- 2 weeks later -

Erin sat on her bed, doing the same thing she did every night - doomscrolling social media on her laptop. The sun had just fully set outside, and she was getting ready to doze off when a random ad caught her eye. An illustration of two women, one towering over the other, with the text "Get a new perspective on life" above them. Erin thought nothing of it at first, but her curiosity got the best of her and she clicked the link.

The ad sent her to a website claiming the impossible. With only a short clip from your webcam, you could have your dream body in an instant. Erin didn't buy it, obviously. The claims were ridiculous. The website was covered in quotes from satisfied "customers" that read like AI generated corporate garbage. But she was curious.

Erin was quite short, standing only 4'11". After finishing her growth spurt at 11 years old, she didn't gain a single extra inch for the next decade. She wasn't overweight, but there was a few pounds that she just couldn't seem to shake, despite all her attempts. She didn't mind how she looked, but a little boost in height would make her a bit more confidant, at least. The site was almost definitely a scam, obviously, but what was the worst that could happen? It's not like her identity could be stolen by 30 seconds of webcam footage. The only personal information the site asked for was her name, height, and weight, which Erin promptly entered.

The site opened up into a long list of options, everything from hair color to height, with drop down menus to select changes for every one of them. The UI seemed fairly well made, having lots of small animations and smooth transitions between pages that even most big corporate websites didn't bother with. If this site was fake, they had at least put in a lot of effort to make it look convincing, despite the insane premise. Erin settled on just a couple changes; a 4 inch boost to her height, and 5 pounds off her weight (after the website had adjusted it proportionally from the height increase, at least). After hitting continue, the website prompted her for webcam access, then gave a simple set of instructions.

1. Position your camera so that your entire body was in view.

2. Stand in frame, then turn around slowly.

3. Stand still for about 10 seconds, then watch the magic happen!

Erin still didn't believe this was going to work, of course. But at this point, she might as well go through with it. Setting the laptop on her bed let her camera capture her standing against the wall. She felt a bit silly, doing a slow twirl in front of her laptop because it promised to make her taller. Maybe the whole point of this website was to see who was gullible enough to fall for the obvious prank. When she finished turning, she stood in place, her reflection in the camera feed staring back at her. The screen then suddenly changed, displaying a loading icon, covered in the text "Applying Changes".

Erin felt her stomach sink suddenly, as if she had been standing in an elevator that suddenly starting moving up at double speed. Stumbling slightly before catching herself, Erin looked down to see herself... growing. The floor retreated further and further from her eyes as the room shrank around her, the cuffs of her sweatpants creeping up her calf. A warm feeling began to spread across her now slightly exposed stomach, and a quick glance showed the small amount of fat she had there was dissipating, leaving her with a firm, flat stomach.

It took 10 seconds, like the site had said, and then the growth stopped. The laptop now displayed a window asking for another input.

"Process complete, would you like to save the video of your transformation?"

Erin hit save. Oh boy, her friends weren't going to believe this.

~~~

- 1 week later -

It hadn't even been a month, and Michael had made back the investment he had spent to build the program, and then some. His was a little worried that his plan to get the app publicity while staying anonymous was doomed to fail, but it had worked out beautifully. After creating a simple but convincing looking website, he had spent the last of his available funds on a small internet ad campaign. He knew that the claims the ads made would mark it as an obvious scam for 99% of those who saw it, but he just needed one person to take the bait, one person to fall for it, and it would spread like wildfire. And spread it did.

The spark was a video that a young woman had posted on Youtube, the footage of the program working it's magic on her, adorned with a watermark of the sites name. Within 24 hours, a few dozen similar videos popped up, and from there on Michael was set. All he had to do was lock the site behind a paywall and watch the money roll in. $150 for an inch of height, $25 to lose a pound of fat or gain a pound of muscle, reverse any changes within a month for half price. Pay a small extra fee to have the changes occur over a few months, so you make it look natural to others. It had only been a week since he started taking payment, and he'd pulled in half a years worth of his old salary, and each day made more than the last. He almost had more money than he knew what to do with.

There was just enough doubt about the legitimacy of the videos that the media hadn't picked up on them yet, though Michael knew that wouldn't last. He had done his best to prevent any way of linking himself to the site, so he wasn't to worried about it. For now, all he had to do was sit back and watch the traffic roll into the site, and watch his bank account tick up and up.

A knock sounded from the door behind him. "Hey Mike, are you busy?" Michael spun around in his office chair, to face his wife. He still hadn't told her what exactly was happening, only that his project had been a success, and it had been going very well. Given that she was technically the first test subject of the program, he knew he'd have to tell her eventually, or she would find out herself. But for now, he figured it could wait.

"Oh hey Jules. What's up?" He smiled at her, closing the on his computer before she got a look at them.

"I just thought that maybe we could watch a movie or something tonight. You spent so much time on that project of yours, and you still lock yourself up in her even after you finished." Julia's tone was playful, but there was clearly sincerity to it. It was true, Michael had been spending a lot of time holed up in his office recently, just staring at numbers.

"That sounds like a great idea, yeah." Michael smiled and stood up. "You have a choice in mind?"

He approached Julia and wrapped her in a hug, pressing his face up to her neck. In the weeks since the initial incident, Michael hadn't been able to resist messing with his wife's height even more. As he had it currently set up, she was steadily gaining an inch of height every week, which meant she currently towered a solid 6 inches above him. He felt bad at first, the first growth spurt had clearly stressed her out pretty badly. In the following weeks though, Julia warmed up to the changes significantly, even embracing them. Despite any difficulties her increased stature came with, she just felt so much stronger and healthier. She wouldn't admit it out loud, but Michael could tell she didn't mind the way she looked, either. Looking at her from his viewpoint he couldn't help but agree.

The two of them spent a couple hours relaxing on the couch, watching some sappy romance flick that Julia had been wanting to watch for a while. Halfway through the movie, she was resting her head on Michael's lap, and was asleep. He was about to turn in for the night himself, but first he went to check on his website one more time. Before he could do that, though, he saw an alert from the news app on his phone, and it was exactly what he thought it would be. It seems thing were about to get interesting.