Harmon dreamed...or, at least he thought he dreamed. He was floating through a strange marsh, blanketed in heavy fog and perpetual twilight. The moon overhead, a mere sliver, gazed drowsily over its gloaming dominion. He could hear the splash of water below him and feel himself swaying slowly from side to side like the rocking of a small boat. Shapes of trees and other larger things flitted past his hazy vision. He was resting on his back, curled up slightly, but no longer constrained. He felt almost...comfortable, as though he were lying down in a hammock that hugged him gently. It was no longer warm, but cool and a gentle breeze wafted past him. I'm dead, he thought.

His senses came back to him slowly as he continued on his course. He floated by trees and through tall grass, all the while wondering why the world looked so hazy, as though he were seeing it through a clouded lense of flesh colored glass. Then he noticed the gigantic arms swinging slowly to either side of him, each one terminating not in a hand, but a strangely graceful pair of smooth tentacles. Above him was a feminine torso with round breasts softly bouncing at each long step. A head above that as large as his entire body, with a nearly featureless face bearing little more than a pair of full lips, curling up at the corners in a sleepy smile and closed eyes with long dark lashes.

His heart quickened and he tried to sit up, finding his hands and feet slipping on the bottom of the silky pouch that contained him. A puckering orifice directly in front of him let in another wisp of cool night air and he realized all at once that he was inside a colossal stomach. Immediately, he reached for the yawning navel, grasping either side and attempting to pull himself through, but one of the tentacled arms reached around and gingerly pushed him back in, the navel flexing shut in front of him.

“Let me out!” Harmon shouted, punching uselessly against the diaphanous stomach that carried him, “You hear me? Let me out!”

The gigantic woman made no sound, plodding forward through the spongy earth with slow deliberate strides as though she were only casually aware of the man sized bulge in her midsection. Harmon raged inside of her, noticing that while he did, the light from outside faded and her flesh became more visible. Darkness wrapped around him like a heavy blanket until only a small shaft of light came in from the opening of her belly button. He ceased his struggles and tried to calm down, scooting himself forward on his hands and knees to peer out into the dusky world before him.

What had happened? He could remember Chelsey had drugged him, then dragged him into the cooler in the back of the gas station. She had pushed his face into her belly button and somehow sucked him directly into her stomach, keeping him there in confinement so tight that he could barely breathe. She had taken him home with her at some point. He'd passed out on the way, then awakened to find himself being sucked down into an even deeper darker place within her abdomen. He had thought she was somehow digesting him, using whatever bizzare mutated organs she possessed to melt him down into nothing, but he was still whole.

The belly in which he found himself now was similar to hers. There was no acid or fluid of any kind inside. It was larger, of course. The creature, whatever it was, that was holding him was at least fifteen or even twenty feet tall if he had to guess. So how had he come to be inside of it? Had she squeezed him unconscious again, then released him to be a sacrifice to this thing? And where was he? He didn't recognize the landscape and he clearly remembered the moon being half full in Dunwich the night Chelsey had captured him. He paused midthought. That was the word that came to mind now, captured, not eaten. So if he wasn't going to be digested alive, was this thing his jailor? He looked up.

“Hello?” he called out, “Can you hear me, thing? Can you speak?”

When moments passed in silence, Harmon let out a breath, his shoulders sagging. What had she said in the car before he'd passed out? Something about him being gone before the sun came up...then he would see what he was dealing with. Was this what she meant?

“You can call me by my name, Bill,” a deep feminine voice echoed around him, “Just because I'm asleep doesn't mean I can't still squeeze you in here.”

“This is you?” Harmon asked, “What the hell is this? Where am I? What have you done?”

“Slow down,” the voice boomed, “Or I might change my mind and pull you back. You're in my belly bank. A sort of storage, for now.”

“What do you mean, storage? Am I still inside of you? Have I shrunk down? Is this your body?”

“It is and it isn't,” she replied, “I've put you in a pocket dimension. It's a place that ventrimancers like me can use to hold captured people in limbo without showing a...bulge, in our physical bodies.”

“What do you intend to do with me here?” Harmon asked.

“You weren't lying about that agency, were you? Aaron took longer to convince the first time I brought him here.”

“No, I wasn't lying about the agency. And you should know that they'll be coming for you soon if you don't release me.”

“I know that,” she said, “But I have no garauntee that letting you out would save me. If you were inside my physical stomach, I could digest you and soak up your nutrients in a few weeks while trying to keep myself hidden, but with you trapped in my belly bank I can draw physical and mental energy, without needing to haul you around and make myself vulnerable.”

“Why are you even telling me any of this?” Harmon asked, “I don't need to know If you're just going to absorb me.”

“I'm telling you first so that you realize what I can still do to you if I chose to. That should be incentive enough since I'm hoping that we can make a deal,” Chelsey replied, “In exchange for your cooperation, I'll let you out. I just need your help searching this place for someone.”

“This place,” Harmon said, “Which is where?”

“Well, I don't know what other ventrimancers call it, but I call it Tummy Town.”

“Do you have cute names for every horrifying thing you do?”

“Not everything.”

Harmon sighed, “Who are you looking for?”

“There are others here, like me. Every ventrimancer in the world is connected to this plane by an avatar. Most of them are dormant. The majority of women who possess the ability are either unaware of it, or don't understand it completely.”

“Ventrimancers,” Harmon said, “What is that?”

“Women with a connection to the dark God who rules here, Ventrivoroth. Those of us with the mark are like portals to this dimension.”

“And what is this mark? How can you be identified?”

“It's not the same for every girl. I came across mine by accident when my family took a trip to India ten years ago. That was when—

– your brother died,” Harmon finished, “I've been told about it. Is that what this is about?”

“Sort of...” Chelsey thought a moment, “I'm looking for someone like me. Someone who might

know something.”

“What's kept you from looking on your own?”

“It doesn't work like that. This avatar uses life energy to form a connection with me. That life energy has to come from someone else. I can't use my own.”

“So you literally have to put someone in your belly to get here?”

“The avatar is always here, but without your energy, it becomes something like a statue and I lose the ability to see through it.”

“How long can you walk around with me inside of you before I'm completely absorbed?”

“I don't know, but I'm not taking that chance. As soon as we find the nest, I'll let you out and you can start searching.”

Harmon shook his head, then let out a gusty breath, “What does this person look like?”

“Her avatar will look something like her but they seem to change. I don't know why.”

“Then how can I tell them apart?”

“Her mark,” Chelsey said, “She has a symbol like a ten pointed star with all the arms curling counter clockwise. It's around her belly button. Something like that would have to be visible on her avatar, like the mole just beneath my belly button.”

“Right, of course it is,” Harmon nodded, “So I'm to go plodding out into this swamp and inspect every statue I see for a belly button tattoo.”

“Well...you'll want to be careful,” Chelsey added, “Most of them are dormant, but the ones who feed more often tend to be more awake. If you get too close, they might attack you.”

“Why am I doing this again?” Harmon asked.

“If you don't feel threatened enough, perhaps you might be moved by the fact that every active avatar here represents a very real murderer in the real world. With my help, you could possibly find a way to get to them through here. How many lives would that save?”

Harmon folded his arms, sulking. He nodded slowly.

“Fine,” he muttered, “But if I get smothered and digested out there, it's on your head.”

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