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Rowan was beginning to regret their trip to the buffet, and they hadn't even eaten anything yet. Their friends, on average, were already on their second or third plates. Bellies were swelling into their beltlines. A few groaned that they were full already but were inevitably drawn to the counters where a bounty of steaming meats, golden cheeses, and the richest desserts stayed warm underneath the heat lamps. The whole place was alive with people doing the same thing, all while more patrons came in to stuff their faces.

Rowan was in the middle of it all, partaking in none of the gluttony, fearing what it might make them do. It was hard to notice them, their diminutive stature being absorbed by the people sitting at the table with them. A booster seat was required, their long, violet wyvern tail hanging down and twitching nervously. They didn't have a plate, distracting themselves instead by fidgeting in front of their chest. They had their phone but had forgotten to charge it before driving there. It sat on the table in lieu of a plate, dead as a doorknob.

Conversation was rife at the table. Between hearty chomps and swallows someone would ask a question or crack a joke. Rowan was quiet, the curly, white horns sprouting from their scalp hung low as they kept their head bowed. They didn't want to bring attention to themselves, not after everyone had already noticed their refusal to eat. It didn't help that their fluffy, purple fur and explosive pink mane were as bright as the sun amongst their more mutely colored friends. Rowan, normally self-conscious about their height, wished that they could be smaller.

But their height was not the main issue. The struggle not to eat anything was most prescient. I'll lose control. I'll lose control, they chanted to themself. One bite and I'll have another. I'll lose control. It was their fault for accepting the invitation from their friends. Sweet as it may have seemed, it was a dangerous temptation. Rowan suggested somewhere besides the buffet where they could hang, somewhere where delicious food wasn't on display for the pickings, somewhere Rowan wouldn't risk eating themself stupid. Too late, apparently. Rowan's friends had put it to a vote, and the buffet was chosen unanimously. Rowan wasn't about to change their minds. They declined to go initially but acquiesced after some very persuasive pleading.

The goading didn't stop after they made it to the buffet. Repeatedly Rowan had to suffer the well-intended offers of food. "Come on. Try this," insisted one friend. "This is pretty good. Wanna piece?" asked another, shoving the treat in Rowan's face at the end of a fork. "You can't just sit there and starve while we all eat. You're making me feel bad."

Rowan rebuked them as politely as they could. "I can," they said. "And I'm sorry. I just- Can't eat any of this stuff right now." They crossed their winged arms in front of their belly and shifted in their seat. Truth was, they were perfectly capable of eating just about anything there. How much longer they could resist, however, was an entirely different matter. With each whiff of the flavor-saturated atmosphere their hunger pangs would worsen. They tried breathing through their mouth, only to tease themself even worse by exposing their tongue to the air.

For one friend, it was too much to watch. He got up from his seat suddenly and hustled over to grab a clean plate from one of the counters. He got the fattest, juiciest steak he could find and put it in front of Rowan. "There you go," he said encouragingly. "Eat up. Couldn't just sit there and watch you suffer."

It startled Rowan. In front of them was savory hunk of charred beef with a pool of juice building beneath it already. There was a heavy rumble in their tummy. Their nostrils flared on reflex, funneling in two fingers of steam. They shivered before cracking an uneasy smile. "Ah, I appreciate it. But... You really didn't have to."

That got a frown. "Tell me you're not starving yourself to lose weight."

"No, no, no! I'm really just not hungry."

"Come on, Rowan. I've seen that look before. I know when you're hungry, and right now you're starving. Come on. It'll make us all feel better. It'll make you feel better."

Rowan looked around the table. Staring at them was a menagerie of concerned and hopeful faces. Varying species, each one begging him to take a bite and end the suffering. The steak certainly seemed capable of that. It was half Rowan's size, looking ready to crack the plate holding it. Rowan had no doubt that it would make him feel better, temporarily at least. After that...

Maybe just one bite. Just one bite and that's it. That'll get everyone off my back. They forced a smile. "Alright. I might have a piece. Just a little." That seemed to appease their friends for the time being. Next, they had to actually eat it. They picked up their knife and fork, both looking enormous in their bitty paws. A deep breath was had before they stuck the knife into the steak and began cutting off a piece. The meat was a breeze to cut through, it was so tender. Watching the red juices bleed out triggered a rumble in their tummy. The piece came off, revealing a wall of soft pink meat framed in gray. Medium rare, just how Rowan liked it.

They glanced around at the faces watching them, feeling like an infant trying to say a new word in front of their family. As casually as they could, they closed their mouth around the fork and slid it out through their lips. Their jaws fell upon the steak, that warm sledge of salty goodness which all but melted atop their tongue. It was good, very good. More of its flavor bled through their mouth as they began to chew. They took their time, munching out every bit of taste until it was all but a paste. It went down in one gulp and landed in their stomach with a satisfying splash.

Everyone else was satisfied too, and went back to their own meals. Rowan's satisfaction, however, lasted very shortly. The steak was still in front of them, begging to be finished. They stared at it in a wide-eyed stupor. Only a fragment of their hunger had been quelled, like tossing a handful of dirt into a grave. The rest needed filling, and fast. They stabbed the fork back into the steak and hurriedly carved off another hunk, bigger this time.

Their friends noticed. One of them chuckled. "Glad you could join us! Go easy on it, now."

He was ignored. The very moment the piece was free of the steak Rowan crammed it into their maw, chewed it a few times, then swallowed. They let loose a crisp sigh. OK. That's enough. Don't need more. The space in their gut had shrunk, but not by enough. The void next to it needed filling. OK. Maybe I'll just finish this steak. They sawed away at the steak again, removing the larger portion that was still stuck to the T-bone. It was duly devoured, going down without hardly any chews to soften it. The steak was about done, and yet there was still gristle and fat clung to the bone. The fork and knife clattered to the table as Rowan let them go to snatch the bone and pull it to their face. Their tiny mouth gnawed away ravenously, tearing away the last remnants of meat, scraping the bottom of the barrel.

Some people were amused. Some were concerned again. Rowan had to really be starving if they were eating so voraciously. "It's not going anywhere," one person said. "You can get another one."

Rowan pulled the steak down from their face. "More," they muttered. "I can get more." They dropped the bone onto the plate and spun out of the seat to make a beeline for the food counters. They snatched a clean plate and immediately plopped on another steak from the bin. This one wasn't as big as the first; it wouldn't suffice on its own. Another one was slapped on. Steak was nice, but a diverse plate was mandatory at buffets. Rowan scooped up some mashed potatoes. Plap! On it went. Next was the macaroni and cheese. Smack! Right next to the potatoes. Next were two buttered biscuits which sat on the edge of the plate precariously.

They marched back to the table with all of it, their friends looking on in astonishment. They slid the plate onto the table and remounted the booster seat. They didn't even stop to breathe before hastily forking up a clod of doughy mashed potatoes and eating it. Good thing mashed potatoes don't require much chewing because Rowan swallowed it immediately. Some macaroni was next, then a bite of biscuit, then some more mashed potatoes, then back to the biscuit. The steaks went mostly ignored due to requiring a fork and knife. Rowan wanted to eat and do nothing else. They weren't going to work for it any more than they had to.

Those who Rowan impressed laughed and goaded them on, not that they were listening. Those who were concerned, growing in number with each chomp, stayed quiet. None of them knew what triggered such a frenzy. Nobody knew that it was something else entirely, that savage drive to do nothing but eat, eat, eat. The void had long been filled. Replacing it was the oppressive swell of their gut. What would've been a bothersome ache went unregistered. Rowan felt nothing, heard nothing, saw nothing, tasted nothing, and thought of nothing that wasn't the meal in front of them. This was what they'd been afraid of all along, why they'd refused to eat, why they knew going to the buffet was a bad idea.

It was too late to stop.

It turned out that Rowan didn't really need to eat the steak with a fork and knife. Why use them when they had a perfectly functioning pair of paws that could hold a steak up to their rapidly chomping jaws? Table manners having gone out the window, they ripped away at it like a sandwich, barely sparing any energy to chew before swallowing. The very instant they were down to the bone they grabbed the other one. They didn't even chew this time, instead cramming the thing whole into their mouth, gaping their cheeks and putting it away in just one, hearty swallow. A bulge plummeted down their neck and fell into their belly with an audible kerplunk.

People at other tables were starting to notice. The smacking lips were loud. So were the tiny huffs and growls that would come out through their nose. People were turned around in their seats, forgetting about their own meals or outright turned off by such a grisly display. The friends closest to Rowan scooted their chairs away. Most had stopped laughing. Some pleaded for them to slow down. The fellow on Rowan's right could've sworn that they could see their belly getting bigger, though it had always been slightly pronounced.

No matter how big it was, it was filled all the way up, and they still wanted more. The third steak went down unceremoniously. Its empty plate was shoved aside. Rowan took a moment to breathe, the first time since they'd cut into the steak their friend gifted them. Slow down. Stop it, pleaded their conscience. No more. But the lingering hunger spoke differently, and they left their chair again to go fill another plate. The moment their little feet hit the ground they were introduced to the weight of their gut. They laid a paw over it, feeling the wobbling conglomerate of mass they'd accumulated after just two plates. Bigger, thought Rowan. I wonder if I can get it bigger.

Back at the food counter they grabbed two plates and piled onto them both. They clacked on the table hard when Wyvern plopped them down. Mounting the booster seat again was a struggle thanks to their added gut. They were huffing and puffing by the time they did. The feasting resumed once they'd caught their breath.

"Hey, Rowan. That's enough," spoke somebody at the table. Rowan didn't know who, nor did they care. They offered nothing but a dissociative grunt as they munched on a chicken wing. There was no mistaking how big their gut had gotten now that it filled the space between them and the table. After downing a few biscuits and another mound of mashed potatoes their stomach was pressed into the table edge, slowly spilling over it. Somebody put their hand on Rowan's shoulder. Rowan shrugged them off without pausing their assault on a chicken thigh.

They were a spectacle by this point, attracting every eye in the buffet. Those not disgusted to the point of leaving were huddled in the dining area, watching the little wyvern go to town on their food. Some wondered how they had missed such a tiny creature with such a massive gut until they realized that it had grown within the last few minutes and would continue to inflate before their very eyes.

Both plates were cleaned eventually. Not even the chicken bones were left behind. All of it was in Rowan's immodestly distended paunch. It bulged with the great many food things that were pressed against it. Rowan sighed and patted their tummy. What followed was a roaring belch so powerful that it was heard from the opposite side of the buffet. That was the final straw for their friends who promptly abandoned the table en masse.

"Excuse me," they said in a timid voice that did not fit their rotundity. The booster seat was starting to sag. Their gut was pushing on the table, leaning it slightly. The table was abandoned except for Rowan and the collection of empty plates. Wyvern looked around, a worrisome look on their face. They looked at one of the people watching them. Everyone thought they'd ask where their friends went. Instead they asked, "Is there any more food?" Some people laughed, others shook their head in astonishment. "I'd get it myself, but..." They rubbed their belly and kicked their stubby feet. "I don't think I can walk with a tummy this big." Management was about to speak up and tell Rowan they'd had enough before one fellow vowed to bring Rowan as much food as they wanted. That made them smile. "Thank you! Bring me more. Anything. I don't care. I'll eat it. I'll eat it all." They looked around at everyone else. "Everyone. Keep it coming."

Only a handful of other people helped out. The rest were too appalled to get involved with anything so vulgar. Soon Rowan had their own squad of servants filling the table in front of him with more and more plates of food. Each one was inhaled promptly. No chewing, no utensils. Rowan would grab each dish and cram it into their face, gnawing away at whatever was in front of their jaws.

The weight piled on and onto their belly. It outsized the rest of their body which had maintained its small size. It looked like they'd been grafted to a fuzzy beach ball filled with sand and random objects. Rowan couldn't reach the table anymore; their belly had pushed it away too far. Thankfully that wasn't an issue, not when their colossal tummy was distended enough to lay their plates on it. The chair, however, was at its limit. The plastic booster seat was all but flattened beneath their ass. Rowan was busy dunking their snout in a pool of cream gravy when the chair legs gave way.

SNAP!

Rowan came plummeting down atop an explosion of splinters. Their belly hit the carpet hard, jiggling violently like a gelatinous sphere. Their face came out of their plate with a look of only mild surprise. Looking around at the detritus of the chair they asked, "What happened?"

"You broke our chair!" shouted the manager. He was an elderly panther wearing a white shirt, tie, and black pants. "And you need to leave. You're done!"

Wyvern offered his response. "No." Plain and simple. Like he'd been asked a question and not given a direct order.

"This isn't a negotiation," growled the manager. "You need to leave or else I'll call the police."

"Not yet," Rowan said, again, simply. "Lemme finish this plate." They resumed slurping away at the gravy. There wasn't even any real food on it. Someone just gave it to them. It would've been rude to waste it.

The manager gave up. He stormed off for the front desk to call 9-1-1, per his promise. It hardly bothered Rowan who was more distressed by the lack of food in front of them. They let rip another burp before reaching their arms up at the table like a baby asking for uppies. "Eh... Eh... Will someone help me?" Nobody came to their aid. None of them wanted to risk getting in trouble. Rowan pouted. "Fine. I'll get it myself."

It seemed impossible to everyone how a tiny dragon could possibly maneuver with such an explosive gut. It outweighed the rest of them by a few magnitudes. Rowan had no hope of walking normally or even dragging it. So, it came as a shock when they saw the little wyvern rocking back and forth, rolling their gut with them until they were able to roll backwards. The gut swung over them and kept rolling. Rowan swung with it until they were on top like a child lying on an exercise ball. Everyone else just watched as Rowan managed to roll their way over to one of the food counters where the massive size of their belly kept them floating above it, eye level with the food.

They started shoveling into their mouth straight from the server trays, lightly singeing their paws on the metal serving trays. Unfazed, they continued eating, stuffing more and more into their tummy until that platter was cleared. They would move on to the next one, cleaning it as quickly as they had the last. The manager's protests continued in the background, but a dull ringing in their ears like a forgotten memory. All that could be heard was the constant mashing of their teeth, the hum of the heat lamps keeping the food warm, and the echoing chant in their mind. Eat. Eat. Eat. Bigger. Bigger. Bigger.

Bigger indeed. The wyvern had trouble reaching the counter, not because the gut beneath them was too short, but because it had become too tall. Their winged arms stretched pitifully to reach for the last remaining clump of stuffing. So close but still so far. "Come on..." they wheezed. "Come on. Just a little more."

They were interrupted by the front door bursting open suddenly. In came a police officer, a golden retriever with a dark blue uniform and a loaded utility belt. The manager was in the lobby waiting for him and pointed towards the dining area. The officer turned to look, expecting some curmudgeon still at their table, surrounded by empty plates. Instead, he got a tiny wyvern lying atop a gut swollen to the size of a smart car. Some people looked on feeling just as horrified as the officer.

He gulped and dared to approach the miscreant as it continued trying to reach for the counter. "Hey there," he said in a noncombative tone. "What's going on here?"

Rowan didn't look at him. They just kept reaching. "Food," they groaned. "Food."

"Yeah? Looks like you had a lot of it. Why don't you step away from the counter for me? We can talk over there."

Rowan shook their head. "Food. Food."

"You've had enough food, buddy." The cop came closer and rested a paw on the wyvern's shoulder. Being that close put him directly in the cloud of funk that radiated from Rowan's breath. "Come on. Let's go over here. Let other people eat."

Rowan paused. They looked at the paw on their shoulder, then at the officer. It looked as though they were thinking about it, the first act of cognizance since their binge started. The officer braced for an act of resistance, for them to breathe fire or swat his paw away. Instead, the wyvern gently laid their paw on the officer's, then pulled it straight into their mouth. It happened so fast. Between having his paw ripped from Rowan's shoulder and then chomped on there was absolutely no time to react. His eyes went round. He tried to pull away, but it was too late.

Sccchhhhhllllllrrrrrrrrrrrrp!

Rowan's cheeks imploded around the officer's paw, absorbing it to the elbow in just a flash. His arm was nearly torn from the shoulder before it too was inside. The last thing he saw was a violet snout before his head vanished inside of it, quickly followed by the rest of his body. His black shoes were slurped away, and the cop was gone. There was a loud splorsh sound as he landed in the giant sphere of mush that was Rowan's belly. Their gut rebounded, jiggled, and gurgled rudely before all was still. The meal was punctuated by another thunderous belch.

In the immediate aftermath there was a moment of silence that was broken by a collective shriek of horror. A mad dash for the exit surged through the building, people shoving and jostling for space through the tight doorway. It hit a bottleneck, each person chest-to-chest as they tried to escape. The lucky few who were first made it out. Those behind them were not so fortunate.

Rowan, a colossus of sloshing flesh as inexorable as a wrecking ball, rolled towards them. They recognized the crowd of panicking patrons as a smorgasbord more inclusive than the buffet they'd swelled themselves with. Food. More. Bigger. Rowan rolled towards them, jaw agape, ready to add more. A man at the back of the crowd heard them coming. He turned to see a planet of violet and pink fluff surging at him. He threw his paws up to protect himself, only to see one clamped upon by the monster's mouth.

Shcllllluuuurrrp!

Up Rowan's mouth and down their gullet the man went, gone in an instant, joining the cop and the great mass. Another scream went up through the crowd. Individual voices would grow louder and then suddenly go quiet as they met their fate at Rowan's mouth. Often, they didn't see it coming. In one moment they would be panicking and in the next they would feel a tearing suction that lifted them from the floor and pitted them in a suffocating cell of squelching darkness.

Shcllllluuuurrrp!

Shcllllluuuurrrp!

Shcllllluuuurrrp!

The crowd began to thin. Rowan continued to fatten. The shapes of people bulged against their tummy flesh, trapped in a pose like they'd been outlined in chalk. Rowan was at the ceiling now, his circumference beyond what could fit through the doorway. Finally, the last patron was out the door, having just missed the jaws of death. In the wake of such a violent feast Rowan had consumed several diners, the manager, a cop, and a few of their friends. But these were not concepts a food-driven mind could comprehend anymore. Food. There was only food. Palatable, non-palatable, edible, non-edible, it made no difference. Food. Bigger. More.

They rolled back to the dining room. The floor cracked beneath them. The building quivered on its foundation. There was no hope of reaching the food in the counters. No problem. Rowan rolled themselves to one of the tables. They did not chew; there was no need. They snatched the entire thing off the floor and gaped their jaws around it. It vanished in one gigantic swallow. Schlooorrrrrrrp.

Their mass brought them to the ceiling. The tiles cracked apart around the furry sphere, leaking dust around their curves. They ignored the sound of the floor groaning beneath them, too busy scraping away at everything and putting it away inside them. The building gave way beneath them, caving in around their immensity and dropping them to the lowest foundation in one explosive plunge.

WHOOOOOOOM!

A cloud of dust and a quake of the earth. The ceiling lights exploded in a shower of sparks, and still the wyvern ate. A stomach full of furniture, drywall, and people would not calm the beast. They needed more. With a forward heave they managed to roll through the building, steamrolling the floor and through the cinder block walls like they were cardboard. Their fuzzy, violet body roared forward onto the streets, flattening cars in the parking lot. Their body, still that miniscule, little wyvern, would fall upon them and latch on with their mouth. There was the screech of metal and the crunch of glass as they suffered the suction of his lips, siphoning straight past his palate and joining the union of consumed matter. They rolled to the next car, devoured it, rolled to the next car, devoured it, rolled to the next car, devoured it...

This was in front of the cars waiting at the intersection next to the buffet, stopped at the red light. They did not go when it turned green as they were too transfixed by the amazing sight rolling through the parking lot, sucking up entire vehicles like they were nothing. The wiser kicked it into high gear and got the fuck out of there. The rest waited until Rowan had eaten every car that was in that parking lot.

Then Rowan started rolling towards them, and they realized their mistake.

It came hard and fast like a boulder discarded down a cliff, that Jovian mass of violet and pink, violet and pink, violet and pink. The drivers kicked it into gear and hit the gas, but most were too late. A great shadow befell them before Rowan was on top, pancaking their roll cages and then slurping them inside without effort. Rowan rolled down the road, away from the intersection, leaving nothing in his wake but cracked pavement and knocked-over traffic lights. Their gut spanned the entire road, the median, and most of the road next to it. With every pass of their body they would inhale the asphalt beneath them, inflating their misshapen hypergut even further.

Traffic coming towards them hit a grinding halt. Cars struck each other as they tried to reverse or veer over to the opposite road. People vacated their cars and ran screaming, only to be flattened and then inhaled like everything else. The city loomed in the distance, its citizens ignorant of the coming monster. They didn't see the planet of flesh barreling down the road, breaking through overpasses, smashing and consuming cars, toppling over streetlamps and chomping on them like stalks of celery. There was no inkling of the coming catastrophe until they felt the earth trembling beneath them.

Rowan met the city as a colossus, hardly recognizable as a living thing as much as an extra-terrestrial body sent to ravage everything in its path. That they did, flattening, toppling, and devouring everything in front of it. A building would suffer their impact at its root and come plummeting earthward in a tsunami of dust and debris. Rowan would be ready beneath it, that black hole of a mouth absorbing all that fell before it.

WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH!

Plaster, concrete, cars, debris, people. Rowan's mouth found it all and spared no distinction. His belly swelled continuously, knocking over skyscrapers without even rolling into them. A wave of blubber blew onto them like the surge of a sandstorm, just a wall of fluffy purple whose inevitable stretch was no more preventable than the rising sun. The people could only wait for their coming doom, for their eventual inclusion in Rowan's tummy. Rowan found them all, making sure to roll through every part of the city so that they could sweep their mouth through it.

The city was gone, and all that was left was Rowan. He sat like a mountain atop the remains of what was once a thriving city, now a flattened wasteland of rubble, dust, and twisted steel. Their gut settled at last, flattening across the ground into the shape of a coin sack that had been put down. At its very summit, higher than any skyscraper that had stood in their place, was the wyvern's main body, still unchanged in size. They'd fallen into a lethargic stupor, satisfied at last. Looking all around there was nothing but a vast plane of belly with its own horizon. They could not see the buffet, or any recognizable landmark, for that matter. There was a trail of crushed earth originating where the buffet had been and widening towards where they were now. Helicopters circled around them, broadcasting the image of his gluttony for the world to see.

"Dammit," they muttered to themself. "I knew I shouldn't have gone to the buffet."

THE END