that could not be contained by any reasonably-sized seat in the village was not to be overlooked, and indeed it was impossible to overlook if you were directly behind her, particularly for the more diminutive villagers. A smaller group still who still valued the human form quietly praised how cute her chubby face was, but were ignored by the more broadly-minded other groups arguing amongst themselves. All however, could collectively agree: the most distinctive part of Vueko was simply how fat she was.

While this seemed simple enough to any theoretical human onlooker, within the isolated world of the village this was vital to Vueko’s place in it. I It was not her simple natural appearance, her hair, her face, her unusual state of having five fingers on each hand and no scales, fur, or naturally-secreted ooze coating their skin, that defined her. The occasional human visitors to the village who either passed through as quickly as they came or gave up their human forms and became permanent residents assumed that the monstrous forms themselves were the most important part. They would be very wrong, as it was not mere outwards appearance that mattered, but the shape of that person’s desire that was expressed through their form. And the shape of Vueko’s desire was very, very obvious.

Vueko, of course, was totally oblivious to this. She simply drifted through her life eating herself into a stupor without much thought about why she had gotten so fat, or how others felt about her over it. An unusual thing, for one so cripplingly self-conscious. She simply assumed that her appearing to be a normal human wasn’t as big of a deal as she had thought, and went back to stuffing her face, content that she could eke out a normal life in this place. And as she grew, the more convinced everybody around her was that she wasn’t a normal human at all. Even on the surface, they had never seen a woman so fat. And if this was how she looked now, how would she look in ten years, or fifty, or a hundred…?

Before long Vueko had reached Moogie’s restaurant and settled herself in, her seat creaking and groaning beneath her as it vanished below her oversized ass. She sighed in appreciation at taking a load off her legs, almost out of breath from the few minutes it had taken to get from Pakkoyan’s place to here, stomach already rumbling in anticipation. She had stopped by to meet Pakkoyan after brunch, chatting while snacking to tide her over until lunch. She was halfway through her second heaping of fried Abyss-creature meat of which she hardly knew the animal’s name when a certain somebody pushed over a chair and sat themselves down next to her, Vueko’s ears perking up as she heard a familiar voice call over to Moogie to send over his special. A few seconds later, after cleaning off her plate, she slowly looked up, and stared into the mask-like face of the sage Wazukyan, making his first appearance since he had dragged her out almost a year ago.

“Yo, Vueko. Doing well lately?” He asked casually, as if it had only been a few days since they last met. Although it was quite a surprise to see him all of a sudden, she didn’t find herself startled. Perhaps because she had processed his appearance while she was still eating, and only confirmed it after she was done. The shock of his appearance had been absorbed by the bliss of the dish’s flavour, leaving her with only the bemusement of wondering why he had picked this particular day to reappear in her life.

“I’d say I’ve settled in fairly well, as well as I could have.” Vueko said modestly. There was little nervousness in her voice, her eyes turning away from him and over to Moogie’s kitchen where her next dish was being cooked up for her. She had thought to herself that she’d have more to say to Wazuyan, but found herself with precious little. She realised that to have more to say would mean she had complaints to raise to him, and since she had met Pakkoyan, who covered for her in the village, helped her get jobs and money, and even cooked for and fed her. It was Pakkoyan’s advice that was probably why she was so calm, as his disappearing act seemed to not be uncommon. Pakkoyan had said to expect him to appear out of the blue at any moment, rolling her eye at his simultaneous ubiquity in the village and his talent for not being around if he didn’t want you finding him.

Moogie arrived with their meals, a stew that Vueko had ordered that by suspicious coincidence happened to be Wazukyan’s usual order, allowing him to receive and eat it at the same time as her.

“What’re you here for?” Vueko asked casually. She felt like she had mustered a little courage bubbling up from her stomach to her chest, deciding that the best way to deal with Wazukyan was to appear unfazed by his sudden appearance.

“What else? I wanted to check in on you. It hasn’t been that long, has it? Okay, maybe it has.” He chuckled as Vueko gave him a stern look before starting on her stew.

“So, you’re all settled in then?” He asked, and she nodded, her mouth full. “All comfortable?”

Another nod.

“I see, I see! Well, isn’t that good to hear! I was worried you might be a little, let’s say, socially unadjusted after so long, but it looks like you’re back on your feet! Eating well, I can see.”

Vueko occasionally nodded along. She felt like she should probably have more to say, but her meal was so good, and whenever it was time for her to talk her mouth was full.

Wazukyan continued with a barrage of vaguely worded questions. Whether she was happy with her living situation, if she and Pakkoyan were getting along, if there was anything she needed help with, if she saw herself as having a comfortable future in the village. Vueko didn’t need to say a word, simply nodding in confirmation to each one. The only time she shook her head was when he snuck in a question of whether or not she felt like she’d ever go gallivanting off outside the village if she had the chance. She shook her head without thinking, and moved on from the question without lingering on it. Why would she want to? There was nothing out there for her, and the idea of having to scrounge for food again had her stomach demand another bowl just to be on the safe side.

“That’s good, that’s good!” He repeated once again at the end of his one-sided conversation. “It makes me happy to see you happy, you know! I suppose you’ll be just fine if I leave you to your own devices.”

Vueko wanted to say “Isn’t that what you’ve already been doing?”, but her mouth was full once again. He raised from his seat and left as quickly as he came, Vueko left wondering why he had even come in the first place. He could tell just by looking at her that she was content, couldn’t he? She was pretty sure that even if he had kept himself invisible to her, he had made sure of it, with how smoothly things had gone upon her first arrival. The idea that it might be in his best interests to keep her that way never seemed to occur to her…

–

“Oi, you! Time’s up!”

Vueko was gently awoken from a warm, pleasant nap by the increasingly forceful pokes to her dougly flesh, yawning and slowly stretching backwards until she was staring up into the many eyes of the hot spring manager, who had a somewhat irritable glare in each of them, thanks to how many pokes and prods it had gotten to make her stir.

Bleary-eyed, Vueko responded with a dopey, laid-back smile as her hazy mind pieced together where she was and what she was doing. She had drifted off during one of her baths after lunch, happily digesting

“Jus’ one more minute…” She yawned again, still only half-awake until she was jolted back to full consciousness by a flurry of pokes. “Okay, okay, I’m out, I’m out!”

“You can’t hog the whole thing to yourself all day, I’ve got another group coming soon!” He stressed, Vueko groaning as she lifted herself back to her feet, water cascading down the slope of her overstuffed and ever-expanding belly. These days Vueko struggled to reach her own navel, particularly when it was puffed up after a good meal, and between it and her hips that took up a good half of the small pool on their own, she had grown into a somewhat antagonistic position with the poor owner in that barely anybody else could fit in while she was bathing, leading to complaints from the other clientele that clearly she belonged in the baths intended for the village’s oversized inhabitants, not the ones for the small-to-human-sized folk. After some pleading and puppy-dog eyes from Vueko who had grown used to having a bath to herself, she had been reluctantly allowed to keep using it until she could no longer fit herself through the door, which the hot springs manager estimated probably wouldn’t take much longer.

After towelling herself down Vueko threw on her old reliable dress, which had survived far longer than anybody’s reasonable estimations thanks to being more of a heap of stitched together fabric with two sleeves and a hole for her head than anything more finely tailored. What had once been a loose body that obscured her entire figure was pushed taut by her curves, baggy sleeves now moulded by her bloated, bulging biceps that squished and squeezed with every movement, unable to hold her arms out forward without squishing her sagging melon-sized boobs inward. A loose collar intended for hiding her face behind now rubbed against her multiple chins, Vueko in possession of three and well on her way to a fourth, unless what had once been a neck simply blurred together into one big squishy blob of flab.

The hemline of her skirt that had once dragged against the floor had been steadily pushed upwards over time, as fabric that had once fallen freely was now devoted to covering the length of her girthy gut, the width of her excessive hips, and the breadth of her blobby butt. Gently shaking with each heavy lumbbering waddle that could barely be called a stride, her legs were exposed up to her knees, showing off hints of thighs like a great tree’s trunk that she had once compulsively hidden. The chest had needed to be let out to contain her breasts without bursting, and one day Vueko would poke her head through the top for the last time, the dress doomed to split at the seams somewhere or somehow.

Until then Vueko wore it with a thought to its future, making her way through the village and forcing all others to part around her, faster and easier than asking the already heavily-breathing Vueko to shift her trajectory. Still a little sleepy and already starting to run out of breath after a minute of walking, Vueko’s mind automatically led her down the route that would let her take the least amount of steps before resting: Pakkoyan’s house.

“Pakkoyan! Are you home?” She gently called, hearing no familiar furry footsteps. “I guess not…”

Vueko took a few final steps across the room, where what had once been a mess of cushions and pillows had been over time rearranged into a clear path to a mattress that was just the right size for Vueko to sink her pillowy butt into with an appreciative sigh, taking a load off of her overburdened legs. She laid back on it into a pile of cushions had been arranged for her, feeling her heartrate settle back into its usual lethargic pace, and it wasn’t long before she drifted off again, all tuckered out by the exertion. She couldn’t be blamed for it, as the distance to the bath and back was more steps than she took in an entire day some days of the week.

When she woke again she had a familiar pressure on her belly, which was rapidly becoming the largest cushion in Pakkoyan’s house. As a result, it was no wonder that it was Pakkoyan’s favourite resting place, never missing an opportunity to cuddle or otherwise sink into Vueko’s tender flesh. With how fuzzy and comfortable Pakkoyan was, Vueko didn’t mind, and even if she had, she likely would have been slowly conditioned into allowing it anyway.

It seemed that Pakkoyan had been merely relaxing instead of asleep along with her, as she noticed Vueko stirring and turned to face her, still sprawled out atop her.

“Welcome back, sleepyhead.” She smiled. “Are you hungry?”



“Maybe just a little.” Vueko sheepishly responded, her stomach giving a much more decisive with a long, sustained groan. Without even waiting for Pakkoyan to ask, Vueko continued. “I was thinking Yakuba’s for dinner tonight.”

“I thought you’d say that.” Pakkoyan said, rolling off of Vueko. “You want me to go get it for you?”

“Sorry, it’s just so far away, and I can’t fit through the door anyway…” Vueko should have sounded embarrassed, but instead sounded rather shameless. It was more of a performative apology, as she knew that Pakkoyan would go get whatever she wanted or needed for her without a single complaint. The fact that she now considered a ten minute walk to be “far away” should have caused at least a moment of reflection or realisation of just what she had become, as a former explorer who could walk for what felt like days without a break, let alone the fact that her barrier of entry was the fact that she couldn’t even enter the building thanks to her morbid obesity, but all Vueko had on her mind was the succulent meat that Pakkoyan was about to go fetch for her.

“I’ll be right back, don’t go anywhere!” Pakkoyan said as she scurried off through the door.

“Ah!” Vueko realised just after she left, looking a little despondent. “I forgot to ask her to get some snacks for me while I wait…”

Said snacks were only one room away, but Vueko had gotten herself comfortable and standing up was such a pain, that her laziness overruled her hunger for once and she instead sunk further into the mass of pillows that Pakkoyan had arranged for her. Since she obviously couldn’t see herself from another angle, it never occurred to her that she in her designated resting spot seemed to be carefully arranged as much as the rest of the room’s furniture.

She was almost feeling hungry enough to actually stand up when Pakkoyan finally returned, meal in hand. She climbed back onto Vueko and hesitated before handing the bowl and utensils to Vueko, a rather odd arrangement where she got to sit there and watch Vueko eat, the latter too entranced by the food to notice that Pakkoyan was entranced just watching her shovel it down.

Wandering into Pakkoyan’s house, falling asleep in it, waking up and immediately having a meal fetched for her… Vueko had been utterly spoiled, and it was no wonder that she was considered by many to be Pakkoyan’s pet, who had poured her own money into Vueko’s appetite since the two had reconnected, and constantly talked about how adorable Vueko had become. And of course, Pakkoyan was more than happy to fulfil all of her physical desires, just to make sure she had both of her appetites covered…

“Could you imagine living in a place like this while we were travelling? Not having to worry about going hungry?” Pakkoyan said, almost purring as she was comfortably curled up on Vueko, looking back on far, far-off memories. “Back on those boats we were lucky if we could get two pieces of hardtack a day.”

“I remember! Whenever somebody managed to catch some fish everybody started cheering. They wouldn’t let me touch the line, I was terrible at it…” Vueko smiled nostalgically. “Not to mention catching something in the Abyss and having to figure out if it was poisonous or not.”

“It really worked out for the best, didn’t it?” Pakkoyan said, causing Vueko to pause momentarily. An uncomfortable thought had wormed its way back into her head. The thought of how her spoiled lifestyle as only possible because of Irumyuui, and how she had never wanted to prosper at her expense. The thought that by accepting such a life, she might be condoning Wazukyan’s actions, despite her many years of accepting living at the bottom of that pit as repentance, only to indulge herself so heavily the moment she was out… It was a thought that had plagued her during the early days of her stay in the village, and had become more and more infrequent the longer she stayed and the fatter she got. It was a thought that she was more than happy to live without.

“I guess so!” Vueko forced a smile, and began to eat faster until that uncomfortable thought had been completely drowned out and forgotten.

Meanwhile, Pakkoyan was quite pleased with how huge and fluffy Vueko had gotten, and how under her guidance she had gotten progressively lazier and more passive, softer and cuter with every meal she happily watched her stuff down her throat. Pakkoyan couldn’t get enough for Vueko in her pillowy state, finding her single-minded gluttony so strangely cute and endearing. ANd of course, there was no chance that she would get the idea of going off and leaving the village, or otherwise trying to break the status quo when she was in such an utterly helpless state. Even if she did, it might take years just for her to shed the weight, and Pakkoyan was certain that she no longer had the willpower to do that. And even if she tried, she would be there to tempt her back into gluttony, to gently stroke her until she was her cute, fluffy Vueko once again.

The two eventually drifted off together, Vueko slipping into her usual food coma, and Pakkoyan atop her most favourite cushion of all…

–

Riko, prospective future White Whistle and explorer extraordinaire, as she liked to occasionally think of herself as, wandered through the village of the Hollows, quite possibly the strangest place she had visited in the Abyss yet. She had been exploring the village for any helpful information, equal parts on edge and excited. Separating from Reg and and Nanachi was in hindsight perhaps not the safest move, but so far she had managed to avoid harm, and was far too curious to wait to regroup with the two. She mentally recited the directions she had just been given as she navigated the mazelike multi-level village, reminding her a little of the twisting roads and alleys of her home above the Abyss. It wasn’t long before she, as promised, came across a large cave, although this one already seemed more furnished than several of the other abodes that the villagers called homes. It had a door, albeit a very large one, Riko wincing at how loudly it creaked.

“Um, hello?” She called into the darkened room, apprehensively taking a step forward. “I’ve been sent by, um, Moogie and Wazukyan! They said that you wanted to see any new visitors to the village!”

Riko held her breath as her eyes quickly adjusted to the dimly lit room. However, all she could see was some huge squishy mass in front of her, not a person. She assumed it was some strange substance or perhaps a very odd piece of furniture, as it didn’t resemble any of the bizarrely shaped villagers she had met so far. She almost jumped backwards when the pink squishy wall started to wobble slightly, a long yawn coming from somewhere in front and above her.

“Jus’ a second…” Came a surprisingly soft-spoken voice. “I was having a really nice nap… What were you saying?”



“I’m, uh, a visitor passing through the village!” Riko said nervously. “Moogie and Wazukyan said you’d probably want to meet me…”



“A visitor! Oh, of course! Of course I do!” the disembodied voice said, the mass wobbling again in what she assumed was excitement. “I always love meeting new guests! I’ll have to thank them for sending you my way, since it’s a little hard to come to you… Welcome to the village, by the way, I hope you’re enjoying your stay! Isn’t it nice here?”

“It’s been very interesting!” Riko answered honestly, bobbing left and right to try to figure out where the voice was coming from. Was she behind it? On top of it? “Um, if you don’t mind me asking… where are you, exactly?”



“Huh?” The voice seemed befuddled. “I’m right here!”

Riko squinted and panned her eyes around. The voice seemed to be able to see her, and began to offer directions.

“No, more towards the middle… A little higher, a little higher… there!”

With her neck craned upwards, her now fully adjusted eyes went wide as she was able to spot the source of the voice: the pink, fleshy blob had a face!



“I can see why you need glasses!” The voice chuckled, then trailed off awkwardly when Riko didn’t laugh back. “Um, that was a joke, I’m sure your vision is fine…”



“Oh no, it’s okay!” Riko reassured the suddenly deflated-sounding voice. “I just never know where to look in this place! Everybody is all over the place.”

“O-oh no, it’s quite fine. I had thought it’d be easy, just because of, you know.” The voice said, confusing Riko further. She’d had some strange encounters, but even though this one could speak a language she understood, it was turning into a rather awkward conversation very quickly.

“You know?” Riko prompted for more.

“Since we’re both normal humans and all.” The voice said hopefully. Riko’s mouth fell open. This thing, this overwhelming pink mass of flesh was supposed to be a normal human?

Riko took another look at the face. Although it was sunken into a mass of what seemed like fat around it, it did in fact have eyes, a nose, and lips in the right place. Riko paced around the room a bit, poking the jiggling mass a bit, finding her hand almost sinking deep into it, it was so fat. Once she could contextualise it as fat, rather than some sort of jelly-like state, she eventually found what looked like legs with feet at the end of vaguely leg-shaped blobby tubes, each so wide she could lay down flat and not reach the end of it. Using her head as a reference point she was able to follow it to shoulders, which led to hands so engulfed in flab that she wasn’t sure they could be raised at all, and the hands at the end were so bloated that she would be surprised if this person could even hold utensils with them.

“See? Perfectly human!” The supposed human said, Riko unsure of what expression she should be giving in return. She had the bare requirements of humanity, but she was such a blob that Riko simply couldn’t picture anybody getting that fat. Even the fattest people she had seen in occasional glimpses at the town’s wealthiest weren’t even a twentieth of her size!

“I’ll take your word for it!” Riko said as politely as she could, but then realised that she had been extremely impolite since she walked in, particularly after all that gawking. “Oh no, I forgot to introduce myself! I’m Riko!”

Riko bowed so quickly that her long twintails flew out and slapped the blob on what she assumed was its belly,

“Oh no, I should have asked first, that’s my fault… I’m Vueko. Nice to meet you, Miss Riko!” The blobby woman said.

“Nice to meet you too! So… what is it that you wanted from me, anyway?” Riko asked.

“Oh, it’s something very important. Something that only new arrivals can offer, whether they’re intending to stay or just passing through” Vueko said dramatically. “Something very special indeed…”

Riko gulped. “What is it?”

“Do you have any provisions left over from your trip? Any ingredients? Anything at all?”



“Huh?” Riko was taken aback by how eagerly Vueko was asking.

“Anything from above the Abyss? Any rations? Any meat or plants from the upper layers? Can you share some? Anything will do, as long as it’s not from around here? Do you have any? You must have some, surely!”

Riko could practically hear her salivating as she barraged her with requests, and slowly prepared her disappointing response.

“N-not really, sorry…” She winced, able to see the heartbreak in Vueko’s eyes. “Not this far down. We’ve been making do with anything we can catch on the way…”

“Oh. Oh, I see, that’s, that’s fine. I should have expected it, that doesn’t bother me!” Vueko hurriedly said. She was one hundred percent disappointed, Riko didn’t need to be a mindreader to tell.

“Well, how about recipes?” Vueko suggested next. “Around twenty… no, maybe thirty years ago we had an arrival and he knew how to make this exotic dish called a cabonara, but he said he ran out of the right ingredients for it right before arriving? Isn’t that awful? Right before I could have tried it!”



“That does sound pretty bad.” Riko was able to empathise. It would be pretty disappointing to find out about something you couldn’t ever hope to get in a place like this. “Sorry, but I don’t think I have any recipes that you wouldn’t already know how to make.”

“Oh.” Vueko’s continued disappointed was palpable. “Well, that’s okay, it was nice talking with you anyway, Riko…”



“We’re not done talking yet!” Riko hurried to say. Just because the conversation over food had ended didn’t mean they were done! “You’ve asked what you wanted, now it’s my turn! Is there anything you’d advise to a, um, fellow human staying here for a bit?”



Vueko tilted her blobby face a little. “A fellow human? Well, I can give a recommendation of the best restaurants if you want…”

“Anything more important than that?”



“What could be more important than that?” Vueko asked, and Riko realised that there was no hint of sarcasm in her voice. Clearly, she wasn’t going to get much out of her. With the way her body was, it was likely that she couldn’t move at all anyway.

“I’ll come back if it turns out we had some leftovers, okay?” Riko waved, turning to leave the cave. This had been a wholly unproductive meeting, although this Vueko was a very curious person, obvious obsession with food aside. She wondered if at some point she had looked more like a regular human, since she lacked the animalistic traits of the others and seemed to have been here for at the very least decades… then again, perhaps she had been this bloated from the start, and was simply a little, well, delusional. She seemed to totally ignore her size, and not take it into account at all when comparing the two of them, and that was about as strange as the rest of the inhuman villagers. Maybe if she slimmed down, if it were possible, she wouldn’t actually look like a human after all. It was hard to tell, with how much of a blob she was.

“Goodbye, Riko!” Vueko moved her bloated hands a little to replicate the motion as best she could. “I enjoyed talking to you!”

Riko walked out, wondering what strange villager she would meet next…