The Contorion Serum

"Ugghhhhhhh."

The sound of someone waking up from unconsciousness Involuntary. It's always the same, no matter the age or size of the person or what happened to them. It also brings a smile to my lips, knowing that everything has gone right. Well, at least well enough for them to get better. Oh, I know what people say about me, and how ...

"Where am ... ... am I?" You slurred out.

Right, the patient. Less internal monologue.

"Hello there, I politely replied." You're lying on a cot in my laboratory, recovering from an earlier accident. "

"Accident? When ... what happened?" you asked.

"It was most unfortunate, I do apologize. You were out for a run, we were coming back from a shopping run when Mike hit a slick spot and hit you with the van. It should not have happened, Mike was obviously going too fast,almost. I keep telling him to slow down and drive more carefully. It's not just the cost of repairs or a new vehicle if he has an accident, but bringing the police and the insurance agents into everything "

"It's okay," You interrupted. "It can not have been that bad. I feel pretty good right now."

"Oh, but it was. Several broken ribs, internal bleeding, broken legs at least twice, and a compound fracture of your right arm. No, lower, just below your elbow. Your sweatshirt is upstairs with Dennis, where he's washing it with the blood-removing cleanser. "

"No, that can not be right. How can I be healed ... ... how you have special blood-removing laundry detergent?"

"Yes, it works wonders. There's nothing else for getting blood stains out of clothing."

"Why do you-no, not important. How long have I been here?"

"Almost 57 minutes. And another 18 in the van."

"Then how am I completely healed?"

"Ah, glad you asked. That would be my regeneration potent serum, administered to you less than an hour ago and still coursing through your veins."

"Yeah, right."

"No, I'm serious," I defended. "The serum, a product of my vast intellect, is a complex blend of chemicals and proteins which has restored you in less than an hour from critical condition to the peak of health. And not just your current peak condition, but to your maximum peak when you were 18th "

"Really," You snarked. "You hit me with a van, and then you inject me with some kind of magic drug?"

"Yes, and then no There is nothing magic about my serum, just science pushed to its limits! But please, do stand up and move around."

You got up from the cot.

"I'm pleased to meet you I am The Doctor." you had taken a few steps before stretching your arms above your head. You then bent forward from the hips, folding in half. You held the stretch, seemingly pressing your body tighter to your legs, before taking a step to open up your legs and push through your torso.

"As you can see, a complete recovery. No physical therapy required for you. Despite broken bones, even your flexibility is as good as it was before the unfortunate accident." You had continued to bend forward - or is that now that most backward of your torso was past your legs? You reached up to grasp your butt and started pulling your shoulders towards your hips.

"Wow," you remarked. "No, doctor, this is more flexible than I was."

"Really? That's odd. Are you sure? Do you feel all right?"

"Yes. I-its weird, doc."You were slowly but surely folding tighter. A correction to my previous observation: your head was drawing nearer to your Crotch. "I'm just feeling a good stretch."

"Could you please elaborate? A 'good stretch' in what way?"

"I'm pushing the stretch just to the point where the pain starts. Then the pain melts away and I'm feeling a nice deep stretch. I push the stretch deeper until I feel the pain starting again. But the pain keeps melting away . I mean, oh my god, I think I'm going to make it all the way! "And you were. Your torso was almost completely bent in half, and as I watched, you finished the job. You was essentially sitting on your face!

"Astounding! That is incredible in so many aspects. It would seem that the serum regeneration works in ways I had not anticipated at all"

"Is that so?" You unfolded yourself and stood up straight again. Raising your arms above your head, You grabbed your right wrist and started pulling it left and behind your head. "It heals people up and makes them more flexible?"

"Not precisely. No, it's a different effect that I had not though to examine. When you push your stretch to the limit, you feel pain because you are actually damaging the muscles and Tendons and ligament. The serum, however, allows your body to heal such minor damage in seconds. Almost as it is happening, actually. And once the damage is gone, so is the pain. Absolutely fascinating! "

"Oh. So you're saying that because I can heal instantly, I can do years worth of flexibility training in minutes?" After what your right arm behind your neck and seemingly comfortably lying across your shoulders, you had switched arms and was pulling your left arm down. "

"It's not instantly, though it is quite fast. And even though that's not what I said, I suppose that it is essentially the same effect. Actually, come to think of it, the effect would then work on strength training . ... Yes I must write this down! "I fished around on the workbench for a notepad and a pencil. As I scribbled out future experiments to carry out, I barely noticed as you continued stretching your arms. I thought that you put your hands together in front of you and started to raise them over your head, and then used a wall to help push your arms past vertical. As I finished my notes, I looked up to see you sitting with your back to the wall with your arms raised simply over your head. No, that was not quite it, your arms looked a little off - no, you had started your arms behind your back and you had stretched them until vertical above your head. Your shoulder blades must have somehow been dislocated.

"Egads,! That does not hurt you?"

"No. ... It feels a little weird, I guess. But in a good way. How long is this going to last?"

"Hmmm ... The serum should start to decrease in potency in about an hour, and completely wear off by tomorrow. But the flexibility is I can not say for certain, there are no studies to draw upon. I imagine it is permanent, though . Or as long as you work at it and keep it up There is nothing Unnatural about your flexibility, other than how quickly you acquired it. "

"Awesome. I've got an hour to stretch as far as I can?"

"Actually"

"A simple answer, doctor?" You interrupted me again.

"Um, yes. If you mean to increase your flexibility as much as possible, it will happen most quickly in the next hour."

"I do. I better get working on it." you paused for a moment, a thought in your eye. "Doctor, would you be willing to help me?"

"In what way?"

"A stretching partner."

"Certainly. I would be honored."

You started to bend backwards before asking me to steady you. As I held you from falling, your back bent tighter as you grasped at your heels. You caught them, and your back bend continued to tighten . I had to move my hands from behind your back slowly as the gap shrank to nothing. You then moved your hands up your legs as you rose up, altering the location of the bend in your back without opening a gap between your back and your legs. Another step as you opened up your legs and stuck your head in. You bent at the knees, and you were looking forward from between your legs. You straightened up to come out of the back bend no, you were shifting your stance, still bent over, and brought your arms through your legs. You bent at the knees again, and hooked your arms over your legs, and looked forward again, somehow balancing on your contorted limbs.

Next You worked on Your splits. You went all the way down to the floor, one front leg, the other back. You then asked me to lift the front leg I was not sure why you would want that, it seemed to me that you had already achieved perfect splits. But I lifted, and discovered over splits. What a bizarre concept it seemed, as your leg continued to rise until it was vertical, forming a right angle with the rear leg though I had not the hips capable of such motion. We switched sides and repeated the stretch. You then went into a split with both legs straight out to your sides. Again I lifted your leg off the ground, and pushed it towards vertical. Astonishingly, your leg went well past vertical before it reached its limit. You went back into a center split, and asked me to pull your legs back. I had to use some rubber tubing to get enough reach. I sat down and placed my feet on your butt and pulled on the tubing, and your legs started bending backwards at the hips. At your limit, your feet were about a foot behind your hips.

You twisted your torso next, left and then right. When you had finished that stretch, you were able to twist your torso nearly all the way around, A 180 degree twist between your hips and your shoulders. I would not have thought it possible Had you not done it in front of my eyes.

Your next stretch was to get on your knees and bend backwards again, putting your arms through your legs as she brought your chest down to the ground. You had me pull on your arms, and your bend got tighter as your head moved forward. At the end, your head was up past your knees and you was able to hook your arms around your knees. You let your knees come up, and straightened your legs out in front of your face. You were sitting on your back with your legs on either side of your head. You then lifted your butt and moved it forward so that it was resting on the back of your head. You kept wiggling it forward from there, and by the end it was starting to touch your Forehead. Your neck was bent completely backwards, with your skull touching your back. You quickly rolled to your side and coughed and gasped for air, breathing being understandably difficult when your windpipe is being squeezed into the floor.

While recovering your breath, You stood up and did some stretches. As you did, you brought your foot to the side and pushed it forward past your hip, getting it 6 inches or so in front of your hip before relaxing a little, turning your foot in and catching it on your stomach, holding your foot out there with the use of your hands.

Your next series started with stretches of putting your legs behind your head. You pulled your legs Farther, and you were able to hook your feet under the opposing armpits. You layed down on your front and had me help you by pulling your legs further down your back, each foot over the opposing thigh. At the end, your feet were down close to your hips, and you had your legs crossed like in that odd yoga sitting posture, but behind your back. I looked at your face, but it showed no pain. Actually it a little smile, as you seemed to be enjoying this. You then worked with a different stretch for your legs behind her back - instead of crossed over each other, you just had me pull your feet as far as possible down your back. I got down on your feet to your butt, with your knees starting to come together behind your head. You pushed up so that you were sitting on the ground with your legs folded up behind you. You relaxed a little, and your knees came out to the side, but your feet stayed behind your hips. I do not think you had thought of your next stretch ahead of time, but having discovered it, you pushed it all the way. You pushed your knees all the way to the ground, staying with your feet hooked behind your hips. You remarked how surprisingly comfortable this sitting position was, sitting there for a minute or two doing a few stretches.

At this point, a timer went off and I went to check on another project in my lab as you continued stretching, moving on to some ballet exercises. I'm not sure of everything you did, though at one point I thought I saw you standing there with your feet together and pointed backwards. I'm not sure if I saw things wrong or if you had developed Turnout enough to bring her feet all the way around. When I got back to you later, you was doing a one - handed handstand push up against the wall.

"Fascinating, . I did not know that you were that strong."

"Me neither," you replied as you did another push up. "I Remembered what you said about it applying to strength training too and wanted to try it. I did not see any weights around, so I did some push ups."

"Reasonable choice."

"Yeah. And they quickly got easy, so I did some hand-stand push ups. When those got easy, and I was not getting sore, I switched to doing them one-handed." You stopped with the push ups, and righted yourself to face me.

"Astounding. And you said that you're not sore from it?"

"No, not really. I'm starting to get really hungry, but my muscles feel fine."

"Interesting. So That's a normal side effect. Your body has burnt a lot of energy fixing itself, so naturally it's becoming hungry."

"That seems to make sense, doc. Do you have anything I could eat?"

"I do. But first, I wanted to ask if you have any plans for your future.

"No. Why do you ask?"

"Good, I wanted to ask if you wanted to be my test subject ?"

"Really doc?"

"Of course if you don't want to..."

"I want to."


As I called for Mike to get some food for you, I reflected upon today's discovery. So much in biology was serendipitous discovery, something I worked in completely different ways outside of normal conditions. My regeneration serum worked as intended, but it also had interesting side applications that I had never thought about. So, I was going to have to look into more flexibility. You had shown me moves I had never thought the human body capable of, and I was now interested in what the limits of human flexibility were. So many projects so little time.