A group of people wake up in the stomach of a woman going about their morning routine. Will they be able to make it out? (No.)

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Emily’s eyes snapped open, and she was somewhere dark and crowded. This wasn’t where she had dozed off last night, snug and secure in her cushioned bed, the low hum of the heating circulating around her ears. Initially she thought the situation a mere bad dream, especially once she felt her strange fleshy surroundings. She almost convinced herself of it so well in fact, that sleep nearly came over her again before she heard the waking voices of others.

“What the hell?”

“Where am I?”

“Did I drink too much last night?”

Her senses clicked into place, and things became too vivid to write the scene off as a figment of imagination. It was too dark to see where exactly they all were, but clearly she wasn’t alone in this. That was good - there was safety in numbers, and maybe someone could provide some answers? She got up, cleared her throat, and shouted over the crowded voices. “Okay, so, does anyone know what’s going on here? We’re all here together, we may as well find out what’s happening. Anyone have any answers or… anything, really?”

The question provoked a flurry of responses, and soon pretty much everybody was shouting and demanding an explanation for what was going on here or providing their own theories. It soon became clear that nobody had any - and that they had bigger problems on their hands.

It was hard to tell if the noises had been there all along, or if they were only hearing them now that they were fully awake and aware, but the place they were in, this fleshy and humid prison, was making gurgling sounds. The type of thing you’d expect out of one’s stomach if they hadn’t eaten all day and had just eaten a large steak or something. Beyond that, there were other, distinctly body-like sounds. Something that sounded like the pumping of blood, and the deep breathing and snoring of someone still asleep. The questions which people had been asking started as more curious and cautious than outright frightened, but the growing power of these noises stoked everybody into a panic.

“What the hell is that? You’re all hearing those noises right?”

“Someone get a fucking flashlight! Do any of you have your phones still?”

There was a panicked chorus of shouts as people realized they didn’t have anything to call for help with. One person still had theirs though, and they flicked through the settings to find the flashlight. As they fumbled with their phone, Emily pressed herself back against the wall of what she now knew was meat behind her, which was slick and tense. Her pulse quickened, and her mind took in all the other sensations it hadn't had the time to process before. The deep, wet humidity around them, like the heat inside of a mouth, and the smells of flesh and digesting food. “Oh God,” she thought, “please let the light show a stage or something, and not a-”

“Stomach!” a voice shouted as soon as the flashlight clicked on. “We’re inside a stomach!”

The panic which had been brewing beneath everything boiled over in an instant. Everyone shouted and screamed over one another, some demanding answers but others becoming angry at each other and at whoever had done this to them. The light scanned over everybody, and taking a brief count, Emily saw that they numbered around thirty in total. And, if this really was a human stomach like it seemed, that meant they all had to be incredibly small, like, less than the height of a fingernail. Bile rose in her own stomach, and she was about to demand the person with the phone call somebody, but then a sudden rocking movement caused the light to be flung downwards and down into the stomach acid. Any fear generated by the revelation that there was life-threatening acid in the room with them was overwritten when they heard a yawn, and felt a stretch. The human they were inside was waking up.

And then she leaned up in bed, stretching.

Emily at first felt the stomach slide beneath her, and she grasped the sides with all the power her still-tired body had. That turned out to be a good move, as when the person they were inside sat upwards, the gravity of the motion had a great impact on her and everybody else inside of the stomach. Emily found herself pressed hard against the wall of the gut, her small body pushing against its flexing sides. She heard the pumping of what she assumed to be blood under the surface of the barrier, and the wall was made more hard and firm from the fluid. The rushing sound filled her ears, and it seemed to encapsulate the entire strange situation in which she found herself. It hummed, and it felt as if the stomach was thrumming under her body.

Once the giant was done sitting up, there was a rough cacophony of other sounds which assaulted her ears. Initially she couldn’t make out for the life of her what they were, it sounded almost like the sound of air rushing into and then escaping an enclosed space. She slapped herself when she realized it was the deep and heavy breathing of the one they were trapped inside. The sound occurred once every few seconds, the huge onrush of air and then the exhale of the same - and it made Emily feel small, and weak. Then there was a huge yawning from the figure above, which created a thick and reverberating sound that echoed around her stomach. The person they were inside yawned several times, each one sounding like a deep and booming gasp followed by an explosion of noise.

Mari had no reason to suspect anything was wrong with her morning. Her first thoughts weren’t about the very-barely-felt uncomfortableness in her stomach, or the slight bloating she had. Rather, her first thoughts upon waking up had to do with the fact that she’d missed her alarm.

“Damn!” she laid, sitting up slowly and rubbing her eyes as she checked the time on a table clock. “Yeah, of course I’d oversleep today of all days. Ugh, I’d better call Susan.”

Still utterly oblivious to the peril in her stomach, she grabbed a nearby phone and opened it. Getting up and crossing the room to get to her kitchen, she got on the line with the dreaded Susan by the third ring. She poured herself a glass of water while talking, and swigged it down between sentences. “Hey, hi, it’s me. Mari. Yeah, my stupid alarm didn’t go off. No, don’t worry, I’ll be there. Just gonna take a quick shower and get dressed, I’m still in my pajamas. Yes, the ones with the dogs on them, you’re hilarious. Here, lemme make some coffee real quick.”

Inside the stomach, nobody was finding much to laugh about. Everyone was being flung about by Mari’s movements, and the speed with which she was going about her morning routine wasn’t helping things. Emily was nearly tossed from her safe spot on the side of the belly, but managed to hold herself in place as she was jostled about. It was hard to hear the noises of the body now, with how panicked everyone was inside. They were all shouting over one another, yelling and screaming as the primal fear of being eaten alive overtook them all.

Things got strange and dangerous fast. The water which Mari had swallowed now filled up the gut, and it had swept some of the humans from their hiding places when it had come down. Those people, and the ones who were closer to the bottom of the stomach when the liquid was swallowed were now struggling to stay afloat in it, rushing for the relatively dry sides of the belly in any way they could.

Several people were carried away by the flood of water, and Emily watched as they tried to stay afloat in the sudden rush. The water had rolled over their small bodies, picking them up and abducting them from wherever they’d been standing. One of them came near Emily, and reached out his hand, desperately.

“Help, help! I’m getting washed away!”

Emily’s hand snapped out, and she just managed to save the man before he slid deeper into the pit. “Hey, try and find a high place,” she advised, “I get the feeling that this is going to get worse before it gets better.”

“Thanks! You do the same,” the man said, turning to try and scale the walls of the belly.

Looking back at the scene unfolding below, Emily saw that two others hadn’t been so lucky. They’d slid deeper down, crying for help all the way. Some tried to reach out, but the flow took them too quickly. Finally, the two had clung to one another, and had managed to stop their descent with their combined weight.

“God that was too close,” the woman of the duo said, shaking.

“Yeah,” the man she was holding said, “who knows what would’ve happened if-?”

Any talk of silence was promptly itself shut up as the water hit the stomach acid, filling the belly with a hiss and then something akin to a fog or vapour. The sound grew along with the miasma. There was a general shriek of panic as the rest of the cool water hit the steaming liquid, and everybody realized suddenly just what exactly that acid would do if it ever touched any of them directly. The fog stewed and grew thicker, until thankfully, at long last, the last of the water hit the pool and was digested.

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Mari said, putting an impatient hand on her hip and feeling the cool water cool the sourness in her gut. “Look, I’ll be at the meeting a-s-a-p, got it?”

“We don’t give a shit about your meeting!” one voice cried. “We’re trapped in here, can you hear me? We’re trapped!”

“Oh God, she can’t hear you,” another voice added. By now, they’d figured out the general situation, which was that they were trapped in the belly of some young woman whom, as far as anyone could tell, none of them had ever met. “We’re so small, there’s no way she can hear us all the way up there! Especially not through her body!”

Emily, always the leader at her work, tried to be the point of calm in all the madness. “Maybe if we all shout as one, we can get through to her! Come on, everyone, let’s-”

The plea for unity was silenced as coffee splashed down into the stomach. A fresh chorus of horror went up from the assembled humans, and Emily’s voice was drowned out. Emily watched on with a sense of surreal horror, feeling like she was a character in one of those old sci-fi movies she’d watched as a kid, where they’d shrink down and go inside someone to operate on their heart or something. She had goosebumps all over, and realized she was shaking. There was no way around it: for the first time in years, Emily was properly horrified.

She tried to take deep breaths, but the hot air was suffocating. The coffee had taken the already-humid stomach and made it almost unbearable - every suck of air felt much too warm for comfort. On top of that, the vapour from earlier was still around, and seemed to have grown denser and heavier, likely due to the coffee, and it was difficult to make much out in the cramped space. The heat bore down on Emily, and she clung to the sides of the stomach, hoping she could find some reprieve. All this earned her however, was a closer listen to the strange sounds which were coming down now to the stomach. The hisses of liquids sloshing and digesting in the pit of the stomach mingled with the gurgles and glorps of the belly taking in the food it had been offered - and the noise was only growing. Everybody was looking around, feeling and hearing the sound as it pounded into every single one of them, acting as a warning of what was to come.

Mari finally managed to get off the phone with Susan. “Well, at least she’s not too upset with me,” she said with another sigh. “Alright Mari, now let’s get in the shower here and get cleaned up.”

The casual morning contrasted greatly with the horror show now commencing inside of her gut. All that coffee which Mari swigged down had made the liquid situation inside of her that much worse, and now almost a dozen figures were wrestling about in the water, some managing to make their way to dry ground while others were pulled tantalizingly close to the ever-present and ever-increasing stomach acid. Emily watched it all with growing horror, realizing that none of her leadership experience prepared her for something like this. She watched as the stomach shook with each movement of Mari, sending her comrades tumbling down and around, none of their struggles or cries for help amounting to anything at all.

She tried to pull up the people she could as they slid past her, but there was only so much Emily could do in the face of Mari’s endless jostling. She walked across her apartment, used the toilet, washed up, and got into the shower - each part of said sequence tossing the people in her stomach about in some way.

People everywhere were trying to climb the sides of the stomach to get to safer ground. Emily was lucky in this department, in that she’d woken up high in the gut, and had lucked out at managing to not get tossed around too much as of yet. Most others were not that lucky, and they scrambled at the walls with both hands, legs trying to find some foothold anywhere. But the stomach was too soft and slimy for most struggles to go anywhere. Indeed, most of those who tried to escape only ended up falling further down than they had been before, making the situation even worse for themselves.

The chaos in the stomach was reaching new peaks with every passing moment. Everyone was either screaming or shouting or crying or some combination of those things at the top of their lungs. It was enough to almost drown out the sound of the stomach, growling hungrily. Almost, but not quite. The entire scene was undercut with the frequency of gut sounds, a constant reminder of where they were, and what was going to happen to them all if they didn’t find a way to escape.

Still oblivious to all of this chaos was Mari, who was enjoying a quick hot shower before getting on with her morning. She couldn’t take too long, so she soaped and cleaned herself off with the loofah as efficiently as possible. This, of course, meant lots of bending and stretching as she got down to wash off her legs and the like. One could imagine how that impacted the people still in the stomach, same with how Mari stretched and let her body loosen in the warmth of the water and steam. Really, the only thing now which seemed strange to her was that she felt weirdly full, despite not having had breakfast or all that much to eat last night. Well, sometimes you just weren’t hungry in the morning. Best not to look too deep into it, y’know?

Well, everyone inside of her gut was very much hoping that she’d look into it. Emily watched as the panic turned to outright fear. All around her, people were beating their fists and feet against the walls of the stomach. Not to try and escape, but to try and either catch the attention or harm the monster who had eaten them. They fought with all of their might, using up every bit of energy in their rage and anger. It was all for naught, as their blows were so microscopic and relatively weak that all they could really hope for, if they kept up with it for long enough, was to give Mari a slight stomach ache.

Mari hummed a little song to herself, and gave a nice long stretch under the rays of warm water. Despite the ache in her center, she felt relaxed and calmed.

Inside, nobody was calmed by the sounds of rain pattering against the sides of her stomach. It dropped restlessly against the flesh like raindrops, filling the space with a drumming which mingled with the other sounds to become a cacophony. It drummed and drummed against the side of their prison, drilling into all of their heads. Then there was Mari’s damned singing and humming, which seemed to mock their very misery as it thrummed through the stomach. Even covering one’s ears did nothing to keep the sound of it out.

On top of that, the deep warmth of the water spread to the inside of the stomach, and it became harder and harder to breathe through the sheer heat. Emily felt herself sweat and felt how sticky her skin was becoming from the hot around her. She was reminded of a time she’d been taken to a desert by her parents on one vacation or another, not only in the oppressive temperature but in the dense humidity which made breathing itself a great challenge. There wouldn’t be a way to last long if this kept up - she needed to find a way to get out, and fast.

“Everyone,” Emily said, gathering what remained of her pride and bravery, “we need a plan! We can’t just panic blindly, we gotta think of how to get her attention and get out of here! It’s not too late.”

“Easy for you to say, you’re not down here!” shouted one of the people tragically close to the pool of stomach acid which, terribly, seemed to be larger than it was before.

“What are we supposed to do? She can’t hear us, and if she keeps this up, she’s gonna kill us all!” another shrieked.

“If only you hadn’t lost your phone, we could have called for help,” one person shouted, presumably at the guy who had earlier lost his phone in the acid.

Mari, now finished with her shower, completed her morning routine by getting dressed. She slipped into her white tight-fitting top while humming a little song, which was a swift and easy motion for her, but a Hell for those still trapped inside of her body, because this involved so much movement of her upper body. Each little move she made to sneak inside the shirt sent people rattling around in there, toppling them from where they were clinging on the sides of her stomach and tumbling down towards the now-rising acid.

Even Emily, who had up until now managed to maintain some level of calm, was deeply shaken, both figuratively and literally, by the motions of Mari as she dressed up. With fear and panic, she watched the others in the gut get flung around. She watched as somebody to her left, someone who had spent a great deal of time and effort scaling the wall of the stomach, was sent careening down with a yelp and a scream, crashing into several others on the way down, their bodies stopping just inches short of the rising digestive juices. Everybody was scrambling and being tossed left and right, and those with the safest spots clung on for actual dear life - including Emily.

“Stop!” she finally yelled, joining in on the chorus of other voices. “Please, whoever you are, please stop this!” But her words went unheard, and all they could hear from Mari in response was her carefree humming, which was reverberating throughout the belly in a way that felt mocking.

Sadly, Mari’s shirt wasn’t on quite well enough, leading to further jostling around as she adjusted it, taking it off and putting it back on, moving her arms and chest the whole time, and sending the humans stuck in her tummy further tumbling around. The cries in there grew near-deafening, though to her it only sounded like she had a slightly-grumblier stomach than usual, not thinking of a thing as she finally got the shirt on.

Somehow, Emily had managed to maintain her grip throughout the entire fiasco. Practically nobody else inside of Mari had been so lucky. She watched everybody go rattling and flying about, bouncing off the walls of the gut and scrambling to avoid the pit of death at the bottom. And throughout it all, they’d heard Mari’s heartbeat and breathing and silly little humming, as if all of this was the most normal thing in the world. It was all a reminder of how powerless they were here, and how small they were compared to the person they were trapped inside. Thankfully, so far nobody had been digested, but how long would that last?

There was a brief moment of calm in the stomach, and there was a pause in the screaming as everybody caught their breath in the too-humid air inside there. It seemed like everything was over for the moment, until Mari sat down to pull on her skirt and stockings. As her bottom landed on the bed, there was a fierce bounce and everybody was tossed around again. Panic welled up as everybody thought the nightmare with the shirt was going to start over, but thankfully Mari was working more with her lower half now. Emily watched and clung tight to her safe spot as Mari sang a little song they’d all heard on the radio before, the words echoing through their ears.

Some of the people towards the bottom part of the stomach were shaken around and panicked and ran and scrambled up the walls as Mari went about dressing her lower half. Those who had already made it up fared much better, and they returned to beating at the stomach walls and crying for help, sometimes literally, still somehow hoping that Mari would listen and somehow free them all. For Emily, ever the analytical and thoughtful type, those hopes seemed further and further away by the second. If this was how hard it was to stay alive in here when Mari was just getting ready for her day, how difficult would it be to survive once she properly got moving?

This entire episode, which almost cost the dozens of people in her stomach their lives, had no impact on Mari. She finished up dressing, and felt rather refreshed. After such a rude start to her morning, she was beginning to feel like she was back on top of things, especially as she put on her knee-high boots, the type with the heels. By now, she was vaguely aware something weird was going on in her stomach. Normally, a nice hot shower would loosen up her nerves, and whatever sleep-discomfort she still felt would literally melt away. Instead, now, with the time fast approaching where she’d have to leave her apartment to go into the outside world, the queasy strangeness in her gut had only intensified. She groaned.

“I really don’t have time for this today,” she said, crossing from her bedroom into her kitchen. Perhaps a snack would help calm her insides. “I should get a bite of something. Maybe I can grab something quick to eat before I go?” While one might assume the threat of new food being dumped into the stomach would be the greatest concern of Emily and the others inside, it was actually a distant second to a rather unexpected but still dire threat: Mari’s heels.

Mari moving around at all posed a threat to those trapped in her stomach. They could feel each step she took, with how movement sent her body flexing and shaking, causing her stomach to bounce about. Before though, this had been blunted by Mari walking around in her socks on soft floors. Now she was in proper heels, and each step was turned into a trail. Now, they not only felt her walking around, sending them rattling with every movement, but they heard it too. They heard the gunshot-like reverb and vibration of her heels striking the wooden floor, the thundering reaching them and deafening any cries for help. The sound burst up towards them every couple seconds, and it was competed in volume only with the increasingly-prominent gurglings of Mari’s gut.

“What the fuck?” somebody shouted. “What’s going on now?”

The belly shook again, and someone replied, “It feels like she’s on the move! But what’s with the-”

Another stomp shook the stomach, and a third added in. “Are those heels? They sound like it!”

“She’s just going about her day…” a panicked and crying woman added as the strange revelation settled in. “Just going out for a nice walk - like we’re not even in here! Does she even know…?”

One of the figures who’d been pounding at the walls of the stomach began screaming in rage, frustration, and fear. “Why doesn’t she feel anything? I’ve been fucking banging my heart out and it’s done nothing!”

Emily cowered back in her hiding spot, listening to the voices around her shouting and yelling.

“We’re in here, can’t you hear us? You’re going to kill us if you don’t stop!”

“Does she even care about us…? Did she do this to us somehow?”

The situation kept deteriorating, and the relentless sound of Mari’s movements and the clack of her heels only added to the unease.

But it wasn’t only the sound which was threatening to the people there. It was also the vibrations these heel-steps sent upwards into the stomach. Each sharp clack they made against the floor shook the very walls of the belly, filling them with vibrations like the walls of a plane at takeoff. Within just a couple steps, most of those who had clung so defiantly to her sides had gone tumbling down and blustering about. Emily only managed to stay put because she’d anticipated the shocks after the first step, and grabbed on with all of her might - and even that almost wasn’t enough.

Each step sent a sound like a gunshot up to the stomach, and sent the people inside further tumbling and turning about. The situation was beginning to grow very unsafe indeed - all of the activity in there had started to wake the stomach up. Acid was beginning to be secreted, and the pit of dangerous fluids at the bottom of the tummy was starting to swell up. It was more difficult than ever to remain safe in there, and each vibration and sharp rapport of the heel upon the ground made the situation that much more dangerous.

Which is exactly when Mari’s stomach began to secrete acid. Her body, detecting that there was food to satiate her hunger already in her tummy, got to work right away at breaking that food down. Due to the general lack of light and how chaotic things were inside, it was not immediately obvious that anything had changed outside from some heftier rumblings and grumblings. But then the fluid began to run down the sides of her stomach, creating little rivulets and creeks of burning acid which some were unlucky enough to either step or push directly into. Higher screams of pain were added to the orchestra of sounds inside of Mari, as those affected cried out in agony as their bodies were burned wherever the acid had made contact.

“Ack, what the hell?” somebody cried as a splotch of it struck their arm. “What is this stuff? Is this acid??”

“I stepped in something and it melted through my shoes!” somebody shouted in horror as they collapsed against the side of the gut.

A third voice, pained, roared “Oh god, it’s burning me!”

Emily listened and watched the whole affair with growing terror. The danger of the situation was becoming very real very quickly. She pulled her clothes closer around her, hoping they’d protect her from any potential burns. Out of disgust and fear, she tried her hardest to avoid watching and listening to those being burned around her, but their voices reached her anyways.

“It just splattered me!”

“I think her belly is awake now - it’s gonna digest us!”

“Please stop! Please! We didn’t do anything to deserve this!”

Those who avoided directly dunking parts of themselves into the acid didn’t get off easily, either. As Mari walked around, the vibrations of her heels clacking against the ground sent drops of acid going everywhere. There was a greater panic, and an incredible amount of pushing and shoving and stumbling as everybody inside rushed to find cover. Pleas went up from every mouth, including Emily’s own, as the burning hit nearly everybody. Some got it worse than others, but there was no escape from the now rapidly-secreting acid. In their panic, many of those trying to escape knocked others over and even smacked right into one another. They were, in all, panicking and falling to the fleshy floor in large numbers - which only made the situation that much more precarious, with the acid flushing down from above in greater amounts.

It only continued and got worse as Mari made her way towards the kitchen, humming another little song and checking her phone. She took a look at the time and cursed - it was starting to get really late. No frozen meal or breakfast or anything like that. It’d have to be something really quick. She stopped walking, providing a very brief respite for those she was unknowingly tormenting, before she opened the fridge and leaned over. This innocuous movement caused quite the stir inside of her stomach, and everyone made a mad scramble to avoid the acid which now sloshed about quite madly. Emily screamed and raced upwards, just barely avoiding the stuff before Mari found what she was looking for.

“Yeah, some yogurt, that’ll do,” she said, grabbing a cup of it and standing up.

As Mari fumbled about in the kitchen for a spoon, Emily took a few relatively peaceful moments to take stock of the situation. Any conversation had died in the stomach by now, replaced by more general screaming and crying and panic. Those who could bashed at the walls where the acid did not cover it, throwing their entire weights into it, with some gathering in groups to try and attack the sides of the gut all at once. Part of Emily wanted to warn them that this was likely only making it worse, ensuring Mari did something to calm her stomach while also causing the belly to act up more to digest whatever was inside of it - but what was the point? She looked at the bizarre and strange and deadly situation in which she found herself, and realized there wasn’t any point in trying to struggle now. The only way out was to survive.

Speaking of, the stomach was definitely becoming more active now. The rumblings and grumblings of Mari’s body were increasing by the second, the sounds of digestion building up to a chorus with all the angry glorps and churns of a gut expecting food. Her body knew there was food to be had, and what’s more, it knew there was more food coming soon as Mari managed to get the top off the yogurt cup. Her hunger was coming fully alive - and her body was going to do anything it had to in order to satiate it.

“Alright, there, finally!” Mari said, tearing the lid from the yogurt cup like it was a sword from the stone. It’d been really stuck on there, and she’d come right up to the edge of poking a hole in the lid with a knife or fork or something and peeling it off - a trick known to anyone who eats yogurt on a regular basis.

Mari scooped it up greedily with a spoon, and dug in. It was the strawberry flavor she loved very much, and so she devoured her way through it in short order. Hopefully this would be the thing to sooth her killer stomach ache, which was really growing to be a problem. She felt its coolness slip down her throat, sliding down until it reached her stomach where it sank like cool water into a warm pot. Satisfied and already feeling a little better, she patted her belly several times, not knowing the nightmare she was unleashing with such a simple motion.

For Emily, and the others trapped inside, all of this played out as if in slow-motion, like they were watching a horrible tragedy unfold before their eyes. First there was the undeniable sound and feeling of swallowing, each gulp of Mari’s throat reverberating around the gut and signaling what was about to happen. The cage they were in shook and wobbled with the thick swallows, and those who could scurried to the sides before the food hit. Then the yogurt fell inside, blocking up the middle of the stomach and missing the last few poor souls who were in the blast zone by inches, but right after the landing food splashed the stomach acid and gave everyone a further taste of what was going to happen to them if they fell into the swelling pit in the center of the chamber. The screams grew louder than they had ever been before.

Emily shouted as best as she could over the din, “She’s eating some more - take cover!”

She watched as various figures around her dashed through the fog and danger. One crashed down next to her and gasped. “We’re just food to her, aren’t we? Just like the yogurt - oh God, we’re all gonna die in here!”

It was becoming increasingly hard to argue, especially as Emily watched others running around and getting splashed by acid. Snatches of voices came to her.

“What are we even supposed to do??”

“Do whatever you can to survive!”

“What did we do to deserve this?”

Before anybody had a chance to find protection in all of that chaos, Mari went and patted her stomach. First, they heard the heavy and repeated thumping of her hand slapping her middle, the sound echoing and booming and huge. Needless to say, this knocked around those who still somehow clung to the sides of the gut - including Emily. She lucked out though, and only being sent sliding down instead of being smacked out and then down through the air. Emily clambered at the wall, and tried to get back to her original spot, but only managed to get about halfway there. She was much more vulnerable down here, and she looked for anything to defend herself from the stomach acid.

Various voices rose up through the madness and the fog which had remained from earlier. Most of them were people who were begging for either help or mercy, with others still promising revenge against whoever had done this to them. Emily, by now, was focused primarily on her own survival, and so tried not to pay much attention to the upsetting and distraction words unfolding around her. Some still reached her though, despite her best efforts.

“Is she patting her stomach now!?”

“Idiot, is she trying to kill us all? Does she know we’re in here, and is she playing with us?”

“I can’t hold on! I can’t!-”

Emily watched as the slap sent several people spiraling out into the dangerous expanse of the stomach. One of them screamed as they went past, “I don’t want to die in here! Please!”

The next stomach slaps only increased the chaos. People and acid drops were sent flying everywhere, and there were only cries of panic and fear as everybody tried to survive the onslaught as best they could. Emily clung to her hiding space with both hands, clinging in with her fingernails, feeling the vibration of each slap in her bones. She watched as the others got further burned and harmed, and then watched as the first pool soul, a woman somewhere in her twenties, made an unwise step and fell backwards down the side of the gut. This woman plummeted and tumbled down, before dunking right into the growing pool of acid at the bottom of the chamber. She gave a brief scream as she was about to hit it, and was then silenced. Her body, already weakened from the acid it had taken earlier, sunk to the bottom and melted.

Mari, feeling much better after that yogurt, didn’t hear anything of the screaming chaos that followed as everybody realized what their ultimate fate was likely to be. Her only concern was that of the coming meeting, which she was already very late to. She mentally ran through her options as she left her apartment. There was taking the bus, but it seemed like she’d just missed it, and it’d be another ten or twenty minutes before the next came around. In situations like this, it’d be better to walk, considering that she didn’t have a car at the moment. She could get there faster, and get in her daily exercise, a great win all around.

Even the simple act of leaving her apartment caused a massive commotion in her stomach. She had to descend down a couple flights of stairs to make it to the landing, and each step down had thrashed and bumped her stomach around wildly. The belly had really come alive by now, especially because of the presence of the yogurt, and acid was dripping freely from the walls. Each step of her heels against the ground sent additional people careening into the acid pool, which began claiming life after life. Everybody who managed to hold on was jostled about and sent flying and crashing into one another. Those who didn’t ended up melting down once they fell into the center of the belly, never to be seen again.

But for those who managed to survive that Hell, another fresh one began as Mari reached the street. It was quite a way to the center of the city where she worked, and on top of that, she’d be moving as quickly as she could in heels. Then, on top of all of that, there were the struggles that came with navigating a busy city sidewalk. That meant pushing and shoving to get around people, or needing to dodge around those who walked straight and direct as a bullet down the center of the pavement. It meant navigating steep hills and slighter inclines, and generally a whole lot of the kind of movement that, if one was stuck inside of Mari’s stomach, you would absolutely not want to see.

Mari felt a phone vibrating in her pocket, and pulled it out to see Susan was calling her again. She sighed. She was definitely getting chewed out for being late today. Deciding to bite the bullet, Mari answered and put the phone to her ear, guaranteeing that the only thing she’d be paying attention to was the voice on the other end of the line. She listened to the voice start to blabber about how she needed to get there soon as possible, that Susan was covering for her best as she could, but there was only so much she could do, and so on.

Meanwhile, everybody was suffering incalculably inside of Mari’s stomach. Everything was a constant struggle for survival now that her stomach was active as could be and she was on the move. Emily, more fearful now than she’d ever been before in her life, watched the tragedy and horror unfold before her. She watched the panic as people rushed up the walls desperately as they could, as those who were once angry now fell to pleading and begging, crying up at a person who didn’t even know they were there. Somebody who only registered them as an odd feeling in her stomach, nothing more or less than that.

There were those who still banged and barged on the sides of the gut, but it was obvious to everyone else by now that their struggles were pointless. Everything so far had gone ignored, why wouldn’t further resistance end up the same way? Those who pounded and punched and kicked were, for the most part, rewarded only with further splashes of acid hitting their backs and arms, a preamble to what would happen once they were inevitably pulled into the increasingly-huge pool of digestive fluids at the bottom of the gut. All of the secreting acid was pooling there, and now the thing was swelling up dangerously high. Hiding spots which would’ve been fine twenty minutes ago were now a complete death wish, and going up high as you could meant risking a swift and deadly plummet downwards. Emily watched as this fate befell several of those who sought to make a desperate escape, only to be overcome by how slippery and slick the stomach walls had become.

“This isn’t happening,” she murmured to herself in disbelief. Emily searched her memories, but could find no recollection of how she’d ended up in here, or what she’d done to deserve such a horrible fate. “What can I even do…?”

Every time she got a look at what was going on in the greater gut, the situation looked worse and worse. She saw person after person plummet down into the stomach acid and melt, and she also saw those who the acid had merely splattered run around like mad, trying to find cover that, far as she could tell, didn’t exist in here. She watched as one figure made a crazed dash for the wall of the stomach, and began to bash it like he was punching a gym weight.

The man roared as he attacked the gut. “Are any of you gonna help me? Or are you all going to sit and die like cowards?”

Sadly however, his pride was not built to last, for no sooner had he begun pounding the stomach wall than the acid had come down and burned his hands. His anger literally melted away as the pain set in, and he ended up running away while screaming about how his hands were burning.

It was a constant struggle for survival at this point. Emily observed with a sort of defeated acceptance as person after person slipped down the falls and fell into the acid, or was knocked around by the endless motion of Mari’s body, or screamed with panic or fear. The movements of the stomach walls just made things even more difficult, as they seemed to writhe and lash back against one’s very grasp, making finding any sort of hold or reach impossible. It was like the body itself was beating back against them now, working to reduce them all into food for Mari to process.

Then Mari let out a belch, which was signified by a sharp intake of air and then a loud explosion which deafened everybody in the stomach. For her part, all Mari had to do was give a little “Excuse me” as she rushed past various pedestrians on her way to work. For those inside of her however, this began yet another long and brutal trial.

The sound drowned out any attempts to communicate, and some of the people who’d been working together to try and find a way to survive were now lost in chaos. But worse yet was the way this belch further shook the stomach walls, sending everybody sliding down perilously close to the acid if not down into it outright. The danger was angering enough, but the indignity of it being caused by a burp of all things caused several of the survivors to lash out in anger, and their words reached out even through the din of everything else going on.

“Did she just burp?? Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Does she think this is some kind of joke?”

“Are we really all going to die in here?”

It was becoming increasingly clear that was the likeliest outcome. The air had grown choking with humidity, and the relentless tramping of Mari’s heels sent vibrations and splashes of acid everywhere. The number of survivors was decreasing by the minute, as everybody was sent flying around and knocked about in the tight and dangerous space, and all it took was one misplaced step or one clench of the stomach to spell doom. Even for those who’d managed to cling to the sides, survival was becoming impossible, as the walls of the stomach were shifting and clutching as it tried to crush up and melt the food remaining inside, sending certain survivors rocketing from their safe places and into the hell of the rest of the chamber.

What made it all worse was how relentless Mari’s movements were. If she’d been sitting still or just working at a desk or something, maybe all of the chaos would’ve been survivable. But she was still heading for the city center, moving and walking, running and dodging slow-walking pedestrians. Every sharp turn she made, each rush up or down stairs, or mad dash across an intersection before the lights changed unknowingly killed several people. Each pat of her stomach and light burp caused additional chaos and casualties - and there were still several blocks between where she was and her destination.

For Mari, all of this registered merely as an ache in her stomach that was beginning to subside. She checked her phone, and saw that, if she really rushed, she could make it to her office without getting bitched at too bad by her boss, and so increased her speed. “Shit,” she said, shoving past several over slow-walkers, “I gotta get there soon! Maybe I can take a shortcut through that alley…?”

She rushed around several tight corners, and the resulting swinging inside her middle sent many others careening down into the still-riding stomach acid.

“Hang on to something!”

“Like fucking what? There’s nothing to hold on to!”

“I don’t wanna die! Not like this!”

The voices inside of the stomach were decreasing in number. Emily had her eyes closed shut, clinging to a patch of the wall which wasn’t yet coated in acid. She tried to shut herself away entirely, praying that if she could survive this current burst of chaos, then she could make it through the rest. But nothing was able to keep the screams, gurgles, glorps, and churns from her - and she felt the body pumping blood through the stomach wall she was grasping, a permanent reminder of where she was and where she was going.

“Stop, stop! Please, for the love of God, please stop-!”
This latest voice was silenced mid-cry as Mari had a little stumble, and the person who’d been begging had gone forwards and down, into the puddle of death which was now most of the stomach. Several others followed as Mari roughly righted herself, and made it through the shortcut, turning sharply down the last turn that would take her to the office. Now there were just a few intersections to go, and she’d be there.

Obviously, the most important thing was that she be there on time tomorrow. It wouldn’t do any good to have a repeat of this morning.

Emily clung tighter to the stomach wall behind her, nails digging in. It was impossible to paint a full picture of the madness erupting before her, from the survivors dashing around and doing anything they could to dodge the acid, to the intense warmth of the chamber they were all stuck in, to the relentless clacking of Mari’s heels as they clashed against the hard sidewalk. She simply held on, and hoped that she would be spared. But she was food, ultimately. And food only has one end.

Mari, rushing through the streets, gave her stomach an idle pat, hoping to calm down the last of the jitters which remained. This idle motion was the thing which doomed Emily, because by sheer bad luck, she’d ended up patting exactly where the poor girl was standing. Her fingers were knocked loose of the flesh by the force of the blow, and her body was sent flying back and away from any safety. She seemed to hang in the air for a moment, and then Emily felt she was falling, not needing to look to know what was underneath her.

There wasn’t even time for a scream. Just a simple and abrupt “Wait, no, I-!” was all Emily was able to say before she was plunged into the acid, and summarily melted. Her body stood no chance, and soon she had joined the dozens of others who Mari had killed in her gut without even knowing. Just another little person digested and put away so carelessly and cruelly.

Continuing on her merry way to work, Mari was feeling better and better. Whatever the strange feeling had been in her middle this morning, it was well on the way to fading now. She rushed through the last couple of intersections, and made it to her office. She entered the front door, gave a nod to the surly receptionist, and got into the elevator which took her up to the fifth floor where Susan was waiting for her. She didn’t know or care that the last few survivors in her stomach were all screaming incoherently, having realized that they were the last of the dozens which had been there from the start - and that there was really no hope of escape now.

“No… no, no!” one of them sobbed, shaking in a corner which was being encroached on by acid.

“This is really how it ends, isn’t it?”

“I don’t wanna die, I don’t wanna die!”

All these pleas and more went unheard. The elevator came to a stop, giving her body and stomach a little jump which to those in the contraption felt like nothing more than some minor discomfort, but to those still suffering inside of Mari’s stomach was like an entirely new Hell as the small lake of acid splashed everywhere, finishing off most of the remaining survivors, who screamed only briefly before being consumed.

She continued her walk into the office, stopping to check in with a few of her co-workers before the big confrontation with Susan. Perhaps the only good thing to happen to her this morning is that nothing important had happened while she was away, meaning that she was likely in the clear as long as she didn’t let anything like this happen again. Mari couldn’t help but let out a nice and lengthy sigh of relief as she heard the news. Honestly, between the rude awakening and the desperate rush to get here in time, she couldn’t imagine a morning going any worse!

Inside her gut, the number of survivors had dwindled into the low single digits. Everybody else had been washed away by the acid, and those who remained were in very rough shape, having been splattered by the digestive juices and also being rendered physically exhausted by the hours of struggle. This number soon dwindled to three as one of the people remaining in there simply ran out of energy, and slid down the stomach wall with unworking arms and legs until they fell into the pit and melted away.

“Please… please… please…” one of the survivors pleaded on loop, not having the energy for anything else.

“No more, let it stop! Please!” pleaded a second.

Mari continued her leisurely stroll through the office, accidentally taking out another one of the survivors when she turned a corner a little too abruptly, sending acid swirling up to claim another screaming victim. She took a deep breath as she approached Susan’s office, and then paused outside the door to steel herself. The breath burst out of her mouth as she opened her lips, and, ultimately, Mari decided it was better to just rip the band-aid off, and she walked in with her head held high.

Whatever invigorating conversation or argument Mari and Susan got up too didn’t matter at all to the two mere survivors inside of her stomach. By now, they were in a terrible condition, and very poor off considering they’d seen and heard everybody else get digested. The two still struggled, but didn’t offer up any more pleas or vows or vengeance or anything. They were simply too tired, too exhausted and beat down by the relentless struggle to survive, to do anything more than weakly beat at the sides of the gut with their pitiful fists. When Mari sat down to talk or debate with Susan, she simply and easily patted her stomach a couple more times, satisfied with how the uneasiness in there had faded over the last few hours or so.

That was all it took to eliminate the final survivors in her stomach. The patting sent both of them tumbling towards the churning acid, which was already rising up due to the motion of Mari sitting down. Both of them looked at one another as they fell, but anything they tried to say was covered up by the gurgles of digestion and the thick body sounds which now dominated the chamber. They splashed down into the acid, and then that was the end of that. They vanished into the digestive juices, and nothing of them was ever seen again.

“...and that’s why it’s so important that you show up on time! Next time I won’t be able to cover for you, y’know?”

“I know, I know,” Mari said, feeling the coolness of relief wash over her middle, like her body had just worked out some difficult problem it’d been having trouble solving. “How about this, I’ll come in a little earlier to make up for it. Does that sound like a plan?”

“Alright, yeah, that should work,” Susan said, opening up her laptop to send an email. “Now that that’s settled… is everything alright with you? You looked a little sick when you first came in.”

Mari shrugged. “It’s nothing. When I woke up today I noticed I had this wicked stomachache.”

“Oh, that’s never pleasant. Is it gone now?”

“Yeah, it went away.” A smile crossed her lips, and for the first time all morning, she felt relieved.

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