“There’s a line, maybe we can just come back some other day?” Lily asked Akemi, her best friend and teammate on the university’s volleyball team. The line in front of the milk tea shop was almost out the door, and it was sweltering outside. 

“No, you said you would try it today!” Akemi cooed in response as she snatched a paper menu from a nearby dispenser. “Frankly I don’t get how you can live in a city and NOT have tried Tiny Tea.” She added.

Lily rolled her eyes and accepted her fate to wait in line, allowing a few people on the busy sidewalk to move past her. 

“I still don’t get what the big deal is with it. When I’m drinking something I don’t want to suck up a bunch of little… things.” Lily bristled and reluctantly took a look at the menu. 

A few minutes later and the girls were finally inside of the restaurant. Lily fished her mask out of her pocket as they crossed the threshold, and to her relief noticed that the line was not as long as she originally thought; people just had to remain a few feet apart while waiting. 

Admittedly a few things on the menu sounded good, Lily thought. Akemi was paying for her order anyways, so by the time they reached the bright eyed cashier both women knew what they wanted. 

Akemi picked a matcha smoothie with strawberry flavored tinies for herself, while Lily selected vanilla chai milk tea and peach tinies. A few minutes later their order was served. She could feel Akemi’s eyes following her intently as she picked up the drink, carefully examining the contents.

Rhys knew his luck would run out eventually. He and the others had thought they would be safe hiding on the outskirts of town, but the man-catchers were simply too good at their job. Modern technology made their capture far easier nowadays.

Once he was sealed away in a large wooden crate with a few hundred other prisoners, he realized something was amiss. Normally they would be sent out to sperm banks, but the sounds he heard from behind the thick walls of the box were unfamiliar. Lots of talking and chattering in a foreign language he could not understand. At some point the temperature went from sweltering humidity to almost freezing, and the smell of raw fish lingered in the air. 

He quivered helplessly as the lid to the container he and the others were kept in opened up to reveal blinding white light from up above. His futile attempts to run away only delayed the gargantuan gloved hand that encroached on the space by a few seconds, before he was being carried across what seemed like a kitchen. In the distance he could see several gigantic women preparing food. Cutting fish, cooking rice, making drinks. He and the others were destined for a large row of brightly colored trays. 

The woman carrying them remained apathetic to the quiet cries of the men in her clutches. It was a busy day and they needed a new batch of peach flavored tinies before she could go on her break. Rhys was among the first to be tossed into what seemed like an ocean of sticky, chunky syrup. He coughed and gagged on gallons of peach purée and melted down sugars which formed the flavor base of the tinies. The mixture was chilled slightly, which froze him to the core. Before he could react, a humongous hand from the girl preparing the batch descended to mold him and the others into the peachy mix. 

It was becoming very difficult to breathe as the elephantine digits pushed, rolled and kneaded his tiny body into the viscous fluids until his pale skin was rendered almost yellowish orange from the peach flavor. One by one the girl pressed a finger into the backs of each man, forcing them beneath the surface of the syrup until a few bubbles came up as they sputtered and gasped. Rhys was no different, and she kept him submerged until finally his lungs could take no more and he opened his mouth to inhale some of it. Instantly it clung to his throat and slid down, forcing him to swallow quite a bit of the flavoring. The highly concentrated mixture was so sweet it almost hurt to choke down, and left him feeling covered in glue. 

Immediately after this the cook transferred them into a separate dish to marinate for a few minutes, until the flavor had well and truly soaked into their skin. Appropriately peach flavored, Rhys would do nothing but watch as a plastic cup almost thirty feet tall was placed next to them on the tray. On the side was a fun, bubbly font that read out ‘Tiny Tea!’. 

“One matcha smoothie with strawberry and one vanilla chai with peach!” Someone within the kitchen called amidst all the other voices. 

A different server washed her hands before working on the drinks. At random she selected about three handfuls worth of men from the freshly finished peach tray, with Rhys among them. In a heap of bodies they clumped together at the bottom of a large plastic cup. Rhys landed on top, and was prevented from standing by a stream of hey ice chunks falling on top of all of them. He was pinned, unable to move aside as a steady flow of vanilla scented liquid coming pouring down upon them.

Lily murmured to herself as the cashier placed her order down. A creamy colored concoction with several swirling figures inside. Akemi’s order was served moments later. Her own matcha smoothie was so cold and frothy the men trapped at the bottom were half frozen over, like little tasty ice cubes. It seemed like a strange concept. Sure she snacked on them from time to time, but drinking them in a sweet tea seemed odd. 

They thanked the cashier and took their fat straws before leaving the store. Despite the line they managed to find a quiet spot with an umbrella to keep the sun out of their eyes while they drank. Akemi plunged her straw through a thin plastic film on top of her tea. The sharp edges of the bottom tore through the protective seal to plunge into the smoothie, and penetrate past the blockage of ice until it reached the men below. Many lost limbs in the process, their struggle for survival becoming even more arduous. 

Akemi noticed Lily inspecting her drink from every angle and guffawed. “Hurry up! It’s best to drink while the tinies are still squirming.” 

“Jeez, when you say it like that I almost feel bad for them.” Lily said and pulled off her mask to take a sip. Rhys felt the sudden pressure change as without warning, the pile of bodies at the bottom of the plastic became substantially lower. It was possible to find air pockets here and there, but with some of the liquid gone the gaps between the ice were their only hope.

The gigantic hollow pole that had been inserted alongside them and decapitated a man next to him was like a big vacuum cleaner, but fortunately at the top of the pile he was yet to go. How much longer that lasted he had no clue. 

Lily paused for a moment as she felt the first of the tinies flush into her mouth, along with a few ounces of vanilla chai. At first she cringed from the sensation, it was the first time she had ever tried something like this. Usually she ate men like a normal person. Tilt the head back and swallow them dry, maybe dipped in peanut butter and chocolate or something, but never in a drink. Now she found the squirming they provided on her tongue to be quite pleasant. She licked the peach flavor off a few, pushing and shoving one unfortunate soul until he was wedged between her powerful molars. He exploded against the pressure, the peachy purée doing its work as she felt a flavor explosion burst in her throat.

“Oh wow!” Lily exclaimed. “That’s really good!” Eagerly she took another sip. This time she got quite a few tinies, including Rhys who went flying up the straw. He could see past the others being taken that her mouth was near. Fortunately for him at least, she halted the suction right before he passed the threshold of her lips and slid back down into the tea. 

This time she was more enthusiastic, and slurped almost a dozen tinies into her mouth along with gallons of milk tea. She drank some of it, and washed a few tinies down her throat as they helplessly clawed at her tongue for purchase before reaching her esophagus. For the vast majority of other tinies in her mouth, she had more cruel intentions as they found themselves bunched up between her teeth. 

Frantically they tried to escape and push free, but were powerless against the overwhelming power of her tongue adjusting them into the perfect position to chew. Lily’s eyes rolled back in pleasure as there was a collective scream of agony from within the walls of her cheeks, from the remaining tinies ground to bits of peachy chunks and sucked down her throat. The ‘fortunate’ ones who had not been chewed and slipped into her stomach wandered about blindly in the pitch black chamber. Soon they were showered in the masticated remained of their former friends, bits of meat and viscera sizzling on contact with her stomach acids. 

Satisfied, Akemi also took a drink of her ice cold smoothie. Hers was chilled to the point the tinies inside simply could not move through the slushy semi-liquid, and were too numb to feel the tube shift above. They hurtled through the tube into her mercifully warm mouth, thawed on her soft tongue which sloshed them about her mouth and cracked skulls on her teeth. One by one Akemi lined them up to bite into, savoring each sweet morsel of strawberry flavored tiny amidst the earthy tones of the matcha. 

She offered a sly grin to Lily, who stirred her drink up to generate a whirlpool within her cup. Within, Rhys was tossed about and slammed into gigantic chunks of ice and other men alike. His eyes burned from the sugary syrups and additives in his eyes, and couldn’t quite remember what fresh air was like within the enclosure. From outside the plastic prison he could hear the two monsters chatting amongst themselves. 

Lily wiped some of the chai, along with a bit of peach tiny, off her chin with a napkin. “Alright. I was wrong. Tiny Tea is the best thing ever and I’m totally going to blow most of my money here from now on.” She admitted with a laugh.

“Told ya!” Akemi laughed victoriously. “They have food too, really good poké bowls. You can ask for marinated tinies on them for no extra cost with the purchase of a drink.” She said. 

A few minutes later and the girls had more or less finished their drinks. Akemi popped the cap off her smoothie and resorted to a spoon, which left no survivors among the tinies of that cup. Lily as she was talking allowed some of the ice to melt, which diluted the drink. Only Rhys and a two others remained at the bottom of her straw wading in waist deep water mixed with milk tea. 

As luck would have it, Lily figured she had finished her beverage and followed Akemi down the street to a nearby recycling bin. Lily tossed the remaining contents of her tea into the trash bin before she recycled the cup, which sent Rhys flying into the garbage. The two women walked away, as Rhys began the slow, arduous process of climbing back to the top of the bin. 

By some miracle he had his life, but for how long in this cruel world, he did not know.