At first, it was a joke. Late-night hosts made cracks about "The Great Expansion." Diet pill stocks plummeted while sweatpants manufacturers saw their value triple. People laughed as they notched new holes in their belts every week. In thirty days, everyone on the planet had gained roughly five and a half pounds. It was manageable. Month 3: The Infrastructure Crisis
Five years in, the human form was unrecognizable. The average human carried 360 pounds of "Ticker-Mass" in addition to their original weight.
Society became quieter, slower, and strangely more empathetic. We were all carrying the same burden, second by second. No one was thin, so no one was judged. 1 Fat Every Second
By noon, the world realized it wasn’t a countdown. It was a tally.
By August, the laughter stopped. The average person had gained nearly 18 pounds of pure mass. At first, it was a joke
The ticker appeared on the morning of June 1st, hovering in the bottom-right corner of everyone’s vision like a digital ghost: .
The world wasn't built for this. Airplane seats became tight. Subway turnstiles felt narrower. Public health officials realized that by next year, the average adult would weigh an extra 70 pounds. Bridges were inspected for weight tolerances; elevators were derated for fewer passengers. In thirty days, everyone on the planet had
But humanity adapted. We became a species of constant movement. Since we couldn't stop the growth, we fueled our world with it. The excess tissue was surgically harvested in "Lipo-Plants" to be refined into biofuels. We literally ran our cities on the weight of our own bodies.