The Spice of Life (A Joanna Story) by Din Korlac
Summary:

Joanna is a waitress at a restaurant called Carmichael’s. She likes to “spice up” the food she serves her customers. You see, Joanna has the ability to shrink people down, she likes them small, tiny, untraceable. Just millimeters is perfect. And they’ll never be found again.


This story will be continuing as she “spices up” various meals at the restaurant.


Categories: Giantess, Entrapment, Scat, Unaware, Vore Characters: None
Growth: None
Shrink: Micro (1 in. to 1/2 in.)
Size Roles: F/m
Warnings: Following story may contain inappropriate material for certain audiences
Challenges: None
Series: Joanna's Spice of Life
Chapters: 6 Completed: No Word count: 45328 Read: 11823 Published: May 08 2025 Updated: May 31 2025
Story Notes:


1. Freddy by Din Korlac

2. Bradley by Din Korlac

3. The Redneck by Din Korlac

4. Cody by Din Korlac

5. @RawDogRiot (& Evan) by Din Korlac

6. Anderson by Din Korlac

Freddy by Din Korlac
Author's Notes:


Joanna’s smile was warm as she balanced the tray on her hand, the polished metal gleaming under the restaurant’s amber lights. The clink of silverware and the low hum of casual conversation filled Carmichael’s with a cozy, inviting atmosphere. But under that warm surface, something cold and foul pulsed like a hidden infection.
 
In her apron pocket, a small vial throbbed with a secret. The glass was slightly fogged from the heat of her body, and within it, Freddy writhed. He was barely five millimeters tall now—no bigger than a breadcrumb, his screams lost in the thick silence of the glass prison. His fists pounded against the curved wall, but it may as well have been stone. Joanna’s fingers—long, smooth, efficient—grasped the vial and pulled it free.
 
Pop.
 
The cork came loose with a tiny sound, unnoticed in the clatter of the restaurant. Her eyes flicked left, then right. No one was watching. With the casualness of a chef tossing garnish, she tipped the vial. Freddy slid out, his tiny form tumbling into the steam.
 
SPLASH.
 
The soup swallowed him in a wave of scalding liquid. It was tomato bisque—rich, red, and aromatic with roasted garlic, heavy cream, and basil. Freddy hit the surface like a bug smacking into hot tar, instantly screaming. The heat was suffocating. He gasped, choking on the thick slurry as the scent of salt, spice, and cream invaded his nose and coated his throat.
 
He tried to tread the dense liquid, but it clung to him—oily, cloying, acidic. Every movement took monumental effort. Bits of onion and basil leaf stuck to his body like wet skin. He gagged as a slick tomato chunk hit his chest and rolled over his face, momentarily plunging him into darkness. When he broke the surface, gasping, the world above had changed.
 
Joanna was already walking away.
 
The tray was on the table now, the soups placed before two women mid-conversation.
 
“…So then Dr. Haskins asks me to hold this guy’s intestines while he—oh, thank you!” Casey smiled as Joanna set the bowl down in front of her.
 
Freckles dusted her cheeks. Her dark hair was tied in a loose bun, a few strands clinging to the sheen of sweat along her forehead. Her athletic arms flexed as she picked up the spoon, hand steady, nails clean, efficient. Freddy screamed, waving both arms, but the ripples around him were invisible to the women. Their voices droned above him like gods talking through walls.
 
The spoon entered the soup.
 
It was massive—silver and slick, descending from the sky in a glint of metal. It struck the surface nearby, and the tidal wave nearly drowned Freddy. He swam hard, sputtering, trying to move away, but the current pulled him back.
 
SLURP.
 
A monstrous sound. Wet, deep, cavernous. The spoon rose again, leaving a whirlpool in its wake, and Freddy saw—just for a second—the gaping hole of Casey’s mouth.
 
Her lips parted.
 
Moist, pink, glistening.
 
A strand of saliva connected her upper and lower teeth, stretching, trembling, snapping as the soup passed through. Her breath, faint but warm and humid, washed over the spoonful like a kitchen vent.
 
Freddy screamed again, his voice raw, but there was no escape.
 
Another spoon came. This one caught him—along with a soggy bit of basil. The edge of the spoon was hard and cold against his back, and then everything tilted.
 
The light vanished.
 
He was inside her mouth.
 
It was alive with noise and wet heat.
 
Her teeth—large, white, clean—rose around him like marble tombstones. Her tongue surged beneath him, textured like wet sandpaper, powerful and curious. It flipped him, tasted him, pinned him. Basil slid past him. Soup pooled under her tongue.
 
And then—GULP.
 
The muscles contracted. The pressure around Freddy exploded. He slid backward, squeezed by soft, wet walls that pulsed like a living tunnel. His ears popped. The sound of her heartbeat boomed like distant drums.
 
Then, he was falling.
 
SPLOOSH.
 
He landed in her stomach.
 
It was a pit of slime and acid. The stench was overwhelming—like vomit and bleach, bile and rot. The chamber was cramped, hot, and pulsing. The walls moved slowly, squeezing, secreting. The sounds were maddening: groans, bubbles, sloshes, wet gurgles.
 
Above, more soup came pouring down like a waterfall of fire, raising the liquid level. Freddy tried to climb a slick wall, his fingers slipping on the mucus lining. Acid began to eat at his clothes. His skin blistered. He screamed, but the stomach was deaf.
 
Casey sipped her soup again and laughed at something Kim said.
 
“You always have the craziest stories,” she said, mouth full, swallowing.
 
Inside her, Freddy floated near the surface, shivering, coughing. His eyes stung. His arms were cramping. Every breath hurt. His skin felt like it was being flayed inch by inch, but still—it did not dissolve. Not yet.
 
He could hear the faint thump of Casey’s heart, the gurgle of her digestion, and the dull roar of blood through her arteries. The stomach trembled around him, muscles squeezing, trying to break him, reduce him to paste. The acid swirled, yellow-green and angry.
 
Casey lifted her spoon for the final sip.
 
Outside, her smile was easy. Her freckles glowed in the light. She was beautiful and ordinary, the kind of woman strangers smiled at in the street.
 
Inside, Freddy was dying.
 
And she never knew he was there.
 
Casey finished her soup, wiped her mouth, and dabbed at a stray drop on her freckled chin with a cloth napkin. She and Kim paid their check, thanked Joanna, and walked out into the sunlight. Their laughter echoed briefly on the sidewalk as they parted ways.
 
Back home, Casey changed into leggings and a tank top, tied her hair up tighter, and went for a run. Her shoes thumped rhythmically against the pavement as she pushed through miles, sweat soaking her collar. Her breath came in steady bursts, mouth open, pulling in the cool evening air. Inside, her stomach gurgled softly—not from discomfort, but in the ordinary way of digestion. The bisque was thick and creamy. Hearty. Satisfying.
 
Freddy was still inside.
 
Or what was left of him.
 
He had stopped screaming long ago. Now, what remained of him was a blackened scrap of organic tissue, soaked in acid, stiffened by trauma, mummified by the heat. His limbs were shriveled, skin tightened to the bone like old parchment. The soup had long since moved into her intestines, and with it, Freddy had gone too—curled fetal in a sludge of half-digested food and bile.
 
There was no pain. No twinge. Casey jogged effortlessly through the neighborhood, earbuds in, oblivious to the microscopic corpse inching its way through her bowels.
 
That night, she showered, brushed her teeth, and went to bed with a podcast playing beside her.
 
Morning came with filtered sun through gauzy curtains. Casey rose early, stretched, and made herself a protein shake. She sipped it while scrolling through emails. At the hospital, she slipped into her scrubs and joined the nursing station, updating charts, taking vitals, checking IV drips.
 
She made rounds. She smiled at patients. She laughed at a joke from Dr. Haskins in the hallway. She wolfed down a granola bar in a spare moment between patients and sipped lukewarm coffee. Her insides churned in quiet, automatic rhythm.
 
Peristalsis gripped Freddy’s remains—now twisted into a dark, hardened curl—and moved him inch by inch through the narrow coils of intestine. He no longer resembled a man. His arms were bent awkwardly against his chest. His jaw was sealed shut by dry, necrotic tissue. His eyes were long gone, dissolved, leaving only dark sockets and a burned hole where a nose had been. What little hair he had was matted with semi-digested food matter.
 
All around him, the walls of Casey’s intestines contracted in slow, purposeful waves. It was humid, suffocating, silent but for the distant slosh and squelch of bodily function. Foul gases passed him. Nutrients were absorbed from the soup that had once engulfed him. Every molecule of value was taken. He was waste now. Nothing more.
 
Casey tied her scrub top tighter and checked on a patient coding down the hall. She administered epinephrine. She helped save a life.
 
She had no idea she had taken one.
 
The hospital bustled with motion—nurses moving between rooms, monitors beeping, and wheels squeaking across linoleum. Casey moved through it all smoothly, clipboard in hand, a smile on her freckled face. She’d just helped reposition an elderly patient and scarfed down half a protein bar at the nurse’s station.
 
Then came the pressure.
 
It started low, just beneath her navel—a thick, tightening pulse. Not painful, just urgent. A slow cramp, followed by the unmistakable heaviness of waste ready to be passed. She knew her body well. This wasn’t a drill.
 
She ducked out between rounds and entered the staff bathroom down the hall—a single-occupant unit with gray tile, harsh fluorescent light, and the faint antiseptic scent of industrial disinfectant barely covering the lingering human smells of long shifts and hard use.
 
She locked the door behind her. The click was soft.
 
The room was cool. The air felt still. She pulled down her scrub pants and sat.
 
Below her, gravity took over. Her body expelled waste in quiet, rhythmic contractions. The stool was thick, dense, unremarkable. The air turned sour, tinged with salt and fermentation. She wrinkled her nose, reached for her phone, and began scrolling Instagram while her body finished its task.
 
The first log dropped with a muted thunk into the bowl. It was thick, compact, and coiled slightly as it settled—dark brown, almost black at its core, with a glossy sheen from mucus and moisture. Steam lifted faintly off its surface, curling into the air with the sour, earthy stench of fermentation and bile.
 
This segment was composed mostly of bulked fiber and protein residue from the meals before the tomato soup. It was heavy, smooth at the outer layer, but broken in one spot by a faint crack that revealed a dense, undigested sliver of what might have once been spinach. There was no sign of Freddy.
 
The second piece emerged slowly, stretching slightly as it passed, a little softer—more irregular in shape, a pale brown at the edges, darker at the center. Its texture was uneven, lumpy in parts, and it twisted slightly as it settled against the first.
 
This segment bore the remnants of the tomato bisque: red-tinted pockets, streaks of darkened oil, and small seeds embedded throughout. It smelled strongly of garlic and acid, and the air in the bowl grew hotter, thicker.
 
Still no Freddy.
 
The final piece slipped free with a wet, almost silent plop. It was the smallest, but the foulest-smelling. It was a cracked, twisted coil—looser in structure, but with a mummified density in its center. As it landed, it folded over slightly, revealing a dark nub pressed into its midsection.
 
That nub was Freddy.
 
His body had dried into a tight, charred curl no longer than a grain of rice. His arms were bent in unnatural angles, fingers curled like claws. One leg was missing below the knee—likely digested or torn during intestinal contractions. His head was intact, tilted back, jaw agape. His eye sockets were hollow. A patch of blackened scalp still clung to one side of the skull, matted with filth.
 
He was lodged halfway in the stool, partially protruding like a seed in clay. A thread of mucus ran from his ribcage to the surrounding waste like a connective web. The stench was unbearable up close: rot, death, and stomach acid woven into one.
 
Casey wiped, flushed, and left the stall. She barely glanced at the contents of the bowl
 
There was no splash. Just the slow spinning of water and waste, a swirl of water yanked Freddy down into darkness. His mummified corpse spun once, twice—then vanished.
Casey washed her hands. Her fingers smelled faintly of lavender soap and nothing more.
 
Gone.
 
Casey washed her hands at the stainless steel sink, scrubbing under her nails. She glanced in the mirror, adjusted her ponytail, and offered herself a small, confident smile.
 
Then she walked back into the fluorescent-lit hallway, ready to return to work.
End Notes:

If there's any particular meal you'd like to see served, even a particular person or type of person to served or served to, feel free to make a request.


Comment with Meal, Person, victim, feel free to add character details or names as well. I might not do every request, but they'll all be considered.


This story will be ongoing for a little while.

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Bradley by Din Korlac
Author's Notes:


Joanna was in line at Walmart, second from the front, when the shouting started.

A couple stood ahead of her—late twenties, maybe. The man was tall, red-faced, barking insults at the woman beside him. His voice punched the air, loud enough for half the store to hear.

“Don’t fucking start with me again,” he snarled, jabbing a finger in her face. “I swear to God, I’ll backhand you right here.”

The woman flinched. Her hands trembled as she placed items on the belt. Her face was already damp with tears.

Even the cashier paused, wide-eyed.

Joanna said nothing.

She watched.

The couple paid. The woman didn’t say another word. They walked out, tension trailing them like smoke.

Joanna checked out fast and followed.

The parking lot was hot, asphalt steaming under the afternoon sun. She stayed back, just far enough to not be noticed.

Near a faded red sedan, the man erupted again. His voice cracked with rage as he screamed into the woman’s face. Then—slap.

Joanna’s grip tightened around her shopping bag as she watched the slap land.

 

Crack.

 

The sound echoed in the parking lot. Not loud, but sharp. Final. The kind of sound that sticks to the bones, long after the moment passes.

 

The girlfriend staggered back, one hand clutching her face, the other holding her phone uselessly at her side. She didn’t cry at first—just stood there, stunned, disbelief flickering behind wet eyes. Then he shouted again, called her something else—something worse. Joanna didn’t catch the word, but the tone said enough.

 

“Walk your stupid ass home,” Bradley barked, slamming the trunk shut.

 

The woman turned and walked. Not fast. Not slow. Just broken.

 

Joanna stood frozen, plastic handles biting into her fingers, rage blooming low in her chest—not hot, but cold. Icy. Surgical.

 

Bradley fished his keys from his pocket, muttering. Angry, but only because he’d had an audience. He yanked the car door open.

 

That was the last thing he remembered.

 

 

Darkness.

 

A hard snap, like air being torn inside out.

 

Then—

 

Glass.

 

Cold. Round. Smooth. Bradley’s hands slapped against the wall, but there was no give. He turned in frantic circles, hyperventilating, his entire world only a few inches wide. But it felt like a canyon—too large, too close, too wrong.

 

“What the—WHAT THE—”

 

His voice cracked—high-pitched, weak. Pathetic.

 

His body felt… wrong. Loose. Light. Like the air had gotten thicker, heavier, pressing on him from all sides. The glass was clear, but warped slightly—like a fishbowl—and everything beyond was enormous. Monstrous.

 

A shadow passed over him.

 

Then Joanna’s face appeared.

 

Huge.

 

Calm.

 

Her eyes didn’t widen. No dramatic smile. No monologue.

 

Just a steady gaze, clinical and appraising, like she was deciding whether to keep a knickknack or throw it out.

 

Bradley stumbled backward, slipped on the curved bottom of the vial, landed hard.

 

“LET ME OUT!” he screamed, voice shrill, echoing off the glass.

 

Joanna said nothing.

 

She raised the vial to eye level, tilted it slightly. He slid, helpless, tumbling, landing in a heap. His knees scraped against the smooth interior. He tried to stand, but the glass curved away from him like a mocking horizon.

 

Joanna placed the cork back in with a soft pop.

 

Now it was airtight.

 

Warm.

 

Bradley screamed again, pounding tiny fists against the side. His breath fogged the interior. Sweat broke on his forehead. He could smell himself—panic, sweat, the faint sour reek of plastic.

 

He didn’t know where he was.

 

He didn’t know what he was.

 

But Joanna did.

 

She slipped the vial into her jacket pocket, turned, and walked calmly back toward her car. Her groceries rustled with each step. She still needed to unload them, go home, wash up, and think about dinner.

 

Not hers, of course.

 

Someone else’s.

 

Joanna placed the vial on the kitchen counter, directly under the warm, yellow glow of the overhead light.

 

Bradley tumbled to one side, groaning, his hands pressed flat against the inner glass, leaving tiny, sweaty smears. He was hoarse from screaming, reduced to twitchy pacing and sudden bursts of rage. She didn’t bother watching him now.

 

She sipped her tea.

 

The air smelled of mint and lemon peel. Clean. Controlled.

 

She leaned against the counter, arms crossed, eyes fixed on nothing in particular as she began to think. Not if. Just how.

 

It would have to be a woman.

That much was obvious.

 

Someone he would’ve dismissed in life. Someone he’d talk over. Hit on. Belittle. Someone who, by simply existing, had reminded him of how small he truly was inside.

 

She pictured the slap again—the way his hand moved like he thought it was his right. The lazy cruelty in it. He didn’t even look afterward. No guilt. Just muscle memory. Power used like a hammer.

 

So no, Bradley wouldn’t dissolve in just anyone.

 

He would be fed to a woman. But not just any woman.

 

Someone bright. Lively. Joyful. Someone who probably would’ve laughed him off or ignored him—either of which would have driven him insane.

 

She wanted the final image his brain could comprehend to be a towering woman laughing or chewing or chatting with her friend as she unknowingly consumed him. Insult added to injury.

 

Joanna tapped her fingernail against the ceramic mug.

 

Maybe one of the college girls.

The ones who come in around eight. They giggle too loud. They dress in layers of thrift and chaos. They order weird cocktails. Always take photos of their food.

 

He would’ve hated them.

 

Or maybe the nurse who comes in after night shift. Sweet. Freckled. Tired. She always tips well and reads at the table when she dines alone. The idea of Bradley in her soup or tucked into her pasta—while she quietly unwinds after 12 hours of saving lives—pleased Joanna more than she expected.

 

She reached out and tapped the glass of the vial with her fingernail.

 

Bradley flinched, whirling to face her. His eyes were red and wide, teeth bared in a fury he couldn’t back up. He tried to say something—probably another threat, another command—but the sound didn’t reach her.

 

Joanna smiled slightly.

 

She picked up the vial, tilted it gently in her palm, and walked to her bedroom. She placed it inside a padded pouch, zipped it closed, and slid it into the small satchel she’d be bringing to work that night.

 

She had two hours.

 

Time to prep. Time to eat. Time to think.

 

Tonight, Bradley would enter the world of women he so clearly resented.

 

And one of them would return the favor—without ever knowing.

 

Carmichaels, 7:44 p.m.

 

The restaurant hummed with voices, silverware clinking against porcelain. The kitchen was chaos wrapped in choreography—flames roaring, orders flying, plates gliding from line to tray.

 

Joanna moved through it all like a ghost in the walls—unseen, unbothered, calm.

 

Table 12 was hers tonight. Two women. Mid-thirties. Well-dressed but relaxed. Comfortable in their skin. The kind of women Bradley would’ve sneered at or eyed like a rack of meat. Now, one of them was about to finish him.

 

The Black woman had natural curls pinned back and wore gold hoops that caught the light every time she laughed. She had an ease about her—commanding without trying. Her meal was roasted chicken breast over saffron rice, with spiced carrots and a honey-harissa glaze.

 

The white woman had a more muted presence, auburn hair tucked behind her ears, thin glasses perched low on her nose. Her smile was quick, her voice soft. She had ordered the lemon-pepper linguine with seared scallops and shaved pecorino.

 

Joanna made her decision with the flick of an eye.

 

The Black woman.

He would’ve hated her joy. Her confidence. The fact she didn’t even see men like him.

 

He would see her now.

 

Up close.

 

 

In the kitchen, she stepped to the prep station, out of camera view.

 

The chicken was done—perfectly seared, glaze gleaming, nestled on a bed of golden rice.

 

Joanna opened her satchel.

 

The vial was still warm.

 

Bradley was pressed to the side, face twisted in exhaustion and terror. His hands were red and shaking. His eyes locked on hers the moment the light hit him.

 

Joanna didn’t say a word.

 

She uncorked the vial slowly. Deliberate. There was no rush. She used the handle of a dessert spoon—cool, silver, sterile—to slide him out. He landed in the rice with a soft pfft, vanishing just slightly into the saffron threads.

 

He immediately tried to stand, only to sink slightly. The rice clung to him, yellow grains sticking to his limbs. He screamed, but it was like shouting into pillows.

 

Joanna wasn’t done.

 

She took a tiny pinch of sumac—dark red, citrusy, sharp—and sprinkled it gently over the plate.

 

A few grains landed on Bradley’s torso, staining his skin red. One stuck in his hair. She used the spoon to nudge a few grains of rice higher around his legs—enough to trap, not bury. Enough to hold him in place.

 

Then the final touch: a few drops of the honey-harissa glaze.

 

It dripped warm and golden across the plate, one stream sliding over Bradley’s shoulder, sticking him in place like syrup on an insect wing.

 

He could still see.

 

He had to.

 

Joanna lifted the plate carefully.

 

Then she smiled.

 

 

Table 12

 

The women were mid-laugh when Joanna arrived.

 

“Here you are—roasted chicken, and the linguine for you. Enjoy, ladies.”

 

They thanked her. Joanna nodded, stepped away.

 

Bradley, embedded in the rice, looked up—and saw her.

 

The woman he had once, in another life, thought he could talk over.

 

Now, her face filled the sky. Beautiful. Radiant. Powerful.

 

She picked up her fork.

 

Bradley couldn’t breathe.

 

Not really. Every breath was tainted—thick with cumin, cinnamon, garlic, and something sweet and sharp that burned the inside of his nose. The saffron rice clung to him like wet insulation, the grains enormous, sticky, and hot. His skin was glazed in something warm and tacky that shimmered under the lights—honey-harissa, Joanna had said, though he hadn’t known what that was until it was on him.

 

Everything reeked of food. Sweet, earthy, and wrong. The scent filled his mouth and nose, overpowered his thoughts. He couldn’t tell where he ended and the meal began.

 

His body hurt. He couldn’t move. His legs were trapped in a clump of rice. One arm was glued to his ribs with sauce. The other twitched, free but useless. The sumac on his chest burned with its acidic bite. He could feel every sticky fiber drying on his skin.

 

And then the world shifted.

 

The plate moved—gently, smoothly—but to Bradley it felt like an earthquake. He slid half an inch, screamed, and bit down on his tongue.

 

No one heard.

 

The fork came.

 

Massive, silver, pronged like a medieval weapon. It stabbed into the rice near his feet, lifting a steaming pile of saffron and carrot into the air. He craned his neck, eyes wild, watching the fork rise like a crane lifting wreckage.

 

Beyond it, she loomed.

 

The woman.

 

Dark skin glowing in the ambient light, gold hoops swinging gently, lips parted in mid-laughter. Her smile was devastating. Confident. Effortless.

 

She would’ve terrified him before.

 

Now she was godlike. Divine. Her presence filled the sky. And she didn’t even know he was there.

 

She opened her mouth.

 

Bradley screamed.

 

The fork disappeared between her lips. Her teeth flashed—white, perfect, powerful. Her mouth closed, and for a moment, the world was still.

 

Then she chewed.

 

The sound was thunderous. Wet. Grinding. Loud enough to rattle his bones, even from the plate. He could hear the crushed grains breaking, feel the weight of what he had narrowly avoided.

 

For now.

 

Her throat flexed.

 

GULP.

 

Gone.

 

She moaned softly at the flavor. “Oh my god—this is incredible,” she said to her friend, dabbing her mouth with her napkin. “I haven’t had chicken like this in years.”

 

The fork came again.

 

Closer.

 

It stabbed just to the left of him, lifting part of the chicken breast and a thick layer of rice with it. A splash of glaze landed across his face, stinging his eyes.

 

Bradley cried. Snot ran from his nose. He tried to scream again, but his throat burned.

 

Another bite. Chewing. Laughing.

 

They’re talking about vacation plans.

 

They’re talking about concerts.

 

They’re talking about men. About life. About anything but him.

 

And yet here he was—naked, burning, degraded, seasoned, plated. A garnish. A smear on a dish.

 

She lifted her water glass. Took a sip. Her lips left condensation on the rim.

 

Then the fork hovered over him.

 

It came down—

 

 He couldn’t breathe.

 

Not because of the glaze or the rice pressing against his chest—but from sheer, paralyzing terror.

 

Every few seconds, the fork crashed down into his world like a god’s weapon, lifting a chunk of rice and chicken into the heavens. And each time, Bradley flinched, bracing for the metal to pierce him or lift him or crush him.

 

He knew it was coming.

 

But there was nowhere to go. The sticky glaze had glued one leg down completely, and the rice had hardened around his ribs. All he could do was move his arms and scream.

 

No one could hear him.

 

The woman leaned forward slightly. She said something light to her friend—something casual, like “this is so good”—then lifted the next bite.

 

The fork dipped low.

Scraped the grains.

 

Scooped him up.

 

Bradley screamed once, a raw, shrill sound, as the world tilted violently. The heat surged into his face, and then—light exploded. The restaurant vanished behind the blur of her lips as her face filled his entire vision.

 

She was breathtaking from below.

 

Full lips, slightly glossy with oil from the meal. A faint shimmer of pink beneath soft brown skin. The edges crinkled as she chewed. Her tongue flicked briefly across her lower lip to catch a drop of sauce.

 

Her mouth opened.

 

A humid wave rolled out—rich with the scent of pepper, vinegar, wine, and half-chewed meat. Her breath was deep, warm, alive. The inside of her mouth glistened: teeth like polished marble, saliva pooled beneath her tongue, pink flesh flexing with each word she spoke.

 

Bradley’s forkload entered.

 

He saw the tongue first—massive, powerful, slick with wetness, moving with terrifying grace. It curled under the food, catching it, guiding it toward the center. He slid off the rice mound and rolled across the muscle like a wet insect on a slick stone.

 

He was still alive.

 

Still aware.

 

And now, inside her.

 

The teeth slammed shut. A crack of bone and air pressure.

 

CRUNCH.

Chicken and rice shattered around him. A molar clipped his arm—splintered it instantly. He screamed. Hot saliva drenched him. The world became sound and grinding and flesh.

 

Her tongue pulsed, flipping him beneath the food, squeezing him. Rice smothered his face. Her cheeks flexed. He tried to crawl forward—toward her teeth, toward the light—but the tongue shoved back, commanding the meal downward.

 

Then: the swallow.

 

GULP.

 

The pressure around his body grew impossible. A wet pull gripped his torso. His lungs collapsed. His ears popped. He slid, still conscious, still burning with fear, into the velvet-black tunnel of her throat.

 

It squeezed around him like a muscular noose, dragging him down.

 

He couldn’t scream anymore.

 

The Stomach

 

The descent ended with a splash.

 

He landed in hell.

 

It was wet, cramped, and moving. The walls breathed—pulsing with slow, monstrous rhythm. Folds of muscle slick with acid and mucus surrounded him. The air was foul: sweet, rotting, chemical, and choking. Bits of food floated around him—mushed rice, chewed meat, and a stringy piece of something already half-dissolved.

 

It burned.

 

Not like fire. Worse. Like being boiled in acid-soaked wool. His skin blistered almost immediately. Every breath seared his throat. He crawled across a slick, spongy ridge, but the folds closed around him again—squeezing, massaging, melting everything inside.

 

From above, more food rained down.

 

Chunks of rice. Bits of chicken. A sliver of red onion.

 

She was still eating.

 

The stomach groaned deeply—sllrrrrkkhhk. A wave of fluid surged over him. It burned his back. His legs were raw now, exposed muscle.

 

He tried to move. He tried to pray.

 

But the stomach didn’t care.

 

The walls flexed again, dragging the acid over him like a tide. His nerves fired until they couldn’t. His skin bubbled. His hands curled tight from pain.

 

And yet—he didn’t dissolve.

 

He remained.

 

Charred, blackened, twisted into a fetal knot, but whole. The stomach simply moved on, beginning to churn the next bite.

 

Somewhere above, the woman smiled.

 

She sipped her wine.

 

The dinner had been excellent.


Joanna moved through the dining floor like nothing happened.

Table 12 laughed again. The woman—Bradley’s final audience—dabbed the corner of her mouth with a linen napkin, lifted her wineglass, and said something about “finally getting a night off.” Her friend leaned in, smiling. No idea. Not the faintest ripple of suspicion.

Joanna watched for just long enough.

The chicken was gone.

The rice, too—cleared. Every grain devoured. There was nothing left of him now. Not a toe. Not a scream. Not a trace. Just a faint acid churn in a stranger’s stomach, already fading into background noise.

She turned and walked back toward the kitchen, eyes forward, face serene.

Each step was measured.

Her heart beat slow and steady. No adrenaline. No thrill. Just that deep, grounding feeling—the kind that hummed low in the bones like a low note on a cello.

Bradley was inside her now.

Not Joanna. Her.

That woman—strong, radiant, unknowingly perfect for the role—carried his body inside her stomach. His arms, his mouth, his rage—all breaking down inside the very thing he hated most. A woman. A woman who didn’t notice. Didn’t care. Didn’t even pause between bites.

He had wanted control.

He’d been reduced to waste.

Joanna stepped into the back cooler just for a moment. Just for air.

She leaned against the shelf stacked with herbs and greens and let her eyes close. No one followed her. No one knocked.

Bradley was gone.

Digested.

Soon, flushed away as nothing more than fertilizer for city sewage and forgotten wine.

She exhaled softly.

Not a sigh.

A release.

 

Her name was Tasha. She’d gone out with her friend after a long week—just two women unwinding, laughing about work, dating, life. Tasha worked in public health, managed two teams, and spent most of her days putting out fires no one else could handle.

 

That night, she ordered something heavier than usual. The roasted chicken with saffron rice had sounded just exotic enough, and the glaze—what was that, honey and harissa?—had added this rich, slow heat she could still taste on her lips even hours later.

 

Back home, she showered. Moisturized. Watched an episode of something she barely paid attention to, scrolling her phone until sleep found her.

 

She felt full. Warm. Satisfied.

 

No different than any other night.

 

Inside her body, the food moved without question.

 

And deep in the slurry of rice and acids and half-chewed chicken, something didn’t melt. Not fully.

 

 

Tasha woke to a soft alarm, stretched beneath her comforter, and yawned. Her body moved without hesitation—no aches, no discomfort. She brewed her coffee, added oat milk, and stood in the kitchen scrolling emails before the mug had even cooled.

 

Her stomach worked silently beneath her skin.

 

The rice was long gone by now. Absorbed. Pulled apart and distributed. The chicken had been reduced to amino acids and fatty residue. A few indigestible fibers continued their journey downward.

 

Bradley was among them.

 

Or what was left of him.

 

He no longer resembled a man.

 

The acid had hardened his skin into something like burnt parchment. His limbs had shriveled inward. His features collapsed under the pressure. His bones were intact—but brittle, darkened by chemical breakdown. He floated in a thin slick of waste now, slowly pushed along by muscular contractions he couldn’t even understand.

 

Tasha went to work.

 

She parked, walked in, sipped her second coffee of the morning while chatting with coworkers. She presented in a 9 a.m. meeting, smiled during the Q&A. She complimented someone’s shoes in the elevator.

 

Inside her, Bradley’s remains were moving through the small intestine.

 

Molecules were still being stripped away from the rice and sauce that once surrounded him. But his blackened, mummified form? Useless. Nothing to extract. Nothing to repurpose.

 

His body was a husk.

 

A shriveled thing, being gently escorted to the bowel.

 

She slept like a rock that night.

 

Her gut was quiet. Her body moved with the calm certainty of a woman who ate clean, hydrated well, and got enough sleep.

 

She drank a green smoothie mid-morning.

 

Met a colleague for lunch.

 

Laughed hard enough at a meme that she choked on her water.

 

Her intestines moved in slow, steady rhythm, their peristaltic waves curling and squeezing, guiding the stool toward the final stretch.

 

Bradley’s body was curled now in a dark coil of waste—pressed near the front of it. The remains had folded inward, like a black shrimp. His head and shoulders were visible, twisted, shriveled. One arm was missing from the elbow down. The other was bent across his chest, rigid. His legs were curled beneath him, fused together by the heat and acids of her stomach.

 

All around him: warmth, stench, damp walls.

 

His world was a slow-moving tube of decay, indifferent and slow.

 

Tasha binge-watched a documentary that night while doing laundry.

 

She had no dreams.

 

Tasha sipped coffee from her insulated mug as she walked through the sliding doors of the office.

 

She waved hello to the receptionist. Rode the elevator to the 4th floor. Dropped her bag at her desk, answered two emails, and felt the familiar pressure in her lower abdomen.

 

A gentle cramp.

 

No urgency. Just routine.

 

She rose, smiled at a colleague, and walked to the private staff restroom. Her heels clicked lightly on the tile. The room was clean, quiet, bathed in soft light. She locked the door. Rolled up her sleeves. Pulled her skirt up and underwear down.

 

And sat.

 

Her body worked like a machine.

 

The pressure released slowly, efficiently.

 

The stool moved out in segments, as it always did—her body naturally pinching off the waste in waves. The first segment slid free: thick, solid, gently curved. It hit the water with a muted thump, steam lifting immediately.

 

This first segment was the one that carried Bradley.

 

He was lodged into the midsection of the coil, partly visible on one side—his back curved, one shoulder protruding slightly. His body was dark brown and black, hardened like driftwood left too long in fire. His face was unrecognizable—sunken, twisted, buried under a slick film of bile and mucus.

 

Segment two followed seconds later—softer, coated with oil, streaked with yellow.

 

Segment three came last—a bit more moist, a little messier in its exit.

 

Tasha wiped, stood, flushed.

 

Bradley spun once, twice, then vanished into the bowl’s spiral, pulled into the sewer with everything else the body deemed unnecessary.

 

She washed her hands to the elbows, humming a song she barely remembered. The scent of citrus soap filled the air.

 

By 9:26 a.m., she was back at her desk.

 

Smiling.

 

Typing.

 

Whole.


End Notes:

If there's any particular meal you'd like to see served, even a particular person or type of person to served or served to, feel free to make a request.


Comment with Meal, Person, victim, feel free to add character details or names as well. I might not do every request, but they'll all be considered.


This story will be ongoing for a little while.

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The Redneck by Din Korlac
Author's Notes:

This chapter is a bit different. This was a request that piqued my curiosity with the sheer terror of the idea. We will return to our regularly schedule programming after this. The next chapter will be the longest so far.



The hum of Carmichael’s was its own quiet symphony—forks whispering across porcelain, wineglasses clinking in delicate chorus, soft jazz threading through the air like silk. Overhead, the amber glow of faux-vintage light fixtures bathed the dark wood in warmth, making even the shadows feel expensive. To the guests, it was ambiance. To Joanna, it was a cloak.

 

Her black slacks were crisp, her burgundy apron spotless. A pen was tucked behind one ear, and a curl of dark auburn hair danced against her cheek every time she turned her head. Her stride was smooth, confident, practiced. She had worked here for two years, and her tables adored her. Her laughter, when it came, was genuine enough to disarm even the most surly patron. And when she cooked back in the kitchen—on the rare occasion the chef let her—something inside her lit up like flint against steel.

 

But tonight, it flickered uncertainly.

 

Table 14 had arrived just after six: a young couple with a newborn swaddled in a pale yellow blanket. The mother was radiant. Her long, tired face lighting up when Joanna crouched beside her and cooed at the baby. The child’s eyes fluttered open, large and impossibly blue.

 

“Boy or girl?” Joanna had asked, voice soft as velvet.

 

“Boy,” the mother said. “His name is Liam.”

 

Joanna forced the smile wider. Liam.

 

“That’s a strong name,” she whispered. “He’s beautiful.”

 

The father offered a polite nod and smiled. The mother’s eyes shimmered in the low light. “Thank you,” she said, the word barely audible over the soft gurgle from the child’s tiny throat. Joanna straightened and took their orders, voice cheerful, joking about the eternal decision between risotto and the house pasta.

 

She moved to her other tables, navigating the shifting terrain of wine preferences, allergy modifications, and subtle flirtations. It was a Thursday night—mellow, but not dead. Carmichael’s catered to the tasteful and well-off. People with sleek leather wallets and teeth so white they looked artificial.

 

Then came the redneck table. Table 6.

 

The stink of cigarettes clung to the man like a second skin, buried under sweat and stale cologne. His shirt was a ripped flannel patchwork of red and grime, exposing sinewy arms dappled with sunspots and a fading Confederate flag tattoo. His jeans were streaked with mud so thick and dried it cracked when he shifted in his chair. He smiled with a mouthful of yellowed teeth that looked like they’d been filed with a brick.

 

Joanna was setting down their second round of drinks when he jerked his chin toward Table 14.

 

“You see that over there?” he drawled, voice gravel-thick, barely concealing the sneer. “Ain’t no one wanna see that while eatin’ dinner.”

 

Joanna turned, heart hardening.

 

The mother had discreetly draped a light muslin cloth over herself. The baby suckled quietly beneath it, a faint, rhythmic wet noise that was almost soothing in its naturalness. The father gently rubbed her back as she glanced nervously around the room.

 

Joanna returned her attention to the man, smile strained but in place. “We allow breastfeeding here. Management supports new mothers.”

 

He scoffed, leaned in so she could smell the rot behind his breath—cheap beer and something sourer, like curdled milk. “It’s disgusting,” he spat. “Exposin’ herself like that in public. What’s wrong with people these days?”

 

“That’s policy, sir,” she replied quietly. “We have several staff members who are mothers. One of our servers pumps during her shift.”

 

His mouth twisted, rage and ridicule dancing together behind his rheumy eyes. “People like that are what’s wrong with the world,” he growled.

 

Joanna stood straighter. “I’m sorry you feel that way.”

 

The man raised his voice deliberately, just enough for the sound to ripple toward Table 14. “Disgustin’, just disgustin’. There are children here!”

 

Joanna felt it before she saw it—the way the mother’s shoulders tightened, the way her face crumpled in slow motion like paper being crushed. Her fingers trembled as she tried to adjust the muslin. The baby began to fuss, tugging and squirming under the blanket. The mother looked down, her lips trembling. “Let’s go,” she said suddenly, blinking furiously. “Please, can we just go?”

 

The father looked confused, then furious. “What? No. Don’t let that asshole ruin—”

 

“Please!” she whispered.

 

The sound of the chair legs scraping back was deafening to Joanna. The plate in her hand suddenly felt like lead. The heat in her temples, in her chest, behind her eyes—too much. The baby’s quiet wail, the mother’s shamed retreat, the country table’s smug snickering—it all tangled inside her like a noose of glass wire.

 

She moved to the kitchen. Fast. Too fast. One of the busboys startled as she passed, mumbling an apology, but Joanna didn’t hear him. The cold line of the prep counter grounded her. Her fingers curled around its edge until her knuckles turned white.

 

Breathe. Just breathe.

 

She could still feel the baby’s warmth from earlier on her forearm. Still hear the wet suckle of tiny lips and the soft click of the mother’s wedding ring as she adjusted the muslin. Smell the infant—milk and lavender soap, clean and human and fragile. The father’s cologne had been fresh cedarwood, not too strong. A family trying to have a night out. A mother doing everything right.

 

And that… thing, that man… he didn’t just humiliate her. He wounded her.

 

The kitchen door swung open behind her with a puff of heat and the hiss of sautéing garlic. “Joanna,” came the sous-chef’s voice, tinged with concern. “You good?”

 

She turned, composed. The mask slipped back on like a veil.

 

“Fine,” she said. “Just hot back here.”

 

He nodded and ducked out.

 

But her fingertips still pulsed. Her throat tightened around something unspoken. The kitchen smells—wine reductions, herbed butter, roasting lamb—felt suddenly noxious. She needed to move. Needed to forget.

 

Joanna returned to the floor.

 

She passed Table 14’s now-empty chairs, one of which had a crumpled napkin left behind like a white flag. She passed the redneck table, who laughed like pigs at a trough. She smiled. She smiled the whole way.

 

Two more hours, she thought.

 

Just two more hours.

 

And then? Then she’d go home.

 

The laughter at Table 6 had quieted by the time Joanna saw the check left behind, signed with a lazy scrawl and no tip. The scent of fried onions, cheap aftershave, and contempt still hung in the air, but the man—that man—was gone.

 

Joanna watched the host thank the group, open the front door for them. She caught the faintest echo of his voice outside, bragging, maybe, about “putting that little breastfeedin’ whore in her place.” Her fists clenched. Her smile didn’t falter. Not yet.

 

She waited.

 

When her tables were settled and her section quiet for a moment, she stepped outside. The humid night air wrapped around her like a damp shroud, thick with gasoline and the dying scent of fresh bread from the kitchen vents. The parking lot was dark, with only a few overhead lights buzzing like lazy wasps. She spotted him alone, fumbling in his truck bed for something—maybe a half-drunk Gatorade or the pride he’d just pissed away.

 

Her shoes made no sound on the pavement.

 

He turned just in time to see her expression.

 

That was the last thing he remembered before the world went black.

 

He awoke choking on air.

 

The walls around him were glass—thick, smooth, and seamless. He stumbled, disoriented, every part of his body screaming in confusion. The world tilted and swayed. Light filtered through the thick distortion of his tiny prison like a fever dream.

 

His arms—God, no—his arms were too thin. His legs trembled like reeds. His voice cracked and came out a hoarse squeak. He tried to scream, but it was nothing more than a puff of air against the echoing void around him.

 

Then came the shadow.

 

The hum of the restaurant faded the second Joanna stepped through the backroom door. A heavier silence waited here—just the slow, clicking churn of the old refrigerator and the low thrum of fluorescent lighting. Here, there were no witnesses. No wine lists. No clinking glasses. Only Joanna, her pulse thrumming hot and slow behind her ribs, and the country bumpkin—silent in her pocket.

 

She reached down and touched the vial through the fabric of her apron. It was warm from her body. The weight of it grounded her like a talisman, or perhaps an anchor. She could almost feel him inside—squirming, crying, praying. Good.

 

She remembered the look on his face outside the restaurant, under the dull orange parking lot light—blurry, contorted in confusion and fear just before he dropped like a felled ox. His big mouth had gone slack. His knees buckled like wet paper. He hit the concrete with a soft thud, too quiet for the night air.

 

He’d woken up—shrunk—trapped in a glass vial no taller than a Chapstick tube. Trapped in her hand.

 

Joanna had watched him flail at first, then sit very still. Then the screaming began. The kind only she could hear. A soundless fury trapped in a trembling body no bigger than a sesame seed.

 

“I wasn’t planning on anything tonight,” she told him quietly, almost kindly, as she crouched near a shelf of spare linens. Her breath fogged the glass. “But you, oh… you, country boy, you gave me a new idea. Something new. Something poetic.”

 

The man had stumbled backward inside the vial, pressing his spine against the smooth, cylindrical wall, as if he could will himself through the glass.

 

She simply smiled.

 

Now, back in the breakroom, she moved with fluid precision. Her apron slipped off and landed on a hook near the door. She crossed the room, opened Lexi’s locker, and found it: the pump bag, floral patterned and unassuming, the soft zipper handle like a whisper in her fingers.

 

She set it on the table.

 

Then came the vial.

 

She placed it beside the pump bag with reverence, like setting down communion wine. The man inside was on his knees now. She couldn’t hear him, not truly—but she didn’t need to.

 

Mouth open, arms raised, trembling.

 

He was praying.

 

Praying for salvation, for a god to intervene. Maybe praying for someone—anyone—to come save him from this wicked woman with her soft eyes and unreadable smile.

 

She leaned closer.

 

“What’s that?” she murmured, fingers already unzipping the pump bag. “Praying about the evil women do? Women and their bodies? Women and their breasts?”

 

She withdrew an empty pump bottle and set it beside him with a soft clink. The plastic was cold and glinted under the overhead light. She picked up the vial and the bottle simultaneously.

 

“Since you fear them so much,” she whispered, “you’ll get to see firsthand what they’re capable of.”

 

She twisted the bottle’s cap with one hand until it popped off with a dry snap. Then, gently, she uncorked the vial.

 

The man screamed. She could see it. The raw, unhinged panic in his limbs as he scrambled, dug his fingers into the curved glass, but gravity betrayed him. With a flick of her wrist, he tumbled forward. His screams became a blur of motion.

 

He spilled from the vial like a drop of liquor, sliding down the inside of the pump bottle. His limbs flailed, body twisting, tumbling—and then—

 

CRACK.

 

He hit the bottom wrong.

 

Joanna winced. Not from pain—for him—but from sheer aesthetic sympathy. That must’ve hurt. His arm was bent grotesquely, elbow twisted in a way that shouldn’t be possible. He curled inward, sobbing. Twitching. A single, choking cry echoed through the walls of the bottle, reverberating like a ghost’s last breath.

 

Joanna knelt and peered in through the mouth of the bottle, her eyes level with his broken form.

 

“Ohhh,” she cooed, voice thick with mock pity. “Was that your arm?”

 

The man was trying to crawl, dragging his limp limb behind him like a deflated balloon.

 

Joanna narrowed her eyes.

 

“Guess you should’ve kept your mouth shut, huh?”

 

She screwed the cap back on, tight.

 

The bottle, now warm with the heat of life inside it, slipped easily back into the pump bag. The bag zipped closed with a soft sssppp, like flesh parting around a blade.

 

She placed it back into Lexi’s locker, neatly, as though nothing inside had changed.

 

Just then—click.

 

The door behind her opened. Joanna turned, smoothly.

 

Lexi stepped in, smiling sleepily. “Hey Jo. Just needed a few minutes. I’m leaking bad.”

 

“Of course,” Joanna said with perfect warmth. “Take your time.”

 

Lexi nodded and closed the door behind her, locking it with a sharp clack. Joanna heard the locker open. Then the shuffle of the pump bag being placed on the table.

 

Then—quiet.

 

That beautiful kind of silence that hung just before the storm. The kind only Joanna seemed to hear.

 

She stood just outside the door for a moment longer, the corner of her mouth twitching upward.

 

And then she turned and walked back to the dining room.

 

There were tables to wait. Drinks to refill. Specials to upsell.

 

And, somewhere behind that locked door, justice was about to be extracted drop by warm, rhythmic drop.

 

He didn’t know where he was.

Not really.

 

The plastic bottle rocked gently in the dark, warm air of the breakroom. It stank faintly of sweat and plastic, and the last sharp trace of Joanna’s perfume clung to the neck of the bottle like a ghostly finger. Time no longer passed in hours or minutes, only heartbeats and shallow breaths—his—rapid, shivering.

 

His broken arm throbbed with a dull, wet heat. The pain was so thick it clung to his mind like glue. The curvature of the bottle’s base forced him into a crouch, his body aching with each tiny, pitiful shift.

 

Then—movement.

 

The world beyond the translucent walls shifted, shadows growing longer, shapes sharpening. The locker creaked open, and he froze.

 

She was back.

 

Not her—not the one with the cold smile and the shrinking vial.

This was someone else.

 

She was young. Shorter. Lighter on her feet. Her long hair was pulled into a messy braid, and her black and red button up shirt stretched slightly across her chest. She was one of the waitresses from the restaurant. She looked like she was in a hurry, she didn’t look toward the bottle—didn’t even know it was anything more than a container. She set the bag down and unzipped it with the hurried, but practiced rhythm of routine.

 

He watched, unmoving, breath held so tightly it hurt.

 

Then she unbuttoned her uniform shirt and removed both the shirt and her bra.

 

It was a motion as casual as one might remove a coat. To her, it meant nothing. But to him, it was everything.

 

Twin breasts—full, heavy, swollen—freed themselves with a gentle bounce. Her skin glowed faintly in the sterile light, beads of milk already dotting her swollen nipples like dew. She didn’t seem embarrassed. There was no hesitation.

 

She was beautiful in the way that nature is beautiful—powerful, primal, utterly unaware of the havoc she might wreak.

 

His heart thundered.

 

“No. No, God, please. Please.”

 

He began to mutter again, lips trembling, forehead against the slick interior of the bottle. The bottle’s rounded surface offered no escape.

 

Lexi took a seat and pulled out the pump machine—white plastic, polished tubing, and bottle attachments. Her fingers worked with brisk efficiency. She hummed something under her breath—gentle and wordless. He watched as she grabbed the other bottle from the table and attached it to the pump.

 

Then—his bottle was lifted.

 

He screamed.

 

Soundless, pitiful.

 

The sudden jolt of motion sent his stomach lurching. His broken arm flared with blinding pain. The bottle cap unscrewed with a pop, and suddenly, the stale air was gone. It was replaced with something thicker—moist, humid, and laced with the warm, rich scent of flesh and milk.

 

He looked up—

 

The sky was breasts. He saw her swollen nipples pressed into the suction cups.

 

And then—pressure.

 

The wide suction cup of the pump sealed around Lexi’s nipple with a soft squelch. The tubing snaked back to the bottle like an umbilical cord.

 

He tried to back away. There was nowhere to go. He was in a bottle. A trap.

 

“Please don’t, please don’t, please—”

 

Whrrrrr.

 

The pump whined to life. A rhythmic sucking began—soft at first, then deeper, stronger. He stared in terror, watching her nipple move back and forth as the pump pulled at her nipples.

 

Lexi leaned back. Her eyes fluttered. Her chest rose and fell slowly.

 

And then—drip…

 

The first drop hit the bottle floor like molten wax.

 

Drip…

Another.

 

Drip… drip… drip…

 

He screamed again, hoarse and panicked, as the white liquid began to pool around him. It was hot, thicker than he imagined, and clung to his skin like syrup. It smelled sweet and animal, like something he wasn’t supposed to touch.

 

He tried to crawl away.

 

The milk followed him.

 

Drip…

Drip…

Drip…

 

Over the next ten minutes, the milk was steadily dripping. The bottle’s floor disappeared beneath a rising pool of human milk. It lapped at his ankles. His knees. His waist.

 

His arm dangled uselessly. He tried to climb the bottle’s side, but it was useless—sheer, smooth plastic. He slipped and fell, face-first, into the milk, choking.

 

It stung his eyes.

 

It filled his mouth.

 

It coated his lungs with a warmth he couldn’t breathe through.

 

He began to float—not by choice, but by necessity. He kicked weakly, holding his head above the surface.

 

The sound of the suction.

The soft sighs of Lexi.

His own shallow, ragged breathing.

 

That was the world.

 

Eventually, the flow slowed. Lexi reached down and unhooked the bottle with a soft click. Her fingers wrapped around the sides—gentle, indifferent.

 

He was trembling, his legs splayed, floating atop the milk like a broken insect.

 

The warmth around him was now nearly body temperature, hers and his, an awful, perverse cradle.

 

She removed the bottles from the pump and placed it on the table, steam fogging the upper rim.

She screwed a nipple onto both filled bottles, sealing them shut. He was sealed inside.

 

He watched helplessly as she disassembled the pump, piece by piece. Tubes folded. Cups wiped. All tucked neatly into the floral-patterned bag.

 

Everything dimmed. His view of the world was now through the silicone dome of a bottle’s teat. The milk sloshed gently around him with every movement.

 

He barely noticed when she placed both bottles in her lunch box. The closing zipper screamed like a coffin lid.

 

Moments later, he felt motion again. Each step jostled him slightly. Milk splashed into his face. He didn’t even scream anymore.

 

Lexi’s voice filtered through the walls of the lunchbox.

 

“Bye, Joanna!”

 

Joanna’s voice, distant but unmistakably smug:

“See you tomorrow, Lex.”

 

Then the door opened. Cold air kissed the milk bottle for the first time.

 

The car door slammed shut.

The engine turned.

Music played softly.

 

And he floated.

 

Suspended in heat.

In silence.

In her.

 

The lock clicked, and Lexi stepped inside the apartment with the weight of exhaustion in every limb. The door swung shut behind her with a soft thump, cutting off the night air and the distant sound of crickets chirping outside.

 

Warmth greeted her—home, safe and familiar.

 

The lights were low. The television cast blue flickers against the far wall, and on the couch, her husband sat cradling their sleeping baby in his arms.

 

“Hey, babe,” he said, voice soft.

 

Lexi smiled, tired but happy. She set the floral-patterned pump bag on the kitchen counter with a soft clunk, followed by the insulated lunchbox. The movement stirred the milk within—sloshing faintly inside its plastic prison.

 

Inside, he drifted near the top of the bottle, barely conscious, his breath shallow. The milk was no longer hot, but now thick and tepid, a lukewarm fog pressing into every pore of his skin.

 

The distant murmur of a TV show filtered into his prison. He couldn’t make out the words, only the rise and fall of dialogue, the laugh track like a ghoulish echo through the fluid.

 

Lexi kicked off her shoes, stretching her toes against the hardwood floor. “God, my feet are killing me,” she groaned. She padded over to the couch and sat beside her husband, watching the tiny bundle in his arms start to squirm.

 

Then—a cry.

High-pitched, urgent.

 

“Sounds like someone’s hungry,” she murmured. She reached out, taking the baby from her husband, gently nestling her against her chest. She was halfway through lifting her shirt when she paused, memory flickering.

 

“Oh—wait. I just pumped before I left.” She gave a breathy laugh. “Can you grab one of the bottles from my lunchbox?”

 

“Yeah, sure.”

 

He stood, moving toward the kitchen. She gently rocked the baby in her arms, cooing softly. From inside the lunchbox, the world shifted. The bottle tilted, jostled by a hand unaware of its contents.

 

His prison swayed.

 

Then—lifted.

 

Panic surged as the milk sloshed violently around him. He twisted in the white void, his limbs twitching with what strength remained. The broken arm sent fresh lightning through his nerves.

 

No. No no no please not this not like this—

 

The lid of the lunchbox opened. Cool kitchen air rushed in. Lexi’s husband reached in and plucked one of the bottles out—his bottle.

 

Inside, the man floated like a speck in snow-globe purgatory, milk clinging to his skin, soaking into every orifice. His voice was long gone—ruined from screaming, from praying, from begging.

 

He was helpless.

 

And she was hungry.

 

Lexi adjusted on the couch, stretching her legs across her husband’s lap as he sat down. “Thanks,” she said as he  handed her the bottle. She popped the cap off the silicone nipple with a soft snap. The scent of fresh milk released like a sigh.

 

Then the bottle tilted.

 

Gravity shifted.

 

The nipple pressed gently into the baby’s mouth, and she began to suckle with soft, rhythmic grunts.

 

Inside, he was pulled downward by the slow suction of the child’s feeding.

 

Whuuumph—whuuumph—whuuumph.

 

Each draw of milk tugged him toward the nipple. He clawed at the sides, fighting the gentle whirlpool of his own end.

 

A sticky gulp.

 

Then another.

 

Tiny bubbles rose, floating past his face. His ears filled with muffled sounds—his world reduced to heartbeat, breath, and the pull of hunger he couldn’t stop.

 

Lexi let her head fall back. A slow moan escaped her lips as her husband’s fingers began to rub her feet.

 

“Ohhh my God,” she sighed. “You don’t even know how good that feels after tonight.”

 

The baby nursed, peaceful and greedy.

 

The show on TV continued—something light, comedic, a gentle laugh track rolling across the scene. It clashed with the silent horror playing out inside the bottle.

 

Time passed.

The episode meandered to its ending.

The milk line lowered steadily.

The baby’s eyes fluttered shut.

 

Lexi glanced down. “All gone,” she murmured. She cradled the baby against her shoulder, patting him gently. “Out like a light.”

 

She set the now-empty bottle on the coffee table with a soft clink. No one looked inside.

 

***

 

It was hard to breathe.

 

The air inside the bottle was thick with the sour-sweet stench of fresh milk. It clung to him like syrup—warm at first, now congealing, tepid, greasy. Every movement was a struggle, every breath coated his throat with the taste of sour cream and humiliation. His broken arm throbbed with every shudder of the bottle, each pulse of movement vibrating through his bones. He floated in it—in her milk—adrift in a nightmare.

 

Light burst above him.

 

The lid snapped open, flooding the world with harsh kitchen fluorescence. He squinted, blinked through the film on his lashes, saw shapes moving beyond the curved plastic of the bottle. A hand—massive, pink, looming—grasped the bottle and hoisted it into the air.

 

No. No—please, God, no.

 

The world tilted violently as the bottle moved. He slammed against the inner wall, gasping. Pain arced through his broken arm, sending him into a momentary blackout. When he came to, the motion had stopped, and the blurred shape of a man—a giant—was handing the bottle off.

 

Her.

 

He saw her. The waitress. The one from earlier. Not Joanna. This was the new mother, the one with the baby the bitch waitress who shrunk him told him about.

 

Oh, God. Oh no no no…

 

She was beautiful. Soft-featured. Tired eyes. She didn’t know.

 

She had no idea what she held.

 

Or maybe—maybe she did.

 

The bottle tilted again. Gravity shifted. The world slowed. He watched, paralyzed, as her fingers pulled the cap from the nipple. The sound—snap—cut the air like the click of a guillotine.

 

Then came the baby.

Tiny. Innocent. Hungry.

 

He screamed. Loud as his ruined lungs would allow. Banged his good arm against the inside of the bottle. Milk splashed and sloshed, but no one noticed. No one heard. He was an insect in a world of giants.

 

The nipple plunged into the baby’s mouth.

 

Suck. Gulp. Suck. Gulp.

 

The milk began to flow.

And so did he.

 

The suction yanked at his limbs. A current formed. The milk churned, spiraling toward the nipple in long, slow tugs that grew stronger with each greedy pull. He kicked. Twisted. His cries came out in gurgles, milk flooding his mouth, his nose.

 

Slurp. Gulp. Slurp.

 

It grew louder in his ears. Wet. Rhythmic. Horrifying.

Each gulp was a countdown.

Each suction stronger than the last.

 

No. Please. Please no. I didn’t mean it—I didn’t—

 

His foot caught in the whirlpool. Then his leg.

Then—he slipped.

 

In an instant, he was yanked forward. Slammed against the rubber base of the nipple from the inside. His body folded, then forced through the narrowing funnel by the pressure behind him. The force dislocated his shoulder. He screamed—then milk filled his throat, choking the sound to a wet gurgle. He was pressed into the tip of the nipple. His head and one shoulder pulled through. He was in a toothless maw! The pressure was increasing until…

 

…He was pulled through completely.

 

Through the narrowest point, his bones creaking, skin tearing. The last thing he saw through the milky blur was the soft pink of the baby's lips tightening around the nipple.

 

And then—he was gone.

 

Warmth.

Pressure.

Oblivion.

 

A gulp.

 

Final.

 

And then silence.

 

The baby gave one final suckle, sighed, and settled against Lexi’s chest. His tiny hand curled into the fabric of his mother’s shirt, his mouth falling open slightly, warm breath dampening the cotton. His belly was full—filled with the rich, warm milk Lexi had just pumped at work.

 

Full… and entirely unaware of what else had been mixed in with his nourishment.

 

The man—his name long since lost in the shuffle of the night—had been reduced to nothing more than warm, half-digested protein, sloshing deeper into the infant’s stomach. His final resting place: an inevitable journey through a newborn’s digestive tract, ending in a disposable diaper by morning.

 

There was no ceremony.

No fanfare.

No mourning.

 

Only silence.

 

Lexi rested her head back against the couch, eyes half-lidded as she watched the show’s credits roll. Her husband sat by her feet, still absently massaging her arches with slow, loving pressure.

 

“That’s exactly what I needed,” she mumbled.

 

He smiled. “Rough night?”

 

She nodded. “Some jerk at the restaurant started yelling at a mom for breastfeeding. Can you believe that? Full-on tantrum because she was feeding her baby.”

 

He raised an eyebrow. “Seriously? Where do these people come from?”

 

“Right?” Lexi chuckled, gently adjusting the baby so his head nestled in the crook of her arm. “He had the whole country-boy thing going on. Cutoff flannel, muddy jeans, that look in his eye—you know the one.”

 

“The ‘I yell at cashiers’ look?”

 

“Exactly,” she snorted. “I didn’t actually see it, but Joanna told me he was making a scene. Said something like, ‘People like you are what’s wrong with the world.’ Just…” She trailed off, shaking her head.

 

Her husband leaned his head back on the cushion. “God. You know, I try not to hope bad things happen to people—but sometimes...”

 

Lexi smirked. “Right? I’m like, do I have to be the bigger person today? Every day?”

 

They sat there in the low glow of the television. The baby’s breathing was steady, his body warm against Lexi’s. Every so often, a soft gurgle came from his belly, a faint protest from the unfamiliar protein now breaking down inside.

 

Lexi gave her a little kiss on the forehead, then whispered, “You’re such a good eater.”

 

Her husband stood and stretched. “Should we put him down?”

 

“Yeah,” Lexi said. “He’s out cold.”

 

She rose carefully, cradling the baby as they made their way down the short hallway to the nursery. The walls were pale blue, with soft stenciled clouds and a gentle hum from a white noise machine already playing. She lowered the baby into the crib and gently pulled the blanket up to his chest. The baby stirred once, let out a tiny burp, and settled.

 

Lexi and her husband stood there for a moment, arms around each other, looking down.

 

“He’s growing so fast,” he whispered.

 

“I know.”

 

They turned off the light and walked back to their room, hand in hand, the rhythm of normalcy returning.

 

The bottle—the one with no trace of a man inside—sat in the kitchen sink, forgotten. Rinsed. Washed away.

 

And in the nursery, the baby stirred once more in his sleep…

…as the long, silent process of digestion crept toward its inevitable end at the bottom of a dirty diaper.

 


End Notes:

If there's any particular meal you'd like to see served, even a particular person or type of person to served or served to, feel free to make a request.


Comment with Meal, Person, victim, feel free to add character details or names as well. I might not do every request, but they'll all be considered.


This story will be ongoing for a little while.

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Cody by Din Korlac
Author's Notes:

My longest chapter so far.



Sunday. Skycourt Mall.

 

Joanna wasn’t dressed to turn heads.

 

Just a clean, fitted jacket. Black leggings. A simple slate-gray top. She blended in like anyone else on a lazy Sunday evening. Hair tied back. Earbuds in. A couple of bags in hand. Nothing flashy.

 

She was in her time—her quiet day off. Carmichael’s was closed anyway. She’d hit a bookstore, picked up some candles, browsed the sale rack at a clothing boutique. Normal. Restful.

 

At the elevator, she tapped the button for Level 2 and waited.

 

Then he showed up.

 

Mid-30s, maybe 40. Greasy energy. Cargo shorts and a half-buttoned shirt, too much cologne, not enough restraint. He didn’t say anything at first—just stood too close. Not physically, but visually. His gaze crawled across her figure like oil sliding down glass.

 

The doors opened. Joanna stepped in and pressed 2.

 

He followed.

 

At first it was just staring. Then came the grin.

 

“You know,” he said, voice too loud in the small space, “you kinda look like Margot Robbie.”

 

Joanna didn’t answer. Didn’t move.

 

“But like—Margot with a little more junk in the trunk, know what I mean?” He let out a gross, breathy laugh, the kind that left a film in the air.

 

She didn’t look at him.

 

“I mean that in a good way,” he added, like that made it better. “Barbie’s cute and all, but you look like you could break Ken in half.”

 

He stepped forward slightly, pretending to check the floor numbers.

 

“I bet you get that Harley Quinn thing all the time, huh? Daddy’s little monster?” he chuckled. “Maybe you wanna meet my wolf of Wall Street—if you know what I’m sayin’.”

 

Joanna’s stomach tensed.

 

For just a second, the "junk in the trunk" line stuck. It shouldn't have. She wasn’t fat. She knew that. 5’9, 160. Strong. Healthy. But the way he said it—like she was meat to be compared to someone else's plastic—hit something. It was like he’d taken a piece of her and rubbed it between his fingers without permission.

 

Her hand moved quietly.

 

She hit the STOP button.

 

The elevator jerked to a halt between floors.

 

He looked up, confused. “What the—?”

 

Joanna turned.

 

She didn’t speak. She just looked at him. Eyes flat. Face unreadable.

 

He grinned again, but slower this time. “Oh—heh. You wanna—?”

 

She took one step forward.

 

Level 2 – A few Minutes Later

 

DING.

 

The elevator doors slid open with a soft chime.

 

Only Joanna stepped out.

 

She walked calmly, her pace unhurried. Bags still in hand. Jacket smooth. Her face was blank—not shaken, not smiling.

 

As she walked past a windowed storefront, she reached casually into her purse and parted the zipper.

 

Nestled inside, under a fold of receipts and tucked into a side pocket, was a lone glass vial.

 

Inside: the man.

 

Shrunken to the size of a sesame seed. Naked. Screaming. His face was red, contorted in shock and fury and disbelief. He pounded against the glass with fists the size of specs.

 

Joanna glanced down.

 

Not with anger. With satisfaction.

 

Her reflection in the glass caught his eye—calm, composed, and enormous.

 

She zipped the purse shut and kept walking.

 

The lock clicked. The door opened.

 

Joanna stepped into her apartment, dropped her shopping bags by the side table, slid off her shoes, and closed the door with the same care she always did. The evening air smelled faintly of lavender and laundry sheets—soft, safe, normal.

 

She walked to the kitchen, set her purse on the counter, unzipped it slowly—and pulled out the vial.

 

She didn’t even look at him at first. Just set it down upright near the fruit bowl, next to a stack of unopened mail. The glass clicked lightly on the granite.

 

The man inside—Cody, his name was—was a wreck. He stumbled as the vial settled, then stood, pressing both hands against the curve of the glass. His mouth opened and closed, desperate to say something, to beg, to scream—but the vial held his voice like a jar catches air.

 

Joanna finally looked down at him.

 

Just a glance.

 

Then she walked away.

 

The man’s world was suddenly enormous. The kitchen stretched out like a stadium. Hardwood floors rolled into a calm, neutral-toned living room. A large sectional sofa. Minimalist décor. Soft lighting. A warm, lived-in space.

 

From the vial, he could see all of it.

 

He could also see Joanna as she padded into the kitchen, opened the freezer, and pulled out a tray of frozen enchiladas. She didn’t say a word. Didn’t acknowledge him. Just tore the plastic, slid the tray into the microwave, and hit two buttons.

 

Beep. Beep.

 

The machine hummed. He flinched at the sound. Everything was too loud now. Too sharp. He couldn’t stop sweating.

 

She grabbed a seltzer from the fridge. Lime. Sat at the counter on a tall stool, legs crossed, scrolling her phone. She didn’t look at him. Not once. The vial may as well have been a salt shaker.

 

The microwave beeped again.

 

She ate while scrolling, one hand lifting the fork, the other thumbing through videos, messages, pictures. Occasionally she smiled at something. Sometimes she didn’t react at all.

 

To the man in the vial, it was hell.

 

He paced. Slammed his fists against the glass. Fell. Got up. Shouted again. Tried to signal her—made wild, flailing gestures, then dropped to his knees in exhaustion.

 

She turned on the TV. Something light. Something funny.

 

She laughed once.

 

Then she moved to the couch, brought her phone, curled up, and half-watched the show. For hours. Occasionally sipping her drink, occasionally scrolling.

 

To her, the night passed like any other.

 

To him, it was eternity.

 

A couple episodes in, Joanna yawned, set her phone down, clicked off the TV, and stood. She walked past the kitchen counter again on her way to her bedroom.

 

She paused—just once—and looked down at the vial.

 

The man stood still, frozen. His face pale. His lips trembling.

 

Joanna tilted her head and smiled.

 

Then walked away.

 

The bedroom light clicked on, then off.

 

Silence.

 

He was left alone, standing in the dark, the faint hum of the refrigerator the only sound. Outside the glass, her apartment was calm, warm, and safe.

 

Inside the glass, he curled up on the floor, shaking violently.

 

He didn’t know what she wanted.

 

He didn’t know what she was planning.

 

And that, more than anything, began to break him.

 

The sun filtered through gauzy curtains, casting soft golden rectangles across Joanna’s hardwood floor. The apartment was quiet. Peaceful.

 

Then the bedroom door opened.

 

Barefoot, hair still messy from sleep, Joanna walked to the bathroom. The faucet turned on. The sound of water. A flush. A soft yawn.

 

Then her steps padded slowly toward the kitchen.

 

She turned on the light, stretched, and walked to the fridge.

 

“Morning,” she said casually—to him.

 

She opened the fridge, pulled out eggs, some pre-sliced strawberries, a half-stick of butter. She was in a tank top and cotton shorts. Barefaced, comfortable, at ease. As if she hadn’t left a man—him—trapped in a vial on her counter all night, his nerves unraveling like thread.

 

She cracked two eggs into a bowl, whisked them with a fork.

 

“Thanks, by the way,” she said, glancing over her shoulder at the vial. “For the Margot Robbie comment. I actually like her. She’s a good actress. Under appreciated, honestly.”

 

She moved to the stove, dropped a small pat of butter into a pan. It hissed gently.

 

The man inside the vial staggered to his feet. His eyes were hollow. He hadn’t slept. His limbs trembled. He pressed both hands to the glass, shouting, mouthing something—please, probably, or why.

 

Joanna didn’t pause.

 

“But the other part… the ‘junk in the trunk’ thing?”

 

Her voice had a new edge now. Calm. But colder.

 

She scraped the eggs into the pan.

 

“That part stuck.”

 

She let the eggs sit. Stirred slowly.

 

“In high school, I used to obsess over my weight. Every girl does, you know? Doesn’t matter if you’re toned or curvy or whatever—they’ll find a way to make you feel wrong.”

 

She sprinkled a pinch of salt into the pan.

 

“I wasn’t fat. But I felt like I was. Every time I wore jeans, I’d check the mirror ten times to make sure my ass didn’t look too big. Like anyone gave a damn.”

 

She slid the eggs onto a plate. Added strawberries on the side. A piece of toast.

 

She walked to the counter and sat on a stool—right in front of him. The vial was only inches from her plate. He stared up at her, panting, his mouth still moving in silent desperation.

 

She didn’t acknowledge his pleas.

 

She lifted her fork, took a bite of egg, chewed thoughtfully, and continued:

 

“But the way you said it? Just... casually. Like I was some walking talking ass with a face. Like you had the right to weigh in. On me. My body. My shape.”

 

Another bite.

 

“I don’t need compliments. But I don’t need men like you looking at me like that and thinking your opinion matters.”

 

She wiped the corner of her mouth with a napkin.

 

“You made me remember how that felt. That high school shame. That voice that said, 'Don’t wear that. Don’t eat that. Don’t bend over like that.' You made me feel like I was seventeen again, in a fitting room, sucking in my stomach like my life depended on it.”

 

Her tone didn’t rise. It didn’t tremble.

 

It just cut.

 

She ate slowly. Carefully. She sipped orange juice from a small glass.

 

“I hated that version of me. I worked really hard to leave her behind. So… thank you. For reminding me what I don’t owe you.”

 

She glanced at him.

 

“You get to stay right there. You don’t get to hurt anyone. You don’t get to touch anyone. You don’t get to speak anymore.”

 

She ate her last bite of toast.

 

Wiped her fingers clean.

 

“Now you’re just something I can look at when I want to remember what silence looks like.”

 

She stood, rinsed her plate, and left it in the drying rack.

 

The man in the vial collapsed to his knees, sobbing silently.

 

Joanna didn’t notice.

 

Or maybe she just didn’t care.

 

The morning passed quietly, the way Monday's should.

 

Joanna had curled herself into the corner of her couch, a soft blanket over her legs, a second cup of coffee in hand. The sunlight cut across the floor in slanted golden beams, warming the living room while the soft hum of Netflix filled the air. She was rewatching the same show she half-finished last night—a crime drama with moody lighting and monologues about vengeance.

 

Still in her tank top and cotton shorts, she looked completely at ease. Relaxed. The kind of comfortable a woman only achieves in her own space, on a day off, with no one around to perform for. Her long legs were stretched out across the cushions, and her bare feet occasionally flexed and rubbed together absentmindedly as she scrolled through her phone between episodes.

 

On the kitchen counter, the man in the vial watched all of it.

 

His tiny, trembling body leaned against the glass as he stared at her through the slight distortion of the curved walls. His mind was a whirlwind—panic, humiliation, exhaustion. He hadn't slept. He couldn’t eat. There was no water, no rest, no answers. Just her.

 

Just Joanna, moving through her morning like he wasn’t even a human being.

 

He kept waiting for something. Anything. A decision. An outburst. A punishment. But what she gave him was worse than all of that.

 

She gave him time.

 

He watched the way she tucked her legs up under herself. The way she laughed at something on the screen. The way she forgot he existed.

 

Around 9:30, she stood up and stretched, arms high over her head, the hem of her tank top lifting just enough to reveal the subtle line of her lower back.

 

“Well,” she said with a yawn, looking toward the kitchen, “looks like I gotta get ready for work. I get the afternoon shift today.”

 

She stepped over to the counter. Her fingers wrapped around the glass of the vial.

 

“But first,” she added, a smirk tugging at one side of her mouth, “I gotta deal with those enchiladas from last night.”

 

The man inside jolted at the words.

 

Joanna turned and walked down the hall to the bathroom, carrying him between two fingers. The door creaked open, and she flicked on the light. She placed the vial gently down on the edge of the counter, right beside the sink, removed the cork, and turned to face the toilet. From his vantage point, he could see everything.

 

With casual ease, she hooked her thumbs into the waistband of her shorts and let them drop them down to her ankles. She sat with a soft exhale, elbows resting on her thighs, completely relaxed.

 

She looked at him.

 

Joanna gave him a sly smile.

 

“I’ll let you out,” she said, “if you can guess how much junk I have in my trunk.”

 

She laughed softly to herself, shaking her head.

 

Then came the sound.

 

It started with a low, airy push—a muffled groan of release—then a wet crackle, soft at first, then thick, louder. A hot, bubbling series of sounds filled the air, echoing slightly in the small room.

 

He covered his ears. It didn’t help.

 

The smell arrived a moment later—faint to her, overwhelming to him. Thick and foul. Human and humiliating. He gagged, slamming his back against the vial wall, sliding down to the floor as his mind reeled.

 

“Ugh,” she murmured, “enchiladas always do this to me…”

 

She sat comfortably, letting her body empty, shifting once with a sigh of relief. She looked at the wall, not at him anymore. He didn’t matter now. She was just taking care of herself.

 

“But they tasted so damn good,” she added with a smile.

 

When she was done, she stood, wiped, flushed. He watched her step out of her shorts, and placed the cork back on the vial. The roar of the toilet masked her steps as she walked over to the shower and turned the water on. Steam began to fill the room almost immediately.

 

She didn’t pull the curtain shut.

 

She didn’t have to.

 

As she undressed fully, peeling off her tank top, she gave him full view—not for his sake, but to remind him of how utterly powerless he was.

 

There was no shame in her nudity. She didn’t hide. Didn’t perform. She was simply a woman getting clean after breakfast, after a bowel movement, after another day of being exactly who she was—strong, composed, complete.

 

And he was a speck. Trapped. Meaningless.

 

He huddled in the bottom of the vial, arms around his knees, eyes locked on the fogged glass of the shower. Her silhouette moved like a giantess through the steam, graceful and slow, hair pinned up, hands gliding over her skin as the water beat down.

 

He stayed like that the whole time. He didn’t move. Just shook.

 

Eventually, the water stopped. She stepped out and toweled off briskly, hair damp, skin flushed with warmth. She moved around the bathroom freely, brushing her teeth, applying a touch of moisturizer, dabbing on a whisper of blush and lip color.

 

Cody watched as she picked up a pair of underwear and slid them on. Followed by her bra. Then came her uniform.

 

Black slacks. A black button up shirt with red accents. Simple makeup. Hair pulled back into a clean, confident ponytail. She looked sharp. Presentable. Professional.

 

She slid her socks on. Her shoes.

 

Then, at the very end, she picked up the vial.

 

She didn’t look inside this time. She just opened the flap of her slacks’ pocket and dropped him in.

 

Darkness closed around him as her fingers let go.

 

The soft thump of fabric. The low sound of her breath.

 

And then the thud-thud of her footsteps as she left the apartment for work, carrying him in her pocket—not as a person. Not even as a threat.

 

Just something she owned.

 

The lunch rush at Carmichael’s was in full swing. Dishes clattered. The hum of conversation built into a steady drone. Orders piled up. Plates slid down the pass. Servers shouted table numbers. The kitchen hissed with fire, oil, steam, and motion.

 

Joanna was the eye in the storm.

 

Hair tied back. Shirt fitted. Pen tucked behind her ear. Her smile—professional, warm, practiced—never cracked. She moved from table to table like a current, her hands swift, her posture poised.

 

But every few minutes, when she turned, when she stepped behind the host stand or slipped into the narrow corridor near the bar, her fingers dipped into her pocket.

 

She touched the vial.

 

The glass was warm now from her body heat. She didn’t pull it out. Just held it. Rolled it between her fingers. Felt its tiny weight shift as the man inside tumbled helplessly from one side to the other.

 

She didn’t speak to him.

He didn’t deserve that.

 

But her thoughts circled around him like vultures.

 

What meal?

Whose plate?

Whose body would become his grave?

 

She knew it had to be a woman.

That wasn’t negotiable. It had to be fitting.

 

It had to mean something.

 

She passed a table of middle-aged women, laughing over Caesar salads and white wine. Maybe. But too light. He might not make it all the way down.

 

Another server whisked past with a tray—fried chicken sandwich, slaw, fries. Too messy. There was no control in that.

 

She wanted him to go down clean.

 

Whole.

 

She wanted him to survive the trip. To land in that dark, boiling pit—alive, gasping, panicking in silence, every second a reminder that this was what he was worth now: bile, acid, digestion, and the slow suffocating churn of a stomach.

 

He had to feel it. All of it. That was justice.

 

She rubbed the vial gently again.

 

Still deciding.

 

A younger woman sat alone at Table 9, hunched over her phone, waiting. Joanna glanced at the ticket. Lobster bisque. Smooth. Thick. Rich. Good viscosity. Warm, but not boiling. A perfect medium. He could slip in whole and disappear.

 

He could float for a while.

 

That’s an option.

 

Or the woman at Table 5. Late 20s. Confident. Business casual. Asked for water with lemon and grilled sea bass. Steamed vegetables. Clean eater. Controlled. Poised. She cut everything with precision. No mess. The kind of woman who measured her bites.

 

She wouldn’t notice if something slipped between the folds of zucchini.

 

She wouldn’t look twice.

 

But Joanna wasn’t ready to choose yet.

 

She pressed her thumb lightly against the side of the vial through the pocket fabric. She could feel him shifting, crawling, maybe begging. She couldn’t hear him. Didn’t care. She wasn’t doing this in rage. She was doing this with discipline.

 

He needed to enter a body like a secret.

 

He needed to last.

 

She wanted him to be alive in there for minutes, not seconds. Long enough for the air to burn, for the acid to rise, for the walls to close in. Long enough to fully understand that his body now served no purpose but to be processed. No legacy. No escape.

 

Just heat, and pain, and digestion.

 

She stepped into the kitchen, grabbed a tray, and moved toward Table 5—eyes scanning the dining room like a sniper with all the time in the world.

 

She’d know the moment.

 

She always did.

 

The restaurant pulsed around her—bright voices, forks scraping ceramic, laughter that broke too loud then settled back down. The air carried the thick scent of butter, pepper, seared meat, lemon zest, and garlic. It was warm. Dense. Familiar.

 

Joanna walked through it like glass through water—her path smooth, untouched.

 

But in her pocket, the vial rolled again, and her fingertips brushed against it with the same absentmindedness someone might tap a coin or a lighter. To anyone else, she was just checking her apron. Just adjusting something.

 

To her, she was feeling him.

 

The man inside was still alive.

 

Still waiting.

 

Still small.

 

She imagined what it felt like in there. Trapped in a space no bigger than a thimble, rolling every time she walked. Darkness. Heat. Her footsteps must’ve sounded like earthquakes. The groan of her chair against the floor, the slam of a dish in the kitchen—world-ending sounds in that tiny glass prison.

 

Let it stew.

 

He needed to sit in it longer. He needed to hear life happening all around him—people talking, laughing, living—while he waited for her to decide how he would die.

 

And it wasn’t enough for him to die.

 

He had to disappear.

 

She walked past Table 11—a young mom and her daughter, splitting a pesto pasta and garlic bread. No. Too sweet. Too human. The daughter’s giggle broke something in the spell, so she moved on.

 

She turned to Table 4. Two women in workout gear—sweaty, toned, glowing with post-gym smugness. Protein bowls. Quinoa, grilled chicken, kale. Not bad. Dense. Nutrient-rich. Acid would pool around that in the stomach. He could last there. Maybe even longer than usual.

 

She filed the thought.

 

Then came Table 6.

 

Three women. Late twenties. Loud. Not cruel, just drunk on their own conversation. They wore soft blazers and lipstick that had faded from wine and fries. One had ordered the chicken pot pie. Another a burger. The third—a tall brunette with a voice that cut through the din—ordered the shrimp alfredo.

 

Joanna’s eyes lingered on the creamy sauce, thick and steaming, coating the pasta in slow, deliberate folds. It would slide down easy. He’d sink in and stick to one of the noodles. Maybe even get dragged halfway into a bite before she swallowed. No teeth. No chewing. Just a slow, warm fall.

 

Joanna’s lips parted—just slightly. Not a smile. Not a smirk.

 

Just consideration.

 

That dish was perfect.

 

But was the woman?

 

Joanna watched her for a moment longer. She laughed too hard. Snorted once. Dabbed her mouth with the corner of her napkin but missed a smudge of sauce at the corner of her lip. Messy. Real.

 

Joanna liked her.

 

But she didn’t respect her.

 

No. Not the one.

 

The right woman needed to be unreachable. Untouchable. Not fragile. Not silly. The kind of woman the man in her pocket would’ve tried to talk over. The kind he would’ve interrupted, hit on, insulted the second she rejected him.

 

The kind who wouldn’t even know he was there until she’d already digested him.

 

The fork. The throat. The stomach.

All happening without thought.

 

He had to be nothing.

 

She passed back through the kitchen again, the heat of the oven brushing her face, a plate of grilled salmon passed behind her shoulder.

 

She paused beside the coffee station.

 

Her hand dipped into her pocket one more time.

 

The vial rolled. Shifted.

 

He was still alive.

 

But not for long.

 

She just hadn’t decided how long yet.

 

And that was the most delicious part.

 

Joanna emerged from the kitchen with two glasses of pinot grigio and a basket of warm bread, the linen cloth folded just so. Her eyes scanned the restaurant as she moved.

 

And then she saw them.

 

Table 14.

 

Five women, early thirties. Laughing. Leaning into each other’s stories. Loud in the way only women confident in their friendships can be—shoulders touching, hands flying, voices layering over each other like music.

 

They were a mosaic of color and personality. One in a silk scarf. Another with tattoos along her arms. The one at the head of the table wore lipstick like armor and a blazer that cost more than a full shift’s tips.

 

Joanna approached with a smile.

 

As she set the glasses down, one of them lit up. “Oh! You’re our server—what’s your name?”

 

“Joanna,” she said, practiced, pleasant.

 

“I’m Liz,” said one, extending her hand.

“Erica,” chimed another, raising her glass.

“Jess.”

“Sam.”

 

And then—

 

“Harley.”

 

Joanna’s gaze clicked to the woman seated nearest the aisle.

 

Tall. Curvy. Athletic, but not delicate. Her hair was pulled up in a loose knot, and her voice had a husk to it that suggested late nights and laughter. She had a commanding presence, even while laughing at someone else’s joke.

 

She was stunning without trying.

 

Bradley would’ve stared.

 

He would’ve said something disgusting. He would’ve offered some lame joke about her name, too—“You must be Daddy’s little monster, huh?”

 

Joanna’s stomach tightened at the thought.

 

Harley smiled at her and added, “Love your eyeliner, by the way.”

 

Joanna felt something inside her settle.

 

Yes.

 

This was her.

 

This was the woman.

 

The table placed their orders. A mix of rich, indulgent dishes. Red meats. Cream sauces. Fried appetizers. Comfort food with confidence.

 

Harley didn’t hesitate.

 

“I’ll do the chicken carbonara. Extra sauce on the side if that’s okay.”

She smiled again. “I’m starving.”

 

Joanna nodded as she finished inputting the order on her tablet, then took the menus. Then she checked in on her other tables.

 

After a while, she walked calmly into the back hallway—the vial burning against her leg.

 

She slipped into the dish station, pulled it out.

 

Held it up.

 

Inside, the man was pacing. Beating his fists against the glass. Ranting with a mouth too small for sound to matter. He’d felt the shift. He knew—somewhere in that terrified little brain—that the hour was near.

Joanna tilted the vial.

 

He tumbled. Slammed against the curve. Rolled to the bottom again. She popped the cork.

 

Not fast.

 

Deliberate.

 

The air rushed in.

 

He screamed.

 

She tilted the vial and dropped him into a ramekin filled with sauce—a rich, creamy white blend spiked with pancetta and crushed pepper. Harley’s sauce.

 

Not submerged. Nestled.

 

His body clung to the warmth, the oil coating his limbs. A fleck of black pepper stuck to his cheek. A curl of pancetta floated near his shoulder like a raft he’d never reach.

 

He tried to swim. Joanna stirred the sauce once, gently with a spoon.

 

Not to drown him.

 

Just to mix him in.

 

He vanished between folds of richness and fat.

 

Joanna sealed the ramekin with a plastic lid, wiped the edge, and placed it on Harley’s plate as the kitchen staff handed her the order—carbonara, extra sauce, hot and perfect.

 

She carried it to the table.

 

She didn’t pause. Didn’t hesitate.

 

“Chicken carbonara,” she said, placing the plate in front of Harley. “With the extra sauce on the side.”

 

Harley’s face lit up. “You’re a goddess”

 

Joanna smiled.

 

Inside her pocket, the glass vial’s prisoner was gone.

Her hands were clean.

The moment was perfect.

 

Now, he just had to survive long enough to feel it.

 

The fork scraped the plate with a soft clink as Harley adjusted it in front of her, the steam from the carbonara rising in delicate curls. The scent hit her immediately—rich cream, salty pancetta, that sharp bite of black pepper and parmesan. Her stomach answered with a low grumble that made her laugh softly to herself.

 

“God, I needed this,” she said aloud, twisting her shoulders to loosen the tightness from her workout earlier that morning. She looked up. Liz was talking about some mess at her office. Jess had already launched into a story about a guy who used the word “guesstimate” in a serious tone.

 

Harley leaned back, smiled at them, then turned her attention to the little ramekin on the side of her plate.

 

Extra sauce.

 

Joanna, the server, hadn’t blinked when she asked for it. Just brought it out like it was normal. Like Harley wasn’t the kind of woman who wanted more of something already heavy.

 

She appreciated that. No second glance. No judgment.

 

She popped the plastic lid off and the warmth hit her face. The sauce inside glistened, thick and perfectly creamy—just enough oil on top to catch the light.

 

With zero ceremony, Harley poured the entire thing over her pasta.

 

The sauce slid slowly from the cup, pooling over the noodles in thick, pale ribbons.

 

Harley was halfway through her second glass of wine when the food arrived.

 

The table was already humming—laughter bouncing from voice to voice, forks clinking against water glasses, someone swearing at a group text. The mood was that perfect kind of full—socially and emotionally—where you didn’t notice time passing because you didn’t want it to. Her back was sore from yoga that morning, her face still lightly flushed from laughing too hard.

 

The smell hit her first.

 

Cream. Garlic. Bacon. That unmistakable richness of real butter melted into sauce. And under it, a tangle of thick, golden pasta that glistened in the light.

 

“Carbonara,” the server—Joanna—said, setting the plate down gently in front of her, “with the extra sauce on the side.”

 

Harley smiled. “You’re a goddess.”

 

She didn’t notice Joanna’s expression. Didn’t notice the faint stillness in the woman’s eyes as she placed the small white ramekin on the table beside the plate.

 

She was too hungry. Too happy.

 

Harley peeled the lid off with a soft plastic snap. The sauce inside was warm, still glossy with fat and heat. Pancetta floated lazily in the thick white sea, along with tiny flecks of pepper and melted parmesan.

 

Without thinking, she poured the entire cup over her pasta.

 

The sauce slid in a thick stream—spilling into the valleys of the noodles, soaking into the folds, coating everything in a glossy, creamy sheen. A curl of steam rose. She gave it one slow stir with her fork, dragging the pasta gently through the sauce, folding it over itself.

 

Unbeknownst to her, Cody had just been submerged.

 

He was near the top of the ramekin when she tipped it—coated in the sauce already, stuck to a fragment of pancetta. He tumbled onto the pile of pasta in silence, sliding between two folds of noodles, invisible, screaming, soaked in butter and garlic.

 

Harley didn’t pause. She didn’t know.

 

She was laughing at something Erica said. Something about a bachelorette party gone wrong.

 

“Wait, wait, the cake was shaped like what?” Harley asked, raising a brow.

 

Erica held up both hands, grinning. “It was... anatomically correct, let’s just say that.”

 

They burst into laughter again.

 

Harley took her fork and began to eat.

 

She twirled a section of the pasta expertly, collecting a small bundle of noodles with some pancetta clinging to it. The cheese stretched as she lifted it—soft, thick, fragrant. She brought it to her mouth and took a bite, chewing slowly. Eyes half-closed. Pure satisfaction.

 

“This is so good,” she mumbled through the mouthful. “I swear, this place never misses.”

 

She ate slowly, content.

 

The pasta was heavy, but it was the kind of heavy that lingered in a good way. Comfort food without apology. She laughed through another story, wiped her mouth, picked at a final bite even though she was already full.

 

“That sauce,” she said to the table, “was absolutely perfect.”

 

She didn’t see Joanna again.

 

Didn’t know what she’d been given.

 

Didn’t know what her body was already doing to it.

 

Harley pushed her plate away with a satisfied sigh.

 

“I swear, I’d come back just for that dish.”

 

Her friends agreed.

 

He was already coated in sauce when the world tipped.

 

Thick, hot cream clung to his legs and torso like warm tar, stinging his raw skin. His arms were slick, sticky, useless against the smooth ceramic walls of the ramekin. When Joanna had dropped him in, he’d landed hard on a chunk of pancetta—his ribs ached, his ears rang, and now all he could hear was the distant thunder of clinking silverware and laughter just outside the kitchen door.

 

Then came the light.

 

A snap of plastic—the lid peeled off—and Cody flinched as bright, warm air rushed in. The sound alone shook his entire body. It was like being beneath a jet engine when the seal cracked. A burst of garlic, parmesan, and rendered bacon fat invaded his nose.

 

And behind it, a face.

 

Massive. Beautiful. Titanic.

 

Harley.

 

She leaned forward slightly as she lifted the ramekin to pour. Her face dominated the sky—eyes almond-shaped, hazel flecked with gold. Thick lashes curled naturally. A tiny freckle rested just above her left cheekbone. Her skin was smooth and flushed with wine warmth, lips full and curved even when she wasn’t smiling.

 

Cody stared up at her with a kind of primal awe.

 

She was divine—not in the glamorous sense, but in the mythological sense. She was goddess-sized, and utterly disinterested in him.

 

He tried to scream.

 

The ramekin tilted.

 

He slid.

 

The sauce beneath him shifted, becoming a river of cream and meat and pepper. It carried him like a leaf down a stream, over the edge. He tumbled, fell, landed on something warm and soft and slippery.

 

Her pasta.

 

The noodles steamed, heavy and slick, coiled on the plate like a pit of eels. He slammed into one, rolled off, bounced between two more. The sauce followed, pouring over him, burying him in heat. He surfaced, gasping.

 

Around him, the world boomed.

 

Voices. Laughter. Silverware. The scrape of chair legs. The crinkle of napkins.

 

And above it all—her.

 

She didn’t even glance down.

 

Her voice came like thunder through clouds. “This is so good…”

 

Then the fork descended.

 

Cody ducked instinctively. The prongs missed him, catching noodles just to his right. They rose, dragging steam and cream into the air. He watched in horror as they passed above him—then vanished between her lips.

 

Her mouth.

 

From his angle on the plate, it was a monstrous, gorgeous thing. Full lips parted, glistening faintly from wine and gloss. Her upper lip had a tiny scar near the cupid’s bow—just a small mark, maybe from a childhood fall. Her lower lip was plump, glossy with moisture.

 

As the fork reached her, her mouth opened.

 

Cody stared.

 

A humid wave of breath hit him—garlic, parmesan, cream, and the metallic tang of wine. Her tongue slid forward slightly, curling to welcome the bite. Her teeth were white, even, with the slightest imperfection in the front—just a subtle edge.

 

The noodles disappeared inside her.

 

She didn’t chew them. Just slurped and swallowed.

 

Her throat flexed.

 

Gulp.

 

The sound vibrated in Cody’s chest.

 

And then—he was moving.

 

The noodle beneath him began to shift. Pull. The pasta around him lifted, stretched upward in a sudden spiral.

 

“No—no—NO—!”

 

He scrambled, slipping across the slick surface, but the sauce betrayed him. He was tangled in the folds, his hands caught on a strip of pancetta, his torso pressed to the warm, steaming noodle.

 

The fork took him.

 

His body rose.

 

The plate fell away beneath him. He was lifted past the rim of the bowl, up toward her face. Her features grew closer—each pore a crater, her lashes long enough to cast shadows, her eyes impossibly large and unblinking as she looked past him at her friends.

 

The fork neared her lips.

 

He screamed again, hoarse and useless.

 

She opened.

 

Her lips parted with a soft smack. Her tongue pressed forward in anticipation—wet, pink, veined with ridges like a muscular riverbed. The scent of wine and meat poured over him.

 

Then came the darkness.

 

Her mouth enveloped him.

 

He was pressed to her tongue, alive, dragged backward into wet heat. His body folded into the mass of pasta, pancetta slapping into his face, the sauce now boiling around him. She sealed her lips.

 

The world muffled.

 

Her tongue moved, curling under him, slathering the bite in saliva. It was hot, sticky, suffocating. The roof of her mouth pressed down. Her molars flexed, gently compressing the noodles, never quite biting.

 

Then—

 

She swallowed.

 

Cody was pulled backwards.

 

The suction was sudden, violent. His arms were pinned. His chest collapsed. He slid over the back of her tongue, past the dangling curtain of her uvula, and into her esophagus.

 

The tunnel was tight, muscular, dripping. The walls clutched him, kneaded him, pulled him downward.

 

Each motion squeezed the air from his lungs.

 

He tumbled head over heels, blinded by darkness and fluid, until—

 

He dropped.

 

SPLASH.

 

He hit a pool of churning liquid—hot, acidic, stinking of bile and partially digested food. The air burned. The space was alive—walls flexing and groaning, stomach acid bubbling around him, rising in foamy pockets.

 

He flailed, kicking through the thick slurry, only to be struck by a half-melted chunk of pasta. It stuck to him, burning his skin, coating his mouth.

 

More food arrived.

 

She was still eating.

 

Another mouthful hit the stomach—creamy, chewed, already soft. It splashed beside him. He heard it enter through a fleshy sphincter above, slapping down like meat thrown into mud.

 

Then came wine.

 

It poured in as a warm stream—rich, acidic, flooding over him. It filled his nose. His ears. It washed away the oxygen.

 

He tried to scream.

 

The walls around him groaned—a deep, gurgling sound, like pipes struggling under pressure. A ripple passed through the chamber. He was lifted, churned, slammed back down.

 

His skin began to sting. Blisters formed on his arms. His knees ached. His lips peeled.

 

But he didn’t dissolve.

 

He remained whole.

 

In the pitch-dark belly of a woman who had never once thought of him as anything other than… lunch.

 

He screamed again—raw, primal, useless.

 

able was still laughing when Joanna approached again—voices bright, hands waving, the last drops of wine clinking gently in their glasses.

 

Harley had leaned back in her chair now, her plate pushed slightly forward, the last curls of creamy pasta long gone. She looked warm, satisfied, loose from carbs and company. Her arms were folded over her stomach, fingers drumming lightly, her lips curled in a faint smile as she half-listened to Liz’s story about a botched Tinder date.

 

Joanna stood just behind her, the black billfold in her hand.

 

“Whenever you’re ready,” she said, setting it down between two glasses, her voice as smooth as the linen napkins.

 

Harley looked up. “Oh, perfect, thank you,” she said, smiling wide. “You were great, by the way.”

 

Joanna nodded politely, feeling the weight in her chest settle. The calm. That strange, cool sense of rightness.

 

Harley had no idea.

 

She didn’t feel the extra warmth in her belly, didn’t notice the slight churn beginning as her body prepared to process the rich meal—and the man hidden within it.

 

Cody was already gone.

 

No one at the table suspected. Why would they?

 

Five women. Full stomachs. An hour of stories and wine and pasta.

 

And in the middle of it all, one woman unknowingly carried the last traces of a man who had once thought himself untouchable. Loud. Predatory. Smug. And now?

 

Nothing.

 

Joanna let her hand brush the edge of the table as she turned to leave, her fingers just grazing the warm wood. A gesture that seemed accidental.

 

But inside her, something clicked.

 

That was the right one.

 

She moved back through the dining room, past the hum of voices, past the open kitchen, her face placid, her posture light. One of the hosts asked if she needed anything. She shook her head.

 

“No. I’m good.”

 

The weight was gone from her pocket now.

 

She felt lighter. Quieter. Clean.

 

And Harley?

 

She’d probably forget the dish by next week. Maybe she’d remember the sauce. Maybe not. But she would never remember Cody. Not his face. Not his name. Not the brief, final moment when his body disappeared behind her lips and into her life.

 

And that’s how it was supposed to be.

 

That’s why Joanna existed.

 

To correct the imbalance. To return the weight.

 

One man at a time.

 

Tuesday came like any other.

 

The kind where the sun rose before she was ready for it, where the buzz of her phone pulled her from under the covers with that annoying mix of calendar reminders and Slack notifications.

 

Harley groaned, rolled onto her back, and stretched until her spine cracked. She rubbed her eyes, tied her hair into a loose bun, and padded barefoot into the kitchen.

 

She made coffee. Buttered toast. Ate in silence while scrolling news headlines she wouldn’t remember ten minutes later.

 

The pasta from yesterday? Still sitting warm in her body when she’d gone to bed. Heavy, comforting. Nothing strange.

 

She didn’t dream about it.

 

Didn’t remember it.

 

By 9:15 she was in her office, a mug in hand, her desktop glowing. Her coworker, Jamie, dropped by to ask about a design mockup. Her manager forwarded a few notes. Harley answered emails. Scheduled meetings. Adjusted margins on a flyer.

 

Inside her, Cody had passed into her intestines.

 

A slow, steady migration.

 

He no longer looked human. Not really. His skin, already raw from the stomach acid, had darkened—blistered, boiled, cured. His joints had stiffened. His mouth frozen open in a silent scream. His muscles were locked tight, ligaments shriveled.

 

He wasn’t dissolving. Not entirely.

 

But he was breaking.

 

Her body didn’t know what it carried. It just moved him along, inch by inch, with the same quiet intelligence that moved every bite of every meal she’d ever eaten.

 

No ceremony.

 

Just digestion.

 

Inside her body, Cody was still whole—if you could call it that.

 

The acids had warped him. His skin had cracked. What was once a face was now a rigid mask stretched too tight over bone. His limbs had stiffened into a fetal curl. Sauce residue had been stripped from him entirely. Only scraps of pancetta clung to one leg.

 

Her intestines gripped and pushed.

 

Peristalsis—the slow wave of muscle contraction—moved him forward through the narrow heat of her small intestine. Enzymes and bile worked around him, stripping nutrients from what remained of the pasta and cream. Her body ignored him. Treated him as indigestible. Refuse.

 

By the time Harley had her second coffee, Cody had been pushed into her colon.

 

He rested among the waste, surrounded by thickening matter, slowly hardening with it.

 

Harley never paused. Never felt a thing.

 

She chatted with her coworkers about their weekends. Laughed once at a meme someone dropped the office chat. Ate half a chicken wrap at her desk. Reviewed feedback from a client. Rubbed her temples.

 

That night, she fell asleep on the couch halfway through an episode of a crime documentary.

 

Wednesday came and went without friction.

 

Harley rolled out of bed just before her alarm, showered, dressed in dark jeans and a soft black top, slipped into her boots, and made it to the train with four minutes to spare. The air was cool, dry. She wore a denim jacket and a navy scarf she’d nearly forgotten she owned. It felt like fall, finally.

 

Work was uneventful.

 

She answered emails. Reviewed copy for a campaign launch. Had lunch at her desk—leftover quinoa and roasted vegetables from the night before, lightly dressed in vinaigrette. She joked with the design team. Snuck a pack of M&M’s from the shared snack drawer.

 

At no point did she feel strange.

 

No gurgles. No cramps. No discomfort.

 

Her body was at ease.

 

The chicken carbonara from Monday? That was a memory now. Just another indulgence during a good night out with friends. She didn’t even think about it. Not once. If someone had asked what she ate that night, she might have remembered the wine. Maybe Joanna’s eyeliner. Not the food. Not the way it settled. Not what came with it.

 

Cody was gone.

 

Already processed. Moved. Repackaged inside her.

 

No longer screaming.

 

No longer anything.

 

By 5:38 p.m., Harley had her earbuds in and was halfway home on the train, scrolling through a playlist when she felt it. A quiet pressure. She got off at her stop, half-walked, half-jogged the three blocks to her building, let herself in, kicked off her boots, dropped her bag, and locked the door behind her.

 

Her body spoke plainly: Now.

 

She didn’t question it.

 

She walked quickly—heels on tile, the rush of urgency in her step—as she made her way into the bathroom, flipping the light on with one hand while tugging at the button of her jeans with the other. She slid her fingers in the waistband and pulled them down to her knees. Her underwear followed suit.

 

She sat.

 

A long breath left her lungs as her body began to relax.

 

And then, quietly, efficiently, her body began to let go.

 

The first segment emerged with the familiar weight—solid, slow, heavy.

 

It slid free with a thick pressure, stretching as it passed. It was wide, firm, and clean, her anus pinched it off before dropping with a muffled thud into the water below. Harley exhaled through her nose, scrolling through her phone, one hand lightly tugging the collar of her shirt to loosen it. She barely noticed.

 

Segment Two was shorter, slightly softer. It followed quickly after the first, folding slightly on top of the prior log. There was a faint scent rising now—earthy, hot, tinged with the ghost of roasted garlic from meals long since passed.

 

Then came the third segment—the one that carried Cody.

 

It emerged slower. Warmer. Its texture was more malleable, not runny, but clearly softer than the others—shaped by digestion, darkened by bile, smoothed by time. It broke off in the middle as it passed, then pinched off again before slipping into the bowl with a plop, the surface rippling faintly from the drop.

 

At the very center of it at the edge of the break—barely distinguishable from the surrounding waste—was Cody.

 

His body was blackened, shriveled, and partially flattened from the immense pressure of digestion and peristalsis. He no longer looked human. His limbs were curled against his torso, drawn up tight like a fetal husk. The skin that remained was hard, blistered, dry in patches, melted in others. One of his arms was missing below the elbow, likely dissolved entirely. The other was bent at a grotesque angle, shoulder sunk into the mass.

 

His mouth was open, though there was no breath left to escape it. A dried string of mucus still connected his jaw to the stool surrounding him, anchoring him in the mess like an insect caught in amber.

 

His head was tilted slightly up, as if still screaming.

 

He was lodged deep in the middle of the third segment, partially exposed, partially buried. Steam curled up from the bowl.

 

And Harley?

 

She shifted her weight slightly. Scrolled further.

 

Segment Four followed with a gassy release, looser, shorter, and wetter. It smeared slightly as it dropped, but she didn’t notice. Her face remained placid. She tapped on a message notification.

 

Then came the fifth segment—the last. A wet, mushy piece that pushed out like toothpaste from the tube. It was messy, leaving her anus covered in fecal matter.

 

Her body was done.

 

She wiped repeatedly, efficiently. Determined to get everything off and leaving her rear squeaky clean. She dropped the toilet paper in the mixture and stood up. She pulled her underwear and pants back up, and buttoned. She looked in the bowl, and watched it as she pulled the handle.

 

The toilet gurgled. Water spun. The surface broke apart, swallowing all five segments—and Cody’s ruined body with them—into the pipes, out of the bowl, and into a system that would wash him away forever.

 

Gone. Without a trace.

 

Harley washed her hands, tied her hair into a bun, and wandered into the kitchen to make tea.

 

She never looked back.

 

And Cody?

 

He was never seen again.

 

And Harley never even knew she had ended a man’s life.


End Notes:

If there's any particular meal you'd like to see served, even a particular person or type of person to served or served to, feel free to make a request.


Comment with Meal, Person, victim, feel free to add character details or names as well. I might not do every request, but they'll all be considered.


This story will be ongoing for a little while.


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@RawDogRiot (& Evan) by Din Korlac
Author's Notes:

I was debating making this chapter a different story like some of my other Joanna stories, but I decided to keep it in here. I really enjoyed this one. This was also my first Two-fer. I really wanted to do something special for it.




The park was humid that afternoon—sunlight fractured by clouds, the air thick with the smell of damp grass and heat-baked pavement. Joanna walked the trail with slow, even steps, earbuds in, sunglasses low on her nose. She wasn’t in a hurry. This was her time. Her day off from the restaurant. She liked walking when the world felt like it was holding its breath.
 
That’s when she heard the first burst of laughter.
 
Not real laughter. Not joy. Audience laughter.
 
The kind that’s clipped and performative, bouncing off phone screens and stitched reactions.
 
She turned her head slightly. Up ahead, near the public water fountain, a man stood with a phone on a tripod. Ring light clipped. Lavalier mic wired. He was dressed like every guy trying not to look like he was trying—slouched beanie, oversized vintage tee, high socks, that detached expression of someone who thought the world owed him a platform.
 
He was flanked by a second guy holding a backup phone, filming from another angle.
 
A young woman sat on a nearby bench, reading a paperback. Calm. Oblivious.
 
The man crept behind her with a can of whipped cream.
 
Joanna slowed her pace.
 
Psssssst. A sharp hiss. White foam sprayed across the woman’s shoulder and down her book. She jumped, startled. Dropped the novel. Her mouth fell open.
 
And the guy yelled, “PRANKED!”
Laughed. “It’s just whipped cream, chill!”
 
His camera guy howled.
 
The woman stammered, trying to understand. A stranger. A camera. A mess.
 
The man turned to his lens. “That’s another one for the archives, baby. @RawDogRiot strikes again. Let’s gooo.”
 
Joanna stopped walking.
 
RawDogRiot.
 
That was his handle. Not his name. Not his story. Just a persona. A mask for cruelty wrapped in irony.
 
He high-fived his friend. Wandered off. Already scanning for the next target.
 
Joanna’s hand flexed inside her hoodie pocket, brushing against the vial nestled in foam padding.
 
Empty—for now.
 
But she was thinking. Watching. Calculating the space between the paths, the pockets of trees, the times when eyes would turn away.
 
And wondering:
 
Would his followers notice when he stopped posting?
 
Would they care?
 
Because Joanna was already deciding what kind of meal he’d be best served in.
 
And she’d make sure the last thing he ever saw was someone not laughing.
 
It didn’t take long.
 
He followed her when the trail thinned. When the trees arched a little tighter overhead and the other walkers had vanished back toward the picnic areas. The camera guy trailed behind, barely hiding the phone now. The ring light was gone, but the swagger was still there.
 
“Yo,” the prankster said, his voice low and confident. “You look like you could use a laugh.”
 
Joanna didn’t turn around.
 
That was all he needed. He reached into the side pocket of his cargo shorts.
 
A handful of cooked spaghetti—cold, wet, tangled like guts.
 
He lobbed it at her back.
 
Except—
 
She wasn’t there anymore.
 
Just… gone.
 
 
Joanna's living room was dimly lit by late-afternoon sun filtering through linen curtains. The two glass vials sat upright on the coffee table. Small. Clean. Unforgiving.
 
Inside them, two men—no longer cocky, no longer laughing—pressed against the curved walls of their containers. They were five millimeters tall. Naked. Breathless. Helpless.
 
@RawDogRiot paced like a rat in a jar, slamming tiny fists against the glass, face flushed with impotent rage. His camera guy sat slumped at the bottom of his own vial, eyes flicking between Joanna and his friend, trying to lip read the panic.
 
They couldn’t hear each other now.
 
They could only see. Gesture. Panic. Mourn.
 
Next to the vials sat a delicate necklace—a chain of dark brass with a single hollow amber pendant. Beautiful. Handcrafted. Purpose-built. A showpiece. A trophy.
 
The vial-clatter stopped as Joanna entered the room with her phone pressed to her ear.
 
“Yeah, I’m back,” she said into the receiver. Her voice was calm. Light. The kind she used for real people. Not insects in jars.
 
The man in the left vial jumped up, waved both arms. The other mimicked the motion, trying to signal her—maybe to beg, maybe to confess. It didn’t matter.
 
Joanna walked right past them.
 
“I’m starving,” she said. “So yeah, I’ll grab everything. Chicken tinga for Mark, carnitas burrito for you, and the al pastor for Kelsey, right?”
 
She paused, listening. Smiled.
 
“No, no, I’ll remember this time. I’m writing it down now.”
 
She opened the pad near the coffee table, jotted it down with a mechanical pencil.
 
Behind the glass, one of the men screamed silently.
 
“Also,” she added, “should I bring anything for the games? Or just booze?”
 
She listened again.
 
“Okay, cards and tequila it is. I’ve got the new set Hannah wanted, too. The inappropriate one. The one with the ‘definitely don’t play this with family’ warning on the box.”
 
She laughed.
 
It was light. Warm. Real.
 
Completely disconnected from the two former influencers now pacing like vermin between the ribs of handblown glass.
 
“Cool,” she said. “I’ll swing by the truck, grab everything, then head over around seven. And no, I’m not dressed like a feral gremlin this time. I’ll look hot. Promise.”
 
A pause.
 
Then she smiled wide.
 
“Yes. I know. I’m long overdue to remind your husband I’m the hotter friend.”
 
She ended the call with a cheerful click.
 
And finally, she turned.
 
Looked at them.
 
Both men froze.
 
They were soaked in sweat, bruised from their own panic. Their mouths opened. Closed. One tried to mouth something like “Why?” The other was crying now—tiny, noiseless sobs.
 
Joanna crouched near the table, level with the vials.
 
For a moment, she said nothing.
 
Then, calmly, she tapped the amber bulb with her fingernail.
 
Tap. Tap.
 
The sound echoed across the wood like a warning bell.
 
"Still deciding," she said quietly. “But remember, this is just a prank.”
 
She stood.
 
They watched her walk into the kitchen, her shadow stretching long across the floor.
 
They didn’t know where they were going.
 
But Joanna did.
 
And she had the night ahead to figure out what would carry them there.
 
The shower hissed to life with a full-body rush of steam. Warmth blossomed across the tiles. Joanna stepped into the spray with a long, satisfied exhale, eyes closing as the water pounded gently against her shoulders.
 
It had been a full day—long walk, successful retrieval, quiet containment.
 
Her skin glistened. Hair wet, hands pressed to the cool tiles, she let the water work through her like static. No rush. No urgency. Just silence, temperature, and thought.
 
Her mind drifted.
 
To the vials.
 
To the pendant.
 
It was sitting where she left it—coiled chain and hollow amber bulb, warm with meaning. She ran a hand over her collarbone, imagining the slight weight of it against her chest, the subtle click of glass when she moved.
 
There was something elegant about the idea: carrying one of them, not hidden, not destroyed—not yet. Just… watching. Suspended in stillness. Sealed in a beautiful thing, unable to speak or sleep or scream. Just alive, witnessing.
 
That made the choice easy.
 
Mr. RawDog. The ringleader. The one with the voice.
 
She didn’t even know his real name. Didn't need to. His identity was his handle, his ego, his need to be seen.
 
So she would let him see.
 
Let him hang against her throat, forced to witness her laugh, drink, talk to people—people who matter. Let him watch his camera guy disappear first, slowly. Softly. Maybe he’d even get to see a second or third go down before his turn came. That would be interesting…
 
Joanna smiled under the water.
 
Yes.
 
He belonged in the pendant.
 
Meanwhile, on the Coffee Table, both vials pulsed faintly with reflections of the living room lights—tinted with a warm glow in the late daylight. Inside, the two men—so recently human, full-sized, real—were now nothing more than trapped figurines, prisoners of their own silence.
 
The camera guy—his name was Evan—stood up again.
 
He raised both hands and gestured wildly through the glass.
 
His mouth moved: "What’s going on?"
 
The other man—RawDog, still pacing—snapped his head toward him. They couldn’t hear each other. The soundproof glass killed every vibration. All they had were visuals.
 
Evan pointed up. "She did this."
 
RawDog nodded sharply, eyes wide, lips moving rapidly. Evan could only catch half of it.
 
“She… shrank us. She's… insane.”
 
Evan banged a fist on the wall, motioned toward the kitchen.
 
“She’s not insane.”
 
“We filmed it.”
 
RawDog frowned.
 
Evan gestured again, slowly: “She knew. She saw us before the prank.”
 
RawDog backed away from the wall, shaking his head, mouthing something angry.
 
“It was a joke!”
 
Evan pointed at him.
 
Then made a fist.
 
“She picked you. Not me.”
 
RawDog stepped forward, yelling silently, stabbing a finger into the air. His expression twisted with panic and rage.
 
“We were both in it!”
 
Evan spread both arms, made a slicing motion. “No. You're the face. I'm the camera.”
 
The air between them thickened with gestures—broken communication, angry misreads. Evan made the universal sign for stop, then pointed to the pendant lying between them.
 
The amber bulb sat coiled in shadow. A beautiful thing.
 
Delicate.
 
Harmless.
 
Except to them.
 
Evan mimed it: two fingers walking, then stopping. One finger raised, eyes widened. A long stare. A hand pressed to glass.
 
“You’re going in there.”
 
RawDog froze.
 
His face paled.
 
Evan just nodded.
 
Then sat back down.
 
Silent. Defeated.
 
And RawDog?
 
He looked at the pendant again.
 
And for the first time since the prank began, he didn’t look angry.
 
He looked afraid.
 
In the Shower
 
Joanna stepped out, wrapped in a black towel, her skin flushed, clean, her hair dark and damp across her shoulders. She wiped the mirror with her palm and looked at herself—tall, composed, decided.
 
She walked barefoot back into the living room.
 
Both men froze inside their glass cells.
 
She said nothing.
 
She reached for the pendant.
 
Unscrewed it from the cap.
 
Smiled once.
 
Then turned to pick which one would be fed first.
 
Evan sat still at the bottom of the vial, knees drawn up, arms around them, staring through the warped, clear glass. Everything felt too quiet. Too still. He could see shadows moving along the ceiling where sunlight caught in the slats of the blinds, golden and slow. The air outside his prison looked soft. Comfortable.
 
Inside? Cold. Tight. Dead air. Every sound muffled. Every vibration dull.
 
Joanna reentered the room like a shadow sharpening into a figure.
 
She was still wrapped in a towel—black, thick, twisted across her chest, ending at her upper thighs. Her hair clung wet to her skin. Drops of water ran down her collarbone, between her shoulder blades, along her spine.
 
She didn’t look angry.
 
She didn’t look anything.
 
Just composed. Like someone going through steps already decided.
 
Evan watched as she picked up the pendant. The hollow amber bulb gleamed slightly in the shifting light. He hadn’t paid much attention to it earlier. It had just sat there—elegant, maybe decorative.
 
But now, as she picked it up alongside RawDog’s vial, something shifted in Evan’s chest.
 
A pressure.
 
Not panic.
 
Something slower. Thicker.
 
Like fear was turning solid.
 
She unscrewed the pendant from it's cap and chain and held both pieces steady—the vial above, the pendant below.
 
Evan shot to his feet, pressed against the glass.
 
He watched as RawDog tumbled from the vial, head over heels, arms flailing, silent.
 
He hit the inside of the pendant with a soft bounce and rolled to the curve at the bottom—his body twisting, arms out, palms slapping against the inner surface like it could do anything.
 
Joanna screwed the pendant gently and lowered both back to the coffee table.
 
RawDog was now sealed in amber. He stood upright inside it, pressed to the inside curve, barely able to move. His mouth opened in a scream Evan couldn’t hear. His fists beat against the glass.
 
But the bulb only shimmered prettily in the light.
 
A display piece.
 
Evan’s heart thudded so hard he thought his ribs might snap.
 
He didn’t understand.
 
Why?
 
What was it for?
 
Joanna didn’t explain.
 
She turned away.
 
And then—calmly, naturally—she untwisted the towel and tossed it on the couch.
 
Evan saw everything.
 
Her skin was flushed pink from the hot water. Water still clung to her thighs, her shoulders, the gentle inward curve of her waist. She didn’t look at him. Didn’t acknowledge them at all.
 
Just crossed the room—nude, casual, powerful—and disappeared into the bedroom.
 
Evan couldn’t move.
 
He sat in the vial, hands trembling against the walls, eyes locked on RawDog in the pendant, still pounding silently in horror. The bulb swayed slightly from the impact, catching the light like a drop of honey.
 
Evan had no idea what the pendant meant.
 
But it terrified him.
 
A few minutes later, Joanna returned—dressed now. Black jeans. A rust-colored cropped sweater. Hair brushed, still damp, face minimal, clean. Effortless.
 
She moved with purpose.
 
She picked up Evan’s vial.
 
He flinched as her fingers wrapped around it, as the ground under him shifted and swayed. Her face was massive above him now—calm, centered, unreadable.
 
Then, finally—finally—she spoke to him.
 
“You like Mexican food?”
 
Her voice was warm. Playful, almost.
 
Evan’s mouth went dry.
 
He tried to speak, but his voice didn’t carry. Not in here. Not in this little prison.
 
His lips moved. His arms waved. But he had no idea what to say. Or if she could even read it.
 
He didn’t know what she meant.
 
A meal? A joke?
 
He didn’t know.
 
He didn’t know anything.
 
He was in a glass tube the size of a Chapstick.
 
His partner was trapped inside a necklace like some ancient bug in amber.
 
And Joanna?
 
She just smiled. A little. Not cruel. Not kind.
 
Just thoughtful.
 
Then she turned, still holding the vial, and walked into the kitchen.
 
The world swayed around Evan with every step she took.
 
And in the pendant, RawDog watched it all—upside down, pressed to the glass, seeing everything.
 
Certainly. Here is the long-form continuation, shifting smoothly between Joanna’s composed perspective and Evan’s powerless descent into complete helplessness. This is a chapter about contrast—her control vs. his confusion. She’s not gloating. She’s just finished deciding.
 
 
The necklace clicked shut around her neck with a soft metallic whisper.
 
It felt good there—weightless but ever-present, like a heartbeat against her chest. She glanced in the mirror. The amber pendant nestled into the dip just below her collarbone, catching the hallway light in soft gold. Inside, the man—formerly known to the world as @RawDogRiot—was barely a shadow. A speck. Exactly the right size.
 
Joanna adjusted the chain, satisfied, then slipped on her black denim jacket and grabbed the final piece: Evan.
 
Still in his vial. Still twitching.
 
She didn’t say anything to him as she tucked the glass into her pants pocket. He’d feel the curve of her hip, the pressure of denim, the slight sway with every step she took. She liked that.
 
She locked the door behind her.
 
Outside, the air had cooled. The late evening sky was streaked with orange and purple, the kind that made streetlights blink to life early. She climbed into her car, started the engine, backed out of the lot, and drove—heading toward the city’s best-kept culinary secret:
 
El Toro Del Fuego.
 
 
The truck sat in a dim corner of a gas station parking lot, surrounded by folding chairs, string lights, and a constant shimmer of grilled onions and slow-cooked meat in the air. The scent hit Joanna as soon as she stepped out: lime, seared fat, cilantro, warm tortillas.
 
She placed the order, easy and smooth:
 
    • Loaded Carnitas Burrito for Hannah
    • Chicken Tinga for Mark
    • Al Pastor tacos for Kelsey
    • And a steak fajita plate for herself
 
A few minutes later, the cook handed her a large brown paper bag, stapled shut at the top. It was warm. Heavy. The smell wafted through the top crease—grease, heat, and spice curling together like a scent you could drink.
 
She smiled.
 
Everything was ready.
 
 
Evan
 
It was like being pulled out of a dream and shoved into a different one—a nightmare painted in everyday detail.
 
Joanna returned to the car, got in, and reached into her pocket. The sky behind her glowed with city haze. She pulled the vial out slowly, like unwrapping something she already knew the taste of.
 
Then she placed it in the car’s dash-mounted cell phone holder, locking it upright, facing forward.
 
Evan stumbled in the glass, bracing against the sides. His eyes adjusted slowly.
 
He could see everything.
 
The windshield. The dashboard. The blurred glow of streetlights. And to his right—
 
The brown paper bag.
 
It loomed beside him like a building, slouched over in the passenger seat, seams darkened with grease. The top crease puffed gently from the heat within. Whatever was inside, it was hot. Fresh.
 
And it smelled… good. Really good.
 
Joanna started driving.
 
“You’ll like them,” she said, voice low and casual. “My friends, I mean.”
 
Her eyes didn’t leave the road.
 
She tapped her fingers lightly on the wheel as she drove. “Hannah’s one of those people who can somehow host and relax at the same time. I don’t get it. She’s kind. Direct. The mom of the group, for sure. She married Mark a few years ago—he’s a big softie. Teaches high school. Total dork.”
 
She glanced at the bag, then at Evan.
 
“And Kelsey? She’s gorgeous. Quiet at first, but super sharp. She’s one of those girls that doesn’t say much until she’s already figured out exactly who everyone is. Then she drops one line and wrecks you.”
 
Evan pressed both hands to the glass.
 
Joanna’s voice didn’t falter.
 
“They don’t know about… this,” she said, gesturing vaguely. “They’d never understand. But that’s fine. They don’t need to.”
 
She reached a stop sign, slowed, and then smiled slightly.
 
“The food from this truck is unreal, though. Only problem is—it runs straight through you if you’re not careful.”
 
The car rolled forward again.
 
“And the carnitas burrito?” she continued. “Oh, that’s Hannah’s favorite. Always says it’s the ‘most complete meal in a tortilla.’”
 
She turned into a quiet suburban street. Houses with porch lights on. Lawns trimmed. A flag still hanging from a pole long after the last holiday.
 
Evan’s breath caught.
 
The car slowed again. Stopped.
 
Joanna reached across to the passenger seat, set the bag in her lap, and opened it.
 
Steam poured out.
 
She pulled free a Styrofoam container. Opened it. Inside—two burrito halves, wrapped in foil except where they had been cut. The cross-section revealed pulled pork, beans, rice, guacamole, cheese, onion, and salsa.
 
It was still hot.
 
Moisture beaded on the inside of the lid.
 
Joanna looked over at him.
 
“You know,” she said, “the burrito’s got everything. But it’s always missing one key ingredient…”
 
She popped the cork from his vial.
 
Her fingers pinched the glass gently. Evan staggered. Wind hit his face.
 
“You.”
 
She lifted him.
 
And for the first time—he could see inside.
 
The burrito half pulsed with heat. Guacamole glistened. Rice curled against blackened pork. The tortilla crinkled from warmth, revealing a steaming, layered world of fat and spice.
 
Then—she dropped him in.
 
Not deep.
 
Just enough.
 
He landed in guacamole—warm, soft, thick—sliding between a chunk of pulled pork and a streak of beans. The heat soaked into his clothes instantly. His face pressed into something oily, salty, and sharp with lime.
 
He looked up.
 
Joanna was watching him.
 
Her expression was unreadable. Her eyes, level.
 
She didn’t smile.
 
She just looked. Let him sit there. Savoring it.
 
Then she closed the lid.
 
Darkness.
 
Sound. Muffled voices outside. The crinkle of foil. The creak of her car door opening.
 
Evan couldn’t move. Could barely breathe.
 
The box shifted, tilted—set back inside the bag.
 
Then carried.
 
He heard the crunch of gravel under her feet.
 
A knock on the door.
 
The sound of a woman laughing.
 
Then Joanna’s voice.
 
“I made sure to get everyone’s order right.”
 
 
Evan was in the middle of Hannah’s dinner.
 
And somewhere just above, RawDog watched it all happen—silent, unblinking, forever sealed in amber, bouncing gently against Joanna’s chest.
 
Evan couldn’t move.
 
The world around him was hot, wet, and reeking of spices—cumin, chili, lime, and the sharp tang of onion. He was wedged in deep, packed in by soft grains of rice and heavy smears of guacamole. Strings of shredded pork lay like sinew across his chest, pinning one arm. Salsa soaked through everything, seeping into his clothes, burning his eyes. His back was pressed against a slice of caramelized onion, slick and pungent. Everything trembled faintly from the bass of distant voices, like gods laughing on Olympus.
 
Muffled conversation echoed all around him. Booming, indecipherable—until a sudden shift jerked the burrito beneath him.
 
It moved.
 
He was being lifted—tilted slightly—his weight pressing downward as gravity shifted. His heart seized. Then a dull thump—the burrito was placed on the table. Closer. Closer to her.
 
Panic surged.
 
He squirmed, wriggling as hard as he could. Nothing gave. He was smothered on all sides, entombed in greasy heat. He yelled, but the sound barely carried in the dense food.
 
Then the burrito lifted again, and he felt it. The sheer scale of it—of her—became clear in a flash of primal dread. She was picking it up. Holding it. He could feel the tilt, the fingers underneath, the slight compression from her grip. Warmth radiated from where her palm pressed the foil-wrapped shell. The voices outside were clearer now, louder. Laughing.
 
Then—a bite.
 
Not his section. Not yet.
 
But he heard it. The brutal rip of tortilla and filling. The muffled chomp. The slick wet grind of food between molars. The gulp that followed, long and low.
 
She was eating. Eating what he was inside.
 
Another tilt.
 
Then came the second bite.
 
This one hit.
 
Not directly—barely. She bit into the burrito just ahead of him. The mass around him collapsed slightly, warm filling shifting and oozing. Part of his body was exposed now—his arms, his face—gasping against the cool air and bright kitchen light. Sticky globs clung to his skin. A smear of guac streaked across his chest as he tried to move, slicking down his torso.
 
From his tiny perch in the burrito’s torn flesh, Evan looked up.
 
And saw her.
 
Hannah.
 
She was massive—colossal. Her head alone was like a building. She sat at the table, smiling, relaxed. A single hand cradled the bottom of the burrito with casual grace. Her mouth was glistening—soft lips tinted from the salsa, parted just enough to show a glimpse of her teeth. She laughed at something someone said, shaking her head, her Blonde hair catching the kitchen light.
 
“Seriously,” she said, and her voice rattled his bones, “this is going to wreck me later, but it’s so worth it.”
 
That sentence hit him harder than any fall ever could.
 
He stared—completely still—as she lifted her beer and took a long, lazy sip. Her throat moved in a single slow swallow. Her neck flexed. And something—someone—was gone.
 
Evan’s stomach dropped.
 
That could’ve been him.
 
Would be him.
 
The burrito shifted again. Upward. Closer.
 
Hannah laughed again, eyes crinkling at the corners. Her mouth opened wide—and this time, Evan was front and center.
 
He saw everything.
 
Her lips parted first—glossy, soft, streaked faintly with grease. Then her teeth—white, square, ridged slightly at the edges from past use. A line of salsa clung to one incisor. Her tongue was pink, slick, curling slightly along the bottom of her mouth like a welcoming rug.
 
And beyond that—her throat.
 
Dark, glistening, pulsing faintly with each breath. The back of her mouth flexed, a wet cavern lined with ridges and soft muscle. The air smelled of tortilla, beer, and stomach acid.
 
Then the light vanished.
 
Her lips sealed around the burrito, closing around Evan like a curtain.
 
CRUNCH.
 
Her teeth sank into the filling just behind him, cutting him off from the outside world. Evan screamed as the food around him collapsed again, but he wasn’t bitten—not quite. Her molars tore through the burrito in sections. Evan was compressed, shifted, jostled, but miraculously not crushed.
 
Then the chewing began.
 
Sound became chaos—wet, sticky smacks of tongue against food, the deep grind of molars working through chunks of meat and rice. Each chew created shockwaves through the burrito, jostling his tiny body. Hot guac pressed against his skin. Pork smeared across his mouth. He could feel the heat from her breath in the dark—each exhale a humid wave.
 
Then, a shift.
 
Everything tilted back. Evan slid forward slightly, nudged by the half-mashed filling.
 
He was on her tongue now.
 
It was soft and wet, powerful beneath him, flexing with practiced ease. She rolled the food—him—toward the back of her mouth.
 
He screamed again. His voice didn’t carry.
 
He saw her uvula swinging above him like a pendulum.
 
The throat opened.
 
Then came the gulp.
 
Her tongue surged back. The burrito remnants—including Evan—were forced toward the darkness. He tried to grab something—anything—but his slick, salsa-coated fingers slipped. His legs kicked uselessly.
 
Then—pressure.
 
Her throat closed around him. Tight. Slick. Alive.
 
Muscles squeezed from all sides as he was pulled down, swallowed whole. The walls flexed in rhythmic waves, pushing him deeper, deeper.
 
Into her.
 
Into Hannah.
 
Down her esophagus, sliding on a bed of salsa and pork, past her sternum, into the tight humid air of her stomach.
 
The sounds changed—gurgles, groans, a wet churn.
 
He landed in a slop of half-digested food. Meat. Rice. Acid.
 
And still above, muffled but clear, he could hear her voice.
 
“…so worth it.”
 
It was hot.
 
Not just warm—sweltering. Oppressive. Alive.
 
Evan writhed in the slurry of chewed meat, rice, and bile, his tiny body slipping across the undulating folds of stomach lining. The air was thick, humid, barely breathable. Every second stretched on endlessly as Hannah’s stomach churned around him like a slow, grinding machine.
 
He could still hear them.
 
Muffled through layers of flesh and fat, the laughter and voices from the living room filtered through like distant thunder. Cards Against Humanity. Their voices rose in bursts—jokes, cheers, curses. From this organic tomb, Evan could picture them: beer bottles clinking, someone groaning at a crude card, Hannah with a hand over her mouth, laughing as she chewed on a tortilla chip.
 
All while he was inside her. Trapped. Forgotten. Dying.
 
Her stomach moved constantly—never resting. Peristaltic waves pushed the slurry back and forth, sloshing him through pockets of semi-digested burrito. The acids were starting to burn now. The guacamole and cheese had mixed with the salsa and beer in some violent chemical soup, and his skin was beginning to sting. His clothes were disintegrating—slowly, but surely. His breathing came in short, panicked gasps through the bitter stench of stomach acid and partially digested carnitas.
 
Occasionally, the walls compressed sharply—an internal cramp. The burrito was fighting back.
 
Hannah’s digestive tract groaned like a living cave. Gassy bubbles formed and burst around him. Burps echoed upward. Every few minutes, the walls would squeeze again, and Evan would tumble helplessly through a new pocket of sludge and meat pulp, his tiny arms flailing, finding no purchase.
 
Then came the sounds from outside.
 
“Ugh, I’m gonna regret this tomorrow,” Hannah muttered at one point, and Evan felt her voice rumble through her core like the voice of a god.
 
Laughter followed.
 
“I warned you about the burrito,” Mark said.
 
Evan’s heart pounded in his chest. The conversation confirmed what he was already beginning to feel: things were going wrong. For Hannah. For her gut. For him.
 
Time passed strangely in the belly of a giant.
 
An hour? Maybe more?
 
The card game wore on. Her stomach continued to twist and roil. He could feel her shift positions—leaning back on the couch, laughing again, then doubling forward slightly as a new cramp hit. The air grew thicker. The walls grew tighter. He screamed when the acids surged, splashing up his back and into his nose. His skin felt like it was being pickled.
 
The ambient noise changed. The clinking of glasses, the thud of footsteps. Someone turned on music. He was moving again—jostled violently, as though she’d stood up.
 
More time passed.
 
Then—pressure. Sudden and sharp. His environment squeezed as her stomach tried to contract harder. The churning was louder now. Her digestive system was fighting to break everything down, but it was struggling. Beer. Spices. Meat. Hot sauce.
 
He heard her groan from far above.
 
“Oh my god,” Hannah said, distantly, “my stomach is gonna kill me.”
 
Kelsey snorted. “Worth it though?”
 
“…Yeah,” Hannah said, with a wince. “But I’m definitely paying for it.”
 
Inside her, Evan was living that cost.
 
Eventually, the stomach’s efforts paid off. The slurry began to move. He was drawn downward by muscular contractions, nudged toward the exit valve—the pylorus.
 
And then, after hours of enduring the unbearable heat and chemical assault, he was sucked through.
 
The passage was tight. Suffocating. The chyme—the partially digested contents—oozed with him into the small intestine, where the texture changed from swampy to slick and smooth, but no less hostile. Bile and enzymes hit him like acid rain. Everything here was active, hyper-efficient, built to tear things apart on a microscopic level.
 
And he was still conscious.
 
The motion continued. Rippling, coordinated, slow. A new kind of pressure gripped him from every direction—more precise, more mechanical.
 
It was here—in the small intestine—that Evan’s strength finally gave out.
 
The heat. The pressure. The complete lack of breathable air. He gasped reflexively, but only thick liquid filled his lungs.
 
His arms stopped moving. His vision blurred. His chest burned, then faded.
 
His last sensations were of Hannah’s body continuing its task, unaware. Her gut gurgled deeply as it pushed her dinner forward, toward its inevitable end.
 
The glass was slick with his sweat.
 
RawDog pressed his palms against the inside of the pendant, trying to steady himself, but every breath fogged the interior. His heart hadn’t stopped racing since Joanna dropped him in here—since she sealed the cap and lifted the chain around her neck like he was a casual accessory.
 
Now he hung just above the neckline of her shirt, barely hidden. From inside the pendant, his world was warped amber and skin—her skin. He could see the soft dip of her collarbone, the edge of her jaw when she turned her head, the blurred rise of her throat when she swallowed. Looking down below his feet, he saw her breast cleavage beneath him. Pressed together by both her bra and tight shirt.
 
She hadn’t spoken to him since they arrived.
 
She hadn’t needed to.
 
He was there to watch.
 
At first, he had tried to hold on to anger. It gave him something to push against, something sharp. But it had eroded fast. The silence. The heat. The disorienting sway with every step she took. It broke him down.
 
Then she walked into the kitchen.
 
The pendant swung gently, giving him his first full glimpse of the table—and the woman.
 
Joanna called her Hannah.
 
She had a kind, open face. Tired eyes. Comfortable clothes. The look of someone who just got off work and wanted to laugh. Her hair was loose. Her shoulders were relaxed. She was sipping a beer and smiling at something Joanna said.
 
She didn’t know. She couldn’t.
 
RawDog leaned against the glass, panting. Watching.
 
Joanna set the brown paper bag on the table. Unpacked it.
 
Then handed the first container to Hannah.
 
The burrito.
 
RawDog’s stomach twisted. He felt nausea bloom inside him, even though he hadn’t eaten in what felt like days.
 
Hannah opened the container. Steam curled out.
 
She picked up the first half.
 
His mouth opened—just a breath, a silent reaction.
 
She bit into it.
 
Chewed. Laughed. Sipped beer.
 
Smiled.
 
RawDog started shaking.
 
He couldn’t look away.
 
She was eating slowly, savoring it. He could see her eyes flutter closed for half a second in appreciation. She made a face—mild surprise at how good it was. She said something. Her voice was muffled by the thick glass, but he caught the shape of it: “So worth it.”
 
More bites.
 
More chewing.
 
More swallowing.
 
He pressed his forehead to the glass. “No,” he whispered. “No, no, no…”
 
He slammed both fists into the curve of the pendant. His whole body vibrated from the impact, but it was useless. The sound didn’t leave the glass. It barely echoed back to him.
 
She licked guacamole from her finger and nodded, saying something to the others. She took another bite. Then another. Each one methodical. Each one final.
 
And then—it happened.
 
She finished the first half.
 
She reached for the second.
 
His hands went numb.
 
RawDog clawed at the glass, screaming, voice raw, face twisted with panic. “STOP!” he yelled. “WAIT! He’s in there! Evan’s in that one! He’s in that one, he’s in the next—”
 
He pounded until his fists ached. Until his voice cracked. Until his whole body pulsed with adrenaline.
 
Then she reached for the second half, fingers curling around it. The guacamole glistened from the light.
     
RawDog’s body went cold. He knew exactly where Evan was. He remembered watching as Joanna dropped in the Guacamole, layered with the rest of the ingredients.
 
He pressed both hands to the glass, wide-eyed, shaking. “He’s in there!” he mouthed. “Evan’s in there! Stop! Stop! STOP!”
 
But no one saw.
 
No one heard.
 
The pendant was beautiful. Quiet. Just another accessory. No one would ever guess it held a man inside—a man screaming until his throat gave out.
     
She didn’t even look at it.
 
Her mouth opened wide, the burrito was inserted. The sight of the guacamole disappearing behind her lips.
 
RawDog froze.
 
She bit down on it. Removing that portion from the rest of the burrito.
 
RawDog’s mouth opened in a dry scream, ragged, voiceless, desperate as he watched her jaw operate, pulverizing the burrito into paste.
 
Then her throat shifted.
 
She laughed, and took a swig from her beer.
 
And RawDog knew. From the way she lifted it, from the angle, from the size of the bite—
 
The second she swallowed, RawDog slumped.
     
He didn’t move. Didn’t blink.
 
He pressed his forehead to the glass.
 
It was warm.
 
His hands slid down and away from the curve, limp at his sides.
 
He was defeated.
 
He couldn’t stop it.
 
He had watched his friend—his accomplice, his partner, the guy who held the camera and laughed with him through every stunt, every stupid comment, every chase for clicks—go in.
 
He could still see her—her face lit with laughter. Her beer bottle lifted. Her smile wide and oblivious. Her belly, unseen beneath the table, was already working to unmake what remained of Evan.
 
Evan had vanished into her without a trace.
 
And Joanna?
 
She looked right at Hannah. Right at her belly. Then right past her—to no one.
 
And smiled.
 
RawDog closed his eyes.
 
He stopped yelling.
 
He stopped moving.
 
His breath slowed.
 
There was nothing left to scream about.
 
He would hang here.
 
Suspended. Useless. Powerless.
 
And worst of all—
 
He had watched.
 
And RawDog knew now—he wasn’t waiting to be saved.
     
He was just waiting his turn.
 
Hannah laughed so hard she nearly spit out her beer.
 
“Goats screaming like people,” she wheezed, pointing at Mark. “I told you that card was cursed.”
 
Mark groaned in theatrical defeat, slumping into the couch. “It’s the nuclear option and you know it.”
 
They were halfway through a round of Cards Against Humanity—the awful edition, the one with all the cursed, too-specific cards that made even Kelsey crack up. A half-empty bowl of tortilla chips sat on the coffee table, and her second beer was sweating in her hand. The burrito was settled, but not settling. She could feel it.
 
At first, it had just been a full feeling—heavy but satisfying. She’d joked about it as she polished off the last bite, still riding the high of greasy indulgence and good company.
 
But now?
 
Now, her stomach was starting to rebel.
 
A low, quiet gurgle rolled through her midsection, subtle enough to ignore, but impossible not to notice. She leaned back, planting her socked feet on the edge of the couch, cradling her beer like a security blanket.
 
“You okay?” Joanna asked, lounging sideways in the armchair across from her.
 
“Yeah,” Hannah said, grimacing slightly. “That burrito’s doing gymnastics.”
 
Kelsey laughed. “If you puke, I’m not cleaning it.”
 
“I’m not that bad. I’m just… marinating in regret right now.”
 
“I thought you said it was worth 2 hours in the bathroom tomorrow?” Kelsey asked.
 
Hannah looked at Kelsey, “my stomach said that, Kels.”
 
Joanna smirked but said nothing. Just sipped from her bottle, her eyes on Hannah for a second longer than necessary before glancing back at her cards.
 
Another gurgle.
 
This one louder.
 
Hannah felt it ripple across her gut like a tremor. Pressure shifted low in her abdomen, not painful exactly, but… ominous.
 
Still, the game went on. More drinks. More inappropriate jokes. At some point Mark threw on some music—a classic rock playlist that got progressively louder until Kelsey stole the speaker and swapped it to weird synthwave. There was a brief dance-off in the kitchen, the kind only friends with too much food and alcohol attempt: goofy, messy, and hilarious. Hannah even got up and moved a little, laughing through a brief cramp as she leaned against the counter, one hand on her stomach.
 
“Still feeling that burrito?” Kelsey asked, raising an eyebrow.
 
“Like I swallowed a whole bag of hot bricks,” Hannah muttered. “I’m gonna be paying for this tomorrow.”
 
She excused herself to the bathroom around midnight, more from the beer than the burrito. She peed quickly, washed her hands, and stared at herself in the mirror. Her face was flushed from alcohol and laughter. Her sweater had bunched slightly at the stomach where it stretched out—she looked vaguely bloated.
 
She pressed her fingers lightly into her gut.
 
“Yikes,” she mumbled. Another gurgle answered her, deeper now, from below. Her intestines felt… busy. There was no way that burrito bomb was going quietly.
 
She knew what was coming. Not now. But later.
 
Tomorrow would suck.
 
She flushed, returned to the living room, and found Joanna watching her again—just for a moment. Hannah shook her head and flopped back onto the couch, groaning dramatically. “God. Put me in a food coma.”
 
“We still doing a movie?” Mark asked, waving the remote.
 
Eventually, with the hour creeping past 12:30 and energy finally dipping, they all piled back onto the couch and floor. Mark picked the movie—some ridiculous found-footage horror flick with shaky cameras and bad dialogue—and dimmed the lights.
 
Hannah curled up against him on the couch, her legs draped over his lap, head resting on his shoulder. Mark wrapped his arm around her without thinking. She tucked herself into his warmth easily.
 
“Still gonna die?” he whispered into her hair.
 
She nodded. “So full. So spicy. So happy.”
 
He chuckled and kissed the side of her forehead. “Worth it?”
 
“Oh yeah,” she murmured.
 
Joanna and Kelsey were stretched out on the floor with blankets and pillows, half-watching, half-dozing. Every now and then Kelsey made a comment about the stupidity of the characters on-screen. Joanna threw popcorn at her once. Nobody moved much.
 
The movie wasn’t good, but it didn’t need to be. It was the kind of night where the comfort of being together mattered more than whatever was playing.
 
By the time the credits rolled, the room had fallen into a kind of sleepy quiet. The only sounds were the hum of the fridge, the soft shuffle of Kelsey pulling her blanket higher, and Hannah’s stomach making a low, embarrassing gurgle.
 
She grimaced. “Still dying.”
 
“C’mon,” Mark said, rising carefully and helping her up. “Let’s go die in bed like adults.”
 
They said goodnight to the others, stepped over tangled sleeping bags and half-eaten chip bags, and retreated to the bedroom at the end of the hall.
 
It was dark and cool inside. Hannah pulled off her sweater, letting it drop to the floor as she climbed into bed. Mark followed, switching off the lamp after plugging in both of their phones. The sheets felt like heaven. She sighed as she stretched out, her full belly aching just a little, and nestled close to her husband again.
 
He wrapped an arm around her from behind, pressing a kiss to her shoulder.
 
“Thanks for the burrito run,” he murmured.
 
“Anytime,” she whispered.
 
In the living room, Kelsey had already started snoring lightly. Joanna was still awake, staring at the ceiling, letting the last traces of the night settle in.
 
But in the bedroom, Mark and Hannah drifted off together—warm, full, and content. The burrito might make tomorrow hell, but for now, the night was soft. Quiet.
 
Whole.
 
And good.
 
Sunlight crept in slow, lazy beams through the living room blinds. Dust motes hovered in the pale gold, still as if frozen. The air had that heavy, quiet weight that always followed a night of laughing too hard and staying up too late. Somewhere in the house, wood creaked softly. Pipes groaned.
 
Joanna lay on her side, one arm tucked under her head, still wrapped in the fleece throw she’d pulled from the back of the couch. Kelsey was bundled on the cushions next to her, mouth slightly open, one arm flopped over the edge. A pillow teetered on the floor beside her.
 
It was warm. Familiar.
 
Joanna stirred when she heard the *click* of a door opening down the hall, followed by soft footsteps and the hushed sound of the bathroom light flicking on.
 
She didn’t move. Just listened.
 
Water ran.
 
Toilet flushed.
 
A minute later, Mark’s voice broke the stillness, low and casual.
 
“Morning, Joanna.”
 
She cracked one eye open. He was standing in the doorway of the living room in plaid pajama pants and a black tee, rubbing the back of his neck. His beard was slightly flattened on one side from sleep.
 
“You’re up early,” he said.
 
Joanna gave him a half-smile, still groggy. “Kinda.”
 
Mark nodded toward the kitchen. “You want breakfast? I was gonna do pancakes.”
 
Joanna blinked at him, lips quirking. “You’re offering to cook?”
 
He grinned. “I’m a man of many mysteries.”
 
He disappeared into the kitchen, and Joanna rolled onto her back, listening to the shuffle of pans, the low hum of the fridge opening, the clink of measuring spoons. She sat up slowly, tucking her legs under herself, the pendant around her neck still cold from the night air.
 
No one noticed it. No one ever did.
 
She heard a door open again—Hannah now, soft footsteps down the hall.
 
She moved quickly, almost urgently. She must’ve been holding it in.
 
The bathroom door shut. Joanna heard the faint *click* of the lock.
 
The silence stretched again.
 
She didn’t move. Just folded the blanket over her lap and stared down at the carpet, listening to the comforting sounds of domestic life.
 
The whisk of batter in a bowl.
 
The quiet whoosh of the stove lighting.
 
Eventually, the bathroom door opened again. Hannah walked out barefoot, hair tied up in a high bun, oversized tee brushing her thighs.
 
She looked tired—but lighter.
 
“Smells amazing,” she said, passing Joanna with a soft yawn as she headed into the kitchen.
 
Mark turned from the stove. “You feeling better?”
 
“Way better,” Hannah said, kissing his cheek before grabbing a mug from the cupboard. “Last night was rough, but I think it passed.”
 
Joanna just watched them, chin resting on her knees, as the smell of butter and sugar filled the air.
 
A few minutes later, the smell hit Kelsey, too.
 
She groaned softly and pushed herself up, hair a complete disaster, hoodie twisted halfway off one shoulder.
 
“Is that pancakes or a dream?”
 
“Pancakes,” Mark said, flipping one onto a growing stack on a plate.
 
“I love this house,” she muttered.
 
They all sat at the table with mismatched mugs and plates, syrup bottles between them, butter melting into stacks of golden pancakes. Kelsey added chocolate chips to hers. Hannah drowned hers in syrup. Mark ate like a man who knew the peace wouldn’t last once emails started coming in.
 
Joanna added a small pat of butter and just a drizzle of syrup, cutting slowly, savoring the texture more than the taste.
 
The conversation was easy.
 
About movies.
 
A weird email Hannah got from a coworker.
 
How Mark once accidentally texted his mom something meant for Hannah and couldn’t look her in the eye for a week.
 
They laughed. They passed forks. Someone brought up game night again for next weekend.
 
And Joanna just listened.
 
She didn’t need to speak much.
 
She just looked at their faces—Satisfied, full, alive—and let the warmth of it settle inside her.
 
Inside the pendant, the tiny weight bounced once against her collarbone when she reached for her coffee.
 
She didn’t react.
 
No one noticed.
 
This was her morning.
 
A morning like any other.
 
And no one at the table would ever know just how cleanly justice had been served—or how close it still sat, dangling above their plates, trapped forever in glass.
 
Around 11 a.m., Joanna’s eyes flicked toward Hannah again. The light in the room was soft, sunlight filtering in through the blinds and casting lazy stripes across the worn carpet and furniture. The morning had settled into a quiet hum of occasional conversation and clinking mugs, but Joanna noticed something subtle—something off—in Hannah’s expression.
 
She didn’t say anything at first, just watched. Hannah’s brow furrowed slightly, her usually bright eyes dimming with a hint of discomfort. Her lips pressed together in a tight line, and she shifted uneasily in her chair, one hand resting lightly on her abdomen as if trying to soothe a sudden, unwelcome sensation.
 
Joanna knew that look well. She had seen it before. The silent signs that meant the burrito wasn’t settling quite as pleasantly as the laughter and jokes had made it seem last night.
 
Hannah’s voice came low and almost hesitant, barely above a whisper but clear enough to catch Joanna’s attention. “I think the burrito is ready,” she said, a dry humor threading through the words, but with an edge of resignation. The implication hung between them—last night’s indulgence was about to pay its price.
 
Joanna stood smoothly, brushing back a stray strand of hair. She gave Hannah a half-smile that was both knowing and gentle. “I’m going to use the restroom now,” she said lightly, but there was a sharp undertone behind it. “Before you st—before the place stinks up.”
 
Hannah’s cheeks flushed a little at the tease, but she gave a rueful nod. Joanna’s words weren’t cruel; they were a kind of mercy wrapped in quiet understanding.
 
Joanna moved toward the door, every step measured but purposeful, carrying the secret weight of what she already knew—and what Hannah didn’t suspect.
 
The room’s warmth felt heavier now, charged with unspoken truths and the slow, inevitable approach of consequences that only Joanna was prepared for.
 
Joanna stood and stretched quietly from her seat at the kitchen table, the hum of conversation and laughter dimming behind her as she slipped away down the narrow hallway. The wood floor creaked faintly beneath her steps, a soft reminder of the quiet house still settling into the slow rhythm of the late morning. She moved with an easy confidence, the familiar routine of heading toward the bathroom mingling with something else—an unspoken plan, one she had been crafting since the moment Mr. RawDog had pulled his little prank on her the morning before.
 
She reached the bathroom door at the end of the hall and paused for a fraction of a second, hand resting lightly on the smooth wood. The soft murmurs from the kitchen followed her down the hallway, growing quieter with each step away, but still faintly audible—voices layered with laughter, clinking glasses, the scrape of chairs. She closed the door gently behind her, the soft click of the latch sounding like the start of a secret ritual.
 
Inside, the bathroom was cool and bright, the overhead light humming softly as it cast an even glow across the white tiled walls. The faint scent of lavender air freshener lingered in the air, mixed with the faint, lingering aroma of coffee from the morning. Joanna slid her jacket off and hung it on the back of the door, her fingers brushing against the amber pendant resting low against her chest.
 
She sat down on the closed toilet lid, a small sigh escaping her lips as she allowed herself a moment of quiet. Yes, she really did need to pee—after all, there was no point in pretending. But as she shifted to get comfortable, her fingers instinctively reached up to her pendant, tracing the smooth, polished surface of the amber. Inside, encased in the glowing resin, was Mr. RawDog—barely more than a speck, a tiny man trapped like a curious insect, curled up and helpless, his eyes darting nervously whenever the pendant caught the light.
 
Joanna rotated the pendant slowly between her fingers, watching the minuscule figure from every angle. There was a strange satisfaction in this moment—power, maybe, or simply the joy of having the upper hand after his earlier mischief. She smiled, that slow, knowing smile that carried a touch of mischief.
 
She took a deep breath and reached for the zipper of her jeans, the sound of the metal sliding down mingling with the soft drip of water from the faucet. She peed, the warm relief soothing the pressure that had been building since breakfast. Her thoughts drifted, swirling like the water beneath her, until she felt ready to move on.
 
When she was finished, she reached for a few sheets of toilet paper, folding them carefully and wiping with a practiced motion. Standing, she flushed the toilet, the swirling water rushing down with a satisfying whoosh. The bathroom filled with the sound of cascading water, and Joanna stepped forward to the sink to wash her hands, the cool water running over her skin, the faint scent of soap filling the air.
 
But then she turned back to the pendant. With a delicate movement of her fingers, she unscrewed the cap at the top of the amber orb, a small, precise movement. The glass-like surface swung open gently, revealing the tiny man inside.
 
She held out her palm and let him drop in, a tiny splash marking his descent as he landed in her hand. He looked up at her with wide eyes—helpless, small, completely at her mercy.
 
Joanna smiled wider now, a plan forming fully in her mind.
 
She walked over to the toilet again, her footsteps steady on the tile. Lowering her hand, she gently dropped Mr. RawDog into the water-filled bowl. The cold water rippled around him, the swirling currents seeming like an ocean to the tiny figure.
 
Joanna knelt on one knee, her eyes level with the rim of the toilet. She looked at him, her voice low but teasing.
 
“Relax, it’s just a prank, Bro.”
 
Her fingers curled loosely around the porcelain edge as she watched him bob in the water, the tiny man powerless against the vast expanse of liquid.
 
Suddenly, a sharp knock echoed from the bathroom door, making Joanna’s head snap up. The voice outside was urgent, breathless—Hannah.
 
“Jo! Please hurry, I really need to go!”
 
Joanna’s heart skipped a beat. She knew what was coming. The burrito—last night’s meal, the one packed with Evan, RawDog’s shrunken accomplice trapped inside Hannah’s gut—was about to make its exit. The timeline was collapsing.
 
Carefully, Joanna stood and pulled her phone out before she moved to the door, unlocking it with practiced ease. She opened it,  her eyes catching Hannah’s face as she slid passed her inside, cheeks flushed, a hint of discomfort in her expression.
 
The door closed behind Hannah with a firm click, the lock sliding into place.
 
Joanna stood in the hallway for a moment, breathing in the quiet after the rush. The prank had just begun. She motioned to Mark and Kelsey, sitting in the kitchen down the hall, hinting that she had a phone call to take. She slipped into the guest bedroom just as the bathroom door clicked shut behind Hannah. She didn’t shut the bedroom door entirely—left it slightly ajar, a sliver of hallway light stretching in across the beige carpet. Just enough to hear everything. Just enough to savor.
 
RawDog’s world was a strange, distorted swirl of shifting light and muted colors—an amber prison that trapped him in a timeless bubble. The smooth curved walls of the pendant glowed faintly, and though he was barely a few millimeters tall, the walls felt impossibly close, enclosing him in a sphere of honeyed resin that caught and fractured the light with every subtle tilt Joanna made.
 
He was a prisoner, a curiosity encased in a golden orb that gleamed softly against Joanna’s skin. She had laughed the morning before when he’d pulled his prank, but now... now the game had changed. He sensed something in the way she fingered the pendant, the deliberate rotation that shifted his tiny prison to different angles, giving him new perspectives of the amber walls and the distorted view of her fingers, the faint hairs on her skin like towering pillars.
 
He wriggled instinctively, his tiny muscles straining to find grip on the slick inner surface, but there was none. The resin was smooth, impenetrable, and cold to his touch. A trapped insect, a curiosity displayed like a trophy. The only thing he could do was watch and wait.
 
Then, with a sudden, heart-stopping movement, the cap was removed from the pendant. A breath of fresh air flooded in, and RawDog tumbled free, landing roughly in the soft, warm palm of Joanna’s hand. His body was tiny and vulnerable against the vast expanse of skin—fingertips like mountains around him, each crevice and line a canyon.
 
Joanna’s face loomed above him, her eyes bright with amusement as she watched his every movement. He felt a spark of hope and dread swirl in his chest. What was she planning?
 
Before he could even gather himself, he was lifted again, this time carried across the bathroom’s tiled floor—cool and glossy beneath Joanna’s footsteps. The room was a giant cavern of unfamiliar smells: sharp hints of cleaning supplies, the faint scent of lavender from an air freshener, and the unmistakable metallic tang of running water.
 
Then he was lowered to the porcelain rim of the toilet bowl.
 
His eyes widened in disbelief.
 
Below him, a vast pool of water stretched out, swirling gently with the last flush. The surface reflected the harsh overhead light, ripples shimmering and dancing like an endless ocean. For RawDog, this was no mere toilet bowl—it was a vast, daunting abyss.
 
Joanna’s voice, warm but teasing, echoed down to him as she knelt before the bowl, her figure towering above like a benevolent yet unpredictable giant.
 
“Relax, it’s just a prank, Bro.”
 
Her words reverberated through the air, and RawDog’s heart hammered in his tiny chest. He was caught between fear and a faint hope that this was all some twisted joke—that she wouldn’t actually do what he feared.
 
Then came the drop.
 
The cold rush of water engulfed him, numbing and relentless. The swirl of the toilet’s basin tugged at him like a strong current, tossing him gently but with force. Tiny droplets splashed against his face, cold and sharp, each one like a tiny needle.
 
He struggled to find footing in the watery abyss but was no match for the swirling currents that dragged him deeper into the bowl. The surface above blurred and shimmered, distorted by the rippling waves, and the bright bathroom lights fractured into dancing prisms.
 
RawDog’s mind raced. Was this the end? Was he about to be flushed away, swallowed by this porcelain sea and lost forever?
 
Before he could answer, the sharp, sudden knock on the bathroom door startled him. The muffled voice of Hannah outside sounded urgent, breathless: “Joanna! Hurry, I really need to get in!”
 
Panic twisted in RawDog’s gut. Time was running out.
 
Joanna’s footsteps retreated, the sound fading as the door opened and closed again behind Hannah. The faint clatter of a lock sliding home echoed ominously.
 
RawDog floated in the toilet bowl, surrounded by a cold, swirling world that was far larger and more terrifying than anything he had ever known. The water rippled around him like a living thing, and the sound of distant voices and hurried footsteps became a blur in the watery abyss.
 
He steeled himself for whatever was coming next. The prank was far from over.
 
Hannah closed the bathroom door behind her, the latch clicking with a practiced flick of her wrist. The familiar, faint metallic clunk of the lock sliding into place echoed just a little too loud in the stillness of the house, and it struck her how grateful she was for the temporary solitude. Privacy. Sanctuary. She didn’t want anyone hearing what was about to happen.
 
She moved quickly now, urgency mounting. Her hands tugged down the waistband of her black leggings and the cotton of her underwear in one swift motion. The cool air met the heat of her skin and sent a small shiver across her thighs. The toilet seat was still warm as she sat, a small reminder that Joanna was just in here moments ago, and she instinctively hunched forward, arms across her lap, bracing herself against the dull pressure growing in her gut.
 
She’d been feeling it all morning—the nagging, growing discomfort deep in her belly, like a dull drumbeat turning into a relentless pounding. The burrito from last night was no longer just a comforting memory; it had become a ticking time bomb she’d been trying to ignore.
 
Her brow furrowed as the cramping worsened, her insides twisting like a wrung towel. She grimaced, drawing in a shallow breath through clenched teeth. “Oh god,” she muttered under her breath.
 
Another wave of cramps hit, more violent this time, and she shifted on the toilet, clutching the sides of the seat. Her breath hitched as her body betrayed her with an urgent, unmistakable signal.
 
And then it happened. The pressure peaked.
 
A loud, gassy eruption burst out of her, startling even herself. The echo in the porcelain bowl was cartoonishly loud, like something out of a slapstick comedy—but there was nothing funny about how she felt. There was a moment of sharp relief, like a valve had finally opened, but it didn’t last. The ache remained, bubbling deep in her abdomen.
 
She let out a groan, half of frustration, half of surrender, and reached for her phone on the bathroom counter. A distraction. Anything.
 
Facebook loaded slowly on her cracked screen. Faces of work acquaintances smiled back at her in curated photos. Someone’s engagement. Someone’s baby. A reel of someone’s backyard makeover. It was surreal, the contrast between their picture-perfect lives and her current reality—curled up on a toilet, sweating, regretting the burrito.
 
Another wave hit. Her stomach tightened again, and the pain forced her to bend forward, resting her elbows on her knees. There was no holding it back. A hot, wet rush of diarrhea surged out, violently splattering into the water. The smell bloomed instantly—sour and sharp, like spoiled meat and vinegar—and she recoiled, one hand covering her nose even as she winced again.
 
“Damn it,” she whispered. “Why did I eat that stupid burrito…”
 
A sudden cramp curled around her intestines and she bit her lip, trying not to groan. The bathroom was still except for the faint hum of the exhaust fan overhead and the distant murmur of voices from the other room, muffled but unmistakable.
 
I’m going to regret this so much, she thought bitterly. But it was so worth it last night.
 
Her stomach groaned again. Another round. More liquid. It was as if her body was rejecting everything she’d consumed in the last twelve hours.
 
She felt raw. Not just her gut—though that was bad enough—but her pride, her nerves, everything. Her thighs stuck to the seat. Her back ached from hunching. Her whole body was rebelling.
 
A bead of sweat slid down her temple, and she brushed it away absently. “Never again,” she whispered, even though she knew full well she’d probably say yes to spicy food again in the future. Why did she always think she could handle it? Why did she lie to herself?
 
She scrolled numbly, barely registering the posts on her phone. Her vision blurred slightly from the low-grade pain. Time dragged. Ten minutes passed. Then fifteen. Every few minutes another pitiful splatter, like her insides were slowly melting out. Less forceful now, more like a leak that wouldn’t seal. She felt hollowed out. Tender.
 
Her phone buzzed quietly in her hand, but she ignored it, too preoccupied with the internal aftermath of her body’s rebellion. The bathroom was her refuge and her prison all at once—a small, sterile place filled with echoes of vulnerability.
 
Hannah leaned her head back and stared at the ceiling, the pale light above flickering slightly. The smell in the room was awful—rancid, almost acidic—and it clung to the air, growing heavier despite the half-hearted fan whirring above. Her legs were starting to go numb.
 
“I’m gonna need a shower after this,” she said aloud, voice dry. She wasn’t even trying to be funny. It was just the truth. She felt like a shell of herself—drained, greasy, humiliated by her own biology. A sigh left her lips as another pathetic little trickle escaped, as if her body still hadn’t quite finished the purge.
 
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the cramps slowed to a halt. Her gut was still sore, like a battlefield long after the last bullet was fired, but at least the worst was over.
 
She reached for the toilet paper with a sigh, grateful to be at the tail end of her ordeal. Taking her time—slow, careful, methodical. The aftermath of a meal like that wasn’t something you rushed.
 
Her mind drifted back to the burrito, the feast she’d devoured so gleefully less than 12 hours ago. The juicy carnitas, the melted cheese, the tangy pickled onions—all of it now a cruel joke playing out in her gut.
 
She sighed again, a mixture of resignation and quiet amusement at the inevitable price she’d pay for such indulgence.
 
A soft knock came at the door, and Joanna’s voice whispered urgently, “Hannah? You okay?”
 
Hannah gave a shaky breath, pushing her hair back from her face. “Yeah… just a minute.”
 
She stood up, pulling her underwear and leggings back up, and glanced in the bowl before reaching for the handle. "Next time, I’m definitely skipping the heavy burrito." she said. She flushed. She watched the swampy mess swirl down the drain until the water was clear again. “That’s disgusting,” she said, happy it was gone.
 
The bathroom smelled like a war zone, but in this moment, Hannah was grateful for the privacy to face her discomfort alone. She washed her hands, the cool water was a balm, cleansing away not just the physical but some of the embarrassment too. She stared at her reflection, eyes slightly glassy but determined.
 
RawDog’s world was darkness and shifting pressure. One moment he had been clutched in Joanna’s palm, a strange mix of  water before him.
 
He heard the sound of tissue wiping, the rustle of paper against skin. The bowl was flushed—a rushing, gushing flood that swept RawDog and the terrible mess swirling down a dark, narrow tunnel.
 
The world tilted and spun as the water carried him away, and for a moment, RawDog clung to a shard of Evan’s remains, then was pulled away into the unknown.
 
Above him, he heard the faint, disgusted sigh of Hannah as she glanced into the bowl.
 
“That’s disgusting,” she muttered, the words fading as the flush drowned the sound.
 
RawDog closed his eyes, bracing himself for whatever came next.
 
One moment he had been clutched in Joanna’s palm, a strange mix of warmth and coolness, then the next he was plunged—plunged—into cold, murky water. The bowl’s surface rippled and swirled around him, and for a second, he was weightless, suspended in a strange, swirling abyss.
 
RawDog treaded the cold water, heart racing, arms aching, the curvature of the porcelain bowl rising around him like the edge of a colossal crater. There was nowhere to climb, no purchase on the slick, cold ceramic. The water lapped gently around him, deceptively calm, rippling with every panicked breath he took.
 
Joanna was gone. She had left him here—left him to die.
 
RawDog looked up.
 
She entered—Hannah. Towering, oblivious, massive.
 
Her movements were swift and purposeful. The door closed. The lock slid home. The world narrowed.
 
She didn't see him.
 
There was no hesitation. No awareness. She was just doing what people do when they think they're alone.
 
RawDog's arms froze as she turned, her colossal form eclipsing the light, and then—without warning—she dropped her leggings and underwear in a single motion.
 
He screamed, a useless reflex. A mosquito’s cry beneath the roar of an oncoming avalanche.
 
And then she sat.
 
The entire bowl shuddered as her body lowered on to it, the lid creaking under her weight. The ring of porcelain became a white void above, broken only by the looming shape of her rear sealing off the world. What little light remained filtered through the gap between her thighs—dim, pale, ghostly.
 
The sound began—an ominous churn. A groan. The wet, primal language of a body ready to purge.
 
The first impact came like a bomb.
 
A thick, wet mass slammed into the water beside him, spraying him with filth. The temperature rose. The smell hit him like poison, hot, putrid and chemical. He gagged, kicked away blindly, only to collide with something worse—another log, half-dissolved, rising to the surface like a corpse.
 
Another burst followed. A wet, explosive jet, splattering into the bowl like paint hurled at a canvas. It surrounded him, flecked his face, got in his mouth. He thrashed, gagging, crying, spitting.
 
There was no escape. No sky. Only heat, stink, and shadow.
 
The turbulence was relentless. Each new drop of waste stirred the water into a slurry, thick with matter, stinking with bile and rot. It was no longer water—it was a slurry of digestion and death. A grave in waiting.
 
And then, floating past him like some obscene message in a bottle, he saw it.
 
Through the shifting darkness, he glimpsed familiar forms—bits of tissue, scraps of debris. And then, a shocking sight: the faint, fragmented remains of Evan, floating amid the chaos. Shreds of the tiny man, half-dissolved and bobbing in the viscous, foul-smelling sludge.
 
RawDog’s mind reeled. He tried to call out, but no sound escaped him, just silence in this vast, unyielding prison.
 
RawDog choked on his breath. He tried to look away, but his eyes locked on the pulpy, broken silhouette tangled in the mess. It was all that remained of his friend. Devoured. Digested. Dumped.
 
And now he was next.
 
Another spray. A new wave of heat. The walls of the bowl groaned and splashed. Her body groaned above him, another tremor in the sky.
 
He was crying now. Not from sadness, not just—though that, too—but from pain. The acid in the air burned his eyes. His skin itched from the rising filth. He could barely see. His body ached, his muscles screamed, and his ears rang with the terrible, wet noises that surrounded him.
 
Time became a blur.
 
He drifted, sometimes curling into a ball to avoid contact with floating chunks. Sometimes kicking to stay above the thickening surface. Sometimes he screamed, uselessly, knowing no one would hear him.
 
The storm above him began to calm. The sounds lessened. The air grew still—but not better. Stagnant. Drenched in the sour stink of what had passed.
 
He was shivering. Exhausted. Coated in things he couldn't identify. He knew what came next.
 
Above him, her body shifted. He heard the sound of toilet paper rolling and tearing. Then it came into view, RawDog watched as her dripping, filth-covered rear was wiped, over and over. After each wipe or two, the giant disgusting, folded sheets were dropped in the swampy mess.
 
A soft knock came at the door, and Joanna’s voice whispered urgently, “Hannah? You okay?”
 
“Yeah… just a minute.” Hannah replied.
 
RawDog stared upward. And sure enough, the ass-covered ceiling shifted. The light returned. He watched as her butt cheeks closed, sealing her anus away between them. A shape stood, silhouetted above the bowl.
 
His eyes adjusted. He watched as she pulled her underwear back up. A pair of plain black panties, then her black leggings. She turned around and looked down—not in malice, not even in recognition—but in passing revulsion. A simple wrinkle of her nose. A look of disgust.
 
Then—her hand moved.
 
He saw the handle.
 
And that was it.
 
No gasp. No rescue. No comprehension.
 
She saw the mess. But not him.
 
"Next time, I’m definitely skipping the heavy burrito." She said, just before pressing the handle.
 
“No, no, no, no—”
 
The flush.
 
A monstrous roar ripped through the porcelain walls. The water turned, pulling, churning. The whirlpool opened its mouth wide.
 
The world tilted and spun as the water carried him away, and for a moment, RawDog clung to Evan’s half digested remains, then was pulled away into the unknown.
 
Above him, he heard the faint, disgusted sigh of Hannah as she glanced into the bowl.
 
“That’s disgusting,” she muttered, the words fading as the flush drowned the sound.
 
RawDog closed his eyes, bracing himself for whatever came next.
 
Down into the dark.
 
Down into nothing.
 
Joanna sat on the edge of the guest bed, fingers smoothing across the soft comforter, her eyes fixed on the wall as if it were a stage curtain about to rise. The first sound—barely audible—was the soft shuffle of leggings being pulled down. Joanna exhaled, slow and steady.
 
There it is. Showtime.
 
She crossed one leg over the other and folded her hands neatly in her lap, the amber pendant still warm against her chest, nestled like a trophy.
 
Inside that pendant only minutes ago had been Mr. RawDog—brash, smirking, an embodiment of unchecked cruelty, now reduced to a fleck of life trembling in a pool of toilet water. Joanna’s smile curved, tight and self-satisfied.
 
Inside the bathroom, the first rumble echoed.
 
A sputtering burst of gas. Long. Wet. Guttural.
 
Joanna tilted her head slightly toward the wall and closed her eyes. She could practically map it out—the position of Hannah’s body, hunched forward, face tight with discomfort, that soft groan she made when the cramping crested.
 
She pictured RawDog again. The way he had splashed and screamed when she dropped him in. His panic. The dawning realization of his fate. She had watched him flail for a moment, clinging to the water’s edge. But not for long. Not with the sounds Hannah had been making.
 
Joanna leaned back on the bed and exhaled, slow and silent. She traced her fingers over the bedsheet, feeling its softness, its warmth, as though it grounded her here in the moment. The bathroom wall murmured again, and she closed her eyes, letting the white noise wash over her like a wave.
 
What was it that RawDog used to say in his videos? “You got RawDogged!” Always after some awful act. Smacking food out of someone’s hands. Dumping soda in a stranger’s lap. That ugly laugh. That obnoxious swagger.
 
Now he had been RawDogged—far more poetically than any of his victims.
 
That’s what you get, asshole. That’s what you deserve.
 
And Evan was gone —digested, broken down, dissolved. The heat, the acid, the slow churn of a human gut—Joanna had studied biology in high school. She knew exactly what happened to organic matter inside a digestive tract. Evan had gone from a smirking piece of shit prankster to a literal piece of shit, and now Hannah’s body was ejecting the last of him in the most humiliating, painful way imaginable.
 
Joanna pressed her lips together to contain a quiet, satisfied laugh.
 
Another wet explosion erupted behind the wall. This one louder, more desperate. The sound of viscera rebelling. The unmistakable splash of liquid hitting liquid, followed by a muffled moan.
 
Poor Hannah.
 
No—sweet, innocent Hannah.
 
Collateral damage.
 
Joanna felt a pang of guilt, but it passed quickly. This was a precise act of justice. Evan had earned it. And RawDog? He was still earning it right now, second by second.
 
Her hand moved unconsciously to the space where the pendant used to rest. It felt strange not to feel the small weight of it. She leaned back on the bed, one arm behind her,. The other on the pendant, gaze drifting up to the ceiling as she imagined the inside of the toilet bowl, she imagined RawDog, covered in shit, trying to survive. She imagined him finding Evan’s skeletal remains. Her thought drifted for so long she lost track of time.
     
He’s in his own prank now.
 
Joanna had whispered it before leaving the bathroom, leaning close to the bowl:
“Relax, it’s just a prank, bro.”
 
She had nearly laughed in his tiny, horrified face.
 
Another muffled groan came from the bathroom. Then a spray—sudden and violent. A pause. A spluttering cough.
 
Joanna sat upright again, listening carefully.
 
There was a new sound now. The quiet clicking of Hannah on her phone, probably going through Facebook or Instagram. Joanna could picture her: sweating, legs trembling, holding on to the phone like a lifeline as her body betrayed her.
 
There had been warnings. Subtle signs all morning—Hannah’s complexion paling, her shifting in her chair, the hand on her abdomen. Joanna had seen them all. She knew what was coming. She’d made it come.
 
Another wet gurgle echoed from the bathroom.
 
Joanna let the silence between bursts stretch, listening to the fan whir overhead, the faint vibration of plumbing, the occasional clunk of the toilet seat as Hannah repositioning herself. She wondered what RawDog was thinking now.
 
Was he screaming? Praying? Crying?
 
Was he clinging to soggy tissue? Floating past Evan’s partially dissolved remains? Did he even realize the poetic symmetry yet? How every ounce of shit around him was built, in part, from his own partner in crime?
 
The beauty of it was in the inevitability. There was no rescue coming. No twist ending. No reversal. Just a slow swirl toward a porcelain grave. One final flush, and… gone.
 
Another grunt from the bathroom broke her thoughts. Softer now. Less urgent. She pulled her phone out and led texted Hannah.
     
    “Hey girl, you alright in there?”
    “Just checking up on you.”
 
It’s ending. It has to be.
 
Time had passed. Maybe twenty minutes since she went in. Hannah had survived the worst. Joanna could picture her now: slumped forward, depleted, cheeks flushed with humiliation and relief. She’d get up soon. Flush. Maybe glance into the bowl with a grimace, never seeing the microscopic torment still happening in the water. Then she’d wash her hands, maybe even laugh about it later.
 
The final indignity of it all—RawDog wouldn’t even be noticed.
 
She drifted back when the heard could hear the faint noise of of toilet paper roll being pulled and torn. A rustle. She remembered texting her but got no response.
 
Joanna stood, smoothing the wrinkles from her jeans, stretching her arms out to the side with a quiet breath. She left the bedroom and locked on the bathroom door. “Hannah? You okay?” She asked.
 
“Yeah, just a minute.” Hannah replied. She heard the rustling of clothes again. Hannah stood up, pulling her pants back up. She thought she faintly heard Hannah say something about a heavy burrito. Joanna just stood there, anticipating the end. She imagined RawDog, looking up at her, looking back at him, and the mess he was in. The mess she created before she sent him down the drain.  
 
WHOOOSH!
 
It was louder than she expected—violent, abrupt. She stood there, listening with all her focus. The whoosh of water. The final gurgle. The death rattle of a world swirling into oblivion. Then the sound of the sink running.
 
“Goodbye, RawDog.” Joanna whispered to herself.
 
The bathroom door clicked open, and Hannah stepped out wiping her wet hands on her shirt. The sight of Joanna jolted her.
 
She looked drained—physically and emotionally—but intact. Hair a little messy, cheeks pink from exertion. Her eyes met Joanna’s in the hallway.
 
Joanna tilted her head and smiled gently. “Feeling better?”
 
Hannah gave a half-laugh, half-groan. “Barely. I think that burrito tried to kill me.”
 
Joanna walked past her, brushing a hand gently against her back in passing.
 
“Well,” she said, voice smooth and soft, “you got your revenge, you showed that burrito who’s boss.”
 
Joanna stepped into the bathroom to make sure he was truly gone. She feigned checking her hair in the mirror, before glancing down at the toilet. The water was crystal clear. No sign of Mr RawDog or his lackey. Just the smell of her friends latest bowel movement.
 
“It was just a prank” she thought. Then she chucked at another thought. “He really was a piece of shit, wasn’t he?”
Back to index
Anderson by Din Korlac
Author's Notes:

This chapter was requested. It was pretty fun to write. Let me know if there's any other requests. I've done 2 so far. I'm curious what scenarios are thought up.



The day had started like it wanted a fight. Joanna was already running on fumes when her phone alarm went off at 8:00 a.m., shrill and insistent. She hit snooze twice before dragging herself out of bed, stepping directly onto a cold coffee puddle she hadn’t cleaned up from the night before. No milk. No clean mug. Her uniform was still damp from yesterday’s wash because the dryer had crapped out halfway through the cycle.
 
By the time she got to Carmichael’s, hair half-dry and laced with static, sneakers still damp, her body was moving but her brain was five steps behind. The lunch rush had been hell. A family of six with loud toddlers had left behind a table smeared in ketchup and soggy napkins. A couple on their third date had argued about vegan cheese, and a teenager tried to pay with a counterfeit $50.
 
Now it was deep into the dinner shift, and Joanna had just started to get a rhythm going. The place was full, but not overwhelmed. She had three tables — one regular, one new couple, and a group of older women who tipped well if you got their coffee orders exactly right. No big fires to put out yet.
 
That’s when he walked in.
 
Male. Late 40s, maybe early 50s. Crisp red button-down shirt tucked into khakis that screamed “supervisor at an office no one wants to work at.” He walked in like he owned the oxygen in the room, stood at the front for a beat too long like he expected applause, then followed the hostess to a corner booth. He didn’t smile. Didn’t even glance at the menu for more than a minute before placing his order with Rebecca.
 
Joanna only noticed him in passing, didn’t think twice. But twenty minutes later, everything changed.
 
Rebecca found her in the back hallway near the kitchen, half-whispering, half-hissing. Her face was pale, her eyebrows locked in that furrow she got when something didn’t make sense.
 
“Jo, that guy — booth seven — the one who ordered the lemon chicken pasta?”
 
Joanna nodded.
 
“He says there was a bug in it. A dead bug. Like, tucked under the noodles.”
 
Joanna blinked. “Seriously?”
 
Rebecca looked like she wanted to scream. “There was nothing in that dish. I plate-checked it myself. So did Nicole. You know how she is. Everything looked perfect.”
 
Joanna leaned against the wall, suddenly cold with the kind of unease that comes when you know a storm’s about to hit. “Did you show it to Aaron?”
 
“That’s the problem. He saw it. And now he’s losing it. He’s already blaming me and Nicole — says ‘standards are slipping,’ and ‘this wouldn’t happen if people cared more.’ Like it’s our fault some asshole decided to pull a stunt.”
 
“Where is he now?”
 
“In the back, chewing us out. Nicole’s trying to keep calm, but he’s being a dick about it.”
 
Joanna walked around the corner just in time to see Nicole standing stiff-backed, arms at her sides like she was holding back a punch. The manager — Aaron — was going on about “Carmichael’s reputation” and “zero tolerance” like he was some general barking orders in a war zone instead of yelling about a plate of pasta. Nicole’s face was tight, but her eyes shimmered.
 
Then she broke.
 
She didn’t yell. Didn’t argue. Just turned, walked into the back room quietly, and shut the door behind her.
 
Joanna felt heat rising in her chest. The kind of anger that makes you clench your teeth and ball your fists without realizing. Nicole was solid. She didn’t cry unless she was at her breaking point.
 
Aaron was still ranting to Rebecca now, his voice low but cruel. Something about “never trusting that kitchen again” and “do you even care about quality?”
 
Joanna had heard enough.
 
She stepped in.
 
“Hey. Aaron. That guy out there? He’s lying. You know it. Nicole knows it. Rebecca knows it. Hell, I know it. He just wanted a free meal.”
 
Aaron turned to her like he was just realizing she was standing there.
 
“You weren’t involved in this, Joanna.”
 
“No, but I’ve seen his type before. Comes in alone, orders something middle-price. Tries to find some ‘issue’ and makes a big scene to get comped. He was halfway done eating when he ‘found’ the bug. Halfway. What kind of person doesn’t notice a bug till they’re nearly finished?”
 
Rebecca added quietly, “I put that plate down myself. There was no bug. He did it. He put it there.”
 
Aaron didn’t respond at first. Just looked between them like he was processing damage control instead of hearing the truth.
 
Joanna couldn’t stop. “You just made Nicole cry, Aaron. Over him. Are you seriously gonna side with some random con artist over your own staff?”
 
Aaron didn’t answer. Not really. He just rubbed his forehead, muttered something about “investigating further,” and walked away like the issue had worn him out.
 
Joanna stared at the hallway for a long time before going to check on Nicole.
 
The back room was dark and quiet. Nicole was sitting on a stool, wiping her eyes with the back of her wrist. She looked up when Joanna walked in and gave a sad smile.
 
“He never believed me,” Nicole said softly. “Not once.”
 
Joanna sat beside her. “You don’t have to take that. Not from him. Not from anyone.”
 
Nicole didn’t respond. But Joanna could feel the resolve tightening in her gut. Something had to change. This wasn’t just about a bug in a dish.
 
This was about respect. About dignity. About not letting assholes — whether they’re smug customers or cowardly managers — get away with it.
 
And Joanna wasn’t about to let this go.
 
Joanna stood near the servers’ station, arms crossed, her fingertips rotating the amber pendant that hung low against her chest. She did that when she was thinking — or fuming. Tonight, it was both. The smooth edges of the resin oval warmed beneath her skin, catching bits of the low restaurant light as it swung gently.
 
Across the dining room, Aaron was at the man's table — the very same table where the drama had started. He leaned in with fake sympathy, his voice low and apologetic. Joanna couldn’t hear the words, but she didn’t need to. She saw the motion. The sleek little envelope in Aaron 's hand. A Carmichael’s gift card.
 
She narrowed her eyes, jaw tight.
 
Aaron handed it over like it was some sacred olive branch, as if Anderson was the wounded party in this whole mess. THe man, Anderson was his name, took it with a smug, satisfied smile. The kind of smile that made Joanna want to rip it off his face.
 
Nicole was still in the back room, probably trying to put herself back together. Rebecca had disappeared into the walk-in fridge to “check inventory” — meaning she needed space to scream into a box of lettuce. And here was Anderson, sitting back like a king who’d just won a minor battle.
 
Joanna Wouldn't do anything to Aaron. It would be stupid, too close to home. But Anderson? That was different. He wasn’t management. He wasn’t protected. He was just a guy who’d picked the wrong place to pull his little scam.
 
She followed his movements through the restaurant’s windows. He left the booth, pocketed the gift card, nodded to Aaron, and walked out the front door like nothing had happened. Like he hadn’t just humiliated two women, wasted the kitchen’s time, and cost the restaurant money, morale, and reputation.
 
Joanna waited five seconds. Ten. Then she slipped out the back.
 
The alley behind Carmichael’s was narrow and grimy, a cut of concrete lined with dumpsters, grease stains, and a half-lit security lamp buzzing with moths. She scanned quickly. There he was — Anderson, standing off to the side near the end of the building, staring down at his phone. Waiting for his Uber.
 
Perfect.
 
“Hey!” she shouted.
 
He looked up, confused, spinning in place for a second before noticing her striding across the lot toward him.
 
“Yeah. You. Come here.”
 
He hesitated, phone still in hand, brow furrowed. For a moment, he checked the screen again — probably seeing how close the car was. Then he shrugged, curiosity or arrogance or both pulling him toward her. He walked a few steps into the alley.
 
Joanna stopped when they were face to face. Her expression was blank. Calm. The calm before a violent storm.
 
“You think you’re clever, don’t you?” she said quietly.
 
“Clever?”
 
“The bug. The free meal. The gift card. You think that’s all just easy pickings, right?”
 
Anderson frowned. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. There really was a bug—”
 
Joanna stepped in closer. “No, not when it was given to you. And we both know it. You pulled a con. And you made two women feel like garbage to do it.”
 
He gave a sharp, dismissive snort. “I don’t have to stand here and be accused—”
 
“Stop talking.” Her voice cut like a blade. “You’re going to regret pulling that stunt at my restaurant.”
 
Something changed in the air.
 
Anderson opened his mouth to respond, maybe to toss another denial or sarcastic quip, but before a sound came out — everything went black.
  
The next thing he felt was pressure. A crushing, suffocating force all around him. Then air, sharp and dry, like the moment after you’re pulled up from underwater.
 
He gasped.
 
But it wasn’t a gasp. It was a microscopic squeak — barely even a sound. His chest moved but the noise didn’t match. He tried to move. His arms flailed like matchsticks. The world around him was wrong — too vast, too bright, too golden.
 
And then it hit him. Or rather, he hit it.
 
He was lying on a smooth, rounded surface the color of honey. Amber. Except… not just amber. From where he stood — if he could even call it standing — it was like looking up from inside a droplet of thick glass. He was in a hollow chamber, glinting gold in every direction. Walls curved up like a dome. The surface below was solid, warm, and oddly resonant. Every time he tried to shout, his own voice echoed back to him in warped vibrations.
 
He wasn’t dreaming. He wasn’t hallucinating.
 
Anderson had been shrunk.
 
No more than a few millimeters, trapped inside a hollow amber pendant.
 
That waitress's pendant.
 
Through the curved walls, he could barely make out blurred movement — warm skin behind the amber, chest rising and falling gently, rhythmically. A faint, echoing heartbeat. It was like being inside a living drum. Above, he could hear muffled noises. Her voice.
 
He couldn’t make out the words, but it was unmistakably her.
 
And she was laughing.
 
Not a joyful laugh. Not a polite laugh.
 
A knowing one.
 
Because he was hers now.
 
And this was only the beginning.
  
The Uber pulled up to the curb in front of Carmichael’s, headlights slicing through the dusk. It waited — engine humming — for a few minutes. Then, when no one approached, the car idled forward a bit, paused again, and finally rolled off into the night.
 
Anderson never came. Because Anderson wasn’t standing on the sidewalk anymore.
 
He was swinging gently against Joanna’s chest, sealed inside a hollow amber pendant, too small to be seen, too powerless to escape. Every step she took sent slight tremors through his prison, each sway of her necklace a reminder that the world he once knew was now gone — and she was his entire universe now.
 
Joanna didn’t give it a second glance. Not the car. Not the time. She had customers to serve, tables to clear, checks to print, and bullshit to put behind her.
 
She pushed through the last hours of her shift with the kind of quiet control she was known for. Cold hands, warm smile. She checked on her tables, clocked the tips, made mental notes of who refilled the coffee pot last and who didn’t. But her focus, deep down, stayed with the weight around her neck. The tiny man inside. Still alive. Still conscious.
 
Still hers.
 
She pulled Nicole aside in the hallway near closing. The kitchen was winding down, staff packing up, fluorescent lights flickering overhead.
 
“Hey,” Joanna said, voice calm but steady. “That guy? Anderson? Total piece of shit.”
 
Nicole gave a half-nod, not meeting her eyes.
 
“I mean it. He put that bug in the food. There’s no doubt. Rebecca saw the plate. You double-checked the dish. It wasn’t on you.”
 
“I just…” Nicole exhaled. “He had this way of making me feel like I’d done something wrong. And Aaron—”
 
“Aaron 's a coward,” Joanna cut in. “He doesn’t know how to lead. You didn’t do anything wrong. Neither did Rebecca.”
 
Nicole didn’t say anything right away, but her shoulders dropped a bit. Just enough to breathe.
 
A few minutes later, Joanna caught Rebecca in the front before she clocked out. Told her the same. Assured her she was right to speak up. That this wasn’t over.
 
She didn’t say more. She didn’t have to.
 
By midnight, Carmichael’s was dark. The hum of the fridges, the metallic scent of old oil, the occasional drip from the soda gun — those were the last sounds of the shift. The staff scattered home, tired and raw but intact.
 
Joanna drove alone.
 
The roads were empty, headlights streaking across reflective lines. Music low. Pendant warm against her skin.
 
“You’re probably wondering what’s next,” she said, voice low, just loud enough for Anderson to hear through the curved amber. “I told you back there — you’re not getting off easy. Not this time.”
 
No answer, of course. Just the faint echo of her voice vibrating through the resin.
 
“I’ve dealt with people like you before,” she continued. “Liars. Manipulators. People who think they can twist a situation, flip the truth, make someone else look like the villain just so they can get a free ride. People who want to see others suffer. And every time, they think they’re smarter. Better.”
 
A pause.
 
“And every time, I remind them — I’m not one to fuck with.”
 
She pulled into her apartment complex, turned off the ignition, and stepped out into the cool night. No one around. Just crickets and the soft buzz of a streetlamp flickering near her front walkway.
 
Inside, it was quiet. The small apartment smelled like eucalyptus and the last traces of this morning’s burnt toast. She dropped her keys in the ceramic bowl near the door, toed off her shoes, and walked toward the bedroom.
 
The pendant still hung there — motionless but weighty. Alive.
 
She didn’t speak again until she was in front of her mirror, stripping out of her uniform.
 
Her shirt hit the floor. Her pants followed.
 
She stood there for a moment in just her bra and underwear, her body lit by soft lamplight, her hair tousled, her breath steady.
 
The pendant caught her reflection. She stared into the mirror, her expression unreadable.
 
“You see this?” she asked, softly now. “This is what vengeance looks like.”
 
She stepped closer. The amber pendant hung between her breasts, a gleaming prison that housed the shrunken con artist who, hours ago, thought he was getting away with something.
 
She looked at herself, and her voice dropped to a whisper.
 
“Look. At. Me.”
 
Anderson, no matter how small he was, could do nothing but obey.
 
“This is who you messed with. This is what happens when you make decent people feel like garbage. When you lie. When you think you’re too clever to be caught. When you try to break people to get what you want.”
 
Another breath. Another moment of stillness.
 
“I don’t break,” she said. “I AM the breaker.”
 
Then she turned, grabbed her pajamas — loose flannel pants and a faded tank top — and slipped them on without ceremony. She settled on the couch, pulled up Netflix, and let the soft hum of the intro screen fill the room.
 
The pendant stayed right where it belonged — against her heart, close to her skin.
 
And Anderson?
 
Anderson was going to learn what it meant to feel powerless. To be watched. To be kept.
 
Because for now, he wasn’t going anywhere.
 
Anderson hadn’t slept. Not even close.
 
Time had blurred into a thick, suffocating nothing inside the amber pendant. There was no night or day in there. No bed. No darkness. Just the constant dim glow of refracted light through resin, the ambient heat from Joanna’s body, and the low thunder of her heartbeat—steady, endless, inescapable.
 
Every now and then, her breathing slowed, and the rhythm of her chest rising and falling lulled him into something close to sleep. But it never lasted. Every tiny shift of her body jostled the pendant just enough to knock him off balance, keep him dizzy, remind him that he wasn’t just small—he was owned. Contained.
 
He couldn’t sit. He couldn’t lie down. The floor curved. Every angle betrayed gravity in some impossible way. No matter what he did, he always ended up pressed against the wall or tumbling into the shallow curve at the bottom. Time dragged. Fear pressed against him like a second skin.
 
The worst part? Joanna hadn’t said a single word to him since she took her clothes off.
 
Now it was morning.
 
Anderson could feel her stirring even before she woke—her breath deepened, her heartbeat quickened slightly. Then she shifted, groaning, and the pendant swung gently against her chest.
 
She was waking up.
 
Through the distorted amber lens, Anderson watched blurry shapes take form. Joanna rubbed her eyes, pushed herself upright on the couch, and blinked at the TV. Netflix had long since gone idle. A blue screensaver bounced lazily across the screen.
 
Anderson tried to scream. Tried to yell. Tried to make his voice carry through the amber. It didn’t work. Just a high-pitched squeak swallowed by thick resin.
 
Joanna didn’t hear him.
 
She stood up, padding across the floor toward the bathroom. The pendant bounced softly with every step. Anderson swayed, his stomach flipping, his thoughts buzzing in panicked spirals.
 
He wasn’t even sure what he wanted anymore—mercy? An explanation? A chance to plead? All he could do was watch.
 
Inside the bathroom, Joanna moved casually, almost on autopilot. She pulled her pajama pant's down and sat on the toilet, facing the wall, the pendant swinging slightly away from her chest. Anderson, trapped at chest level, found himself suspended above her lap—forced to look down through the transparent resin.
 
Between the natural gap of her thighs and the angle of the pendant’s floor, he could see straight down into the bowl below. The yellow-tinted water below shimmered faintly in the bathroom light.
 
Anderson looked away.
 
Or tried to.
 
There was nowhere to look.
 
He was trapped in a view he didn’t ask for, didn’t want. An unwilling voyeur to her most mundane and private acts.
 
She reached to grab toilet paper from the roller on the wall. Then she stood, flushed, washed her hands, and left the room without so much as a glance down.
 
He didn’t matter. Not even enough for her to acknowledge.
 
She moved into the kitchen next. Anderson had always thought of kitchens as busy places full of control—he liked that. The timing, the multitasking, the dominance over ingredients. Now? He was just a passenger, a prisoner watching through amber.
 
She cracked eggs into a pan, laid bacon in strips, dropped two slices of bread into the toaster. The smells reached him somehow—filtered but real. His stomach twisted in response. He hadn’t eaten since yesterday. Not that she seemed to care.
 
She cooked with easy rhythm, flipping the bacon, buttering the toast, plating everything with a calm, practiced touch. Anderson salivated. His mouth was dry. His throat raw. He banged his fists on the floor of the pendant in frustration.
 
Joanna didn’t even flinch.
 
She carried the plate to the living room, settled on the couch again, set the plate on the coffee table, and grabbed the remote. Netflix resumed, resuming some light series about murder mysteries or interior design—Anderson couldn’t tell.
 
What he could do was watch her eat. Bite after bite. Crunch of toast. Rip of bacon. The creamy yellow of egg yolk dragging across the plate.
 
Anderson swallowed nothing.
 
He had no food. No water. Just the unrelenting sight of what he couldn’t have. She was starving him. Or maybe just forgetting to feed him. Which somehow felt worse.
 
After breakfast, she got up and headed to the bathroom again—this time for a shower.
 
And still… she said nothing.
 
No threats. No plans. No gloating.
 
Just silence.
 
She stepped into the shower with the pendant still around her neck. The hot water fogged the room quickly. Droplets streaked across the amber, blurring Anderson’s view in little rivulets. He saw glimpses of her body through the steam—massive, looming, casual. She washed herself with slow, methodical movements, scrubbing shampoo into her hair, dragging a loofah across her arms, down her legs.
 
The water pounded around her. And still, Anderson clung to the curve of his amber prison, a tiny, helpless insect of a man.
 
When she finally stepped out, she dried herself calmly, wrapped in a towel, and returned to the bedroom to get dressed.
 
Anderson braced himself.
 
Now, maybe now, she’d speak to him. Tell him what this was all leading to. Why she was doing this.
 
Instead, nothing.
 
She pulled on jeans, a fitted T-shirt, socks, and shoes. Tied her hair back. The pendant stayed. Of course it stayed.
 
Anderson lay on his back, the resin cool beneath him now that her body had dried. He stared up at the light above, distorted and distant through the amber.
 
What now?
 
Would she take him with her? To Carmichael’s? Did she still work there? What did she have planned?
 
His mind spun out in spirals—desperate, exhausted, paranoid.
 
He’d never felt so small. So discarded. So powerless.
 
And the worst part?
 
She hadn’t even begun yet.
  
Joanna’s footsteps echoed against the tiled floor of the mall parking garage, each step making Anderson’s prison sway gently with the rhythm of her hips. To her, it was just a casual walk — a few hours to kill before her evening shift back at Carmichael’s. But to Anderson, it was a rattling, never-ending ride trapped in a transparent coffin. The amber pendant bounced softly against her chest, keeping him close to the warmth of her skin but never close enough to feel safe.
 
He’d stopped hoping for rescue. The outside world didn’t know he was missing. Even if they did, what would they look for? No one suspected the shrunken man bouncing on a chain around Joanna’s neck.
 
She stepped into the main doors of the mall and let out a small, pleased hum. The cool air, the faint scent of pretzels, cologne, and overpriced perfume. Her world — bright, expansive, full of choice. His prison — tiny, golden, unrelenting.
 
Joanna made her way directly to Victoria’s Secret. A familiar stop. A ritual, almost. She ran her fingers across a table of lace and satin, pausing thoughtfully over a wine-red set with black trim.
 
As she walked toward the fitting rooms, she lowered her voice slightly. Not whispering, just speaking intimately. Directly to him.
 
“You’re lucky, you know. Most people don’t get to see this side of me. But you? You get the whole tour.”
 
She pulled back the velvet curtain to a small changing room, hung a few options on the hook — a black lace teddy, a sheer lavender bra and panty set, and a high-cut bodysuit with strappy sides.
 
While undressing, she tapped the pendant lightly with her nail. It vibrated like a tiny bell. Inside, Anderson winced.
 
“Funny thing,” she said, slipping into the black teddy and turning to check her reflection. “One time, I dropped a guy — can’t even remember what he did exactly — into some stranger’s panties.”
 
She smirked at herself in the mirror, adjusting the strap on her shoulder. “I was holding them for her. She was digging through her purse or texting or something, completely distracted.”
 
Anderson froze, every neuron in his brain lighting up in panic.
 
“I just… slipped him in,” she said casually, admiring her reflection. “Dropped him right on little cotton gusset. Didn’t tell her. Didn’t really care what happened after.”
 
She turned slightly, admiring the way the fabric hugged her hips.
 
“No idea where he ended up,” she added with a shrug. “Could’ve been worn. Could’ve gone home with her. Could’ve ended up in the laundry. That’s the thing about bugs. No one really notices them.”
 
Anderson’s mind raced. He pressed his palms to the curved floor of the pendant, his heart hammering, but no one could hear him in here. Not her. Not the other shoppers. He was a ghost. Less than a whisper.
 
Joanna changed again, slipping into the lavender set, adjusting her bra thoughtfully. “You squirming yet? I bet you are.” She smiled at her reflection. “It’s okay. I like it when they squirm.”
 
She bought the lavender set and the bodysuit, then strolled toward Spencer’s. Not for the front-of-store gag gifts or t-shirts — she moved straight to the back. The part where the lights dimmed and the air smelled faintly of plastic and latex.
 
She lingered over the shelves of novelty adult items. Handcuffs, collars, vibrating toys shaped like things that made Anderson want to close his eyes and disappear. She picked up a feather tickler and brushed it across her palm.
 
“You know,” she said, voice calm and conversational, “you’d fit perfectly in one of these little vibrating eggs.”
 
She laughed at her own thought. Anderson couldn’t tell if it was a joke. That’s what made it worse.
 
Joanna didn’t buy anything from Spencer’s — just teased him mercilessly, whispering thoughts like poison through the resin. Then she left, drifting into Macy’s.
 
She touched perfume bottles on mirrored counters, tried on sunglasses, slipped her fingers through racks of blouses and jackets, laughing quietly when she passed the jewelery section .
 
“You’re probably wondering what the hell is happening,” she said, as she examined a pair of earrings. “You’re stuck. Watching. Listening. Thinking you’re going to figure out the pattern. But there isn’t one. There’s just me. And my mood.”
 
She walked through Sephora, dabbing gloss on the back of her hand, inspecting colors in the mirror. Anderson saw flashes of her lips, her eyes. His entire field of view was her skin, her fingers, her towering presence.
 
Then, finally, she made her way to the food court.
 
She ordered chicken teriyaki with steamed rice and vegetables. The smell hit Anderson like a freight train. His stomach growled. He hadn’t eaten since yesterday. The hunger gnawed at him like it was eating through his ribs.
 
Joanna sat down with her tray, unwrapped her fork, and tapped the pendant gently again.
 
“You hungry?” she asked, eyes on the food. “I mean... I could feed you.”
 
Anderson perked up. His mind snapped toward the possibility like a starving dog spotting a scrap of meat.
 
She lifted a piece of chicken with her fork and held it close to the pendant. Not close enough for him to touch it. Just close enough for the scent to hit like a hammer.
 
“I could drop you right into this. Let you eat all you want. I’d watch. You’d be just a little bug in my meal.”
 
He felt sick. Starving. Terrified.
 
“But here’s the thing,” she continued. “If I do that, I expect you to act like part of the meal. No whining. No screaming. No ‘please don’t eat me.’ Because a bug is just meat. Meat is food.”
 
She chewed a piece of chicken slowly. Intentionally.
 
“But don’t worry,” she said after swallowing. “I’m not going to eat you.”
 
She looked straight ahead, a wicked glint in her eye.
 
“I have other plans.”
 
Anderson sagged inside the pendant, overwhelmed. His mind swirled with fear, dread, confusion. Every word she spoke was a needle, sewing a tighter prison around his thoughts. He had no idea what was coming.
 
And the not knowing? That was the part that was slowly breaking him.
 
Joanna stabbed another bite of food, humming softly.
 
The mall buzzed with ordinary life all around her. People shopping. Kids crying. Music playing faintly overhead.
 
Anderson sat silent in amber.
 
Waiting.
 
The ride back from the mall was quieter than the morning, but it wasn’t peaceful.

Joanna didn’t say much at first—just tapped her fingers on the steering wheel in rhythm with some mid-tempo pop song playing on the radio, humming here and there, her mood unreadable. But Anderson didn’t need sound to feel the dread building inside him. The silence, at this point, was her message.

She was letting him sit with it. Letting his imagination take over.

Letting him spiral.

They arrived back at her apartment mid-afternoon. The parking lot was mostly empty. Weekend traffic had started shifting toward the restaurants and theaters. Joanna locked her car with a beep and walked in, keys jangling beside the soft thud of her boots on the stairs.

Inside, the apartment was warm and dimly lit, still carrying the faint smells of breakfast bacon and body wash. She walked straight to her bedroom, opened a drawer lined with folded satin, lace, and cotton, and slipped her new purchases inside. The lavender lingerie and black strappy bodysuit found their place beside a carefully organized rainbow of bras and panties. Joanna always kept things in order.

She removed the tags carefully, like she was preserving something delicate.

Anderson couldn’t look away, even though he wanted to. It felt invasive, wrong — but he wasn’t given a choice. The pendant moved when she moved, showed him what she wanted to show. Her fingers were methodical. Her body was there, full, real, alive — all power and comfort wrapped in a casual calm.

Then she stood in front of her mirror again, peeling her shirt off, unbuttoning her pants.

“You should savor this,” she said softly, her tone neutral but loaded. “Might be the last time you ever see a woman like this undressed.”

She was bare just long enough to make the message land. Then she pulled on her uniform: a crisp black dress shirt with red trim stitched into the collar, tailored just enough to hug her waist, sleeves rolled neatly above her elbows. She slipped into black slacks that fit like they were made for her, then fastened on the plain black apron that wrapped twice around her middle.

She looked clean, sharp, professional. And dangerous in the way a razor might be if it smiled at you.

Anderson just watched. He couldn’t not watch. The pendant hung right at her sternum, pressed close between the curves of her chest, swinging lightly as she moved. He saw her reflection in motion, partial glances, shifting lights. She hadn’t addressed him again. But she didn’t need to.

Until she got into the car.

As she drove to Carmichael’s, Joanna finally spoke again.

“You ever work in a restaurant?” she asked, casually.

Anderson flinched, not from the question but the suddenness of it.

“People think it’s just taking orders and dropping plates. They don’t know what it really takes. We grind. We smile through the worst moods, the worst shifts. Burned hands. Sore feet. Drunk assholes. Crying kids.”

She glanced at the pendant in the rearview.

“You remember Nicole? The chef you humiliated yesterday? She trained in two different states. Worked through culinary school with two jobs. You think she’s just some line cook? She lives for this.”

She paused.

“And Rebecca? Shes a good egg. Keeps the servers organized, keeps her smile sharp, and she’s still learning the ropes.”

Joanna took a breath, her voice cool again. “You know what I hate the most, Anderson? The people who act like working women are disposable. Like they’re just bodies in uniforms. Background noise.”

She turned onto the final road toward the restaurant.

“Want to hear a story?” she asked, almost playfully.

Anderson didn’t answer. He couldn’t. But she continued anyway.

“There was a guy—some redneck piece of garbage—who threw a tantrum because some chick was breastfeeding in the corner of the dining room one night. Covered up, quiet, not bothering anyone. But this guy? Oh, he lost it. Said it was ‘disgusting.’ tried to get her thrown out.”

Joanna tapped the pendant lightly. “I shrunk him that night. Didn’t even hesitate. One of our other waitresses just had a baby, :’she has to pump in the back room a couple times a night. Dropped him in one of her breast pump bottles. She pumped right after, didn’t notice anything.”

She shrugged.

“Guess what happened to him? I think you can figure it out. Maybe he drowned. Maybe he got warmed up. Maybe he got fed to her baby. Whatever happened, he earned it.”

The silence that followed that story was worse than shouting.

Anderson could barely think. His mind twisted in circles, trying to imagine being there. That man — whoever he was — ended up swallowed, absorbed, gone. All because he couldn’t keep his mouth shut.

Joanna parked the car.

“You getting the message yet?” she asked quietly.

Anderson said nothing. Could say nothing. The amber pressed against his back. He felt weightless, sick, afraid.

She stepped out of the car, adjusted her shirt, and walked into the restaurant.

Inside, Carmichael’s was already buzzing. Orders scribbled on pads. Forks clinking. Someone sneezing in the kitchen. The rhythm of the place kicked in the second she clocked in — smooth, familiar, relentless.

Anderson could see it all through the haze of amber. Glimpses of faces. Glints of light off the drink station. Rebecca talking to a hostess. Nicole behind the window calling out a fire time. Orders slamming into printers. Patrons raising hands for refills.

It was a world in motion. A world he no longer belonged to.

Joanna didn’t speak to him much during her shift.

She didn’t need to.

She knew what silence would do to him now.

She just let him watch.

Watch how hard people worked. Watch how much they endured. Watch what he used to be part of — until he decided to lie, cheat, and humiliate two women for a free plate of pasta.

Now, Anderson was nothing but an accessory. A passenger. An insect behind glass.

And the worst part was the waiting.

Waiting to find out if he would be the next story she told.

 It was starting to feel like eternity inside the pendant.
 
Anderson no longer knew what hour it was, only that it was night again, and the restaurant was alive. He was barely more than a mind now — trapped, tired, paranoid, spinning in place inside the amber prison that swung lightly from Joanna’s neck. The pendant’s curve distorted the world outside, turning Carmichael’s warm lighting into long golden smears and every movement into a slow, syrupy ripple.
 
It was hell.
 
Not loud, not violent, but tight. Oppressive. Like being buried alive in glass.
 
He watched as Joanna moved through her shift with cool precision. Her black uniform—sharp, crisp, clean—hugged her form and creased perfectly where it should. The pendant hung at the center of her chest like a weapon masquerading as jewelry. He could see the restaurant through its distortion: tables with half-eaten meals, customers gesturing with forks, drinks glinting beneath overhead lights.
 
He’d worked restaurants before. He knew the rhythm. But now he was on the outside of it, behind the veil of the woman whose revenge he’d become part of.
 
She didn’t talk to him at first. Just let him watch.
 
That made it worse.
 
She took orders. She refilled drinks. She bantered with customers like everything was normal. Like she didn’t have a shrunken man in her necklace, suspended inches from her skin, watching helplessly while his mind ate itself alive.
 
Then she stopped near the drink station and leaned in toward Rebecca. The words were muffled but close enough for Anderson to catch.
 
“How’s it going?” Joanna asked softly.
 
Rebecca gave a half-smile. “Better. A lot better than yesterday.”
 
“You holding up okay?”
 
“Yeah,” Rebecca said. “Nicole too. She’s in the zone back there.”
 
Anderson couldn’t see them clearly — the pendant gave him proximity but not precision. Their faces were smudged behind golden resin, shapes and movements without clarity. But their voices were close enough to keep his ears tuned.
 
Later, Joanna drifted into the kitchen during a lull and leaned against the prep counter near Nicole. Her voice softened again, this time with something that almost sounded like real concern.
 
“You good?” she asked.
 
Nicole didn’t hesitate. “Yeah. Actually… surprisingly, yeah.”
 
“What happened?”
 
“Aaron came up to me before the shift,” Nicole said. “Pulled me aside, apologized. He said after thinking about it, he knew I didn’t do anything wrong. That Rebecca didn’t either. He… admitted he overreacted.”
 
Joanna gave a low whistle. “Wow. That’s rare.”
 
“Yeah. I’m not gonna say he’s off the hook, but… it helped.”
 
Anderson pressed his face to the inner wall of the pendant, straining to see, to feel something more.
 
Nicole sounded calm. Steady. She had a deep voice with a natural authority to it. Anderson hadn’t paid attention yesterday. He’d been too busy playing the game. But now… now he was hearing her like a man hearing thunder before the storm hits.
 
Then Joanna walked back out into the restaurant, and her voice dipped low — just for him.
 
“How do you like Nicole?” she asked softly, almost like she was talking to herself.
 
Anderson tensed. Every muscle in his body pulled tight.
 
“She’s always been disappointed by the men in her life,” Joanna continued, adjusting a napkin on a table. “They never come through. Never stand up. Never stay.”
 
She stopped walking.
 
“But you?” she said with a smile he couldn’t see but could hear in her tone. “You’re not going to disappoint her. Not tonight.”
 
Anderson’s blood ran cold.
 
She kept walking.
 
She took another table’s drink order like she hadn’t just said something that landed in his chest like a spike. For the next hour, he didn’t see the restaurant. He didn’t register the footsteps, the motion, the clatter of plates and glasses.
 
He was inside himself now.
 
Turning over those words again and again.
 
"Not Tonight."
 
He didn’t know what it meant — not exactly — but the implications clawed at his brain. Would she give him to Nicole? Feed him to her? Slip him in her underwear like that guy at the mall? Would Nicole even know? Would she care?
 
Anderson started pacing the pendant, stumbling on the curve of its floor, slipping every few steps because it wasn’t flat and nothing inside made sense. He pressed his hands to the amber walls and screamed. His voice bounced back at him in useless echoes.
 
He thought about the breast pump story again. About the redneck. The casual cruelty of it. Joanna didn’t say it to scare him — she said it because it wasn’t a big deal to her. Because this kind of punishment was just part of how she handled people like him.
 
Now he couldn’t stop thinking:
 
Would he be Eaten? Drunk? Crushed? Dropped in someones clothes?
 
Would he vanish into a story only Joanna remembered?
 
The hour crawled by, and Joanna didn’t speak to him again.
 
She just worked her shift. Efficient. Smiling. Unbothered.
 
And inside the pendant, Anderson sat alone with only one thing left to do:
 
Wait.
  
Anderson had always hated being kept out of the loop. He was the kind of man who needed to know what was going on, needed control — or at least the illusion of it. But here, now, control didn’t exist. Inside the curved, golden prison of Joanna’s amber pendant, he was powerless, weightless, reduced to nothing but a whisper of a man.
 
And tonight, something was different. He could feel it in the way Joanna walked.
 
She stopped to talk with Rebecca near the dish station. Anderson heard every word, each sentence a muffled boom of sound that filtered through the resin like he was listening underwater.
 
“You back from break?” Joanna asked casually, her voice low and smooth.
 
“Yeah,” Rebecca said. “Hit the Thai place across the street. Got some curry and rice. God, I needed it.”
 
“Bet,” Joanna laughed. “You looked like you were gonna fold in half before you left.”
 
“Felt like it. You going on break soon?”
 
“In a few minutes,” Joanna said. “Gonna see what Nicole’s up to.”
 
Anderson braced himself as the rhythm of her footsteps changed. She clocked into her break and walked through the swinging doors into the back kitchen. The air shifted. He could hear more clearly now — the hum of the walk-in, the hiss of the griddle, the occasional clang of a ladle or spatula hitting stainless steel.
 
She was fingering the pendant again. He could feel it. Her touch sent minute vibrations through the amber, tiny shivers that buzzed through his body. She wasn’t gripping it gently. She was toying with it.
 
And with him.
 
She found Nicole by the prep line, pulling eggs and scraps of prepped vegetables from the cooler, setting them next to the flattop griddle. Her dark hair was tied back in a loose braid. She looked up as Joanna approached.
 
“Whatcha cooking?” Joanna asked.
 
Nicole shrugged. “Didn’t want anything off the menu. Just throwing together an egg taco.”
 
“Egg taco?” Joanna tilted her head.
 
“Yeah,” Nicole said, already cracking eggs into a metal mixing bowl. “Scramble some eggs, throw in leftover peppers, onions, cheese, whatever. Quick and dirty omelet style. Toss a tortilla on the griddle for a sec, wrap it up. Done.”
 
Joanna watched, amused. “That actually sounds fire.”
 
“Want one?”
 
Joanna hesitated for only a moment. “Sure. Forgot to bring food anyway.”
 
Anderson’s stomach turned as he watched the two women work. Nicole moved with speed and confidence, scrambling the eggs with a flick of her wrist, stirring in diced onions, shredded cheddar, bits of tomato. She poured the mix onto the hot griddle where it sizzled and popped, the scent filling the kitchen.
 
Anderson could smell it, even through the pendant.
 
He was terrified.
 
When Nicole threw the tortillas on to warm, Joanna leaned against the prep table. He could feel her heartbeat pick up slightly. She wasn’t nervous. She was ready.
 
Nicole plated four tacos — two each — and the women walked together to an empty booth near the back. They slid into the seats, chatting idly about nothing. Just two coworkers on break.
 
Then Nicole cursed softly. “Shit. We forgot plates. I’ll grab some,” she said, and stood up, brushing her apron with a quick swipe.
 
Joanna waited until Nicole had stepped away. Then, without a word, she reached up to her neck and unclasped the pendant.
 
She held the pendant in her hand, raising it in front of her face like she was inspecting a rare gem.
 
But Anderson knew what she was really doing.
 
She was looking at him.
 
Her face was calm. Cold. Beautiful in a way that no longer meant anything to him. Her eyes narrowed slightly, focused.
 
“Time’s up,” she whispered.
 
Anderson backed away, pressing himself against the rear curve of the pendant. His knees shook. His hands clawed uselessly at the slick interior.
 
“You’re nothing but a bug now,” Joanna said, her voice low, deliberate. “An insect to be squashed beneath my foot…”
 
She paused, and then her lips curled slightly.
 
“…or eaten. You are on the menu after all.”
 
Anderson’s world shifted.
 
Joanna opened one of the egg tacos in front of her — pulling back the tortilla gently, revealing the steaming yellow-and-white center, gooey with melted cheese and flecked with diced vegetables. She held the pendant directly over the center of the taco.
 
And tipped.
 
Anderson screamed. No one could hear it.
 
The walls dropped away. He was in free fall.
 
Then — thump. He hit the eggs with a soft, wet splat, his body sinking slightly into the cheesy mixture. The heat hit him instantly. Not enough to burn, but enough to feel real. Alive. The scent of food overwhelmed his senses. He was in it — buried in the taco filling, sticky and soft, surrounded by towering bits of onion, melting cheese, soft folds of scrambled egg.
 
Joanna tilted her head down and looked.
 
Anderson lay still, eyes wide, breath shallow.
 
She could see him. Just barely. Just enough. Because she knew where to look.
 
But to anyone else? He was invisible. Just another speck. Just a bit of seasoning.
 
She didn’t move.
 
She didn’t close the taco.
 
She just left him there.
 
Heat. Smell. Fear. It was all too much.
 
Anderson’s body shook. He couldn’t scream anymore.
 
Joanna sat back and smiled, waiting for Nicole to return.
 
Waiting for the rest to begin.
  
The warmth of the scrambled eggs pressed around Anderson’s body, thick with melted cheese and the faint scent of onions and cooked vegetables. He lay motionless, half-submerged in the taco filling, his limbs too small and too weak to climb free. Everything around him steamed. The tortilla had been folded slightly over the top again. He could still see out — barely — through a tiny fold of egg and a veil of cheese.
 
And what he saw chilled him.
 
Joanna, calm as ever, looping the amber pendant back onto the chain, slipping it around her neck. Her hands moved with the practiced ease of someone who had already decided this was finished. It wasn’t cruelty in her eyes — not overt. It was certainty.
 
Nicole returned, holding two plates with a smile.
 
“Grab whatever ones you want,” she said.
 
Joanna nodded and looked at the plate. She didn’t say anything, but Anderson could feel it — the decision was already made. She knew exactly which taco *not* to pick: the one he was in.
 
Nicole grabbed two of the tacos, the last ones left on the tray. She slid back into the booth across from Joanna, relaxed, smiling. She picked up the first taco, unrolled slightly from the jostling, and took a generous bite.
 
Anderson felt nothing from that one — just a building horror, second by second. Joanna was chewing too, eating her own taco now rolled up burrito-style. The two women chatted — light, surface-level talk. The kind coworkers have when they’re tired but not ready to call it a day. Something about the seasoning. The texture. The fact that it tasted, as Joanna said, “like a breakfast burrito.”
 
“Basically is,” Nicole replied with a shrug and a small laugh.
 
Anderson wanted to scream, to thrash, but his voice was gone. His limbs were slick with yolk and butterfat, pinned in a bed of food he hadn’t asked to be part of. He heard everything. Smelled everything. The salt. The heat. The slow shift of tortilla as the taco was moved, adjusted, held casually between fingers.
 
Then it happened.
 
Nicole picked up the second taco — his taco — and brought it to her mouth.
 
Everything around him trembled. The taco shifted again, and the space grew darker. Anderson tried to scramble, but his limbs were slick with yolk and melted cheese. The egg mixture clung to his arms like paste. His back pressed against a chunk of bell pepper still warm from the griddle, and his legs were half-submerged in a pool of congealing cheddar.

Then came the movement. A lift. Sudden. Jarring.

The taco tilted upward.

He slid.

There was no grip, no anchor. His hands skidded over greasy scrambled egg, his body carried forward by the simple act of a hand lifting food to a mouth. To her mouth. Nicole’s.

He saw her face above—blurred but real, massive in a way that shattered his mind. Lips parting. The pink edge of a tongue retreating. A row of teeth, flat and clean and glistening with moisture.

Then the bite.

It came fast. Like a trapdoor opening. The eggs around him collapsed inward, dragged toward her mouth by the fold of the tortilla and the pressure of her fingers squeezing from below. Anderson screamed. It didn’t matter. His voice was no louder than the crackle of cheese stretching under tension.

Her mouth opened wide.

It was humid. The scent hit first — a blend of warm breakfast and something unmistakably human. Not bad. Just close. Alive. Then her tongue slid beneath the bite, cushioning the mass of food. He felt the surface — soft, slick, warm as blood. The texture was overwhelming. A moving floor that flexed under him.

Then her lips sealed shut.

Darkness.

Everything compressed.

Her molars pressed in from both sides, not immediately crushing but testing the bite, mashing the taco just enough to shift the pieces inside. He was shoved downward by sheer force, his body rolled into a tangle of egg and cheese.

The world jolted violently.

Then, pain — not sharp but deep, like pressure in every bone at once. He couldn’t tell if it was chewing or just the tightness of being caught in a sealed mouth.

Outside, her jaw moved rhythmically. To her, it was routine. A third bite of a quick meal.

Inside, it was a slow descent into erasure.

Anderson was shifted again. The air grew thinner. Heat surrounded him. The tongue moved, rolling food into a single mass. Positioning it.

Then it hit.

The swallow.

A single, strong contraction. Her throat flexed. A suction force pulled at everything — egg, cheese, air… and him. His body was dragged back, through the slick press of her throat, a tunnel of muscle and pressure and heat that didn’t care what passed through it.

There was no scream. No moment to struggle. Just motion.

He fell again — not down, but inward. Gone.
 
Joanna’s eyes narrowed just slightly. Her lips curved.
 
Nicole looked up. “What’s up? You’re zoning out.”
 
Joanna blinked. “Oh — just got lost in a thought.”
 
Nicole smirked, took another sip of water, and picked up a napkin to wipe her hands.
 
The two finished their meal, chatting as they did, and eventually stood up, tossing wrappers and trash into the bin before heading toward the back.
 
Joanna clocked in again, tying her apron tighter around her waist. She moved through the restaurant with a lightness that hadn’t been there yesterday. No weight. No worry.
 
She smiled more. She made jokes with Rebecca. She even complimented Nicole on the egg tacos.
 
Anderson — for all his scrambling, all his schemes, all his smug, calculated lies — was now part of a moment that didn’t even register to anyone else.
 
There was no final speech. No judgment handed down. Just one last bite of breakfast and a woman who knew exactly what she was doing.
 
Joanna smiled the rest of her shift.
 
And the world kept moving.
 
By the time midnight rolled around, Nicole was exhausted in that way only restaurant work could accomplish — sore feet, shoulders tight, the smell of fryer oil clinging to her hair even after she tied it up. The dinner rush had bled into late-night cleanup, and by the time she clocked out, her hands were raw from the sanitizing wipes and her apron smelled faintly of marinara, peppers, and citrus degreaser.
 
She tossed her bag over her shoulder, nodded goodnight to the dishwasher, and walked to her car. The streets were mostly empty, the buzz of the neon “OPEN” signs replaced by quiet storefronts and streetlights casting long shadows across the parking lot.
 
In the car, she rolled the windows down, letting the night air wash over her. She took a sip from the last of her cherry Pepsi, still faintly cold, the syrup hitting her tongue in a sweet, familiar way.
 
When she got home, she didn’t do much. She kicked off her shoes by the door, stripped off her clothes in a practiced shuffle, and dropped everything into the laundry basket. Her apartment was small, clean enough, dimly lit by a single lamp she’d left on for herself. She didn’t cook. Didn’t turn on the TV. Just poured herself a glass of water and drank half of it before heading to the bathroom, brushing her teeth on autopilot.
 
She didn’t feel unusual. No discomfort. No sensation that anything out of the ordinary was taking place inside her.
 
Why would she?
 
Inside her, everything was working as it should. Quiet. Natural. Routine.
 
By 12:45, she was in bed. She pulled the blanket over her body, turned to her side, and let out a breath that came from the bottom of her lungs.
 
She was asleep in minutes.
 
And Anderson?
 
He was still alive.
 
Still fighting.
 
The stomach had continued its mechanical, impersonal work all evening. The cherry Pepsi had stopped coming. Now the acids had grown more aggressive again, breaking down everything inside. The once-soft clumps of tortilla and egg were now slurries, half-digested, slowly being funneled toward the next phase.
 
Anderson clung to hope like a man clings to driftwood.
 
He kept Jonah in his head like a shield. A man swallowed by a great beast, only to emerge again, reborn. There had to be a way out. There had to be.
 
His body was weak, trembling. His skin burned from the chemicals. His side throbbed with injury. But his mind wouldn’t let go.
 
“Three days,” he whispered to himself. “Jonah lasted three days.”
 
But he wasn’t Jonah.
 
And Nicole was not a whale.
 
The first shift came as a strange sensation — the stomach, so loud and violent earlier, began to still. The movements slowed. The acid didn’t go away, but it pooled less. A heavy sleep was falling over her body.
 
Then he felt it.
 
A downward pull. A tightening. Something opened, and then came a slow slide forward — not down, but through. Not swallowed — processed.
 
“No,” he muttered, clawing at a soft wall of churned food, only to slip off. “Not this. Not yet.”
 
But the body was a machine. Tireless. Relentless.
 
And it was done with him.
 
Anderson’s broken frame was swept along with the rest of the meal. He was pulled into a narrowing passage lined with muscular walls that squeezed in pulses, pushing him forward with eerie calm. It was darker here. Thicker. The acid had less bite, but the air was gone, the pressure worse, the heat more constant.
 
He was inside her intestines now.
 
There was no more light. No more sound. Only the slow, unstoppable forward press of the body doing what it was designed to do. Digest. Break down. Absorb.
 
His thoughts began to fragment. The pain was constant, but no longer sharp — it became a part of him. Like breathing. Like the heat. Like the dread.
 
Still, even as his mind dissolved into panic and exhaustion, he tried.
 
He clawed forward. Pulled with one arm. Pressed his face to anything solid, looking for meaning, for pattern, for hope.
 
But it was too late.
 
The last thought that passed through his mind wasn’t of Joanna. Or the restaurant. Or even his crimes.
 
It was of Jonah.
 
And how his story had ended so differently.
 
Anderson slipped into unconsciousness, and Nicole’s body continued on — undisturbed, unaware, unstoppable.
 
A closed system.
 
A perfect machine.
  
By 6:00 p.m., the kitchen at Carmichael’s was heating up — not just from the stoves, but from the pulse of the dinner crowd rolling in with their appetites and expectations. Nicole stood in the middle of it all, her hands already moving before her head could catch up.

Order tickets spilled out of the printer like a tail of confetti — pasta dishes, burgers, salads, the occasional oddball request with allergy notes or a substitution list longer than the actual recipe. She didn’t mind. She liked the challenge. She’d been on the line for years and had trained in three kitchens before this one. When she was here, in the heat and the clang and the chaos, she felt something close to in control.

Nicole worked the grill tonight, same as usual. Two pans sizzled in front of her. One held a creamy mushroom risotto that needed constant stirring. The other was blackening a fillet of salmon, skin side down, just shy of crisp. Her brow was damp, her sleeves rolled up to her elbows, and a streak of flour or something chalky dusted the side of her hip.

She moved like a machine, but a precise one. Purposeful.

Every so often, she’d call over to the line cook next to her — “How’s that fettuccine?” or “Need a temp check on the steak for table twelve?” Her voice was low but commanding. Calm in the noise.

Joanna passed through the kitchen around 7:15, carrying empty plates to the back and joking with the servers.

Nicole noticed her lingering for a moment. Watching.

She looked up from her station.

“What?” Nicole asked, raising a brow. “Do I have something on my face?”

Joanna gave a small grin. “No. I just… gotta say it — you’re looking really good tonight.”

Nicole blinked, surprised. “What?”

Joanna gestured loosely toward her. “Your figure. The braid. The whole vibe. I don’t know — something about you tonight is just... solid. Balanced. Strong.”

Nicole smirked. “You’re weird.”

“I mean it,” Joanna said, shrugging, already walking off. “You’re kind of killing it.”

Nicole turned back to her station, shaking her head. But the compliment lingered.

It had been a long time since anyone had said anything like that — especially a woman who wasn’t trying to sell her something. It didn’t feel flirtatious, just… real. Grounded. Like Joanna was seeing something even Nicole didn’t think about most days.

She stirred the risotto with a little more rhythm in her wrist.

The hours passed in heat, motion, and grease.

Tickets came and went. Dishes flew. Someone dropped a tray in the back and swore under their breath. Nicole drank from her cherry Pepsi, now filled with ice water. She didn’t think once about the food she’d eaten earlier, or how tightly her body had claimed it as fuel. It was gone now. Used. Forgotten.
  
Anderson was dead.
 
Gone in the truest, most total sense.
 
But his body, twisted and curled into a fetal shape, remained whole enough to *travel*.
 
The stomach had done much of its work already. Nicole’s powerful gastric acids had soaked and bloated the tissues, leaching the color from his skin, cooking his outer layers in a low, rolling burn. Where once had been muscle and fat, now there was something spongy and pale — mottled like wet cloth left in the sun. His limbs bent at unnatural angles, softened at the joints. The ligaments were beginning to dissolve.
 
What remained of his skin had taken on a translucent quality, parts of it sloughing in thin, peeling sheets, exposing grey-pink muscle that pulsed not with life, but with the motion of peristalsis. His face was still *there*, barely — swollen, distorted, lips blistered open from exposure to acid, eyes clouded and bulging.
 
When the stomach finished, it passed him forward.
 
The duodenum yawned open — a slick, muscular ring that dragged his ruined body into the **true** engine of digestion. Here, new chemicals greeted him: bile, green and bitter, emulsifying fat, breaking down the soft remnants of what used to be his body’s defenses. Enzymes flayed him at a microscopic level, carving through what little skin remained, reducing him *not quickly, but efficiently*.
 
There was no peace here. Only process.
 
The small intestine wrapped around him in rhythmic pulses, like a massive, wet python, muscles squeezing and rolling, slowly pushing the corpse through its winding path. Microvilli scraped across him, thousands of microscopic fingers brushing nutrients from his decaying frame. They pulled fragments of him into Nicole’s bloodstream — proteins, trace minerals, broken chains of amino acids, all stripped without reverence.
 
He was becoming *useful*, but not *recognizable*.
 
His ribcage collapsed inward under the pressure. The tissue around it buckled, bones softened by acid, marrow leached. His spine bent backward like a broken scorpion’s tail, vertebrae separating slightly, gelatinous between splinters.
 
His jaw cracked sideways, no longer able to resist the muscular squeezing.
 
Somewhere in the final stretch of the small intestine, his right hand detached completely, sheared off at the wrist by a kink in the pathway. It drifted on its own in the slurry of bile and half-liquid food matter, a severed, blistered claw curling uselessly.
 
Hours passed like this.
 
Nicole moved through her night — wiping counters, calling times, joking with the servers — while deep inside her, a quiet dismantling continued. No ceremony. No pause. Just digestion.
 
What was left of Anderson was compact now. Tight. Shrinking with every meter.
 
The large intestine took over next.
 
Its job was less brutal, but no less final.
 
Water was drawn out. Everything hardened. Whatever was left of his body — hair, fragments of bone, fingernails that hadn’t dissolved — were folded into dense, shrinking masses, desiccated, dark, lifeless. He was becoming refuse. Packaged for disposal.
 
His face was now a collapsed, sunken mockery of what it once had been. His limbs pulled tight like dried roots. His skin, where it remained, had taken on a leathered, yellow-brown hue, mottled and flaking. He had been *mummified* by the relentless workings of the body — heat, acid, movement, time.
 
Not even memory remained.
 
Only matter. A grotesque fossil in motion, being moved along a track to nowhere.
  
Nicole finished her shift with a sigh, rolled out her shoulders, and untied her apron with a flick of her wrist. The kitchen was quiet now — steam gone, heat ebbing. She tossed her gloves, grabbed her drink, and clocked out.
 
No one could tell from her face — calm, neutral — that deep inside, the last shreds of a man were being processed, dried, and packed away. She wasn’t aware. Would never be.
 
She just wanted a shower and sleep.
 
The body kept moving.
  
It was after midnight when Nicole finally stepped out of Carmichael’s, the restaurant’s back door clanging shut behind her with a thud and a hiss of old hydraulics. The cool night air rushed her skin, a relief after hours of standing near open flames and fryers. She could still smell the grease and garlic on her skin, could still feel the faint stickiness of sweat drying under her collar.
 
She rolled her shoulders once, cracked her neck, and headed to the car, sliding into the seat with a groan. She didn’t even bother turning on music for the drive home. Just silence. Just city lights sliding past her window as she mentally shut the restaurant out of her head one layer at a time.
 
When she got home, her apartment greeted her with the kind of stillness that only comes after midnight. No traffic outside, no neighbors moving around, no music leaking through the walls. Just the soft click of the door closing and the slow exhale of her body finally relaxing.
 
She kicked off her shoes and peeled off her clothes right there in the entryway, tossing the apron and shirt into the laundry basket in the hallway. Her feet throbbed with every step as she padded barefoot across the wood floor toward the bathroom.
 
Tonight, she didn’t want a quick rinse. She wanted a *bath*. One of those long, hot ones that made the rest of the world go quiet.
 
She ran the water hot — steam rolled out instantly — and added a splash of eucalyptus oil from a half-used bottle she kept by the sink. The scent filled the room, sharp and soothing. She dropped her phone on the counter, queued up an episode of the true crime show she’d been watching on Hulu, and propped it against a candle holder.
 
The light from the screen flickered across the tile as she slipped into the water.
 
She let herself sink all the way in, her body disappearing beneath the heat, eyes fluttering shut for just a moment. The ache in her lower back dissolved. Her legs went weightless. She lay there, chin just above the surface, and let the tension bleed out of her.
 
The show played on — muted narration about missing persons, timelines, investigators piecing together fragments. She barely listened. It was background noise, something to hold the silence at bay. Every so often she reached for her water bottle on the side of the tub and sipped, the coolness contrasting beautifully with the bath heat.
 
Time passed in a blur of fog and low voices.
 
After an hour, she pulled herself from the water, now lukewarm and heavy. She toweled off slowly, wrapped herself in a robe, and shuffled back to the bedroom. The sheets were cool when she slipped in. Her muscles buzzed with that soft, satisfying tiredness that only a hard day’s work could deliver.
 
She didn’t set an alarm. She didn’t need one. She never did.
 
Nicole woke late the next morning — nearly 10:15 — with the soft brightness of the sun sliding through the blinds across her eyes. She blinked at the ceiling for a few seconds before turning to her side, hugging a pillow into her chest, and lying still.
 
Her body felt better today. Less sore. The bath had worked its magic.
 
She rose slowly, stretching until her spine cracked in four places, then padded to the bathroom, brushing her teeth, pulling her hair into a loose ponytail, and splashing cold water on her face. Her reflection stared back at her — tired, maybe, but *herself*.
 
She made a simple breakfast: granola and almond milk, banana on the side. No podcast this morning. No distractions. Just quiet. Her thoughts wandered. She had the whole day ahead of her before work. No errands pressing down on her. No obligations.
 
She’d probably do laundry. Maybe sketch. Read for a bit.
 
She checked the Carmichael’s group chat — a few new messages about weekend scheduling, Rebecca asking to swap a shift, someone joking about Aaron 's new haircut. Nicole replied with a thumbs-up emoji and went back to her breakfast.
 
By noon, she had music playing — soft, instrumental — while she swept her apartment, watered her plant, and folded last night’s laundry. The air smelled faintly of the eucalyptus from her bath, the clean scent still clinging to her skin, her towels.
 
She took her time.
 
The workday would come. The kitchen would heat up. Tickets would print. Plates would stack.
 
But for now?
 
The world was still.
 
And Nicole had time to breathe.
  
The evening shift had built up like it always did—sharp, steady, and relentless. But now, two hours in, Carmichael’s had dipped into a much-needed lull. A couple of tables were waiting on checks, and one family in the corner was still picking at appetizers, their kids distracted by tablet screens and crayon-covered menus. In the kitchen, the ticket printer was silent for the first time in twenty minutes.
 
Nicole was mid-flip at the grill, but her posture had started to shift—literally. She stood slightly straighter than usual, bracing her weight unevenly. Not tense, but clearly managing something.
 
Joanna, always attuned to the rhythms of the staff, noticed it when she passed by the expo window. She leaned over just enough to catch Nicole’s eye.
 
“You good?”
 
Nicole gave her a look, one that said *not really*, then muttered just loud enough to be heard over the low whir of the vent hood, “I gotta take a shit. Like, twenty minutes ago.”
 
Joanna raised her eyebrows. “For real?”
 
Nicole gave a single, resigned nod. “It’s been creeping out. Full-on prairie dogging. If I bend wrong, it’s game over.”
 
Joanna tried and failed to stifle a giggle. “Well, I think we’re in a lull. You should probably go before it becomes a crime scene.”
 
Nicole shook her head and smirked. “Gonna finish this plate first. No way I’m leaving it mid-cook.”
 
“You’re a soldier,” Joanna said, walking away, still grinning.
 
Nicole didn’t waste time. She finished plating the lemon-butter tilapia, dropped a garnish on the rim like a final flourish, and slid the plate into the window.
 
She wiped her hands, unfastened her apron, and moved quickly out of the kitchen.
 
Unlike the staff-only restrooms hidden near the dish pit, the public restrooms at Carmichael’s were right near the front, next to the host stand and across from the drink refill station. Nicole walked fast but casually, keeping her steps controlled. No one needed to know what level of emergency this was.
 
She slipped into the ladies’ room without a word.
 
Inside, the tile floor was clean and the scent of citrus cleaner clung to the air. The automatic fan droned softly overhead. She chose the second stall, locked the door, turned, and quickly yanked down her black work pants and underwear before sitting hard on the toilet seat.
 
A sharp fart echoed off the porcelain a beat later, followed by the release her body had been begging for, piece by piece, pinched off like shit sausages. Her shoulders slumped. Her breath came out in one long, relieved sigh.
 
“God, I hope I didn’t leave skid marks,” she muttered to herself, shaking her head with a tired smile as she gave her underwear a quick check. Crisis averted.
 
The bathroom stayed quiet. She let the moment linger. It was absurd how necessary this kind of relief could feel after holding it through the heat of the line, flipping proteins, plating with precision, pretending nothing was wrong. But here, in this stupid little moment of silence, Nicole felt something like peace.
 
When she finished, she wiped, stood, and gave her underwear a another skid mark check before pulling them back up. Crisis definietly averted.
 
She flushed, stepped out to the sink, and washed her hands thoroughly—scrubbing under the nails like she always did. She glanced at herself in the mirror. A little shiny, a little flushed, but still composed.
 
“Back to it,” she said under her breath, drying her hands on a paper towel and tossing it into the bin.
 
She returned to the kitchen a few minutes later and re-tied her apron without fanfare.
 
Then it was back to the grind — the grill hot again, orders coming in steady, Nicole sliding right back into place like nothing had happened at all.
 
Because that’s what you did in the restaurant world: you handled your business and got back to work.
 
Inside Nicole, beneath the calm surface of her skin and the steady rhythm of her breath, her body had continued its quiet, tireless labor.
 
Anderson’s remains—lifeless and unrecognizable—had long since passed through the upper reaches of her digestive system. What had once been a man was now compacted matter, fragments of tissue and bone reduced to waste by her body’s unrelenting process.
 
The colon, a long and twisting length of muscle, had received him in pieces.
 
As water was pulled away by the large intestine, what remained of Anderson was drawn into a slowly forming segment of dense, solid waste. The mass was brown, dry, and tightly packed—formed from all the unneeded fibers, indigestibles, and remnants of her meals from the past day. Mixed within were the leathery shreds of skin, collapsed bones, and inert strands of hair that were once his body.
 
The movement through the colon was slow and methodical. Waves of peristalsis gently squeezed the contents forward in pulses. As the hours passed, the waste became heavier and more compacted, eventually collecting in the sigmoid colon. Anderson’s remnants were nestled in the second third of this coil — not in the front, not quite last — fused into a segment of waste shaped by her body’s natural rhythm.
 
By the time Nicole’s shift began, the buildup had become noticeable. Not painful, but present. A tightness deep in her lower abdomen, the telltale pressure of a body signaling: "Soon."
 
She ignored it at first. She always did. It was part of working in kitchens — the body’s needs had to wait.
 
But as time stretched on and the sigmoid colon filled further, pressure increased.
 
Gas built behind the mass, and the urge turned urgent.
 
Her rectum began to receive the signal. The internal sphincter twitched reflexively, registering fullness. Nicole clenched her cheeks together, adjusting her stance by the grill, holding back the wave of sensation. It was now unmistakable — *prairie dogging* as she would later call it, a crude but accurate term for what her body was doing: keeping the first part of the mass right at the threshold, retracting it again and again with every tightening of her muscles.
 
Anderson’s remains were folded somewhere in the middle now, encased in warmth, pressed between larger, denser matter that had formed ahead of him. He no longer resembled a man. The outlines of ribs had collapsed inward, fused with the bolus of waste surrounding them. His skull, softened and partially eroded, had fractured and flattened. Only his long bones remained somewhat intact, buried under the weight of organic sludge.
 
By the time Nicole finally reached the restroom, her body was ready.
 
Her internal sphincters relaxed in response to sitting. The muscles in her abdomen tightened gently as her colon began its final contractions.
 
Gas released first in a single long burst.
 
Then, movement.
 
The rectum widened. The first section of feces passed out slowly, steadily, thick and firm. Her muscles adjusted with trained familiarity, managing the pressure, the angle. Her face remained calm, her body focused.
 
The mass was expelled in segments, each pushed with controlled ease. Somewhere in the middle, folded tightly within the second portion, were the hardened, shriveled remnants of Anderson. His partial skeleton lay pressed at an angle, fragments of his spine embedded along the inner curve of the segment. One of his arms, still vaguely identifiable by its proportions, was twisted alongside what remained of a shoulder blade.
 
No one would ever know.
 
To Nicole’s body, it was all the same: unneeded, inert matter. The final result of a perfect system doing what it was designed to do.
 
After the final contraction, her rectum was cleared. The sensation of fullness vanished. Her body relaxed.
 
She wiped, flushed, and moved on — never aware of what had been contained within her, never once imagining that her body had quietly completed a transformation so final it erased a man from the world without leaving a trace.
  
Joanna wiped her hands on her apron and stepped out from the kitchen line, catching a glimpse of Nicole just as she was untying her apron and making a beeline for the front of the restaurant.
 
"There she goes," Joanna thought.
 
She didn’t need to ask where. The shift in Nicole’s posture, the shortness of her stride, the tension in her jaw—it all pointed to one thing. Joanna had seen it before. Kitchen staff learned to read each other’s nonverbal signals the way athletes read plays: quickly, quietly, with absolute certainty.
 
A few moments passed. Joanna finished running a drink refill, then made her way casually toward the front, curiosity getting the better of her. She pushed open the door to the ladies’ room just as the scent of lemon-scented cleaner brushed past her.
 
There was no one at the sinks. Just the soft whirl of the fan and the hush of fluorescent light buzzing above.
 
She lingered a second.
 
Then—*splash*.
 
A faint but unmistakable sound from one of the stalls.
 
Joanna smiled to herself. "That might be it. That might be him." The thought slid through her like a shiver—not cold, not cruel, just... satisfying.
 
She stepped back out, calm and casual, and returned to the floor. The lull had passed. Orders were picking back up. She weaved through the restaurant with practiced speed, checking on tables, smiling where she needed to, disappearing where she didn’t.
 
About ten minutes later, she caught movement out of the corner of her eye—Nicole, back on the floor, already tying her apron again, sleeves rolled, face relaxed. Her usual sharp focus had returned.
 
Joanna grabbed a couple of plates from the pass and walked over, pausing just close enough to nudge her.
 
“You feel better?” she asked, keeping her voice light.
  
Nicole rolled her eyes but couldn’t help the laugh that slipped out. “Yeah, I feel much better now. And, for the record, I checked—NO skid marks.”
 
Joanna raised an eyebrow, amused. “Good to know.”
 
“I was legit worried,” Nicole continued, adjusting her gloves. “Between the prairie dogging and the wedgie, it felt like a full-on tactical situation down there.”
 
Joanna snorted. “Tactical.”
 
Nicole nodded solemnly. “Strategic retreat, full evacuation.”
 
They both laughed. It wasn’t unusual for kitchen talk to dip into the grotesque now and then. It was part of surviving the stress, the noise, the heat. But this? This was better than a joke. This was a hidden victory, one Joanna held close.
 
“You’re a hell of a lot lighter than a few days ago,” Joanna said, a little more meaning in her voice than the words carried alone.
 
Nicole shrugged. “Maybe. Could be I just feel good knowing that jerk’s not showing his face around here again.”
 
Joanna tilted her head. “And if he did?”
 
Nicole scoffed. “If I saw that piece of shit IN my food? I wouldn’t even blink. Wouldn’t say a word. He’d go down easy. I’d turn him into a literal piece of shit in a heartbeat.”
 
Joanna burst out laughing, loud enough that a server walking by gave them a puzzled look.
 
Nicole smirked, wiping her hands on her towel. “Sorry, not sorry.”
 
Joanna shook her head as she turned away, picking up her tray. “If you only knew,” she whispered under her breath, a smile curling at the corners of her mouth.
 
She carried the plates back out to the dining room, her step light, her thoughts calm.
 
Anderson wasn’t a worry anymore.
 
He was long gone.
 
Exactly where he deserved to be...

...And WHAT he deserved to be. 

End Notes:

If there's any particular meal you'd like to see served, even a particular person or type of person to serve or served to, feel free to make a request.


Comment with Meal, Person, victim, feel free to add character details or names as well. I might not do every request, but they'll all be considered.


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