There’s something wrong with Huxley Chocolate, but I can’t stop eating it.

I found the chocolate bar by accident.

It was tucked away on the lowest shelf in the corner shop, half hidden behind a row of dusty biscuit tins. The wrapper was matte black, unmarked except for an embossed gold logo – Huxley’s Original. No price tag, no branding, nothing to indicate where it had come from. I turned it over in my hands. The weight of it was strange – heavier than it should’ve been, dense, almost unnervingly solid.

I never was a huge chocolate guy, I have a sweet tooth, sure, but I could go for weeks without it. This though… something about it called to me. The moment I touched the wrapper, a hunger I didn’t recognise opened inside me. Something gnawing.
Something deep.

At the counter, the shopkeeper barely looked at me as he rang it up. He was an old man, haggard, with deep lines bracketing his mouth. When he saw the chocolate bar, his fingers tensed. For the first time, he really looked at me.

“Are you sure you want that?”
I gave a small laugh, “Why? Is it poisoned?”
“A lot of people like it. Maybe too much.” He replied, expressionless.

I paid and left, pushing his words out of my mind.

I waited until I got home to try it.

The wrapper peeled back with a dry rustle, and immediately, the scent hit me – thick, heady cocoa with something else beneath it, something almost meaty. The bar itself was a deep brown, nearly black, and the surface had a slight sheen, as though it had been polished.
I broke off a square and popped it into my mouth.

It melted instantly. Not just smooth – velvet. Rich and impossibly creamy, like every chocolate I’d ever tasted had been a cheap knockoff of this. It was sweet, but not cloying, and threaded with a complexity I couldn’t place. It was –

I blinked. The square was gone. I hadn’t even realised I’d swallowed it.
I needed another.

By the time I came back to myself, the bar was gone. The wrapper sat on my lap, torn open like the carcass of something devoured.

I sat there breathing hard, chocolate around my face. My skin tingled, a heat spreading through me like I had taken a shot of whiskey on an empty stomach. A pressure built in my head, not painful, just… there.

I should’ve felt sick. After eating that much chocolate, I should’ve been nauseous. But I wasn’t.
I felt good

••

The next day, I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
I told myself I was being stupid – it was just chocolate. But the hours passed, the craving deepened. My tongue felt lonely. My stomach twisted with a strange, aching hollowness.
By the time I left work, I was shaking.

I went back to the corner shop, heart hammering, already tasting that first bite.
The bar wasn’t there.

I scoured the shelves, crouched down, ran my hands over the countless rows of biscuits and sweets. Nothing.

I went to the counter. The old man was there again, watching me with something close to pity.

I swallowed, “The chocolate bar. Huxley’s. Do you have any more?!”His face darkened. “No.”My mouth felt dry, I began to panic. “WILL YOU BE GETTING ANYMORE!?”He shook his head. “You should stop looking.”I laughed, hollow. “It’s just chocolate.”He leaned forward, lowering his voice. “Is it?”

I felt furious, craving clawing at me like a hungry bear.

That night I couldn’t sleep. My skin felt tight, stretched too thin over my bones. I was sweating. My jaw ached. Hours spent tossing and turning. Dreaming sweet, creamy nightmares, tasting phantom sweetness on my tongue.

••

The next morning, my reflection looked…. Wrong.

My face was fuller. My cheeks had a softness to them that they hadn’t yesterday. My stomach too, pressing against my shirt, the fabric a little tighter.

I barely ate that day. I told myself I was being paranoid, that maybe I was just bloated. But my body felt different. Heavier. My limbs moved sluggishly, and my stomach dragged.
By the evening, I was starving.

I tried to eat normal food, but nothing tasted right. The pasta I made was gluey and bland, the sandwich I forced down felt like sawdust. I gagged on the chocolate bar I bought from Tesco – cheap, grainy
Wrong.

I needed Huxley’s.

By midnight, I was shaking, aching.And then, as if summoned, my phone buzzed.
A message. No number. No Name.
Come to the alley behind the shop.I stared at it, heart slamming against my ribs.I should’ve ignored it.I couldn’t.

The alley smelled like rot. Old bins, damp cardboard.

A man was waiting there. Short. Bloated. His skin hung loose, like it didn’t quite fit his body anymore.“You want more?” he wheezed.

I nodded, swallowing against the hunger.
He grinned, pulling something from his coat. A bar of Huxley’s.
I grabbed it, fumbling for my wallet, but he shook his head.“You can pay later.”
I didn’t ask what he meant, I didn’t care. I tore into the wrapper right there, stuffing a piece into my mouth.

Sweet. Rich. Perfection.

Warmth rustled through me, liquid and thick, like being submerged in warm honey. My limbs tingled. The aching emptiness inside me eased.
“You should stop now,” he murmured. “Before it takes too much.”

I ignored him. I walked away, chewing slowly, letting the chocolate dissolve on my tongue.

••

I woke up heavy.

I sat up and felt it – the pull of my own weight, my stomach pressing against the mattress in a way it never had before.

I stumbled to the mirror and –
No.

My face was bloated. My eyes sunk into soft, swollen flesh. My arms, thick. My fingers looked like sausages, stiff and clumsy.

I pulled my shirt off with a struggle. My chest sagged; my stomach hung like a baker’s apron. My thighs pressed together, slick with sweat. I grabbed at myself, at the rolls, at the sheer bulk of me –
My skin shifted.

I choked on a gasp.

It moved. Not just flesh shifting with motion – somethingmoved beneath it.

I pressed my hand into my gut, fingers sinking slightly. Something squirmed inside me.

The realisation hit, slow and horrible.

I hadn’t just been getting fat. I was filling.

My stomach churned, and I felt it – dozens of tiny, writhing things, nestled deep in my flesh.
Not the chocolate.
Not food.
Eggs.

I barely waddled to the toilet before I started screaming, forcing myself to throw up.

••

I don’t leave the house anymore. I can barely move.

I’ve tried to stop eating them.

I really have.

But the pain is unbearable. A gnawing void, a need greater than the pain itself.
So, I keep eating.

And I keep growing.

I feel them inside me, their small, slick bodies shifting beneath my skin, pushing through the fat that has become their nest.

My stomach brushes my thighs when I sit, it’s hard to go to the bathroom now. My hands are too swollen to even hold this phone. My tongue has a coating of sickly sweetness from these bars.

I think I’ll burst soon.

I wonder how many will come crawling out.