Content: TG/TF, nudity, weird

“Here we are, chat! Not a lot of people know this, uh, place exists. Apparently after the mall lost a lot of business and stuff, it got bought out by, you know, one of those Suspiciously Wealthy Furries or something. Yeah, they wanted to make it into like a permanent Brony Con, but it only lasted about two years before the feds shut it down. Turns out they had started, like, some kind of sex cult. But the cover story was about health issues with the building, right?” Lenny prattled through his prepared notes as he spoke into the selfie cam of his phone, hoping this would be the video that put him on the Influencer map and get those all-important sponsorship deals.

The dust was thick, and smelled dank. Not dank in the silly way, in the bad way. Like a cross between a tub of cottage cheese left out in a hot room and a pile of sweaty gym socks. But he put it out of his mind as he shot a few takes in the huge void of the former shopping center, now covered with a small hill of dirt all around. He’d been the only one to find the fissure that admitted access. He could tell because there weren’t any homeless camps inside. He was quite proud of himself for not just researching his hometown’s past claim to Internet fame, but also being the first person to set foot inside the place for a decade.

If that wasn’t enough to compete with the slick Let’s Players and overbaked makeup chicks, he didn’t know what was.

“So anyway, most people already know the government’s lying to you all the time, right? Well obviously a whole shopping mall isn’t going to sink into the ground on its own, no matter how bad the foundation is-” He sputtered and started coughing, cursing the extra time he’d have to spend editing that take out before posting the video. Time was money, and he was fast running out of both. With my luck, he thought, the roof will collapse on me before I get anything decent to post. It was unnerving enough that his cell reception had died as soon as he’d gone underground, preventing any actual live streams from taking place. But at least that meant he could practice his amazed reactions and rubble and junk for the best edit.

“Well it’s not a bruise, Mr. Swift. It’s some sort of fungal infection.”

“Fungus? Like mushrooms?” he asked, thinking of all those video games he’d played where zombified mushroom-people ambled around a post apocalyptic landscape as fodder for the player character.

“There’s all kinds of fungus, you won’t be sprouting mushrooms,” the dermatologist said. “I’m not sure what specific type this one is, it doesn’t quite match any of our tests, but a broad-spectrum fungicide will most likely help it clear up. I’m going to write you a prescription for some topical. The most important thing is to keep on top of your hygiene to keep this from spreading or coming back. Alright?”

“Okay doc, but I can’t afford a lot of medicine…” Lenny admitted sheepishly. He hadn’t been able to land a job for three months and his savings were getting really low. “So just, like, shower a lot and this shouldn’t happen again?”

He regretted allowing himself the luxury of taking a day off from the job search to do a little urban exploration. The old mall had been fascinating, but it was probably the mold and weird growths on the walls that had led to this nasty fungus boring into his skin.

“That doc was full of shit,” Lenny grumbled as he scrubbed the purple spot on his shoulder even harder. He’d been showering three times in the last two days but the weird mark was still growing, now it was starting to reach around to his back and all under his armpit. He wondered if he shouldn’t have bit the bullet and bought that medicine the doc recommended anyway, even if it would have meant asking for an extension on his rent. It seemed like cleaning wasn’t getting rid of this infection at all, maybe even making it worse. He hoped it wouldn’t show through his shirt when he went in for the interview this afternoon.

The interviewer had not seemed very impressed when Lenny explained it wasn’t a “tattoo,” just a weird fungal infection. Maybe he should have said it was a bruise from playing paintball or something. Maybe it was the sheen of sweat on his brow, too. Probably thought he was some kind of tweaker, or had some kind of catching disease. Lenny covered his face and sighed deeply as the bus pulled to another stop. Just a few more until his block of apartments, then another empty evening of trying to find work and wondering if he had enough clean clothes to get through the next interview. He’d have to dip into his dwindling funds for another round of laundry. Stress. More stress. He scratched the rash on the back of his neck without even thinking about it.

Cheese stick. That was the first thing that came to mind as he looked at the horrifying sight in the mirror: one of those mixed orange-and-white cheese sticks. Except he was tan and… purple. Somehow the weird stain had spread around him through the night and morning (and early afternoon) he’d been asleep, leaving just blotches of his original skin color showing through. And when he was able to see past that, he looked even more awful. His body was weirdly sunken in, his eyes peering out from two huge sacks of deep, dark purple bruising, and he felt like someone was taking an angle grinder to all his joints.

He needed to get that medicine, but the thought of going out like this make his stomach lurch. Actually, it might not have been the anxiety. His guts were churning nonstop ever since he woke up, so much later than usual. Painful cramps and twinges of shooting agony, but at least it wasn’t accompanied by a need to supplicate himself before the porcelain throne.

In fact, he felt completely empty, like everything in him was being burned up in a furnace and the hopper was getting low. Uneasily, he staggered into the small kitchen area and took everything out of the fridge, one by one. Unable to stop himself, he realized he was cramming all the food left in it into his face like some kind of conveyor belt sending junk to the incinerator. The milk. The leftover mac and cheese. The cold cuts. When there was enough strong-tasting food past his tongue, he followed it with three glasses of OJ and let the empty carton toppled off the counter to the floor as he reached for the frying pan to take care of the last four eggs all at once. While the scrambled contents of the now evacuated shells bubbled and congealed in the heat, he opened the cabinets and started devouring the half-loaf of bread. It was a little stale, but it went down all the same. Beer accompanied the eggs. Nacho chips formed a search party to go in after them. They in turn were to be rescued by a jar of olives. Then it was the mayo’s turn, spoon by spoon until the spoon rung hollow against the empty plastic container.

His stomach felt so heavy and full but he couldn’t stop himself. Everything vanished and yet his brain refused to signal retreat. It was only went he realized he was down to a single can of chilli that he was able to convince himself of the need for restraint. Still feeling like a car on E, he staggered back into the bedroom. His eyes were getting heavy again, and he felt so warm and achy that it was easier to pull himself away from the wreckage of the kitchen for another nap.

Everything stunk of dried sweat. He was pretty sure the mattress made a squelching sound as he rolled off it. He felt weak, and light, and dizzy. Something was wrong with his chest. Too puffy. And everything was so noisy, despite the constant ringing in his ears. He shuffled back into the bathroom like a zombie ambling away from its freshly-opened grave.

Something in the mirror looked at him. She was pretty, despite being a weird color. Purple eyes, purple hair, big purple ears poking out of the top of her head. Thin, delicate neck and tiny shoulders. Modest boobs, not even covered, with turgid nipples a deeper, fleshy purple poking outwards as if pulling the rest of her chest behind them. Thin, small waist and hips, kind of scrawny limbs. She was wearing his underwear, and it hung funnily in front with nothing to fill out the space between her legs. The contours of her bony hips were softened momentarily by the flicking of some long, silky purple hair from a pivoting point behind her butt. The eyes that were looking him over from the mirror sparkled a bright but saturated purple, like the deepest shades of a twilight sky once the sun had retreated beyond the horizon.

The unreality of it was matched only by pangs he felt at seeing her visible ribs in the sunken chest. She needed to eat more. And he felt hungry, still. There was only a single can of chilli left for them to share, and it wouldn’t be enough.

A lot of people stopped to watch him as he packed away the two bags of fast food without pausing for a break. The shade of the tree was nice and cool, but the eyes of the people passing by made him feel warm and weird. Not exactly humiliated, but definitely something he wasn’t used to feeling. Maybe they’d never seen a purple pony shaped like a human girl walking around. Maybe it was the growing pile of empty burger containers and the line-up of fries and the cardboard tray of full-sugar large drinks vanishing into her. Some teen girls were clearly looking at her from across the street and talking amongst themselves, smiling, laughing, punching each other on the shoulder over whatever silly thing they’d said. They disappeared, but replacing their attention were the men of all ages who simply watched from what they thought were private little spots scattered all over the park.

Lenny didn’t mind at all. Eating was far more important. That’s why he’d finally given in and made the expensive excursion out into the daylight to blow most of the last of his savings on the fast food. You only live once, after all, and he needed the calories… apparently. It felt like his stomach would never run out of room, like it was converting all the mashed-up beef and bread and lettuce and fried potato slivers into energy and flesh as soon as they landed.

Whatever was going on, it made him feel so much better than he had been for the last two days. It was easy to focus on eating, and the starchy and sugars were doing wonders for his mood. The beefy flavor of the patties reinforced his flagging spirits. The sodas soothed his frayed nerves. Before he realized it, he’d set the tail wagging. It had taken a couple of tries to cut a hole wide enough in the back of the sweat pants for it to fit through, but now he barely regarded it as something unusual.

Guess you can say it’s really grown on me, he chuckled to himself through a mouthful of burger. Leaves rustled behind him as the appendage flopped to and fro in amusement. A twitching ear flicked, prompting him to emit a suppressed giggle despite his mouthful of chewed food. Consuming all these calories completely took the pressure off of his mood, like things weren’t as dire as they had been when he was starving. Every inch of his body started to feel warm and tingly, like playful pinpricks were peppering his tissues along every thread-like nerve.

*I wonder if it’s something to do with the fungus,” he thought. He surprised himself with the lack of alarm that kind of question raised. There wasn’t room for anxiety or worry right now, just the joyous relief of fueling his body’s metabolism after it had almost run out.

“I need new clothes,” he said to himself as he looked in the mirror. A gorgeous purple girl with cute little ears and a nice, silky mane was looking back at him approvingly, silk tail bobbing from side to side as if to add its enthusiasm to the review. In just the twelve hours he’d slept since gorging himself, all the bony edges had been rounded off of his figure and his flesh had smoothed and filled out into a pleasing, if slender, feminine shape.

Long, sleek purple legs joined at a luscious, enticing snatch just barely adorned with a tiny patch of eggplant-shaded hairs to decorate it, set between some relatively wider hips which instantly bottlenecked into a trim, flat tummy barely as wide as his head. Perched atop his compact chest were two perky purple globes, peaked with plump plum-colored nipples that he knew, from brushing them against the bedsheets, were quite sensitive in the best kind of way. Rising above his small, delicate shoulders was a youthful, doll-like face with finely sculpted features that were bordering on inhumanly attractive. Set above two mauve blushes were stark black lashes rimming marble-white glistening eyes that caught the light and threw it back in amethyst hues from the far end of the color spectrum, shimmering and sparkling with all the magic of the night sky. Framing the amazing face was a shock of hair in riotous mystic violet with stripes of springtime-blooming pink and even something approaching lime green, punctured by two absolutely adorable little ears that twisted and flopped to assist in expressing his mood.

Right now they were at ease. Just like him. No room for fear, no access to stress, stormclouds of trouble seemed to be locked away from his grasp on a high shelf in a closet somewhere that he didn’t care to remember. It almost felt impossible to believe those were even real emotions, he thought as he watched the girl in the mirror turning and posing. A striking body like hers deserved to be clothed in something other than baggy, ill-fitting thrift store fair! She needed everyone to see her, to touch her, to breathe in her air and enchant their lives the way she had been enchanted by that dust in the tunnels.

The tunnels! The old, sunken mall! On her first trip through, she had passed many clothing stores with their fluorescent lights still dimly flickering. It was the perfect place to find some more clothing, something more appropriate to her new figure, something to make her absolutely irresistible!

“Here you go, miss!” the gig driver said with a smile as she handed her the catering box of fast food. “I like your cosplay!” she added with a slight blush.

“Thank you so much!” she replied, beaming back at the woman who had delivered her precious cargo. “Can you guess who I am?” she asked, spinning around as though she were really intending to show off some kind of special effects makeup.

“One of those My Little Ponies, isn’t it? Twilight Star or something?” the woman asked, her guess unwittingly solicited by her patron who had no knowledge of such things herself.

“Got it in one!” she said with a girlish giggle. “Thanks again!” she added, blowing a playful kiss and waving with her free hand as the charmed driver went off to make her next delivery.

Between the lunch order and bus fare, she had spent the last of her dwindling cash. The ride had been necessary to preserve invaluable calories, and the meal of course would keep her from wasting away during the final hike to and down into the forgotten mall. She parked herself on a nearby bench and destroyed the eight pounds of food with mechanical precision, her mood elevating to even loftier altitudes as her body worked overtime converting mass and calories into mass and motivation. It was as though she could feel the contents of her stomach being siphoned away directly into tiny pipes that cobwebbed her flesh, ferrying nutrients and sugars in real time. Endorphins and dopamine flooded her nervous system in response, giving her a natural high and fuzzing away anything that wasn’t 100% positivity from her emotional slate. The old shirt felt tighter across her bust by the time she’d finished her meal, and two nubs were poking through mischievously. She felt like a flower that had been under-watered, now plumping up after a drenching rain, drawing vital fluids through its roots into stems and leaves that fattened up as they stored the extra mass.

Twilight Star, she repeated to herself. Twilight Star. I don’t know any of those ponies, but it sure seems like a fitting name! I’ll take it!

Her old clothes displaced volumes of purple dust as she shed them for the last time on the cold, dirty tile floor of the underground mall. Dust that smelled musty and patient and full of still, dreaming life yet to be. The walls, the ceiling, the overturned food court furniture was all coated by fluffy layers of dark, dull flocking. Velvety fuzz that waited with unrelenting patience to attach its lingering spawn onto anyone and anything that disturbed it. Purple, sky blue, orange, buttery yellow, she passed by clinging patches of growth in a pastel rainbow of colors as she made her way deeper in. They formed the microscopic forest that needed her help to flourish beyond this tomb.

Barefoot, she retraced her own former footsteps from the cavern-like opening that was still hot with the last bit of sunlight from outside. Her shoes had left big, wide tracks that her narrow, slender, shorter feet made a game of landing on. Her body jiggled happily in ways that it had never been able to the first time through. All she carried now was her phone, but this time she wasn’t trying to film her excursion to try and entice a streaming audience to fund a Coffee account. This time she was going to use it in lieu of mirrors to see if any outfits she found might work to set off her pleasing curves.

The air was cold, clammy, and thick with spores. They would find no fertile fields inside her lungs this time; her body held no vacancies to shelter and nurture another migration of hopeful little lives. She had already blossomed, and now she felt their gentle touch on her skin as a reminder of the solemn duty she bore to help them escape this prison and find new, warm, unsuspecting places to root and spread. And to do that, she needed a cute outfit!

The LED strip had been running so long that the white phosphors had faded and left it flickering a weird, otherworldly purple, like those street lamps with the cheap bulbs that would just go bad every once in a while. But it case enough of a glow for her to pick through the shelves of accessories. Shoes and purses, essential for the girl on the move.

She stopped in the glow and examined her selfie cam’s image, her pulse quickening as she took in the sight. She looked cute and sexy, and the little black dress she’d picked up and slunk into was doing amazing things for her figure! Especially the way it stretched over her perky, bouncy, eye-catching curves. The sleek material just screamed for hands to be run all over it, to explore her alluring contours. Nobody would be able to resist slipping their arms around her like this, holding her close, putting their face next to her cheek or her neck and breathing in. Breathing in the magical stardust she’d be shedding, unknowingly inviting it in to settle into their warm, moist, thoroughly habitable lungs where they could start to grow and change.

The very idea sent hot shivers tickling her spine and bouncing from top to bottom until they settled into a warm, cozy spot in her fluttering tummy. Her future spreading the little ones far and wide was going to be so much fun!