The moment Tyler came to, he knew that
something was horribly wrong.
He could feel cool air against his
bare buttcheeks and that alone made him sit up in surprise. The young
man always slept in something, even with how hot it had been over the
past few weeks he had still kept his boxers on while he slept.
When he pushed himself up onto his
knees, he noticed that his mattress didn't have any give. Instead, it
was a hard surface that was slightly warm to the touch, as if it had
been baking in the sun all day.
Opening his eyes in the same instant
that he stood up, Tyler found himself staring up at a cloudy plastic
ceiling. The same material stretched all around him, forming a wide
box that seemed to stretch about ten or twelve feet high and forty to
fifty feet long.
The world beyond the cheap plastic was
more troubling though: a bedroom of immense proportions.
The plastic box clearly sat atop some
kind of desk, based on the computer monitor that loomed over him, and
the dominating view it had. A messy bed sat in the center of the
opposite wall, flanked by a nightstand on one side and a window on
the other with a low shelf running beneath it. Several potted plants
sat on the shelf, forming what looked like a literal jungle to Tyler,
and obscuring the piles of books and bottles of liquor that were
tucked beneath. Clothes and shoes were strewn all over the floor,
seemingly emanating from a closet that sat beside the open door.
“The new guy's awake.”
The voice pulled Tyler's gaze to the
rest of the box and he immediately stumbled back in fright.
Six people were sat nearby with four
of them appearing to be around his height with the remaining two
being much larger. A dark skinned girl around his age rose to her
feet and suddenly looked as if she was eight or nine feet tall and
clearly unconcerned with the fact that everyone could see her naked
frame. The only person taller than her was a husky man whose balding
head was almost scraping the top of the box despite the fact that he
was sitting.
The towering girl started walking
toward him and Tyler found his head shaking back and forth, “No,
no, this can't be happening, I-I-I...”
“Shh, it's ok,” the young woman
cooed as her powerful feet slapped down in front of him, her flat
stomach even with his eyes. She crouched down and her warm smiling
face appeared a few inches above his own, “It's not so bad being a
shrinkee...”
“Are you insane?!” He snapped
back, “Who knows what's about to happen to us?!”
“I've been here for a few weeks,”
she replied gently, her hands hovering over Tyler's shoulders without
touching them, “My name's Sandy and trust me, the person who took
you isn't going to squish us or eat us. They've barely made us do
anything. The worst thing I've had to do is polish their boots...”
“Oh cool, I have to polish some
weirdo's boots for the rest of my life and in exchange I get to live
in a box with six other people!” Tyler's voice cracked as he stood
up and stumbled away from the girl's oversized hands, “No, fuck
this. I'm going to try and get out of here...”
Sandy and the five other shrinkees
looked at Tyler with pitying expressions, as if they had all
witnessed the exact scene before.
“Fuck all of you!” His voice
cracked again as tears welled in his eyes.
Turning about, he started walking
toward the other side of the box and he immediately laughed when he
saw there was a hole cut into it with what appeared to be a tube
leading out. Looking back at the group, he gestured toward it and
called out, “We're not even trapped in here?! What the fuck is
wrong with you people?!”
Scoffing, Tyler marched on, picking up
strength and speed as he went.
Hazy memories bubbled up in his head
of what had happened that morning. He had been making his way toward
his third day of Freshman Orientation, which seemed to have almost
nothing for commuter students like him to do besides a few
campus-wide events, when he had felt a strange rumbling in his
stomach.
Crawling into the tight tube, Tyler
frowned as he realized that all the warning signs had been there.
Since he wasn't Immune like his Mom and older sister, his parents had
drilled him all summer to make sure that he would know what shrinking
would feel like; stomach cramps, flop sweat, full body cramps, and
finally paralysis leading to shrinking.
But it had been so hot recently that
Tyler hadn't thought anything of the way he had started to sweat.
Even the stomach cramping could be blamed on the fact his breakfast
had only consisted of the last cup of coffee in the pot, sans milk or
sugar.
The full body cramps and paralysis
must have come on so quickly that he had no way to notice.
Wriggling through the winding tube,
Tyler pushed away the last memories that came to him; the way the
whole world seemed to shake, the warm embrace of a giant hand, and
the thunderous sound of someone saying 'Score.'
A strange funky smell began to tickle
his nostrils as he wound his way through the tube but he couldn't
place it until he stumbled into the world beyond to find himself face
to face with an enormous bong.
“Holy shit...” Tyler whispered as
he stood up, his neck craning back to take in the building sized
pipe.
The glass was a mixture of blue and
purple shades that blended together to create deep calming hues. The
warm late afternoon light coming through the windows glinted against
the metallic bowl, drawing Tyler's gaze. Staring at the built up
resin, he realized that the bong must have been used regularly or
owned by someone who didn't care much about cleanliness.
Glancing back across the cavernous
room, taking in the dirty clothes strewn across the floor and the
collection of mugs and cups that were clustered on the nightstand,
Tyler figured that it was probably the latter.
Hoping that that fact might make it
easier to find a way down and hide from his enormous captor, Tyler
started to move away from his prison and search for some way down to
the floor.
Before he made it three steps though,
he was frozen in place by the horrific sound of rushing wind and a
crash like a building collapsing.
“-an't wait to see you, Spooky,”
despite the distance, the voice was still booming.
Tyler trembled as he heard the heavy
thumps of footsteps approaching along with one side of a phone
conversation echoing through the giant house.
“I mean, yeah, I'll be honest with
you, the most masc thing about me right now is how fucking horny I
am,” the words were broken up by a clattering of cups and a faucet
that sounded like a waterfall, “Oh yeah, if I did have one, it'd be
just an instant mess the moment I saw you and I'd probably ruin
whatever black dress you show up in.”
The footsteps grew louder and louder
as the giant drew closer, making Tyler's whole body shake in fright.
His eyes were glued on the open door and encroaching darkness of the
giant person's shadow.
Given his place on the desk, the first
thing that Tyler noticed was their wide hips wrapped in dark denim.
Keys jingled off a carabiner attached to their right hip, the metal
clacking loudly against the studded belt they wore. A rough cut just
above the knee had turned the jeans into a pair of long cut offs that
revealed strong pasty calves and long olive green socks that rose out
of a pair of well worn all black Converse.
Watching the sneaker crash down
against the hardwood floor and feeling the faint tremor the single
step produced made Tyler's knees instantly buckle.
Tearing his eyes away from the floor
as the world continued to shake, he noticed that the giant was
wearing a dark green t-shirt bearing the logo of the local Irish bar:
Finnegan's Wake. The place was notorious for barely checking ID's,
which was what made it so popular with college kids and the high
school kids brave enough to risk entering a bar. There was also a
rumor that they had been selling shrinkees on St. Patrick's Day and
Tyler had seen at least one video of someone dropping a shrunken
person into a pint of Guinness before swallowing them in a deluge of
dark beer.
Their broad shoulders and muscles
definitely made them look like someone who hauled around kegs and
boxes of liquor. The mane of thick red hair that spilled from a faded
cadet cap framed a strong face made of hard blunt angles with a
slightly bent, perhaps once broken, nose at its center. The giant's
bright blue eyes didn't even glance at the desk as they walked deeper
into the room, taking a long gulp from the tall glass of water in
their hand.
The whole world shuddered when they
came to a sudden halt.
“Shrinkees?” The giant laughed
awkwardly, “No, babe, I haven't...”
The immense body turned and Tyler
yelped as he watched the giant's eyes immediately snapped to him and
then to the box he had just escaped.
“Ok, I might have picked up one or
two,” they chuckled, “But I promise, they won't be here when you
come this weekend. I know how you feel about them.”
The desk began to rattle as they
walked up, taking another long gulp as they went.
“Oh no, Sydney,” the giant redhead
grinned as they towered over the desk, “Not a single one of them
will be left by the time you get here.”
Despite the fear keeping him pinned,
Tyler forced himself to stand, knowing somewhere deep down that if he
didn't run at that exact moment, he would be doomed. He was two
strides into his escape when a strange whistling noise entered his
ears. Looking up, the tiny man screamed as he watched the giant glass
rip through the air.
It
hit the desk with enough force to knock him backwards, air whooshing
through his ears as he flopped about in confusion. Scrambling back to
his feet, Tyler found himself trapped by the giant's cup, the glass
distorting the world beyond and muffling the giant's booming voice.
“See you soon,
Spooky,” they cooed, their voice still powerful enough to rattle
Tyler's prison.
A kissing noise
echoed out before the giant ended the call and slid the phone into
their pocket.
Despite the way
the glass prevented him from seeing the giant as anything more than a
blur, Tyler could feel the weight of their gaze on him as he stood
inside the makeshift prison. A huge shadow passed over him as they
plucked up the tube that he had crawled through before setting it
down after a momentary inspection.
A faint thumping
noise echoed through the room before everything shook and the giant
figure receded from Tyler's view and then walked out of the room
entirely. He stood there, anger building up in his little body before
he let it out by smacking his hands against the glass walls.
No matter how
upset he was though, he didn't have the strength to move the heavy
glass at all. Instead, hollow thumps rang through his prison, mixing
with his own wordless shouts of impotent rage. With a final sigh, he
slumped down against the wooden desk and pulled his knees close to
his chest.
“Not so bad,”
Tyler darkly muttered to himself, “They're one of the good ones...”
He snorted,
shocked that the girl he had spoken to in the box had actually seemed
to believe those words.
Tyler had believed
that there had to be good people as a kid. After all, his mom and
sister were Immune and they weren't mean but when he got to high
school he started to see the world for what it really was.
The Immune were
the ones who got all the opportunities and everyone else was left to
fight over their crumbs. He had to work twice as hard to get anything
and even then, he was reminded of the fact that he paled in
comparison to his older sister. An older sister who he learned was
just as cruel as every other Immune person in the school, having
crushed shrinkees after leading both the soccer and the softball
teams to victory in her senior year as part of some 'tradition.'
The worst though
had been his friend Jake's girlfriend Sam.
Sam had seemed
like everything an Immune person wasn't.
After all, she had
been willing to talk to them like they were actual people in the
first place.
Throughout
their whole relationship, Sam had made Tyler question what his entire
four years of high school had taught him. Then it happened, Jake had
shrunk down to the size of a teddy bear when he slept over at Sam's
house while her parents were out of town.
Instead of turning
Jake over to his family or Tyler, she had decided to keep him. She
had even made a video about how it was what was best for Jake. His
family wasn't Immune and she was so clearly she would be able to
actually take care of him long term.
It didn't matter
that that 'care' involved treating him like a living doll.
From then on,
Tyler only saw Jake through Sam's posts, where he was always dressed
up in costumes designed to make him look as 'cute' as possible. All
while Sam clutched him close to her chest like he was her favorite
stuffed animal.
Her posts always
seemed to imply that his life was more than what Tyler could actually
see. References were made to how 'helpful' Jake had become since
shrinking, which always accompanied a shot of freshly painted nails
or pristine sneakers. Then there were the comments about keeping him
safe in 'an enclosure' and giving him plenty of 'enrichment' time, as
if he were a literal animal in the zoo.
And then Jake
shrank again, to a size that made him more 'manageable' which was
apparently code word for wearable. Tyler actually got to see Jake
again but that's because he was dangling from Sam's neck or wrist,
contorted into painful positions to best complement her outfit that
day.
He tried once to
talk to her about it but she just dismissed him with a scoff of
'whatever' and the laughter of her many Immune friends.
After graduation,
Tyler had found it easier to put it all out of his head since he no
longer saw them everyday but then it finally happened: Jake had
another shrinking bout.
The last post had
been a photo of Sam cuddled up against some muscular college guy who
worked the same summer job she did at an ice cream shop near the
lake. She held a milkshake up to the camera with a caption that read:
Put a shot of protein in here to make it healthy lol see if you can
spot him.
Tyler had zoomed
in as much as possible until he caught sight of an arm and face
struggling against the thick chocolate shake. There was no doubt in
his mind that Sam had slurped up her shrunken ex without so much as a
second thought.
It was why he had
known it would be better to escape that box rather than polish
someone's boots in exchange for literal scraps. Tears welled in his
eyes again as he realized that his brief escape had been ended by an
upturned water glass, like he was an offensive bug that needed to be
trapped.
Approaching
footsteps were soon accompanied by faint tremors, a brief warning
before the giant reappeared. They carried something in their hand and
even with the glass distorting his view, Tyler was able to make out
that it was an immense plate.
The giant grabbed
the box that held the other six shrinkees and popped open one of its
sides. Muffled screams echoed out as the box was upended, sending
every shrunken person tumbling out onto the giant's plate while their
happy humming rolled across the heavens.
The plate was
brought just below the lip of the desk and then Tyler's prison shook.
He jumped to his
feet, planning to make a run for it the moment the glass lifted away
but then the ground began to tremble. “What the-” the glass wall
smacking into him cut Tyler off and he was suddenly forced to run to
avoid being sent sprawling to the floor.
After almost a
dozen steps, his foot suddenly met empty air and he plummeted.
Tumbling through
the air, he ended up on his side when his body met the cool porcelain
of the plate below. Pain radiated from his left arm and hip but he
could feel everything so he knew he wasn't immobilized.
The plate shook as
the giant carried it through the house, the sheer power of their
footfalls enough to keep Tyler pinned down. On one side of him was a
small pile of baby carrots, celery stalks, and cut up strips of what
looked like red bell pepper. On the other was a mound of green grapes
and through the vines he could see movement from his fellow
prisoners.
“Oh fuck,” he
whispered as the realization of what was about to happen washed over
him.
Everything stopped
and the faucet roared once again, loud enough to make his ears ring.
The giant started
walking once more and then the ceiling was replaced by wide open sky
as they stepped onto some kind of deck.
Staring up at the
vastness of the now giant world, all of Tyler's hope for escape
fizzled in an instant. The ceiling had felt too far away from his
place on the giant's desk but the sheer vastness of the sky was
enough to remind him of just how truly small he was now.
The plate rattled
as it was set down on a table that seemed to sway under the sudden
weight of the giant's meal. The enormous redhead let out a contented
sigh as they settled down onto a chair that looked like it had been
stolen from the local college. Taking off their cap and running their
hands through their sweaty red hair, they grinned down at their
assembled meal.
“Sorry, little
guys,” they boomed as they reached down to pluck up a cracker and a
small slice of cheese. Tyler watched as both pieces disappeared past
their lips and then a loud crunch echoed out, making him flinch. The
giant continued to talk, despite the food in their mouth, and Tyler
couldn't pull his eyes away from the enormous flapping lips, “My
girlfriend's going to be spending the weekend here before she moves
back into the dorms on Monday and she cannot stand shrinkees...”
One of the people
Tyler's size was suddenly lifted up into the sky and the silence that
had reigned among the shrinkees was broken.
The group's pleas
and terrified screams clearly didn't bother the giant though, as they
simply slid the person into their mouth and began to chew. Soft
cracks and pops echoed out, provoking even louder screams.
Tyler knew that he
was screaming, though he couldn't really hear his own voice as he
watched a person be turned into nothing more than red mush by
enormous coffee-stained teeth.
“I know, like,”
their hand came down, plucked up three grapes and tossed them into
the giant maw in quick succession, “Her friend Brianna had told me
that she actually ate a shrinkee this summer and I thought 'ok, maybe
Sydney's finally gonna be normal about all this' but nope.”
Tyler cowered as
the hand descended once more to snatch up some veggies, which were
quickly dipped in a pool of unseen ranch on another part of the
plate.
“Turns out she
still thinks shrinkees are gross little bugs,” every word was
punctuated with a snap and crunch from the giant's teeth, “She
actually called me the day after she ate her first shrinkee and
talked about how it upset her stomach and all this stuff. I told her
it was probably whatever she had to drink on the fourth of July but
she claims she didn't drink at all cause she was at a thing with her
church...”
Tyler watched as
someone his size vaulted over the edge of the plate.
The shrunken
middle aged woman ran with all of her might, only to be caught by the
giant's waiting palm. The worst part was that the palm didn't even
slow down, it just lifted the woman mechanically up to the giant's
wide open mouth.
A powerful gulp
sounded and the tiny man watched with horror as a wriggling bulge
went down the ginger's throat. They cleared their throat and then
took a long gulp of water before grabbing more cheese and crackers.
“She can be kind
of weird like that,” a strange smile passed over their face, “But
you know, if you take the time to get to know her and stuff, she's
actually really sweet. She's just this little goth cutie pie...”
The whole world
creaked and shook as the giant twisted about to pull out their phone.
Flicking through
some kind of photo album with one hand, their other descended to the
plate again, grabbing up food and absentmindedly popping it into
their mouth. Tyler tried to tell himself to use the momentary
distraction to escape but his legs simply remained rooted to the
plate, his muscles almost seizing with fear.
“Here's how she
normally looks...”
They
turned their screen around to show a quick selfie, obviously taken
months earlier when it was colder because the giant was in a leather
jacket and long pants tucked into a pair of scuffed up Doc Martens.
Their arm was wrapped around a short girl with an almost skeletal
frame that was accentuated by the long goth dress she wore while her
thick dark make-up seemed to highlight her pointy face and pinched
lips. Big circular eyes stared out from pits of black eyeshadow and
their blankness seemed to emphasize the bored yet haughty expression
on the girl's face.
“And where's the
other one, I just saw it...”
A scream pulled
Tyler's attention away from the screen and back to the horror
happening before him. While he had studied the picture, the giant had
continued to munch away and another unlucky shrinkee had been brought
into the sky.
This time it was
the heavyset man who was almost double the size of anyone else in the
box.
His head and torso
were slid past the giant's lips before the teeth came down, severing
him in half at the waist. His legs convulsed for a moment with
literal death throes before a loud slurping sound echoed out.
The lower half of
his body was pulled away while the giant's beastly tongue lapped up
bits of blood from their lips. While he had been shorn in half around
the belly, Tyler realized that the slurping noise had been the giant
literally sucking out the remainder of his organs before swallowing.
Bile rose in his
throat as he struggled to comprehend it, only to have his thoughts
derailed by the giant crunching down on the man's remains. His legs
were pulled apart like a wish bone and then each one was ground to
dust beneath the giant's molars.
“Here it is,”
they boomed while sucking blood from their fingers, “She's been
stuck at home so I sent her this squishmallow...”
The phone again
dominated the sky and Tyler's eyes widened at the sight.
The girl from
before was beaming at the camera while clutching a squishable plush
toy against her chest. The stuffed animal had a neon green skeleton
on it, complete with skeletal bunny ears, that stood out against its
otherwise black fur.
What was far more
noticeable though was the fact that the girl wasn't wearing anything
else in the photo. She was perched up on what appeared to be her
childhood bed with a white metal frame that matched the robin's egg
blue wall, which was obscured by a few band posters. Sitting on her
knees, Tyler could see every inch of the girl's pale white skin, with
the stuffed animal only covering from her nipples down to her crotch.
She had on far less make-up than in the previous photo but that
didn't help to detract from her big wet eyes or rodent-like features.
But it was hard to
argue with the fact that she was clearly happy, far happier than
Tyler would've imagined she could look from the previous photo.
“So, you know,”
the giant shrugged while grabbing up another shrinkee and wedging
them between a slice of cheese and a cracker, “If she says 'no
shrinkees' then that means no shrinkees.”
The crunching of
the cracker overwhelmed the cracking of bone but did little to stop
Tyler from being able to hear his own horrified screams. The bunch of
grapes was lifted up, removing the barrier from between him and his
fellow prisoners.
Only two shrinkees
remained. One was Sandy, who like him was crouched as if she was
ready to run but clearly too terrified to even stand. The other was a
man several years older than them who kept pivoting about in total
panic.
He started to
stumble toward the center of the plate while the giant simply
devoured grape after grape without a care in the world. They had
continued to flick through their phone as they ate and Tyler suddenly
wondered if the girl had sent more than just the single photo.
“If you get a
goth girlfriend as hot as her,” the enormous redhead boomed as they
reached down to grab the last celery stalk. They brought it past the
stumbling man, knocking him over before running it through the pool
of ranch and then up to their mouth, “You kind of have to respect
her boundaries, right?”
Grinning
as they reached down and grabbed the panicking man in the center of
the plate, they dropped him onto a slice of red bell pepper before
smushing two slices of cheese down onto him. His muffled screams
almost disappeared as he was lifted into the sky but Tyler could
still see faint movement against the pepper's thick skin.
“I mean, even if
I was a total dick and kept a few of you around,” blood dribbled
down their lips as they took a bite and mulled over the scenario, “If
she saw you, she wouldn't leap to 'Maeve lied to me, how could they?'
She'd just step on you and then tell me that shrinkees were infesting
my apartment.”
The giant, who
Tyler had to assume was named Maeve, began to chuckle as they popped
the last of the person-stuffed pepper into their mouth. Munching
away, they thundered on, “I wonder if she'd actually make me and
Cole put down traps. Could you imagine?”
Their hand came
down and this time they grabbed Sandy, who after remaining frozen for
so long suddenly spasmed and kicked about like a madwoman. The giant
hand brought her over a small pile of some kind of jam before sliding
her feet directly into it. Despite the way Sandy struggled
desperately against the jam, she was firmly stuck.
“Imagine being
stuck like this to a glue trap,” the giant laughed while they
grabbed two pieces of cheese to scoop up the jam around Sandy's
ankles with, “And me or my roommate would find you eventually, like
when we opened the cabinet beneath the sink or wherever the hell we
put it...”
They used the
cheese to rub the sticky jam up and down Sandy's body before pressing
one slice against her belly and the other against the small of her
back. Pinching her at the waist, the giant lifted her high up into
the air, licking their lips the whole time.
“If you were
even still alive at that point, I guess I'd have to fold it up and
stomp you just to put you out of your misery,” the giant's body
shuddered for a moment, “God, that'd be fucked up...”
Sandy screamed a
profanity laced accusation at Maeve but the redhead clearly didn't
care.
They simply
brought her up to their lips and took a bite.
Unlike the larger
man, Maeve simply pressed Sandy into her mouth, chewing and slurping
the whole way. Their cheeks didn't even bulge from the shrunken girl
being stuffed inside nearly whole.
While they
swallowed the girl who had assured him everything would be fine,
Tyler looked around the plate to realize that he was the last thing
on it.
Footsteps pounded
up a flight of stairs, giving him a moment to think as Maeve turned
to greet the newcomer.
However, the
muscular giant who arrived only served as a sudden reminder of just
how small Tyler was. To him, Maeve was an unfathomable towering giant
who was rippling with muscles but in reality, he could now see that
they were probably a broad shouldered but slight person who barely
cracked five and a half feet.
Their roommate,
meanwhile, was a man who was probably taller than Tyler's original
height of 5'10''. On top of that, he was utterly jacked and looked
like he was about to rip through the t-shirt he wore.
Tyler's eyes went
wide as he noticed that his shirt was also branded by a local
business: Lakeside Scoops. Craning his neck back to take in the
giant's handsome face, Tyler fell backwards as realization hit him
like a ton of bricks. It was the same giant that Sam had been cuddled
against while Jake struggled against her chocolate shake.
His dark eyes
peered down at the nearly empty plate and a soft laugh boomed out,
“You must be feeling really femme today if you're having girl
dinner.”
“Oh shut up,”
they playfully smacked his forearm, “I got a lot more ammo ready
for you than you have on me.”
“Oh yeah?” The
giant boomed as he peeled off his t-shirt to reveal a tribal tattoo
wrapped around his bicep. With the giant's heavy pecs and cut abs on
display, Tyler couldn't help but look down at his own flat chest and
wonder if he or Jake could have ever competed against someone Immune.
“Hit me with your best shot?”
“Summer lovin'”
Maeve began to sing tunelessly, “Happened so faaaaaast.”
The
giant cocked his head for a moment before his cheeks suddenly
reddened, “Shut up, Maeve.”
“Oh Cole, you're
soooooo cool,” the redhead boomed in a frightening imitation of
Sam's voice, “And you're a bartender? That's so awesome, could you
make me a drink?”
“She said she
was in college!” The giant stomped his foot in frustration, making
Tyler's whole world shake.
“And she is,”
Maeve giggled, “We follow each other so I know she's been posting
about how she's becoming total besties with all the girls on her
Freshman hall. Franklin-1-South forever!”
The redhead then
put their hands into a heart shape as they smugly grinned up at the
giant.
“Just for that.”
Wind howled in
Tyler's ears and then he was suddenly wrapped up in an enormous fist.
His whole world
went dark, he began to sweat from the unbearable heat of the
steel-like flesh around him, and he felt as if his stomach was in
once place and the rest of his body in another as he rose higher and
higher into the sky.
Tyler's chest was
too tight to even take in air to scream.
His ears popped.
The fingers opened
and blinding light poured in around him, framing the dark pit of the
giant man's hungry mouth that hovered directly before him.
He was airborne
for a horrifying moment and then he crashed down upon a blazing hot
tongue. Saliva stuck him to the muscular beast, reminding him of
Maeve's terrifying words about being stuck to glue moments earlier.
The lips closed behind him, trapping him in the muggy cavern, but the
giant's tongue didn't toss him into his abyss-like gullet.
Instead spit
continued to drip around him as everything started to shake.
Through the giant
man's lips, he could hear Maeve calling after him, “You're such a
little bitch, Cole!”
Cole had no
response though except for the hissing of a can opening.
Light washed over
the dripping wet tongue one more time and Tyler turned to see a beer
can block out the whole world. Everything tipped back as golden waves
crashed down over everything, sliding between Tyler and the sticky
tongue to send him traveling back toward the giant's throat.
He screamed,
desperately trying to swim against the current, but Cole's throat
muscles flexed as the giant started to gulp down the sudsy torrent
and Tyler was nowhere near strong enough to fight it. The tiny man
was pulled down through a dark tunnel, far straighter than the
plastic one he had climbed through to escape the box he woke up in.
Tyler came to a
stop in a pitch black prison with beer pouring down around him. The
rumble of the giant's heart echoed above and he could just barely
hear the outside world in between the undulating of the stomach
walls.
The air quickly
became stale and Tyler's skin started to burn.
“C'mon, it was
just a joke, Cole,” Maeve whined, “You're not actually mad are
you?”
The giant's voice
seemed to come from everywhere, more than enough to keep Tyler
conscious as the burning grew strong enough to swallow the world,
“Not really but that's all the dinner I have time for. I got a
shift at the bar tonight too.”
“A shrinkee and
a beer, classic boy dinner.”
The world grew
darker for a second as Tyler writhed in pain amid the giant's stomach
acid.
“Shut up.”
The giant's voice
jolted him awake once more, making him let out a pain filled gasp.
“Also, don't
mention that around Brianna.”
“What's your
guys' deal anyway? Are you dating?”
“What? No, we
fooled around, like, once last year,” even Cole's words were
becoming hard to parse despite the fact that they came from every
direction, “I just don't want her thinking I'm some loser who
screws around with high school chicks.”
“Oh man, you
didn't just do that though,” Maeve laughed, “Didn't you eat her
first boyfriend?”
“Drop it,
Maeve,” Cole boomed as the world shook.
Tyler swore he
could still hear Maeve laughing as the darkness washed over him.
The burning pain
was gone and all he was left with was the terrible thought that Jake
had gone the same way in the same stomach just a few weeks earlier.