Xavi’s voice was hoarse from screaming. The past few hours were seemingly one long nightmare and he was surrounded by strange people he couldn’t communicate with. They acted strange and spoke a different language. Xavi screamed and screamed to get the attention of people passing by, hoping beyond anything to just wake up. He became hoarse and gave up, dwelling on how he ended up here.

Having coffee with some study partners from science class one moment, and the next darkness. It felt like someone slammed something on top of him? Just darkness, pain, and movement. He was dazed but the first thing he clearly saw was a white room. He and his seven classmates were in a glass container, it wasn’t meant for descaled folk. They were somewhere deeply off-limits. Panic began to set in.

As they began to look around, grim horror set in. They were in an upper-side kitchen storage area. A few uppers walked though, occasionally stopping to retrieve materials. They screamed for help, but their cries went unnoticed. Various flavorful smells drifted in among hot currents of air from furnaces in the adjacent rooms.

Two people had descaled cell phones, a wealthy girl from class named April and a taller gentleman Xavi didn’t know. April’s fingers shaking, she was furiously pounding away at numbers. Once dialed in she just began to cry as someone picked up. All at once people screamed at her and the phone for help, descriptions of where they were, begging for some sort of rescue. Xavi stood and listened, his mind moving too slowly to form thoughts faster than people shouted what he was already panicking in his head. The other one with a phone was calling the same few numbers over and over, without any luck. He swore under his breath again and again.

A woman walked through the doors, dressed in street clothes distinct from the chefs' white uniforms. She reached into a backpack and withdrew a glass jar, full of people just like the one with Xavi and his friends. Xavi’s mind was spinning and his heart was pounding. People were gasping, talking, and screaming, but he didn’t process any of the words. His eyes were locked on the woman with the backpack, who was also staring directly at their jar. Her hair was pulled into a bun, and her features were soft but cold.

Before anyone could process her speed, the woman was reaching into the jar. Massive delicate fingers tipped with neatly cut natural nails descended onto April. The others instinctively moved away from her. April was still sobbing into her phone, unaware of the icy blue eyes fixed on her position. April was snatched quickly and cleanly, and as she immediately began to kick and flail she was lifted from the jar. All she could do was scream as everyone else watched. For a moment there was some hope that this was a misunderstanding, and they would finally be placed back where they belonged.

April was brought to eye level, and she froze as she realized her predicament. She looked into her captor’s massive eyes and tried to speak but only managed to squeak between heaving sobs.

“Who are you talking to?” The upper-side woman asked flatly.

“My… My…” April tried to choke back her sobs.

“Calm down and tell them something for me, alright? Can you do that?”

“Ye-... Yesss.” April nodded as she shook with terror.

“Tell them you’re about to be devoured alive.”

April turned hysterical. Those in the jar gasped and yelled. April was kicking and screaming, the upperside woman smiled wide and laughed. Delicate fingers deftly snipped and tore the clothing from April’s body, who somehow managed to cling to her phone. April began to scream “Help!” into the phone over and over again, tears flowing down her nearly naked body.

“You keep telling them that.” The woman brought April to her smiling lips, head tilted back, “All the way… down.”

Her mouth punctuated every word before she parted her lips and extended her tongue. April was just making unintelligible noises of horror, occasionally managing to scream something similar to “Help!” as she was lowered in. Xavi felt lightheaded, his vision became blurry as April disappeared past those lips and became sealed inside.

“April! Wait!”

“Let her out!”

“Fuck! What the Fuck!”

“No! Stop! Wh- Stop!”

Everyone seemed to shout at once as April’s screams became muffled. A soft gulp later and the screams grew quiet, as did the protests from the jar. Xavi could only picture April as she was in class yesterday, bubbly and smiling. She was nice. She is nice. Now all of her, that whole person was moving downwards inside this larger and far more cruel woman. Xavi’s memory of her was already twisting, replaced by the naked and terrified woman that was just eaten alive.

The monster of a woman left with a wink, briskly exiting as a chef entered and went straight for the other jar. It was taken without ceremony, the people pressing themselves to the glass to look back at Xavi’s jar. The room was empty again, the sounds of a busy kitchen dulled from the closed door.

“What do we do?”

“We’re fucked, we’re all fucked”

“This can’t. This.. can’t..”

“I’m still trying to call..”

“Maybe if we..”

Xavi simply cried. He knew it was over. This is how every disappearance happened. This is how they all die. Despair overrode every neuron in his brain and he wept silently, tears splattering onto the glass below. All the talking around him blurred into a spiral, the world outside the glass went dark and everything was a flurry of sensation.

“Someone’s calling me back! I have a call!”

Xavi snapped back to himself and huddled around whoever this was that offered a possible way out. They call cluttered around, trying to see the phone and listen. The man holding the phone was shaking, holding the phone aloft and unanswered as it rang. A cheery tune played as the caller ID displayed the caller:

April - SCI 202

Nobody moved. The phone still rang, a pleasant pop melody echoing up and out of the jar. He dropped the phone in disbelief, it clattered to the glass with a crack. It kept ringing, a web of cracks emanating from a corner of the screen. The ringing stopped and exacerbated tears and panicked words came from everyone all at once. Some had plans for escape and threw themselves at the thick glass. Others simply wept. Others screamed for help. Xavi stared at the phone, beside himself that such a thing was even possible. Then the phone began to ring again.

The jar fell silent once more. The collective dread of what was on the other end of that line was too thick for anyone to move. Their fears were confirmed by the owner of the phone by simply shaking his head, mouth agape.

“Answer it.” Xavi blurted.

Still, nobody moved. Xavi thought of the woman he knew from class, trying to reach them. Surely they should answer? He walked over through the din of the ringtone and picked up the phone, opened it, and held it in his palm.

“He- Hello…?”

“Pleas-” April’s voice was timid and distorted, then it was interrupted by static.

“April! Are you? Did…” Xavi couldn’t decide what to say.

“Please.. Help.” More static, this time April was coughing.

The people in the jar just stood there. Xavi shook his head. He was expecting this to all be some kind of joke. An illusion. A dream. This shouldn’t be possible. Her voice came through again, talking through that strange static. Xavi’s blood froze when he realized it wasn’t static but the dull sloshing of a stomach.

“I.. I can’t feel my legs! It’s so.. Please, can you hear me? Please…”

“We can hear you, April. Can you… Can you try to..” Xavi couldn’t think straight. He felt as if acid and death were about to pour through the speaker. April simply began to sob, before her voice suddenly pitched up in a pained scream. Xavi jumped, as the phone blared noises from his wildest nightmares.

“Oh go- AAAH! It hurts so much! FUU- AAHH! I’m not food! I’m noAAAA! I’m not fuuUHH.. I’m-”

The line clicked, and an automated voice intoned:

“We’re sorry, but you’ve used all your prepaid minutes. Please contact customer support”

The robotic voice repeated the message over and over, Xavi was positively vibrating with fright as he closed the phone and curled up on the cold glass. The group sat in silence again, some pacing in a tight circle around those too weak to stand. The man with the phone dialed the customer support line and was informed of a three-hour wait. He set the phone down next to him and waited.

Xavi cried for what felt like hours before the door reopened and the familiar face of the terrible woman roused them all to attention. They watched her enter, nonchalantly withdraw another jar, and take a step to leave. She stopped and turned back to Xavi’s jar once again.

“I’m surprised they haven't grabbed you yet. Must be a slow night.” She approached the jar again, “How about one for the road? Your friend could use some company.”

Her hands were lighting quick, the jar filled with screams and fingers as the woman selected another snack. There was nowhere to run, people collided with each other as the woman lazily swayed her hand in the jar. Xavi couldn’t move, the only one who didn’t flee. He was grabbed by his midsection, and he didn’t even react.

As he was removed from the jar he was greeted with fresh air and pleasant scents. He tried to wipe tears from his face, but they kept coming. He smiled despite it all, knowing it would soon be over at least.

“What’s the matter? Miss your friend?” The woman pouted derisively, “I’ll help.”

“Her name was April.” Xavi managed to speak.

The woman was about to reply before a rumbling emerged from the back of her throat and a burp escaped her lips. Soft and short, she blew the meaty air into Xavi.

“Well, April says she missed you too.”

She tore at Xavi’s clothes, pulling everything off as she walked away. Xavi was completely naked in an instant, his limbs painful from having things ripped off of them. Xavi shook and sobbed, his skin slick with her sweet breath mixed with what he imagined were pieces of April. He spasmed and heaved, though nothing came out. His body was quivering with disgust and anguish.

The woman pushed the door open and nonchalantly opened her mouth, giving Xavi a view of April’s last memory. Things moved in slow motion. Saliva trickled across pearly teeth. The back of her throat quivered gently. Hot breath coated his skin and dampened his hair. A sticky strand of it ran the length of her mouth from top incisor to bottom. Xavi was pressed into the strand and into her maw. He turned to get one final look at the outside world before entering her body.

Another woman’s face, angry and stern, filled his view. A chef. Her face was framed by teeth as he looked outwards from inside the awful mouth. Miraculously, his descent into hell was halted.

“We pay you to catch them, not eat them.” Said the stern Chef.

Xavi looked in disbelief as the throat that claimed April receded, uttering a bone-shaking “Awwwwwwwww” in defeat as he was saved from certain digestion.

“Put 'em back, now.” The stern Chef said.

“Fine, yeah. Sorry.” The woman dropped him gently into a different container nearby, with dozens of naked squirming bodies. Xavi tried to steady himself but was swept away by the pushing and pulling of a panicked crowd. They were all talking, but it sounded like gibberish. Xavi just did his best to stay upright, before another Chef appeared. He and a handful of others were scooped up into a separate container, tumbling over each other. A glass bowl, which was placed on a tray with a separate bowl. Xavi squinted to see three of his classmates in the opposite bowl, as the strange foreign descaled people seemed to fight amongst themselves.

~

Xavi had thought he knew horror, and was even ready to die in the same stomach as April. Until he saw the woman in red. One by one, fingers entered his bowl and withdrew a screaming individual. The others, yelling in a strange language, tried to stop them but each one was taken away into someone’s mouth. Gulp after gulp, chew after chew, the residents of the bowl were turned into pulp. The awful woman in red leaned over, slurping limbs inside her mouth and chewing. Blood trickled down her lip and fell. The droplet from her morsel landed square on Xavi’s shoulder, and then he thought he really knew horror.

Until he saw the woman in red torture that man, burning him and then filming his gruesome death. Popped like a grape under the woman in black, he could see the likes and comments on the woman in red’s phone as she laughed. The woman in red shoveled more people into her mouth, their numbers dwindling as she converted them. Her stomach nearby was the next container, hopefully, the last. Then she took Mehmet, another guy from class. She seemed at first to give him mercy, only to stuff him inside herself like a sex toy. This woman was filling her entire body with death and suffering. He thought then that he had truly understood the depths of human horror.

Until he was chosen. Fingers clasped around him and two others. He was raised up to her beautiful face, too pretty to be doing these things. Yet her mouth opened, saliva tinged red with slaughter. Pools of people turned to a slurry for some sick hunger still fresh and warm. Their executioner deftly rotated them, just enough for one to get sucked into the meat grinder. Xavi looked into the eyes of his captor to find some shred of humanity, but the woman in red was looking at her phone. Screaming emanated from her mouth as a man was pulverized, he was still alive when the jaws opened again and a woman was shoved inside. She shrieked in her foreign language and tried to hold the man already half-eaten.

“Please please please please!”

His cries were ignored, as the woman in red closed her mouth and swallowed. She opened it again, only to reveal the two were still inside. She had merely taken their blood and limbs, but she wasn’t through. Xavi looked at the phone, popping away with notifications. The woman scrolled through, occasionally liking an image. Xavi couldn't process the images, they were all red and terrible. The screams increased inside her as she moved her fingers, ready to deposit him into his death. The lips parted.

The woman inside lay on the tongue, her leg bitten clean off and laying further back towards the throat. The man was in two pieces, one half on either side. The pieces were tucked away in the cheeks. Xavi was placed just inside, and the woman instantly began to chew. He was easily caught in a blizzard of gore as the still-living woman was chewed along with the man she tried to save. Xavi screamed, pushing through bits and pieces of people to get out. He found a tooth and waited for the chewing to abate. He felt a shudder as the throat again accepted more of them into the body of this terrible woman. The foreign woman was still screaming, and Xavi took this moment to thrust himself out. He escaped into the fresh air, only briefly. He looked beyond the phone to the woman in black and thought for a moment that he recognized her.

He was sucked back in, back to the cacophony of screaming blood. The jaws began to chew in earnest, and Xavi found himself colliding with the ever-screaming woman. With another terrible squelch, the screaming stopped. She was finally put out of her misery. Xavi knew he was next on the chopping block, and tried to stand up but slipped on the blood-slicked tongue. This was it. He was glad to die now in the jaws, rather than suffer the consequence of being swallowed whole and alive. He hoped April wasn’t still alive.

The pressure in the mouth changed, gravity switched directions suddenly and for a moment Xavi felt as if he was swallowed alive after all. He fell downwards in a torrent of blood and viscera until he saw light, and looked in horror to find the various pieces of the other two strangers that had been alive just moments ago. A shredded arm, pieces of skin and hair, white bones sticking out. He screamed then and finally understood true horror.