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Bruce trudged through the jungle as fast as his overweight body would allow. He needed to make as good a time as possible, but he also knew he mustn't exhaust himself anymore than he was already. Others were going to need his help before the day was out; Betsy and her 350 lbs which kept her pinned to the ground were foremost on his mind now.

The bloodhound closed his eyes for a while, trying for forget the images of the scene he was leaving behind him. He let his nose guide him, but closing his eyes only seemed to increase the screaming of the dogs still left on the beach. He even thought he could still hear poor Gamma- "Roger" -nine back there, even though his rational mind told him they was nothing more than psychosomatic echos at this point...

Bruce had been at the beach colony, if one could call a scattered mass of immobile, manna addicts a colony. More than half of the dogs originally left behind had already died of dehydration. Of those remaining, most had gathered at the near pools or else were in good positions to collect drippings from the canopy. Gamma-9 or "Roger" as he went by now, was something of a defacto leader, as far as a community of invalids could be led. He was a lab mix and claimed to be the first to have decided to bunker down near the pools. As a result, he had thrived where many others had died. However, this had also led to his extremely prodigious size. At a glance, Bruce estimated that the black lab weighed in excess of 550 lbs.

His weight hardly made him unique. There was a golden two dogs down to his right around the pool who looked like she was topping 630 lbs. However, she did little but complain of the lack of manna between her short breaths and she also shows signs of having mild stokes every few hours. Yesterday, there had been two other dogs at the pools of similar weight as the largest female; with flanks as wide as cow's and necks so thick they couldn't turn them at all. However both had expired sometime during the last night - they knew because they didn't immediately start reaching for Manna. Bruce was concerned with the dogs who were so heavy they were beginning to die of their weight related complications. Always signs and smells pointed to either stroke or heart attack or plain old mechanical suffocation; the latter was the most common. Bruce doubted the golden female and her drooping left eye would last another day, what with her belly full of manna set to take her close to 700 lbs over the course of the next 24 hours.

Roger was an addict as well, though he had managed to at least curb his appetite somewhat and had a strong drive towards the the welfare of the other "left-behinds." He understood that they were all in a bad way and while he wasn't willing to completely give up manna and go cold turkey, he was remarkably efficient at trading his own disks to curry favors and buy the cooperation of the other dogs.

Bruce had been working with the beach colony for days. He had a few other volunteers, mostly relatives of the immobiles, and he organized them into an effective nursing staff. Roger and his band of addicts had actually developed a rather neat system of transporting disks - which for them was akin to currency - and messages amongst themselves. They passed information and small objects laterally between the bloated inert dogs which sat side by side around the three pools. There was a strict honor system which the addicts upheld with surprising vigilance given their inherent weaknesses. A mobile orderly was needed to pass information and disks from pool to pool, but otherwise the humongous dogs were able to get along with the others at their pool with great skill and efficiency. Bruce supposed that when one had absolutely nothing better to do and shared the same dire condition as one's neighbor, friendship was more natural than enmity. And it was a good thing the dogs got along, because it was physically impossible for most to be separated from their neighbor at this point. In fact, in the case of the 'super' obese, like the golden female, they were actually in constant physical contact with one or both neighbors at all times.

It was a good thing that dogs fed exclusively on manna did not need to eliminate, or else the colony would have been in even worse condition when Bruce was able to return with help for the stranded canines. As it was, however, they still needed a lot of maintenance, for which each dog was especially grateful. Roger most of all.

The extra plus-sized labrador told Bruce, between his habitually heavy breathing, the locations of the other dogs who'd not managed to get to the pools and the unlimited water supplies that addicts needed. Bruce, moving with five other strong breeds at his back had gone to these locations and managed to shift their heavy forms over the sand and to the freshwater pools. However, just as many, if not more, were already dead by the time that he reached them.

By the second day, Bruce had saved all the dogs that were able to be saved. On the third day, he was just relaxing with Roger with whom he'd developed rapport, as mutual leaders usually do. He rested with his forepaws on Roger's wide, fatty back. He pulled ticks out of his thick, matted fur as he spoke of recent happenings.

"So... she's one of... us now, eh?" laughed Roger between heavy breaths. His back shivered slightly and Bruce supposed it was the one of the lab's legs twitching somewhere under all his excess flesh. "Serves that wolf... bitch right. She thought she was... better'n all of... us." He wheezed.

Bruce agreed. One of the bugs he pulled off of Bruce was not a tick. He looked at it more closely. It was in fact one of the black and red ants which now pervaded the area and needed constant sweeping by the orderlies who wielded leafy branches in their mouths to sweep the little buggers away.

However this one was different. Bruce peered more closely at it, sniffing it and analyzing it.

"I can't tell you again... how much we appreciate this, Bruce. We didn't stand a... chance before." The heavily fattened lab chuckled weakly. "I s'ppose we still... don't. But... you mentioned fish right? Maybe... Maybe we can get some o'the... bigger'uns weaned off the crispies with that. Before... you know." Roger moved his paw around under a neck which flowed down and over his big brisket into the water in front of him; said paw also having to lift a lot of said flesh just to move at all. Bruce caught the movement and Roger's implication, but he wasn't paying attention.

The ant he had just pulled off of Roger's back was different from any other he'd seen. It had large curved mandibles, half as long again as its whole body and brutally sharp. Bruce accidentally let it turn in his paw and it gripped his leather pad with those big pincers. The little bastard cut right through the thick skin of his pad and blood began to well where it grabbed him. Bruce quickly smashed it against his other paw. His heart sank with the knowledge that he'd just encountered a soldier ant. "They were just scouts after all..." Bruce muttered with dread.

Roger under him struggled to lift his head, just enough to get an eye up enough to glance at Bruce. "What's the matter?" he breathed, air rasping in his fat clogged windpipe.

Bruce said nothing, his mouth open and panting a little in the tropic heat. He feared that his new friend would soon be dead.

An hour later, there were hundreds of the new soldiers wandering about the edges of the pools. An hour after that, there were thousands. The new soldiers were terrible. They were extremely aggressive and they did not simple leave irritating bites that stung and swelled, they literally cut into the flesh of these dogs. The wounds trickled blood and the soldiers just kept working at the flesh, often working together in teams of two or three. If they were not removed right away, they usually were able to free a bit of skin, usually the size of a BB in about two minutes. It sickened Bruce to see insects carrying away their little red prizes along the ground as he wielded his leafy stick as best he could against the intruders.

There was no attack plan by the ants. The area just seemed to steadily fill with ants, all of them wandering in from further inland, north-west to south-west. No mater how many Bruce and his assistants killed, the numbers continued to climb. There was absolutely no way they could protect the ten dogs lying around the pools. The biggest dogs were completely helpless against these tiny predators. The 600 lb golden could not roll over or even turn her head more than a couple degrees for the fatty collars swelling around her head. Several times Bruce went to the poor creature to brush the ants off of her face, but the rest of her was so vast... The empirical side of Bruce told him that he should concentrate his efforts on dogs who could benefit more from what he could do. But the compassionate side kept him coming back, at least to keep them off of her chubby face, even as she began to bleed in many small trickles from various points around her body.

"My... ah, my... chest hurts... Bruce. I can't... I can't breathe...." She sighed, gasping for breath. She had smell signals on her breath of left sided congestive heart failure, which had been mounting the last 36 hours or so. It was causing fluid to accumulate in her lungs. It was perhaps, a small mercy at this point.

Bruce waved the leaves over her face, brushing ants away to drown in the water below her. "It'll be over soon, dear." He said before he had to move on. The next time that Bruce returned, she had collapsed into unconsciousness. Her breathing was shallow and punctuated by deep ragged breaths, signals from her oxygen starved brain to try and kick start her breathing again. Bruce brushed the ants off her face once more and didn't return to her on his next round about the pools.

The fact that the dogs were all but smushed together had turned from a benefit into a terrible liability. The ants crawled over the backs of the dogs, beyond the reach of those still mobile and trying to fight them off. The dogs yelled and cried. They screamed for help, but additional orderlies were not on their way from the tiger pools where the fish were. Rather, those that were under Bruce's transient supervision were instead abandoning their positions. His team of seven dwindled to five and then three. The ants began to literally carpet the jungle in some areas. All of the dogs, including his friend Roger, had ants crawling all over them, biting them ruthlessly. Even Bruce, when he happened to step into an extra thick gathering of ants, felt the bites as they valiantly assaulted his leg. He would shake them off and dip his stinging leg in the water for a bit after. All the time the immobile dogs writhed around him. Those still able, rolled around flattening hundreds of the awful bugs until they tired. Blood dripped from the deep bites everywhere turning the pools into a horror scene. Roger got his attention next time Bruce came around to sweep the ants off of him. The lab was bleeding from two close points on his right cheek and who knew how many other places on his overlarge body.

"This isn't... working." he said, his wheezing worse for the stress. "We need... to get... into... the water."

Bruce nodded and tapped him on the shoulder. It was a temporary solution at best. But Bruce could think of nothing else to do at this point

So Bruce and his three remaining orderlies got busy shoving the big immobiles forward into the water of the pools. They started with the lightest of them. Unfortunately, Roger was among the heavier dogs. With pushing from behind, the dogs with desperate strength, were able to crawl laboriously out into the water. However after the third multiple hundred pound canine, Bruce felt close to his breaking point. The least member of the beach colony was still a giant in terms of sheer poundage. Sensing the danger they were in with their caregivers close to breaking, the bigger dogs made redoubled, though often futile efforts to shift their bodies the few feet to safety.

Bruce panted, resting against the buoyant floating form of a 300 lb shepherd mix of indeterminate breed. His back ached from the pushing. He didn't think that he could help another dog... He wondered with despair how wide this phenomenon was happening. Were the dogs at the tiger pools being likewise assaulted? They were not in as much danger, but if the ants cut them off from their only food source...

Bruce tried to slow down the pace of his mind. Dogs were dying here, right now in a horrible fashion unless he could do something. Languidly, he let his body float, trying to recover for another effort. That was when he noticed a huge black blimp floating nearby. It was Roger! The mammoth lab had somehow made a Herculean effort to drag his quarter ton of bulky, dragging flesh into the water. The first thing that Bruce did was paddle over to him. He splashed water onto his broad back, which the lab hadn't a hope of submerging with his natural buoyancy, to knock off the ants still biting and ripping away the big dog's flesh there. The water was tinged pink in the immediate vicinity of the huge, flabby lab-mix.

Roger was paddling also, he had a lot of fat holding up his body in the water, however, most of this was heavy back flesh, his head floated naturally at just below the water level. He had to paddle to keep his nose above the water. "S'better than... bein' eaten... alive... I s'ppose." He muttered, trying to keep his mouth above the water. "Still... think I... might drown... before long."

Roger had a dry sense of humor, especially concerning his own weight related predicaments. Bruce allowed himself a snort and pushed at Roger's considerable inertia in the water. Eventually the quarter ton dog found a rock submerged in the water that he could stand on with his forepaws. Roger's fat billowed greatly around his head which was tiny in the scope of his enlarged body. His beady eyes, compressed by his fatty cheeks and heavy brow, looked desperately tired. He spent a while catching his breath, the same pheromones on his breath as the golden informing Bruce of the same progressive heart failure which prevented the morbidly obese lab from ever fully catching his breath.

"Is it better now, Roger?" Bruce asked desperately, himself feeling as weary as Roger looked.

The dog, who was easily four times as wide as Bruce in the water looked at him with his dark eyes. "I guess it... beats being... covered with... biting ants..." he panted and chuffed. He swallowed and gasped, the stress of the ant attack was having a negative effect on his own obesity induced heart condition.

Bruce shook his head in painful regret. Roger was the one dog he felt comfortable unloading his feelings on; besides Einstein and Betsy, of course. "I can't... I can't help anymore of them." Bruce confessed to the second fattest dog in the colony now that the golden was dead, or as good as dead.

Roger's face was still quite expressive despite being filled with fat. Even being supported by the water, his huge chest descended about halfway down his forelegs. Buoyancy reversing the usual effect of gravity, Roger's excessive neck flesh billowed just under the surface around the underside of his chin. He had so much that several inches to either side of his snout, black fur floated just under the surface of the pool. The black lab might not have been capable of moving on land anymore, or even of giving up the food stuff that had robbed him of his mobility and many of his other faculties, but he was capable of empathy and understanding. He shared the pain of the other dogs, six in total, who remained stranded at the edge of the water, mere feet from salvation as ants continued to march in the hundreds upon their helpless bodies. Roger pushed off from his rock and paddled forward to Bruce. The bigger dog rested his neck against the bloodhound's shoulder. "You did... what you could. That's all... anyone can ask. We decided our... fate when we chose... the bloody manna... over our... companions. It's just... come to... bite us in... the rear sooner... than we... thought... is all."

Roger gulped water accidentally and floundered. His big fatty back was dry as a bone, and it was just bad fortune that his natural floating point had his nose and mouth below the waterline; Roger was just a little too fat to float even more effortlessly than Bruce. Bruce pushed the bigger dog backward to stand on his rock. "Just sit tight, Roger. I'm going out to help another-"

"There's... no one... left... Bruce." Roger gasped. With his acute hearing, Bruce could hear that some fluid had got into the big dog's lungs with that last flounder. Exactly not the thing he needed just right now. Bruce put his ear against Roger's fat laden, protruding chest. The black lab needed medical attention. The only thing he could think of doing with the lack of proper medical supplies was holding Roger up by the hind legs to get the fluid out of his lungs, but given his stature, that was as impossible as getting penicillin. When Bruce looked around the pools as well, he realized that Roger had spoken the truth. The last of the orderlies had fled. He was alone, the last mobile dog in the colony.

The dogs on the shore were being swarmed with ants now. None had any energy left to fight them. The golden was becoming a massive heap of black and red ants. Bruce hoped to the merciful universe that she was already dead. Others were not so fortunate.

"Roger..." Bruce said. But there was nothing to be said at the horror of the scene.

The black lab whose fattened body floated massively behind his comparatively smaller head coughed wetly and resumed his gasping breath, the white that was visible in his eyes was stained with red. 'Dog's aren't meant to be this heavy.' Bruce thought. "The golden was proof of that. Roger is proof of that." Roger spoke on his deep breaths, though they sounded watery and seemed to pain him. "You... need... to go... Bruce."

Someone screamed. It was different from the muffled whining and sobbing of the dogs who were being consumed alive by the carpet of soldier ants. It was a dog in one of the other pools. "Roger, just stand still a moment." Said Bruce and then climbed up on Roger's back. It was a massive black furred raft that took even Bruce's not inconsiderable weight with ease. He peered over at the other pool. There he saw what looked initially like black lace on the surface. He squinted and saw that it was, in fact, a lattice of the swarming black ants. They were connecting their bodies, sacrificing their lives to form a living mat for them to spread across the surface of the water. The two dogs there splashed, but the ants approached from all sides, as patient and unstoppable as a glacier. Eventually, they would tire and their fates would be the same as those on the beach.

"Damnit..." Bruce cursed, letting himself off Roger's wide back, so as not to strain the already struggling lab. Not even the water offered any real safety. The only escape left was over the ants themselves. The soldiers were now covering the area like an angry black carpet, drawn by the feast of fatty meat the immobile dogs presented. He paddled around to Roger who was looking more tired than he was just a few minutes ago. "Roger?" asked Bruce nudging the huge dog's fatty neck.

Roger seemed to start, coming out of a haze. He drew in a big gulp of air which bubbled deep in his chest and then coughed again. Roger would have pneumonia by nightfall, however, Bruce did not now think the quarter ton lab would have to worry about that. "Time... to... go..." he managed, coughing, sometimes letting his snout fall into the water.

Bruce put a paw under the dog's chin, feeling the huge mass of fatty tissue there. "Keep your head above water, Roger. You've got fluid in your lungs."

"Too... late... for... that... methinks... heh." He tried to chuckle, but ended up coughing instead. He gasped again and said. "You... go. I... think... I'll... take... a bit... of... a swim..." His voice was harsh and wandered off. Bruce didn't want to make him talk anymore. Roger pushed off from his rock again and paddled out into the deepest part of the pool. He winked at Bruce. "Go!" he said and then turned his face away, looking at the ants slowly spreading across the surface of the water with hunger even more boundless than the lab himself. Bruce paddled the opposite way, towards the tiger pools. He steeled himself for pain before he reached the back and then darted as fast as his feet could carry him over the living carpet of ants. He cursed his excellent hearing which allowed him to hear Roger floundering yet again in the water after the pools had past from sight.

Einstein was also fighting a sudden surge of ant activity by the time Bruce nearly collapsed into the makeshift camp; although a few beds made from bundles of leaves seated between close growing trees could hardly be called a "camp." They were coming mostly from the west, but also from the north and south as well. However, some of the dogs were also claiming that the little bastards were simply coming out form the ground all around. Einstein didn't know what to believe. He only knew that their one and only food source which was free of the taint of manna was right in the middle of a mass ant exodus. The only consolation seemed to be that the ants were heading east about as fast as they were coming in. When Bruce appeared, he seemed to provide an explanation for the ants' apparent destination.

"Keep this to yourself for now, Bruce. Or else you'll start a panic" Einstein told him as soon as Bruce related his story. It was honestly nice seeing the competent bloodhound again, if only it had been under better circumstances.

Bruce shook his head, clearly shaken. "What are we going to do?" he asked, his normal stoicism gone. Einstein knew that he had made close friends with some of the dogs in the old beach colony, now apparently overrun with ants and killed to the last dog.

Before Bruce had showed up, Einstein had been concerned with protecting their food source, not that the ants posed any threat to the fish themselves or would even be more than an inconvenience to fit mobile fisher-dogs. However he had been worried that if most of the dogs were driven away form the area, some intrepid group of dogs or wolves might attempt to set a monopoly on the dwindling supply of fish. Bruce had indeed been spot on with his estimate. There really was less than a week's worth of fish left in the pond if they kept eating at the same rate they had been.

However now Einstein realized that the ants posed a much more immediate threat. Unlike Bruce, he possessed no illusions of true leadership. Some of the dogs chose to look up to him and follow directions, but that was their prerogative. Right now, with news of the decimation the ants wrecked on the immobile class of canine. There was only one thing on his mind. "Betsy." He said.

"What?" asked Bruce, but Einstein was already waddling off.

Einstein worked himself into an easy trot. Three days without manna and a healthy diet of fish had done him wonders. All the back and forth between the tiger pools and the camp by the stream had given him a lot of much needed exercise as well. He'd already dropped somewhere in the neighborhood of 15-20 lbs, his current weight far exceeding his body's natural orientation. The extra slack in his gut allowed Einstein a bit of extra speed and stamina as he "hurried" back to his rotund mate. Bruce followed him naturally, and had to repeat his question before Einstein answered. "We have to get Betsy away from here. She won't stand a chance against those ants like you said."

Bruce puffed behind him. "But... Where are we going to take her? And how are we going to move her more than a few feet? She's as big now as any beach colony dog was."

Einstein shook his head as he forced his way along a now beaten path through the jungle. "Doesn't matter." He said. "I'm getting her away from here."

Bruce muttered to himself. "Maybe we ought to build rafts while we can... try our chances out at sea. We might get picked up..."

Einstein rounded on the bulky hound, his fangs showing. "I don't care about everyone else, Bruce. All I care about is Betsy. If that's a problem for you, just turn around now." With a snarl the obese shepherd turned back around and trudged down the path. He was relieved a few minutes later when he heard footsteps again dogging his path. Einstein thought furiously as he trotted, trying to think of how to fight this seemingly ubiquitous enemy. However all that really seemed to matter was getting to her in time. He just had a feeling that everything would work out well if only he could get to her...

Behind both of the dogs, the last vestiges of "civilized" society dissolved into chaos. Dogs and wolves fled in all direction away from the ants which seemed to encroach on all sides. Old pack virtues were forgotten. The old hierarchy was forgotten. It seemed to be every dog for himself now.

The Lab awoke for second time after he was sure that he had died. The last thing that the fatty former Alpha-Male, former Tiger-lackey remembered was wandering in delusion through an endless nightmare jungle. The Lab groaned, his fever had broken, but when he opened his eyes he did not at first understand what he was seeing. His neck still stung fiercely.

Fluttering his eyes open, the Lab drew in a labored breath, feeling the old familiar weight on his chest... plus more; he had gained more weight while he'd been sleeping. The first thing the Golden Lab saw was upraised bamboo. At first, the fatty dog wondered if he had stumbled into a new bamboo forest. However, these poles were yellowed, not green and also, they were fitted very close together, so there was no space left between them. His eyes moving sluggishly without moving his head, the Lab soon saw... a corner. He was in a room, a room made of bamboo!

The solid and sheer organization of the structure lifted the Lab's weary spirit for it could only mean one thing. "Humans!" the Lab wheezed, his throat painfully dry. The Lab had always felt that at least a few of the humans from the ship must have survived and now, here, finally was the proof. Only humans were adept enough to build a structure like this and the Lab could tell, after a lifetime of living with them, that it was built to the right dimensions to house a human.

The Lab wriggled where he lay. He wanted to see the humans, he wanted to be with them again. He had hated every moment of trying to survive on his own. He wanted care, he wanted coddling. He wanted, no needed, to return to his safe warm lab cage with daily meals and regular pats and pets from the lab staff. Whatever fate had been waiting for him in California, the Lab just wanted to be away from this miserable dirty island and put his lot back into hands greater and wiser than his own. Suddenly the realization of his desperate longings seemed tantalizingly near.

The Labrador teetered and it was about then that he realized that he was supported above the ground. He stopped his frantic wiggling and tossing in his supporting bed, but it was already too late to stop his fall. The crude cot he had been lying in was top heavy with the plus-sized canine within and it tipped over, spilling the Lab heavily onto a sandy bamboo floor.

The Lab groaned with pain. The fall had been less than two feet, but it hurt a lot with his hundreds of pounds hitting the floor. His neck hurt worst of all. Gasping in panic, the Lab remembered that his throat had been torn open by a vicious wolfess last time he'd been awake. He reached with a shaking paw to feel the underside of his neck. He felt, to his amazement, only his own fur, rather than the open, hanging hinge of open flesh that had been there previously. "The wound is closed!" thought the Lab ecstatically. Then his exploring paws felt a little further and he realized he was not as recovered as he had hoped. The left side of his neck was closed shut with dozens of bamboo splinters which pierced both sides of the rip, holding his neck together. The Lab winced when he touched one. Also, unfortunately, he realized that he had jarred several of them loose in his tumble. He felt fresh blood trickle out the underside of his neck and down onto his fatty brisket.

"I'm such an idiot." Thought the Lab resignedly. He turned his head against his thick neck rolls. The cot itself had been made of bamboo with crude vine lashings and some obviously salvaged cloth. The Lab had broken it when it fell so he could not even hope to lift himself back onto the formerly comfortable surface.

He could have just lied there on the sandy bamboo planks, but the Lab was filled with an urge to gather information about his surroundings and find the humans who had built this place. He sniffed, and received further confirmation. There were two human scents lingering about the place. Doggedly, the Lab decided to get up and follow the trails to where the humans might be.

Getting up proved to be something of a problem, however. He'd gained a lot more weight than he had initially suspected as was evident when he just sort of stalled in his usual motion to get up. His hind-legs were turned out more than he remembered and he could not get his knees closer together, they were already straddling a new bigger and heavier gut! "Uph!" The Lab chuffed, "Wow, I've really... umph! Gotten fat!"

That was a bit of an understatement. The Lab had remembered struggling to walk at about three times his original weight. Now he felt like he had put on at least another hundred pounds! It took a lot of work just to sit up on his haunches. He slouched uncomfortably with the size of his abdomen which filled the space between his undercarriage and the floor. He coughed and then swallowed. Looking down, he saw his fatty pigeon chest protruding further and wider than he remembered.

The disconcertion would have been greater had the Lab not been dealing with mysteriously increasing weight since arriving on the island. Really, this new change was hardly surprising, he remembered heating heartily of manna the morning of his supposed "mate's" betrayal and assassination attempt. It still amazed him that he had been able to survive such a vicious attack. He just hoped that he could keep on surviving.

After several minutes of trying, the Lab realized finally that he was too heavy to stand. He just didn't have the strength to lift his bulky, massive belly and hindquarters. He was reduced to dragging his heavy hindquarters along the ground. He could pull himself forward with his forepaws while sitting on one of his haunches and pushing with the third remaining leg as well. It was honestly harder than walking, but it was really the only thing that the Lab could do.

Turning himself about, the Lab saw that the primitive - although lavish when compared to the sheltered the stranded canines had been able to concoct - structure was only about the size of a small shack. One side was just about as long as a human lying down and although the height was generous due to the building material. Continuing to turn, the Lab eventually came to the portal, more fabric stretched across an opening in the bamboo. Sunlight pouring in from around the ragged edges provided the only illumination in the dim chamber. Struggling, the Lab dragged his heavy self towards it and out into the tropical day.

Waves rolled luxuriously across a pale sandy beach like a scene from a travel postcard. It was painfully bright, but the Lab was able to adjust quickly after he stuck his nose beyond the salvaged fabric. Palm trees wavered in the strong breeze, but between them, further inland, he could see rows and rows of bamboo rising in the shadows. The Lab received quite a shock when he saw what was resting against the wall of the bamboo shed. It's long, black form was instantly recognizable. "A gun!" thought the Lab with fright. Suddenly, he didn't feel quite as safe as before.

But there was nothing to it. It was not as though he could run away at this point. The Lab stalled at the edge of the bamboo floor. He didn't fancy worming his way through the soft burning sand with his weight what it currently was. But he was so thirsty...

The Lab was trying to conquer his fears and muster the strength for the move when he heard movement not far away. His floppy ears tilted on his head and directed his nose to a second small shack. He let out a small gasp when he saw what emerged.

They were two humans alright, however, it seemed that even humans with all their wisdom had not been spared the peculiar deleterious effects of the strange isle. Both sported bellies that effectively covered their genitalia with their overhangs, but the Lab could tell that one was male and the other female. The female was the slighter of the two, if a 350+ pound frame could be called slight. She was nearly naked, wearing the remains of a much too small shirt on her head and neck like a turban and also a ragged conglomeration of fabric across her very generous chest. Her skin glistened in the fierce heat. The male was darker skinned and also much heavier. His gut was flowing to just above his knees and sported huge flat pancake breasts as well. He wore even less clothing, just the shirt on his head and neck to keep the sun off. When they turned, the Lab saw that they wore big tropical leaves behind them to cover their anal glands, affixed to their waists with belts of vine that went under the prodigious paunches that each had grown.

The woman was speaking to the man, obviously excited about something in the other shack. With his canine hearing, the Lab could eavesdrop from the other shack. "I've got voltage!" she cried, dimples forming on her thick cheeks.

The dark skinned man grabbed her forearms and danced, or rather lumbered around with her. "That's incredible. I knew you were a genius!"

The woman smiled. "That I am." She stated primply, tossing her long brown hair, "But I still need to somehow make an adapter for the emergency beacon.

"Pfff!" The male waved his hand and his blobby upper arm fat wavered, "That'll be the easy part for you."

The female turned her head bashfully away. "It shouldn't be too hard. I can use some of the wire and bits from the CD player. With any luck we'll soon be going home, Doug." There was silence for a moment as he looked down at her. Then she reached out a hand and touched the larger male's forearm. The LAb gaped as the two huge humans suddenly embraced, pressing their big bellies together, rubbing their sweat slick selves together with hands groping each other's fat rolls.

Embarrassed for them, the Lab withdrew his head. He panted in the comfortable gloom of the room and then laughed quietly to himself.

Then he pondered for a long time the humans' conversation. "Emergency beacon!" he thought with relish. "I knew the humans would have a plan." The Lab felt smug, knowing that he had chosen well to be a servant of superior human beings. The others were all that more foolish for believing that they could make their own society on this cursed island. "They'll see I was right all along. When the ships come to rescue us, they'll see..." The Lab wondered if he might receive any special reward for being the first to come back instead of going feral like the rest of the escaped lab animals.

Footsteps in the sand. The Lab cringed and then poked an eye out beyond the fabric. The female had gone back inside the shack. But the big dark skinned human was lumbering over this way. The Lab whined in the back of his throat. He hoped they would not be too unhappy about the destruction of their cot...

The curtain was thrown back. Robbed of his mobility, the Lab could do nothing but lie where he was. The obese dog lowered his head and raised his eyes, trying to look cute. The man towered over him, wider now than the doorway would easily admit. He breathed a little hoarsely, but his eyes widened in surprise when he saw the Lab sitting there on the floor, his tail wagging uncertainly behind him. He turned his head and shouted, "Miranda! He's awake!"

Five minutes later, the Lab found himself facing the large human female sitting cross legged in front of him within the little shack. She wore a smile on her plump face. Surprisingly, she did not immediately reach out to touch him, rather giving him a respectful distance, although she should have known he was well beyond attacking anything at this point.

"Can you understand me?" she asked, looking directly into his eyes.

The familiarity was a relief as was the sound of a human voice, richly deep to his ears, even from the female. The way she looked at him, it was just like the researchers had back in New Zealand, back home. The Lab would have liked nothing more than to simply throw himself against her and wag his tail until it fell off. Deliberately, he nodded his head up and down. The woman made a gleeful noise in her throat and threw her partner just outside the shack a knowing look

"Are you one of the dogs that was aboard the ship?"

The Lab wondered if she would be impressed by this. "Yeah!" he barked.

She did indeed start. "Ah, so you are one of the advanced models. That's fortunate. I'm not terribly familiar with your breed, though. Can you speak?"

The Lab, in fact, knew perfect English. It was English that everyone on the island had been speaking. However, due the shape of their mouths and vocal apparatus, the actual sounds were warped, even if the words and grammar were the same as human english. The Lab doubted that many of the dogs could produce sounds that would be recognizably as English to a human, even if they were able to speak normally amongst other dogs. He himself, however had received some treatments in that regard, as a member of one of the more 'advanced' breeds, which everyone seemed to forget the moment they landed on this dirty pile of mud.

"I can speak." Said the Lab in heavily accented English; it sounded more like "I kan sfeek." However. "Fairly well."

The woman clapped her hands, setting her large bosom wobbling behind her hodgepodge wrapping. "Amazing! I knew it was worth bringing you here!" Again she glanced back at her partner outside. He sighed and shrugged defeat. She knelt down a little more, to be at his level. She seemed deeply impressed by the Lab. His tail wagged a little faster. "We found you in the jungle..." she pointed at his neck, "With your injury. Can you tell us what's going on out there?"

The Lab chuffed and looked away. He hardly understood the craziness which was infecting his fellow canines. "War." He warbled.

The female scientist, however, was not satisfied with that answer. Eventually, she got the whole ordeal out of him, from the moment he landed on the island to when his mate's Beta ripped his throat open. Talking for humans made his throat feel scratchy, but the Lab persisted. The woman seemed more and more amazed at the things he told her.

When it was over, she asked to examine him. She looked into his eyes, pulling back the lids to see the whites. "Still a bit anemic." She declared, the words having no meaning to the Lab. Then she inspected his very large neck wound and repaired the damage with a few additional clean splinters she retrieved from a plastic jug.

"The penicillin from the first aid kit seems to be keeping back the worst of the infection." She said. "You're extremely lucky we found you." The Lab agreed and, feeling adventurous, licked her face in appreciation. She laughed and wiped off the slime.

Aside from the loss of blood and the flap of neck meat held in place with bamboo stitches, the Lab seemed in good health... well also considering his extreme size. Because the examination brought the issue to mind and because the Lab got a very close up view of the woman's own fattened body, the Lab asked the question, mostly because he felt that the humans, in their wisdom would likely have figured out all of the island's mysteries by now. "Do you know why I'm so fat?"

By that question, the Lab had meant everyone on the island, humans included; he had just amended it to spare his tired throat. However the woman reacted oddly, drawing back from him and frowning. The Lab's tail went still.

Grimacing, she said. "We are sorry about that, fellow. We've... er... Well, you see we didn't know if you were going to wake up again. You're fever was so high a couple days ago." The Lab had a sudden sinking sensation in his gut. "I've... I've been trying a few different mixtures of the strange food which appears every night here. And... well... I've been trying them out on you. I'm very sorry."

She reached out to touch the Lab's fatty side, but he felt numb. He sighed with the knowledge that he was indeed still just a test animal. He felt conflicted. This was what he had been wanting right? This is the price one pays for handing over freedom. "It's... alright." He said, mostly for the woman's benefit.

"I am sorry." She said again and now reached out to give the Lab a big hug which he leaned into, sniffing her fragrance. "I was trying to find a way to mitigate its gaining effects, but nothing worked. Every-time I fed you that stuff, you ended up gaining more weight. I'm sorry."

Honestly, the Lab didn't feel so terrible knowing what the humans had done to him while he'd been with fever and unconscious. If left to his own devices, he'd likely be of similar size or more by now anyways. He licked her face again. "It's alright. Everyone's getting fatter."

The woman sniffed and squeezed his bulky torso, petting him as he had longed to be petted before. He spoke again "Is the ship coming soon?"

She drew away. "Did you hear us talking about that?" The Lab nodded and she sighed again, tossing her hair back behind her. "I hope so, I just have a couple more things to do before the beacon should work again. After that, we'll have to wait and see."

The Lab mulled over everything that he had learned since awakening. Especially what the scientist had just told him. Finally he asked. "Do you have manna?"

"Do I have what?" asked the perplexed, mostly naked woman.

The Lab shook his head, forgetting himself. "Do you have food?"

The woman frowned and crossed her arms under her breasts. "No... We don't even have any bullets for the gun or we'd shoot some birds."

"Miranda! Don't tell him that!" said the male from outside, butting into the conversation for the first time.

"It's alright, he's not going anywhere, Doug!" chided the scientist. She turned back to the Lab. "That's why I kept testing my mixtures on you while you were sleeping. I know it's wrong but... We're both hungry too."

The Lab let out a deep breath and then nudged the troubled woman's hand with his wet nose. He looked up at her. "I'll be your guinea pig."

The woman drew her hand back. "What did you say?"

The Lab growled just a bit in frustration. "Test on me." He said, the words hurting some part still wriggling inside his mind. He looked up at her with a tired expression. "If it helps you, test it on me." He shook his head on his thick neck. "I need the manna." He confessed.

The woman stared down at him, her eyes suddenly calculating. "Well..." she stammered. "I could learn a lot from you, buddy. And not just about turning this "manna" into proper food. You can help me gather a lot of really important information about this stuff for when we get back to New Zealand." She realized she was getting carried away again. She knelt down and looked at the Lab levelly. "Would... Would you like to be my lab partner?"

As an answer, he licked her nose. He flopped over onto his side. "Just get me something to eat before I die... again." He said and she laughed and exited the tiny shed

The ants quickly went from a nuisance to outright terrifying. Betsy was nearly helpless against the terrible little bugs. She struggled to wipe them off of her where she could reach on her face and her chest. She scratched with her free hind-paw at a small area on her vast belly which was all she could reach. All the time she struggled, she knew that if she could just stand, she could pull herself out of discomfort and danger. But at 350 lbs, even sitting up was beyond her. The best she could do was roll, and that soon exhausted her. The ants were crawling on her by the dozen, two or three different varieties as far as she could tell. The worst were the ones with the big pincers. But fortunately, there were not many of those... yet.

"Einny! Einny!" she cried, wanting the shepherd to come and do something about the insects crawling all over her helpless bloated body. She had already accumulated several dozen bites, some of which bled in places. She struggled to roll over again, the crunch of ant bodies under her massive weight was satisfying. She came about on her tummy panting. She would sit here a while, recovering with her soft, vulnerable tummy facing the ground. At the very least, her thicker back hair offered some protecting against the biting insects pervading the area.

Betsy wipe off her face with her paws, it was a stretch to reach that high, given the side of her chest which half buried her forepaws. Betsy could just reach her ears if she bent her head down as far as possible. All the rest... It was just a big banquet to the hated ants. She did what she could with her big, bushy tail, but otherwise, she just had to sit there and feel the bugs worm their way through her silky collie fur and then bite her plump skin. It was absolutely intolerable. "Einstein!" she howled in fear and pain. She didn't even know what he could do about the ants at this point, but she knew that she wanted him here.

Panting, and trying to recover for another taxing roll, Betsy looked down to the stream. The she-wolf was there along with a few other dogs who were still wandering around the camp gathering belongings or else trying futility to stomp the ants where they could. Setacean was splashing water over the huge mass of she-wolf. It was a little hard to see at this time, but someone had told her that the she-wolf had to weigh in excess of 500 lbs at this point. She was massive, and also a massive addict.

The she-wolf's grey fur spread out in bovine flanks to either side of her. She rested on her belly, her fat chest now having grown fully out into the water along with her paws. From Betsy's vantage point, she couldn't see most of her front, but she could see the she-wolf's now exceptionally wide back and the way it curved in an inverted fashion, dipping slightly where her spine was buried and expanding fatly at either side. Her croup was enormous. The fatty shelf at her tail head actually curved down over her privates, devouring her tail and it was obvious that she could no longer moved that appendage as well as she used to. Her thighs were much blobbier than Betsy's and her gut much larger. She rested on her belly with legs splayed across its sheer girth, not even pretending anymore that she could touch her knees to the ground around it. Setacean was busy splashing ants off of her forequarters, but Betsy could see her rear end teeming with the small biting things. Occasionally, the she-wolf would lower one paw or the other to the ground, its full length needed just to touch the surface and wiggle her bottom around in a pitiful way. It was clear that she was in as much or more discomfort as Betsy was by herself. However, the she-wolf, with her soaring weight lacked any ability to fight the ants. She could only lay there as she became even heavier with every passing hour.

Betsy winced with the biting pain in her back. She needed to roll again, however, she didn't even feel recovered from the last time yet.

"Betsy!" someone cried.

Her eyes lit up in pure joy and relief. "Ein-" she started, but then she saw that it was not the shepherd. Instead, it was one of the dogs who'd been lingering around the camp when this all started. Betsy had thought that they'd all vacated the area by now. However, this dog's face was one she recognized. "Kappa-3?" she asked.

He grinned a dog's grin. "The same. But I've been going by Robby these last few days. It's the new fad, I guess."

Betsy had not been close friends with the dog. But they had shared words together in the past and the big Bernese rather liked a lot of her ideas and theories. Still she wondered at his sudden presence here. The large canine was already moving to thankfully brush the stinging ants off of her broad black and white back. "What are you doing here? I thought that you went to the beach to look after your cousin?"

"I did, but..." Robby paused, his eyes hollow and filled with pain. "The beach colony's been overrun with ants..." He took a deep shuddering breath and then started knocking the ants off her fleshy hindquarters again. "I... I think everyone's dead."

Betsy hissed in her throat. "Dead? Dead?! How can it be, they're only ant-"

"These... these things are not ants! They are little devils!" Robby gasped, fresh tears staining the white fur of his snout. "They came by the million, Betsy. There was nothing I could do, so I ran and I left my cousin back there to die."

Betsy tried to absorb what the big Bernese was telling her as he planted his broad paws on the ground and excused himself to go find a suitably leafy branch to work with. The entire beach colony destroyed... From what Einstein had told her a full third of their remaining number remained stuck and immobile around the old pools. It was a disaster, pure and simple. Betsy felt hurt to realize that the only dogs who had not participated in the she-wolf's mad power scheme and her own "punishment" were now apparently dead.

Robby returned with a new springy branch and proceeded to brush off her sides, bottom and then the surrounding area. He didn't say anything as he worked, the branch occupying his mouth. When he rested, he spat it out and said. "Thankfully the ants are not nearly so bad here... Back at the beach they were so thick, you could not see the ground in places..." he shivered with the recollection.

Betsy desperately longed to reach out to him, but he was too far away; and she was too fat. "You were brave to stay as long as you did, Robby."

He turned his head and grinned at her. "Thank you Betsy." His eyes turned down. "I... I just have to apologize again for all that business with the she-wolf." Now he glanced over to her bloated form. Setacean, having apparently seen Robby now had a leafy branch of her own to fend off the ants with. "It's because of all of us that you're... well, so big. You wouldn't even have to worry about the ants if we'd just... if I-"

He clenched his teeth and Betsy relieved him. "I understand, Robby, I do. And I forgive you." Betsy sniffed, "I wouldn't be able to live my life if I couldn't let go of things like that. I don't hold you responsible for what was done to me, Robby." Again, she felt the natural urge to lick his face, but her weight kept her firmly pinned.

Robby seemed like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He allowed himself a small smile. "I came back here to get a couple things. I didn't know where I was going. Then I saw you and I realized that I was being given a second chance to help." He put a big paw on her soft, round shoulder. "I'd like to help you, Betsy, like I couldn't help my poor cousin."

Betsy smiled and struggled with a paw against her reigning shoulder flesh to put it over Robby's. "I think I need any help I can get at this point." She grinned, then added more seriously, "Thank you for coming, Robby."

He beamed down at her and went back to work with his branch. Five minutes later, Einstein appeared at last along with Bruce, surprisingly puffing at his heels. The image was disconcerting, seeing as Einstein weighed more than double the bloodhoud's own advanced figure. However, it made Betsy's heart flutter seeing him so bold and sure of himself. He came right to her and eyed Robby in a jealous way.

The shepherd ignored him, however and threw himself down to entwine his thick neck with her thicker one. Their protruding briskets touched. "Betsy! I'm so sorry I took so long." he exclaimed and channeled his fear and worry with his shuddering embrace. It touched her deeply to see how much he cared.

"Einny, I'm just glad you're here now." Said Betsy as she melted into his embrace as much as he could with her overlarge and cumbersome body. They just held each other for a long, silent moment.

Einstein finally said. "Betsy, we have to get you out of here. These ants, they already killed everyone at the be-"

"I know, Robby told me." Said Betsy.

Bruce, who'd been hunkered down and trying to catch his breath rose, ears perking at the name. "Robby?"

The big white furred dog turned and dropped the branch he'd been using. He lowered his head in shame. Then, when that didn't seem to be enough, he dropped to the floor and exposed his belly. "I abandoned my post. Please forgive me." He whimpered.

Bruce seemed to consider the bigger dog and then looked at Betsy who he'd been helping. Then in a flash, Bruce was down, his jaws around the Bernese's throat. However, he just touched his fangs to Robby's neck in ceremony before letting him up. "You are forgiven, Robby." Said Bruce who then brushed off some leaves and ants from the big dog's back. "You can do better work here."

As Robby was grinning at Bruce, his tongue lolling happily, Betsy turned back to Einstein who was also slowly getting back up. She felt a strong pang to be the only seated dog now. "Einstein, what were you saying about moving me? You know you can't-"

"Bets..." Einstein said, looking down at her with loving, though terrified eyes. "You can't stay here. The ants will just keep coming. When one ant finds a food source, it send signals for all the other ants to come." He put his chin on her head. "In a few hours this place is going to look like the beach."

Betsy was shaking her head, her mind not making sense of what Einstein was trying to say. She was grounded! She couldn't move! She was too damn fat! What did Einstein expect of her? "This doesn't make any sense. Where are these things coming from? What are they doing here?"

"I don't know, Bets. But does it really matter?"

Betsy looked up at the shepherd with bleak eyes. That part made sense but...

Bruce chimed in. "I... I think I might have an answer to Betsy's question."

All the other dogs gaped at Bruce. The bloodhound lifted his head slightly with his former dignity as a scientist. He continued. "I was able to get a lot more data on the spiral patterns of Manna distribution that me and Einstein worked on earlier at the beach. When I had enough patterns, I was working through a simple algorithm to describe them when I realized that I recognized the pattern."

"You've seen it before?" Einstein asked in astonishment.

"I had, but but it was only one lecture and a few years ago. I didn't remember right away, but the math brought it back to mind." He cleared his throat. "The patterns resembled greatly the motions of bee dances. It was not long after that when I realized that the manna was being laid out by insects."

Betsy suddenly got a disgusted look on her face and turned away. Einstein's face felt a little pale, but he asked. "Then the ants..."

Bruce nodded grimly, "The very same, I think. It's just a hypothesis, but it does seem to fit very well considering what's happening..."

Betsy shuddered with revulsion. "The ants... They're - ugh - They're farming, us aren't they?" she cried. Everyone looked at her and her huge fatty flanks which prevented her relatively small, thin legs from getting her bulk off of the ground. But no one said anything. "That's what they do. They leave out manna until mammals like us are too fat to move and then they swarm when their prey is helpless. Isn't that right?!"

"Bets..." said Einstein. "You need to calm down."

Bruce moved in nonchalantly, however, Betsy knew that he was coming in to try to listen to her breathing and heart rate. Betsy didn't want to be treated like an invalid. She wanted to move, damnit! She wanted to walk away from this place. She was keeping her friends here longer than they would have otherwise. "Bruce!" she snapped, "Just..." she tried to take a couple deep breaths, "Give me some space, alright."

He inclined his head and stepped away. If he had gleaned any information about the state of her health, he didn't say. Everybody was silent as she tried to catch her breath. She knew she was letting the situation get to her and she hadn't the reserves to deal with it, with her already stressed body. To break the concentration on her, if nothing else, she said. "There's just one thing... that doesn't make any sense... about Bruce's hypothesis."

"What's that?" asked Einstein."

Betsy gulped air, then said. "The ants exhaust their food supply when they do this. When we came there were no other animals on the island."

"Except the birds" said Robby, trying to get in on the conversation.

"Yes, but they leave every night..." said Einstein, then his mouth continued for him, "...because that's when the manna laying ants are wandering around."

Things seemed to be coming together into a beautiful, though terrifying logical tapestry. "And the night it rained..." said Robby.

"That night it was too wet for the manna ants." Said Einstein. "My god, we've been seeing the little bastards ever since we landed here and never gave them a second thought."

"But how can there be so many of them when their food is so intermittent?" asked Betsy.

Bruce said, "It's possible that they have some sort of den or construct somewhere on the island. They might lie the vast majority of their numbers in a state of hibernation until food happens to come along." One by one, eyes turned to the massive central mountain that was visible from every point on the island.

Robby voiced the superstitious dread they all shared. "You don't think..."

Bruce shook his head. "No. But it is very possible that they have a subterranean network all over the mountain and likely all over the island itself. It could be extremely vast..."

"How many ants are we talking about here?" asked Betsy, her voice quavering slightly.

"There's no way I can just guess-" started Bruce, but Einstein interrupted.

"Enough." He said darkly. "There's enough of them." Then he turned to Betsy and ran a paw down the back of her head, over her inflated neck rolls. "Come on, we have to get you moved."

"But how, Einny?" asked Betsy, now eager to get as far away from this place as possible, but still befuddled by the logistics.

The shepherd rubbed her a little more vigorously. "The only way we can." With his head, he signaled the other two to align on her left side.

"What're y-" started Betsy, but Einstein spoke over her.

"We're going to have to roll her." Said the fatty shepherd, taking the position closest to her head. Bruce took the middle and Robby was at her fatty rear.

Betsy started to protest, but Bruce asked, "Which way?"

Einstein was shaking his head. "The ocean is to the east and we can't go south or west..."

Robby chimed in merrily, "Then North it is!" The big Bernese set his shoulder into Betsy's plump, round flank and began to bowl her over. Einstein and Bruce were soon helping as well.

Betsy shrieked and cursed as they shoved her again, onto her back and then her opposite flank before starting over again. "Stopit, stoppit, stoppit!" she cried. She tried to nip at Einstein in sheer panic, but it was useless for the lack of mobility in her neck and the spinning. "Ugh... Umph! Where-Where are w-we even g-g-going?" Betsy cried as they rolled her over and over away and out of the camp.

"Anywhere that's not here." Said Einstein simply, and refused to say more on the matter. The big shepherd leaned his weight against her burgeoning frame and turned his lovely girlfriend over and around again and again as they made slow progress through the jungle undergrowth, trampling a wide trail as they did.

Setacean watched them go. Sharyenna seemed in a daze. Every so often her wide flanks would convulse and she would cry out in pain wordlessly. She spoke of nothing save her hunger for manna and her pups any more. "They're coming!" she would cry. "They're coming and their mother needs food to feed them. Please get me more manna, Setacean. There's a good girl..."

Setacean frowned in disgust of what her former Alpha had become, even as she laboured to keep her prodigeous body free from the terrible insects. The biting and the stress on the matron's body seemed to be brining true labor about early, which was fortunate or Setacean would have already left her.

The proud wolf could feel her own nipples tingling in sympathy with Sharyenna's lowering milk. Her pheromones were affecting her body as they would any other wolf bitch who spent as much time around her as she did. Setacean's milk would drop as well, so she could assist with the feeding of the pups. It was very fortunate that wolves had such an exceedingly useful survival trait. Using branch and water as her weapons, Setacean did not plan to linger long after the coming birth. This place was too dangerous for helpless pups.

Setacean, former beta of Sharyenna and now rogue female in her own mind, checked under the bloated wolf's tail often despite the difficulties it entailed what with the disgustingly thick overhang of flesh over the area. Sharyenna's body disgusted her to the core, but she lingered. She lingered because the she-wolf held one last treasure inside of her that was worth saving. It remained to be seen if she would take the little lives inside of her with her into the grave of her own fattened body.

The ants grew thicker as the hours progressed and Sharyenna showed that she was going to have a difficult labor. The she-wolf's body was approaching the 600 lb mark, her fatty bulk and digestive processes drawing energy away from where it was needed. She was dilated enough, but brought nothing forth. Setacean stopped cleaning the ants off of her bloated, helpless body, choosing instead only to keep her immediate rear and the area behind her clean. Setacean was having to hot foot to keep the ants from crawling on her as well.

Sharyenna cried in pain as they bit her ruthlessly. "Setacean! Ah! Please, you're Alpha needs you!"

"You're not my Alpha anymore..." muttered the wolfess as she watched Sharyenna move through another contraction.

When the first pup came, there was a lot of blood and the ants feasted on it, gathering by the hundred. Setacean ripped open the sac and lifted the new pup clear as fast as she possibly could. It was not so tiny as the wolfess had expected it to be, perhaps fed up on the over abundance of nutrients in Sharyenna's body. Setacean took it as a good omen. Hanging from a nearby low branch was a simply sling she had been working on for this express purpose. She put the pup there, hoping it would not wriggle out too soon. When she returned, there was afterbirth as well as a second pup. Setacean scooped up this one also, performing a mother's duties as Sharyenna herself was incapable. In fact, the bloated she-wolf was not even a mother to these pups in her eyes.

Setacean stared at Sharyenna coldly as she writhed and bucked with the ants growing more and more numerous on her distended body. The ants, unfortunately were drawn to the blood and placental tissue as if to honey. They grew thick on the ground, and Sharyenna as well. Setacean had been hoping for the whole litter, but she would settle for as many as she could get.

Another hour passed and when no new pup was forthcoming, Setacean lost her patience. She waded into the stream by Sharyenna's tossing head. They were crawling into her ears and over her cheeks... "Setacean!! Help me! Cant you see-"

The former beta rushed forward and gripped the she-wolf's neck between her fangs. Blood oozed under her teeth and ants transferred to her own nose. She didn't care. She gave a sharp tug once and Sharyenna went limp. "Listen to me carefully, manna-junkie." Said Setacean. "You're life is already forfeit." Sharyenna cringed, even with the ants milling their way over her face. "But if you wish to save the lives of your pups, you will bring them forth now. I will take them far from here and keep them safe. This I promise."

Setacean turned then and Sharyenna said nothing more. She did not cry out for her any longer or even yell much at all as the ants had their way with her. In the next hour, two more pups came, though the area behind Sharyenna became a forest of ants and Setacean had to dunk the last one in water before daring to open its case. A small pile of ants grew over the discarded placentas. They came as quickly as Setacean could sweep them away, even when she tossed the bloody sacs and afterbirth away into the jungle using a stick. She transferred her sling with the four pups to around her neck. Both so they could benefit from the warmth of her breast and because she had spied ants crawling down the line from the branch supporting them. Things quickly seemed to devolve from there. The black tide became angry and bold as their numbers bolstered. She could see the fifth pup coming, albeit slowly. Sharyenna's rear end was solid black with the ants...

Setacean fled with the four lives she had managed to save. She would nurse the many ant bites she suffered to her legs in the cool waters of a stream miles away. And afterwards, she nursed the new pups with her almost dry teats. But their feeding would stimulate more milk to come...

The Tigress was not sure if she was in heaven or hell. Her jaw ached with the constant eating even though she hardly chewed anymore, instead ripping off chunks and swallowing hard, more like a crocodile than a tiger. The first horse was hard, the second one was nearly impossible. But the Tigress wouldn't stop. She _refused _ to stop. She was so close... she could feel it. She could feel it even over the pain of her constantly distended stomach.

For days on end she ate constantly. She ate the far flank of her first mare on the first day. The Tigress stopped when she reached muscle and bone, instead only ingesting the vast quantities of manna fed-flesh. This, she knew instinctively and from her experience with the cow, would help her gain the fastest and also pass through her belly much more quickly than mundane meat, leaving that much room for more. With the mare cleaned from shoulder to hip and a lot of its back as well, the tigress was left with a belly that dangled below her ankles and was so heavy she had to lean against the massive carcass just so she could take the few steps she needed to... her last steps.

Walking around the mare behind, the Tigress avoided the water. She felt no thirst, quenched as she was on the mare's blood. Heaving her massive bulk sent alarm bells ringing in certain sections of her now hazy mind. However, she just trudged on, pausing half way on the dozen or so feet her trip consisted of. When she had situated herself between the two dead mares and their massive, multi-ton carcasses, she was ready. She flexed her jaw and felt the greed inside of her, the greed that the white tiger had awoken in her with his passion and his lust. She would be his perfect mate, just as he already was her perfect mate. He would come to her, she was sure, just as soon as the mass that made up these mares had become hers. She'd be the biggest living thing on this entire island and everyone, her mate most of all, would look up at her in silent awe. This is what she had come here for, she was certain. This was why she was here!

The fatty meat could not fill her gullet fast enough.

The Tigress slept off and on, usually about two hours of dreamless slumber between three hours of feasting. Her body worked like a well oiled, digestive machine. She even imagined the food she was cramming down her throat pushing the food below it further along and chuckled at the concept. Night or day did not matter to the tiger as she power binged endlessly. She kept up the cycle of eating and napping with a mindless fortitude. Every-time she awoke, she was noticeably heavier...

She ate her way down, first of all, chewing a void out of both carcasses where they met and their flanks pushed together. When the Tigress pushed her way into the void she was making with her mouth, she was reminded strongly of the mushroom dream she had once had, where she'd been eating an escape hole but her flanks grew every-time she tried to make it bigger...

It was easy in the middle, the flesh was pressed together and seemed almost to want to come into her eagerly working mouth as she removed it bite by bite. When her stomach was strained to its limits again, she would stop where she was and sleep for a time. The Tigress's entire head and forequarters was dripping with blood. With a paw that was increasingly heavy, she reached up to pull more fatty back meat down from the first mare as she worked her way towards the heads. As she passed, all that was left of the first mare was a bloody, roughly horse sized carcass. A feast for any predator, still, but all the parts that the Tigress was interested in were gone.

She grew weary of the taste of manna-tinged, fatty connective tissue. She gulped down the last wad roughly. She felt her stomach churn in her and wanted to vomit. Drawing a raspy breath, the tigress decided that she just needed a break as the haze grew thicker in her mind. For the first time in over two days, she slept in the bloody hollow of the immobile dead mares... for six hours. Then she awoke, this time with an appetite.

The haze, in so much as the Tigress was aware of it, was comfortable, numbing. It brought reassurance of what she was doing and blocked opposing thoughts before they could even really enter her conscious mind. The Tigress sank into it as one would a bubbling hot bath, letting the vapors fill her mind, leaving nothing but blissful numbness of the pain in her midsection, her mounting problems moving her limbs as her flesh expanded in all directions and an exceeding sense of rightness that was almost like a high.

By the time she reached the short rips of the two mares, she started having problems. She'd been inching her way forward on her belly, pushing with her hind paws while lifting up slightly with her abs, She only needed a few inches at a time and so far, this worm-like motion had been working. The Tigress's breath was short and raspy in her fat clogged neck as she tried again to lift her belly with her abs. It'd been getting harder as her belly grew thicker and deeper, a few inches at a time had turned into inch by inch and then several times for that one inch, working more in the give of her skin than anything else. She flexed her stomach muscles again... and nothing happened. Not even a little skin shifted where she could feel it sprawling over the ground. The Tigress realized one other thing too, she was standing. Her hind-legs were stretched out as much as possible and the paws just touched the ground. She rested on her wide chest, straining upward with her front legs, but only a modicum of brisket was even lifted.

The tigress panted open mouthed and drooling not a little into the ground heavily stained with blood under her. It seemed she was stranded. She could feel her wide flank pressing against the mare on her left and even toppling over the reduced carcass on her right. When she breathed, the air rasped in her throat even when it was fast. "Perhaps this is fat enough?" she dared to think.

But no. The haze descended on her like a predator, stroking her brain. "No, this will not do," it said. "You must eat more."

"But I can't move." The Tigress said to herself and to who else she didn't know.

"Complaints, complaints." The haze chided. "Did you expect love to be easy?"

"Well no, I..." mumbled the Tigress, feeling woozy.

"Then eat."

And she did.

The tigress latched her paws into the smaller carcass on her right. With all of the strength of a large cat, she pulled it closer. She reached out with her neck and did not bite down to swallow. Instead she pulled back with her neck. She slid forward into the give in her skin, then had an idea. Grunting, she tried shifting her weight a little to the right, to reduce the pressure on her left side. The skin shuddered forward a little. She let go and did the same for her right side, this time grabbing the bigger mare and pulling herself forward. It was laborious, but she managed to scoot her massive wide flanks forward over the ground, section by section, her fat rippling over the ground.

When she finished her first mare at the shoulder, her brisket flowed over her forepaws nearly completely. Only the white digits and claws were left visible under the hanging flesh. How wide she had become, it was hard to say, except that even her rippling method had become nearly impossible as her weight was so great, she could barely even shift it right or left anymore. Her breathing had become shallower and louder. She breathed now through her mouth exclusively, and a certain kind of fatigue seemed to drape over her body, so that she was now resting more than she was eating and never felt quite 100%.

The haze deepened again. "You don't think you're done do you?"

"I... think... I... am..." the Tigress panted tiredly.

"Don't give up now! You're almost there. Think of the look on his face when he sees you!" said the Haze

And the Tigress could see him, beaming at her, telling her how proud he was of her. She could almost feel his sensuous touch on her cheek... The tigress was determined to get the rest of the second mare into her or die trying.

The hardest part was the turning. She could still reach and sink her claws into the side of the mare, thankfully, or else it would have been impossible. The tigress worked at it for hours, pushing and pulling, both herself and the remains of the dead mare. It entered the Tigress's mind then, as she wrestled with the dead carcass, that she was now more massive than the mare had been in life. It was a shock, though it shouldn't have been so surprising. Her heart thudded in her chest with glee, imagining the rest of her body which she couldn't see, but could still feel vaguely; It continued to thud in her chest, though and a little irrationally at that as the fat pervading her body continued to escalate rapidly.

She moved the mare more than she was able to move herself. She tried getting some leverage on the ground with her hind-paws and was shocked to discover that she could feel nothing but her own warm flesh under them Her flanks heaved with her discovery, both with fear, trepidation and excitement. The surface of her skin shuddered across her round body.

With her neck meat now flowing over and down onto the ground and her brisket extending nearly as far as her forepaws which were aching with the effort, the mere act of feeding became difficult. Doggedly, the Tigress pulled the mare bit by bit to her. She had to bend her head over her own fat to feed, although this was easier than lifting her head would have been. Her back had grown so thick, it was actually higher than her ears. Said ears were already buried in a new neck roll as her torso pushed its way forward. She let her hind-limbs curl into a fetal position, they were largely vestigial on her massive body now...

The Tigress couldn't simply skim over the carcass anymore, eating the fat off of it as she went by. She had to tear it apart so she could pull more to herself. She ate down to the muscle, then chewed through the real meat, spitting it out as she went. She exposed the joints with a butcher's skill ad broke off the carcass segment by segment, tossing the parts into the stream with a feeble toss. She had to work by touch, she couldn't see her paws anymore...

Her heart was thundering in her ears and her jaw felt like it would fall off of her head when she pushed the last of the meaty mare forward. She wanted it to go into the stream, but it didn't make it, instead sitting on the pebbles before her. It was a little hard to see, her brow sitting now over her eyes was making her squint. She let out an enormous belch, feeling the fatty meat spilling forward of her chin in front of her snout quiver. That last part had been tricky. Her own neck flesh kept wanting to enter her mouth along with the last of the mare and her cheeks had gotten so chubby, they were raw and hurting from where she'd accidentally bitten them so many times. She regretted that there was still a lot of fat left on the second mare, but it was difficult even lifting her paws against the brisket sitting on top of them now... She was sure that he would understand. She'd done her best.

She belched again wetly and then resumed her constant, open mouthed panting as she drew air into her fattened body. She still had meat inside her processing. However she was sure that she'd reach her final size shortly... She waited.

...And waited. The tigress stared out from a face from which striped furred flesh seemed to expand in all directions. Slowly, the metabolic processes which had been driving unprecedented growth over the past half week ground to a halt. Her side stopped sliding slowing over the ground, the Tigress noticed the change; before, the growth had seemed almost natural. She looked about, half blind and expectant, for her knight to arrive and exalt over what she'd accomplished. She was surely bigger now that she had ever been in any of her dreams. Her heart raced in her chest with anticipation... And probably four or more tons of new fatty flesh.

Nobody came. No white tiger, no nothing. The Tigress could barely hear tropical birds, though the sounds were muted due to her swamped ears. Nothing was happening. The Tigress sat there by the stream. There was literally nothing else she could do. She began to feel some of the more negative effects of her new weight as the fires which had been filling her cooled.

she noticed that she couldn't catch her breath despite that fact that her mouth was hanging open. The fat pressed down on her. The weight of two immobilized mares onto of her own previous modest half ton or so. She could not draw in as deeply as before, the adipose accumulating inside of her rib cage. And each breath took conscious effort; more and more effort it seemed as time drew on. Her flanks had been warm but slowly cooled due to her single heart's inability to pump to her far-flung regions. The Tigress felt chilled in her outlying layers and the chill swept inward from the outside. Th sun was a blessing in this regard, but what about tonight? Then there was her heart. It pounded in her ears and she could feel it in her neck; well the part of her neck that was directly under and behind her head, the term now describes a rather large area. Worse her pulse was becoming erratic. Thump-thump-thumpa-thump went her heart one minute, galloping along. The the next moment it would go still for several seconds pump three times then still again then start beating. These times made the Tigreess's head swim and made her feel that she was very ill. There was nothing she could do about it now, however. She could hardly lift here forepaws under the vast blanket of chest fat burying them. She felt sleepy, but was afraid to sleep. Where was the white tiger? She would wonder frantically. Where was he who was going to make everything better? Still she remained alone.

The tigress twitched her limbs in their graves of fat where they lay buried, an in determinant amount of time later. It was hard to tell the passage of time with most sound and hearing lost to her. Her hind-legs were paralyzed and useless for anything save scratching a very limited area of skin; she could not even reach the ground with them. Granted that was due more to her belly blocking them than actual height. She was exceptionally wide. Her forepaws rested just on the ground, although her forearms rested on a thick padding of brisket and her elbows were sandwiched into a hollow between expansive shoulder fat and her thick chest. They were turned out and so lost a great deal of mobility in her arms and her paws in turn. Buried as they were under her flowing NFL fat, they were nearly as useless now as her hind-legs. Sarabi had long past the point where her body was "light" enough for her abs or back muscles to be of use. She could move her tail a little, though the tigress became aware of a massive croup when she did. The base of it was swamped and limited a lot of it's back and forth movement and just slowed it in general. Her head was , Ina lot of ways, her last semi-mobile appendage. When she bent her head down, she could feel her own neck pressing back under her jaw. She felt the pressure even holding her Louth open to breathe. Titling it up was harder still. There were many rolls behind her head a lot of which where thick,plump and heavy as sin. From the crown of her head her rolls quickly swelled into her overarching back. The Tigress no longer had any neck to speak of. Side to side a few degrees as all she could manage, again blocked by thick, plump rolls which smushed against her soft, sagging cheeks. The tigress realized slowly that she was now a prisoner in her on body. The realization sank deeper as the hours mounted.

As the tigress was trying to imagine her life from here on out, she slowly became aware of a disturbance. With her dulled senses, it was a subtle thing. Then the noise came again and the Tigress thought it was not so far away. The sound was screaming.

The tigress struggled to budge her head to the left, smashing her cheek against the wall of her nearest fatty collar. Deep breath rasping in her throat, she tried to raise the fatty weight of her brow which was threatening to blind her. Her eye opened a little more and what she saw in her peripheral vision surprised her. The third mare was alive!

It was alive, though obviously not well. The after effects of it's stroke left her largely paralyzed in her free legs. They wavered weakly and uselessly in the air where she rest on her side. The mare whimper again and tossed her head. She look shocked and afraid on one side of her face, lazy and relaxed on the other. The Tigress thought her vision must be going blurry because she thought she saw something -moving- across the wide brown sweeps of the equine body. The mare was yelling for help, for mercy, from anyone. The Tigress relaxed, breathing heavily and looking forward again. The mare was probably just having more negative effects of her stroke. It crossed the Tigress's mind hat she might well have a stroke now too. At any rate, she thought little of the mare's reaction... That is until she felt them too