13 No pain no gain

Jack reappeared in front of his laptop which was still happily installing the software. He didn't feel any discomfort and just let out a sigh. He clicked on the Next prompt on the computer and got up from his chair.

As he walked towards the stairs, a sudden bout of nausea kicked in, and he changed his direction and rushed into his bathroom.

When he was a couple of footsteps away from it he saw a notification:

"Synchronization started!"

He was only able to make one or two before his legs started cramping up and he fell on the floor. He was kneeling. When he tried to push himself up with his hands his arms cramped, and he down fell face first on the cold tiles. He tried moving. His arms were not responding, and the only movement he could make was slithering like a snake on the tiles.

His vision blurred at first. Then everything went bright. He saw a tunnel and figured that was what people who are dying see before they die. His body started convulsing. All his muscles seemed to be on autopilot, and even the smallest ones were twitching.

The pain was enormous, but it was still somewhat bearable until he started feeling his bones vibrate all at once. After that, his mind shut down from the intense pain.

As he lay on the tiles, he was shaking so violently that to an ordinary person he would appear blurry. The intense pain and shaking emptied his stomach from both ends. He shook in his own vomit, urine and fecal matter. He would hear his bones and teeth making grinding noises and also the various notifications flashing if he were still conscious.

There was a progress bar. Which by now only reached 25 %.

If someone could speed up synchronization about five times, he would notice Jack was growing at a visible rate. He grew about a millimeter every minute.

Twitching like if he had an epileptic attack combined with breakdance moves, he kept going like an alcoholic experiencing delirium tremens.

At 50 % there was a prompt, but Jack was unconscious, so he would never know.

"Genetic constraints reached. Upgrade to cell energy power? YES, NO."

There was a 30-second timer slowly ticking down, and after it ran down the default option, YES was selected.

Jack suddenly started getting redder. He was sweating before, but right now it was much more intense. At first, it was just redness, but soon his pores began producing a blackish substance all over his body.

His growth had stopped, and he got even thinner than before. He was about 10 cm taller than before, but his body proportion was all wrong. He looked emaciated.

There was another notification of synchronization finished as Jack finally stopped shaking. He just laid there in his gunk and didn't move for a long while.

When he finally came to himself, he was nauseated by the stench, and he started to heave. He tried to pick himself up from the ground, but it was slippery from the oily black residue all over his body and his vomit on the tiles. All his muscles ached, and his eyes were moistening from the pain.

He started crawling towards his shower and made a long streak of nastiness towards it. Once he crept in, he just opened the water and laid himself back down.

He came back to his senses after a couple of minutes, and he noticed the pain in his joints and bones was subsiding. He took off his soiled clothes, and after rinsing them, he threw them towards the sink. His muscles still hurt like crazy, but they were getting better. He sat back towards the shower wall and let the water pressure hit his head and face.

Soon his hot water ran out, but he didn't care he enjoyed the cold shower which cooled his inflamed muscles. When he could almost feel no pain anymore, he finally took a bottle of shampoo and body wash and started scrubbing himself. The black goo that was forced out of his body was like resin, and he was removing it layer by layer. It took him two hours until he was satisfied with the result. Well, he could not see his back otherwise he would have known he missed a spot.

As he got out of his shower and grabbed a towel, he almost slipped on the streak across the floor.

He put the towel around his waist and grabbed a mop and spent the next half hour cleaning the disgusting mess from the tiles. After it was cleaned, he went back in the shower and scrubbed his feet.

When he finally got out of the shower, and he wiped off his mirror he was shocked.

He was 10-12 cm taller, and he looked like he spent his summer vacation in a WWII concentration camp. He still had a full set of hair, but otherwise, he seemed no different than those poor Jewish people who met such a tragic fate.

The other big difference was that he didn't feel feeble. On the contrary, his body felt full of strength and energy.

"It's all in my head. It's all in my head," Jack kept repeating to himself.

He went to his bedroom and found fresh clothes. He put on a t-shirt and jeans, with a black hoodie on top. If someone saw his face, he looked no different than a junkie on his last legs. He found some cheap plastic sunglasses in his closet, and he took them with him.

He was starting to get dizzy again, and his stomach was growling. He was hungry, and he figured his dizziness was a symptom of low blood sugar. He went to his workroom and ate the rest of the energy bars, but he was far from full. The energy bars felt like they were a drop in the ocean.

As he got downstairs, his first instinct was the fridge. As he opened it, he found that he had nothing but an old mayonnaise bottle. He just opened it and chugged it down. On regular days he would find such behavior worthy of an insane asylum, but his hunger could not listen to reason.

He picked up the phone, and he selected an Asian food delivery service from an app and ordered enough food for a four-member family. He waited and waited, while his stomach was making angry noises.

As the delivery boy came, he didn't wait for the bell. He just opened the door, gave him a 100 $ bill, grabbed his bags, shouted: "Keep the change!" as he slammed the door into the surprised man's face. Well, the delivery man got a generous tip, so he was not complaining after he saw what was left in his hand. In fact, he probably wished for more such quick and easy customers.

He opened the containers one by one and stuffed the food into himself like there was no tomorrow.

He got Thai Panang Curry, Spicy Kung Pao Chicken, Pad Thai, and Mie Goreng. A container after container just magically disappeared into his emaciated body like he was doing some kind of magic performance. After he finished the last one, he burped with satisfaction and went to bed.