Taylor was really starting to regret her decision to join this 5k. She signed up with the intention of doing it with a few of her friends from college, but they had all bailed for various other reasons. Being a shy girl, this meant she had no one to talk to for the whole run. On top of that, the weather forecasts said it would be the hottest day all year, even breaking record highs. The city nearly canceled the event, but the outcries of the people who came year after year were enough to convince the officials that the event should remain. Despite all this, Taylor went. She hated bailing on commitments and didn’t mind being alone that much. Besides, she had been wanting to start exercising for a while now. She had a petite but unathletic body, her somewhat thick thighs being the biggest sign that she didn’t really work to get her figure.
As Taylor stepped out of her car she felt like a hairdryer was being blasted at full force all across her body. Her round face reddened, not just from the heat, but from embarrassment about her outfit. To many girls (like Taylor’s friend who let her borrow the outfit and then baled) some very short shorts and a shirt showing of their stomach would be no big deal, but to Taylor, a girl reluctant to wear most swimwear to due embarrassment, this made her excruciatingly bashful. Not that she was ashamed of her body, she just didn’t do this sort of thing often.
Mere seconds after getting out of the car she wiped her forehead to get the sweat off. Great, she thought to herself, I wore this stuff to stay cool and I’m already sweating… Her overall upbeat personality got the best of her however, and she came to the conclusion that a little sweat never hurt anyone as she made her way toward the starting line. As she made her way through the huge mass of bodies ready to begin, she felt like an ice cream cone on a hot summer day as the body heat caused her to sweat even more. Before she could even come to grips with how hot she really was, the 5k started. The people around her started moving, forcing her to start jogging.
“Ugh, how much longer?” the poor, unprepared, normally-a-shut-in, has-never-been-in-any-sports Taylor said aloud to herself after what felt like an hour of jogging.
One of the other runners replied, “Uh, like, two minutes.”
No flippin’ way Taylor said to herself, both because of the time and the embarrassment of being heard. She got increasingly hotter, now feeling more like ice cream that had been dropped on some sun baked pavement on a hot summer day as she struggled to move her legs. Suddenly feeling even clumsier than she usually was, she tripped and fell on her hands and knees.
As she looked down at the ground panting for breath, she experienced a strange sensation. Her arms felt like jelly, and she felt like her nose was stretching. Immediately after this, she saw a skin tone colored piece of something fall to the ground with a ‘splat.’ As this happened, she felt a hot surface press along the whole surface of her nose. What? I’m not face down on the ground, am I? And for the second that she thought that, she wasn’t.
Taylor’s arms and legs suddenly gave way as she crashed into the ground face first. Well, she expected a crash, but it was really more like a ‘sploosh.’ What the hell? She thought to herself as, instead of pain, she felt something she had never experienced before. It was almost like falling face first onto a soft mattress, but instead of the mattress giving way it was her that was giving way. The hot tarmac of the road was now like a baking sheet in an oven to Taylor’s ice cream like body. She felt the sensation of what she could only assume to be her own body spreading out across the ground as she tried to move her body to get up. Her struggle was to no avail.
Wait, am I melting? The odd thought popped into her head. She had heard people joke about it being so hot that they would melt, but she figured that could only happen in cartoons. And yet, her she was, hotter than she had ever been, feeling herself spread out in a way that felt physically impossible. As the sides of her face melted down to block off any light or air, she thought, I guess that thing that dropped onto the pavement from earlier was my nose, but… How?
Soon, Taylor began to resemble more of a puddle than a person. Actually, more like five puddles. Her outfit had stayed intact, somewhat separating her melted parts into her legs, her stomach, her head, and one puddle for each arm. Her legs had formed the largest puddle, due to her thick thighs. Her legs had begun to fuse together, a sensation that Taylor felt was like the tightest embrace she had ever felt. Her slim waist made for a smaller puddle, however a large portion of her ass felt like it was slowly sliding up her back to join the belly pool. Her arm puddles had formed into boomerang shaped puddles, and her fingers were melting into each other. Her head-puddle might have given away the fact that this skin tone pool was once a person if she had fallen face up. Taylor couldn’t tell for sure if it was actually happening at the time, but her hair had also melted, leaving a mostly brown puddle at the end of the series of puddles.
Unfortunately for Taylor, at this point the runners of the 5k were not paying attention to where they were going. She felt the first few steps from a careless runner impact her in multiple places: the feeling went from her ankle to the back of her knee, in small increments all the way up to the back of her head. The feeling of what she assumed was being stepped on was surprisingly pleasant. Really, it was almost like a massage. What worried her however, was that she felt the same parts that got stepped on got stepped on over and over again. After the first person ran across her, it opened the floodgates for many more people to follow. The puddle formerly known as Taylor was trampled over and over again. She tried to stay optimistic, thinking about how she had wanted a professional massage for a while now, but her pleasant thoughts were cut short by a sudden realization.
Oh my god, I’m not just being spread, they’re tracking me! Indeed, whenever Taylor was stepped on, part of her would stick to the runner’s shoes for a number of steps. The odd sensation of her body being in multiple places was incredibly strange. If she could make a sound, it would probably be an incredulous ‘Woooooaaaaaah.’ Well, she ruminated, there can’t be THAT many more people coming through.
Taylor had once again underestimated her time under duress. Her whole ordeal up to this point had only lasted about 2 minutes, and there were thousands of people participating in this event. She felt herself get pulverized by feet for another 30 minutes until she passed out from the heat and the massage-like sensation.
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Taylor awoke hours later. She immediately realized with dread that what had happened had not been a crazy dream. To her surprise, she could now see at the spot her head was, though she could only look at the night sky as she tried to take stock of where all of her had ended up.
Most of her mass was now an oblong shape that was slightly longer than it was wide. Her center was around the middle of the road, but her sides reached to about a foot away from the sidewalks on each side. Lengthwise, the majority of her body that had stayed intact had been spread to be about as long as a basketball court. Her body was now mostly uniform in color, now looking more like someone had applied a layer of skin-tone paint to the surface of the road. The only major difference was some splotches of brown from hair short hair that were near the top of Taylor’s new form. Past where most of her mass had been spread thin, there were numerous footprint shaped markings that were the same color as the rest of the pool of former shy girl. Specks of Taylor could be found as far down as the next stop sign.
Crap, what I am going to do? Taylor thought as her less than positive side began to take over. I still can’t move, this feels so weird, I can feel parts of myself everywhere, I’m pretty sure parts of me are still on people’s shoes, I can’t feel Hannah’s workout clothes anywhere on me, and, oh yeah, I’M A FUCKING PUDDLE IN THE ROAD.
Minutes passed as Taylor started thinking of what would happen to her. Would someone even recognize me? I mean, who would think that someone would actually, literally MELT in the road? They’ll probably think I’m just some strange liquid when the clean the streets and they’ll just wash me down the drain. She winced as she thought about being forced down into the city sewer. Actually, I’ve probably been baked onto the street from how hot it was. I’ll just be a big ol’ stain on the middle of the road. Yep, that’s me. Taylor. The road stain. People’ll just walk and drive all over me. She thought in a snarky manner. I bet they’ll make up stories about me. ‘Yeah son, they say that’s some poor woman who got trampled at the big run. Look at it and laugh!’ How embarrassing! I’m just some weird puddle that never goes away. Now that I think about it, I feel a lot more… solid than before. Maybe they’ll peel me off when they find me. Bet I’d make a great banner. Her thoughts were now dripping with sarcasm and cynicism. I can be the new welcome sign for the town. ‘Welcome to the town of the infamous carpet girl!’ Or that weird mayor will put me in her office as a carpet. Oh god…
Wait, she remembered, the gang knows I went on the run! And they’ll notice I went missing! I bet they’ll notice me here right away! I mean, probably they’ll notice… At least if not right away then they’ll probably think that the skin colored, big, gooey… puddle… is me. Well, I guess if an actual woman can actually melt into a giant puddle then anything is possible really.
Taylor continued to ponder through the night. After all, it was all she could do as she waited to see what fate awaited her in the morning.