Chapter 15: The Frontrunner

The return to campus felt different this time. Not triumphant, exactly, but settled. Violet guided her mobility scooter up the familiar brick walkway toward the Chi Omega house, its motor emitting a low, steady hum that had become as natural to her as breathing. The scooter’s rear basket and the small trailer she’d rigged behind it were piled with her belongings—mostly just loose, stretchy clothes and her pill organizer. She didn’t need textbooks anymore.

Moving in was a simple matter of parking in the ground-floor room they’d converted for her sophomore year. The doorway was extra-wide, the bed a reinforced platform. She didn’t have to haul boxes up stairs or argue over closet space. Her world had contracted to a series of accessible points: bed, bathroom, scooter, kitchen. This was just another point.

A quiet satisfaction hummed underneath the pharmaceutical fog, a feeling she couldn’t quite name. It wasn’t happiness. It was more like the absence of a particular kind of fear. The summer at Aether Dynamics had been its own kind of hell, but it had concluded with a formal letter on crisp company stationware. A return offer for a full-time position in their “Sustainability Logistics Division,” effective upon graduation. The letter was in her bag, folded neatly inside a protective plastic sleeve. It meant something concrete. It meant that after all this, there was a designated place for her in the world, a function she was already trained to perform. The system had provided an exit ramp that led directly back into itself.

Hannah found her there an hour later, still sitting on the scooter in the middle of the room, just looking at the walls.

“There you are,” Hannah said, her voice warm as always. She leaned against the doorframe, holding two mugs of tea. She handed one to Violet. “Welcome home, sweetie. How was the drive?”

“Fine,” Violet said, taking the mug. The warmth seeped into her palms. “Mom dropped me at the curb.”

“Of course.” Hannah smiled, her eyes doing that quick, assessing sweep they always did—checking Violet’s color, her breathing, the way she filled the scooter seat. “I heard back from the internship coordinator. A return offer! That’s fantastic news, Violet. Really.”

Violet nodded slowly, sipping the tea. It was sweetened with honey, just how she liked it. Hannah remembered things like that.

“It’s a relief,” Violet admitted, the words feeling strange in her mouth. Relief wasn’t something she’d associated with her future in a long time.

“It’s more than a relief,” Hannah corrected gently, stepping into the room. “It’s security. It means we planned correctly.” She set her own mug on the dresser and clasped her hands in front of her, adopting a more official tone. “And it aligns perfectly with the other developments. I spoke with Dean Whittaker’s office last week.”

Violet looked up from her tea.

“Your academic standing has been… adjusted,” Hannah continued, choosing the word with care. “Given your demonstrated commitment to university traditions and your upcoming professional placement, the administration has agreed to ensure your graduation requirements are met satisfactorily.”

A long silence stretched out. The hum of the scooter’s battery charger was the only sound.

“They’re going to fix my grades?” Violet finally asked, though she already knew the answer.

“They’re going to ensure you graduate,” Hannah said, her smile turning benevolent. “All those tedious communications classes you struggled with last semester? They’ll reflect passing marks. You’ve earned it, Violet. You’ve contributed more to this school’s legacy in three years than most students do in four.”

Violet took another sip of tea. The sweetness coated her throat. So that was that. No more pretense of academics. No more panic over failing participation or blanking on exams. The path was cleared now, paved and smoothed by the very system that had broken her ability to walk it on her own. The feeling underneath the fog intensified—a heavy, undeniable sense of finality.

“Okay,” she said.

“Good.” Hannah’s posture relaxed. “Now, we have one more piece of business today. The official start-of-term weigh-in.”

They used the industrial scale in the basement laundry room, the same one they’d rolled out for her since she’d passed three hundred pounds and shattered the bathroom scale. Two of the senior sisters—Megan and Chloe—were already there, waiting beside the large, flat platform scale that looked like it belonged in a veterinary clinic.

The process was routine now. Violet powered down her scooter beside it. Megan and Chloe moved to either side of her, offering their arms for balance not out of courtesy but necessity. With their support and a great deal of strained grunting from all three, Violet managed the slow, precarious pivot from the scooter seat onto the scale’s platform.

The digital numbers on the display flickered wildly for a moment before locking in.

623.

A soft murmur went through the room. Megan let out a low whistle.

Violet stared at the number. Six hundred and twenty-three pounds. She’d known she was bigger—the way her body now spilled over the sides of the scooter seat was proof enough—but seeing the figure made it factual. It was no longer just being fat; it was a specific metric, a quantifiable achievement.

Hannah beamed, clasping her hands together under her chin. “Oh, Violet,” she breathed, her voice full of genuine pride. “Look at that. Just look.”

The summer of corporate feeding had added more than just job security. It had added over a hundred pounds of ballast.

“That solidifies our lead,” Hannah said, pulling out a small leather-bound ledger from her sweater pocket. She made a neat notation with a gold pen. “Absolutely solidifies it.”

Violet let Megan and Chloe help her back onto the scooter, the movement sending a familiar ache through her hips and knees. She settled into the seat, its padding conforming to her shape.

“What about Carmen?” Violet asked suddenly, the name slipping out before she could think better of it. She remembered the medicalized room, the oxygen tubes, the hollow look in Carmen’s eyes.

Hannah’s expression shifted slightly, becoming professionally somber as she closed her ledger. “Carmen is no longer in the competition,” she said, her tone conveying respectful regret. “Phi Kappa made it official last week. She’s withdrawn from St. Ore entirely.”

The news landed with a dull thud in Violet’s gut.

“Her parents finally intervened,” Hannah continued, tucking the ledger away. “From what I understand, they’re seeking… intensive residential care.” She said it like Carmen had contracted a rare disease, not been inflated to the point of systemic failure by her own sisters.

Carmen was out. Gone. Decommissioned. The word from Aether Dynamics came back to her: asset. Carmen was no longer a viable asset.

“So it’s just Heidi,” Violet said, more to herself than to Hannah.

“It’s just Heidi,” Hannah confirmed, nodding. “And we have her latest numbers from Panhellenic Council.” A sly, confident smile touched her lips. “Four hundred and twelve pounds.”

The math was too simple to even think about. Six hundred twenty-three minus four hundred twelve. Two hundred and eleven pounds. More than two entire freshman Violets separated them.

Violet was quiet for a long moment, absorbing the new landscape of her final year. One rival left, and that rival wasn’t even close. The competition, the frantic pressure that had defined every day for three years, was effectively over. She had won, or would win, by default of sheer mass. The title was hers. The special tassels, the honorifics at graduation— they were waiting for her at the end of this last, flat stretch of track.

Hannah placed a gentle hand on Violet’s shoulder, giving it a soft squeeze. “You’ve done it, Violet. You really have.” Her voice was thick with emotion. “All that’s left is to enjoy your victory.”

The number hung in the air between them. Two hundred and eleven pounds. It wasn’t a gap; it was a chasm. A geological feature. Heidi could spend the entire year gorging herself nonstop and she’d never close it. The competition was a formality now, a slow parade toward a foregone conclusion.

“The clear frontrunner,” Hannah said, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, though Megan and Chloe were still right there, smiling. “The title is yours, Violet. We just have to walk across the stage to collect it.”

Violet nodded slowly, her hands resting on the scooter’s controls. The leather felt smooth and cool under her palms. Frontrunner. The word had a weight to it, a solidity. It wasn’t about potential or effort anymore. It was a state of being. She was the frontrunner, the same way she was six hundred and twenty-three pounds. A fact of the environment.

“So what happens now?” Violet asked. The question felt necessary, though part of her already knew. Systems didn’t just stop when their primary objective was assured. They optimized.

Hannah’s smile widened, taking on a new, practical energy. “Now,” she said, gesturing for Megan and Chloe to clear the scale, “we implement the victory protocol. You’ve carried the burden for three years, Violet. You’ve endured the feedings, the pain, the scrutiny. Your senior year should be a reward. A celebration of your service.”

She led the way back upstairs, Violet following on the scooter with Megan and Chloe trailing behind like an honor guard. The common room had been arranged differently. The usual casual clusters of couches were pushed back against the walls. In the center of the room stood two neat rows of freshman girls—the new Chi Omega pledge class. They were all dressed in matching navy sweatshirts, their faces a mixture of nervous excitement and raw intimidation.

They fell silent as Violet entered, their eyes widening in unison as they took in the sight of her filling the doorway on the grey scooter, the machine’s quiet whir the only sound in the room. Their gazes traveled over the vast expanse of her body, the way her thighs spread over the seat, the sheer physical presence of her. A few looked quickly at the floor. One girl near the back actually took a small, involuntary step backward.

Hannah moved to stand beside Violet, placing herself between the scooter and the assembled pledges.

“Sisters,” Hannah began, her voice taking on the formal, carrying tone she used for house meetings. “This is Violet Sorren. Your sister. And your primary responsibility for this academic year.”

A ripple of confusion passed through the rows. Primary responsibility?

“Violet is our Pig Girl,” Hannah continued, as if that explained everything. And to them, it probably did. The legend would have been part of their rush, a dark fairy tale about tradition and honor. Seeing the living result was clearly something else entirely. “She has sacrificed more than any of you can currently understand to bring glory to Chi Omega. This year, she will be crowned champion. Your duty is to ensure her victory lap is flawless.”

Hannah turned slightly, addressing the pledges directly now, her gaze sweeping over them. “You will attend to her. Every need, every request. You will fetch her meals from the kitchen. You will keep her room clean and organized. You will assist with her personal care as required.” She paused, letting the words sink in. “If she has academic assignments—and she will have a light load—you will complete them for her, to her specifications. Your grades matter, of course. But her comfort, her contentment, and her continued progress are your highest priority. Is that understood?”

A muted chorus of “Yes, Hannah” echoed in the room. The pledges looked stunned, like they’d been told their new job was to care for a sleeping dragon.

“You will obey her instructions without question,” Hannah finished, her tone leaving no room for debate. “She speaks with my authority. Now,” she said, turning back to Violet with an encouraging nod. “They’re yours.”

All eyes shifted to Violet.

She sat frozen on the scooter, pinned by two dozen stares. This was different from being watched at a party or pointed at on campus. This was a directed, expectant attention. They were waiting for her to do something, to be something. The old Violet—the one from freshman year—would have flushed crimson, stammered an apology, tried to shrink away.

But that girl was buried under six hundred pounds of protocol and pharmaceutical management.

A strange calm settled over her. The hesitation didn’t vanish; it just became irrelevant. What was she supposed to do, tell them all to go away? That wasn’t an option in the system. Hannah had given an order. The machine required a response to continue its cycle.

Her mouth was dry. The tea had been sweet but not hydrating. A specific craving surfaced through the fog—something rich, something that would coat her throat and sit heavily in her already-full stomach. A punctuation mark for this moment.

She scanned the faces until her eyes landed on a pledge near the front. The girl had mousy brown hair pulled into a tight ponytail and wore glasses that kept slipping down her nose. She looked terrified.

Violet pointed a finger at her.

“You,” Violet said. Her voice came out quieter than she intended, a bit raspy from disuse. She cleared her throat and tried again. “Go to the kitchen. In the walk-in freezer, on the left side, there’s a box of chocolate peanut butter cup ice cream pints. Bring me one. And a soup spoon from the drawer by the dishwasher.”

The pledge blinked, as if processing a command in a foreign language.

“Now,” Violet added, not raising her voice, just letting the word sit there.

The girl jumped into motion, scrambling out of line and nearly tripping over her own feet in her hurry to get to the kitchen doorway.

A profound silence followed her exit. The other pledges watched, then slowly turned their gazes back to Violet, who remained perfectly still on her scooter. She could feel Hannah’s pleased smile beside her without having to look. This was the new system. Input: command. Output: compliance. She was no longer just the product being processed; she was now a node in the chain, a conduit for instructions. The power was an illusion, of course. It flowed from Hannah, from the tradition, from the very fact of her monstrous size. But the sensation of it was novel— a slight warming in her chest that had nothing to do with physical heat.

The pledge returned quickly, holding a frosty pint of ice cream in one hand and a large stainless steel soup spoon in the other. She approached Violet cautiously, as one might approach an unpredictable animal, and held them out.

Violet took them. The ice cream was cold enough to sting her fingers. She balanced the pint on her thigh, twisted off the lid, and dug the spoon into the frozen surface. It required some pressure. She carved out a large chunk, a dense wedge of chocolate ice cream swirled with peanut butter ribbons. She brought it to her mouth and ate.

The sweetness was immediate and profound, a shock to her palate that was mostly numb from endless bland corporate slop. The cold made her teeth ache for a second before the rich fat melted on her tongue. She took another spoonful, then another, eating there in the silent common room with everyone watching. The pledges observed this first, fundamental act of service: the retrieval, the presentation, the consumption. This was their purpose now. To facilitate this.

She ate about half the pint before the cold became too much for her sensitive teeth and the richness started to cloy in the back of her throat. She put the spoon inside the carton and held it out. The same mousy-haired pledge hurried forward to take it back, her movements less frantic now, more programmed.

“Put the rest in the freezer in my room,” Violet instructed. “Not the kitchen freezer. The mini-freezer next to my bed.” Another nod, another swift exit.

Hannah clapped her hands together once, a sharp sound that made several pledges flinch. “Excellent! You see? Simple. Direct.” She addressed the group again. “You will rotate on a schedule posted outside Violet’s door. Two of you will be on day duty, two on evening. You will report any issues directly to me or to Susan. Dismissed.”

The pledges scattered, their whispers starting up as soon as they were out of the common room, a hushed buzz of disbelief and anxiety.

Alone with Hannah again, Violet let out a long, slow breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. The ice cream sat in her stomach like a cold stone, already beginning its journey into mass.

“How did that feel?” Hannah asked, her voice soft again, maternal.

Violet thought about it. The command had felt awkward, like using a muscle she’d forgotten she had. But underneath that was something else— a grim kind of contentment. There were no more decisions about food, no more struggles over what to eat or when. There was only need and its fulfillment, managed through a staff. Her life was being streamlined for maximum efficiency, minimum resistance. It felt… easy.

“It felt okay,” Violet said quietly.

Hannah’s smile was beatific. “It’s going to be a wonderful year, Violet. Just you wait.”

The new system took shape with a quiet, relentless efficiency. Violet’s world, already small, became a perfectly serviced orbit.

The pledges operated on a color-coded chart Hannah had laminated and tacked to her door. Two girls in light blue Chi Omega t-shirts would appear in the morning with a breakfast tray: usually a blender full of a dense, calorie-packed shake—oatmeal, peanut butter, protein powder, heavy cream—and a plate of buttered toast or pastries. They’d wait politely outside her room until she buzzed them in with the wireless doorbell Susan had installed.

They learned her routines quickly. They knew to place the tray on the adjustable table that swung over her bed, and to leave a carafe of water and her morning pills beside it. They knew not to speak unless spoken to, which suited Violet fine. Their presence was functional, like parts of a silent machine.

After breakfast, the cleaning shift would arrive. Two different pledges, wearing rubber gloves. They’d strip her bed while she sat in her reinforced armchair, then remake it with fresh sheets. They’d wipe down surfaces, empty her trash bins overflowing with snack wrappers and empty pudding cups, and run a vacuum over the floor. One of them would even carefully wipe down the scooter’s seat and handles with a disinfectant cloth. They worked around her as if she were a piece of furniture, which in a way, she was—the room’s central, immovable fixture.

Her communications coursework was a joke, just a few online discussion posts and two short papers for the entire semester. Hannah had given the syllabus to a sharp-looking pledge named Fiona who was a journalism major. Fiona would come in the evenings with a laptop, pull up a chair next to Violet’s bed, and read the prompts aloud.

“This week’s topic is ‘The Ethics of Persuasive Media,’” Fiona would say, her voice carefully neutral. “We need three hundred words on how advertising frames consumer choice.”

Violet would stare at the ceiling, thinking about the Aether Dynamics cafeteria slush. “Write something about how choice is an illusion when the system only offers one viable path,” she’d mumble. “Or something. I don’t know.”

Fiona’s fingers would fly across the keyboard. “That’s good. That’s a strong thesis.” She’d type for a few minutes, then read back a paragraph that sounded nothing like Violet but used all the right academic words. “Is that acceptable?”

“Sure,” Violet would say, already losing interest, her hand reaching for the bag of caramel corn on her nightstand.

The service was seamless. Meals appeared without her ever smelling them cook. Trash vanished. Assignments completed themselves. Her only physical exertions were the slow transfer from bed to chair to scooter and back again, and even those were often assisted by a strong pledge offering an arm for balance. The system catered to her every lethargic impulse. It was like being in a waking coma where all your needs were met by silent, efficient ghosts.

She was in the hallway one afternoon, maneuvering her scooter back from the common bathroom—a journey that required navigating two doorways. The first was wide enough. The second, leading into the rear corridor where her room was, was tighter. Her scooter fit, but just barely, with maybe an inch of clearance on either side when she centered it perfectly.

She was lining up the approach when a pledge on cleaning duty—a tall, athletic girl with a blonde ponytail—saw her struggling. The girl hurried over.

“Let me help, Violet,” she said, positioning herself at the front right corner of the scooter. She placed her hands on the frame. “On three, I’ll lift and turn it a little. One, two…”

The girl grunted with effort, her muscles straining as she lifted the front of the heavy scooter just enough to pivot it slightly, giving Violet a better angle to glide straight through. It was a simple act of assistance, practical and minor.

From the shadowed entrance of the sunroom, Jecka watched.

She leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed over her chest. Her expression was utterly still, but her eyes burned with a pure, undiluted contempt that seemed to warp the air around her. She watched the pledge’s hands on her scooter—the scooter she’d championed getting for Violet as a tool for more efficient gain. She watched the pledge’s respectful, attentive posture. She watched Violet sitting there, passive and massive, accepting the help as her royal due.

Jecka didn’t say a word. She just watched until Violet had cleared the doorway and the pledge had scurried away with a nervous glance in her direction. Then she pushed off from the doorframe and melted back into the sunroom, a silent storm contained behind a flat, cold face.

The confrontation came two days later. Violet was in her room after lunch, propped up in bed with her laptop playing some endless streaming show she wasn’t really following. The door opened without a knock.

Jecka stepped inside and closed the door behind her with a soft but definitive click.

The room felt suddenly smaller, colder. Jecka didn’t approach the bed. She stood just inside the doorway, her posture rigid, her gaze sweeping over the room—the clean floors, the neat stacks of snacks on the dresser, the laptop playing mindlessly.

“Comfortable?” Jecka asked. Her voice was low and smooth, like oil over broken glass.

Violet muted the laptop. A familiar tension coiled in her gut, an old reflex that not even six hundred pounds could completely suppress. “What do you want, Jecka?”

“I want to understand,” Jecka said, taking one slow step forward. “I’m trying to make the logic compute.” She tapped a finger against her temple. “You. Giving orders. Having our sisters—my sisters—wait on you like scullery maids.”

“Hannah set it up,” Violet said, hearing the defensive thinness in her own voice.

“Hannah set up a system,” Jecka corrected, her eyes locking onto Violet’s. “She didn’t install your fucking voice box. ‘Go get me ice cream.’ ‘Clean my room.’ ‘Do my homework.’ I hear it all. The whole house hears it.”

Jecka took another step closer. The space between them crackled with a old, familiar hatred.

“Let me remind you of something,” Jecka hissed, her voice dropping even further. “You were nothing. A pathetic, friendless nerd who cried when we gave you extra pizza rolls. You were at the bottom. The absolute bottom of the pecking order. You still are.”

Violet’s face grew warm. “I’m winning the competition for you.”

“You’re fattening for us!” Jecka snapped, the control slipping for a second, revealing the raw fury beneath. “That’s your function! That’s your only function! You are a thing we feed! A project! You don’t get to command anyone! You don’t get to have attendants! You are the fucking attendant—to our legacy! You serve it!”

The words landed like physical blows, each one peeling back a layer of the grim contentment she’d been wrapped in. They were the same words from three years ago, but they carried the weight of everything that had happened since—the public humiliations, the force-feedings, the keg chugging, the pills.

“Hannah said—” Violet started weakly.

“I don’t care what Hannah said!” Jecka spat. “Hannah is managing an asset. She’s keeping the prize cow content so it keeps producing. But I remember what you are underneath all that blubber. I remember the weak little bitch who needed us to force-feed her to make her worthwhile.”

Jecka leaned in now, close enough for Violet to smell her perfume—something sharp and floral that clashed violently with the room’s smells of clean linen and snack food.

“You have no right,” Jecka whispered, each word precise and venomous. “No right to look at a sister of Chi Omega and give her an order. Ever. You hear me? This little fantasy ends now.”

She straightened up abruptly, her face smoothing back into its usual mask of cold disdain as if a switch had been flipped. “Enjoy your show, pig.” Then she turned and left, closing the door with that same soft, final click.

Violet sat frozen, the unmuted sounds of the streaming show suddenly loud and idiotic in the silent room. Her heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic bird trapped in a cage of fat and bone. The comfortable numbness of the past week evaporated, scoured away by Jecka’s acid contempt. The pledges, the service, the ease—it all felt like a borrowed costume now, one Jecka had just ripped off to show the ugly truth underneath. She was still just the Pig Girl. A thing to be fed. A project. Her hands trembled on the bedsheets. She reached for the bag of caramel corn, then stopped, her appetite gone, replaced by a cold, sick dread.

The next few days passed under a cloud. Violet withdrew, giving only monosyllabic orders to the pledges, jumping at every sound outside her door. She expected Jecka to storm back in, to escalate, to do something in front of everyone to shatter the new system. But nothing happened. Jecka was just… present. A glowering shadow at the edges of meals, a silent observer in the common room. The tension was a wire stretched taut, vibrating with a promise of violence.

It snapped on a Thursday night.

Violet slept fitfully these days, her sleep fractured by sleep apnea, acid reflux, and the constant pressure on her joints. She was in a thick, medicated doze sometime after two AM when a new pressure registered— not internal, but on her face.

Something hard and cold pressed against her lips, prying them apart. She gagged, her eyes flying open in the dark.

Jecka loomed over her bed. Moonlight from the window glinted off her eyes and off the plastic tube she was forcing into Violet’s mouth. It was wide, like a garden hose nozzle, and it tasted faintly of chemical lemon cleaner.

Violet tried to yell, to scream for Hannah or Susan or anyone, but the tube filled her mouth, pressing down on her tongue. The sound that came out was a muffled, wet gargle. She brought her hands up, flailing weakly to push Jecka away, but Jecka batted them aside with ease. Violet’s arms were heavy, unwieldy things, their strength sapped by years of disuse and layers of insulating fat. She couldn’t get leverage lying down. She tried to heave her body sideways, to roll away, but her own mass pinned her to the mattress. She was too big to struggle effectively; she could only writhe, a beached creature prodded by a cruel handler.

Jecka shoved the tube deeper until Violet choked. Then she connected something to its end with a soft click. A low mechanical whirring started up from somewhere on the floor beside the bed. A pump.

A thick, warm slush began flowing up the tube and into Violet’s mouth. It had no distinct taste— just a bland, slightly salty paste— but its texture was horrifying, a grainy liquid that forced its way down her throat. She tried to clamp her jaw shut, but Jecka held it open with one strong hand pinching Violet’s cheeks. She tried to turn her head, but Jecka held it in place.

“That’s it,” Jecka muttered, her face close to Violet’s in the dark. Her breath smelled of mint gum. “Open wide for your dinner, you fat pig.”

The mechanical whir was the loudest sound in the world. It was a steady, industrial rhythm that matched the pulse of the thick paste being pumped into Violet’s mouth. She couldn’t spit it out. She couldn’t swallow fast enough. The slush backed up in her throat, a cold, gritty flood that triggered her gag reflex over and over, but the tube blocked any real expulsion. It just forced the vomit back down, mixing with the new incoming paste in a brutal, choking cycle.

“Fat pig!” Jecka hissed, her face a mask of grim concentration as she held the tube in place. “Think you’re a queen now? Think you give orders?”

Violet’s eyes bulged. Her hands scrabbled uselessly at Jecka’s wrists, her nails leaving faint red lines but finding no purchase. Her legs kicked under the blankets, a feeble thrashing that only made the bed frame groan.

The pressure in her stomach began to build with terrifying speed. It wasn’t the slow, familiar ache of a large meal. This was an aggressive, invasive expansion, like a firehose filling a water balloon already at its limit. A sharp, stabbing pain lanced through her upper abdomen, just under her ribs.

“Stupid cunt!” Jecka snarled, adjusting her grip as Violet’s head jerked. “You’re just a bag of lard we filled up! A fucking science experiment! And you forgot your place!”

The pump whirred on. Violet could feel the slush traveling down her esophagus, a cold snake coiling into the furnace of her stomach. The organ, stretched and weakened from years of abuse, had no elasticity left. It could only distend so far before something gave way. The pain sharpened, crystallizing into a single, white-hot point of agony high in her gut. She made a desperate, guttural sound around the tube—a plea, a denial.

Jecka’s eyes gleamed in the low light. She saw the panic, the pain. It seemed to fuel her.

“You’re gonna pop,” she whispered, a horrifying smile touching her lips. “I’m gonna make you pop. Let’s see how your little attendants clean that up.”

With her free hand, Jecka reached down to the floor beside the bed. She came back up with a second tube, this one narrower but longer, its end slick with some kind of lubricant.

Violet saw it. Understanding crashed through the pain and panic, a wave of pure, animal terror. No. She tried to scream it, but the sound was just another wet choke behind the mouth-tube. She tried to clench her body, to roll onto her side, but Jecka was already yanking the blankets down and shoving her nightgown up around her waist.

The violation was swift and brutal. Jecka didn’t hesitate. The cold, slick tip pressed against her, then pushed inward with relentless force.

The pain was different—a sharp, tearing internal pressure that stole what little breath she had left. It wasn’t just the physical intrusion; it was the absolute defilement of it, the complete reduction of her body to a vessel being filled from both ends.

Jecka connected the second tube to another port on the feeding machine with another click.

The whirring noise seemed to double in intensity. Now the slush was pumping into her mouth and up into her colon simultaneously. A dual invasion. The pressure inside her became something beyond pain, beyond any sensation she had words for. It was a totality. Her entire digestive tract, from throat to rectum, was being forcibly packed with a dense, unyielding mass. Her stomach, already screaming in protest, now had nowhere for the incoming flood to go. The slush from below met the slush from above, trapping everything in the middle—in her middle.

Her abdomen began to distend visibly. It was always large, a solid dome, but now it started to tighten, to swell outward against the fabric of her nightgown with a frightening rapidity. The skin stretched taut, burning with the strain. She could feel every inch of her intestines cramping, trying and failing to process the impossible volume. The pressure mounted behind her navel, a solid wall of agony pushing against the fragile barrier of muscle and tissue. It felt like she was being inflated from the inside, like a tire pumped far beyond its rating. A high-pitched, keening whimper escaped around the mouth-tube.

Jecka watched the swelling with a clinical, fascinated horror. “Look at that,” she breathed. “Look at you stretch. Come on, pig. Give. Just give.”

Violet’s vision started to speckle with black dots. The pain was so immense it became its own universe, swallowing sound and sight and thought. There was only the whirring, the relentless inward flood, and the catastrophic pressure threatening to split her open along some unseen seam. A tear leaked from the corner of her eye, tracing a hot path down her temple into her hairline. Then another. She was crying silently, hopelessly, as her body approached its absolute mechanical limit.

I’m going to rupture, she thought, the idea clear and cold amidst the torment. My stomach is going to tear. Or my intestines. I’m going to pop.

The image was grotesquely specific: her skin splitting like overripe fruit, the contents of her gut spilling out onto the bed. It wasn’t a metaphor anymore. It was a physiological certainty looming seconds away. The pressure was a living thing now, a second heartbeat pounding against her walls from the inside.

A thud echoed from somewhere outside the room—a door slamming? A voice raised in question?

Jecka heard it too. Her head snapped toward the door, her concentration broken for a split second.

It was enough.

The bedroom door burst open, crashing against the wall. Light from the hallway flooded in, silhouetting three figures.

Susan stood in front, her face a mask of shock that quickly morphed into furious comprehension. Two other senior sisters—Megan and Chloe—were right behind her.

“JEKCA!” Susan screamed, the sound raw and ragged.

For a frozen moment, everyone stared at the scene: Violet pinned to the bed, bloated and weeping, tubes running from her mouth and under her nightgown to the humming machine on the floor, Jecka standing over her like a deranged mechanic.

Then Susan launched herself across the room.

She didn’t go for Jecka first. She went for the machine, yanking its power cord from the wall socket with such force that sparks flew from the outlet. The mechanical whir died instantly, replaced by a sudden, ringing silence that was somehow worse.

Jecka snarled, turning on Susan. “You stay out of this! This is discipline!”

“You’re killing her!” Megan shouted, rushing forward with Chloe.

Chaos erupted. Susan and Megan grabbed Jecka, pulling her back from the bed. Jecka fought them, all elbows and sharp nails, her rage giving her a feral strength. “She needs to remember! She needs to—” Chloe didn’t join the struggle. She went straight to Violet.

Her hands were shaking as she reached for the tube in Violet’s mouth. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she chanted, her voice thin with panic. She grabbed the tube where it met Violet’s lips and pulled. It resisted, suctioned in place by paste and panic. Violet gagged violently, her body convulsing. Chloe pulled harder, bracing herself. With a wet, sucking pop, the tube came free, trailing strands of viscous slush.

Violet drew in a huge, ragged gasp of air, immediately followed by a coughing fit that brought up globs of the paste. She couldn’t breathe through it. She was drowning on land.

Chloe didn’t pause. She moved to the other end of the bed, her face pale but set. She hesitated for only a second before reaching under Violet’s nightgown, finding the second tube, and yanking it out with one swift, brutal motion.

The relief of its removal was swamped by a fresh wave of cramping agony as air and fluid shifted inside her. Violet curled onto her side as much as her distended belly would allow, retching dryly, her whole body shuddering with traumatic shock.

Across the room, Susan and Megan had wrestled Jecka against the wall. Jecca was still spitting curses, her hair wild, her eyes insane. “Look at her! She was fine! She could have taken more!” “You psychotic bitch!” Susan yelled back, slamming Jecka’s shoulder into the wall for emphasis. “Go get Hannah! NOW!” The last word was a shriek directed at Megan, who released Jecka and ran from the room.

Alone with Jecka, Susan kept her pinned, her own breath coming in furious pants. “What is wrong with you?” she demanded, her voice dropping to a venomous whisper. “What is actually fucking wrong with you?”

Jecka stopped struggling. She went limp against Susan’s hold, her head lolling back against the wall. She stared at the ceiling, her chest heaving. She didn’t answer.

On the bed, Violet sobbed. Great, wracking sobs that shook her entire frame, each one sending new knives of pain through her overstuffed core. She cried from the pain, from the terror, from the utter violation. She cried because for one long minute, she had felt her body preparing to come apart at the seams, and the memory of that sensation was now etched into her nerves forever. Another minute. Maybe less. That was all it would have taken. The pressure would have found a weak point—a thin spot in her stomach wall, a strained section of intestine—and burst through. She would have popped.

Hannah arrived moments later, wrapped in a silk robe, her face still soft with sleep but hardening rapidly as she took in the scene: Violet sobbing and retching on the bed, Chloe trying to comfort her while avoiding touching her painfully swollen stomach; Susan pinning a vacant-eyed Jecka to the wall; the unplugged feeding machine on the floor with its sinister tubes coiled beside it like dead snakes.

Hannah’s gaze swept over it all once, then fixed on Jecka. Her expression didn’t show anger. It showed a deep, profound disappointment, as if a reliable tool had suddenly malfunctioned in a dangerous way.

“Let her go, Susan,” Hannah said quietly.

Susan released Jecka warily, stepping back but staying between Jecka and the bed.

Jecka straightened her shirt, not looking at anyone.

“Explain,” Hannah said. Just one word.

Jecka lifted her chin. “She was getting arrogant. Forgetting what she is. I reminded her.”

Hannah closed her eyes for a brief second, pinching the bridge of her nose. When she opened them, they were cold and decisive. “You jeopardized the asset,” she stated flatly. “You risked four years of work, our lead, our title, over a personal grudge.”

“She’s not an asset, she’s a pig who needs to know her place!” Jecka shot back, some fire returning to her voice.

“Her place,” Hannah said slowly, stepping closer to Jecka until they were inches apart, “is at six hundred and twenty-three pounds and growing. Her place is on that stage in May wearing our tassels. Her place is not ruptured on a bed because you wanted to play torturer.” Her voice never rose above a calm, icy register. “You are suspended from all Pig Girl related activities. Effective immediately. You will not go near her room. You will not speak to her. You will not so much as look at her during feedings. Is that understood?”

Jecka’s jaw worked silently. Rage and humiliation warred on her face. Finally, she gave one sharp nod.

“Good,” Hannah said. “Now get out.”

Jecca turned and stalked from the room without another glance at anyone.

Hannah watched her go before turning her attention to Violet. The disappointment vanished, replaced by focused concern. She moved to the bedside, placing a cool hand on Violet’s damp forehead. “Shhh, shhh now. It’s over.” Her voice was all maternal warmth again, a jarring shift after the ice of moments before. “Chloe, go to my bathroom. In the medicine cabinet, bring me the bottle of simethicone drops and the strong antispasmodics. Susan, we need warm towels. Not hot, warm. And call campus security for an escort to the clinic. Tell them it’s severe abdominal distress for a bariatric patient. Don’t mention anything else.”

They jumped to obey, relieved to have clear instructions in the chaos.

Hannah smoothed Violet’s hair back from her face. Violet was still crying, the sobs subsiding into hiccupping shudders. Her stomach was a monstrous, tight drum under her nightgown, visibly pulsating with each ragged breath. It looked obscene, pregnant with trauma instead of life.

“You’re alright,” Hannah murmured, though they both knew it wasn't true. “You’re safe now. We won’t let that happen again.”

Violet stared up at Hannah through tear-blurred eyes. Safe? The word meant nothing. There was no safe. There were only degrees of danger, different kinds of filling. The system had almost consumed itself tonight, almost destroyed its prize product in a fit of pique. But Hannah was here now, correcting the error, re-establishing control. The machine was back online.

As Susan returned with towels and Chloe with pills, as Hannah gently coaxed drops into Violet’s mouth and arranged warm cloths on her agonized belly, Violet lay perfectly still. The crying stopped. A hollow numbness seeped in where the terror had been. She stared at the ceiling where Jecka had stared, seeing nothing.

Another minute and she would have popped. The system had saved her just in time— not out of mercy, but to preserve its investment. She was alive because she still had utility. Because she still had weight to gain for them.

The clinic visit would happen. They would monitor her for internal bleeding or signs of rupture. They would adjust her medications again. And then they would bring her back here, to this room, to this bed, and they would resume feeding her.

Because that was what came next. That was all that ever came next