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Envy and Lust (Ch. 17 added)


Philosopher

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This is fantastic!  The pacing is great, it's well written and engaging.  It's mysterious.  The characters are well developed.  Great work.  Excited to read more! 

And Luke sounds like a major hottie!  And a BIG And GROWING one at that.  

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Man this are starting to heat up.

He wants a pice of what is happening to Luke but how iof everything was destroyed?

uke might be the only one person that teh virus worked,

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Chapter 5

The petri dishes reflected my tired face back to me. I could barely hold the pipette with my fingers, my hands trembling like feather caught in a whirlwind. It was such a simple assignment to follow, and yet I had trouble putting a drop of purified water into some stupid E.coli bacteria.

"Jason, what's gotten into you? Ya know how to use a pipette, don't you? Just hold it with your hand, and press the cap until you hear the clicking sound. Then you release," Jess hums next to me, bumping me with her butt. In response, the lab assistant looks at us with slight disgust, but thankfully doesn't say anything. He's wearing a blue lab coat, a contrast to our white ones, and I have a feeling that he think's we're absolute morons.

I like Jess. She's like the best friend you had when you were eight but never grew up. With big, ocean blue eyes that'd put Disney princesses to shame and with a lean, perky body, the result of being the captain of the university's swimming team, she's one of the few examples that beauty doesn't necessarily mean narcissism and overconfidence. Although she has zero shame bones in her, as I have seen her multiple times burst into random songs with her beautiful voice, she's one of the few people I trust and respect with my whole heart. She's also my lab buddy, and as such we've gotten to know each other more.

"Please," I smirk back at her, my hands calming down and allowing me to complete the last step of the assignment. "I fear no pipettes. It's just... I've gotten a lot of things in my mind right now. It's logical to lose sensation of time when doing one of the most boring practicals, wouldn't you agree?" I say as I step sideways for her to take the petri dish and put it under a microscope. Seconds later, I see her hand rapidly moving and writing down bits of important information on a notebook. Jess doesn't like to hear it, but she's damn smart. I wouldn't say genius, but the times she's destroyed me at chess say otherwise.

"So... what are you thinking about? I bet it's-" she tries to say with a knowing grin, but I raise my hand in front of her to stop her from blurting out the forbidden name.

"God, Jess! Not everyone is thinking about mindless sex with overgrown jocks all the time, okay? And for your information, I was just thinking whether the local pharmacy store would give syringes to a student." I shuffle back to the microscope to see how the bacteria have interacted with tetracycline and the purified water. Right now, we're testing the extent that antimicrobial resistance can spread in a colony of e.coli, and the results are rather frightening.

Jess looks at me, desperately trying to hide her smile. "I bet you're thinking about him all the darn time, Jason. You probably need hard drugs to forget about his good looks and titanic body, and that's why you need the syringes. Doing some morphine on the background, Jason boy?" she starts laughing, but a second look from the old lab assistant makes her shut up really fast.

"Oh, shut up. Even you must admit that he's hot," I whisper back as I take the petri dish off the microscope. Jess is the only friend I have that is also gay, and she's had a massive streak in the university's halls during first year.

"Well, duh. It's not just me, it's the entire frikkin' campus! Have you seen the looks he gets when you two walk out from your dormitory? It's like he has an aura of sex and testosterone flowing around him! And that was before he came back..." she trails off, probably lost in thought. Then, her eyes dig into mine, her ocean blue meeting my midnight black. "Um... Speaking of the forbidden one, how has he grown so much over the year? Was he like that in your internship? I swear he wasn't that big last year, and I doubt such a huge guy had some growth left in him. Is that why you need the syringes?" she suddenly accuses me with a frown.

Holy shit, she's smart. Damn your giant brain, Jess!

"No, what are you talking about?" I hide my gaze back into the microscope to avoid her big eyes from dragging out the truth from me.

"Is he doing steroids?!" she whispers to me, and I shake my head. If steroids could do that, then everyone in the planet would be monstrous humans of striated flesh and muscle. No, I want to say to Jess, that's the result of a modified viral genome infecting someone like Luke. I still don't know how he managed to survive the infection, as he was supposed to explode according to his own tale, but if I find out the reason, the cause... then, maybe even I can...

If that ever happened, I'd never feel so small, so pathetic again. Never.

"...Jason? Why are you crying?" Jess says worriedly, and I wipe the tears away from my eyes. I hate this body, I hate how emotional it can get from just a simple thought, a simple suggestion, a simple man. "Is it something I said?" she slowly says, and I feel her hands warp around me in a tight hug. We're breaking one of the essential rules of the laboratory, but the lab assistant isn't paying attention to us now.

"No... no. It's fine. Sorry. I'm probably still not used in being in a lab. You know, after the accident at Astral Arc," I smile back at her, but she doesn't.

"Okay, that's it. You're coming at the halloween party tonight with me, capeesh? We need to get your drunk, boy!" she pats my back with such ferocity that the petri dish goes flying over the bench, before getting caught by another pair of students. They handle it back to Jess, probably because she has a more stable grip than me. I don't blame them. I feel like a million volts are coursing through my body and my anxiety is through the roofs. If it was a real person, it'd probably be bigger than even Luke.

"Yup, I think that's enough virology for today. I'll head back home now, if you don't mind," I declare to her and I go to the student closet to grab my stuff. I still need to find a way to get syringes, and unfortunately this lab didn't have any. I just hope that by the time I do find a syringe, it won't be already too late.

"Party starts at 10, so be there or be square!" Jess yells back at me, and I cringe as all the other students look at us. The lab assistant must be starting to have a fit, but I don't stay too long to see it happen.

Although, if I had stayed a little bit longer, I might had seen the brilliant smile on Jess' face melt away and become replaced by a cold, calculating frown. She knew that something was wrong, and her curiosity had to be satisfied.

Looking back at the past is the perfect breeding place for regret to form.

.

.

.

After a spartan meal of two eggs and a chicken sandwich in the cafeteria of the campus, my food for the day that I had to eat in order for my body to remain functional, I decided to look deeper into the origins of Astral Arc. Booting up my old laptop on my bed, I found out that the company was originally founded by Nicholas Sanders, who had had received massive amounts of funds from other shell companies, including some famous ones like J&J and Litherium. All of them were being investigated by both MI5 and MI6, but no exact trail had been discovered yet. I tried logging in to the intern website, but I soon learned that it had mysteriously come down an hour after the explosion at the complex. Apparently, Astral Arc had a very dedicated IT department for them to be so fast. I couldn't find any more leads about the origin of the explosion, as the police still chose to not share anything with the public. I assumed that a case of unethical human experimentation would look very bad for England, and they probably thought the same.

I gently tapped at the CTRL button of the laptop before closing it. Something was missing, an integral part of the puzzle that was hidden behind the fog of the future. I still couldn't understand why Luke was invited at the lab complex. No serious marketing department would send a simple intern to take a look at the company's experiments, there was no reason or logic behind it. If I wanted to find the answer to my question, I'd have to go backwards, from Luke's invitation, to the person who gave it to him in the first place. How did they know that the muscle stud would react well to the viral infection? Was it something that could be discerned from just looking at the body of a person? Did initial height and muscle mass of the host play a role? I sincerely doubted so. Luke wasn't the only tall guy in the complex, and I knew some guys who'd regularly visit the local gym at a daily basis. Some of them had to be tall. So, why him?

As if Luke had somehow heard my thoughts, I suddenly heard a gentle tap from the door of my bedroom. Well, gently would put it lightly. It sounded like he was about to break it down, and I could see the fragile wood tremble from the vibrations. I'm sure he wasn't trying to, but perhaps his strength was increasing at a rate that even he couldn't control.

That could prove disastrous in the future.

"Come in," I said as I hid the laptop under my bed. I didn't want Luke to see my research or my notes regarding his evolving body. And boy, had it been evolving.

The man standing in front of me looked nothing compared to Luke from last year. Even though at 6'2, a very respectable height that would be considered tall in a global scale, he had always been muscular, the result of his constant rugby training that had made him into a human battering ram, a sight to behold. His muscles were defined everywhere in his body, most notably his mountains of pecs and his granite six-pack that made me salivate every time I saw it. Even then, he was quite proportional, and all that muscles only enhanced his regal looks and charm, making him the 'hot stud' in every room he entered. 

Now, he couldn't even get through the door without having to duck. My phone contained an app that could determine the height and diameter of an object through the help of AR technology, and as a test, I had measured the door the first week I had arrived.

I vividly remembered the result.

6'3.

And Luke had to duck to get in my room.

Evidence.

Moreover, his increased height didn't seem to had taken a toll at his muscle mass. Normally, taller people had more trouble building muscle, as it was directly applied over their long bodies, and as a result, a significant majority of the tallest people I knew looked more like human scarecrows than anything.

But not Luke. His muscles had taken in the new inches with glee, covering his glistening body with their strength and protectiveness. It was as if someone had taken third year Luke and directly enlarged him by 20%. It was insane, and so hot at the same time.

For a single moment, I let myself imagine how great it would be if I told him how I felt about our relationship. I could tell him everything about my doubts, my fears, my desires. My insecurities. I could stop pursuing my dream of becoming a star, and just allow him to carry me on his wide, bull-like back and take me up, up, up until I could see the stars on my own. After all, it had to be lonely in the top. Luke was transforming into a demigod right in front of my eyes, even though he didn't seem to realize it. I knew that just by his touch, the viridian ocean of envy would disappear from my psyche and I'd finally be free of my own shackles.

But I'm selfish. I know that now.

His voice snapped me out of my dream, and I looked up at him, my neck almost straining to comply with my movement. This man, this miracle of a man was dressed up as Superman. The suit seemed to be painted above his godly body and I could see his muscles moving under the skintight superhero costume, every single part of him rippling with bumps and veins that covered his abs and sculpted obliques, crawling up his biceps and reminding me of rivers where power flowed freely. Every person I know would look ridiculous in that costume, but not Luke. It looked perfect on him, and the effect was magnified by the simple authority he could command once he entered a room. I had seen it happen many times. Nobody would make fun of him, and they wouldn't have a reason to. He simply couldn't be made fun of. It went against the laws of this universe. Only an idiot would dare go against him.

"You look like you escaped from an asylum," I snickered and hopped off the bed. Every day that passed, it was getting harder and harder to hide my feelings about him. Both sets of them, turbulent lust and seething, world-destroying envy. Every time I looked at his face, I couldn't help but see my own inferiority being reflected back at me, similar to the reflection from the petri dishes. At the same time, I'd fantasize about getting together and even making a family. I know it's insane to think like that, we hadn't even graduated yet, but that was the level of infatuation I was going through every single moment we were at the same room together.

He's a real man. I'm nothing compared to him.

Luke didn't reply at my comment, and instead he chose to tackle me.

I knew he'd never hurt me, and yet my body literally froze on the spot, accepting its imminent demise and pulverization. I couldn't move and I couldn't breathe, I could only watch in slow motion as this giant threw himself on me. However, instead of being reduced to paste, Luke simply hugged me, having to hunch in order to get on my level. I'm not even short, just your average 5'10. His body was so massive that it engulfed my frail one. His hands were so big that one of them could probably grab my entire ass and lift me with ease.

I didn't know how I hadn't noticed before, but being so close to him, I could feel the warmth he emanated. It was like standing next to a heater. His face moved closer to me and right as I was about to do something unforgivable, he whispered to my ear one phrase that made me shiver down to my core.

"When are you going to stop pretending?" he asked, and the shock made me push him away with all my strength, although it was like pushing a mountain.

How, how did he know?

Luckily, my brain decided to be helpful for once, and I was prepared with a myriad of different excuses regarding my odd behavior.

Luke smiled back at me, a dazzling smile that belonged in the front of a supermodel magazine. "You know you love this costume! Come on, stop pretending you hate it. I think it really fits me, although I had to take the largest size they had, and even that doesn't seem to be enough," he said and with a wink, he flexed his bicep. The suit struggled to keep the mound, and I could already see the elastic material turning thin, threatening to come apart if he flexed it more. "Damn, I'm not even fully flexing it," he muttered to himself, and I gave him a shy smile.

"Yeah. You're really something else, Luke. I hope you know that." I didn't know if he could hear the bitterness in my voice.

A few moments of silence passed between us, and then Luke responded with something unexpected. "Hey, listen. I wanted to talk to you about your feeding rabbits. Jason, what you're doing is not normal. You should be eating more protein, carbs and fat even! This isn't healthy. So, from now on, I'll do the groceries and cook some meals for you. I don't want you to starve yourself, got it?" he declared and I could see a hint of anger frowning his angelic face. I'm sure he didn't mean to, but it terrified me. So, instead of refusing his help, I simply nodded and gave him a weak thumbs up. "Also, we're leaving for the party in fifteen minutes, so get your costume on. It's gonna be wild!" the anger was replaced with excitement and he raised his fist, which awkwardly bumped into the roof of my room. It made a tiny dent, but I didn't say anything. I was slowly getting used to this beast slowly destroying our apartment, and the part of me that cared had been buried long ago.

After closing my door once more and hearing Luke's heavy footsteps leave the corridor, I approached the closet and grabbed my costume. It was a protective suit which consisted of a light, waxed fabric overcoat, along with a mask with glass eye openings and a beak shaped nose. I hastily putted it on and smiled when I saw myself in the mirror. Nobody would be able to recognize me. And in some ways, I thought that the costume of a plague doctor fitted my mission.

I still had to find the syringes, and the party was the perfect place to do so.

Yes, the costume fit perfectly.

If Luke was going to dress as a superhero, I would dress as a supervillain.

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Jason is jealous of Luke. He wants to be a big  guy himself

This pary is gonna be wild Indeed.

I expect while Jason looks for a way to et some blood out of Jason he will find himself in situation where he really is gonna both enjoy and be more jealous of Luke's body and i dont tjonk Luke is that oblivous. He knows smething is up.

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Happy Halloween everyone!

Chapter 6

When Jess told me she was going to get me drunk, she wasn't messing around.

The moment we arrived at the St. Andrews public dormitory, I could already hear the shrieks and squeals emanating from the inside of the large apartment complex. The outside had been decorated with your usual Halloween decorations, plenty of carved pumpkins and skeletons pinned on walls and the nearby benches, creating a comforting sense of mischief and spookiness. There were a few people dressed in costumes that were outside the dorm, but most of them looked either high as a kite or totally wasted.

It wasn't even midnight yet.

Rolling my eyes from the inside of my mask, I scoffed as I passed through them. Some of these girls were dressed as a team of playboy rabbits, and I could see some guys that had followed their example. Even I had to admit that it was rather funny, but my pride wouldn't let me. However, I did notice when all of them stopped talking and instead just simply looked at the giant superman next to me.

"Jesus Christ..." I heard one of the bunny girls say under her breath. "Laurie, look at this dude! He looks like actual Superman, and he's built like him too! Like Henry Cavill but hotter and bigger! And blonde!" she instantly poked one of her friends, who was staring at Luke with no response. Her friend had to snap her fingers in front of her face to get a reaction from her. Almost all of them proceeded to come closer to us, immediately asking for the giant's name. On the other hand, the guys seemed a bit more apprehensive and cautious to come closer to Luke and his hulking presence, but I didn't blame them. They'd never grow as big and tall and handsome as him, and maybe in a subconscious level, they knew it.

Oddly, Luke didn't seem to take pride in the attention he was getting by the girls. Some of the braver ones had started feeling his massive biceps and forearms, and the sight was hilarious, as most girls were eye-level with his brick-like abs. Instead of letting them feel the indestructible mass and size of his muscles, he just grunted at them to let go, quickly walking next to me.

"I think I just came," one of the braver girls said to her friend next to her, not realizing that all of us could hear her.

"Hmm... that was interesting. Didn't know that you didn't like girls feeling you up," I hummed and and as a response, Luke gave me a small bump with his fist. The force was so strong that I found myself flying one or two feet off the ground, before landing unceremoniously on the ground. I spent a few seconds there, taking in what just happened.

"Shit! Oh my god, Jason, I'm so sorry! I- I didn't mean it to be so strong! What the fuck! How did-," Luke appeared next to me in an instant and gently swiped me off the ground like I weighed less than a feather. His arms could be classified as colossal now, and the same could be said for the rest of the body. The suit was not handling his increasing size well, and the maneuver of lifting me in the air had already caused tiny rips and holes to form above his biceps.

In my dazed state, random thoughts swam through my mind, including the plan for the syringes, the virus, and what else had it given him other than insane strength and supernatural growth. Powers, perhaps? Could that even be biologically possible? I had heard of some viral species that science was just starting to understand their capabilities, and more importantly, their applications. Could that be what was happening here?

"Nice job breaking it, hero," I mumbled as I hopped back to the ground, still wobbly from the hit. That bump was meant as a joke, but it really felt like a train had just hit me. Unreal.

...Unfair.

Before Luke was able to apologize again, I felt a small hand on my shoulder, a far different sensation than Luke's giant paw that could engulf my neck with ease. I turned around to see Jess, dressed as Scooby-Doo for some unholy reason. She had done a great job with her costume, a balanced combination of funny and sexy at the same time. She seemed ready to smite some hearts. I expected to see a smile on her beautiful face, but all I saw was a worried frown. "Are you okay?" she said as she ushered me inside the dorm. "Your man needs to learn some manners. You can't just throw your lover around like a toy! Only in the bedroom, and even then you gotta ask first," she winked with a knowing smile.

"Jess, for the hundredth time, we are NOT dating! Get it through that thick skull of yours! Luke is obviously straight or something. Why would he ever look at me in that way?" I scoffed again as she guided me in the open rooms of the extensive complex, meant to house students who wanted to 'relax' by drinking their livers and smoking their lungs away.

The place was packed. Loud techno music played all around us, making it hard to hear or listen to each other. In some corners, students dressed in the most bizarre costumes played beer pong and other drinking games, while in the middle of the room, a mass of people were dancing together to the beat. A thick smog of weed was held above our hands, and the smell tingled my nose. Jess proceeded to drag me in one of the beer pong games, immediately placing a beer on my hands. "I THINK YOU NEED TO OBSERVE LUKE'S BEHAVIOR WHEN HE'S AROUND YOU!" she screamed next to my ear, but the music was so loud that I could only hear static.

"WHAT?" I screamed back, which caused Jess to burst out laughing.

"I THINK YOU'RE BLIND, JASON! LOOK AT THE SIGNS DUDE!" she shouted again, and this time I managed to hear something.

Look at the signs.

Jess was right. I should look more closely at Luke's evolving body. Research notes just didn't cut it anymore, and if I wanted to find answers, I needed to step up my game.

"THANKS JESS! YOU'RE A SAINT!" I yelled, and she gave me a victorious high-five.

The next three hours passed with drinking, throwing ping-pong balls at unsuspecting first years and generally having a good time. The alcohol had made it far easier to forget about my own troubles and insecurities, and I was able to let out my charm, even managing to talk to some very cute guys who seemed quite interested in me. Jess had disappeared somewhere, saying that she wanted to get something for a friend, and Luke was nowhere to be seen as well. I'd know, because by now he was easily the tallest and biggest guy in every room he entered. The few times I saw him, he almost seemed bored out of his mind and maybe a little bit sad, sitting on the ground and waiting for something to happen. Of course, all eyes in the room would instantly be attracted to him like magnets, but he didn't seem to care. Plenty of girls would take the opportunity to strike up a conversation with him, but Luke didn't reciprocate anything, simply answering with a 'yeah' or 'nah' most of the time.

There was only one notable event that happened during the night. Luke must had decided to take a sip at the lemon punch stationed in the middle of the drinks table. It looked as if he was testing something, but it wasn't until the cold liquid touched his lips that it happened.

I saw it before anyone else did. Living with him for a month had made me adept in all kinds of noises throughout our small apartment.

Luke was going to sneeze.

It took longer than I imagined. His lungs had probably increased in size as well, because it took more than ten seconds for the thunderous roar to befall down to us mortals. In fact, his sneeze was so loud that it practically made the ear-deafening techno music sound like a lullaby. Several expensive bottles also got blown away by the strength of just one of his sneezes, and I could hear someone screaming 'NOOOOOOOO!' as the bottles hit the wooden floor and smashed into bits and pieces.

I was quite drunk by that time, and so was everyone else, as they all shouted 'Gesundheit!" to him and laughed their asses off. 

I would have laughed as well, if I hadn't seen traces of a crimson smoke float around the room, all of them escaping from Luke's mouth.

Even with the alcohol creating a haunting fog inside my mind, I knew.

Dear god, this is too much to bear.

.

.

.

It wasn't until after 2 AM that he sought me out and asked to leave. "I don't know what's happening. I literally drank two BOTTLES of vodka and I don't feel anything! What the hell is wrong with my metabolism? What the hell is wrong with... me?" Luke rambled as he gently placed his big arm around me. It was so heavy and took so much space, but I was piss drunk by that point, and everything felt hazy and funny. I wasn't really paying any attention to Luke or his complains. Someone like him didn't have the right to whine about anything.

"Where's Scooby?" I said and Luke stopped to look at me, squinting his eyes.

"You mean that Jess girl you always hang around with?" he mumbled and his face dropped. "Do you like her?" he then asked me, and even in that drunk state, I could still hear the fear in his voice.

"Oh, sure! She's so cool and smart... Zoinks, scoob! Why do you care?" I laughed and let my head fall in his sculpted obliques. I still had trouble believing that the guy next to me was just 20 years old. He gave the vibe of an actual god among men, similar to how Superman must had felt when he walked around Metropolis.

"No reason," he responded and with that, the rest of the walk back to our apartment was filled with a gracious silence. Luke seemed to have lost interest in our conversation, and so had I.

As we approached the entrance of our apartment, now equipped with a brand new door, I scrambled to find my keys. The alcohol had made me sleepy, my insomnia drowning in the warm embrace of the liquor that was being metabolized in my body. Luke was standing in front of me like a bodyguard, his body wide enough to completely hide me away. That touched almost all my buttons, and thanks to the alcohol, I was brave enough to take a tiny peek on the lower half of his body.

I didn't know if it was the superman costume or just Luke himself, but the enormous bulge sitting just a few inches below my eyes made the blood freeze in my veins. The hottest thing was that it looked completely flaccid. I couldn't imagine how big it would be when he actually got hard.

It took a few moments to register that something else and foreign was on my field of vision. Right on the side of our new door was a small cardboard package with a note sticking out of it. Luke had become so tall and so gargantuan, that he simply couldn't see it. Maybe the mountains he called pecs blocked his vision, I don't know.

Finally finding the keys and unlocking the door, I waited Luke to duck through and into the apartment before subtly grabbing the package and stepping back to my room.

The note was brand new, but the cupboard appeared to be rather old. My eyes instantly read through the entire message.

'Jason. I don't know what why you want these, but I hope you know what you're doing. -J'

Inside the package were three syringes, all empty and sterilized. The package also contained some antiseptic hand gel and a towel, along with a set of instructions on how to prevent infection from a needle.

If Jess wasn't my guardian angel, then I didn't know what she was. 

Unfortunately for me, the moment I sat in my bed, I instantly fell asleep, the warm sensation in my belly easing me into a deep slumber. It wasn't until 7 AM that I shot up and run to the bathroom to empty the contents of my stomach, the consequences from losing too many beer pong games from yesterday.

However, when the room stopped shaking and reality took hold again, I was reminded of what I had to do.

Taking the syringes from my room, I slowly tiptoed to Luke's bedroom. He never locked the door, and I silently thanked him for putting so much trust on his roommate. All feelings of guilt of what I was about to do were minuscule compared to the intoxicating sensation of adrenaline and power coursing through me.

His room stank of sex, even though I had never heard anyone else entering our apartment in all these sleepless nights. I had heard Luke leaving in the middle of the night, but that didn't explain why everything smelled of pheromones and sweat.

I slowly approached his sleeping figure. His feet stuck several inches out of the 6' frame of the bed, and I almost felt sorry for him, having to sleep like that every day. Moreover, the entire bed was struggling to support his weight, and I could already see some splinters forming at the base, the wood being compressed by the titanic mass sitting above it.

After checking that he was still sleeping, I tried to force one of his forearms into a downward set. It was something that proved almost impossible, the weight of his arm being too heavy for me to place in a suitable position.

Screw it. I'll just stab one of his veins.

With an unnatural glee, I picked up the first syringe and aligned it with the biggest vein I could find. Its thickness was far bigger than that of a pencil, and that was going to be an advantage.

I pressed in and then I heard it.

Crack.

The needle of the syringe had snapped in half.

I stared at it in shock. His skin was tougher than the freaking needle. I couldn't believe it.

I tried a second time.

Crack.

Needless to say, I started panicking. How the hell was I supposed to draw out his blood if I couldn't penetrate his skin? And why was his skin becoming so strong?! Was there a hardware store anywhere around where I could buy an axe or a chainsaw? I was getting desperate, the entire plan rested on me getting Luke's blood and I couldn't even do that!

No, no. Calm down. Try one more time.

With trembling hands, I raised the antiseptic gel and applied a copious amount of it on Luke's arm. The scent of lemons seemed to calm me down, reminding me of spring and nature. I went through the movements mechanically, letting my mind take control of the situation.

The third time, the needle went straight through Luke's skin. I almost cried from happiness.

As I drew some millimeters of blood out of Luke, I allowed the exquisite sensation of victory engulf me.

I had done it. My chance laid inside the crimson liquid, swimming through the blood platelets and white blood cells. There was nowhere to run now, nothing could stop me from achieving the ultimate goal.

A sudden stir in my stomach caused me to get the syringe out of sight. Something massive was poking me, and from Luke's increasing sighs, I could already imagine what it was. "Jason..." he sighed and the massive wrench got bigger.

He was having a wet dream and the monster had been unleashed.

Shit. Does he know I'm here? I have to get out of this room.

But I couldn't help but stare at the giant piece of meat that was slowly getting fuller, engorging to its full size.

Even under his blanket, I could see how long and thick it was. Far longer than the ruler in my room that stopped at eight inches. Thicker than my wrist, far thicker. His dick was massive, just like the rest of him. I doubted even the most experienced women would be able to handle this giant salami. It'd tear them apart. Nevemind an ass. 

Seeing that, my heart wavered. Lust had awakened something primal inside me and for just a moment, I thought that there was a way for me to get together with Luke. He looked like a sleeping angel, at least his face was that of one. His body was a machine of steel-like muscles and his enormous dick was designed to bring an experience of extreme pain and pleasure. Yes, I'd do anything to be with him.

And that meant becoming a star. I wanted to shine the brightest, just like him. I wanted to be the most special of them all.

That's when I finally, finally noticed.

I knew the whole time, but I was blinding myself with dreams of power and domination, of love that wouldn't be reciprocated. It was Luke who was becoming a star, not me. Luke had so many things that I didn't have. I'd never experience the miracle of his growth, his beauty, his authority of a true alpha that would dominate even the biggest and baddest guys in the country.

Luke was the star. Not me. I was simply the black, muddy shadow cast by the star's light. I was too polluted, too corrupted by the darkness in my soul.

If I stayed with him... I couldn't shine like him.

We couldn't get together. Never. And that broke something inside me.

With that revelation, the fluffy pink was devoured by the slithering green, and the acrid envy spoke to me from within the deepest crevices of my dark world.

What do you desire?

I answered without hesitation.

In place of the strong, big, beautiful Luke...

In his place, I will become a star.

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28 minutes ago, cregssatx said:

Philosopher, this story is great.  Loving the psychological aspect!

Thanks! I'm trying to really hard to show Jason's descent into bitterness and envy in front of the god that Luke's transforming into. After all, he's a human. And I think not being able to experience the power that Luke holds over, well, everybody, is enough for his selfish nature to win over his love.

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The plot thickens...

Chapter 7

November passed in the blink of an eye, and December swiftly followed its lead.

From the day I acquired Luke's blood, I had lost semblance of time. All days and nights were spent doing research on how to isolate a virus from the blood cells of a patient. Countless hours were spent singing up for voluntary laboratory practicals, desperately trying to familiarize myself with the concept of viral isolation in a lab that was meant for basic to advanced experiments.

What I was trying to do went far above and beyond my advanced classes. Reproducing the method I had memorized from the internet would take all the time I had, and I didn't care. I had to complete this task, this herculean labor, no matter what happened to my mind, my body and my sanity. Four simple steps. Isolation, Culture and Identification. I had successfully completed everything at the start of December but I hadn't allowed my self to celebrate, as now only one step remained.

Replication.

To my horror, I had soon realized that replicating the virus from Luke's blood was something that my current labs couldn't follow through. It made sense, after all I was a mere undergraduate. There were ways to access one of the more professional and cutting-edge laboratories in the medical campus, but first I had to find a suitable contact to let me through security. What I was doing was highly illegal, but my morality was something I wasn't really concerned with during these days.

I had recruited Jess as my own lab partner under the pretense that I was doing some research for one of my classes. She had proved to be extremely proficient at going through the complex steps of isolating the virus, a fact that shocked me since her degree wasn't in virology but medicinal engineering. She didn't seem to want to answer my questions however, and I didn't try to pry them out of her. She was the only person I trusted, as my paranoia had shot through the roofs after the incident. 

Moreover, despite my decreasing grip on reality itself, I could still see that the campus itself was changing as the days trickled on.

It started after the halloween party. An increasing number of students started going to the local gym and spent their whole day there lifting weighs and doing exercises with no specific goal in mind. In the compulsory classes I had to take, a worrying majority of my classmates were beginning to fill out their clothes with hard, dense muscle. It was as if someone had started putting steroids in the water, the changes were that sudden and abnormal. Normally, I wouldn't have a reason to worry, but this effect wasn't localized on just one person. It was happening everywhere, yet nobody seemed to notice their own changing bodies. The effect was less pronounced on the girls of my classes, but it still was there, mocking me every time I caught a glimpse of a moving bicep, or the roll of someone's washboard abs. I had noticed that some of the guys were beginning to grow taller as well, and they seemed to build muscle far faster than the girls.

That had been the moment when everything clicked together.

What does a virus do best? Infect. And Luke had infected everyone in the halloween party by sneezing over the drinks, all in a room with no ventilation and filled with partying teenagers, the perfect target for a virus to enter our bodies and infect us. It was basic biology... with one simple exception.

Why had I not been infected as well?

I was practically living with Patient Zero in a cramped apartment. Surely, some whiff of the virus should have came into contact with me then, right? And even if the stars had aligned for me to not be infected in the apartment, then what about the party? I was there, right in the center of the room.

I concluded that this had to be a prank spanning the entire universe, directly applied to me. I was the one who wanted Luke's gifts the most, but I was the only one who was incapable of getting infected. Logic didn't have an answer for this maddening enigma, and neither did science. I could only assume that I had won some kind of supernatural lottery and I was in fact immune to Inferno, but what were the chances that an immune person would work at the same lab where the virus was engineered?

I mean, come on. If this was some sick kind of joke played by the unimaginable forces of our world, then there was nothing I could do. I was the unchosen one, rejected by the gift that Inferno gave to its hosts, left to sit on the sideways and observe as everyone outgrew me. I could very well admit defeat and let this tale play on and become a casual nobody, vanishing in the background. I'd be a mere witness as the entire population got bigger and faster and stronger, until I was the only one left, a mere fragment of what humanity once was.

Or...

Or I could screw destiny.

If I wasn't chosen to become a star, then I'd make one myself. If I wasn't special, I'd become extraordinary with the help of my own power, however tiny and feeble it may be. Luke might have had his strength served to him on a silver platter, but I would forge my own path to glory. My determination was twisted and my goals turned darker and darker, but nothing mattered to me anymore. I'd never stop trying.

.

.

.

It's 7 PM, and I rush back to the apartment to have dinner with Luke. He always insists on eating with me, to 'see that I'm actually consuming calories' as he says. I don't care what he thinks, I eat the food he serves and I wipe my plate clean. I care more about the time I waste when I eat, so I have correctly calculate that if I finish in twenty minutes, I'll still have enough time to go to the library and spend the night there on the medicine sector.

However, I have to admit that Luke is a fantastic cook. The way he handles raw foods like vegetables and meat is a sight to behold. He expertly cuts the veggies in squares or lines, spices up the meat to make it your mouth water, and does his best for the food to taste delicious. "My family has a farm, and I've spent all my life there. I learned a thing or two about cooking," he had explained when I asked him about his expertise. I was so smitten back then. He was a massive, hulking beast of a man and he knew how to cook?! What else did he hide in his sleeves? How would he react on a night with me, wine and some delicious, homemade pizza? I'd do anything to spend a week in his ranch with his family and get to know everyone. He'd show me all the sweet and secret spots, and then maybe he'd make sweet love to me under a tree in the middle of a hot, summer afternoon.

That was back then.

Now I stare at the steaming meal in front of me with slight disgust. It's a balanced proportion of carrots, spinach and broccoli, while the other half is divided between roasted chicken and some baked potatoes, coated with a thin sauce. It looks and smells delicious, but it matters little to me.

As I plunge the fork in my mouth and taste the juices of the meat, I feel my eyes moisten up. It still tastes like ash. The texture is there, but the flavor is absent, as if I'm eating paper. I haven't regained my sense of taste since the explosion, and as time went on, I had began to doubt I'd ever be able to taste anything again. Research on the matter had informed me that it was most likely psycho-physiological, the cause being the trauma from the accident at Astral Arc. A waste of my time, I know.

I could have spent that day researching on the successful applications of viral replication on human tissue instead.

Luke looks at me with his usual expression, a mixture of confusion, fear and mild hope. He always looks at me like that these days. My black eyes meet his emerald ones, and I stare at him with no emotion showing on my face. I can't help but see how more beautiful he's becoming. Any tiny percentages of fat in his face have evaporated, showing of all the angles in his face. It's a living work of art with plum red lips that must feel like velvet pillows, piercing green eyes that stare deep into your soul and symmetry that doesn't belong to your average human being.

But were once mindless infatuation would flood me with its overpowering urge to jump to Luke's godlike body and melt into him, now stood a vast, cold emptiness. Even though he still couldn't see it, Luke was shedding his humanity, bit by bit. He was turning into something greater, just as the designers of the Inferno Virus had intended.

I guess you could say that I was also losing my humanity, but for entirely different reasons. 

I don't flinch when he moves closer to my face. I don't do that anymore. He studies me for a few silent minutes, and then he forces an enormous hand on my forehead, easily engulfing it with one palm. "You're burning up," he says with his deep, rumbling voice that makes my body shiver. "You should see a doctor." Is he serious right now? He should be the one seeing a doctor, not me. He's the one who's infected with a modified virus, not me. He's the one getting stronger with each passing second.

Not me.

"Sure," I reply with a sly smile. Obviously, I'd never follow his advice. He knew nothing about me, and I wanted to keep it that way. Luke was huge and powerful and made of unyielding iron, but he was oblivious. I had kept the leftovers of the syringe inside the fridge, hidden behind a stack of lemon tarts, and he had never suspected a thing. Besides, most of his blood had been used for my own amateurish experiments and his skin was so strong now that a syringe wasn't sharp enough to pierce it.

I had tried several times.

I place my hand on my forehead and I can see that he's right. I'm indeed burning up. Must be all the time spent in the labs or in front of my laptop's screen.

"Why do you care anyways?" I suddenly blurt out, and I instantly regret it. I was planning on distancing myself from him, from everyone, until I had fulfilled my desires. I hadn't called my parents for weeks now, Jess was the only person I kept talking to, and every other person had blurred into a faceless static. Nothing mattered until I was ready. Everything was a distraction until I had replicated Inferno.

"Why... why do I care? I don't know Jason. Maybe that's what friends do?" Luke shouts with a raised voice, loud enough to ring my ears and shake the plates in the table. This time I flinch, but it's not out of my feelings towards him, but from the shockwave that his throat managed to produce. Luke continues. "All these days, all these weeks, you haven't said more than a few words to me! I have no idea why you're pushing me away, and I don't want that!" he clinches his fist and slams it down the wooden table. The entire structure is instantly pulverized under the immense force that just hit it, and it suddenly caves to his side, bringing down all the food along with the cutlery. Luke stares in shock at what he has just done, and what I do next surprises me.

I start to laugh. At first, it was a small, knowing chuckle which was soon twisted into a loud, maniacal laughing fit. I let it all out. I was nearing my breaking point, and the mask I had put for Luke was cracking. If I couldn't have this in front of him, then I'd probably try to do something truly unforgivable to some unsuspecting soul. Luke's expression turned from shock to confusion, and then slight fear. I didn't know if he was afraid of his own power or little old me, but the sight satisfied something deep inside me.

If Luke was capable of being afraid, then I still had time.

And time was all I needed.

At that moment, several things happened at the same time. First, a seething white sensation came from my left eye, causing me to stop my mad laughing and instead grab my head in excruciating pain. I hadn't felt anything like it before, it was like someone was putting a knife in my eye socket and twisting it. Luke shook of his shock and fear and instantly stood up to his full height, a towering 6'6 that almost touched the wide ceiling of the kitchen. He started moving towards me, shoving away the ruined table with a push and causing it to burst into the nearby wall, but I held my hand.

"No." I wasn't going to let him help me. My pride wouldn't allow that. I don't think my own, trembling sanity would be able to handle that either. The pain was thankfully going away, but the haunting sensation of the invisible knife still remained in my eye.

My phone started ringing in my lab coat, which I thankfully was still wearing, and taking advantage of the situation, I start running to the bathroom, locking it in the progress. I don't want Luke to follow me here, even though I know that the lock would never stand a chance against him.

The counter is a mess, and so I shove everything away, shampoo bottles, soap bars, even a box of XXXL condoms that I just notice. It's completely full, and as it falls into the bathroom's floor, several condoms fly out of it. Each one looks like a bracelet that I could put in my wrist.

My phone is still ringing, and so I pick it up, already feeling a migraine form in my skull. God, my eye hurts so bad.

"Jason?! It-It's Jess! Can you hear me?" I recognize a familiar voice from the other side of the line. She sounds excited, ecstatic even.

"Yes, yes! What is it? Did something happen to the samples?" I mutter back, not paying attention to the conversation. There's something seriously wrong with my eye.

"I did it! I did it Jason! I replicated the virus in some E.coli bacteria! They're cooking in the incubator right as we speak!" see says with so much happiness in her voice. "You need to come here right now! Oh my god, this is the first time I've done it! Jason?" she asks, but I don't listen.

I stare in the mirror, and a stranger stares back. A pale little boy trying to pick up a fight with destiny itself. A nobody who's way over his head. A mortal possessing nothing.

A human with a midnight black eye on the right side of his unassuming face.

And one cold, monotonic grey color on his left.

The phone slips off my hands, and I hear Jess shout my name one more time. 

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