"These summons are ridiculous!" A voice several places ahead in line burst, "If they want the whole damned town at once, why not come pick us up? God knows it's a shorter walk for them than for us!" He was not the only person growing impatient with the massive queue outside the gates of the capital city. Scores of people bickered and complained as the line seemed to hardly move at all. Some even observed that the far-off gates along the outskirts of the capital seemed to have a similar issue.

Having found a place to sit on the raised edges of the bridge, one group seemed unbothered by the ordeal. The three seemed to prefer conversation among themselves to the noise of the crowd. One of the two men turned to the only woman, seemingly in the entire crowd, let alone their group. "Care to guess what the High and Mighty want this time?" He asked, kicking a small rock on the street below. 

The woman rolled her eyes. "Don't ask me! Their decisions have way more to do with stature than gender, I assure you." She seemed more than fed up with that short-lived line of questioning.

The third in their group piped up. "Give it a rest already." He growled, "Jim, you know she was born small like the rest of us. Stop acting like she's from the capital. Olivia, stop taking the bait. You're smarter than that." The third, older man took a breath after the scolding, turning toward the line again. "I'm sure whatever it is, it's pretty important. I'm not convinced it was only our entire town summoned. I think it was all of them."

Just then, the gates slowly began to open, revealing a figure thousands of times the size of any person below. A woman of such immense stature that her mere appearance silenced the crowd instantly. A person of average height in the capital. "Hey little ones!" She sang out in a soft voice that was anything but in volume, "We're just about ready for you. We have a tube system that will deliver you all to your seats for the event, I just need to turn it on. I'll get that moving, you guys just start walking."

Everyone did so, journeying forward past the gates into a hallway hundreds of feet tall. "Did anyone catch what event they're talking about?" The older man spoke up again. A sea of 'no' spilled forth from everyone in earshot. "Wonderful." He sighed.

"Come on, Tom!" Olivia started, mocking his scolding tone, "Try to keep your head up. I'm sure it can't be that bad." 

Around a distant corner, the giant woman returned, dragging a large plastic tube with her. "Alrighty! Let's get you all on your way!" She says, bringing the tube's entrance down to the ground. Those at the front of the line rocketed up the tube, and as she dragged it along, so did everyone else. It became clear pretty fast that she was essentially vacuuming, and the entire population of the surrounding towns were the dust bunnies. 

Soon enough the vacuum was approaching the group on the side of the bridge. "Huddle up!" Jim screamed over the roaring wind, "Maybe we can stay together!" As he barked his instructions, Tom and Olivia followed, linking arms together just in time for the tube to swallow them whole.

The suction from the tube pulled scores of people in, merging with other paths as it went along. Eventually, three entryways poured into a much wider tube, each throwing hundreds of people from its opening every second. As the huddled three reached the opening, it was immediately apparent that the suction had ceased. They went from flying through the air, to free-falling down a chute. It didn't take long to reach the bottom though, and in total darkness they dropped onto a pile of thousands of people. The three hardly had time to lift their heads before being pressed right back down by hundreds more piling on top. 

"Just as UGH!" Tom started, only to be hit with another falling person. His voice was getting raspy from the immense pressure. "I suspected… Every gate converges here!" 

As if to ensure not a moment's respite for the pile of people, the entirety jolted downward, like a layer of people just stopped existing at the very bottom. Then again. And again. And again. "What the hell is happening?!" Olivia screamed, another jolt interrupting her plea.

A few minutes later, (and twenty or so drops) light finally appeared below. The three tumbled with around a thousand others onto a small pile that quickly filled up and shifted along. 

Tom began to grab and pull his way up the mountain of people to see what was going on. Grabbing at people's limbs and clothes to reach a higher vantage point, he caught a glimpse of the machine on which he rode. Angry people below him swiftly knocked him back down, and when he returned to his friends, his face had gone pale. "We're in some huge plastic container on a conveyor belt." He said monotonously, "The tube we were inside is just dropping tons of us at a time and closing back up."

Jim furrowed his brow, just as someone hoisted themselves higher on his shoulders. "What?" He scoffed, "We're being… packed up? What the hell are they up to?"

Olivia had begun hyperventilating as she heard the other two. Something felt very wrong, and it wasn't just the kicks and grabs from the people all trying to get to the top. 

Darkness suddenly took over once again, and there was something warm pouring in from above. Those unprepared for the sudden drenching quickly recognized the bitter taste of soapy water. It took mere seconds for the container to fill up, and only another few for things to start and stop spinning. The piled crowd spun like a washing machine, the water draining below and getting replaced with clean water, rinsing them back off. 

Once all the water was gone, the three needed to push past quite a few others to find each other. By this point it was nearly impossible to get a word in over the hundreds coughing and trying to catch their breath. Nevertheless the conveyor belt marched along. Tom and Jim worked together to climb upward, both determined to see the next step of their journey and be better prepared. Olivia followed suit. 

At the top of the pile, the three watched as the harsh fluorescent light turned to daylight as the conveyor moved outside. "Nothing good can come from this…" Tom said as a massive woman in a pantsuit approached the conveyor and hoisted their container into the air. There were stands on every side full of people like a sports arena. 

A voice crackled out into the air over an intercom. "Everyone please welcome reigning champion Nelly," the voice thundered, "and the two looking to take the throne, Rachel and Theresa!" The woman lining the bleachers all around began roaring with cheers and applause. Everything felt like a dream; like nothing made sense.

The pantsuit lady hardly looked down at the container she carried, eventually reaching forward to place it down. She turned without another word and made her way back toward the conveyor belt. Jim reached to pull himself up to the rim of the opaque plastic prison, seeing two similar containers sitting in a row beside his. The shadow of another massive being appeared above, shaking the table as she sat down, and causing Jim to lose his grip. Far above he could see a sticker on her chest that said "Contestant: Theresa."

Returning to his friends, Jim inhaled quickly. "Alright…" he began through labored breaths, "We're on a table with three bowls. We're the left-most one, and some lady just sat down in front of us. It's one of the competitors from the intercom. That's all I could really see."

As if to fill in the blanks, the announcer's voice returned. "For those just tuning in," it began, "Nelly holds the current record of one thousand, five hundred and thirty one in private competition, and has claimed she can do more for months!" The voice only got louder as the lights dimmed and whatever crazy contest the group was now involved in approached its start. "Will she be able to put her money where her mouth is, or will one of our newcomers take home the gold!" She continued, "You'll have to watch to find out in the First Annual Capital Eating Competition!"

Olivia let forth a blood curdling scream as the realization hit her. Jim and Tom jumped to action to pull her down into the crowd to get as far from the top as possible, though quickly hindered by the hundreds of people trying to do exactly the same. "What do we do?" Jim screamed, taking an elbow and a foot to the face as he tried to progress deeper. 

"Competitors get ready!" The voice above returned with a much more unsettling cadence, at least to the tiny people below, "Get set!" she warned, "Go!"

The three clawed harder at those around them when suddenly they were shoved deeper forcefully by a massive finger. They found themselves at the bottom of a crater in the bowl as a tan hand carried what must have been sixty or seventy people high into the sky. They froze and watched as they finally all had a view of the leaning woman above. She had dyed purple hair,  caramelly-tanned skin, and a mouth wide open to accept the incoming payload.

Nobody in the bowl below could stray their eyes from what happened next. The contestant brought her hand to her lips and skillfully stuffed the yelling and pleading populous into her mouth, not letting a single one drop. With her cheeks stuffed, she smiled and let forth a horrific crunching sound as she chewed her first bite. The tanned woman seemed to drain the color from the faces of all who remained in her bowl below. They watched as she swallowed a little more every few seconds, trying to force every last citizen into her esophagus. 

The group gazed up past her, where a red segmented display showed her total rapidly increase from zero to sixty-one. Their view was quickly obscured as her hand returned, a reaper ready to take them all to death's door. She aimed more for the side of the bowl this time, but her hand was still big enough to snag Olivia's leg, pulling her with the next group into the air. She thrashed in the giant woman's grasp as she dangled upside-down from the hand.

She got the first glimpse of the other contestants. A blonde at the far end, tilting her bowl up into her mouth and seeming to swallow instantly, as if she were drinking the people within. In the center, a black haired woman with a smirk was being delivered her second bowl. Olivia's blood ran cold as she read the name and total above the black-haired one: "Nelly" it said, "852" Easily more than both of the other contestants combined. 

The handful reached Theresa's maw, and once again she opened her cupped hand to pour the group onto her tongue. Olivia got close enough to feel the woman's warm lip before her leg finally fell free and she dropped toward the bowl below. She landed back with her friends and forced herself to speak. "The girl in the middle!" She shouted, "She's almost at a thousand! The other one is way ahead too! Everyone's gonna die!" She just continued to scream with tears pouring down her face. Tom and Jim's mouths fell agape. 

"Wow." Tom managed to say and she watched the hand in the distance gather another scoop, "We're going to be eaten… by the last-place contestant… it won't even be meaningful…" He looked up toward Theresa, watching her struggle to chew her third handful, sending person after person down her throat just for a big red number to increment a little. "284… 285… 286…" all as she swallowed. 

The giant woman was sweating as she turned to see the other scoreboards with much higher values. She sighed as she swallowed the last of what was in her mouth and noticed she was the only one still on her first bowl. Nevertheless, she stuffed another group between her lips. 

The announcer voice crackled back to life. "Our three contestants are fighting strong, and have now eaten a combined two thousand tinies! In first place so far is the only competitor who's competed in unofficial tournaments before, Nelly, who is practically inhaling these little guys at one thousand, two hundred and seventy-three! With a pretty big gap behind her is Rachel, who is trying as she may to swallow them all whole, with six hundred and five! Last but certainly not least is Theresa, who seems to be taking her time chewing her food, who just passed three hundred! Will she catch up by the end? We'll have to keep watching to see!"

Theresa's face was turning red as she heard the numbers aloud. She grabbed another handful and brought it up to her mouth. "Ugh." She sighed, "I knew I shouldn't have had breakfast on the day of the contest…" she said before stuffing her handful between her lips again. She tried to swallow as many as possible whole, but couldn't do it. She had to keep chewing. 

The population in her bowl below was dwindling, quickly being converted to numbers on the screen behind her. Jim was grinding his teeth with every horrifying munch above. "It won't be much longer now…" he said with fear in his voice, "That crunching will be… us…"

Theresa on the other hand wasn't so confident. She shifted the tinies in her mouth around, biting down on any that were still in one piece and swallowing. She turned to the scoreboard behind her. "Ten more until six hundred…" she said under her breath, "Then I'm done."

Her hand descended into the bowl and pushed the remaining people around, scooping a much smaller group into her palm. Jim and Olivia pointlessly punched at her hand, yelling and begging as they watched her take Tom alongside eleven or so others. "Heeelp!" He screamed down toward his friends. They could do nothing.

When he turned back over, he could see the lips of the giant woman part, her tongue ready to accept him like a gift. She let out one more sigh and tilted her hand upward. Tom grabbed at the skin of her hand, trying anything not to fall into her mouth. It was too late. His body hit her plush lip and tumbled onto the soft, wet surface of her tongue. Every person inside had the same thought: run to her lips. This plan was short-lived, as the woman manipulated their little bodies back and forth into her cheeks. She paused for a bit, unsure if she could fit another bite in her stomach. Nevertheless, with a deep inhale through her nose, she brought her last few morsels between her molars. Tom could do nothing but recoil back as her top molars shot down from the ceiling, turning him and the others into something easier to swallow. 

"Give him back you bitch!" Olivia was screaming, her voice falling apart as she tried to reach a volume the giant woman could hear. "No!" She just cried and screamed as she listened to the crunching of Theresa's teeth. Jim tried his best to console her, watching as the red counter surpassed six hundred, and their friend was officially food. 

"I'm out." Theresa said, pushing the bowl away from her. She turned her head toward the other contestants, seemingly unconcerned for the screaming people in the bowls. "Good luck, I'm tapped out." She said, standing and walking off with her stomach containing a friend, as well as hundreds of neighbors, business owners, and acquaintances. All just dinner for a woman who never would've won anyway.

Jim held Olivia close, trying to stay calm for her sake. He managed quite well until another shadow enveloped them, at which point he choked. "Please!" He shouted toward whatever mountainous monster was now overhead, "Just let us go home!"

The being didn't seem to hear a word. The smiling face of some new lady, staring down past her brunette braid. "Congrats on surviving Theresa!" The cheery woman blurted, "You've earned a front-row seat to see who does win!" She then proceeded to lift the bowl and carelessly tip it onto the ceramic plate that was beneath it, watching all the terrified tinies tumble onto the hard surface. She then wrapped a hand around the edge of the plate and took the whole thing up to a slightly-raised shelf just above the table, placing the people between the two contestants. Just high enough to see over the edge into the two bowls. 

There was a crowd of a little over one hundred on the plate, but very few moved. Seeing more carnage was simply not an appealing task for them. Olivia looked around at the broken spirits and sniffled. She walked toward the contestants, peering over the edge of the plate toward the bowls below. "Why did it have to be Theresa?" A voice behind her said, "At least if either of these other girls got us we'd be together." Jim sat beside her. Looking down toward the contest. The two slowly began to focus on Nelly.

She was unstoppable. By now, Nelly was being brought her fourth bowl, and hardly seemed to mind. The tinies above watched as she stuck her tongue into the bowl, twirling it around until she had people stuck to every side. Her tongue would retract and she'd swallow. No chewing, no delay. She brought her tongue out again, took in a small town's worth of people, and put them away like it was nothing. There was no chance of escape, no point in running, everyone in that bowl would be eaten. She was a bottomless pit. 

To her left sat Rachel, whose strategy was almost scarier to imagine being a victim of. She was delivered a new bowl alongside another of the water bottles every contestant was afforded. She dumped half the bottle into the bowl, then tipped the whole thing into her mouth like cereal milk. It was slower than Nelly, but it looked so much more effortless. Thousands of people slipped between her slurping lips and down her throat as if they were dissolved in the water. 

The numbers counted up. Bowl after bowl, Jim and Olivia watched. Nelly was ahead, but both girls marched on, swallowing armies worth of people with no remorse. Nelly hit seven thousand as Rachel was passing five. Then eight and six. Nine and seven. The amount of people these women could fit in their stomachs was as amazing as it was horrifying. 

Rachel drank the rest of her bowl, reaching nearly eight thousand. She slammed the bowl down and sat back in her chair. With a sigh, she rubbed her belly. "I think…" she started before letting out a little hiccup, "I have to drop out." She stood up and walked off with a full stomach.

Nelly wasn't slowing down as she heard that news. She lapped up the rest of her bowl and stared down the officials. "Come on!" She growled, "Next bowl!"

The officials huddled up to talk for a moment, but eventually brought over another bowl. This one was hardly half-full and Nelly was able to send them down the hatch in record time. "That's it?" She yelled, looking back at her counter. It read nine thousand, nine hundred and fifty.

Jim stood up and pulled Olivia to her feet. "I don't like where this is going." He said, taking off in a mad dash toward the far side of the plate. Olivia followed closely behind. Just as he predicted, the two could feel the ground beneath them shake. 

"I'm not leaving here without ten thousand." The giantess remarked, taking the plate from above her, "Shrink the audience, or the two losers if you have to!" As she brought the plate down, she gazed over the small crowd and smiled. "Good, this should be plenty!"

"Look out!" A man screamed from the center of the plate. Jim looked over his shoulder to see the colossal pink tongue of the final contestant smash down onto the surface. She didn't seem to care about the begging and screaming coming from her tongue as it collected the remaining people. She was eating. Nothing more. Every square inch of her tongue had a person stuck to it. Jim could see people he knew; people he had talked to every day, shooting up between her lips as her tongue retracted. 

Jim and Olivia were getting close to the edge of the plate. This was it! The two took one last look over their shoulders, only to see the rest of the plate empty. She had gotten every last one. They watched as the tongue returned perfectly clean, smashing down onto the plate and racing toward them at mach speed. The two reached the edge of the plate and wasted no time jumping. 

Everything seemed to slow down in the air as they looked down toward the table below. Almost too slow. "We're not falling!" Olivia shouted. She reluctantly turned toward the sky to see the pursed lips of a giantess, and for the second time that day, they were easily vacuumed up.

Nelly swallowed, exhaling with an exaggerated "Ah!" as she sent her last victims to her stomach. She smirked as the audience cheered. There were five digits on her screen, and that's all anyone cared about. An official stepped forward to hand her a microphone. "Thank you all!" She chuckled into the mic. She pulled the front of her shirt up and began patting her stuffed belly. "For every person clapping right now," she continued, "There's ten dissolving inside me! Isn't that just amazing?" The clapping was slowing down. "If I could," she kept talking as the audience began to gather their belongings and shuffle out of the arena, "I'd shrink every last one of you and set my record even higher! There's plenty of room for you!" She screamed. 

There was nobody left but her in the stadium. She stood alone, staring at her own belly. Inside, Jim and Olivia were pressed firmly against the top of a slowly sinking pile of people. They were safe, since her stomach was far too full to get them underwater, but only for so long. "You're all so lucky…" they could hear through the muffled walls of their belly prison, "I did all the work, yet you're still part of the world record!" The shifting movements of Nelly rubbing her stomach got louder. "No idea how they got so many volunteers anyway…" she continued, "Hopefully more sign up next year! Getting hungry just thinking about it!"