You sit, arms crossed, on the softened wood flakes in your hamster cage once again, the cover of darkness offering you respite once again from your cousin’s twisted little game of tag.  You haven’t been dragged out from under the bed since last evening, and although you’re not really even sure what time of morning it is yet, you’re beginning to hope again (probably foolishly) to be let out of the darkness again soon.  The stuffy, swampy stench of your cousin’s heinously sweaty socks still hangs thickly on your skin, and each time you inhale near any part of your own body, your brain automatically tenses you up as if waiting for the thrashing, wet weight of the maniacal sole to come crashing back down on you to flatten you into the carpet.

                You know that Sophie has probably been mentally destroying herself for allowing you to be taken away when rescue was so close, but you can’t help but also wonder about Carly.  She, you imagine, is even more of an emotional wreck right now than your guilt-ridden cousin.  Having had constant access to you to please herself with for five solid years, suddenly having the option of teasing and playing with her favorite toy in the world taken away is probably something of a shock to your power-drunk titaness of a sibling.  You’d bet that, without regular playtime sessions with you, she’d start to go a little out of her mind, being unable to play out her insane little control fantasies on a being infinitely weaker than herself.  For now, she’s being left to deal only with normal humans that she can’t turn into her personal pathetic naked playthings, and you have a feeling this idea scares Carly to death.

                Perhaps more than this, though, you know that you have become a major liability for Carly.  She’s committed some of the worst crimes a person could, and despite the entirely crazy and never-before-seen legal scenario that would be presented, it’s only logical that Carly has earned herself perhaps a lifetime in prison for what she’s done to you all these five years without ceasing.  Carly knows this, and it makes your blood turn ice cold to imagine what she’d plot to do with you if you actually did something to bring her world crashing down on top of her.  For once, the tables would be turned, and you would be the one in control of her fate, and you know very well your sister would rather disappear from existence than surrender control of herself over to you.

                While you know you should be worried about the consequences of being found by Carly if you ever manage to escape this new situation with Chloe, for the moment, all you can do is smile.  It’s satisfying to you to picture how much mental agony your sister is in for a multitude of reasons, and all you can hope for is that it continues for as long as possible.

                The silence and darkness are broken again as you hear the slamming of Chloe’s bedroom door, followed by the beating of her running feet against the carpet.  The light seeps under the bed and the cage is grasped roughly, yanked more forcefully than before out into the bedroom.

                You don’t even get an introduction today.  The cage door is opened, and your cousin’s hand descends like a hawk on you, clasping you easily into her clammy fist and raising you back out for examination.

                Bringing you to her face, Chloe’s eyes are pink and puffy around the edges, with glistening dampness filtering her irises.  After blinking a few times, you realize she’s crying pretty hard.  Her lips scrunch painfully together, trying to keep it all together as her cheeks puff with air.  She closes her eyes as the hot tears begin rolling down her angelic face and fights back gasping sobs in her throat.

                “Ohhh… Kenny…” she weeps, rising to her feet and sliding into a sitting position on the bed, gripping you in her firm fingers like an action figure again.  “I d-don’t know what to d-d-do…” she cries, sniffling hard and swallowing.

                “What’s wrong Chl… I mean, I mean, P-Princess Chloe?” you whisper as gently as possible, correcting yourself in the nick of time.

                “They’re… they’re going to take you away from me!” she sobs.

                Your heart skips a beat.  Does this mean you’ve been discovered at long last?  Is Sophie about to come crashing through the bedroom door at any moment to scoop you up into the safety of her kind, soft hands and carry away to protect you, never to let you see harm again?

                Nothing happens for a few moments.  Confused, you turn your head and peek over at the door before looking back up at the tear-streaked cheeks of Chloe.

                “Who’s going to take me away?” you ask hesitantly.

                “THEY are!  M-M-My s-sister…” she gasps weakly.  “She was f-freaking out about s-something… I don’t know… something about a l-little p-person.  And… and she was getting mad at me and telling me she didn’t believe me that I hadn’t d-done it, and asking me where I was h-h-hiding you…”

                Your heart does a little dance in your chest.

                “I told her I d-didn’t know what she was t-talking ab-bout…” wheezes your cousin, continuing.  “B-But she didn’t b-believe me, and said she was g-going to look all around the s-s-shed by the pool because that’s where I k-keep my soccer stuff, and she said when she found you, I was gonna GET IT!”

                So far, so good.  Your heartbeat rises quickly.

                “She just w-wants you all to herself, K-Kenny.  She… she’ll b-be m-mean to you, I know she will be, she’s so mean to m-me…”

                “No.  It’s okay, really, I’ll be fine!” you answer soothingly, seeing an opportunity.  “And you don’t have to get in trouble at ALL.  All you have to do is put me somewhere where she’ll find me.  Then I’ll tell her I just showed up there, and that I don’t even know you!”

                “N-N-No…” she warbles, sniffling hard again.

                “It’s okay.  Really.  Believe me.  If you take me out there and put me where she’ll find me, it’ll all be okay, but if we…” you breathe heavily, realizing it’s time to take a gamble with your personal safety, “…if we stay HERE, she’ll come in and find me, and then she’ll be mad.”

                Chloe’s eyes sparkle with tears as they widen in horror.  “I don’t want her to h-hurt y-you.”

                “She won’t hurt me.  I promise.”

                “She will.  YES, SHE WILL!” shouts Chloe, terrified.  “She’ll do all k-kinds of mean things to you.  I know it.  And I’m not going to LET her!”

                “Please, it’s okay, really, I…”

                “Kenny, stop it, you’re making me sad,” she whines as another wave of tears rolls down her damp cheeks.  “But don’t worry.  I won’t let her come in here and hurt you.  I won’t let her EVER find you.”

                “She’s going to come to this room and look for me!” you answer.  “But you can save yourself from her!  All you have to do it…”

                “I know she is,” interrupts Chloe, causing you to breathe a sigh of relief.  It sounds like you got through to her.  “I know she’ll find you if you stay here.  I c-can’t protect you f-from her, little Kenny.  I’m soooo sooorry…” she moans, bawling a bit.

                “Don’t worry, Princess Chloe,” you answer coolly, stroking her pinky finger wrapped around your side in an attempt to comfort her.  “Everything will be okay.  I promise.  I’m not scared of her.  Just take me outside, and…”

                “If she takes you, she’ll hurt you for a long time, Kenny.  And you won’t be able to get away.  But…” she gasps, getting an idea and grinning.  “I can save you!  I know how!”

                “There’s no way to save me, I…”

                “Yes,” she answers simply, nodding her head.  Clearly, she’s cemented this decision in her mind.  “Yes there is a way.  And I’ll tell you how.”

                “H-How?” you answer nervously.

                Chloe lowers her voice, bringing you closer to her lips, which still appear sticky with what you would assume is waffle syrup from breakfast.  Rotting morning breath seeps stickily over you as she opens the vast, hot cave of her mouth and whispers with proud joy into your ear.

                “I’m going to eat you so no one will ever be able to hurt you again.”

                Your skin feels like it’s just caught on fire as your brain leaps into overdrive.  Instantly, you begin squirming violently in the hard grip of your cousin’s soft fingers, but their muscular grasp only becomes more robust, and the wind is shortly knocked from your lungs, but you continue flailing and wriggling with all your might to escape her hand.

                It can’t be.  She can’t be serious.

                “NO!” you scream as Chloe breaks into another wave of tears.

                “I’m sorry K-K-Kenny…” she cries weakly.  “But it’s the only w-w-way you’ll be safe.  And this way, we’ll be together.  For… always!”

                “You can’t eat me, I’m a PERSON!” you squeal desperately

                “You’re a LITTLE person,” she corrects condescendingly.  “And people can hurt you.  A lot.  This won’t hurt.  It’ll be really quick, I promise.  I’ll just slide you riiiiight doooown and then you’ll be gone, and it’ll be okay.  And I can protect you forever.”

                “Oh, God, no… no… no…” you weep, ceasing you struggling at last, coughing.  “No… no…”

                “It makes me s-sad t-too Kenny,” sighs Chloe, wiping her eyes with her free hand and sniffling hard as her nostrils begin leaking.  “I d-don’t want to do it, but I don’t have a c-choice.  You’re my pet, and I’m going to protect you from people, just like I said I would.  Just like I promised.  And when I say my nighttime prayers before I go to bed, I’ll say one for you.  Every single night.  That you’re happy inside me and not hurting.”

                You close your eyes, hanging your head.  You have nothing more to say.

                “Good-bye, little g-guy…” she chokes, slowly opening her syrup-sticky lips.  “It’s been soooo much fun, and I’ll never ever forget you.  I love you so much, Kenny.  But now…” she sighs, tipping her chin back and raising you over her gaping maw just below.  “…it’s time for you to go away inside me.”

                You do nothing to fight it as Chloe’s fingers release their grip on you and you descend briefly through the air in free fall, into your young cousin’s waiting craw.  Almost immediately, you become awkwardly lodged between your cousin’s sopping, gooey tongue and the roof of her mouth.  You can tell quite plainly that this is a much smaller mouth than you’re accustomed to being in (as sick as it is for you to be able to make that comparison at all), and you have much less room to maneuver around; whatever’s about to happen is going to be claustrophobic beyond realistic belief.  The light is squeezed out of the steamy, damp cave of Chloe’s mouth as her glistening teeth slowly come together with a forceful ivory clack.  You feel her tongue wrapping itself around your body slimily and possessively as you are sealed into the slobbery tomb by wet darkness.

                For a moment, you wrestle violently with your cousin’s velvety, sopping tongue, becoming drenched from head to foot immediately in her sodden juices caking and dripping from every square inch of her saturated jaws.  The stench of morning breath is even worse being so close to the source, and as her tongue slips its way around your stomach, splashing you with spit and pushing you hard against her cheek, you can feel the white, gooey remnants of bacteria formed along the back of her tongue.  You hear a deep gurgling emanating from the depths of her dark throat as the feverish, repellant tongue fogs you in stale, foul stench and slides you easily toward the back of Chloe’s mouth, where your fate awaits you in the twelve-year-old goddess’s digestive system.

                You feel yourself receive your final intake of smelly, damp breath from the horribly fatal environment filling your lungs.  The depression is so overpowering you want to scream, but you know no one would hear it, and the thick, greasy walls of Chloe’s mouth would swallow up the sound anyway, similarly to the way you are about to be swallowed down her esophagus. 

                For a fleeting moment, you curse yourself for renouncing your life while in the hands of Carly.  At least then, you were allowed to live.  Now, even that is being taken away from you by a misunderstanding and horribly selfish act of a terrified young girl unprepared to deal with the reality of the situation that she’s about to eat her own older cousin in a single frothy gulp without even batting an eyelash.

                The pitch black, heavy air of your final resting place suddenly is wrenched from you as light comes streaming back in, glistening off of Chloe’s teeth.  You hear a deep hacking sound from the back of her throat, and you go careening forward out of the wetness, globs of saliva and loose mucus bubbles dangling off of you.  You gasp loudly before landing softly in a wide palm that closes onto you quickly, the fingers wrapping themselves easily back around you.  You don’t even need to look up to know this hand.  So large, firm, and muscular while also having such soft skin and a practiced grip that doesn’t choke the life from you while holding you.  The pads of the fingers grooved and toughened from gripping a basketball so much of the time, the cool and reassuring touch of the creamy palm.

                You’re currently in Carly’s fist.

                You are incapable of coming up with any kind of mental or emotional reaction, and can only look on with shock and awe, incoherently processing the scene.  Crying wildly, your twelve-year-old cousin lunges quickly for you, arms outstretched, fingers wriggling in desperate hope of retaining you and jamming you back into the “safety” of her gurgling throat.  However, your tall and athletic sister is quick to react, blocking her leap with a single arm, grasping at Chloe’s elbow and pushing her back onto the bed.

                “No!  Give him b-back!  Now!  You can’t have him, I w-won’t l-let you h-hurt him!” sobs Chloe dejectedly, hanging her head.

                “Listen, Chloe,” hisses Carly meaningfully.  “Say a word about this.  A single word.  And you’ll wish you’d never been born, understand?”

                “N-N-N-No…”

                “Understand?” whispers your sister poisonously.  Quickly, Chloe nods her head.  “Now.  Have you shown him to anyone?  Anyone at all?”

                “No one…” whimpers Chloe.  “I just w-wanted to protect h-him… he’s so little… he needs someone like m-me to t-take care of h-him…”

                “If you’re lying to me, I swear to God…”

                “I’m not LYING!” screeches Chloe.  “P-Please… don’t hurt him… I love him a lot, he’s so cute and he loves me too!”

                “I’m sure he does,” answers Carly sarcastically, shooting you a dirty look down in her fist and giving you a threatening little finger squeeze.  “Never say anything about this.  Anything.  Not to your parents, your friends, or your sister.  If you do, I’ll hurt him.  A lot.  I’ll make him cry, and scream, and bleed…”

                “NO!” cries out Chloe before having her mouth clasped over by Carly’s wide hand.

                “Shut up.  Stop shouting.  Now.  Understand me?  Say ANYTHING at ALL and I’ll make him hurt so much he’ll say he doesn’t love you anymore.”

                Chloe nods obediently, wiping more tears from her eyes.  “I’ll never say anything, I p-p-promise!”  You can tell she means it.

                “Good.  Don’t forget what I said, Chloe,” sneers Carly, sauntering quickly from the room while depositing you roughly into her jeans pocket.

                You hear the soft cries of your young cousin back in her bedroom, whom you somehow manage to find a shred of sympathy for for reasons you can’t quite explain, as you are carried off to what you have no doubt will amount to certain doom in the pocket of your incredibly enraged “little” sister.