Jake stared up at their prospective savior, shouting intermittent cries of exultation and urgency. It looked as though she was about to figure it out, about to see them as they really were, when disaster struck…literally.

Jake watched in awe and horror as she started to gasp in recognition. In doing so, she had forgotten about the seemingly irrelevant lollipop she was sucking on. Almost in slow motion, it fell out of her mouth, departing those two plush lips and careening like an atom bomb the seemingly endless six inches down into the box.

He saw it land with an earth-shattering crunch just a few hundred feet away from him. The moment it hit it instantly obliterated the sixty people it landed on, but proceeded to do more damage as its momentum rolled it around the inside of the prison, like a 400-foot tall boulder. Jake watched in revulsion as it steamrolled over hundreds of people, a few dozen of them crushed, but most of them caught up in the 20-foot thick sheet of stickiness that encompassed it, a mixture of the melted sugars of the lollipop and her saliva.

Nick, too, had shared Jake’s hope of rescue, until the ill-fated lollipop crashed down a few feet next to him. Although he was not crushed by it, he was one of the first people stuck to it as it meandered about, gathering miniscule people. His arms and legs were completely immobilized in the thick goo, but at least he was on his back. Otherwise, he would probably have suffocated in it by now.

The new girl’s expression shifted instantly to shock and then to disappointment as she watched her treat fall. She had accidentally killed almost a hundred people and trapped several hundred more, but her greatest regret was that she had lost the use of her lollipop. Jake swore and wondered if this was his lucky day after all.

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Kelly’s mind was in a fervor, examining the powder and cross-referencing it with everything she knew, trying to find a match. At last she thought she had figured it out, but in her excitement she carelessly gasped and forgot that she was sucking on a lollipop. It tipped out of her mouth and landed with an unceremonious thud in the box, its stem touching down an inch or two away to balance it. It still managed to roll around quite a bit, though, and this perturbed her greatly.

Great, she huffed, what a double whammy. Not only have I lost the rest of a perfectly good lollipop, but it’s stuck to some of the powder, and now Anika will kill me if she sees some of the powder missing and finds out I’ve been snooping around in her stuff! This was simply turning into a terrible day.

She peered down anxiously into the box, watching the lollipop roll back and forth and accrue some of the powder. Wait a minute, she realized, her eyes growing wide with recognition. I know exactly what this is! It’s one of those exotic Arabian spices that are so rare and famous, stuff we never get here in the States. That must be why Anika kept such close wraps on it! She must want to save the rest of it until she can go back to her homeland and get more of it. Ohhhhh, I wonder what it tastes like! Her mind reeled with thoughts of the exotic and robust flavor of the spice. She unconsciously began to salivate, and licked her lips at the thought of such a rare treasure so close to her.

Well, she reasoned, I suppose the lollipop’s not completely wasted if it’s just rolling around in spices. And, there’s no point in me not trying what’s already on my lollipop. After all, it’s already ruined. Anika can’t use it if it’s stuck to my lollipop! Satisfied with her logic, Kelly excitedly reached down into the box and grabbed the stem of the lollipop.

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Jake gazed upward, stupefied at this turn of events and searching for some hint of what was to come in the new girl’s expression. She was clearly upset, but then she began to smile curiously. As her gargantuan tongue passed slowly over her moist lips, he shuddered at the prospect of what she might be considering.

Her mighty hand descended into the box and grabbed the enormous lollipop stem. Nick, along with the hundreds of other people stuck on the lollipop’s gooey exterior screamed in a panic as it was hoisted up in the air. He would not have cared any more if it had just been the other girl coming to kill them, but this was different. There had been an ephemeral hope here, a slim chance that this girl might be able to save them. But now, as he lay completely pinned in the saccharine swamp, faced with his own mortality, he wept bitterly.

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Kelly brought the lollipop up to her mouth, but wisely reconsidered licking it. Is this definitely powder? How do I know it’s not some kind of poison she keeps for dealing with pests? Kelly grew leery of the idea of tasting the powder, and held it up to her eye for closer inspection.

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The hundreds on the lollipop were headed straight for her mouth when she abruptly stopped. Nick vomited form the motion sickness and looked at her expansive face. He was fortunate enough to be on the side of the lollipop that faced her, and he reckoned her luscious lips were at least six hundred feet wide, and currently closed. The lollipop jolted upwards and halted in front of her vast right eye, an eye so all-encompassing that it seemed to peer directly into his soul. Holy crap, Nick thought, maybe she sees us! He tried to move and flail to get her attention, but no one had enough mobility to wave, so he resorted to shouting. He began hollering all over again, but this time out of joy instead of lamentation.

Jake saw it all from down in the box, and allowed his hope to briefly resurge. She’s got to see them!  he thought. There’s no way they could be that close to her eye without her noticing them. He stood in rapt anticipation, knowing that they would soon be free.

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Kelly, however, thought differently. As she held the lollipop in front of her eye, it dawned on her that there was no way she would be able to tell if it was poisonous or not just by looking at it. Satisfied that it looked harmless enough and still struggling to stifle her curiosity, Kelly stuck out her tongue and took a long lick of the lollipop.

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Nick’s cries were cut short as the titanic lips parted to reveal a pink monster. Her tongue was easily nine hundred feet long and headed directly for him. He winced momentarily before his life was snuffed out.

Down in the box, Jake’s hopes were once again dashed as the girl lowered the lollipop to her mouth and took a long slow lick along one side of the lollipop that surely had at least 200 people on it. He knew they were all goners now, completely imperceptible and irrelevant. He wondered why he had even bothered to hope in the first place.

Back on the lollipop, hundreds of people had just been pulled off their gooey trap and onto her tongue. Although the force of the contact killed many of them, at least another hundred sat inside her mouth on her tongue, waiting for the end. She swished them around for a moment to get the flavor, which was like a hurricane to them, and then swallowed.

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