Dark Fantasy · Horror · The Plot Calls Anthology · 22 septembre, 2025

The Plot Calls #38 : "Big Man"

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination and/or Ai-assisted-content-generation. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

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Drew Halpern didn’t envy wealth. He envied masculinity.

Not character. Not strength of mind. The visible kind. The broad shoulders. The hard lines. The quiet dominance that made other men respected—and made women stare.

Drew spent hours at the gym chasing that illusion. But no matter how hard he trained, no matter how many supplements he downed, it was never enough.

The men he envied always seemed bigger. Stronger. Sharper. More… complete. The envy boiled.

The whisper came after a late-night lift. Low. Voiceless. Curling through the field behind the gym.

Drew followed. Restless. Hungry. Desperate to be more.

There, in an empty clearing behind the gym, pulsed the soil of a strange plot. Black-violet. Alive.

The porcelain hand reached upward from the plot. Delicate. Expectant. Hungry.

Drew offered his first sports medal—the proof of his brief prime.

The next day, his posture straightened. His skin glowed. His recovery time halved. Drew built muscle overnight. His shoulders broadened. His breathing cleared. He could bench his body weight.

Compliments showered in—the praise of friends, acquaintances, strangers. Lingering glances from women he found attractive.

Weeks passed. Drew felt his body slowing down again. His masculinity threatened. His power fading as his envy returned.

He thanked God when he heard the familiar call. The plot.

Drew didn't know of the One Beneath, but he felt a hunger that matched his envy.

Drew fed the plot. It wasn't enough. He kept feeding it—trophies, photos, proof of years gone by.

Little by little, his friends noticed. The hair loss. The pale skin. The withering frame.

Drew's envious narcissism had once drawn in like-minded peers, relatives, and connections. They thrived on shallow competition. But Drew became dull. Indifferent. No longer vain enough to keep pace. No longer hungry enough to fuel their shared illusion.

The relatives who once admired him backed away. “He's got nothing to offer me. I can't motivate myself from his apathy,” they’d chatter among themselves.

His friends tried asking what was wrong—but stopped when the answer wasn’t easy. Caring took effort. Concern cost energy. They had gains to chase. Appearances to preserve. Hollow, shallow vanity to protect. If Drew couldn’t keep up, that was his problem—not theirs.

Drew’s reflection dimmed. His pulse slowed.

But the One Beneath the soil—forever craving, forever hungry, forever wanting—still called.

Drew stood idle, waiting for the chance to answer. The chance to feed. The chance to feel.

One evening, during closing, the gym staff noticed Drew hadn’t left. His clothes were folded on the bench, but he was nowhere to be found.

They looked around the gym. The locker room. The lot. Not because they cared what happened to Drew—but because liability mattered. If Drew had gotten hurt—or worse—the gym could be liable. That was what mattered.

Then, behind the gym, a staff member froze.

A man knelt idle over an unnatural, glowing patch of soil. Pale. Robed. Still.

The staffer rubbed his eyes. The man and the shimmering plot seemed to fade—disappearing in an impossible timelapse.

As the idle, robed figure and the strange soil vanished, a faint whisper carried through the still, cold, eerie breeze: