“Good morning, valued volunteer! Rise and shine for another day of productivity!” A friendly, yet soulless and infinitely corporate voice of a lady sounded through the loudspeakers in the halls of the housing facility, waking everyone still sleeping on their uncomfortable, sweaty plastic bedding. It seeped in through the cracks of our protagonist’s door too, and even though he could have ignored it the first time, the morning mantra kept repeating itself, finally annoying him enough to sleepily sit up on his bed. He rubbed his face, staring in front of himself with eyes that felt like dry marbles bulging out of his skull after a short night’s sleep.

It took him a long while to fall asleep, given the stress and anxiety of his situation, and of course, the terrible airtight work uniform that doubled as his pajamas. Though he tried to take them off a few times, every time he did, a “routine checkup” just happened to pass by in the form of a grumpy-looking guard, who would not leave his doorstep until he was back in his uniform and neatly tucked into his bed. It was still not clear why they were so hard set on such a strange rule, but the weasel didn’t want to get himself into any more trouble than he was already in.

There was a small tap in his room with no mirror above- not the most optimal setup, but it was enough to wash his face and help him wake up just a little bit, and it didn’t really matter what he looked like anyway. As the obnoxiously enthusiastic message continued to repeat itself from the speakers, Darryl decided to take the opportunity to free himself from the plastic garment and have a pee, after remembering what Kasper told him the day before. Maybe he’d even have a chance to wash his body off afterwards- or so he thought, because right as he undid the first button on the front of his uniform, a guard busted in through the door, making the weasel jump.

“Subject, you’re wanted in Area 6. Hurry up.” Announced the uniformed Doberman, his voice slightly distorted by his helmet like a broken synth. It was the first time the weasel heard a guard talk; they weren’t mute after all, though he would’ve preferred them to be quiet than to deliver such news.

“Aw, I’m wanted? This company really feels like one big family sometimes.” He replied, pretending that the sudden entrance didn’t just scare the crap out of him. Fidgeting with the button he still held in his hand, he inched towards the toilet as he saw that the guard was not going away, but rather kept staring at him intensely from the doorstep. “Umm, can I just have a pee first?”

“The order is urgent, as your shift has already begun.” The Doberman replied coldly, stomping his boot on the ground. Darryl sighed, still remembering how he was dragged across the factory the previous day, and he much preferred to get along on his own two feet instead.

“Ah, fine. Just show me the way cause this place feels like a damn labyrinth.” He buttoned up his onesie and stepped outside the room with the guard. The other rooms along the corridor were all closed, the ambiance completely silent with no sign of life at all. It seemed like the other workers had already made their way to work, or maybe it was just Darryl, whose shift had begun at such an early time.

Either way, he followed right behind the guard. The only sounds echoing through the eerie hall were the crinkling of his plastic uniform, which mixed with the quiet creaking and thumping of the heavy boots of his accompanist. Darryl felt his heart pumping hard in his chest every time he took a careful peek at the ceiling or water drain on the floor; he couldn’t keep himself from trying to plot escape routes, even though it felt like there was always an eye on him wherever he went.

“Finally! I thought you weren’t even gonna show up, newbie.” A female blue heeler stood in front of Darryl, speaking in an unmistakable Aussie accent. Even though she wore a standard short-sleeved white company uniform- one that her sizeable breasts could barely even fit in- her demeanor was clearly different from the professional, almost robotic behaviour of all the other employees.

She was quite a tad shorter than most of the other dogs at the facility but still stood taller than the short little weasel. The signature, fluffy blue fur of her species showed out from under her uniform at her chest, and her brown arms were decorated with slightly luminescent blue paint strokes. Such paint jobs were popular among species who couldn’t get tattoos but still wanted to rock a punky look… Though it definitely wasn’t what one would expect from an average factory supervisor.

She looked down at her subordinate with a piercing look and a slightly disgusted expression that resulted from a permanently lifted upper lip at one side of her muzzle caused by a clearly visible stitch job. She flicked one of her ears and let the five small golden rings on it brush against each other, making a sound akin to an irritated rattlesnake. Darryl gulped and pulled his neck in to make himself look even shorter as he searched for the words to excuse himself.

“I-I’m terribly sorry, madam…” He muttered. Even though he wasn’t the type to be easily intimidated, knowing that this woman would have the power to straight-up torture him for the following days caused him to rightfully be afraid of her; this was not somebody that he wanted to be on the bad side of. “I didn’t receive any instructions yesterday…”

“No instructions?” The supervisor drew her rough eyebrows together and leaned back in disbelief. “I find that hard to believe. Or is K7 slacking off again? I’ll send ya someone else today if he’s not giving you the info.”

“N-no! He, he actually told me everything!” Darryl replied quickly, slapping his forehead as he pretended to suddenly remember something important. “Yes, he told me to come here, I just didn’t know when to get up! I haven’t got an alarm clock in my room, so I just assumed someone would wake me up when it’s time…”

“That’s what the morning announcement is for, dweeb!” The heeler raised her voice angrily, parting from her short-lived calmness. “That thing plays on loop all morning and you’ve still managed to oversleep by an hour!”

“I’m so, so sorry…” Darryl pulled his ears in and looked down at the floor, hoping that this temper would pass without serious repercussions. “It won’t happen again, I swear. I’ll be much less tired tomorrow, I won’t miss the alarm…”

“Excuses, excuses. How do you know you won’t be so tired, huh? You think you’re coming here to play or something?” The supervisor turned around and impatiently gestured with her hand for the weasel to follow her with a frustrated grunt.

This area of the factory consisted of a row of isolated cubicles packed tightly next to each other, like a very long public toilet. Darryl would have expected to see some other volunteers around on his first workday, but it really seemed like the factory did everything in its power to prevent the workers from even seeing each other. Some of the empty cubicles’ doors were open, allowing Darryl to take quick peeks inside: a conveyor belt could be seen on the other side as it carried some colorful plastic bottles, some empty, some filled with liquid. He gulped nervously; this task probably didn’t involve any suffocation like last time, but all that liquid gave him a sinister outlook on the workday ahead.

“Right here. This is where you’ll be, remember the door!” The heeler held one of the many white, unmarked cubicle doors open, waiting for the weasel to get inside. The small working space was completely empty, with no furniture, decoration, or even a chair of sorts to sit down on. The only thing inside apart from the conveyor belt that ran through it, was a sheet of paper on the wall, and a pen that was secured down by a thin chain to prevent those greedy employees from stealing it.

“Umm… So what am I to do, exactly?” He asked carefully after taking a look around and already feeling a bit claustrophobic from the tight, blank space.

“These bottles right here are flavored. They release certain kinds of microplastics into the water to make them taste a certain way without actually having to mix anything into the water.” K8 explained slowly as if talking to an idiot. “Your job is to take a filled bottle, drink it, then write its code down on that paper and what taste you thought it was.”

“Sounds doable.” Darryl nodded. “So… Do I have to drink it all?”

“Doable? It’s so easy, even a dweeb like you can do it. And yeah, what do you think? See any half-filled bottles on the belt?” The heeler said, obviously getting a little bored from the interaction as she was on the verge of leaving, only answering from behind the closed door now. “See ya when your shift is over.”

“Well, alright…” Darryl thought to himself as he walked over to the belt and saw a series of empty bottles coming along. They have probably been tested by someone else already. But just as he was about to take the first full bottle from the belt, the door opened again, the heeler peeking in with a serious expression.

“One more thing, boy.” She said, sounding a lot more ominous compared to her previous loose demeanor. “You don’t wanna be caught talking to any of the other volunteers. Your mouth is for drinking, not yapping.”

“Uhm, yes, madam!” The weasel nodded rapidly, assuring that he’d not try to communicate with anyone else. Another strange rule, albeit an understandable one; if the workers could freely communicate with each other, there would probably be a riot in less than a day. There was no way anyone was in there of their own will.

When his boss had finally left for good, Darryl picked up a bottle from the line, examining it. There wasn’t anything particularly special about it: no fun shape, no label, half-liter size. The only thing making it unique was a 5-digit code printed on its white cap consisting of a jumble of letters and numbers, which he scribbled down onto the paper. Then he unscrewed the cap, whispered “cheers” to himself, and started chugging whatever was inside.

After a few gulps, he lowered the bottle from his mouth to savor the taste a little bit. It was surprisingly hard to tell what tastes these artificial flavorings were supposed to represent, but after a few seconds, he decided that it was probably most similar to blueberries. He took the pen and jotted down his findings on the paper, then drank the rest of the liquid as instructed. Though he wasn’t thirsty at all, it felt nice to fill his stomach with something after accidentally skipping breakfast- if there even was an option to eat breakfast in the first place- so the first bottle went down with relative ease. He screwed the cap back on and placed the bottle on the belt to be carried away, then picked up the next full one.

Instead of a nice fruity flavor however, whatever was inside this bottle made his throat convulse as soon as it dripped upon his tongue. He coughed and gagged at the taste, wiping off whatever got on his tongue with his hands; it felt like somebody had shoved a cold, sweaty foot into his mouth, the salty, pungent taste was almost unbearable.

That was only the beginning however, as after recovering from the horrible experience, the realization unfortunately dawned on the weasel, that he had to down the entire thing, just like the others. Even though he was fairly certain that it was a faulty or expired sample, he didn’t want to draw any more attention to himself and decided to just suck it up and go through with the bottle.

“It’s probably an acquired taste…” He hesitantly thought to himself before starting to drink again, trying to get down as much as possible in one go. His body was screaming for him to stop. The sweaty taste got stronger and stronger with every gulp, burning all the way from his mouth down to his throat. He felt lightheaded and nauseous but squeezed hard on the bottle to make the water come out even faster, swallowing as hard as he could.

It took a few seconds, but in Darryl’s mind, an hour had passed before he could finally take the bottle away from his face, gasping and coughing uncontrollably. The small room was spinning around him and his belly felt soft and bloated from all the liquid that he forced into it in such a short period of time. He weakly grabbed the pen hanging from the wall and scribbled the code of the bottle, and the word FEET next to it with big, bold letters.

The weasel weakly slumped down on the floor, holding his bloated belly in his hands as it visibly and audibly rumbled, like a gross scene from a cartoon. A gust of gas could be felt traveling from the depths of his stomach up his throat, before it finally made its way out with a loud, raunchy burp, one that caused the entire cubicle to vibrate with its thin, flimsy walls. The small room was filled with a smell that was akin to someone taking off his shoes after running a marathon in the desert, which only served to make the weasel even more nauseous on top of his raging, gurgling belly. He decided it was a perfect time to take a break and ask if he could use the toilet, but as if she’d somehow read his mind, K8 appeared at the door.

“And where do you think you’re going?” The heeler hovered above the weasel, her hands stuck in a tight fist. “What do you think this place is? A pub? Where you can just burp loudly and head out whenever you want?”

“I’m so, so, so sorry about that!” Darryl buried his face in his hands, unable to believe just how unlucky he was getting that day. The world was spinning around him, and he was holding back his puke, pee and crying as he tried to get himself together. “C-can I just please use the toilet for a minute?”

“You’ll just find every opportunity to skip work, won’t ya?” The supervisor looked as if she was about to shoot laser beams out of her eyes as she raised her voice and pushed the stumbling weasel back into the cubicle. “This is your final warning punk, don’t let me find you slacking off again! If you don’t finish 50 bottles by the end of the day, I’ll show you what REAL hard work is like!”

50??? Darryl nearly fainted upon hearing his quota for the day. Even drinking 10 of those bottles a day would have been pushing it for the small mammal, but hearing that he’d have to chug five times that sounded impossible. But there was just no way around it. He knew that if he didn’t comply, they would find an even more painful way to make him useful, so with an aching hard, and an even more badly aching stomach, he grabbed another bottle from the line and painfully started drinking it.

A couple more bottles down. He could feel his entire body protesting after every little gulp, but after a little breather, he could always get just a little more down. He could barely even feel the flavors anymore; everything tasted nauseating, and his belly was growing to such a size that it seemed like he was pregnant. The suddenly gained weight made it more difficult to stand, but he knew that he would not be able to hold his pee for any longer if he sat down. No matter his tactics though, it was already clear that he would not be able to make it through the workday without the toilet.

Darryl uncomfortably danced around, jumping from one foot to the other, holding his crotch and flexing his muscles down there, trying to get his bladder to be just a little stronger. He took shallow breaths, as filling his lungs would have pushed his belly too hard, quietly and painfully moaning with each exhale as his pain just kept increasing, but he fought until the very end. Maybe his boss would soften up, maybe she’d have mercy on him… Any moment now… 

Five bottles were all that the little weasel could take. It felt like an unstoppable tsunami was starting from his abdomen and crawling down to his crotch, before he finally couldn’t hold his pee any longer and his tiny penis started dripping with pee. He fought desperately to take back control, but once the tap was opened, it would not close until everything was released.

The faint yellow piss came in a strong stream that shot onto the inside of the waterproof uniform and trickled down on it, collecting at his feet. It loudly poured onto the plastic and made even more noise as it trickled down and made the pool at the bottom grow and grow in size, expanding the plastic at his feet at first, before slowly traveling up his leg.

The weasel didn’t know what to do, squatting down and desperately holding the plastic against his flaccid penis to reduce the noise as much as possible and avoid embarrassing himself with the loud noises. He had already been sweating profusely in his uniform, but the warm fumes of the piss made it even hotter inside, making him feel even sicker and dizzier.

The stream continued for a couple more minutes before it finally finished with a last few spurs of clear piss. Darryl would have been lying if he said he wasn’t feeling somewhat relieved… But all of a sudden, the embarrassment of the situation struck him. What was he to do? He surely couldn’t continue working like this…

Hoping that no one else aside from his boss was outside, the weasel slowly stood up and opened his door. There was so much collected piss in his pants that it reached way above his knees, almost up to his crotch. This made walking really awkward, as his legs felt super heavy, and his feet were sliding around dangerously on the slippery surface. The pants also bulged out slightly thanks to the elasticity of the plastic, making his legs bigger and bulkier, and therefore harder to get around with.

It didn’t take long to find K8, who had been walking up and down the hall the entire time, peeking into random cubicles to check on the workers’ productivity. Upon spotting the piss-filled uniform of the weasel, she couldn’t- and probably didn’t want to- hold back her laughter. A loud, shrieking sound filled the hall as she slapped her knees and pointed to her subordinate in a fit of overwhelming amusement she felt at the suffering of the tester.

“... I couldn’t hold my pee any longer… “ Darryl quietly said after a few deadly seconds of embarrassment, his face blushing bright red and his eyes shamefully pinned to the floor. His voice was quiet, shaky and on the verge of crying as he spoke, already knowing the response that was to come. “May I please clean myself?”

“Couldn’t hold ya piss?” The heeler finally managed to catch her breath between two bursts of laughter, having to lean against the wall so that she wouldn’t fall to the ground from the laughter. “Thank God there are cameras around, this’ll be fucking hilarious to watch back!!”

Darryl buried his face in his hands, though he knew it was futile to try to hide his identity. He did it rather to conceal the tears that he could not hold back any longer, as a terrible feeling of helplessness swept over him. There was nothing he could do, nothing he could say. Like he was standing in front of a merciless judge, he waited for the final verdict.

“Get back to work, you dirty pig! This ain’t what we’re paying you for!” She said after finally finishing her cackling, pointing to the door where the weasel came from. “Next time you’ll learn to piss before you come to work.”

The weasel awkwardly stumbled back into his cubicle as his piss-filled trousers sloshed around like two big water balloons. There was nothing left to do; he had to keep drinking if he wanted to make it out by the end of the workday. Although his belly had come down a little bit from the overly bloated state it was in, the psychological pain remained with each gulp as his body begged him not to drink anymore. He only wished that he could comply.

His bladder had become significantly weaker since he had to hold the massive amount of piss for so long, making everything even harder to keep in. Darryl felt an irresistible urge to pee again after merely just half a bottle… Given his situation, and knowing he would not complete his quota without having to pee again anyway, he simply gave up and let even more piss trickle into his suit as he reached for another bottle.

He drank faster than his bladder emptied, so the gentle stream of pee never stopped. The line soon went above his thighs and covered his crotch, then his hips then it crept up to the top part of his suit. He was tearing up, his belly round and bloated, his organs crying for help, and the suit just got heavier and rounder over time. It felt like standing in a warm jacuzzi, but a lot stickier and a lot less bubbly. 

Over time, some of the pee started to vaporize and condense on the still-dry parts of the suit. This wouldn’t have been a big problem, if the tiny little droplets didn’t get shaken off with any sudden movement, and dripped off onto the body of the weasel, which felt like a sudden warm shower every time. But Darryl couldn’t be bothered anymore. The only thing that floated in front of his eyes was the daily goal, and that nice, big shower he was going to take afterward…

30 down… More than halfway there- the weasel thought to himself as he kept gulping and writing the tastes on the wall. He had already almost gotten used to the feeling of constantly peeing, and his insides weren’t even hurting that much anymore. The ever-accumulating pee posed another question however, as the piss level was well above his nipples now: was the suit going to be able to hold so much liquid?

At 40 bottles, the pee had crept into his arms as well. His gloves had become quite puffy as they were inflated by the heavy liquid, making it harder to twist the caps of the bottles and to write with the pen, but there was still a little more space left to go. The air that was originally in the suit slowly got pressed out through the tiny slits at his neck, filling the small room with awful, nose-twisting fumes. The cubicle heated up and the moisture made it even more unbearable, making the weasel feel constantly tired and thirsty, even though he had downed more bottles than he could remember. The only thing reminding him were the notes on the sheet that he took with each torturous drink.

48… The suit was dangerously filling up, there was barely any space left for the waste to go. Darryl wanted to start holding his pee, but it just didn’t work. He’d been continuously pissing for several hours straight, and so his bladder was completely exhausted. Stopping was not an option. He had to continue.

49… Pee was at his neck now, having completely filled up the arms of his suit and every other nook and cranny. The entire thing was bulging out like a big, fat weasel-shaped balloon; it was a miracle that it didn’t burst under all the weight and pressure.

The weasel grabbed his very last bottle from the conveyor belt and tried opening it up, but his fingers were too soft and puffy to unscrew the tight cap. He couldn’t give up right before the finish line though… Desperate, he put it in his mouth and bit down, taking off the very last cap and downing the whole thing in one go. He couldn’t even tell what flavor it was- his tongue had already become way too exhausted to tell these things apart. He grabbed the pen with his mouth to scribble down the code of the bottle and for the flavor, he wrote PAIN in large, capital letters.

He could finally take a deep breath. Stepping back, he admired the page scribbled full of notes. In some strange way, he even took some pride in his work- after all, he’d been grinding tirelessly from the morning until the afternoon. The very last drops of pee escaped his urethra and dripped into the pool: the whole thing was puffy and hard from the pressure, it felt like it would pop from the slightest touch. Careful not to get the entire area soaked, he stumbled out of his cubicle to stand before his boss.

Despite his hopes, Darryl was not allowed to take off his suit until his shift ended. Only once the ringing of a bell filled the area and the other workers came out of their cubicles, could the weasel join them at the very end of the single file line, as they marched back to the housing facility.

This was the first time that Darryl ever saw the other employees: they all looked broken, tired and completely exhausted, coming from all walks of life as their ages and species varied quite a lot. Although the weasel was terribly embarrassed to be seen in such a condition, the others didn’t really seem to bat an eye at the inflated suit, as if it was an everyday thing for them to see happen to anyone their manager decided to pick on and not let into the restroom that day.

Keeping up with the others was quite a bit of a challenge: the suit was so bloated that it forced the weasel’s arms and legs to be spread out in a star shape, making every movement a fight against the pressure inside. Darryl lagged slowly behind the others, careful not to fall as he wouldn’t be able to put his hands out in front of himself to protect his face.

The carefully watching eyes of the guards remained on him until the very last second, when he finally managed to get himself through the door of his housing unit, and the door was unceremoniously shut until the next harrowing workday. There was only one challenge left for the weasel to figure out: how the hell would he take off the suit by himself?