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Description

David Park stood outside of the dingy old gym and double checked the address. This did look like the kind of place that would cause disappearances. Just not the kind that he was investigating. He was investigating a rather unusual kind of disappearance. People who went into this gym, sometimes didn’t come back out. But other people did. New people, who had never existed before that moment as far as he could tell. He had interviewed people who claimed to know these new people, but the records told a different story. Phone book records, security camera data, phone geolocation data. All of it supported this apparently impossible idea. People went in. And never came out. And people came out without ever going inside.
That was what one might call a story in the making, exactly the kind of thing that he needed to kick his career back into motion. It wasn’t easy breaking into the news business, but this would be enough, surely.
David checked his hidden camera and his microphone. Both were connected via a cell tower link back to his home computer, making sure that even if his devices were taken from him somehow he would still have the recordings safe.
“Testing testing testing. Good.” he said. Everything checked out.
Time to investigate.
David entered the front office of the gym and was immediately hit by the smell of stale sweat only barely covered by cleaning solution and a rather pungent smelling incense stick that was burning in a holder on the counter. David rubbed at his nose- what was that incense even supposed to smell like? Flowers? Spices? It was so cheap he couldn’t even tell.
The man behind the counter was far from the kind of person who David associated with gyms- he would have bet this guy had not lifted a weight heavier than a beer bottle in the last twenty years. He was wearing a stained t-shirt with the name of the gym on it- ‘Muscle Magic’, which was a terrible name by any metric- and to top it all off, the guy was smoking a cigarette, the smell of the smoke mixing in nauseating fashion with the scent of the incense.
“Something I can help with?” the guy said in a gravelly voice.
“I was looking into gyms in the area and I was wondering if I could-”
“No tours.” the man grunted. “You want to see the gym, you sign a contract.”
“Uh, okay, tell me about the contracts then?” David said.
If this place was indeed a front of some kind of kidnapping organization or something similar, then this guy probably hadn’t gotten the news about needing to lure people in. Or maybe his goal was to keep people from entering at all, and make sure whatever was really going on here could be done in private.
The man gestured at a price sheet taped to the counter, cigarette ash smeared across the edges.
“Five hundred a month? That’s… a bit steep isn’t it?” David said, squinting in the badly lit office.
“Price stays where it is.” the man grumbled.
It was a ludicrously high price for a gym membership. It supported the notion that this was nothing but a front business.
David wasn’t doing this for the less than pleasant conversation. His eyes kept moving, but not so much that it would be suspicious.
David tried talking the price down a bit, as anyone would, but the man at the counter didn’t budge. “Look, this isn’t a market.” the man at the counter said. “Either sign or stop wasting my time.”
So David signed, not using his real name of course. The man asked for an ID, and David provided one. A fake that he’d had put together as part of another investigation, the one that had resulted in him being dismissed from his previous job.
“Larry Waters. You don’t look much like ‘Larry’.” the man said, squinting at him. “Your parents are from Japan or something?”
“Korea. On my mom's side.” David said.
“Hmph. Whatever.”
So far all David had was evidence of terrible business sense. But that didn’t explain the missing people. Not by a long shot.
“Alright, contract signed.” David said. “Now how about I at least take a look at the gym-”
“Pay.”
“...Fine. This had better be worth it.” David sighed, and pulled out his wallet. He had cash- paying under a name that didn’t match the fake license would kind of ruin the deception.
The man counted the money, twice, before tucking it into a drawer. “Fine.”
“So I can see the gym?” David asked. “Finally?”
The man grunted, and David took that as a yes. He stepped over to the only other door and opened it. The inside was dimly lit, and as he poked his head through the stench of stale body odor actually lessened. Apparently the man behind the desk was the source of the stink, something that David didn’t care to think about for long.
Glad to be out of the stuffy office, David entered the main gym. The poor lighting was due to several of the overhead lights being burnt out, and judging from the flickering from the other bulbs, the rest were soon to follow. He was almost surprised to see that there was gym equipment, a fair array too. All of which were very well used. Judging from the paint schemes, they could have been from the eighties. They also had not been used in quite some time. David knew enough about this kind of equipment to see the slackness of the cables, the subtle specks of rust on the parts that should have been shiny and weathered from the motion of the machines.
Was it proof? No. But it was another clue.
David started to sit down at one of the weight machines to confirm his suspicion that even the cables were too loose to really be functional, when suddenly the entire room went dark.
“What the- Hey!” David shouted.
“We’re closing. Leave.” the office man said.
David glanced at his phone, which was suddenly the only source of light in the cavernous room. “You… you close at four? On a weekday?”
“Out.” the man said. Keys rattled, and the man literally started locking up with David still inside.
David sighed in exasperation, but got up and started feeling his way towards the door. His foot made contact with a weight lying in the middle of the floor, one that he could have sworn had not been there a moment ago, and David yelped as he felt his toenail split with the impact, sending a spike of pain up his leg.
“Hurry up,” the man grumbled, jingling a key ring that seemed far too large for this building. David bit back a swear word and hobbled to the front office, then out into the scorching afternoon sun.
“When do you guys… open?” David asked, trailing off as the office man clicked the door shut, locked it, and then walked away without a backwards glance at his customer.
“...Jerk.” David muttered. He was going to report this business for sure, whether it was involved in the disappearances or not. He glanced down at his foot, another spike of pain shooting up from his toe all the way up his spine as he put his weight on it. David bit back another cry and started limping towards where he’d parked his car.
He’d have to edit this part out of the video.
After what felt like an eternity of limping down the sidewalk he finally unlocked his car and sagged into the driver seat. He deactivated the hidden camera using the phone app, and started the engine. His foot was still hurting. It was no longer just being painful when he pressed weight down on it, and more of a persistent aching and burning that felt like it was creeping towards his kneecap, like his leg was slowly being immersed in hot sauce.
David gingerly pressed down on the brake pedal and grit his teeth. If he had broken his toe… well, he could pay for it, but barely.
As he started driving home he felt his stomach grumble. Had he forgotten breakfast again? Apparently so- he needed to be a bit more careful about that kind of thing. He needed to have something in his stomach if he was going to do his best work. He steered for a detour at a fast food place and pulled into the line at the drive through, rubbing his knee as he stopped. His bare, oddly smooth knee.
David looked down and felt confused. He’d been wearing long pants that morning, right? Now he was wearing shorts. The same color and material as the long pants he’d had, just… as shorts.
He really needed to start eating more often.
A honk from the car behind him made him flinch, and he pulled forwards to order. “Hey, can I get a number five combo?” he said into the speaker box.
“No problem ma’am, can I get you anything else?” replied the restaurant worker, their voice made tinny by the old electronics.
“...You’re talking to me?”
“Yes ma’am, anything else I can get you?”
“Uh, no.” David said. “Ma’am. Really?” he grumbled as he moved his car forwards. He didn’t exactly have a voice like James Earl Jones but he didn’t sound that high pitched, right? Maybe he’d have to try and take some voice lessons. Reporters needed to sound authoritative.
Once he had his food- the workers at the payment window and the food window both called him ma’am, which was honestly just unfair given that they were looking right at him- he got onto the highway for home, unwrapping his burger as he did. His leg was still hurting- the pain was actually past his kneecap and was hitting his groin and lower abdomen now. Waist deep in hot sauce. Even less pleasant than it sounded.
His stomach grumbled again, becoming actually uncomfortable as the muscles cramped. He took a bite of the burger, and almost immediately felt the cramping get worse, so bad that he suddenly was having trouble keeping his eyes on the road. He pulled to a stop on the road shoulder, cars whooshing past only a few feet away as David doubled over, sweat beading on his forehead.
His ears were ringing, his body from the belly button downwards aching and burning like he had a high fever. The ringing got louder and louder but… wait, that wasn’t ringing. That was a siren. David forced his head up to see the flashing red and blue lights of a police car as it pulled to a stop behind him. He swore and forced himself to sit up. He wasn’t doing anything wrong, he was fine, he wasn’t doing anything wrong-
The officer got out of the car and walked to David’s window, which David lowered. “H-hey.” David said, swallowing hard. “Sorry officer. Started feeling light headed- thought I should stop just in case.”
“You are looking pretty pale, ma’am. Do you have any medical conditions?”
“No,” David said, a bit frustrated at being called that again. “No medical conditions.”
“Alright, fair enough, can I get your license and registration then?”
David handed it over, and the officer headed back to his squad car to check the license. David shifted in his seat, the earlier burning sensation somehow gone like it had never been there. His chest still felt very strange however- was he having a heart attack or something? David’s hands went to his chest- and felt something, or multiple somethings, that most definitely should not have been there.
“Thanks for your patience- you alright? Ma’am?”
David looked down and saw an athletic shirt, the same one he’d been wearing, but it was re-tailored for someone very different. Someone… curvier. And he was suddenly fitting it perfectly.
“Ma’am, can you hear me? I’m going to call an ambulance.”
David’s gaze trailed downwards past the swelling suddenly present on his chest, down to a trim abdomen that the elastic material of the shirt displayed nicely, and below that, a toned, smooth, tanned set of legs left bare by the shorts he was wearing.
The next thing that David knew, he was on a stretcher in the back of an ambulance with an oxygen mask over his face and hair tickling the back of his neck. He tried to sit up, and was held down by safety straps.
“Whoa! Easy there!” said a nearby paramedic. “You fainted- we’re just going to take you to the nearest hospital to look you over.”
“I’m- I’m fine.” David said, his voice sounding far too high. “I just felt sick for a moment.”
It was a lie, he wasn’t fine, he was… there was something very wrong here. But he couldn’t go to a hospital. Couldn’t afford it. “Where’s my car?”
“You sure you don’t need help?” the paramedic asked.
“I’ll be fine. Let me up please.” David insisted.
“Fair enough. Just take it slow.”
The EMT released the safety straps and removed the oxygen mask, and David sat up. He… or was it she now? She, judging from the abundance of evidence ranging from her higher pitched voice to the rather different shape of her body, to how soft the stretcher felt as she sat on it. Probably not actually the stretcher that was so soft, she thought uneasily.
“Any lightheadedness?”
“No, I feel fine.” David answered. And she did- no more burning, or even pain from her smashed foot.
“Alright- we had to move your vehicle, but we’ll get you back to it. Please make sure to check with your doctor if you feel like this again.”
“Thanks.”
The police officer gives her a ride to where her car had been parked, or what the officer claimed was her car. David could see that this was a much newer model than hers though, even if the contents appeared to be the same. Maybe… maybe her car had changed as well somehow?
“Have a better day ma’am.” the officer said. He handed over the keys and her license. A license that had the name Davina Park, and a photo of a young looking woman of Asian descent.
“Th-thanks.” she stammered as the officer left.
She climbed into the seat of the car, noting how it was already adjusted for her now shorter stature. The seat beneath her felt different, more padded, much like the stretcher, and her now back-length hair tickled her neck as she buckled her seat belt and drove home. Her food was still on the passenger seat.
When she reached her apartment, the building seemed nicer than she remembered, and in a better area. She entered and felt like she was in a strange, distorted version of her home. Like a game of ‘spot the difference’. The couch was a different color, the television was a bit larger and more up to date, the laundry still waiting to be put away was of different varieties.
David, or Davina, sighed and rubbed her eyes wearily. She didn’t really understand what had happened.
No- maybe she did. She’d gone into that gym, and come out as a completely different person. Maybe… maybe exactly the same thing had happened to everyone else!
She scrambled to her laptop to start writing this out, start the story that would reveal the bizarre gym, show what was happening inside. And then she paused.
There were emails waiting on her laptop. Emails from a producer at a news station nearby, the very news station that she had been trying to earn a job at. Emails asking about her show, making sure she’d be able to broadcast that night.
Davina checked online and felt a jolt of surprise as she recognized herself, her new face, listed as a reporter. The real kind, the kind that informed people, the kind that told people what they needed to know.
Davina considered a moment, and then very deliberately deleted the write up she had been preparing on the Muscle Magic Gym.
Someone else could worry about that. She had a show to get ready for.

======================

And so, a thrilling 3rd part of the muscle magic gym is here !
But is that gonna be the last time we see this gym ? Who knows !

Story written by the amazing !

Description

David Park stood outside of the dingy old gym and double checked the address. This did look like the kind of place that would cause disappearances. Just not the kind that he was investigating. He was investigating a rather unusual kind of disappearance. People who went into this gym, sometimes didn’t come back out. But other people did. New people, who had never existed before that moment as far as he could tell. He had interviewed people who claimed to know these new people, but the records told a different story. Phone book records, security camera data, phone geolocation data. All of it supported this apparently impossible idea. People went in. And never came out. And people came out without ever going inside.
That was what one might call a story in the making, exactly the kind of thing that he needed to kick his career back into motion. It wasn’t easy breaking into the news business, but this would be enough, surely.
David checked his hidden camera and his microphone. Both were connected via a cell tower link back to his home computer, making sure that even if his devices were taken from him somehow he would still have the recordings safe.
“Testing testing testing. Good.” he said. Everything checked out.
Time to investigate.
David entered the front office of the gym and was immediately hit by the smell of stale sweat only barely covered by cleaning solution and a rather pungent smelling incense stick that was burning in a holder on the counter. David rubbed at his nose- what was that incense even supposed to smell like? Flowers? Spices? It was so cheap he couldn’t even tell.
The man behind the counter was far from the kind of person who David associated with gyms- he would have bet this guy had not lifted a weight heavier than a beer bottle in the last twenty years. He was wearing a stained t-shirt with the name of the gym on it- ‘Muscle Magic’, which was a terrible name by any metric- and to top it all off, the guy was smoking a cigarette, the smell of the smoke mixing in nauseating fashion with the scent of the incense.
“Something I can help with?” the guy said in a gravelly voice.
“I was looking into gyms in the area and I was wondering if I could-”
“No tours.” the man grunted. “You want to see the gym, you sign a contract.”
“Uh, okay, tell me about the contracts then?” David said.
If this place was indeed a front of some kind of kidnapping organization or something similar, then this guy probably hadn’t gotten the news about needing to lure people in. Or maybe his goal was to keep people from entering at all, and make sure whatever was really going on here could be done in private.
The man gestured at a price sheet taped to the counter, cigarette ash smeared across the edges.
“Five hundred a month? That’s… a bit steep isn’t it?” David said, squinting in the badly lit office.
“Price stays where it is.” the man grumbled.
It was a ludicrously high price for a gym membership. It supported the notion that this was nothing but a front business.
David wasn’t doing this for the less than pleasant conversation. His eyes kept moving, but not so much that it would be suspicious.
David tried talking the price down a bit, as anyone would, but the man at the counter didn’t budge. “Look, this isn’t a market.” the man at the counter said. “Either sign or stop wasting my time.”
So David signed, not using his real name of course. The man asked for an ID, and David provided one. A fake that he’d had put together as part of another investigation, the one that had resulted in him being dismissed from his previous job.
“Larry Waters. You don’t look much like ‘Larry’.” the man said, squinting at him. “Your parents are from Japan or something?”
“Korea. On my mom's side.” David said.
“Hmph. Whatever.”
So far all David had was evidence of terrible business sense. But that didn’t explain the missing people. Not by a long shot.
“Alright, contract signed.” David said. “Now how about I at least take a look at the gym-”
“Pay.”
“...Fine. This had better be worth it.” David sighed, and pulled out his wallet. He had cash- paying under a name that didn’t match the fake license would kind of ruin the deception.
The man counted the money, twice, before tucking it into a drawer. “Fine.”
“So I can see the gym?” David asked. “Finally?”
The man grunted, and David took that as a yes. He stepped over to the only other door and opened it. The inside was dimly lit, and as he poked his head through the stench of stale body odor actually lessened. Apparently the man behind the desk was the source of the stink, something that David didn’t care to think about for long.
Glad to be out of the stuffy office, David entered the main gym. The poor lighting was due to several of the overhead lights being burnt out, and judging from the flickering from the other bulbs, the rest were soon to follow. He was almost surprised to see that there was gym equipment, a fair array too. All of which were very well used. Judging from the paint schemes, they could have been from the eighties. They also had not been used in quite some time. David knew enough about this kind of equipment to see the slackness of the cables, the subtle specks of rust on the parts that should have been shiny and weathered from the motion of the machines.
Was it proof? No. But it was another clue.
David started to sit down at one of the weight machines to confirm his suspicion that even the cables were too loose to really be functional, when suddenly the entire room went dark.
“What the- Hey!” David shouted.
“We’re closing. Leave.” the office man said.
David glanced at his phone, which was suddenly the only source of light in the cavernous room. “You… you close at four? On a weekday?”
“Out.” the man said. Keys rattled, and the man literally started locking up with David still inside.
David sighed in exasperation, but got up and started feeling his way towards the door. His foot made contact with a weight lying in the middle of the floor, one that he could have sworn had not been there a moment ago, and David yelped as he felt his toenail split with the impact, sending a spike of pain up his leg.
“Hurry up,” the man grumbled, jingling a key ring that seemed far too large for this building. David bit back a swear word and hobbled to the front office, then out into the scorching afternoon sun.
“When do you guys… open?” David asked, trailing off as the office man clicked the door shut, locked it, and then walked away without a backwards glance at his customer.
“...Jerk.” David muttered. He was going to report this business for sure, whether it was involved in the disappearances or not. He glanced down at his foot, another spike of pain shooting up from his toe all the way up his spine as he put his weight on it. David bit back another cry and started limping towards where he’d parked his car.
He’d have to edit this part out of the video.
After what felt like an eternity of limping down the sidewalk he finally unlocked his car and sagged into the driver seat. He deactivated the hidden camera using the phone app, and started the engine. His foot was still hurting. It was no longer just being painful when he pressed weight down on it, and more of a persistent aching and burning that felt like it was creeping towards his kneecap, like his leg was slowly being immersed in hot sauce.
David gingerly pressed down on the brake pedal and grit his teeth. If he had broken his toe… well, he could pay for it, but barely.
As he started driving home he felt his stomach grumble. Had he forgotten breakfast again? Apparently so- he needed to be a bit more careful about that kind of thing. He needed to have something in his stomach if he was going to do his best work. He steered for a detour at a fast food place and pulled into the line at the drive through, rubbing his knee as he stopped. His bare, oddly smooth knee.
David looked down and felt confused. He’d been wearing long pants that morning, right? Now he was wearing shorts. The same color and material as the long pants he’d had, just… as shorts.
He really needed to start eating more often.
A honk from the car behind him made him flinch, and he pulled forwards to order. “Hey, can I get a number five combo?” he said into the speaker box.
“No problem ma’am, can I get you anything else?” replied the restaurant worker, their voice made tinny by the old electronics.
“...You’re talking to me?”
“Yes ma’am, anything else I can get you?”
“Uh, no.” David said. “Ma’am. Really?” he grumbled as he moved his car forwards. He didn’t exactly have a voice like James Earl Jones but he didn’t sound that high pitched, right? Maybe he’d have to try and take some voice lessons. Reporters needed to sound authoritative.
Once he had his food- the workers at the payment window and the food window both called him ma’am, which was honestly just unfair given that they were looking right at him- he got onto the highway for home, unwrapping his burger as he did. His leg was still hurting- the pain was actually past his kneecap and was hitting his groin and lower abdomen now. Waist deep in hot sauce. Even less pleasant than it sounded.
His stomach grumbled again, becoming actually uncomfortable as the muscles cramped. He took a bite of the burger, and almost immediately felt the cramping get worse, so bad that he suddenly was having trouble keeping his eyes on the road. He pulled to a stop on the road shoulder, cars whooshing past only a few feet away as David doubled over, sweat beading on his forehead.
His ears were ringing, his body from the belly button downwards aching and burning like he had a high fever. The ringing got louder and louder but… wait, that wasn’t ringing. That was a siren. David forced his head up to see the flashing red and blue lights of a police car as it pulled to a stop behind him. He swore and forced himself to sit up. He wasn’t doing anything wrong, he was fine, he wasn’t doing anything wrong-
The officer got out of the car and walked to David’s window, which David lowered. “H-hey.” David said, swallowing hard. “Sorry officer. Started feeling light headed- thought I should stop just in case.”
“You are looking pretty pale, ma’am. Do you have any medical conditions?”
“No,” David said, a bit frustrated at being called that again. “No medical conditions.”
“Alright, fair enough, can I get your license and registration then?”
David handed it over, and the officer headed back to his squad car to check the license. David shifted in his seat, the earlier burning sensation somehow gone like it had never been there. His chest still felt very strange however- was he having a heart attack or something? David’s hands went to his chest- and felt something, or multiple somethings, that most definitely should not have been there.
“Thanks for your patience- you alright? Ma’am?”
David looked down and saw an athletic shirt, the same one he’d been wearing, but it was re-tailored for someone very different. Someone… curvier. And he was suddenly fitting it perfectly.
“Ma’am, can you hear me? I’m going to call an ambulance.”
David’s gaze trailed downwards past the swelling suddenly present on his chest, down to a trim abdomen that the elastic material of the shirt displayed nicely, and below that, a toned, smooth, tanned set of legs left bare by the shorts he was wearing.
The next thing that David knew, he was on a stretcher in the back of an ambulance with an oxygen mask over his face and hair tickling the back of his neck. He tried to sit up, and was held down by safety straps.
“Whoa! Easy there!” said a nearby paramedic. “You fainted- we’re just going to take you to the nearest hospital to look you over.”
“I’m- I’m fine.” David said, his voice sounding far too high. “I just felt sick for a moment.”
It was a lie, he wasn’t fine, he was… there was something very wrong here. But he couldn’t go to a hospital. Couldn’t afford it. “Where’s my car?”
“You sure you don’t need help?” the paramedic asked.
“I’ll be fine. Let me up please.” David insisted.
“Fair enough. Just take it slow.”
The EMT released the safety straps and removed the oxygen mask, and David sat up. He… or was it she now? She, judging from the abundance of evidence ranging from her higher pitched voice to the rather different shape of her body, to how soft the stretcher felt as she sat on it. Probably not actually the stretcher that was so soft, she thought uneasily.
“Any lightheadedness?”
“No, I feel fine.” David answered. And she did- no more burning, or even pain from her smashed foot.
“Alright- we had to move your vehicle, but we’ll get you back to it. Please make sure to check with your doctor if you feel like this again.”
“Thanks.”
The police officer gives her a ride to where her car had been parked, or what the officer claimed was her car. David could see that this was a much newer model than hers though, even if the contents appeared to be the same. Maybe… maybe her car had changed as well somehow?
“Have a better day ma’am.” the officer said. He handed over the keys and her license. A license that had the name Davina Park, and a photo of a young looking woman of Asian descent.
“Th-thanks.” she stammered as the officer left.
She climbed into the seat of the car, noting how it was already adjusted for her now shorter stature. The seat beneath her felt different, more padded, much like the stretcher, and her now back-length hair tickled her neck as she buckled her seat belt and drove home. Her food was still on the passenger seat.
When she reached her apartment, the building seemed nicer than she remembered, and in a better area. She entered and felt like she was in a strange, distorted version of her home. Like a game of ‘spot the difference’. The couch was a different color, the television was a bit larger and more up to date, the laundry still waiting to be put away was of different varieties.
David, or Davina, sighed and rubbed her eyes wearily. She didn’t really understand what had happened.
No- maybe she did. She’d gone into that gym, and come out as a completely different person. Maybe… maybe exactly the same thing had happened to everyone else!
She scrambled to her laptop to start writing this out, start the story that would reveal the bizarre gym, show what was happening inside. And then she paused.
There were emails waiting on her laptop. Emails from a producer at a news station nearby, the very news station that she had been trying to earn a job at. Emails asking about her show, making sure she’d be able to broadcast that night.
Davina checked online and felt a jolt of surprise as she recognized herself, her new face, listed as a reporter. The real kind, the kind that informed people, the kind that told people what they needed to know.
Davina considered a moment, and then very deliberately deleted the write up she had been preparing on the Muscle Magic Gym.
Someone else could worry about that. She had a show to get ready for.

======================

And so, a thrilling 3rd part of the muscle magic gym is here !
But is that gonna be the last time we see this gym ? Who knows !

Story written by the amazing !