Gymnastic Extirpation
#2 of Commissioned
A commission from Coolest over on Fa. Coolest goes to a nearby gym to find it delightfully empty of anyone else and invites his friends to join him.
Gymnastic Extirpation
By: Shalmendo
© 2015, All rights reserved.
For: Coolest
It was time for his workout. Coolest had recently gotten a gym membership at a nearby building and he finally had the time to stop in and actually do some working out. As he walked down the sidewalk to the place, he kept thinking about the episode of Dr. Phil that was pretty much infamous with people who want to get in better shape. "Gym memberships don't help you lose weight. USING gym memberships helps you lose weight." was the famous quote that people still reminded each other about when they discussed workouts. While he had had the membership for a couple of days already he had only finally gotten around to going today. He was slightly concerned but the place seemed really nice when he was there last, with ample equipment, much of it looking fairly advanced, and some really nice (looking) staff. He fidgeted with the duffel bag he was bringing with some workout stuff he had bought the day he got the membership but also hadn't used yet.
Coolest is a white and grey wolf. A little on the skinny side, but that's why he was going to the gym. He was wearing his new workout outfit, which consists of black shorts and a black shirt, both of an advanced nylon/cotton blend for better sweat wicking and cooling capacity to keep him more comfortable during his workout then if he just wore a standard T-shirt. He wore no footwear on his anthro feet, preferring to go barepaw as many anthros do.
It felt like an incredibly lazy day outside, it was just warm enough to make you feel sluggish and the sun was shining down as if to say 'why not just take a nap?'. Coolest resisted those temptations as he passed by the park where there was ample seating for lazy wolves. But he wasn't going to be one! He was determined to start a regular workout routine and get in better shape. He hoped the advanced offerings of the gym would be helpful in keeping him coming back and working out regularly. From the information pamphlet he took home it looked like a lot was included in the membership. He was apparently entitled to a personal trainer, free sports drinks, and could pay a small fee to have some towels monogrammed and kept there for him so he wouldn't have to remember to do things like bring them himself. It seemed like a really nice place in general, with good membership benefits, and he wasn't even one of those gold or platinum members. He had just gone with the basic membership. The park did look lovely but he was already walking up to the doors. It was almost cruel the way the gym was just across the street from the park.
Once inside he went to the reception desk just inside the doors to scan his card and let himself in. Oddly, the desk was empty at the moment, but he figured the attendant had probably stepped away momentarily. Fortunately entry was automated so it wasn't necessary to have someone there all the time. So, he let himself in and scratched the back of his head as he looked around the surprisingly empty gym. It was totally quiet, and none of the staff were around. When he was there last he had seen them greeting people coming in and offering towels to members that had forgotten theirs. He blinked as he looked down at his duffle bag thoughtfully, did he bring one? That seemed to be the one thing everyone kept forgetting to bring. He sighed and figured he'd better get an extra. There wasn't a fee or anything, he just had to make sure they knew he was a member, since loaner towels were part of the membership.
Walking back over to the reception desk he tapped his paw a bit as he waited for someone to show up. "This is weird" he said to himself, seeing as how the place was totally empty. The only sound was the sound of the air conditioning that was usually constantly running to maintain the temperature and keep the air fairly dry so sweating was more efficient. He leaned forward and peeked over the desk to see if the attendant was behind it and possibly in need of help or something, but it was totally vacant. He scratched the back of his head and shrugged as he stepped around the desk and right behind it where rolls of loaner towels were kept on a small shelf behind it. He grabbed one, figuring they wouldn't mind since he was already allowed a loaner towel each visit anyway. Walking out from behind the desk, he noticed the towel had a band around the middle of it with some kind of box attached He moved over to the locker room where he had his assigned locker. Again his card acted as a passkey to open it as he waved it over the sensor. He put his duffel bag in and slipped on some sweat bands, including one on his forehead. From there he fiddled with the towel, trying to figure out how to get the band off it. It looked like the tiny box holding the band had a symbol just like the one on the locker, so he tried passing his card over it. With a little bleep the band retracted into the box automatically. "Huh, that's cool" he said to himself as he put the box down on the nearby bench and went back out to the gym area with the towel.
First, he started with some stretching to get his muscles limbered. It was always wiser to stretch before exercising so he didn't end up with cramps or other problems. And seeing how there wasn't anyone around to keep an eye on him, he probably didn't want to have any problems. So he started with the standard stretches, first working on his calves and thighs, stretching his legs out and leaning to each side to pull the muscles gently a little to loosen them up. From there, he moved up to his back, leaning forward and alternating reaches down to the rubber mat he was standing on. He progressed to his arms, and more full body stretching and after he was done with all that he felt quite limbered up and ready to go. The place being abandoned meant he got to have his pick of the equipment, and as he looked at the various pieces of equipment on offer, his eyes focused on one of the treadmills.
Nobody was quite sure what had happened. A minute ago the gym was a busy place full of exercising humans, and the next, they had all found themselves transported into a strange new world. For Thomas, he was transported into what seemed to be some kind of massive canyon with an infinite field of the kind of stuff you'd find at a modern playground with those big chunky rubbery surfaces that should be safer for kids to fall onto. He had been minding the reception desk like usual, greeting the people coming in to workout. It had been pretty busy that day, being that it was a weekend and a lot of people were trying to get in morning workouts out of the way so they could get on with the rest of their day leisurely. But that didn't matter now as he stood in the strange canyon with an impossibly huge structure rising up above him. there were four huge shapes rising out of the rubbery ground like monoliths. further up in the dis-focused distance they seemed to have cross connections but he couldn't crane his neck that much or see that far. It must have been miles.
His musings were interrupted by a gradually increasing cycle of earthquakes. At first the rubbery ground made them so soft he couldn't even notice them but they quickly grew in what felt like an exponential fashion, until he was bouncing off the ground. He was thankful it was so rubbery as landing back on it didn't hurt that much, even though he started popping up so high he would bounce more than once on returning downwards by gravity, but he was virtually unhurt. A small thought pass through the back of his mind how kids might find this kind of bouncing rather fun. His thoughts were interrupted again as the tremors continued, then stopped for some length of time. He wasn't sure how long as he didn't have a watch on, and he had left his cellphone on a small shelf under the desk like he usually did so it wasn't cluttering up the reception area. Regardless, he was surprised when the tremors continued but in a receding fashion. After awhile he couldn't really feel them anymore so he decided to start looking around and get an idea where he was. The canyon was indeterminably long and he couldn't tell how far anything was. He had nothing to base his sense of distance on, everything was impossibly strange. After what felt like about an hour of walking across the rubbery ground those tremors returned, causing him to stop and look around anxiously. It would make sense that the ground was all rubbery if there were periodic tremor cycles. he mused to himself as he tried to look around for the source. Since the ground wasn't all cracked and destroyed like he would expect of an area with heavy earthquakes, rubbery ground seemed to perhaps be some kind of planetary evolution? Maybe this place has earthquakes like this constantly and all the action of thousands of years produced this unusual soil.
As he stood there pondering the geology of this alien world, a shadow suddenly blocked the light coming from overhead. Light that he hadn't paid too much attention to yet, but realized that he didn't feel colder...so it must not have had thermal properties like Earth's sun did. That didn't matter though as the biggest structure he could even imagine seeing was cutting through the air above him. He looked up to see a black structure descending upon him like another planet was about to collide with the one he was standing on. His mind filled with pure terror, and a realization of planetary armageddon. At least it did until the air suddenly changed. It became heavier, and as he panted, breathing it in instinctually, he suddenly noticed how it smelled like a locker room full of dirty socks. He was just starting to wonder why when it impacted down against him with the biggest deafening boom he would ever experience for the rest of his life. Coincidentally, that was the rest of his life as Coolest's oblivious pad smushed the tiny human into nothing more than a speck of red on both pad and the rubber exercise matting used throughout the gym as flooring.
Jeffrey didn't know what had happened, he was sitting on one of the benches in the locker room chatting with a friend about going out to a movie with some dates they had arranged on a dating site, and then he found himself in what he could only describe as 'somewhere else'. This somewhere else was a strange new world with a floor that reminded him of a strange dessert, with long canyon like cracks that stretched back and forth into the distance, all aligned the same way. Even stranger was how the canyons were filled with some kind of hard and transparent rock like stuff, like some kind of transparently cooled lava or something. It certainly looked like it had once been flowing with how it was shaped. That wasn't really much of a worry as he peered over the sudden edge of the ground way down at a stranger vista. Far below was a strange landscape of squared ground, some kind of off-white landscape with regular grooves stretching across it in what looked like city blocks, except there was no city. After staring at this for awhile he spotted his friend in the great distance below and called out to him. Unfortunately the distance was far too great and his friend had no chance of hearing him. He also observed how the cliff wall of the ground he stood on stopped suddenly. Even if he had been an expert at climbing mountains without equipment, or even with, he would have faced a literal dead end at the bottom of that surface, with no way to safely descend further. His friend was obviously just as surprised as he was, by the way he was milling about, but nothing could be done. He had heard about how sheepherders in scotland could communicate over vast distances by whistling but he had never learned how to do more then whistle a tune, and certainly not at the kind of volume that would be required to reach his friend in the distance. Instead he was forced to mull over his own prospects of figuring out where he was and what could be done about it.
Those mullings were interrupted by earthquakes that shook the ground below him in an up and down fashion. Looking down he saw his friend scurrying about rapidly and apparently bouncing as he did. The tremors must be worse down there, wherever that was. his view was suddenly interrupted by a massive white edifice moving into the way. It was the strangest thing he'd ever seen, as it had uncountable growths hanging off of it like sideways trees of white. Below them was a pink surface, he thought. He couldn't tell easily as there were so many of the gigantic rod like structures that he couldn't see clearly through them. It stopped moving, thankfully, but he wasn't sure what had happened to his friend when it arrived. He stared downwards, tracing it all the way to the floor. It had the most unusual shapes and curves to it, he had no clue what he was looking at. This was truely some alien world he must have landed in since it reminded him a bit of a yarn monster or something. Maybe it was a spaghetti monster of some kind and those white things were tentacles. They didn't seem that flexible though.
After it stayed for what seemed like forever it moved away and he was able to look down and see where his friend might be. His friend wasn't there! He searched carefully over the landscape, knowing his friend couldn't have gotten far. They were both bodybuilders and not marathon runners. finally he caught some of the purple color of his friend's shirt and stared in horror as he realized that it was sitting in a pool of mushy redness. "Oh my god...that must be blood!" he said to himself. As he realized this a shadow suddenly blocked the light from above, and as he looked up he saw something akin to a black monolith descending upon him. For the briefest of moments he wondered if it would be full of stars, but those musings were cut as short as his life was when the tiny strap locking box from Coolest's towel dropped upon him and instantly turned him into nothing more than a stain.
A whole group of people had found themselves on a similar rubbery plain. Most of them had been doing calisthenics and stretches in the big open area in the center of the main room and were all surprised when the room wasn't' there anymore. Instead they were transported to a completely new place that was more alien to them than anything they'd seen in science fiction. The endless rubber landscape extended out to a strangely colored sky with multiple suns in the great distance. Lower down, along a similar great distance, hulking shapes extended up out of the plain in unfamiliar configurations that couldn't have been trees or rock formations. Some of them gleamed, others absorbed the light in the strangest ways, and still others seemed to be made almost entirely of metal. But nothing at that scale had ever been created by mankind, as far as they knew.
A few of them managed to locate each other across the distances that had suddenly sprung up between them. Wherever they had been transported, while it was as a group, it seemed like they had been placed down almost at random instead of together at once. Regardless they gathered together and started to discuss their situation. Everyone was pretty certain aliens or advanced tech was responsible for the sudden change in locations. Not everyone was certain as they hadn't seen any 'special effects' like the kind used in science fiction movies and television shows when people get 'transported'. The discussion started to degrade as people disagreed with each other over pointless details, especially due to the fact that they were all testosterone fueled jock types, most of them, and were all rather assertive about their own perspectives. This is probably why a group of shrunken jocks never get anything done. The argument was just starting to get heated when tremors interrupted them and sent a ripple of panic through the tiny group. As experienced by others before, the tremors were rhythmic and cyclical. And getting closer with each one. Thanks to their position in the middle of the rubber landscape a few of them spotted the cause of the tremoring, and raw panic started spreading throughout the group.
As some of the jocks turned around to see what someone else was reacting to, they saw a massive white structure bearing down against the landscape, bringing with it a massive tremor similar to the ones they were concerned about before. a mass of thick white ropes protruded from it everywhere, except on the bottom where they glimped huge black areas that looked similar to the landscape they stood upon. None of them spent much time musing about similarities or the nature of this imposing object, they were too busy picking themselves back up and trying to run away from it.
This proved to be a useless idea, as while the mysterious object was already planted, and shifting in a strange way they couldn't fathom, another was cutting through the air and towards their helpless running forms. A couple of them glanced over their shoulders to see a giant mass of white ropes in the sky, rooted in some kind of pinkness. Some of them might have wondered about it but they were too busy running faster, fueled by adrenaline, away from the approaching mass. They could see the bottom had black rubber type features protruding from the mass of waving ropes, and this is what started to concern them as it descended with those structures ready to impact the ground. It bore down on them steadily as they ran as quickly and as far as they could. A few quickly became exhausted and collapsed, with the black structuring bearing down upon them and turning them into nothing more than a simple organic mush under impossible weight and pressure that would be too great to fathom, let alone measure.
As the black structures impacted with the ground, they squashed almost every single person that had been running, also turning them into formless organic mash. A single person survived, just past one of the black rubber-like structures, which apparently held the rest of it up enough that it didn't quite impact him directly. He gagged on a locker-like stench coming off of it and his mind whirled, trying to understand the impact of having just seen everyone in the small group suddenly ground into nothing underneath this strange intrusion into their lives. For the moment, he was grateful he was still alive, although he was having a heck of a time pushing his way through the gigantic ropes that were impossibly large, like bleached redwoods. He was just starting to a grip on the situation when he heard an impossibly loud grinding sound and the entire' forest' started to slide around him unexpectedly. He turned to look around after several of the trees had knocked him over and more were smacking into him at every moment. Through the rapidly shifting masses of white redwoods, he saw something that made his heart nearly stop. Before him the dreaded black structure that had killed everyone else was quickly bearing down upon him. He started to scream in the purest terror any human had ever experienced, but it was instantly cut short as he was smeared across the rubber landscape by it without even any time to realize the pain of the event.
Coolest just walked into the open area in the gym to do his stretches, carelessly shifting his foot to get into a better position, sliding it a bit, as he started to stretch his calves.
After finishing his stretches, Coolest looked around at the empty gym and considered how quiet it was. He could feel something strange in the place and after thinking about it for a moment, he realized that the lack of staff or anyone else was really damping down the energetic gym atmosphere that had been there before. He realized he could probably fix that on his own. He had plenty of friends who would enjoy working out in a gym like this, so he strode back into the locker room, used his card to get his locker open once more, and dug out his phone. First, he dialed a friend of his and listened to the ringing tone, which quickly went into messaging. "He must be in a building or something." Coolest thought to himself, and brought the phone in front of him so he could pull up his contacts list and send out a mass text to a few of his more athletic friends. "Guys I'm working out in this awesome gym but there's nobody else here to make that cool gym atmosphere that really pumps me up! Anyone wanna help fix that and get a free workout?" He tapped out on his phone, then sent it off with a quick gps pin of his location so his friends could find it easily enough. Almost as soon as he finished he got a couple of replies, probably from bored friends that were already staring at their friends. A couple said they were busy, but a couple more said they were coming over. Coolest smiled and went back out to the main exercise room, his eyes falling upon the treadmill again.
"Yeah I'll start with that." he said to himself and stepped up onto it. There was a quick flash from the machine that surprised him but the screen lit up with his name, an outline of his body type, and a few details about his weight and age and such. Apparently it scanned him or his card and pulled up the information automatically. It was already suggesting a few workout types and he chose one. Before it would let him start an infographic popped up to remind him of some kind of universal body monitoring gizmo that the gym provided, which would provide heart rate monitoring, respiratory monitoring, and even some kind of proximity to the control panel check for safety, kind of like those little cords with clips on the end that a lot of treadmills had to shut them off if you fell behind too far. Coolest shrugged and looked around where he saw a machine sitting unobtrusively in the wall with a matching symbol for the monitors. He went over and waved his card at the sensor symbol and a small device dispensed onto a little tray at the bottom. He picked it up and inspected it, it was a round gadget with a stubby antenna sticking out of it. An infographic on the machine instructed him to just push it against his chest or shoulder where the shirt was covering him. He did so, and it bleeped, and even stuck to his shirt all by itself. Apparently there was also a button he could push to shut it off and release it from his shirt. A moment later, the display confirmed he had activated it correctly and he moved back over to the treadmill, which also confirmed he had it on properly and showed his heart rate and other details.
He was about to start when he heard the gym door beep as it was opened. He turned to look at the entryway and saw a couple of his friends coming in, bearing what he assumed were gym bags and such. He got off the treadmill to greet them and used his card to let them in. He remembered he was allowed to bring in people for a free workout, as many as he wanted could come for free, but only once per person each month. That sounded like a good deal, since everyone could have one free workout at this place a month for nothing, just by knowing someone who had a membership. It was probably really effective seeing as how busy the place was last time he was there. Regardless, they all got in and started looking around, commenting how the place looked pretty fancy and how nobody else was there, not even staff. Coolest shrugged, telling them it was empty when he came in but it was unlocked and most everything runs on automatic anyway so there shouldn't be any problems. He showed them how to get the body monitors and use them, along with workout towels if they didn't have any. They then headed into the lockers to get ready for their workouts.
Yet another human had found themselves in a strange world, where the ground was made of massive bundles of trees twisted together with strange, regular, gaps in them. Also, things were moving and shifting around strangely constantly. After some time of this unusual movement, with the walls shifting and other things that may not have been walls were also shifting, things stopped and went dark. He felt around in a combination of shock and fear, not knowing what the heck had happened, where he was, or anything else. Eventually he came upon a wall that felt distinctly like plastic. He couldn't see it very clearly but he was able to feel around at it for awhile and eventually he was able to figure out it was some kind of gigantic device. The arrangement of the shapes on one side reminded him of a cell phone keypad. After exploring the sides he found a large structure he thought was a button and tried pushing down on it. It was difficult, so he braced against the wall and kicked at it for a bit until the area suddenly lit up with the display switching on. He gasped, he was right! He clambered up to the touch screen and started to mess around with the display trying to figure out how to send a text on this phone model and at his size. He was just starting to make some progress when he heard a horrendous scraping vibration coming from above him.
He looked up to see the sky cracking open above him. Someone was opening the zip! Maybe he could get some help this way. A white object was intruding, it bore five extensions that started to curl around the phone. It must be a hand, albeit a very fuzzy one. He grew excited, thinking perhaps he could get some help earlier than he anticipated. As he was lifted out he saw the somewhat skinny body of a white and grey wolf in a black shirt. He looked up to see that he was being pulled right up to the anthro's face. He was starting to excited further but then a white fuzzy mass suddenly slammed down on the screen above him. "shit he's typing or something." Was the human's thought, and he started waving his arms to get the wolf's attention. He also tried shouting, but the wolf's sharp ears seemed to be missing his cries.
That fuzzy mass slammed down a few more times, and the helpless human decided to get out of the area incase he got squashed by the probing finger. He slipped down to the physical keys, still shouting and trying to get the giant's attention. It was in vain, however, as the phone started tilting as the wolf brought it up to his face to talk into. He grabbed onto a hole in the phone's casing and stared as the wolf's mouth filled his vision. The black lip shifted slightly as he stared at it, being in uncomfortably close proximity. The lips parted, revealing the ivory teeth inside, giving the human quite a scare as he clung to the phone firmly. Unfortunately a sudden shifting of air as the wolf sighed pulled him from the phone and right past those teeth.
He landed in a massive pink cavern, seeing the microphone port of the phone past ivory structures that were dripping wet with fluid. The human was shocked as the lips closed again with a squelch, leaving him in darkness inside the wolf's maw. He scrambled, tripping over the tongue many times as he tried to get to the teeth. He apparently tripped and stumbled so many times he lost his direction, as instead of finding anything resembling teeth he found himself on a precipice he almost launched himself over in his hurry. Without much time for thought the tongue shifted beneath him, in a probably subconscious action the wolf wasn't even aware of, and he was suddenly falling right over that precipice and downwards. His scream of terror was unheard as the wolf texted several people, and he found himself suddenly in the grip of fleshy walls that seemed to respond to his presence. They gripped and squeezed at him rhythmically for some time as he got coated in what must have been saliva as he was pulled down the wolf's throat.
As he clawed helplessly at the walls of the esophagus he started to hear a distant thumping noise that quickly grew louder to the point he had to cover his ears. It was a regular double beat rhythm that reminded him of a heartbeat, and he quickly realized that's what it was. He listened to the wolf's heart recede as he made his way lower, feeling the rising temperature around him making him sweat little. Finally he felt himself stall momentarily before a sudden drop let him down into a splash of liquids like a giant pool. Even though he was an athlete he still knew what was at the other end of the esophagus; the stomach. He gasped in horror as he felt the liquid around him, knowing full well he was going to be digested. He had gone from possible help to a horrific end, as his skin started to tingle, his horror rising. There was nothing he could do as he tried desperately to scale the mucus rich walls of the stomach, only to fail to find any grips that would allow him to withdraw from the acid pool. None of that mattered to coolest as he finished texting his friends about the gym, completely incognizant of the human's plight in his stomach.
Another human was treading water desperately, unable to find purchase on the smooth plastic walls that surrounded him. He could get just enough of a grip to keep himself from sinking into the water and wasting all of his energy just keeping afloat. Through the plastic he watched as a group of giants walked into the gym he had just been working at. He didn't know how he shrunk or how he got into this horrific situation but he hoped someone wasn't thirsty. Then again, he did, because someone opening the bottle was the only way he was going to get out! He tried to ponder a plan as a few people walked in after the white wolf that had been the only giant wandering about, until more had arrived. He watched as the wolf pointed out the collection of water bottles that were given to the people working out as a concession, and he swallowed nervously. Maybe he could get out or get their attention or something. He'd never been shrunk in a water bottle before and didn't have any real idea how to handle it.
Two of them came over and each grabbed a couple of bottles, one of which contained the human. From the glimpse he got of their bodies he thought they might be a husky and a lion. He wasn't given much chance to make sure as the water he was in erupted into turbulence and he was suddenly preoccupied with treading water so he could continue to breathe. He almost drowned a few times as the lion carried the bottle carelessly to the locker room where he placed it down on the bench. As the water became still again the human gasped in relief and looked up to see both of them stripping down from their street clothes. This was pretty normal of course, but the perspective was entirely new. Both of them stripped down, backs to the poor human in the bottle, flexing their rears and tails swishing as they chatted casually. The lion turned, revealing his bits, balls dangling between his legs proudly, swinging to and fro slowly as he reached out for the bottle of water. The view was momentarily mesmerizing as the bottle was lifted up past those bits the lion's other paw gripped the top of the bottle.
Hope came to the trapped human as the crack of the seal breaking (It was somehow still sealed??) filled the small airspace at the top of the bottle. Fresh air rushed in, thankfully, and the small human was able to take in air rich in oxygen which he desperately needed. The relief was short lived as the lion was seen to be lifting something to the top of the bottle. The bottle's occupant found out what it was a moment later as several gigantic drops of concentrate fell in and started spreading through the liquid prison. The human was immediately dragged down into the depths of the bottle as the lid was replaced. Extreme agitation in the water occurred as it was shaken to spread the concentrate throughout the bottle. This probably saved the human's life as the motion and water swirling around him evened out the weight of the liquid and made it denser so maintaining flotation was much easier! He rose up to the top almost effortlessly, thankful that he wouldn't have to tread so hard, but it was still apparent that the lion hadn't spotted the 'extra flavoring' in the bottle.
He was able to watch the lion and husky change into new outfits consisting of breathable shirts and shorts. The husky bothered putting on shoes and socks as well, sitting down next to the lion's bottle, and giving the tiny human and amazing look at the size difference between him and the two. It was apparent he was quite tiny, and would be difficult to spot. His mind was also racing with what was going to happen when the lion started to take a drink from the bottle he was in. Hopefully he could find a way to wedge himself between the bottle and the lion's lip. He wasn't sure that would be possible. The now dressed lion grabbed both bottles, and a towel he placed over his neck, and strode out to find a piece of equipment to work on, with the Husky not too far behind.
Inside the bottle the shrunken human wondered how much longer he could stay afloat, even in the new denser water, which he was sure was due to some kind of liquid concentrate drop of a sports drink of some kind. Due to being immersed in it he was more than aware it tasted remotely like some kind of blueberry flavor. He hoped that he could get the Lion's attention. That chance came quickly as the bottle was lifted up to the lion's face.
The tiny human stared upwards to see the lion staring down right at him through the domed top of the bottle, but the view was brief as the lion's hand got in the way to remove the top again. Staring up through the top he saw directly into the lion's eyes for a few moments before the bottle shifted and the lion started to bring it up to his lips. The lips were thick, black, and flexed as they pressed against the bottle's mouth, conforming to the circular shape it presented. This mattered little to the lion taking an initial sip to hydrate himself, but it mattered entirely to the tiny human that was caught in the midst of that sip. The powerful flow of thirst quenching sports beverage was irresistible as it flowed between those powerful black lips and over the teeth behind them. The tiny human was pulled along with it, and try as hard as he did he was helpless to wedge himself anywhere or prevent his passage over the lip and crashed into the lion's sharp teeth beyond. He found himself wedged between two incisors by the crashing water. He struggled for a moment, then realized this might be for the best as he's not being washed into the gullet beyond and might have a chance to get the lion's attention. What with being wedged like he was, he was forced to gasp for gulps of air as the flow continues past him and made it rather difficult to breathe as it kept washing up beyond his head. He kept alternating between holding his breath and gasping for air as the flow continued for a few more moments, the lion guzzling down the precious hydration beforehand so he wouldn't get thirsty during his workout.
Finally, the lion finished his hydration and put the half full bottle back down into the drink rack on the machine he was working on. The human observed the lip slam closed wetly, casting him into darkness as he stayed wedged semi safely in the lion's maw. At least he hadn't gone down with the water, but he wasn't sure how to get the lion's attention from here. After the lion started his workout, his respiration rate increased, and the tiny human could hear it echoing carelessly through the lion's throat deeper in, air heard to be rushing in and out of the lion's nose. The human had no clue what kind of exercise the lion was doing, but the lips parted periodically as the lion gave bursts of exhalation out of his mouth. With it the lion's breath washed hotly over the tiny human forcing the human to catch scent of the lion's last meal, which smelled meaty. It was hard to find any purchase inside the slick maw, as the human struggled a bit to dislodge himself and hopefully get himself into a better position in the lion's mouth, but it was useless as he kept trying and he felt the lion's body temperature rising around him and the pants came more often, blasting him about with the hot breath scented air.
Finally the human resorted to trying to get the lion's attention more directly, by kicking and punching at the inside of the lion's lip next to him. He had to keep this up for a few minutes before light shined in blindingly, and with it came an obvious furry finger that was the same color as the rest of the lion's fur. A black claw protruded from the tip and was driven into the gap between the teeth below the human. It dug around and flicked a few times, catching him on the last flick and withdrawing from the maw, taking the grateful human with it. Once he was back out in the dry air outside, he looked up as his eyes adjusted to find the lion's eyes staring right at him. He waved eagerly, trying to show the lion he was a person and not a bug or bit of food. Some kind of recognition registered in the lion's eyes and he found the paw moving. But quickly it started moving too fast and he felt rapid acceleration.
Next thing he knew, he was flying off of the lion's claw, having been casually flicked away to simply be disposed of. The world flew by faster than he thought was possible, blurring into a chaotic display of distant and unfocused unrecognizable shapes and colors. It might have been fun save for the terror of the potential death on landing. He did land, but it wasn't on the rubbery ground many others had been crushed on, instead it was a forest of whitish redwoods. He scrambled a bit as he slid through them, pulled by gravity, bouncing off them randomly until he finally slowed enough to grab ahold of one. He gasped a bit as he looked around at the pink landscape he had arrived on, and up past the white trees. The trees waved in some kind of breeze and swayed in unison in a strange display of synchronicity he wasn't sure was real. Regardless, the trees swayed and he found domes of water building up around him, one out of the very base of the tree he was clinging to. He also noticed that the trees had spheres of liquid clinging to them higher up. He wasn't able to observe much more as a shadow fell across his small patch of 'forest' and brought with it another white covered monument, reaching down out of the heavens like the finger of god to slam into the trees next to him, dislodging him instantly with the impact. Next he knew he was screaming in terror as a whitish curved projection from it cut through the trees and sent him flying across the landscape before he could even react. He came to another stop and gasped, but he didn't have any time to recover as more of these curved monuments arrived and crashed into the ground, sending him running for his life. Unfortunately they quickly caught up with him and slammed him into the ground, breaking his bones and mashing him flat as they scraped by a few more times.
Coolest paused to scratch his shoulder as he felt a sudden sharp itch there. Carelessly obliviating the tiny human who was seeking help.
Coolest kept working his way up on the treadmill, but heard more people arrive. So, he paused the workout and stepped down to go greet them, scratching his shoulder as he went. He met with a couple of people who had been called in by his friends who were already present and he waved them through with his card like usual. Once more he showed them where things were and how to get monitors. This group consisted of a vixen, a black wolf, a more common breed of house cat anthro, and a red panda. He showed them where the equipment was and everything and went to go back to his workout on the treadmill. The vixen joined him as she was already in her workout outfit and ready to go. They talked idly while she started a jog on the treadmill.
While the vixen was joining Coolest, the cat and wolf went to go work out on the weight bench. The wolf started first, looking quite buff, and wearing nothing but a pair of tight workout pants. The cat positioned himself at the weights to spot the wolf. The cat himself was wearing a bright yellow lycra type shirt and matching black and yellow shorts. The wolf asked the cat to set him up with 120 pounds on each side, which he did. The wolf then grabbed onto the bar and, under the cat's spotting, started to lift the weights in a regular cycle, taking a momentary break every 5 sets.
Our next human 'star' was on a rubbery surface, but different from the rubber on the floor of the gym. Instead he was on something of a different consistency. Regardless, he looked up to see a structure extending up into the sky with two major protrusions on either side coming out at a straight angle from it in the same direction parallel to each other. He was left to muse about this for some time as strange shapes started to move about in the background and he could feel weird vibrations through the rubbery floor that seemed distant. Many of them appeared to be matched to the distant movement of impossibly huge shapes he couldn't identify.
As he lingered there on the strange surface, a powerful gust of wind drew his attention and nearly knocked him over. Turning, he watched as a pair of massive structures landed behind him sending powerful vibrations through the ground beneath him, knocking him momentarily into the air and causing him to land on his back in a mild daze as he gazed upwards. Above, the structures joined together and went even higher to a larger structure that he couldn't see very well from this angle. His attention was forcibly distracted as he felt the ground lurch beneath him and he felt himself accelerate towards the two structures, one of which was lifting up and starting to swing forward towards him.
He wasn't given much time to think about it as he watched that massive object slam down and bounce him into the air. If he didn't run, he would likely quickly end up beneath one of them, and he didn't want to find out what would happen. Naturally, he started running, driven by the instinct of self preservation and raw adrenaline. Panting rapidly he pushed himself as quickly as he could towards the front end of the strange moving surface, but was sent flying once more as the other structure impacted with the ground with a frightening thoom. He landed awkwardly, unused to being catapulted into the air regularly while trying to run for his life.
Very few people would find it easy to deal with the constant catapulting and thooming, along with the intense stress and raw fear involved, and he was little exception. The horror had just started and he could already feel himself failing, running out of breath, and tiring. He could also see how he was steadily getting closer to the stomping things despite his olympic effort. Sadly, he wasn't much of a runner, and certainly won't be able to extract himself from this situation easily. Using the last of his willpower he made a critical decision, he has to give up. His body was failing and he had no other alternative so he figured that if he used the last of his body power to position himself properly, he might be able to ride the moving ground between the stomping objects and make it to some kind of relative safety. Who knew what lay beyond them, but he figured it was better to take a chance then die a sure death. With the last of his energy he veered off to try and find a position where he would go between them instead of directly beneath them.
He veered over, and stopped, panting, and collapsed against the ground. This was it, his one chance to survive...he gazed in a near stupor as the ground virtually flung him towards the stomping objects. As he got closer he saw a flash of a shape he recognized. It was a logo! One of them lifted and he gazed up at it, now able to pay much more attention to them and less to his own survival since he had pretty much given himself to his fate. Above, a pattern was displayed on the bottom of it. It was long, narrow, and the pattern was familiar. He gasped as he realized what he had been running from; Shoes! A giant pair of popular brand shoes was stomping at him! He stared, wondering why this would be...why would somone torture him this way? He passed right beneath and between them, able to look up further and recognize...legs, shorts...It was a person! But not a regular human, no..it had yellow/tan fur on it's skin. It must be a furry!
He wasn't really given much time to consider why he was under the feet of a giant running furry before he suddenly shot into the air at the end of the moving floor. He had a brief moment to realize that he was shooting wildly through the air in an uncontrolled manner before he impacted with a thicker seeming rubber surface and bounced off of it. He rolled and bounced a few more times, sustaining some bruises from the impact. He would have likely been dead if he had landed on anything less bouncy. As he finally came to a stop he sighed in relief as he just laid there, away from the stomping feet of the giant. After a few more moments he checked himself to see if he broke anything. So far it looked like he only sustained bruises that made it a bit hard to move very quickly, but hopefully he wouldn't need to now. He looked around at the new place he had arrived in, and saw that it was kind of like a cliff on all sides. He wondered about this as he looked up and saw it had a pair of extensions going upwards at the end farthest from him. He considered, what would have moving floor that someone would stomp on like he just experienced? He thought, "Wait a minute, I was in a gym before..." as he gazed out at the moving shapes in the distance, "Am I....still in the gym?" That would explain the moving floor, as a treadmill! Someone was exercising on the treadmill, and had nearly stomped him several times over during their workout. So where was he now? He gazed out further at the moving shapes and his brain was able to put some details together, and he began to recognize human like forms, but of unusual colors like tan and brown. They must be furries! He knew they had heightened senses compared to humans so maybe he could get someone's attention a bit easier that way. Either by being spotted or heard somehow. He thought about this, if someone wasn't wearing headphones maybe he could climb up to an ear and yell for help.
He started getting excited since he had figured out what the hell had happened, and now had a viable idea for possibly getting help. He saw a pair of figures approaching his location and jumped up and down, waving his arms. That didn't seem to do much good, but he can probably get more opportunities to get noticed. He looked up to see a yellowish furry shape resolving as it got closer. He couldn't guess the species but noted that there were suddenly a lot of furries in the gym for some reason. He didn't care too much as he watched, but became startled as what he thought was one of the furry's legs swing over to the other side of the mysterious surface he stood on, and the furry's rear began to descend rapidly overhead. "Oh SHIT!" he yelled, and started running once more. He couldn't tell which direction would be better so he just ran away in an arbitrary direction immediately. The shadow growing past him scared him even more and his adrenaline started pumping again. Unfortunately he had already been battered in his last encounter, and he quickly fell behind. He looked up to see fabric descending down on him as he fell over he screamed "No! I'm a person! Don't squish meeee!"
His cries were unheeded as the lion sat down on the weight bench to start pressing.
Our final 'guest star' found themselves trapped in a forest of grey trees that were all intertwined together and coming from all angles. Above, below, the sides, they were everywhere and he couldn't figure out where the heck he was or what had happened. One minute he was in the gym getting ready to start a workout and the next minute, he was in this strange dark forest with almost no light to see what the heck was going on, or where he was. The scent in the air was familiar to him but he couldn't quite place it. As he explored, he was forced to climb up trees and slip between them. As he did he discovered that they were made of smaller trees that were made of even smaller ones. There were also breaking off in various places, tinier bundles sticking out at odd angles periodically in various places, producing an odd slightly spiked appearance. This forest was impossibly strange, and beyond any real description that he could have mustered if he had been asked to describe it, as it was incredibly unusual and he had never seen anything like it before. He continued pondering his predicament as he clambered across trees, but it seemed like they were an endless field extending in all directions, including overhead. He wasn't sure if he would ever be able to find any end to it or even figure out where he was to begin with.
Without warning the entire forest suddenly shifted and he was suddenly experiencing the kind of G forces you would only get on an elevator drop ride. He found himself pinned among a group of trees that suddenly seemed to collapse upon him from an invisible force. He struggled helplessly against the G force, and the trees that kept him in place. It felt like the forces were dying down but instead of stopping they shifted in another direction and he was sent tumbling into another group of the trees, his limbs flailing helplessly like those of a crash dummy in a myriad of force tests. Directions continued to shift and he was tumbled about to and fro, back and forth, flailing and crashing into the trees in seemly random directions. He was beginning to feel a bit like a pinball as light scattered back and forth around him in what might be mistaken for a scene from The Exorcist if it weren't for most of the unusual details. Light suddenly flooded the area and he felt the most intense upwards push he'd ever experienced in his life.
He found himself flying upwards out of the forest in what felt like a near instant. He found himself shooting up like a rocket into the open air, surrounded by intensely bright light and distant fuzzy movement coming from almost every direction. Below, the forest almost resolved into something before it fuzzed out in the distance. Due to how unfocused the forest became he quickly determined, which was rather difficult to do while gyrating through atmosphere uncontrollably, that the forest was suddenly a great distance below him and he must have been traveling at an exceptionally high rate of momentum. He wasn't given much time to think about it as he reached the pinnacle of his arc of travel and began to descend. At first it was like being in microgravity and he saw his phone rise out of his short pocket before he started to fall. The differences in weight meant that his phone was quickly out of his reach as his descent started a bit sooner than that of his phone. He instinctively reached out for it, wondering why he had forgotten it was there and desperately wanted to make sure he could grab it to try and get information or assistance when he got a chance.
That chance didn't come as the phone quickly left his reach and gravity gripped him once more, pulling him inexorably downwards. He squinted, seeing a metallic surface rising up to meet him, or appearing to considering his own free fall. He landed flatly on it, which probably saved him from breaking any bones by distributing the impact of his fall more evenly across his skeletal structure. Still, he found himself in a good deal of pain and he just lay there for a few moments, catching his breath. He gingerly sat up and felt over himself with a groan. Despite the pain, he didn't have any broken bones it seemed, and was probably just experiencing something akin to a whole body sprain. He continued to check himself out by flexing his limbs and eventually getting up to his feet and rubbing his aching head. He was unsteady on his feet and stumbled about a bit as he tried to figure out what had happened and where he was.
He turned and looked upwards, trying to reorient himself. He was just in time to see the light get blotted out by a massive object. He could see it had 5 extensions, one of them rather short on the side, and it was descending straight for him. He also noted it had a kind of brownish red coloration save for several areas that were just black in strange curved lake like shapes. He could see more details as the object descended, mainly that the black areas appeared to consist of areas of roughness, which resolved further into mountains and canyons. They resolved so well he could see that it was a virtual desert of such features and it was ringed by a forest of brown and reddish trees. Oddly those trees were nothing like the trees he had been in before. He wasn't given much time to consider this as it approached closed overhead and he felt a rush of air from it's movements. His hair fluttered as he gazed up at it, unsure what it even was, and he was just starting to realize that he was hopeless as it crashed down onto the metal surface he had been standing on and he was quickly converted from a man into mushed and ground organic matter that was impossible to distinguish it had originally been a man a few moments ago.
The red panda was excited to try out the workout equipment and grabbed one of the fancy towels, which Coolest unlocked for him. He quickly bounded over to a weight machine, pulled the towel open and set it on his shoulders, then reached down to set the weights. A moment later his hands got a firm grip on the handles and he started his first rep.
The gym was full of more tiny and confused humans then the furs ever knew about. The gym had been full when the mysterious 'accident' occurred and shrunk them all, so there was quite a crowd distributed throughout the machines, floors, and other areas. Many more humans were crushed, swallowed, digested, and even inhaled during the workouts of the many furs that had started to trickle into the gym, attracted by the opportunity to exercise in a high-end gym for free. Some just came to check things out and plan to purchase their own memberships once the staff returned. But strangely, they never did. The unknown owner replaced them relatively quickly while the police investigated the disappearance of EVERYONE that had been in the gym, without finding a single clue for foul play. The owner claimed to be a victim of a conspiracy, or mass kidnapping, and begged people to keep coming and using the gym, promising to take measures to prevent it from happening again. The police eventually concluded that the disappearance of the staff and patrons prior to Coolest's arrival was a complete freak accident and no foul play could be determined, especially with the mysterious energy pulse that wiped out the security records and all surveillance recordings with it.
A few of the tiny humans managed to survive the onslaught of the constantly arriving furries, but never managed to get noticed. A few went home with some furs, having been caught in fur, flesh, or fabric, and some even ended up relatively unharmed inside a few, but none of them ever got enough attention to get the help they so desperately needed and ended up perishing one by one. All except for a single tiny human that was practically an olympic athlete and had enough prowess to avoid death for quite some time. He alone continued to survive once he managed to get home with an unsuspecting fur, and lived on inside their home, hiding in the carpet and living in a tiny niche he filled with sock fluff from the fur's own feet. Nobody ever knows what happened even to that single survivor, and for how long he survived.
Coolest and the rest of furs never even realized that with each flex, step, or breath, they were threatening the lives of the entire population of the gym before their arrival, and all thoroughly enjoyed their workouts. Something about that day made their workouts especially productive and they kept going back, hoping for a repeat of the magic of that day.