“Where is that fucking bus?” Tom wondered aloud.

The last bus back to the lower districts was supposed to have arrived fifteen minutes ago. It was usual that they were late but they were never missed entirely. Unless some kind of freak accident happened, but even those were rare. It was especially concerning that the last bus never arrived, as it was crucial for all the workers that needed their businesses to stay open up until sundown. As much as he hated the curfew, he knew it was for the best.

Just last week he had read of another half-dozen “disappearances” in the paper. He knew the stories. He went to the support groups. People were being killed. Living in the city was brutal, and the only way to survive was to keep your head down and stay inside after dark. The sun was setting, and with the fading light, Tom’s anxieties were heightened.

Tom looked at the bench under the awning. The new girl was there. She had barely been in the office a week, and she was already working until close. She’s either stupid or desperate, Tom thought. Tom peered again down the sidewalk with a large yellow strip designated for the descaled bus. There was no such vehicle in sight. Tom began to wonder if he was desperate enough to work this late, or if he was stupid.

An upperside car passed by in a whirl. Tom steadied himself against the bus structure as the wind in the wake of the vehicle gusted past.

“Watch your speed, upperside asshole!” Tom shouted into the void. Once the wind died he mumbled to himself, “Shouldn’t be going that fast near the border…”

The new girl, Flo was it? Tom couldn’t quite remember her name. She was sitting quietly on the bench, staring at her feet. Fidgeting ever so slightly. Tom opened his mouth to say something encouraging and could think of nothing. He was going to say something like ‘it will be alright’ or ask her about the reports she sent. Something to keep out this sense of impending doom. Neither of them could afford a cell phone, not like it would help. Who would they call? Upperside police? Lowerside courtesy patrols? Tom furrowed his brow. Those worthless safety protocols that were drilled into their heads were incredibly ineffective. Even if you could make it to an upperside holding unit it might be weeks before they processed you and released you back to your home.

Tom was beginning to hyperventilate. The street light flickered on, died out, and then turned on again. It was official. They were past curfew. The bus wasn’t coming. The new girl looked up at the lamp overhead, dim light making them stand out starkly in the growing darkness. Tom’s eyes met hers and without words, they exchanged an entire worried conversation. What do we do? Where do we go? Should we leave the light? Neither of them spoke an answer to the hundred questions buzzing in the air. They shivered in troubled silence without answers for what seemed like an eternity.

A fancy limousine rolled up on the upper side of the street. It was just ‘the street’ to them, Tom supposed. He imagined what it must be like to traverse the city so quickly. One of the uppers could probably walk the distance to Tom’s house in less than thirty minutes. He would likely die of dehydration in the time it would take him to walk. Or worse. He couldn’t imagine the opulence of someone who was rich by upperside standards. The limo window rolled down.

"ARE YOU TWO LOST? IT'S LIKE TWENTY AFTER CURFEW!"

A woman appeared, her head sticking out of the limousine window. Her voice echoed down the desolate street and rang against the bus stop. Tom shuddered, and managed to croak a reply:

“Ummmm, Hi! Yeah, we missed our bus!”

He strained to yell but found his voice shaking from anxiety. The woman leaned back in and said something too far away to detect. Then the massive door swung open and a pair of massive gaudy heels emerged from the vehicle. They landed with a thud that caused the rivets in the bus stop to vibrate.

The woman was gorgeous, with long legs reaching up to a skirt that left nothing to the imagination. Tom craned his head upwards to see her face and avoid looking directly at her red underwear towering above. Her legs moved with great speed, shaking the roof of the bus stop with each step. The enormous shoes came to rest just inside the descaled-only zone and The woman squatted down, pointing her legs at a slight angle so she could peer at them. Her smile was disarming, and Tom felt she was strangely familiar.

"Hi, I'm Mel. What were you saying?” Her voice was so familiar. She sounded a little drunk.

“The last bus never, uh, arrived.”

“Oh, I see. Well, we can give you a ride to the club. They have a ti- I mean descaled taxi there to use."

Tom heard her slip up, calling them tiny, and then he recognized her. She was an influencer. He had seen many of her videos. Tom wasn’t much of a social media user but he had a few attractive women he followed. It was all on the home computer while his wife was out, when he fantasized about being with someone rich and powerful. This woman was Melanie Artois, an upperside socialite. She was always sharing posts about nightlife. Tom felt a deepening sense of embarrassment for having touched himself to her pictures. It was simply satisfying his needs, though he never thought that woman would be hovering over him. She wasn’t this big in his fantasies, she was merely the size of his screen as he dreamed of laying with her.

“That’s ok, thank you. We’ll just call someone…”

"No, really, I insist. It's only a matter of time before a jogger comes around here." Her enormous face broke into a smile.

Tom felt a terrible dread in his soul. She just implied they’d be splattered to the sidewalk, dark red stains by the morning, and she said it with a smile. He suddenly felt terrified, stuck like a trapped animal. He didn’t know this woman. She was drunk. She wasn’t exactly making it easy to decline. Her body blocked the exit, and Tom briefly looked at her arms to judge the length he’d need to run to escape.

“No, we’re fine. Thank you!” His voice was shaking.

"It's my treat. Really.” She leaned in even closer, her breath carried a slight scent of alcohol that lingered at the bus stop, “It's only a few minutes away. We'll have you home by eight."

Her lips slowly fell from a smile to something much stranger. She almost seemed like she was in a trance. Her eyes bore into Tom, and they were no longer asking. She just kept getting closer, one hand crept forward, fingers walking along the sidewalk. Tom was engulfed in a cold sweat. This was the beginning of the stories told in the lower side. He could hear himself refusing one more time, and he could see her growing angry.

Instead of those visions coming to pass, he only nodded his head in agreement. He looked to the new girl who was only looking upwards, nodding nervously as well.

"Ok Great! Hop aboard!" Her face snapped to some well-practiced Instagram smile.

Her hand that was creeping closer flicked with a flourish, landing right where the bus should have stopped nearly half an hour ago. Tom, limbs shaking, climbed up. He then helped the new girl. Chloe? Up onto the palm. In a whirl of motion, they were whisked away.
~

It was a day like any other day. Delta woke up from his bed and peered into the apartment next to him. Epsilon was still sleeping. Typical. Delta stretched and looked up to check the time. The great clock in the sky said 0845, displaying a happy little sun next to it. A sunny day! Excellent. Delta rose and stretched, and then reported to his exercise station. After keying in his information, he remembered it was cardio day. He smiled.

After a 45minute run on the treadmill, he checked his time and lamented such a close number to his record. Perhaps next session. The machine printed his meal receipt and he took it to the feeding station. Epsilon was just now waking to the sting of the electrified bed. Delta laughed as he sat down, calling out through the glass wall:

“You wouldn’t have to be shocked if you woke up before ten!”

Epsilon only grunted, rolling around on the floor. Delta placed his ticket into the machine and a pink-tinted pellet rolled down from the metal chute above. He sat and broke pieces off, occasionally grabbing a mouthful of water from the dispenser to help get it all down.

“Vanilla today, Ep! Good sign, eh?”

There was only another muffled grumble in response. Delta looked in the opposite direction towards where Charlie used to stay. Charlie loved vanilla day. It’s a shame she wasn’t here. Delta wondered if they had vanilla capsules in the beyond.

Once finished, Delta sat down to watch some television. It was underwater adventure week, and he just loved to float on with all the little shapes. Epsilon moved to exercise in a half-hearted groggy state, barely making his quota.

Delta was about to rise and wash himself when the television abruptly changed screens. There was only black lettering on an orange background:

You Have Been Chosen. Relax and Breathe Deeply.

Delta could hardly contain himself. He smiled and watched around the room as the lights dimmed and changed to a dull orange hue.

“Hey hey hey!!! Ep! I’m going up!” He was ecstatic.

“Take care out there. I admit I’m a little jealous…” Epsilon pressed one hand against the glass.

“Thanks, man. I hope you’re not too far behind me.”

“See you soon, buddy.”
A mist began to pour through the vents in the ceiling, quickly filling the room with gusts from the ventilation system. Delta’s eyes grew heavy, his body felt floaty. He was asleep within seconds, taking a moment to gently rest on the floor before he was out cold.

The roof of his apartment gave way, and a massive white hand descended onto Delta. He was pinched between two fingers and taken to the beyond.

~~~

When Delta awoke, he was very serene. His eyes fluttered open to a myriad of dancing lights. His skin tingled with anticipation. The beyond was so beautiful, so fast-moving! He tried to smile and dance with joy but he found his body was unresponsive. He was standing upright on some kind of smooth material, and despite his immobility, his soul rose to great heights. The beyond was truly spectacular, and his visions of light came to a stop in front of a beautiful woman.

Delta gawked inwardly, his body rejecting his request to drop his jaw. She was of immense proportion. Impossible size. Was this one of the white-gloved beings that ferried them away to this place when it was their time? What were they covering themselves with? Her skin was obscured by some bedding material in a shade he’s never seen.

Delta stood, unable to swoon or smile, in utter admiration of her. She reminded him a little of Charlie and was talking in some kind of beautiful fantasy language. Her lips moved and it felt that song came from them, lightly echoing above. After a time, she reached for him. His heart cried out with excitement, he wanted to thank her for bringing him to this place. A flash of light emitted from a small device she held, and he was momentarily blind to the world.

Cold metal slid under his arms, and without being able to turn his head he was flung through the air to an entirely different woman. His vision clearing, he found this one was even more beautiful than the last. He was brought in close, her eyes regarding him with awe. Angels, the both of them, Delta thought. He wanted to cry but even his eyes denied his emotional expression. He could barely even move them to behold her.

With her other hand, she began to lovingly caress him. He felt her finger touch his leg and he gasped inwardly. His heart began to leap and bound as her soft finger probed higher and higher. With no decorum or preamble, she pressed hard into his cock, and he was unable to do anything about it. He felt like it was wrong but soon relaxed. He gave in and enjoyed the sensations of heaven.

He watched, enraptured, as he was brought close to her lips. She breathed his scent and found it pleasant. Her lips parted and she licked his face. Delta was a curious mixture of confusion and elation. The beyond was so strange and magical. He couldn’t believe when her mouth parted, and he was placed onto her tongue like a chunk of a food pellet.

He desperately tried to signal to his body to move, to do anything, but only managed to barely shiver. He looked into the darkness of the angel's throat and his survival instincts began to take over. Her lips closed, and in the darkness, he tried to scream. Then her tongue began to work at him, massaging and tasting him. Tasting his flesh! The slimy and agile organ manipulated him around the dark mouth, moaning with pleasure as he remained motionless. Helpless.

Despite his inner panic, his cock grew and grew as she suckled on him. His inner voice screamed to be set free, he felt his body further betray him as he felt a sickening sense of coming apart at the seams. His muscles twitched, his cock moved on its own, and something burst out of him. Everything was a jumble of sickly sweet terror, his body telling him to enjoy as his mind raced through such a heightened state of panic.

He struggled to contain the rush of emotions, the brutality of the beyond, the sheer hell that was suffocating and warm and slimy. The unrelenting tongue danced as whatever just squeezed out of him was sucked down inside her. What lay beyond the abyss? What happened inside angels? Delta had barely a moment to think about it before he was moved to the back of her gorgeous throat, and shoved inside head-first. He was tumbling down, squeezed and released, for an eternity. The air was knocked out of him as some angelic organ stuffed him deeper and deeper.

The descent ended with a fall into some kind of liquid, and he felt a tingling sensation come over him. By some miracle or some sick torture, he found himself floating upright and coming to rest on an organic fold. Some shelf over an abyssal lake. His body still would not allow an expression of desperate terror that gripped him. He began to twitch and his mouth opened slightly to suck in an acrid stench as he hyperventilated.

He lay there, trying to cry out and only heaving ragged desperate breaths into the darkness. His vocal cords began to come to life, and he croaked unintelligible fearful sounds in the angel’s chambers. Her melodic voice was somewhere far away, a stark beauty against the backdrop of insanity. His feet and calves began to tingle, and then burn, as he tried to squeak out cries for help. Then, a splash. Another poor soul had been sent to her depths. The waters roiled and fumed, his legs felt like they were on fire as they lay submerged in the terrible sweet acidic liquid. The other in the lake thrashed and surfaced, moans echoed from their lips.

Delta lay there, the burning lake slowly rising, staring at nothing and wishing he could scream. The other person inside was insane, moaning with pleasure. Then another splash. And another. And another. This angel was sucking down so many souls. Delta wondered if there was a beyond, beyond this. He felt like he might reside here for eternity. Then the others trapped within began to cling to each other, moaning with such glee at their fate. Had he failed in some respect? Were they feeling something he was not? Delta began for the first time to cry, and a slimy hand reached out to grasp him.

“N… No!” He managed to yell as this being of pure lust began to tug him to the burning depths. He could no longer feel his legs, and his hips were now on fire. He was unable to stop them as a squirming ball of sexual moans tugged him over the edge of the angelic fold. He choked on impossibly terrible water and was drawn into a sickening embrace.
Boney arms clutched him from all angles as everything in his body was lit aflame. Some monstrosity pressed itself to his face as he inhaled more and more liquid. He wished for it all to end, and soon the pain melted away. He felt nothing except terror, and gave himself over to the sinking darkness.