And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out.
It is better thee enter into the kingdom of God with one eye,
than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire;
Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.
For every one shall be salted with fire,
and every sacrifice shall be seasoned with salt.
–Mark 9:47-49
It started as a peculiar weightless sensation in the pit of your stomach, not unlike the feeling you might get on a roller coaster. The first hour or so was tolerable, but by the end of the night, Devyn Lang wanted to fucking die. The overwhelming scent of melted cheese was not helping.
“Oh Good God,” she groaned, leaning on the counter, waiting for Harvey the line cook to finish packing up the extra large with mushrooms, sausage, and green peppers she had to deliver. “I’m gonna puke.”
“Well don’t do it on the pizza,” said Harvey, shoving her back from the counter. “This is the last one of the night.”
“I find your lack of sympathy highly unbecoming,” she grumbled, pulling the rim of her black Tarmino's Pizza hat down from her shoulder-length, platinum dyed hair to cover her pale face.
“Don’t lie. I know how you girls swoon over bad boys who don’t even know you exist.”
“Yes, I’m swooning, now finish the fucking pizza so we can go get fucking drunk. Theo’s already waiting.”
“Not too ill for debauchery, I see. I’m sure he’ll find some lovely lady to keep him entertained.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of. He always disappears before we get there.”
Just then there came a quick succession of incessant bell ringing from the front counter and the voice of Katie Tarmino, Devyn’s best friend and heiress to the Tarmino’s Pizza franchise bellowed, “HELL-OOO? Who’s a guy gotta blow to get a friggin PIZZA around here!”
Harvey smirked and sauntered through the kitchen doors to greet Katie, leaving Devyn to scowl at the nearly finished pizza.
“Sorry ma’am we close at midnight,” said Harvey from behind the front counter.
“Well you all should really lock the doors better,” said Katie coyly. “Do you know how easy it was to break in?”
Devyn’s stomach churned violently. She huffed, snatching up the pizza cutter and yanking the pizza towards her, deciding to just pack the stupid thing herself. She loved Katie but she had developed an irritating habit of showing up to visit her at work, only on the nights when Harvey was working.
She sliced the pizza into eight lopsided triangles and flopped it into its box, trying not to gag at the smell—she absolutely loathed pizza. The only reason she worked there in the first place was that Katie had gotten her the job in high school, and she’d just stuck with it the past three years after graduation, as it was conveniently located on her college campus.
“Oh yeah, I bet it’s real easy for you,” said Harvey. “Who keeps giving you keys, anyways?”
“Didn’t anyone tell you?” Katie teased. “I’ve just been made Assistant Regional Manager of this establishment.”
“Oh hell, I quit.”
They both laughed.
Their flirting was making Devyn even more nauseous than the smell of pizza. In fact, it was suddenly unbearable. Her insides writhed in agony. She clenched her teeth, squeezing her eyes shut and leaning over, slapping her hands to the counter for support.
It felt like her whole body was being forced through a small pipe.
And then she was falling.
She looked down in time to see a blur of orange and yellow before colliding onto something hot and moist and rubbery.
She groaned in confusion, her cheek sinking into the hot, gooey surface, gagging as a violently intense smell assaulted her nostrils. She frowned sideways out at what appeared to be a yellow desert landscape; mushrooms and sausage and green peppers rising like boulders on some strange, alien planet. She tried to push herself upright, but her hands simply sank into the scorching, squishy ground. “The hell?”
She deliriously brought her hand up to inspect the greasy cheese sticking to it like a thick spider web.
Comprehension spread through her like icy water; she was sitting on a pizza. A giant fucking colossal pizza. A football field’s length away was a circling brownish mound that must have been the crust. And, beyond that, the edge of the cardboard box rose up like a four story building.
Before her brain could even begin to register what the hell was happening, a tremor ran through the surface of the cheese. And then another. And another and suddenly a loud BANG! filled the air, and an ungodly voice called out, “YOO HOO! DEVYN!”
Katie came skipping into the kitchen, each footfall bouncing the cheese (and Devyn) like an earthquake. A massive shadow fell across the pizza as a tie dye crop top came into view above the rim of the box. Devyn gaped in horror, her eyes slowly traveling up, and up, and up, until, craning her neck, far far above, she was able to take in a set of breasts, wavy auburn hair flowing over shoulders, and the underside of a face as it peered around the kitchen.
“WHERE IS SHE?”
A second figure appeared, wearing a black shirt and hat, towering even higher above the first’s shoulder. “SHE WAS JUST HERE A SECOND AGO,” blasted a male voice.
Devyn stared up, frozen in horror. It was all she could do to take in the moving mountains, completely unable to recognize the voices of her friends in these monsters. Harvey’s brown eyes fell on her and she drew in breath. He scowled. “AWE, COME ON.”
“WHAT?” said Katie, following his gaze.
“LOOK AT THIS HACK JOB,” he boomed, gesturing towards the uneven pizza slices. “SHE COULDN’T HAVE WAITED TWO FUCKING SECONDS FOR ME TO DO IT?” His narrowed eyes snapped up to the back office. “YO DEVYN!” he called, so loudly that Devyn threw her hands up over her ears. “WHAT I TELL YOU ABOUT TOUCHING ANYTHING IN MY KITCHEN!”
They waited for a response that did not come.
“WHERE THE FUCK’D SHE GO?” Harvey grumbled, looking around.
“DID SHE LEAVE?” asked Katie, frowning.
“SHE WAS LITERALLY JUST HERE. BUT SHE WAS FEELING SICK, MAYBE SHE WENT TO PUKE IN THE ALLEY OR SOMETHING.
Katie looked around towards the door to the alley, growing concerned. “YOU THINK SHE’S OKAY?”
“SHE BETTER BE, THE FUCK AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH THIS?” His hand came barreling over the pizza as he gestured towards it, sending a gust of wind over Devyn with such unexpected force that she screamed.
Katie’s head tilted down, a mischievous look in her eye. “I CAN HELP YOU WITH THAT...” Her building sized hand rose, eclipsing the light behind it like something out of the Bible, before starting to descend, her fingers wiggling.
Something inside Devyn’s brain snapped and she found herself screaming, “KATIEEEE!”
But Harvey’s hand collided into hers with a deafening SMACK!
“SCRAM, YOU,” said Harvey and Katie’s hand lowered, revealing a devilish grin on her face. “SHE’S GOTTA BE HERE, SOMEWHERE, IT’S NOT LIKE HER TO JUST UP AND BAIL WITHOUT SAYING ANYTHING.”
The two spent a couple of minutes looking for Devyn, checking the alleyway, trying her cellphone, both growing nervous when they found it ringing in her backpack. They walked back and forth past the pizza several times, completely oblivious to the tiny speck waving her hands madly over her head, screaming, “I’M HERE! LOOK DOWN YOU FUCKING IDIOTS!”
Harvey groaned, “WELL THAT’S FUCKING GREAT. SHE KNOWS I CAN’T LEAVE TIL THE KITCHEN’S CLOSED DOWN, AND WE’RE BOTH GONNA GET OUR ASSES WRITTEN UP IF THIS PIZZA DOESN’T GO OUT.”
Katie hesitated, then said, “WHERE’S IT GOING OUT TO? I CAN JUST RUN IT FOR HER.”
“FUCK!” Devyn wailed, smacking her greasy hands to her temple.
“YOU SURE?” said Harvey.
“YEAH, IT’S FINE, DAD WON’T CARE WHO RUNS IT, AS LONG AS IT GETS DELIVERED. JUST, WHEN YOU FIND HER, TELL HER I’LL BE RIGHT BACK, OKAY? I CAN GIVE HER A RIDE HOME IF SHE’S SICK.”
Harvey looked around one last time, muttering, “ASSUMING SHE WASN’T MURDERED OR SOMETHING,” as his hand glided overhead for the back of the box.
Devyn tried her best to jump on the sticky surface, waving her arms, screaming her fucking head off, “HARVEEEY! NO! I’M HERE! I’M ON THE FUCKING PIZZA!”
But it was useless. His arm descended back, trailing along a mile high wall of cardboard, cutting off their faces and bodies from view until she was cast in darkness, save for a crack of light coming through the rim of the pizza box.
He lifted the box from the counter, unaware that he had also launched Devyn forward onto her hands and knees in the process. She clenched a handful of scorching cheese in each hand, trying to steady herself despite the uncomfortable heat, as the darkened landscape tremored and quaked violently with every earth-shattering step he took. He loaded the pizza into an insulated carrier, sealing it into complete darkness, and handed it to Katie while he riffled irritably through Devyn’s doodle-ridden notepad for the address.
Katie, feeling pretty good about her valiant efforts to cover for a friend in need, hummed to herself as she walked to the car, and tossed the pizza into the front seat. She took off for the address, blasting the radio, singing along at the top of her lungs.
Her voice sounded muffled through the insulated material of the pizza carrier. Devyn panted for breath, gaping around at the shadowy mountains across the darkened landscape as her eyes adjusted to lack of light. Cut off from the fresh outside air, it was over a hundred degrees in the box, and the pizza fumes were unbearable. She inhaled deeply, struggling to stay conscious, gather a coherent thought, ward off the panic that threatened to consume her.
Get off the pizza.
That sounded like a good first step. The pizza was out for delivery, it would definitely be a good idea to get off the fucking thing before she became somebody’s dinner. But which way to go?
It’s a circle, idiot. Just walk straight in any direction.
Panting, she pushed herself to her feet. She stuck her hands out to the side, wobbling for balance as the car sent ceaseless tremors through the cheese.
Katie could see the flashing lights of an accident up ahead, and turned down a side street to avoid the traffic, hurling Devyn sideways through the air. She rolled over onto her stomach, clawing her hands against the cheese to break free from its grasp. She pushed herself up onto her hands and knees, hanging her head between her shaking arms as she gasped, sucking down the toxic air.
She set her face defiantly, yanking her hand free from the cheese, and set it forward, following with her opposite knee. She crawled her way like this, teeth clenched, sweat dripping down her face, praying to God she was going in a straight line. After a couple minutes her hand came into contact with a large, slimy something, and a tangy, oily smell burned her nostrils. She lifted her head to see a towering green pepper blocking her path, too high to climb over.
“Mother,” she gasped. “FUCKER!” She slapped the green pepper in frustration, cursing it and anyone who would ever order such a disgusting, God forsaken vegetable (Was it a vegetable? Or some weird fucking fruit?) on their pizza.
The car came to a sudden stop, hurtling Devyn face first into the pepper. She smacked and bounced off of it, plopping into a particularly greasy pool of cheese.
She lifted her head from the oily swamp, listening in dread as the car engine fell silent. The driver side door slammed, and there was a moment of excruciating quiet as Katie walked around the car to the passenger seat, pausing to double check the address Harvey had given her. Devyn waited in the dark, her heart pounding, her mind numb with maddening anticipation, until finally the passenger door opened.
Katie walked to the door of a large, upper middle class suburban home, and rang the doorbell. A teenage girl, seventeen or so, opened the door with a blast of One Direction from the background, as well as the voices of three other girls, belting along to the lyrics.
“Hi, Alyssa!” said Katie enthusiastically, immersing herself in her new role as pizza delivery woman. “I’ve got a delectable, mushroom, sausage, and green pepper pizza for you this evening!”
The girl scowled, waiting for her to hand over the pizza and get lost. Katie beamed for another moment before pulling the pizza from the insulated carrier, casting a small amount of light through the cracks of the box, once more. She handed the girl the box and said, “You have a Tarmino-iffic night!”
“Yeah, whatever,” said Alyssa, and slammed the door in her face. The pizza jiggled as the girl carried it back to the living room, where her three friends were dancing and singing along to the music.
Alyssa tossed the pizza carelessly down on the coffee table, next to four plates. “PIZZA, BITCHES!” she yelled over the music, throwing open the lid of the box, casting light and a gust of fresh air over Devyn.
She gaped up in horror as four monstrous bodies surrounded her. They looked like the type of basic bitches that had made her life a living hell in high school; long, straight, highlighted hair, all wearing too small tank tops and ass tight athletic shorts.
The girls chatted and giggled in the sky above as Alyssa brought her hand down to the slice opposite of Devyn’s. She wiggled it back and forth, loosening it from the surrounding slices, shifting the whole pizza. As it lifted into the air, stretching the cheese from the surrounding slices, Devyn turned and took off in the opposite direction. She dashed towards the crust on the horizon, stumbling in the uneven, swampy surface, crawling when she had to, ducking under a towering mushroom, turning to avoid a massive chunk of sausage. She felt the whole terrain shift as slice after slice was lifted from the box.
The slice to her left suddenly lifted away and the resulting tremor sent her toppling over, screaming. The cheese stretched and tore, making an eerie sound, like the support beams of a swaying bridge. She pushed herself back to her feet, sprinting with everything she had as the slice rose out of view.
She was still only about half way up the slice when a giant hand hovered over her and lowered, the fingers sinking into the crust. The hand rose, clutching the crust, tilting the slice up like a title wave and it drooped to a forty-five degree angle and Devyn stumbled backwards and frantically flipped herself over, grasping handfuls of cheese to keep from tumbling head over heels as the slice ascended into the sky. A plate slid under it, already occupied by a second slice. As the surface of the pizza was brought down level again, Devyn tried to pull herself free, but her hands had sunk so deep into the cheese that they were trapped in its clutches like quick sand.
The plate was held level with a red, skin tight spaghetti strap tank-top that rode up to just above a pierced belly-button, displaying a couple inches of love handles, to where the waistband of a pair of booty-shorts dug into the soft flesh of hips. High above, Devyn could see the underside of a chin and nose beneath a scrolling ceiling as the girl carried her dinner across the room, then plopped down on the couch beside her friends, setting the plate in her lap.
Devyn twisted and yanked at her arms, trying to pry them from the cheese. A plastic disk, dotted with holes, hovered over head, and parmesan cheese fluttered down like fluffy snowflakes the size of poodles. Devyn prayed, to the old Gods and the new, that the girl would eat the other slice first and grant her more time to escape. Finally, some fortune was in her favor, as the girl’s hand reached down, lifting the other slice higher and higher, growing smaller until it reached her mouth. The tip of the pizza disappeared between her lips as she took a massive bite. She pulled the slice away, sprinkling a flurry of crumbs and parmesan cheese down to collide around Devyn. She took a while to chew, savoring the flavor.
“Mmmm,” she said through her mouthful. “This is soo good.”
“Ew, Chelsea,” Alyssa sneered from the opposite couch. “Don’t talk with your mouth full.”
Chelsea swallowed obediently with an audible gulp, the muscles of her throat flexing. Devyn could hear her belly gurgle loudly above her. “I am, like, so hungry I could eat a whole pizza by myself.”
“You’re always hungry,” giggled the olive-skinned girl sitting beside her. “You’re gonna get fat.”
Chelsea looked down at her belly, fondly. “I’m already fat.” She brought her free hand up and patted her soft belly a couple of times, sending gusts of wind down on Devyn.
“Oh my God, shut up, you are not fat,” said Alyssa as the others giggled and Chelsea took another bite of pizza. “So Demi,” she said to the olive-skinned girl. “How’s Theo?”
“Ugh he’s so annoying,” Demi scoffed. “My parents are always, like, all over their perfect little golden boy.”
As Devyn struggled frantically to free her hands, clenching her teeth, leaning back with all her body weight, she wondered vaguely if they were talking about Theo Pallakos—her friend from high school that she and Harvey had been planning to grab a drink with when they got off work.
“He single?” asked Alyssa coyly.
“Agh, shut up!” she wailed. “He’s always single, because he’s a freakin' fuckboy!”
Yep, definitely Theo, Devyn thought irritably. Small world.
Demi continued, “Apparently he’s got a stalker.”
“Whattt!” Alyssa wailed.
“Who!” yelled Chelsea.
“I dunno, some crazy bitch he goes to school with. He’s being such a dick about it, like, bragging and stuff. He calls her ‘Mad Maddy’.”
Devyn hadn’t heard of this stalker, but she could honestly care less about another of Theo's boundless girl problems at the moment.
“Tell her to keep her claws off my man!” said Alyssa.
The girls giggled overhead, their gossip shifting from Theo to other guys they knew and Devyn found herself tremendously annoyed by the stupidity of their conversation. Not that it would have been better to be eaten by a group of civilized intellectuals, but it was extremely vexing to spend what might possibly be the last minutes of her life stuck in cheese whilst listening to the dramatic woes of these high school bimbos.
For whatever reason, she found herself thinking of Katie. When they were in high school, she’d been a cheerleader, and rich, and looked just like the type of dumb, stupid bitch that might have hung around with these girls. But Katie wasn’t stupid. And she wasn’t a total bitch like most of the girls at their school. She was bubbly, and boisterous, and funny as fuck, and Devyn’s best friend in the entire fucking world and she had spent most of her adolescence chasing off the fuckboys like Theo Pallakos trying to get with her.
Katie was swept from her mind as she heard a series of loud smacking sounds from above and she peered, high over her head, to see Chelsea sucking the grease from her fingers, having gobbled up her first slice. Panic rose in Devyn as the giant girl’s giant gaze tilted down greedily towards her.
Her fingers sank into the crust as she lifted it off the plate, and Devyn sky-rocketed up the length of her red spaghetti-strap tank top, past her neck, her chin, and finally to her plain, round face, curtained by long, mousy brown hair with honey colored highlights, parted to the side, singed straight. She had pretty blue eyes, coated unevenly with a thick layer of black eyeliner.
Devyn screamed at the top of her lungs, hoping that maybe she was close enough for the girl to hear her. Her voice caught in her throat and she gaped, transfixed, stuck in the cheese and unable to turn away as the plump, glossy lips slowly parted before her.
Thick strands of saliva stretched between two rows of teeth, lined with purple braces, thick as railroad tracks, chunks of cheese and sauce stuck between them. Her hot, cheesy breath wafted over Devyn and she gagged at the putrid smell. The tip of the pizza slid forward into the gaping maw and the top row of teeth bit down through the cheese and began grinding side to side, the sauce splashing up against them like waves of blood against a white cliffside, and Devyn suddenly heard her mothers’ cold, monotonous voice, floating around in the back of her mind, reciting the Book of Revelation:
And the third angel poured out his vial
upon the rivers and fountains of waters,
and they became blood.
The top lip slapped down with a smack! and the pizza slid backwards, away from the lips, stretching thick strands of cheese between them until they snapped apart, slapping against her chin.
And I heard the angel of the waters say,
Thou art righteous, O Lord, which art, and wast, and shalt be,
because thou hast judged thus.
Her tongue poked out from between her lips and slid back and forth, gathering the red tinted strands and slurping them in.
For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets,
and thou hast given them blood to drink;
for they are worthy.
The cheese had stretched enough to loosen its grip, allowing Devyn to finally pull her right hand free while her left was still trapped. She clutching her arm with her free hand, yanking it back and forth in the cheese to work it loose, screaming in frustration, “GOD FUCKING FUCK! LET GO YOU SHIT FUCKING CHEESE!” as the mouth in front of her began to chew. The sound was maddening, tons upon tons of food being ground to mush.
One of the other girls said something to make Chelsea giggle, allowing Devyn a glimpse of the half chewed morsel between her teeth, spraying her in a mist of saliva and pizza sauce.
Chelsea swallowed with a gulp. The lips began to open again, pause, and let out a deafening burp.
“Oh m’ God, Chelsea!” Demi yelled through a mouthful of pizza. “Tha’s disgusting!”
Chelsea smiled, covering her mouth with her free hand and giggling, “Scuse me!” before taking another bite. The cheese loosened once again as the lips pulled away, and Devyn was finally able to yank her hand from the cheese. Without so much as a second thought, she flipped herself around and frantically climbed the uphill slope of the pizza towards the crust and mountain of fingers. Her progress was slow, pursued by bite after thunderous bite, not daring to look back. A set of teeth glided overhead and Devyn screamed, throwing her hands over her head. Then, suddenly, the teeth froze in the air, high above, and Devyn sprinted out from beneath them.
Chelsea held her slice of pizza in place, noticing a tiny bit of movement on the cheese. She pulled the portion she had been about to chomp down on from her mouth, staring down at the slice.
Devyn felt the shift in motion and turned to see a set of massive blue eyes. She goggled in astonishment. The eyes blinked once, the long lashes fluttering, the irises dilating to bring her into focus.
Devyn screamed as loud as humanly possible, “HEY! I’M HERE!” She threw her hands in the air like a wild person. “I’M HERE! PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF FUCK! DON’T EAT ME!”
Chelsea frowned, spotting a weird, tiny bug, smaller than an ant even, struggling in the grease of her pizza. She lifted a finger, ready to pluck it from her dinner, before pausing. Alyssa, she knew, hated bugs more than anything on the planet. If she knew that Chelsea had found a bug on her pizza, she would either force her to throw it out or else ridicule her for the rest of the night, maybe even make her go home. There were no slices of pizza left, so throwing it away wasn’t an option. But if she just pretended not to notice it... what was it but a little extra protein, after all.
Sorry Little Bug, she thought, lowering her pizza back to her mouth. But if you’re dumb enough to land on somebody a million times bigger than you’s food, don’t be surprised if you become the food.
Devyn screamed her voice raw, sure she was about to be rescued. But to her astonishment, her absolute bewilderment, she saw the eyes rise as the giant girl leaned her head back, keeping contact with her as she was lowered to the point where her nostrils loomed above, just as she exhaled, sending such a strong gust of wind upon Devyn that her hat blew off, sweeping it away, to places unknown.
She was sure, sure, that she had been spotted. Sure she was about to be freed from this hellish nightmare. And yet there she was, facing the parting lips, once again. For a second, she was too dumbfounded to move, too shocked to do anything but sit there, gaping stupidly as she was brought forward into the gaping maw.
And I heard another out of the altar say,
Even so, Lord God Almighty,
true and righteous are thy judgments.
Run, stupid!
She jolted from her stupor and turned away, taking off again at full speed. The teeth landed a yard behind her, sending a violent tremor through the surface of cheese that caused her to stumble, screaming, “HOLY JESUS MOTHER OF FUCK!” She continued screaming and cursing as she clawed herself to her feet and ran for her fucking life.
Chelsea pulled the pizza from her lips, and saw that the bug had managed to evade her. She chewed thoughtfully, watching the little guy clamber at a tragically slow pace up her slice of pizza. She wondered vaguely what she must look like to such a tiny spec of a creature. Probably like a God. The idea filled her with pleasure. She wondered if it was smart enough to know it was about to be eaten.
Run run little bug, she thought. Here I come.
The row of teeth overtook Devyn once more. They began to lower about ten feet in front of her, and she sprinted with everything she had, hurtling through them right as they bit down, directly behind her, rippling through the cheese, knocking her over. She looked up in time to see a lip come smacking down on top of her, smothering her against the cheese. She dug her fingernails into the cheese, clawing herself to freedom, rolling out from beneath the lip to stare up at the huge nostrils looming above.
The pizza pulled away, and the ground beneath Devyn began to pull apart. She clung to a string of cheese stretching between the pizza and the giant set of lips behind her as it stretched thinner and thinner, until finally it snapped apart. Devyn grasped the rope of cheese as it swung down and slapped against the corner of Chelsea’s mouth. She clung to the girl’s face for dear life, not daring to look down. The cheese began to ascend as it was slurped in, and Devyn inched off of it, grasping desperately to the side of her chin, adhered to it within a small trail of pizza sauce.
Chelsea noticed the bug was gone and knew it must be in her mouth. She chewed slowly, alert for any sort of crunch. When none came, she figured it was either too small for her to detect, or it was still alive somewhere in there, panicking to the full extent a stupid bug could panic. (She was wrong on both accounts, of course, as Devyn was currently clinging to her face like a mountain climber as her jaw worked up and down.)
“Hey, uh Chelsea,” said Alyssa, and Chelsea snapped back to reality, turning to look at her friend. “You got a lil somethin’ somethin’.” She tapped beneath the corner of her lip to indicate where.
Devyn turned in time to see a massive finger touch down a couple of yards from her, then come plowing towards her, scraping up all the sauce in its path. It barreled into her, scooping her onto the tip of her finger with the rest of the sauce. Her massive face loomed overhead for a moment as she contemplated wiping her finger onto a napkin, before shrugging and opening her mouth. This time, Devyn had no place to run and could do nothing but watch helplessly as she passed between the lips, over the teeth and to the center of her tongue.
The lips puckered down around the finger at the same time that the tongue lifted up to curve around it. With a loud squelching sound, the finger withdrew, leaving the sauce, and Devyn, smushed into the soft, soaking muscle.
It was dark in the mouth, illuminated only by a soft pinkish glow permeating the girl’s lips, but Devyn found she was still able to see perfectly well within the darkened chamber. She dug her fingernails into the pallet of the tongue as it tilted upwards, towards the back of her throat. She felt herself being sucked down, but she managed to hang on, tucking herself between the prominent lumps of Chelsea’s tongue as she swallowed with a deafening, GULP!
The tongue lowered back down and Devyn attempted to distance herself as much as possible from the black hole, slipping and sliding on the slick surface of the tongue towards the teeth.
The darkened cavern was suddenly illuminated as the mouth opened. Past the rim of the tongue, between the two rows of teeth, Devyn was momentarily able to see back out into Alyssa’s living room before she saw the half eaten slice of pizza come barreling towards her.
The tongue lifted to greet the next bite and tilted slightly, and Devyn went tumbling over the side. She smacked hard into the side of a tooth and bounced off, rolling under the tongue as it flopped down on top of her, smothering her into a deep lake of spit as the teeth bit down into the pizza. The tongue churned violently above her, expertly positioning the bite of food between the teeth. It pressed into Devyn and propelled her through the sea of saliva to crash against her teeth, then dragged her sideways along them. She reached an edge to the tooth and some instinct kicked in to grab its edge and frantically wedge herself through the gap. Once she was safely within the trench between the two towering white cliffs, she threw herself into a fetal position, throwing her arms over her head, gasping for breath.
Specs of food and crimson spit rained down upon her, but the teeth and the metal rail of the girl’s braces worked as a shelter from the tongue and larger chunks of food being pummeled to mush. The ground was in constant up and down motion and she was pelted relentlessly from either side by waves of saliva, the tongue bending and smushing into the ridge between the teeth. The motion stopped, and she felt herself being sucked backwards, but was wedged deeply enough to avoid being swallowed with the rest of the mouthful. She had one peaceful moment to catch her breath before the mouth opened and another bite of pizza came gliding in overhead, and the process of chewing began all over again.
It took every muscle in Devyn’s body to keep herself wedged in the shelter between the teeth and she wasn’t sure how long she could keep it up. Just when she thought things couldn’t possibly get any worse, the mouth opened once more, but instead of the pizza slice, she now faced the rim of a soda can.
“Fantastic,” Devyn growled as the can tilted forwards. A tidal wave of orange soda cascaded down. She took a deep breath, grabbed the side of the tooth desperately as the wall of soda crashed into her, ripping her loose at once. The current yanked her up, spinning her wildly until she slammed into a thick metal pipe. She grasped at it blindly, wrapping her arms and legs around it, hugging it with all her strength. The orange soda receded with a GULP! and Devyn swung down, hanging from the bar by her arms and legs. She gasped for breath, blinking orange soda from her eyes to see that the bar she was hanging from was the wire of the girls’ braces, between her bottom central and lateral teeth.
Devyn frantically yanked herself backwards along the bar, towards the central tooth, careful not to slip from the slick metal and fall to the gums below. In the middle of the tooth, her hands met a large, plastic object—the purple bracket of the braces. The bars shook violently and the rim of the lip opened above, casting her in light.
She didn’t bother checking what it was; pizza, or soda, or whatever kind of horror this bitch was shoving into her face, from this exposed position there was no way Devyn would be able to resist getting gobbled up with it. She had one chance to reach the shelter of the bracket. She set her face, reeled her legs back and propelled them forward with everything she had, just as a yellowish disk-shaped something (a potato chip?) floated overhead like an invading space craft. She quickly pulled herself up over the rim as the teeth bit into the chip with an ear splitting CRUNCH! Chunks of chip rained down on her, but she kept moving until she was safely wedged between the bars of the bracket.
The bars held Devyn securely against the lower front tooth as the girl chewed. She was rocked up and down like some awful fair ride, food and spit splattering over her. The chip hadn’t even gone down her gullet before she tossed another one in.
Chelsea munched absently on potato chips as she and her friends entered a new, juicy thread of gossip.
“What!” she squealed. “Spencer got suspended? Whyyy??”
Her talking was almost as bad as her chewing, as Devyn was thrown up and down with impossible speed, the bottom lips smacking and vibrating, her ears rattled by the immense volume of the voice surrounding her. Now that she’d finished stuffing her face with pizza, she never seemed to shut up—talking nonstop, giggling frequently, every so often munching on another handful of potato chips. All the while Devyn marveled dully that she had been reduced to nothing but a spec of food caught in a teenager’s braces.
Some shitty pop song by Justin Beiber or whoever it was teen girls obsessed over these days came on and Chelsea squealed, “OH MY GOD turn this shit UP!”
The music suddenly blasted and there was a feeling of weightlessness as Chelsea jumped to her feet. She began belting out the lyrics, so loudly that Devyn pressed her hands over her ears, slightly confused as to how her ear drums had yet to blow. The room spun between Chelsea's flapping lips as she sang and danced around the room with the other girls.
“Ohh, ohh,” someone yelled over the music. “Selfie!”
The lip lowered down completely and a giant cell phone came into view. The four girls could be seen huddling together on the screen, smiling. The screen flashed as the picture was taken, and the lip covered Devyn once more.
“Ohh, one more!” someone squealed.
The screen showed almost the exact same image, but with slightly different chest angles.
This continued for what felt like hours, until Devyn was considering hurling herself down the girl's throat. They only stopped as Chelsea’s phone began to ring.
“Oh hang on, it’s my mom,” she said, swiping her finger across the screen. “Hi Mommy!” she called over the music and Devyn spotted the receiver end of a cell phone beyond her lip. She could hear the panicked voice of a woman from the other end of the cell phone, but could not make out what she was saying.
“What?” said Chelsea. “Yeah, I’m fine, what’s wrong! What? Slow down, Mom! Hang on. Hey, can you turn this off, my Mom’s freaking out about something.”
“Why, what’s up?”
The music turned off.
High above, the female voice mumbled frantically.
“Oh my God…” said Chelsea while the other girls huddled around excitedly.
“That’s nuts! I mean… yeah we’re all fine, but oh my God, that’s crazy! Okay… I’ll tell them. Love you, too, Mom.” She hung up the phone. “Hollly shit.”
“What!”
“What’s going on!”
“My Mom says there was some sort of terrorist attack or something. I guess a bunch of people around town just, like, disappeared into thin air.”
Devyn’s heart sputtered to a halt.
“Whatttt!”
“What the fuck? When!”
“Just now! Like, twenty minutes ago!”
Devyn’s mind spun. Twenty minutes ago would have been around the time she had shrunk. Had someone witnessed what had happened to her, would they have assumed she had vanished without a trace, never thinking to check if she had simply shrunken down and landed on a pizza? Was it possible she wasn’t the only one this had happened to?
Devyn silently begged one of the teenagers to turn on the news so she could get more information, but they were all busy making frantic phone calls to their families. Still, they weren’t completely useless, each call seemed to reveal new information which was shared with the group.
This had happened to hundreds of people, all over town.
No, not hundreds, thousands.
Cars had crashed, held objects dropped suddenly to the ground. Nobody had any idea what could have caused it. There seemed a common thread: many of the vanished had reported feeling sick right before it happened. Some people were saying it was a terrorist attack, some sort of chemical released in the air, but how could it have been, when it only affected some, but not others, vanishing not only the people, but the very clothes on their backs? Some were calling it a terrorist attack, but most called it an act of God.
Devyn felt numb. Thousands of people? How many wound up on food, like her, or else fallen into beverages? How many had landed on the floor, directly beneath the thunderous feet of their oblivious friends and loved ones? She thought of Harvey and Katie, wondering if they had connected her with the other vanished, if her name was listed among those of so many others.
Did her parents know? Her heart dropped... Did her parents shrink? Was it something genetic? She needed more information. But the girls had ceased offering anything new, and had instead proceeded to call everyone they knew to see if they were okay.
Alyssa ran upstairs to wake her parents and younger sister, who came down and joined them in the living room. They all talked for a long time, offering no new information. Alyssa’s parents called each of the girl’s parents, compelling them to have the girls go ahead and stay the night, as the streets were apparently pretty blocked up from accidents, and people were advised to stay indoors in case it happened again. All except the olive-skinned girl, who left, sobbing, at the discovery that her older brother, Devyn’s friend Theo, was one of the vanished.
At first, Devyn felt sick and weakened by the news. How could this have happened? Why her? But as time passed, she experienced a growing, forceful determination to live, to be discovered. If someone figured out that the missing people had not vanished after all, but shrunken, they would know to look for them. But oh God, for how many people would it be too late to save? Not important. The thing to focus on was her own survival and discovery; that was the best way to help the others.
Chelsea’s mouth was open slightly, her head angled down over her cellphone as she scrolled through social media, and Devyn could see the bright screen close by. A plan came together in her mind; if she could jump down onto the cellphone, the girl might be able to see her tiny body. It would be dangerous, crazy even, and she never would have even considered it, were it not for this new demand to be found. It was worth risking her life, better than hanging around here, waiting to be swept away whenever the girl decided to brush her teeth.
She took a deep breath, lifting her hands to the metal bar of the braces, ready to pull herself out, but paused. She brought her hands together before her heart to pray:
Please God… if there is a God… and if this was your will, or whatever, I don’t really understand WHY you would do this, but whatever, not judging, you do you. If you could just do me this one favor... Please. Please let this chick notice me.
She exhaled, opening her eyes to glare out towards the slightly parted lips. She climbed up over the bracket, to where the lower lip rested against them. She dug her hands into the slick flesh and heaved herself up, clawing over the round edge of Chelsea’s lip.
And then Devyn’s prayers were answered.
Chelsea noticed a slight tickling sensation, not unlike how it feels when an ant crawls across your foot in the grass, coming from inside her lip. She knew at once what it was; her little bug pal, from the pizza. Her dismal mood was cheered slightly as the little guy managed to claw its way from her mouth. She let it crawl out from between her lips, letting it take in a hopeful view of the world beyond her mouth, before she drew her tongue towards it.
Devyn felt the quivering motion behind her and groaned in dread, turning as the massive pink organ slithered after her, as if in pursuit. It scooped her up and descended back into the darkness, and Devyn took one last look at the outside world, at the couple of girls and Allyssa’s family, lost in their cell phones, sitting stoically around the coffee table like The Last fucking Supper, before the teeth descended, casting her in darkness. The tongue rose her up towards the glistening maroon arch that was the roof of her mouth and pressed her into the soft skin, rolling her back and forth across the wrinkled ridges.
Chelsea continued scrolling through social media as she absentmindedly rolled the tiny bug against the roof of her mouth, like a single spec of soft, wriggling salt, barely able to feel it thrashing around against her tongue. There was something comforting about having the little bug inside her mouth; knowing that whatever was going on with this terrifying terrorist attack or whatever it was, she at least had complete control over this one tiny little insignificant life. Its life belonged to her, now, to do with it what she pleased. And she liked having it inside her.
The tongue quivered, and Devyn felt an all too familiar sucking sensation as she was pulled backwards, and looked down in time to see the near vertical slope of the tongue, towards the gaping black hole that was her throat, before she was careening down it with a deafening GULP.
She wriggled and screamed desperately, trapped upside down with her limbs smooshed against her body as the slick walls of the esophagus slithered over her skin, squeezing her downwards. Chelsea could just barely feel the tiny struggles and giggled at the sensation, her throat muscles sending violent vibrations against Devyn. She felt a rhythmic pounding rattling against her, growing stronger as she descended through Chelsea’s chest, past her heart, then weaker again as she came to a sudden stop, the top of her head pressing up against something solid. The relentless muscles pushed against her, and her head slithered into a slickened sort of tube, followed by her body, and then she was suddenly plunging downward, diving head first into a thick pool of hot, gunky, cheesy slime.
Devyn kicked herself to the surface of the scorching pool, paddling her arms madly in the hulking waves and gasping for air that was not there. She choked and coughed as the toxic fumes of stomach acid burned her throat, as well as a cocktail of partially digested pizza, potato chips, and orange soda. There was zero light in the gaping, gurgling grotto, but still, Devyn could see, quite well, the orangish, bubbling pool and, in the distance, the wrinkled, mucus-coated walls. Her skin was already burning and blistering within the boiling depths and she could not help but afford what little amount of breath she had to wail in agony, her choking screams drowned out by the gurgling of Chelsea’s digestive juices, the rhythmic pounding of her heart above.
There was a deafening gurgle as the wrinkled stomach walls wriggled ominously, and then clapped towards each other, giving the burning pool a violent churn and the thick waves slammed into Devyn, hurling her up against the stomach wall between two wrinkles, and she clawed at the slimy wall, desperate to pull herself from the scorching pool. The stomach quivered and vibrated with the muffled sounds of Chelsea’s giggles overhead as she felt the lightest of tickling sensations.
She smiled down at her tummy. Welcome to your new home, little bug. She patted her belly. Hope you like it in my tummy.
The sudden pounding from beyond the stomach wall was enough to knock Devyn loose from the stomach walls, back into the churning current. She kicked and thrashed and swam with all her strength, screaming as her skin burned and cracked. The pool waved and crashed violently again as Chelsea rose from the couch and walked across the room, and Devyn was sucked down into the slime. She held her breath as long as possible, hearing Chelsea’s muffled voice talking to someone. Finally it became too much and she gasped in a scorching mouthful of partially digested pizza. She gagged and sputtered as it filled her lungs.
God she fucking hated pizza.
She always had.
Perhaps she’d always known she would die this way. Perhaps she’d had some intuition that she’d someday burn in a pool of pizza, that she’d drown in it, and that was why she’d never cared for it, much.
Why the fuck had she ever taken this stupid fucking job? If only she could go back in time and quit, like she’d wanted to for fucking years, now. If only she could go back and stop herself from taking the stupid fucking job in the first place.
But, of course, she knew never would have, for one simple reason.
Katie.
Katie fucking Tarmino, heiress to the Tarmino’s Pizza franchise.
Katie, with her cute little smirk and stupid jokes.
Katie, who was always popping in to work to visit, not her, but fucking Harvey.
Katie, who, God willing, would forever remain blissfully unaware that she had accidentally fed her best friend to some random teenager, when she’d only wanted to help her.
Katie, who would also remain blissfully unaware that Devyn had been madly in love with her since ninth grade, that her parents had actually sent her to ‘therapy’ for it at their church, where she’d knelt on the floor in a huddle of other mentally disturbed girls, one of whom Devyn would kneel before in the alley behind said church, tasting the sin from between her legs.
She’d never mustered up the courage to tell Katie, but she’d never quit, either, and so here she was in the churning depths of Tarmino’s Pizza, where the agony of her sins were cleansed from her at last; burned away, as infection may be burned from flesh.
And yet, she was not dead.
Why the fuck wasn’t she dead yet?
She had not breathed in ages, her lungs were full of bile, her skin had melted to the bone. But wait, that wasn’t right; her skin was fine. It had melted, she’d felt it, she’d seen it bubbling away through blood and muscle tissue.
It had regenerated.
Then she understood. And it was so obvious, she couldn’t help but laugh; a choking sort of laugh, her mouth gurgling with vile, burning slime.
This was Hell. Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.
She had neglected to pluck thine offending eye and so she’d been cast into the burning lake, and was doomed to burn for all eternity, as her parents always knew she would.
“Whassup, God!” she choked out through her mouthful, her mind already cracking up, because it was Chelsea she was addressing. “The fuck’d I ever do to you!”
She slapped the walls of God’s stomach to make her listen, but God had already forgotten all about the tiny inhabitant of her stomach and had commenced munching mindlessly on potato chips.
And as the foul comets rained down upon her, colliding with tumultuous splashes into the lake of fire, she heard the voice of God, herself, , but it was not Chelsea who spoke.
The commandment was spoken, for all three thousand four-hundred and fifty-two shrunken men, women, and children to hear, none of whom were dead but most of whom were wishing to be. Many, like Devyn, were swimming in the vile hellfire of someone’s stomach, while others were trapped in or adhered to the steaming genitals of the person they’d been having relations with when they shrank. The lucky ones were screaming their heads off atop countertops to try and get someone’s attention, or else cowing beneath furniture, enduring near constant earthquakes as feet the size of city blocks stomped by. The less lucky were crushed under toes or smeared beneath fingernails or plastered against whoever’s ass had plopped a squat on top of them.
Some had lost limbs, only to have new ones regenerated moments later. Hundreds no longer resembled anything remotely human, but were merely smears of bone and hair and guts, still somehow conscious and constantly smashing and recovering and smashing and recovering and smashing and recovering, again, and again, and again, and again.
From wherever they were, and whatever they were, every single one of them looked up in unison when they heard God speak to them, with one, simple commandment:
WORSHIP ME.