More Than Antoine Could Handle [re-boot] FINALE!

Read Part 1 here!

Read Part 2 here!

Read Part 3 here!

Read Part 4 here!

Read Part 5 here!

And now, enjoy the FINALE!

“Antoine! You gotta get up!”

Antoine’s eyes snapped open at the sound of his name. Most mornings started this way since the punks moved in: one of them would scream for him to come perform some menial or humiliating task; disobedience would mean something far more humiliating. He loathed the way he was starting to become accustomed to the treatment, as if he were being “trained.”

“Antoine! C’mere, man!”

But it wasn’t Chance, Reggie or Toots. The voice was unfamiliar at first, but Antoine suddenly realized it was Regan. His buddy didn’t sound the same ever since Chance stole his muscles and left him in the body of a 5’10” average-sized man.

Antoine grunted as he rolled himself toward the edge of his bed. He grabbed his big, soft belly and squeezed it in frustration, then groaned as he struggled to his feet. “Getting up” had become exceptionally difficult since Chance had cursed him with copious amounts of flab. Antoine lacked any of the muscle that would come with carrying the weight around, and so his 5’1” frame was overwhelmed by pudge. He cringed at the feeling of his soft thighs rolling around each other as he walked toward the door. He felt his face jiggle with every step.

“Regan, whats–” Antoine began at the bedroom door. His friend (whose appearance–a massively deflated version of the enormous pro-bodybuilder Antoine had known when he, too, had been enormous–still shocked him) ran toward him, hiking up his too-big sweatpants. He was out of breath.

“They’re gone.”

They both stood silently as they started to process what that meant.

“Gone… where?” Antoine asked as he waddled one stair at a time down to the first floor. His house looked like it had been trashed, beer cans and other detritus in all corners with every bit of furniture either smashed or overturned. He entered his kitchen to see his fridge on its side, his kitchen table split in two. He’d heard the punks raging the night before, but he’d put in earplugs (a necessity for sleep since they’d taken over) and apparently missed most of the damage. “Maybe they’ll be back,” Antoine conjectured as he tried in vain to right the overturned fridge. Regan approached to help, but the two weren’t strong enough to lift it.

“I don’t think so,” Regan said, leading Antoine to a spray-painted message on the front door, for the whole neighborhood to see.

“LATER, RUNTS! Have a shitty life!”

“They’re gone,” Antoine said. The part of him that was grateful to be free of their influence was overwhelmed by the idea that he’d be this–short, obese, and weak–for the rest of his life.

There were two beers still in the fridge. Though it was tilted sideways, it was still cold. Antoine cracked one and handed the other to Regan, who rejected it at first until Antoine grabbed his gut and gave it a wobble.

“No reason to eat like a bodybuilder today,” he said.

Regan nodded sadly as his own hand went to his narrow, slim waist. He took the beer and winced at his first sip.

“I was getting close,” Antoine said in the living room, amongst the wreckage. Luckily they’d been able to flip the couch upright again. “I almost got that little stone a couple times.”

“Chance was catching on,” Regan said. “That’s probably why he left. He got worried he was about to lose it all.”

“I’m going to lose all my sponsorships,” Antoine said, staring blankly at the wall.

“Fuck that,” Regan  said. “Fuck that! We built ourselves up huge before, we can do it again. We’re still us, we’re just different right now!”

Antoine shook his head. “Chance said that the magic steals your genetics. He said it locks you into this new shape. You’re going to be a normal-looking, kinda skinny guy forever. I’m going to be a little butterball.”

Regan shook his head. “Did those guys really beat you this much? Fuck, Antoine. We’re going to get on a cycle today. Let’s go to the gym right now! When we make our comeback, we’ll make tons of money off  the success story.”

Antoine shrugged. “Any way you can make me taller?’

Regan started pacing around the room. Antoine started dialing a phone number.

“I’d like to report a robbery, and… uh… a kidnapping,” Antoine said.

“They’re never going to believe us!” Regan said. “And besides, what can they do?”

Antoine tossed his phone aside when the call was over. “I dunno. But when you get robbed, you call the police.”

Antoine regretted the inclusion of the police as soon as they arrived. They recognized the damage to the place, but there was no hard evidence that three other men had been there–and all that was aside from the fact that Antoine and Regan struggled to explain how they were actually professional bodybuilders.

“So you’re saying,” the young, athletic Officer Bulleit said, eyeing a framed photo of Antoine winning a competition, “that this big muscley guy in the pic is YOU, porkpie?”

Antoine’s face burned red. “Look, buddy, I called you the first night those guys were here. You and I spoke when I looked JUST like that! Remember? You went next door! And you didn’t arrest anybody, either.” He burned at the idea that this cop, who was practically falling over himself in admiration of Antoine’s size, now towered over him and looked down on his doughy physique.

Bulleit’s face showed a flash of recognition, but he shook his head. “Look, I talked to the guy in this pic. That wasn’t you, cream puff. But I do remember hearing about some little guy peeping in other people’s houses that night.”

“That was me too, sort of,” Antoine explained. “Those punks called the cops on me after they shrank me.”

Bulleit rolled his eyes. “Main descriptor of that perp was ‘skinny’ and that isn’t you,” he said, poking Antoine in his flabby belly.

“Yeah, they made me small first, and fat later,” Antoine explained.

“We should arrest both of you for trespassing, because NEITHER of you is the guy who owns this house,” Bulleit said. “Seems more likely YOU two broke in, trashed the place, and smoked something that made you think this whole story would fly.”

“Take our fingerprints,” Regan interrupted. “Test our DNA! It’ll prove we are who we say we are.”

Bulleit turned to Regan and raised an eyebrow. “And who exactly might you be?”

“Regan Grimes,” he said, his composure starting to bend under the bigger cop’s glare. “Pro bodybuilder.”

“Yeah, sure,” Bulleit said, chuckling. “If you guys are Pros, I must be Mr. Friggin Universe then.”

Antoine and Regan didn’t struggle as the cops read them their rights and handcuffed them. The neighbors watched from their porches as the two were led to the back of the police cars.

“I’M getting arrested,” Antoine seethed as the door slammed. “Those punks go free and I get taken in.”

The police were perplexed when Regan and Antoine’s fingerprints matched the two missing bodybuilders. Some blood was drawn for a DNA test and they were released later that day after some questioning. None of the cops were willing to commit to the idea that, “Muscle thieves are on the loose,” but they couldn’t deny Regan and Antoine’s identities.

That evening Antoine sat on his couch as reporters banged on the door. The news started running stories of the “Case of the Shrinking Bodybuilders” tossing around the theory that wild steroids had caused unbelievable side effects in the two reduced men. And with every day that passed, Antoine hoped he would wake up to find himself big again.

*

Antoine sighed as he stirred his latte. He looked up to John, his favorite barista, who set a donut down in front of him.

“On the house,” John said. “And if your friend shows up, I’ll give one to her too.”

Antoine shook his head sadly. “She’s not coming,” he said, checking the dating app for messages from “Kristine” to find that he was blocked. “Ghosted again,” he said.

“Her loss,” John said. “The next one will be yours for sure.”

Antoine took a bite of the glazed pastry but left the rest behind. He spit the bite into the trashcan as he headed for the door, sucking in his gut.

Regan was at Global Gym with a client when Antoine arrived. Neither of them could get jobs as personal trainers based on their bodybuilding careers anymore, but at least Regan, who was lean despite lacking any muscular development, was able to pick up some elderly clients who didn’t want some massive man ordering them around.

From the treadmill, Antoine watched Regan training old Evelyn, a lonely (but wealthy) woman. Regan approached a squat rack but a couple of larger men stepped in front of him. Antoine watched as the men bullied Regan out of the way. The men were both about 6’1”, about 240 pounds–small potatoes compared to the way he and Regan used to look. Neither of them had any idea the amazing amount of bodybuilding talent and know-how they’d just brushed aside as they started squatting too much weight with their shitty form.

“I hope they blow out their knees,” Antoine said through gritted teeth. He tapped the up-arrow on the treadmill, accelerating from 2 to 2.2 mph. He had no endurance, even after six months of training. He hadn’t lost a pound, his body composition seemingly frozen in place. As he pushed himself, wheezing, past the feeling of exhaustion, a young man came by and gave him the thumbs up.

“Good for you!” he said in a patronizing tone. “Keep pushing, bud! You’ll reach your goals someday!”

After they were both finished, the two men met at the front door. “How’s Evelyn?” Antoine asked.

“Horny for any roided out gymrat, pretty much,” Regan said with a sigh. “I swear, there’s not a musclehead in there she doesn’t want to offer money to rub down.”

Antoine smirked. “You should get in there! Earn some extra dough.”

Regan let out a deep sigh. “Yeah, I, uh… I’m ‘not her type’--as she reminds me literally every day. How’d your date go?”

“She didn’t show,” Antoine said. “This shit… never was this hard before, y’know?”

Regan nodded. “Yeah, I do.” After a beat, he replied, “Before, I could have pretty much any woman I wanted. I never really appreciated that.”

“Honestly, I’d be willing to fuck Evelyn if she would show a little interest in me,” Antoine said. His phone buzzed and he pulled it out–a “bodybuilding news” alert flashed on the screen.

“You still check bodybuilding stuff?” Regan said.

“Yeah,” Antoine said. “I was thinking maybe I could get a job as a reporter for Muscular Development or something. Write a column. Anything. It’s not like I’m any different than I was before, y’know?”

“People are still weirded out by us,” Regan said. “I ran into Iain Valliere the other day. I was picking up my mom at the airport and he happened to be on the same flight. He didn’t recognize me of course, but when I told him who he was it was like he didn’t want to be near me. Like I was contagious.”

Regan’s voice had started to fade out as Antoine read the article that appeared when he clicked the link: “Will Superheavyweight Phenom Channing Voss Dominate Nationals?”

“Fuck,” Antoine said. “Fuck, it can’t be…”

“What?” Regan said. Antoine grabbed his taller friend and pulled him down to look. There on the screen was a face they both recognized, although the body was even bigger and more ludicrously shredded than when they’d last seen it.

“It’s Chance,” Antoine said. “That fucker is trying to win his pro card.”

*

“Dammit,” Regan said as he drove Antoine’s truck. He glanced down from the road for just a moment to see an e-mail alert on his phone. “Can you read that? Tell me what it says?” He handed the phone to Antoine.

“It’s from the IFBB,” Antoine relayed as he read. “Turns out they’re not going to allow us backstage unless we pay for passes.”

“Fuck!” Regan said. “Those assholes. Ronnie Coleman doesn’t look how he did in his prime, but everyone still respects the hell out of him.”

“Well, Ronnie Coleman didn’t turn chubby-wubby overnight,” Antoine said. “It’s fine. I’ll order the passes. Have you thought of a plan about what we’re going to do when we get there?”

Regan shook his head. “I think Toots is the weak link,” he said. “From what I’ve seen, he’s the smallest of the three. Reggie and Chance are both bigger than we last saw, but Toots is still the same size.”

“Yeah, they bully the shit out of him,” Antoine said, stopping himself before he added, “...poor guy.”

They’d found pictures of Chance–going by the name Channing–on nearly every bodybuilding news site. Some time after leaving Antoine’s house, the three had moved to Las Vegas and started training at several of the gyms there. “Channing” was so massive and shredded, a true freak even among other top-of-the-sport bodybuilders, that he garnered attention anywhere he went. While he lacked any social media presence of his own, his mere presence had generated a fandom. There were actually young bodybuilding wannabes looking to emulate his training style and diet, all the while unaware that he had stolen everything he had.

While Channing was nearly ready to compete at 295 pounds, “Regis” (Reggie’s uncreative alias) was just as big but far more bloated looking. Next to Channing he looked like a puffy giant, but on his own he was a commanding presence, casting a massive shadow and dwarfing everyone nearby (except Channing of course).

Toots was only ever visible in the corners of his photos. Never named, barely acknowledged, they had no idea what Toots’ new moniker was (or if he even needed one), but he seemed to perform as Channing caddy, carrying his gym bag, preparing his post-workout shake, and toweling Channing’s puddles of sweat off the ground.

“Stop watching those videos,” Regan said as Antoine clicked another “Training Freaky With Channing” thumbnail on Youtube.

“I gotta research the enemy,” Antoine said. “If he’s being THIS public, it’s because he thinks we’re no threat to him. If we expose him, people will just call us crazy. They already think we are. But if we strike directly… he may get rid of us like he did that poor powerlifter.”

Regan nodded. “We have one shot. Better make it count.”

*

“Channing” posed for another picture with a middleweight. He dwarfed the smaller bodybuilder so much the picture looked photoshopped.

“Thanks man!” the little guy said as he hurried off. Toots approached with Chance’s duffel bag.

“I, uh… got all that info you wanted,” Toots said sheepishly. Chance never turned from the mirror as he continued to hit his poses.

“Yeah?” Chance said casually, still fixated on the rippling, veiny bulges of his inhuman physique.

“Yeah, there’s three other guys in your class. And dude, you’re WAY bigger than all three,” Toots said. He held up a scrap of paper with three names scrawled across it.

“Doesn’t matter,” Chance said. “I gotta make sure they’re nowhere near my conditioning, either,” he said. “I’m not wasting my time doing this more than once. I want that goddamned pro-card today.”

“You’re going to get it!” Toots said, his eyes wide. “Dude, all anyone can talk about is how freaky you are!”

Reggie, wearing a purple XXXL sweatsuit that threatened to give way with every step, lumbered back toward them. He ate a sandwich casually as he glanced around at all of the dieted bodybuilders sipping water and rationing small portions of rice. “Dude, everybody pretty much says you won,” Reggie said as he continued chomping, open-mouthed. “I mean, this is in the bag.”

“I don’t half-ass anything,” Chance said. He snatched the duffel bag from Toots and reached in, producing the small silvery stone and holding it in his hand.

He reached down and slipped it into his white posing-trunks. “I’ll be right back, guys. I got a couple superheavyweights I gotta wish good-luck to.” He stepped out of the changing room and glanced around the various bodybuilders milling about.

His first victim on Toots’ list was Alex Davenport, number 28. He found the 6’5” bearded young man two doors down, pumping himself up with bands as his father sprayed down his back with oil.

“Looking good, son,” the portly older gentleman said as Chance approached. Alex paused and turned toward Chance, extending a hand, while his father pretended not to notice him.

“Hey, man,” Alex said as he engaged in a handshake. Chance shook back so hard Alex winced and pulled his hand back. “Wow! Hell of a grip,” Alex said.

Chance, bristling at the fact that he was looking UP at his competition (despite his larger frame), shrugged his enormous shoulders. “Sorry. Must not know my own strength. Good luck, buddy. See you out there.”

“You too, man!” Alex said. “Crowd’s gonna go nuts for us.”

Chance smirked as he turned away. Just before he left the room, he turned back and focused on the heavyset older man. He felt the tingling in his groin as the stone, sitting between his balls, grew warm. Then he gently flexed his pecs, exerting his control, shifting all the flab from father to son. In a blink, Alex’s shredded physique softened as his father’s gut suddenly deflated.

“What the… fuck?” Alex said, reaching down to his turtleshell gut and looking at his puffy arms and legs, the veins and striations all suddenly smoothed out. He looked even more gargantuan than before, his posing trunks stretched to the limit as the straps cut into his thicker waist, but there was no way he’d be able to compete like that.

Chance ducked out of the room, regretting the opportunity to witness their reaction. He had two more men to sabotage, of course. The show had just started, the smaller men getting rounded up to go out on stage, so the clock was ticking. By the end of the day, Chance would be a pro-bodybuilder and he would have ended three other men’s careers.

*

Antoine pulled the hood of his sweatshirt up over his head as he navigated the crowded hallways of the backstage area. A few bodybuilders, towering over him with their tanned and rippling bodies, shuffled by. He hid his face until they passed, then whirled around. It wasn’t Chance or Reggie. He wasn’t sure if he was thrilled or disappointed. He still wasn’t sure what he would do once he found them.

He paused at a strange sight: a bodybuilder holding up bright green posers, about three sizes too big, while his couch, an elderly man, struggled in a skin-tight polo shirt and khakis. The bodybuilder looked like he had stolen a much larger man’s trunks, while his coach, well-built despite his age, kept causing tiny tears in his attire every time he flexed his bulky body.

“This is… this isn’t happening!” the bodybuilder said. “I just fucking… deflated! I look like I just dropped fifty fucking pounds!”

His coach tried to calm down the competitor while struggling to process the changes in his own body. Clearly the nearly-nude man, whose trunks would slide right down his quads if he let them go, was too rapped up in his sudden size-change to notice the instant bulking of his coach.

“That motherfucker,” Antoine said as the two panicked men shuffled by. “How the fuck does he think he’s going to get away with this?” He knew exactly how Chance would: plausible deniability. The world didn’t believe a man could switch sizes from one to another, so Chance could do what he wanted and his victims looked crazy if they spoke up, no matter the evidence they provided.

He froze as he opened a changing room door to see Reggie looking like a true-to-life ogre, standing next to a duffel bag. Antoine ducked back into the hallway, then peered around to watch Reggie finish a sandwich, crumple up the wrapper, then shuffle toward the bathroom. The big freak could only barely squeeze his titanic body through the bathroom door.

“Fuck yes,” Antoine said as he ran forward, dumping the contents of the duffel bag on the ground. There was a bottle of posing oil, several bottles of water, and Chance’s wallet (with his original, pre-muscle-theft ID displaying the name “Merle Waterson”). He rifled through the bottom of the bag, hoping to find the stone somewhere inside.

A strong hand grabbed his shoulder, twisted his arm behind him. “You little SHIT!” It was Toots, roughly shoving Antoine to the ground.

“Toots!” Antoine said. “Buddy. How are you!”

“You fucker! You really fucked up, y’know that?”

“I was wondering,” Antoine said, as Toots forced his face to the ground, “if, y’know, we took that little magic rock of Chance’s. We could make you HUGE, bigger than him even, and make me big too. You could get all the guys you wanted to! You think that sounds like a good idea?”

“You fucking fat piece of shit,” Toots said. “Chance has the stone in his little panties! Good luck getting it away from him. And when he’s done winning this show, he’s going to make you–POOF!--disappear!”

Regan charged into the room at that moment, knocking Toots (who was still packed with muscle, more than twice Regan’s size) to the side. Toots recovered swiftly, shoving Regan to the ground. Antoine, staring up at the big muscled man, kicked as hard as he could, landing the blow square on Toots’ balls.

“FUCK!” Toots said, crumpling to the ground. As he wheezed on the ground, Antoine gave him another kick to the gut for good measure.

“Fucking lifesaver, bud!” Antoine said, fist-bumping Regan.

“Now we know where the stone is,” Regan said. “No clue how we’re going to fucking get it though…”

Suddenly the bathroom door burst open. Reggie emerged looking like the actual Hulk, beating on his chest as he charged at them. The room actually shook with its footfalls. Regan and Antoine were so shocked by his enormity that they froze in place. Reggie grabbed each of them by their shirt collars, hoisting them easily off the ground.

“I can’t fucking believe you two pussies thought you could show up here!” Reggie roared. “I can’t wait to see what Chance decides to do to you next!” Reggie stomped the ground angrily, violently shaking his captives.

Antoine, dangling helplessly three feet off the ground, glanced down to see the bottle of posing oil between Reggie’s feet. One big stomp from the goliath and it exploded, splattering its slick contents in a puddle beneath them. Another stomp and the massive man’s oiled foot slipped. He toppled to the ground with so much force Antoine could feel it in his teeth. The fall knocked the wind out of the humongous man, and he was so big he had a hard time getting to his feet. Regan and Antoine sprinted from the room, slamming the door shut behind them as they ran.

“You know which way the stage is?” Antoine asked.

“I’ve been here for a guest pose before,” Regan replied. “I know exactly where it is.”

*

Antoine crept up to the wings of the stage, gazing out at the long awaited superheavyweight competitors taking the stage. One of them looked like he’d binged on d-bols and donuts for an entire week, bloated and soft despite being sufficiently massive. Another looked about 6’7” tall, his limbs long and stringy like a basketball player, like a shorter man had been stretched. The third was the man Antoine had seen earlier, his trunks tied in a knot and pinned to keep them from falling down, although the pouch up front hung loosely. All three of them looked humiliated to be standing next to Chance, the most insane example of human muscularity anyone had ever seen.

As they hit their poses, Antoine shook his head. Chance was clearly the winner but his posing was sloppy. His transitions were choppy, his posture off-center. “Clearly he did everything he could to win EXCEPT actually work,” Antoine muttered to himself.

A security guard suddenly grabbed Antoine’s shoulder. “You can’t be here, buddy,” he threatened.

“Oh, hi!” Antoine said. “I’m Antoine Vaillant. I used to be a bodybuilder, but I got… kinda shrunk. They did a whole story on me on ESPN. Maybe you saw it?”

The security guard raised an eyebrow, then looked Antoine up and down.

“Wow, I can’t believe it!” he said. “I was a huge fan of you before… before all this!” He gestured awkwardly at Antoine short, pudgy frame.

“Thanks, man!” Antoine said as the guard walked away. He turned back to the stage. “What do I do now?” he said aloud. Maybe, if he talked fast, he could enlist the three other morphed men to tackle big Chance. Could he get them to move fast enough, before Chance made all of them blip out of existence?

“Hey, Chance! You big fucking pussy!”

The call came from the other side of the stage. It was Regan.

“Chance, you fucking cheater! Tell everyone how you cheated to get here today!”

Chance ignored the shouting at first, but the audience and the judges started murmuring at the disruption. A few security guards gathered around Regan. Antoine’s stomach clenched.

“Hey Chance, all that size and your posing STILL sucks!”

Chance paused. He turned, clearly annoyed. Antoine saw his moment. He ran as fast as he could, pushing his tubby body to the limit, and dove for Chance from before the mastodonic freak turned around. He grabbed the posers and yanked down.

Chance’s big dick flopped out as the audience gasped–and the stone landed on the stage and rolled away.

“You little… fucking… ANT!” Chance roared. Still nude, he punched down as hard as he could as the audience broke into hysterics. The punch narrowly missed Antoine, but he felt the force of it in his bones. Chance grabbed Antoine by his hoodie and yanked him off the ground.

Antoine hung there, about to get pummeled, and he grinned. In his hand, he held the stone.

Chance’s eyes went wide. He reached for the stone, but it was a moment too later. In a flash, his body deflated. The naked titan disappeared and all that was left was a skinny little kid with a little dick.

Antoine’s body BURST from his clothes. What fit a 5’ tall 180 pounder tore to bits as he blew back up to his 6’ height, his muscles returning as well. Antoine stood, nude despite the loose tatters drifting off his now-hulking body, as the other competitors stared at him in shock.

“Fuck, forgot about the chub,” Antoine said, grabbing his still-husky body. He looked like an oversized strongman. He gave his rock-hard musclegut a slap before his skin suddenly shrink-wrapped his muscles. Chance’s skinny body swelled like he’d been stung by a bee.

Antoine, suddenly aware that hundreds of people had their phones out recording the fantastic escapade, put one massive paw over his junk as he clutched the stone in the other. He turned to the other superheavyweights and shook his fist. “You guys, come see me after. I’ll get you back to what you’re supposed to be,” he said.

Reggie and Toots suddenly rushed the stage, running to Chance’s aid. Antoine felt like Thanos as he snapped with the stone in his hands. In an instant, they, too, returned to their skinny bodies. Regan, still held fast by security guards, sprouted up as well, his mass suddenly returning. Exploding from his clothes, he was now nude as well, and as large as the three guards holding him combined.

“There’s extra,” Antoine said, suddenly aware that Chance had stolen from far more people than were present. The stone burned red-hot in his hand as his fist shook. He groaned as he shifted the excess mass to the three other bodybuilders, their bodies blossoming with more muscle than they’d had before. “FUCK!” he finally said as the stone sizzled in his hand. He hurled it at the ground and stomped on it with its heel. It crumbled to dust.

The three punks were led away in handcuffs. Luckily it was easy to find posing trunks to fit Regan and Antoine. To celebrate their return, each of them gave a guest-pose, as the superheavyweight bodybuilders (in their newly enhanced, much-more-massive bodies) composed themselves to take the stage again for a do-over now that everything had been set right. Folks would conjecture for years about what had happened that day; most believed it was a hoax put on by the IFBB.

Two years after it all happened, Antoine woke in the middle of the night to the sound of banging at his door. He bounded heavily down the stairs as he peeped through the peephole. His blood went cold as he saw Chance, still as overweight as Antoine had left him but weathered from his time in person, wobbled unsteadily outside. He held something in his fist.

Antoine opened the door cautiously. “Tell me,” Antoine said calmly, “why I shouldn’t hurl you at the fucking horizon right now?” he said, crossing his arms.

“I’m gonna do it again!” Chance roared, the stink of booze billowing from his mouth. “I’ll make you small again and I’LL be the big man again!” He opened his fist to show a polished rock glinting on his palm. “You ready? You ready to be small again?”

A chill went up Antoine’s spine, but he waited. Nothing happened. It was just an ordinary rock.

“I’m gonna do it!” Chance threatened.

Antoine yawned and started to close the door.

“Don’t fucking ignore me!” Chance screamed as Antoine locked the deadbolt. “I’m more than you can fucking handle!”

Antoine click the remote to his home’s security system as he climbed back into bed. He jammed soft orange earplugs into his ear, let out a sigh, and went back to bed.