I've been wanting to experiment with writing some stuff in the 2nd person perspective, and this is the first result! Kept the descriptions of the POV character as vague as possible so readers can imagine them however they like. I'd like to write more in this style in the future, perhaps as practice for CYOA style stuff. Includes implied permaberry inflation (or at least very longterm inflation :3 )

An accident at work causes you to swell up like a berry, and returning to normal may be a challenge...

---

Berry Toxin
By: Indi

You jump a little when you hear the crash behind you. The clang of metal, the hiss of released pressure. Even without seeing it you know it’s one of the sample containers breaking open. Before you can take more than a step a sweet-smelling mist pours over you, just thick enough to make you cough and stop in place. Alarms are going off and others in the cargo bay are shouting. It’s all too much for you to handle, and you freeze up.

The mist disperses quickly. Your heart is racing, but you try to convince yourself everything is fine, that the only samples that’d been brought up in that batch were plants. You’ve probably just been doused in dew or pollen. If you end up having an allergic reaction a medbot will cure you with ease.

But the faces of the others in the cargo bay betray fear and uncertainty. You nervously turn around to see if the accident was worse than it sounded. It’s just a broken crate, with a few giant berries visible through the cracks. Frustrated with the silence you’re being given, you finally speak up. “What’s wrong?”

“You’re...you’re turning blue!”

At first you think they’re joking, but you still activate a screen on your jumpsuit so you can see your face. You’re just in time to watch the rest of your head turn a deep shade of blue, the same color as the berries that’d been in the crate. The color spreads rapidly, until you’ve become solid blue.

An unfamiliar, fruity taste starts teasing your tongue, as if you’ve just drunk some juice. It’s followed by a sudden chill in your stomach. In a flash you’ve gone from being a little peckish to being full. No, you aren’t just full, you’re inflating.

Your lean form is swelling outward in every direction, as if you’re a balloon being pumped up. You feel heavier by the second, and hear what sounds like bubbling and sloshing coming from within your rounding middle. Inflating doesn’t hurt—thankfully—but that’s not going to stop you from panicking.

Was the mist toxic? Are you having an extreme allergic reaction? Is it an infection? Your mind races through the possibilities, but it can’t outpace your unwanted expansion. Your face and limbs are actually puffing up, your body nearly too stiff to move. But where would you even flee to, anyway? The medbay isn’t right around the corner, and at the rate you’re swelling you’ll be a ball before you make it far.

Someone bothered calling for a medbot. Most of your coworkers are starting to distance themselves from you, as if you’re a bomb. You barely notice.

Your body is becoming increasingly spherical, enveloping your bloated limbs rapidly. The pressure within you is building, pressing against the sides of your terribly overstretched hide, which creak faintly yet ominously. You’ve inflated so much only your paws and your head are left sticking out from your berry-shaped body.

Thoughts of bursting balloons fill your head. That’s what’s going to happen to you, you’re going to pop. All it’ll take is a particularly sharp corner or a piece of debris or even a pin.

But the anticipated explosion never comes. You don’t even feel a leak. The swelling has stopped.

You’re left standing there with your eyes closed tight, afraid. Eventually you gain the courage to open them, not that doing so brings much in the way of relief.

The stretchy material of your jumpsuit has ensured its own survival, though it feels somewhat snugger stretched over your round body. You want to be grateful you aren’t nude, but it’s difficult to accept such small victories when you’ve been turned into a giant, sloshing balloon. It doesn’t seem possible, yet you’ve undeniably inflated.

Though you’ve stopped expanding, no one appears eager to approach you. The occasional creaks certainly aren’t helping. Someone dares to ask if you’re alright, to which you reply with a strained and frustrated “Of course not!”.

It doesn’t take too long for the medbot to arrive, but for you it feels like an eternity. The fear of popping still dominates your mind. You hadn’t realized it was possible to be simultaneously scared and embarrassed, and now those two emotions are all you have.

The medbot hovers over, greeting you nonchalantly once it’s pulled up your file and figured out your name—and everything else about you. Status screens shimmer to life on your jumpsuit, which is still functioning perfectly despite the rather extreme testing of its one-size-fits-all guarantee. Data about your condition is collected from it. The medbot silently analyzes the readings.

After a few tense and awkward minutes, it finally acknowledges you again. “Emergency examination complete. There is a sixty-five percent chance you have been afflicted by some kind of toxin. No significant match in database.” It sounds calm and cheerful, but you already lack confidence in its findings. “You have filled with a considerable quantity of an unknown fruit concentrate. Eighteen percent match to common blueberry juice.”

Juice? You’re full of juice? What kind of toxin would fill you with juice of all things!

“Significant chemical alteration of body detected. Repeated scans are equally classifying you as both animal and berry. Congratulations on being the first animal/fruit hybrid.”

You’re too shocked by the revelation to be annoyed by the medbot’s questionable attempt at humor. You aren’t a balloon—you’re a berry. An actual, living blueberry. The very thought is absurd.

“Immediate relocation to medbay advised so that proper treatment can be determined.” The medbot recruits one of your coworkers to aid in transport, and gives them instructions. “Now position the patient onto their back so they may be rolled to the medbay.”

“Rolled? Wait, there has to be another way to get me there, anything but rolling!” you insist. Turning into a giant berry is bad enough, but getting rolled through the corridors of the station would be utterly humiliating.

“There is no equipment suitable for someone of your weight, size, and shape,” the medbot responds. “Rolling has the least likelihood of leading to catastrophic rupture.”

You relent. The sooner you reach the medbay the better. Surely they’ll be able to cure you after enough tests are done.

Still, you whine a little as you’re carefully shifted onto your back. The juices within you splash and swirl, causing faint bulges in your spherical form that are accompanied by spikes in pressure. The spikes make you groan and feel dizzy. But oddly enough they also make you blush. On your back you feel more helpless than ever, like a turtle. You’re spun until you face the exit, and then two paws push at your taut side.

The pressure spikes—and the blushing—return as you began to roll. Your coworker is definitely being as gentle as possible, but stirring up the juices is simply unavoidable. You slosh heavily as you’re rolled along, the world spinning. You know you must look ridiculous, like something out of a cartoon.

Slosh. Pressure. Groan. Blush. Slosh. Pressure. Groan. Blush. Over and over again, until you start to grow accustomed to the sensation.

As you pass through the corridors you hear gasps and confused chattering from other coworkers along the way. Fortunately you can’t make out much of what is being said, good or bad. You do your best to not dwell on the nicknames you’re bound to get stuck with even after you’re cured.

Actually getting into the medbay proves a challenge, as you’ve grown ever-so-slightly wider than the doors. You’re eased through, ending up wedged for only a few brief moments half-way in. Your body creaks and you whimper as your coworker nervously nudges you along. They seem even more convinced than you that you’re in danger of bursting.

You make it into the medbay intact, though. You’re carefully rolled back upright, and this time you manage to hold back the moan as the juice sloshes within.

“You really did turn into a berry! Incredible.” The station doctor—a zebra almost as blue as you are—hurries over, an elated grin on his face. He circles you like a shark, rambling on about your shape and size and color. He also prods you frequently, as if to test just how taut you really are.

“Uh, you can turn me back to normal, right?” You ask, wincing as a hoof pokes you particularly hard.

The doctor shrugs. “I can’t recall there being any past cases of...um, berrification, so I can’t make any guarantees. It’ll be an adventure!” There’s a distressing amount of enthusiasm in his voice. Your bizzare and embarrassing ordeal excites him. “But why don’t we start by draining that juice?”

You’re not sure you actually have a choice in the matter. You already feel more like a guinea pig than a patient, and in your current state you can’t exactly make a break for it. Hopefully he’ll at least be able to deflate you.

“It’s a shame we don’t have a giant industrial juicer—I’m sure that’d squeeze you dry in no time!” The doctor chuckles and slaps your side, causing you to wobble and slosh a little. Being treated like a literal berry annoys you, but again you find yourself blushing—which just annoys you more. “The hose and pump should do the trick, though.”

A ceiling panel slides away and a hose descends from it, guided by the medbot. You’re told to open wide and swallow the hose. You nearly gag in the process, but endure it. It’ll all be worth it once the juice has been sucked up.

There’s a faint whirring from afar and the hose shakes as it begins to take away the juice. Soon you feel the pressure easing up. For the first time since the accident happened, you smile. It’s working!

But you notice the doctor appears perplexed as he looks over your constantly-updating diagnostic. He mumbles to himself, and his eyes widen. You see him press a button, and the pump abruptly shuts off. With the hose in your mouth you can’t ask him what’s going on.

Despite the pump being turned off, you still feel the juice inside you sloshing about. It feels...it feels like it did when you originally swelled up. Sure enough, you begin to realize the pressure is building once more. In a matter of seconds all the juice that’d been sucked up is replenished, leaving you spherical again.

“What happened?” you ask, though your words come out quite garbled.

“Your body produced juice to replace what was taken, of course!” the doctor replied with his usual excitement. “And rapidly, too. I was able to get some wonderful data in the process.” He pressed a button, and the hose retracted on its own. “Looks like juicing you is out of the question for the time being. Your new form is simply intent on remaining big and round. I can already tell I’ll need to clear my calendar for the next few months so I can research you properly.”

“M-Months!?” You were in a modern medbay, yet the doctor expected you to be trapped as an enormous immobile berry for months!? You were left speechless, going through a rollercoaster of emotions, none of them enjoyable.

The doctor nodded. “Yes, at the very least. We’ll need to analyze your juices, figure out exactly how you produce them, determine how extensive your biological changes are, investigate durability...so many things! But thankfully the company will give you all the paid leave you need to recover. Just think of it like a possibly permanent vacation.”

“Permanent!? Being stuck as a berry isn’t a vacation, it’s a nightmare!” You whimper.

“Oh don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll get used to it.” The doctor gives you a pat, then pushes you onto your back. You yelp as you roll, rocking back-and-forth and sloshing loudly. You wiggle your paws wildly and attempt to get back up, but of course you’re too heavy and round to succeed. Now more than ever you feel the immense weight of the juice inside you.

As you wobble the doctor spins you towards the exit, and rolls you out of the medbay. He’s nowhere near as gentle as your coworker was, pushing both harder and faster. You suspect he’s having fun treating you like an oversized beach ball.

“I want a second opinion!” you shout.

“The medbots and the station computer both agree with my diagnostic and treatment plan.” There was a ding of an incoming message. “Ah, and so does management! This is going to be quite the adventure.”

Helplessly round, and feeling more and more like a berry as time passes, all you can do is whimper a little. The next few months are going to be very exhausting.