Chapter 3

Cala expanded slowly. Her legs stretched further and further, reaching the edge of the table. Then they stretched further, it looked like a tall person was laying in a bed too short for him.
Her head did the same. It inflated like a balloon, inching its way up to the other side of the operating-table. Her entire body gained mass and height, about half an inch per second.

The nurse screamed again. The two assistants and the other nurse stood frozen. The professor as well, looking aghast at the growing girl dozing peacefully. As Cala reached 10 feet, her head and feet dangled from opposite sides of the operating-table. And still she grew, several inches per second now.

When she was 12 feet 6 inches tall, the table couldn't bear her weight any longer. With a loud "BANG" it collapsed. Cala smashed the entire table under her now already immense weight, rocking the equipment in the operating room and making the five baffled onlookers leap up a little.

"Professor! What the hell... do something!" An assistant screamed as Cala continued to grow, her body inflating with five inches per second now.

"Out! All of you, get out! Quick!", prof. Bennett shouted. Cala's feet, easily twice the size of a common person's feet, pushed against a heart rate monitor standing against the far wall. Her head, big as a beach ball, hit the opposite wall. Her legs bend upwards as she grew further.

As the two assistants and nurses had left the room, prof. Bennett saw how Cala spit out the tube for emptying her stomach. It looked like a small straw compared to her huge mouth now. A shrieking noise drew his attention to her feet. The heart rate monitor was buckling inward between Cala's expanding feet and the wall, no longer able to resist the pressure from her growing body. The metal folded, plastic and glass shattered. Cala's feet had the size of a child's bed, and it looked as if she was sitting in a small box, her head creeping up the wall of one side of the room and her feet resting against the other, while her knees were bent almost to maximum. Cala was already 18 feet and still growing.

Prof. Bennett's mind raced. What now? She had drunk something even he didn't know the exact effect on living tissue. Cala could die being this big, because her heart wasn't able to pump the blood up to her head anymore, her bones weren't able to support her ever-increasing weight, or her muscles would rupture under her mass. And if she continued to grow, she might be squashed to death within the room's walls. He had to do something, but what? He had been working on an antidote, true, but would it help? Every scientist who made a new medicine, potion or whatever else, always had an antidote ready. But it hadn't been tested on a living human as well. And he only had a small quantity of it. Would it work?

His thoughts were interrupted as Cala murmured something and stirred. She was awakening. Her gigantic body was too big now for the light narcotic to be effective, just as a heavy or tall person needed more of the sedating stuff than a small one. Professor Bennett pondered the thought of injecting her with a large dose of narcotics, but he didn’t know whether or not it would kill her. Or be effective. As Cala moved an arm the size of a tree trunk as she awoke, professor Bennett could just in time avoid being hit by it. He looked at it in awe. Her hand was so huge! She could grab him like he was a doll with it. Each finger more than half the size of his body. Prof. Bennett, without really thinking, dove for the exit, cursing under his breath. He had to get the antidote and inject her with it. Or make more of it first.