The hum of the subterranean lab was a constant lullaby, a sound you’d grown to associate with discovery and the sharp, bright mind of Dr. Kara. Her fiery red hair, usually contained in a neat bun, was already escaping its pins as she leaned over the Holographic Spectrometer, her brow furrowed in concentration. You, her diligent assistant, were meticulously calibrating the molecular replicator, a device that smelled faintly of ozone and pure potential.

Neither of you noticed the shimmering, almost invisible crack form in the containment unit across the room—the one labeled ‘EXPERIMENTAL BIOMASS: DO NOT APPROACH’. Nor did you see the small, gelatinous blob of vibrant pink ooze seep out, pulsing faintly with an inner light. It moved with an unnerving silence, slipping across the polished floor, a bizarre, living droplet on a trajectory towards the two most focused minds in the facility.

Focused you remained, until a faint, almost imperceptible tremor vibrated through the floor. Dr. Kara, mid-sentence about quantum entanglement, paused, head cocked. Before either of you could voice a question, the pink slime, now the size of a small grapefruit, seemed to leap. It was a blur, a sudden, horrifying pink missile aimed directly at Dr. Kara.

You blinked, and it was gone. One moment it was on the floor, the next it had vanished into the back of Dr. Kara's lab coat, just above her posterior—a sickening, wet squelch echoing in the silent lab. Dr. Kara gasped, a sharp, choked sound, her hand instinctively flying to her lower back, her eyes wide with a mixture of confusion and sudden nausea. "What in the-" she began, her voice trailing off.

Her lab coat, usually crisp and tailored, began to pull taut across her midsection. You watched, mesmerized and horrified, as a subtle bulge appeared, growing swiftly. It wasn't like a balloon inflating with air; it was a deeper, more organic distension, as if something was expanding from within. Dr. Kara’s face paled, then flushed crimson with exertion.

"Kara? Are you alright?" you managed, your voice thin.

She shook her head, her breath coming in ragged gasps. "It… it's inside," she choked out, her hand now pressed firmly against her belly. "It's growing."

And grow it did. The bulge rapidly became a pronounced swell, stretching her lab coat to its limits. Buttons popped, flying across the room like tiny projectiles. The fabric of her shirt strained, groaning with every inch of expansion. Her skin, initially pale, took on a strained ruddiness as the sheer volume of whatever was inside her stretched her. The lab, once spacious, began to shrink around her.

Minutes bled into agonizing moments. Dr. Kara, the brilliant, composed scientist, was now a grotesque caricature of herself. Her stomach expanded, engorged beyond belief, reaching the size of a small car. Her skin, stretched thin and almost translucent, pulsed with an unnerving, sickly purple hue directly over the epicenter of the growth. A terrifying creaking sound emanated from her, like an ancient ship's timbers groaning under an impossible load, or an overfilled balloon seconds from rupture.

Her eyes, wide and terrified, locked onto yours. Sweat plastered strands of red hair to her forehead. "It's… going to burst," she whispered, her voice barely audible over the internal creaking. A single tear tracked through the sweat on her cheek. "It's not stopping. It hurts… You need to—"

But the words died in her throat as another wave of internal expansion seized her, the creaking intensifying, her body tensing as if fighting an inevitable, agonizing explosion. The purple on her belly deepened, the surface vibrating with the raw, untamed power of the growth within. She just kept growing, and creaking, a living, groaning, purple-tinged bomb.