It wouldn't be long before everyone began preparing for the cookout. After Jamie had managed to finally wear himself outfighting against William's hardened grip, he got to work along with his twin brother Percy and three other boys within his unofficial gang gathering up the firewood that had been provided to them earlier by the counselors for the week, while William, along with two of the older boys, got to work setting up the chairs around the designated fireplace, along with getting additional kindling for the fire. That left Jason and another boy, by far the youngest among them at 8 years old, to collect the fish and clean it so that William could later gut and skewer it in front of the fire.
Throughout this, Jason expected someone to comment on something strange going on. One of the fish that he had so carefully gather could now easily fit in one hand when he had to use both of his hands in order to even be able to get a handle on it. He knew that wasn't the case yesterday, since he was fighting Jamie over the last fish then and he could barely get a grip on his portion with how much Jamie was writhing all over the place!
But somehow, that moment never came. He finished cleaning the fish with the help of 8-year-old Donnie Wheeler, who was dutifully cleaning his portion of the fish without once bother to look at anyone or anything else. He got the fish to William along with his two friends Nick and Whitley, who proceeded to work at the skin with their pocketknives, taking the head and gutting the fish of bones before the rest of the boys, tired and impatient from hours of sitting around in the afternoon sun tying knots for practice and being the ceaseless targets of the local mosquito population, got to work waiting impatiently by the fire as the fish was slowly roasted on a spit, the night covering their world with a blanket of stars and a waning moon watching over them as they ravenously ate their meal.
Soon, nothing but bones were left, the fire had sputtered out to some embers, and everyone had retired to their tents, including Jason, who had more than his fair share of difficulty getting into his own sleeping bad now there was a bit more of him to take into account. Not once did anything note something different about. It was to the point where Jason had to assume that it was all just a random growth spurt that he had, as the exhaustion of the day overcame him, and he slipped deep into unconsciousness.
~~~
The next thing he knew, however, Jason was abruptly woken up by the sound of linen fabric tearing apart at the seams as he practically exploded out of his sleeping bag, his clothes having long been reduced to red and orange tatters lining his shoulders and thighs. It wouldn't be long before his tent would meet the same fate, the poles being flung all about with the industry-standard green tarp as his quickly expanding form immediately became recognizable to everyone, who had been woken up by the chaos.
Screams began to consume the campground as, faster than anyone could hope to escape, Jason's body outgrew the entire clearing. No one was spared from the ensuring carnage; Jamie and Percy disappearing under his resting foot, Donnie being plowed along with his friends by his pinkie, William running and running from his ever-growing head before being completely consumed by the tree-sized stalks that were his hair. By the time Jason was able to get up, able to get over his disorientation enough to act, it was far too late. The oak trees that once towered over him, embracing the sky with their many arms, were now only able to reach up to his ankles. More damning, the campground where Jason had been for the past few weeks, hunting and exploring and just - living his best life with people who were beginning to be friends to him, was nothing more than a tiny grey dot below his feet, indistinct from the endless plane of dust and dirt from Jason single-handedly clearing away the entire forest, with only of few streaks of red to mark where it had once been.
Jason could only stare, enraptured by that tiny, red stained dot, before his trance was abruptly broken by the small traces of clouds that were beginning to enter his vision. While he was still staring down at the ground.
There was only one thing that entered into Jason's mind - one verbalized into an almost-shout:
"I have to get away!"
He ran and ran, his footprints getting bigger and bigger, marring the landscape with ugly browns and blacks from crushed forests and mountaintops. He needed to go somewhere, anywhere isolated, anywhere where this could all just stop.
He could never escape, though. Not when his head broke through the clouds, then his shoulders, then his hips, then his knees. Soon, his toes towered over the entire eastern coast of the United States, his desperate attempt to escape into the Pacific Ocean only rendering half of the North American continent completely flooded and ruined as he only continued to get bigger and bigger.
Jason could only cry as he saw his feet begin to completely outgrow the entirely of the Pacific Ocean, and the pressure from his ever-accumulating mass began to cause cracks to form all over the little blue-and-green ball that was his home, now equivalent to the size of an exercise ball. In one final desperate move, Jason attempted to lie himself flat within the ocean and contort his body along the edges of the continent as much as he could, trying his best to save as much of humanity as he could.
It was a futile effort. Soon, Jason's body would surpass Earth's size, the sheer gravity and mass being accumulated causing the planet to completely crack apart like an egg, magma from the core bursting out all over and scalding Jason's skin and entire places of rock from the planet completely bursting apart into an endless procession of rock and ice. The remains of what was once his home, what was once his life, began to circle around him, the sheer gravity generated by his mass causing a celestial ring to form around him. The moon that once was Earth's ever-present partner quicky adjusted suit as its orbit adjusted to account for the new, strange foreign object, continuing on its way as if nothing had ever happened.
"Why... why is this happening? Mom...dad...everyone... I'm sorry...!"
All Jason could do was look blankly into the endless void of space, his watery eyes not budging an inch when his endless growth finally ceased. Even now, after everything, after growing bigger and bigger than anything had any right to be, after carelessly destroying everything like it was nothing, he was more insignificant than ever. He was nothing compared to Jupiter way off in the distance, . He was only twice the size of Earth now, after all. 63 Earths could fit inside Uranus alone, and
It seemed he was condemned forever to be just another satellite orbiting the Sun, a hideous monster who destroyed his only home, who killed everyone he loved for nothing, all for the prize of circling listlessly through the cosmos cold and alone, nothing more than a giant, nude child surrounded with endless reminders of what he lost circling all around him.
All he could do at that point was scream.
~~~
In the dead of night, under the cover of countless layers of fabric, a blood-curdling scream sounded out.
Before he knew Jason found himself back in his snug little sleeping bag, back at the campground that he had outgrown just a scant few moments ago.
His sleeping bag, his clothes, all sticky and gross from the sweat, his skin clammy and cold from the crisp summer night air, were all still there. It was all just a dream, but... it had felt real. Really real. Like, he could remember every last detail real. That never happened with any dreams he had! It was more like a...vision.
A horrifying vision.
"What...kind of nightmare...?"
But, before Jason could even collect himself enough to grasp what the hell had just happened, his attention was abruptly taken by something more immediately urgent...
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