Grimoire of Vore
 
 
"Chloe," Laurie whispered to her friend. "He's following us. Again."
 
"Who?" Chloe turned to Laurie, her smile dying out.
 
"You know...Robert..." Laurie pointed discreetly to a man in a shabby black hoodie, with a strange expression on his pale face and dark circles around his eyes.
 
"Come on, not again!" Chloe rolled her eyes, clearly annoyed. "We can't even walk in the mall in peace now! I'll let him have a piece of my mind!"
 
"Show him, girl!" Laurie grinned, looking forward to the spectacle. She loved seeing boys being put in their places.
 
As Chloe angrily strode towards him, Robert Whateley allowed himself a nervous smile, but it soon turned into a terrified expression as he noticed the fire in the girls' eyes. He had been stalking her for a long time, but Robert never saw the girl so furious before!
 
As she reached him, the thin fellow instinctively shrank back. This made Chloe smirk. She had literally put him against the wall.
 
"Now you listen here, you little creep: you better fucking stop following me, understand?! In the begining I let you do as you please because I felt bad for you, you little loser, and it was funny having you watching me from afar like the little coward you are. But it isn't fucking funny anymore!"
 
"B-B-B-B-B-B-B-But..." Robert wanted to talk to her, he wanted to explain himself! He wanted to tell Chloe that he was no creep, and that he loved her from the bottom of his heart! He wanted to tell her about how he researched about all her previous boyfriends and understood they were all jerks, and she deserved better! If only she gave him a chance, he would treat her like a queen!
 
But he couldn't talk. Having the redheaded tomboy's sexy body and lovely, pretty face so close to him made him stutter so much that conversartion was impossible. He felt like a palaryzed mouse about to be devoured by a heartless snake. Chloe noticed his weakness, and laughed. It was a cruel laugh. She wasn't exactly an evil person, but she knew how to be as cold-blooded as an actual snake when she needed to.
 
"Look at you. You can't even talk to a girl! Come on Robert, do you really think you're going to get a woman of my level when all you do is shake inside your boots like a little wimp? Not even ugly chicks like guys like you. You're scrawny, you're creepy, you're gutless...I could go on all day long listing the reasons why girls despise you."
 
"C-C-Chloe, please, just this time, listen..." He was going to do it! Finally, after all this time, Robert was going to talk about his feelings to Chloe! Just a little more and...
 
"You're the one who has to listen, idiot!" She interrupted her stalker and grabbed him by the collar of his hoodie, making him squeal like a scared animal. "I'm not joking! I don't want to see you again! Ever! Get out of my sight, and if you ever show that ugly face around me again, I'm beating it up!"
 
Chloe was surprised by a new expression in Robert's face. He was clearly sad, looking like someone who's about to cry in fact, but there was something else. There was resentment. She had screamed with him before, but today she had really managed to hurt him.
 
Robert turned around and ran away, clearly holding in his tears. Chloe looked down, her smirk disappearing. She wanted to scare him away from her, but she never wished to go as far as making him cry. She went back to her friend looking a bit sad.
 
"You rocked, girl!" Laurie giggled and clapped her hands. "He's never going to harass you again after that! Did you see his face? That wuss was about to cry!"
 
"I don't know, Laurie. I know he is a creep and a weirdo, but don't you think I went way too hard on him? He's annoying, but he means no harm."
 
"Are you crazy?! He TOTALLY deserved it! Come Chloe, I'm so proud of my friend that I'll buy you a sundae."
 
Chloe laughed and Laurie dragged her to the food court. Maybe she was right. A loser like Robert deserved no sympathy.
 
 
 
...
 
 
 
When Robert Whateley arrived at his house that day, he rushed straight to his room and after throwing his books and gizmos around, jumped into his bed, crying and sobbing loudly.
 
"That bitch! That heartless, soulless bitch! She thinks I have no pride, huh?! She thinks I'm no man, that I'm a wimp?! One day I'll show her, one day I will!"
 
As he twisted and turned in his bed, a sudden idea started to brew in Robert's brain. It was a poisonous, wicked idea, one he would never reach under normal circumstaces. But a man with a broken heart and whose pride has been hurt does not think in a natural manner.
 
Like a beast blinded by anger, he got out of his bed and started pacing around his room. He had been a coward for way too long. It was time for him to do something. As he walked in circles, his plan was forming itself, growing more and more perverse. He grinned like a madman and started laughing, then he rushed down to the basement with a mad look on his eyes.
 
Almost falling from the basement stairs in his furious eagerness, Robert descended to that dark, damp, cobweb-ridden place. As a child he had always loved to play there, and always tried to bring friends along. That was when everyone began to notice that he was a strange kid, and the neighborhood children began to avoid him like the plague.
 
He didn't understand why they acted that way back them, but now he knew that most people have no love for anybody who shows any trace of morbidity, no matter how good-hearted and harmless that person was. Well, he didn't want to be harmless anymore.
 
He flicked the switch and an old, puny lamp on the ceiling of the basement was turned on, giving out a weak, leprous light much like the fabled witch-fires his ancestors were supposedly able to conjure. Yes, for the Whateleys came from a long lineage of shady persons of great infamy and reputed affinity for the Black Arts.
 
Only a few still remembered Agnes Whateley, condemned for the heresy of witchcraft after her rival for the love of a certain young man, one miss Tryphena Dewart, went missing under curious circumstaces. Much was whispered back them about how Agnes, once a lithe, beautiful woman, looked quite chubbier during her trial, and when she burped a piece of cloth that was identified as Tryphena's favorite headdress, the good Judge sentenced her right away.
 
There was also Ebenezer Whateley, that dastardly adulterer, who inspired some tales about how he would feed his lovers and prostitutes to a toad-like familiar that lived in his locked attic so his wife wouldn't find out about his sins. Some who rode near his house at night talked about many disgusting and crass sounds coming from a place that could only be Ebenezer's attic. The sorcerous beast that dwelt there, although a great lover of female flesh, couldn't handle it that well, it seemed.
 
Nobody was surprised when Ebenezer's wife went missing after a heated argument between the two. The scoundrel soon moved somewhere else before he could face any punishment, but most thought that he left his "pet" behind, and that to this day it waits for prey in that terrible attic.
 
And who could forget Milcah Whateley? She wasn't a witch, at least nobody ever found anything incriminating against her, but she had the awful habit of stealing chickens and arriving late for mass, and that was pretty wicked all on itself.
 
As Robert looked around the basement, all those memories of his family's profane and criminal doings flooded his mind. If Chloe knew anything about his lineage, she would have thought twice before crossing him, being a churchgoer as she was. But it was too late now. Robert was looking at dusty shelves containing jars filled with human eyeballs, dead lizards and spiders immersed in strange, evil-looking liquids.
 
He remembered watching, as a kid, his mother stealthily drinking the contents of one such jar, and how after a gelatinous burp her ass began to grow rounder and larger. Most people couldn't notice it because of how beautiful and charismatic the MILF was, but she was as much of a Whateley as sickly, creepy Robert was!
 
But those scary trinkets were not what he was looking for. It was a bit hard to find it in a place so poorly lit, but eventually Robert stumbled upon his mother's large bookshelf, where she kept all the sinister, worm-eaten volumes that had been passed down the Whateleys from generation to generation since the time of old fiend-haunted and witch-infested Salem...and before.
 
There was reading material there for years, with themes ranging from such macabre stuff as offbeat theology, alchemy, demonology, cookbooks, the occult sciences, spells, the making of potions, philosophy by forgotten authors, voodoo, black magic from every single continent (even the sunken ones) and porn magazines.
 
But Robert had gone through several of those books already, and had a clear volume in mind. The search took only three minutes, and when he pulled the dusty grimoire out of it's place in the shelf, there was a smile of triumph in his large eyes.
 
He rushed back to his room where he would find a better light for reading, and sitting on his table, blew the dust from the old book away. Trembling he looked at the title: De Voris Mysteriis by Chandell Prinn, a cousin of the infamous mage Ludvig Prinn. Sweating, he opened the book and carefully leafed through it's yellowed, foul-smeling pages in search of a specific chapter.
 
"Here!" He screamed, his eyes growing wilder. His latim was a bit rusty, but Robert began to read aloud, translating the dead language used in the book to english. "On the summoning of demons, devils, familiars and elementals."
 
As he read, he shivered. He really believed in all that black magic stuff (you'd believe it too if you knew all he knew) and for him, that book wasn't just a book but a Gateway to dusky dimensions of being which existed beyond the ignorant and materialistic notions of mortal men. But above all else, it was his only chance to get what he wanted. No, what he needed!
 
Jumping from his chair with the grimoire in his hands, Robert took a deep breath, then coughed because of the dust from the book. Most...things Chandell Prinn taught how to invoke demanded complex rituals, but he had found a few who needed only that the warlock spoke the magic words for them to come. After choosing the most appropriate demon to do his bidding, Robert closed his windows so the pure light of the sun couldn't reach that soon-to-be unholy room.
 
Then he cleared his throat and built up the courage to start the ritual. He loudly started the incantation in a forgotten language older than Latin or mankind itself:
 
"Puerar nebras taluth! Daimones thrunar mnar-zhar! Ogenar, daimones ogenar! R'lyeh chatakra, Kadath chatakra, Yian-Ho chatakra, Alaozar chatakra, Y'ha-nthlei chatakra!" Robert braced himself before uttering the final secret words, which were in Latin. "Daemōn tenebrum, veni, veni, veni, VENI!"
 
At the end he shouted with arms raised and mad vigor. He had put his soul in peril to finish this ritual, and he had done his part. Now the only thing left to do was waiting and seeing if any of The Ones from the Abyss would do their part too.
 
Robert Whateley didn't even dare to breath or lower his arms as he waited. He felt like a single muscle moving would break his spell and mean complete failure. After seconds that felt like years, the young warlock started to lose hope. Mayhaps his pronunciation of the daemonic words had been incorrect, and the ritual had really failed.
 
It was then that he started growing counscious of a noxious smell that seemed to fill his room, coming from an unknown source and growing in strength and repulsiveness. It took him just a moment to realize that the smell was a strong stench of sulfur.
 
Then, forgetting his precautions, the summoner backed off and released a startling cry. For now Robert could see dark smoke arising from his bedroom floor from some invisible hole leading down to midnight gulfs of inconceivable chthonic horror and blasphemy.
 
The abhorrent smell grew unbearable as more and more smoke appeared, until it had filled most of the room. Robert was trembling all over, not knowing what to expect. Many a sorceror had been destroyed before by irresponsibly calling up something they could not put down, and who knew the whole extent of the powers of evil dwellers in pits beyond sane and wholesome realms?
 
Finally though, a thundering voice filled with all the malice and sin of the universe echoed out of the black, stinking fog.
 
"WHO HATH CALLED FORTH FORMOG, THE ENGORGER? SAY THY NAME, FOOL, OR THOU SHALT BE DRAGGED BACK TO WHENCE I COMETH FROM!"
 
"R-Robert Whateley," He replied before it was too late.
 
"WHATELEY?" The demon chuckled, making the house shake. "I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN! AND WITH WHAT INTENT HATH THOU AWAKENED ME FROM MY HELLISH SLEEP, HUMAN?"
 
"W-Well, I..."
 
"I JEST. I AM CAPABLE OF READING YOUR HEART'S DESIRES AND YOUR SINFUL THOUGHTS IN A SINGLE SECOND, MORTAL. IT'S ALL BECAUSE OF THAT CHLOE GIRL, ISN'T IT?"
 
"Yes, you're right," Robert grew more confident as the demon grew more casual, and stopped trembling. It was clear now that the fiend was subject to his will, or else the summoner would be already dead. "I want you to teach her a lesson, lord Formog. And if you can read my desires so easily, you probably know what I mean with that."
 
"YOU ARE CORRECT, MAGICIAN, AND," Here the demon was cut by a loud rumbling that sounded very much like a hungry stomach growling. "THE GREAT FORMOG APOLOGIZES. I KNOW NOT HOW MANY YEARS HAVE PASSED SINCE I'VE LAST BEEN CALLED FORTH, BUT I'M QUITE FAMISHED."
 
"Don't worry about that, you'll be pretty full soon enough," Robert grinned evilly.
 
 
...
 
 
"I only wish the teacher would go a little bit easier on us!" Jasmine complained. "I'm hurting all over, and today's class isn't even over yet..."
 
"Come on Jas, don't give up!" A brown-skinned, large-breasted woman tapped her back, after laughing sweetly. "I believe in you!"
 
"Shut up, Susan," Jasmine rolled her eyes. "I'm not asking for symphathy or anything like that, if that's what you thought. I don't know how your back manages to survive this class while also enduring the weight of your tits."
 
Susan, always a good-sport, laughed it off. Even Crystal, the serious, long-haired brunette who worked as a businesswoman laughed at the exchange. Those two reminded her of some friends she had when she was younger and wilder. If she wasn't so wary of everyone, she probably would try befriending them.
 
While most of the other girls talked, Chloe drank her water in large gulps. She thought Jasmine was a bit of a bully, but she had to agree with her. The teacher was going a bit too rough on her students. It was still Chloe's first month in the women's self-defense class, a place she had been introduced to by Laurie who went to a salon nearby the building where the classes happened. At first she didn't want to go, believing she knew how to handle herself, but the recent events involving Robert made her change her mind. Better safe than sorry; who knows what brews inside a maniac, obssessive stalker's mind?
 
"And look at our dancer here," Jasmine pointed to a beautiful blonde in the opposite corner of the room, who had set up her phone to record her while she dance. "Do you think she'd be pissed off if I snuck up behind her while she's recording her silly video?"
 
"Don't do that, Julia's just enjoying herself!" Susan replied. "Come to think of it, out of us all, she's the one who's having the easiest time with the class. I guess dancing really is a good exercize to put the body in shape, huh."
 
The building where the self-defense classes took place stood between two other buildings, a salon and a laundromat. Coincidentally, while Chloe took her classes that day, her friend Laurie was at the salon gossiping with the other women there, while her favorite hairdresser, a good-looking lady named Megan, worked on her hairdo.
 
"...and then my friend went straight to the creep and scared the shit out of him!" She laughed.
 
"No way!" Another customer, a sexy Latina, was listening to her story with a lot of interest. "But wasn't she afraid?!"
 
"Afraid? My friend Chloe is the most fearless girl I ever saw!" Was Laurie's proud reply. "I bet she'd have beaten him up too if he didn't run away like the coward he was. I tell you, that guy was a hopeless lo..."
 
"Hey, do you girls smell that?" The Latina interrupted.
 
The other women in the salon, both clientele and staff, sniffed a bit before starting to agree with the Latina that indeed there was a peculiar, repulsivo odour in the air.
 
"Did a hairdryer fry or something?" A worker asked another.
 
"I don't think so, but with an awful smell like that, I better check out."
 
"Pat, could you please open up the windows, darling?"
 
"Of course, ma'am" The girl named Patricia said, before promptly doing what she was asked.
 
"That's a little better, but still, we need to find the source of this smell. It's still way too strong."
 
Suddenly, everyone's attention was caught by a strange, pitch-black hole on the floor, right in the center of the salon. The smell appeared to come from said hole, but strangest of all, to all the women looking the hole seemed to be 𝙚𝙭𝙥𝙖𝙣𝙙𝙞𝙣𝙜.
 
The Latina got up, clearly shaken. For some reason unknown even to her, the sight of the hole filled her with an obscene repulsion and brought back memories from terrifying stories her grandmother used to tell her back them, stories that dated back to her own grandmother and so on, back down the centuries to the times when her indigenous ancestors first met the European travellers. She was afraid.
 
"Look girls, this is getting creepy," She started walking towards the door. "I'm sorry, but I'm getting out of-"
 
The Latina would never finish her sentence, for something long and terrible darted out of the black hole in the floor, grabbing her and returning to it's source almost as fast as a chameleon's tongue. It all happened so fast that the other women just stood there, mystified, their brains unable to process the horror in time to alert them.
 
So instead of running away for their lives, they simply stared at the hole and listened the disgusting wet sounds that came from it. They didn't move, not even when a loud noise (which sounded suspiciously like a gelatinous burp) came from it, expelling one of the Latina's shoes.
 
One of the salon workers picked it up, trembling. It was curiously hot and slimy, and stank horribly. She threw it away with repulsion and fury as if it was a profane thing.
 
"W-Was that thing that grabbed her..." Another client broke the silence. "...a tentacle?"
 
As if to answer her, two long feelers came out of the hole and grabbed her and the salon worker who was closer to it, vanishing with them as it had done before. This time, the women raced to the door but stopped on their tracks when a loud sound filled the building.
 
It was the sound of something repulsive and corpulent crawling or pushing it's way up a hole still a bit too tight for it's form. Laurie looked back. And then she screamed.
 
Chloe's friend almost screamed her lungs out at the sight of the monstrous face that had made it's way out of the hole like a blasphemously bloated mole from some unplumbed chthonic depths, and other screams followed as the women started getting grabbed one by one by those twin appendages and shoved down a hungry, awaiting maw.
 
Nobody reached the door. Not Laurie, nor anybody else. The salon's only occupant was now the awful thing that had emptied up the place, licking it's lips in evil triumph.
 
 
"Did you hear that just now?" Chloe asked.
 
"Huh?"
 
"It sounded like...screaming..." The redhead grew apprehensive for a moment, all sorts of scenarios forming themselves inside her head.
 
"I didn't hear a thing," Jasmine shrugged.
 
"It must be your body screaming from pain!" Susan joked, and Chloe laughed. A few minutes later she forgot about the sound she thought she heard.
 
 
On the nearby laundromat, Anya hadn't heard anything at all. The NEET was in such a hurry that if she did heard the screaming, she probably wouldn't have paid any attention to it. She just wanted to get done cleaning her clothes and get back home, where a very troublesome story awaited her. She had been having trouble with it for months! It was a sort of twisted love story with some black magic involved, but she really couldn't find the right approach for it, to the point that by now she dreaded this little project.
 
The fact that a beautiful brunette had been staring at her since she entered the laundromat wasn't making things easier: the writer silver-haired writer, although beautiful, was plagued by terrible social awkwardness.
 
"Come on, can't these things go any faster...?" Anya mumbled to herself, frustrated by the washing machine's snail like place. Those were old machines, and you can't really complain about it since this laundromat was absurdly cheap. Nevertheless, it was tortuous for the writer to wait so long knowing that the beautiful brunette could still be looking at her.
 
The beautiful brunette in question was Emilia, a teacher who was also doing her laundry quem Anya arrived. She had an easy time reading people and figured out Anya's reclusive, shy nature as soon as she laid eyes on her. She also noticed that covered by her baggy clothes was bombshell of a body. Those two factors added together really fired up Emilia's mischievous nature, so she had been looking and smiling at Anya this whole time as a sort of soft-teasing before she got a chance to approach the girl to play with her shyness any further.
 
Emilia wasn't malicious, but she couldn't help teasing others with her appearance, and Anya was her favorite type of victim to this sort of prank. The writer wasn't aware of the mischievous inclinations of her watcher, and was overthinking the whole thing. Was she smiling at her or to her? Was her smile disdainful or motherly? Was she hitting on her?! Was she even really paying attention to her?! Perhaps she was just in a good mood and Anya was being paranoid...
 
Those thoughts filled the NEET's head, so it's no surprise that she didn't notice at all the growing stench of sulfur filhinha the laundromat. Instead, Emilia had the mischance to sniff it up first.
 
"Huh? What's that? Geez, is it coming from somebody's dirty laundry? No way, it's too awful to come from somebody's clothes..." Emilia grew worried, wondering if something was wrong with the washing machines. But they seemed just fine. "Strange. There might be a gas-leak happening somewhere near, so maybe I should warn that girl overthere..."
 
But suddenly the mephitic smell grew absurdly in it's intensity and in it's closeness to Emilia, to the point that the dark-haired teacher almost thought it was coming from right 𝙖𝙗𝙤𝙫𝙚 her. Her worry was growing.
 
"There's something very wrong here...w-why is my body trembling? I got this terrible feeling, like I'm being watched..." Then, she looked up. "What is...AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!"
 
Emilia released a blood-curdling scream that was quickly silenced by an evil-looking appendage that descended from the ceiling to grab her and pulled her body upwards.
 
Anya heard the scream and it almost made her jump out of her skin. She quickly turned around but only managed to see a pair of legs dangling from the ceiling for a split-second before disappearing like magic.
 
"W-Where's the staring lady?" Anya whispered to herself, her shock weakening her mind and voice. She assumed those legs were hers, but how did she reach the distant ceiling? And even more perplexing: how did she pass right through it as if it wasn't even sorry.
 
Part of Anya told her she should investigate, but her sense of self-preservation was begging her not to go anywhere near the spot where the brunette went missing. Anya had read enough Ambrose Bierce to suspect that her teasing watcher would probably never be seen again by any mortal soul.
 
"Did you see that?!" A new female voice scared Anya. It was the voluptuous lady in sweaty work-out clothes, who had been there doing her laundry too. Anya had forgotten about her. "She just...vanished in thin air!"
 
The busty lady started approaching the accursed spot that had turned Anya's simple chore into a moment of terrifying mystery. The writer was about to scream to her to stay away from the spot, but her voice came too late, for the repulsive appendage descended to catch it's prey, and another woman disappeared from the laundromat forever. Anya saw it for the first time and her terror grew, for the nature of the thing she was facing became clearer now.
 
She felt like turning around and running away from that now-hellish place, but something kept her standing there. She wondered if it was some sort of supernatural mesmerism, but Anya reflected on the matter enough to understand her true reasons. Then, she started walking towards the accursed spot, her heart thundering in her chest.
 
Why was she doing this? Was she insane?! It was clear that she'd meet her end if she didn't stop walking, but she just couldn't: it was her nature as a writer that moved her. That story idea that had been eluding her for months, it was finally becoming clearer now! The whole string of hideous events was inspiring her!
 
If only she could catch a glimpse of the Thing...the Owner of the appendage... she'd be able to figure it all out. Even if she didn't leave to actually write the story, she at least wanted to have it engraved in her mind!
 
And it was moved by such thoughts that the beautiful NEET stood where two other equally beautiful women had been abducted by some strange force. She took a deep breath, than she looked up. Then Anya screamed.
 
The hideous face that stared down at her didn't lose a second, darting downwards with jaws-agape to catch it's shapely prey. In a few seconds and she was fully devoured, led to a fate much more perplexing than anything she could have written herself.
 
Meanwhile, the girls at the self-defense class still talked cheerfully, completely unaware of the terrible events that had taken place on the nearby buildings. Their talk was only interrupted when a dreadful scream was heard coming from somewhere in their own.
 
"Was that a scream?!" Julia finally stopped dancing, the blonde looking at her fellow women with an expression that begged for someone to tell her that the dancer's ears had fooled her.
 
"S-Sounded like our teacher," Chloe gulped.
 
"That was a downright awful sound," Susan reflected, then cheerfully added. "Well, I'll go see if our teacher needs any help!"
 
"WAIT!" Crystal grabbed one of Susan's shoulders, startling the daycare worker. "Don't go."
 
"C-Crystal, you're pale! Why shouldn't I go? Stopping to think about it, that's the first time you've talked to me!" Susan's worried face quickly became a smile as soon as she noticed the opportunity to interact with this serious businesswoman had showed itself. She really was carefree!
 
"Believe me, don't go," Crystal's forehead was covered in cold sweat, and her body looked tense. "I've got a sort of sixth sense for this type of stuff. Not literally, of course, but I've had to deal with a lot of jerks in the past and...point is, that scream didn't sound anything like any scream I ever heard before."
 
"What do you mean?" Julia was starting to get afraid faster than her colleagues. "How can it be different from any other scream?"
 
"You all heard it as well, haven't you?!" The businesswoman looked around at the other women, then explained. "That didn't sound like any sort of scream caused by earthly terror..."
 
"Earthly...terror?" Chloe was a somewhat courageous girl, but Crystal's nervousness was infecting her almost as fast as it was frightning poor Julia. "So you mean it was like, unearthly?"
 
"Bullshit!" Jasmine crossed her arms and rolled her eyes in great disdain. "Frankly, now I understand why y'all need to come to this class, if you're such a bunch of chicken. The woman probably needs help, and I don't care how her scream sounded like! I'll see if she needs anything and..."
 
Jasmine was soldiering towards the direction from whence the scream came, but Crystal stood in her way.
 
"Move, chicken!" Jasmine's patience was being exhausted. "I'll see if our teacher needs any help, and you can't stand in my way!"
 
"No, I'll go," Crystal said after a deep breath, a serious and decided expression in her face. "If I don't come back in twenty minutes, you should all leave the building. I'm sure there's something wrong going on here. I'm afraid...but I don't want any of you getting hurt."
 
Jasmine laughed and kissed the businesswoman on the cheek, making Crystal blush slightly. She couldn't remember the last time another woman had showed her affection in this way.
 
"Now you're talking!" Jasmine grinned. "I'm a model, so the only thing I like more than a beautiful woman, is one who's also brave! I'll go check things out with ya, even if it's just to show you that there's nothing 'unearthly' about the matter."
 
"I'd rather you stay here, but it's not like I can make you change your mind once you're set on something, right?" Crystal sighed. "Fine, we'll both go, but if anything unusual happens, I want you to turn around and run, even if that means leaving me behind."
 
"Damn right you can't change my mind! And I'm more of a fighter than a runner, so if somebody's going to chicken, it won't be be!" Jasmine put her arm around Crystal's shoulders, to the businesswoman's dismay. "Let's go check on teach. Stay here, the rest of you, unless you feel like running away from the building screaming like damsels in distress, although that'd be throwing your self-defense classes in the trash...
 
With this final taunt, the model and the businesswoman went in the direction of the scream, leaving their colleagues behind. They didn't look back, and eventually, they disappeared from sight.
 
The group they left behind was nervous and talked in half-whispers, almost as if they feared being heard by something. What was this something, they couldn't even conjecture.
 
"Hey Julia, no need to look so tense, girl! I'm sure theyll be alright. The teacher just had a little accident, that's all," Susan patted the dancer on the back, but she wasn't sure if she believed her own words, and her tone betrayed that.
 
"You heard 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑠𝑐𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑚 too," Julia replied, broodingly. "But maybe you're right. At least I hope you are..."
 
Chloe hoped Susan was right too, but Crystal's words had affected her tremendously. And why was she thinking about that creep Robert now, of all moments? The readhead shivered as an unknown fear growed in her heart.
 
Meanwhile, the lights of the corridor Jasmine and Crystal were exploring died out, startling the duo.
 
"Great, just what we needed," Jasmine rolled her eyes. "But let's keep going. It's very dark but I can still recognize our surroundings somewhat."
 
"So can I," Crystal said, sweating coldly. The lights going out were bad news. She wasn't much of a horror movie watcher, but she had seen more than enough to see where this could end up. As she walked, she got closer to her companion and blushed. "B-But just to be sure, let's avoid losing track of one another.
 
Jasmine at first was going to protest at the invasion of her personal space, but she couldn't help but smile. She felt like kissing the businesswoman's forehead, but controlled herself.
 
"Fine," She put her arms around Crystal's shoulders and brought her even closer to her own body, much to the businesswoman's surprise, then admitted, "These corridors DO like kinda scary in the dark like this."
 
Crystal blushed and silently agreed. Both women walked like this until Jasmine came to a sudden stop.
 
"YUCK! What the hell is this smell?! It's awful!"
 
"Cough, cough, it reminds me a bit of," Crystal's nostrils were burning from the intensity of the stench. "sulfur...?"
 
"Well, sulfur or not, this ain't right," Jasmine concluded, covering her nose. "It's coming from this room. See how the door's open? Let's go inside and take a look."
 
The businesswoman gulped. She had a terrible feeling about this, but Jasmine's company made her more courageous. She nodded and entered the room alongside her companion. Once inside, the mephitic smell became almost unreadable, to the point that the women's eyes became all teary. Jasmine sought in vain for the lightswitch, while Crystal looked around for signs of life.
 
"Teacher, are you here?" She asked, almost in a whisper. Somehow she felt like that, if anyone (or anything) was there at all, she shouldn't really call their attention.
 
"For fuck's sake, I can't see a thing," Jasmine mumbled, having found the switch only to discover that it wasn't working. "Now that's just great..."
 
Crystal walked around the room, and suddenly froze. A cold sweat came over her, and she trembled. In a corner of the spacious room, a massive shadow seemed to squat in it's corner like a behemoth ready to strike.
 
Calling it a shadow is perhaps too vague (or even incorrect) of a description: the whole room was dark, terribly so, but there was a part of it were the darkness seemed to acquire a blackness that was greater than on the rest of the room.
 
Yes, the darkness there had almost a positive quality, and the fact that it had a limited form seemed to imply that it represented some sort of great beast with a clear, although unhuman, shape. Crystal only took her eyes out of it when, instinctly recoiling from the unholy thing, she stepped into something. Looking down, she muffled a scream.
 
She had stepped into a very wet pair of glasses. Her self-defense teacher's.
 
"JASMINE, WE NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE!" Crystal screamed, moved suddenly into action and rushing towards her friend.
 
Her scream was like a signal for the awful, massive thing, and a pair of horrible red lights began flaring from the topmost part of the darkness that was darker than the rest of the room, like a pair of daemonical wil-o-wisps with terrible suggestions of eyes. Then the thing moved, barely making a sound.
 
It darted sluggisly towards Crystal, slow enough for Jasmine to have time to come between the businesswoman and this mysterious assailant.
 
"Get back, you stinking son of a bitch!" The model screamed, with a sailor's mouth that didn't fit her profession too well. "Touch her, and I'll kick your ass!"
 
"J-Jasmine, what are you doing?!" Crystal was in tears. "You can't fight this...thing! We have to run!"
 
"Come on, we're friends by now! You can call me Jas!" The model said with surprising calmness, smiling. "Besides, if we both try to run away, both of us will be caught. I rather stay here and fight. If I don't win, at least I'll buy you and everyone else's some time to escape!"
 
"W-What?! I can't leave you here!"
 
"Go, girl!" Jasmine pushed Crystal towards the door. "Stop wasting your precious time and go tell the others! I'll leave saving them to you!"
 
"J-Jas... I'm sorry..." Crystal was overwhelmed with tears, but she turned around and started running away. "Thank you! Thank you so much...!"
 
"Heh, this leaves just you and me, you fat fuck!" Jasmine grinned, prepare to fight to the last. "Something told me that I'd have to do this from the moment I heard that scream, I just didn't want to scare the others. Well, bring it on, I'll show you an angry model is harder to swallow than a self-defense teacher!"
 
A few moments later, running through the dark corridor, Crystal thought she heard a loud gulping sound coming from behind her, and her crying got more intense. She feared for her new friend, and feared for herself too, since Crystal felt like she had been running through an endless corridor that appeared much larger than when she crossed it before.
 
But soon she started seeing a light. Salvation! It was still just a distant glimmer, but she could tell that it was the room where the rest of the girls waited for their return! Or maybe the twenty minutes had already passed, and they were all returning home, to safety...
 
But the important thing was that she was getting closer. Crystal actually started laughing, and her tears of horror and despair became tears of joy. She actually streched her arm in the direction of the light, as if she intended to touch it in all of it's darkness-dispersing glory...
 
...before she felt a terrible cold pression around her torso. Looking down, she saw a thick, dark tentacle-like appendage grabbing her body just bellow her breasts. Her joy and relief disappeared and Crystal released a blood-curdling scream as her whole body was violently pulled backwards by the thing's revolting arm.
 
"Crystal! That was Crystal's scream!" Chloe jumped, startled.
 
"Let's go help her!" Susan said, readily, and Chloe seemed to share her feelings, although Julia was too scared to help.
 
But before the two women had time to leave the room, something massive squeezed it's bulking form into it, coming from the now pitch-black corridor. It first appeared like a greasy blackness that stood out from the corredor's darkness, but coming into the light, it was revelled to be much worse than a living shadow.
 
The thing was vaguely humanoid, although immensely corpulent and of a dark-red skin tone. It's head though had nothing humane about it, looking more like a mishapen frog fused with a fat hog or boar, a comparison made stronger by the fact that two teeth from the creature's lower jaw grew upwards and out of the mouth like a pair of spear-sized and grotesque tusks.
 
And speaking of it's mouth, it was so horridly wide that it would have betrayed the being's massive gluttony even if it wasn't for it's bloated gut or bulky figure. The thing was bipedal and walked on two thick legs ending on black hooves. For arms, the abomination had a pair of long and thick tentacles very similar to a devil-fish's, which it wriggled with obscene glee at the sight of the three shapely figures it had cornered like rats.
 
From the thing a horrid stench emanated, hurting the sense of smell with it's sheer strength, but worst of all was the beast's bloated mid-section, which moved slightly as if due to movements from within. The thing stared at the women with a pair of malicious red eyes before hiccuping loudly, and eventually, it finally announced:
 
"YES, TREMBLE IN FEAR, THOU FOOLISH MORTALS. FOR I AM THE GREAT FORMOG, DENIZEN OF THE NETHER 𝘽𝙊𝙊𝙊𝙊𝙊𝙊𝙊𝙊𝙊𝙐𝙐𝙐𝙐𝙐𝙐𝙐𝙐𝙍𝙋!" The massive demon shook the building with it's powerful belch, blasting and pushing backwards the women with a terribly hot wave of sour gas of a stench much worse than the hellish sulfur of the fiend's body. "ARG, SINFUL PASTS ALWAYS GIVE ME GAS, AND THAT BUSINESSWOMAN SURE HAD QUITE OF THE STORY."
 
Once the three beauties could stop covering their noses and stopped coughing, they started processing the situation. There clearly was a massive sort of monster in the room with them, so large it's horned head touched the ceiling even though the being's back wasn't exactly erect. It also talked, and by it's stuffed belly and words, it appeared to eat people.
 
"NOW, ONLY THE THREE OF YOU REMAIN, AND I NEED ONLY TO CHOSE THE ORDER OF MY FINAL FEAST..." The demon licked it's repulsive lips with a horrid tongue.
 
"I-I don't know what you are, but I won't let you touch my friends!" Susan stepped forward, scared but ready to fight. "And I'll make you spit everyone else too!"
 
"OH, ANOTHER SPUNKY MEAL! MY FAVORITES!" Formog grabbed a protesting Susan with one of his tentacle-arms and raised her from the floor. "AND HERE I THOUGHT THAT JASMINE GIRL FROM BEFORE WOULD BE THE ONLY ONE TO PUT UP A FIGHT!"
 
"O-Oh, he really got Jasmine and Crystal!" Julia started crying and covered her face in anguish. "And now he'll get us all!"
 
"Come Julia!" Chloe tried to drag the blonde alongside her, to no use. "Let's get out of here while the thing is distracted!"
 
"W-What? But Susan is...!"
 
"It's too late for her!" Chloe admitted, tears in her own eyes. She felt terrible about abandoning the friendly daycare worker, but there really was nothing they could do for her. "Let's go, don't be so hardheaded!"
 
No!" Julia resisted Chloe, refusing to leave. "I won't leave her behind! I'd rather stay here and be eaten too!"
 
Somehow, the dancer's sense of honour made Chloe feel ashamed of herself. The readhead feel to the floor, tired and tearful, accepting her fate alongside Julia.
 
"No! Don't!" Susan protested as the demon pulled her clothes away with his teeth, leaving her beautiful naked body completely exposed. "T-That's going too far!"
 
"STOP SQUIRMING, MORTAL! I ONLY WANT TO TASTE YOUR FLESH," Formog said before he started licking Susan's entire form, much to the shapely woman's shame and defeat. "HMMM, ESQUISITE. AND YOUR PURE SOUL SHALL GIVE LITTLE TROUBLE TO MY STOMACH!"
 
"Bleh!" Susan was covered in a disguting coating of smelly saliva that felt really slimy to the touch. She tried kicking herself free of the demon's grasp, but it was no use. "M-Maybe I should have tried taking a course on exorcisms instead of self-defense classes..."
 
"A LITTLE TOO LATE TO THINK ABOUT THAT, MORTAL," Formog commented before gulping down the entire brown girl with a single bite. "BUT IF IT SERVES AS ANY CONSOLATION, YOU WERE THE BEST THING I HAD IN AGES, AND YOUR MEATY BREASTS WERE JUST DIVI....DEMONIC."
 
"O-Oh Heavens!" Julia squealed as the tentacle went for her next. Meanwhile, Chloe cried on the floor, her spirit too broken by watching Susan's fate to try running away again.
 
"QUITE THE ATHLETIC MORTAL I'VE GOT HERE," Formog chuckled as he felt Julia's strength as she tried to free herself from the tentacle's coil. "STILL, YOU'RE NOT STRONG ENOUGH, GOLDEN-HAIRED MORSEL."
 
Having said that, the fiend started swallowing the dancer feet first. Julia cried and screamed and protested, but Chloe closed her eyes and covered her ears, trying to keep that horror away. Finally, a gelatinous belch announced that the deed was done. The readhead threw a quick glance at Formog and saw the demon's bulky form sluggisly approaching her. She closed her eyes again. She was next, and didn't want to see a thing before joining the others.
 
"OPEN UP YOUR EYES, MORTAL NAMED CHLOE," She heard the demon's disappointed voice. "SADLY, DELICIOUS AS YOU LOOK, YOU'RE NOT ON THE MENU...FOR NOW."
 
She opened her eyes and stared at the hellish giant and at his grotesquely swollen belly, from which faint muffled cries could be heard.
 
"W-What....? Why?"
 
"THE MAGICIAN WHO SUMMONED ME HAS GREATER PLANS FOR YOU. THEY MADE IT VERY CLEAR IN THEIR SINFUL HEART THAT NOTHING WAS TO HAPPEN TO YOU, UNLESS YOU REFUSE TO COME WITH ME. WHILE MY DUTY IS TO SERVE THE MAGICIAN'S WILL, I WON'T MIND AT ALL IF YOU REFUSE TO COME," Formog's tone and way of speaking seemed to be getting more and more casual the more he spoke. Perhaps even the denizens of the lower hells get tired of eloquence from time to time. "THINK ABOUT IT: A LOT OF YOUR FRIENDS ARE INSIDE ME, EVEN LAURIE. WOULDN'T YOU LIKE TO SEE THEM AGAIN?"
 
"YOU ATE LAURIE?!" The girl screamed in horror and anger. "Y-YOU SON OF A BITCH!"
 
Formog simply chuckled. He had no intention of devouring Chloe behind his summoner's back, of course, as it would only bring trouble. He still loved teasing those simple-minded and predictable mortals, though.
 
"SHE HAD A VERY UGLY HEART, WHICH OF COURSE, MADE HER DELICIOUS," The fiend smacked his lips, remembering Laurie's taste. "SHE'LL BE A TROUBLESOME WOMAN TO DIGEST FOR THE SAME REASON, THOUGH. BUT YOU DO SOUND VERY ANGRY: COULD IT BE THAT YOU'LL REFUSE TO COME WITH ME, THEN?!"
 
"N-No! I never said that!" Chloe shrank back, angry but not crazy enough to give up on this miraculous opportunity to save herself. "But if it was that 'magician' person who sent you here, then I'll kick their sorry ass for everyone's sake..."
 
"THAT'D BE VERY AMUSING TO WATCH, ALTHOUGH NOT VERY WISE ON YOUR PART. I PROBABLY SHOULD TAKE THIS OPPORTUNITY TO SHOW YOU WHAT COULD BE YOUR FATE IF YOU GET ON THE MAGICIAN'S BAD SIDE."
 
Having said that, Formog closed his eyes and his stomach became louder and louder, until a hellish cacophony filled the entire room. Infernal heat of growing intensity also started to emanate from the massive gut, as the muffled screams and protests from inside multiplied too.
 
Then came thunderous, disgusting sounds of suggestive wetness, and the belly started to rapidly shrink.
 
"𝘽𝙊𝙊𝙊𝙊𝙊𝙊𝙊𝙊𝙊𝙊𝙐𝙐𝙐𝙐𝙐𝙐𝙐𝙐𝙐𝙐𝙐𝙍𝙋!" The demon was overwhelmed by an explosion of gas that almost sent Chloe flying away with it's storm-like power. Then, loud sucking sounds started coming from Formog's body, and Chloe was horrified when she understood ther meaning.
 
The monster grinned at the redhead's horror and slowly squatted, moving his disgusting form rather awkwardly. Then, from between his demonic cheeks, it came like a trumpet out of hell:
 
 
𝙋𝙁𝙁𝙁𝙁𝙁𝙁𝙁𝙁𝙏𝙏𝙏𝙏𝙏𝙏𝙏𝙏𝙏𝙏𝙏𝙏𝙏𝙏𝙏𝙏𝙏𝙏𝙏𝙏𝙏𝙏𝙏𝙏𝙏𝙏!
 
 
"YOUR FRIEND LAURIE'S DOING, NO DOUBT," Formog chuckled, while Chloe closed her nose with a mix of hatred and fear. Then, the fiend concentrated and a thick log of shit started being released from his bulky body.
 
Chloe almost felt like crying again as she watched what seemed to be a neverending pile of manure grow and grow. By the time Formog was sighing at the conclusion of his awful work, the readhead was staring at a sulfur-stinking mound way bigger than her own body. Her spirit was broken alright.
 
"DON'T LOOK SO IMPRESSED, THAT'S AN AVERAGE SIZED DUMP FOR A DEMON MY SIZE," Formog felt the need to defend the honour of his bowels, always prideful, as most if not all demons are. "YOU SHOULD HAVE SEEN ME IN THE PAST...BUT I DIGRESS. MORTAL NAMED CHLOE, ARE YOU READY TO COME WITH ME, OR WOULD YOU RATHER JOIN YOUR FRIENDS?"
 
"I'll...go..." Was the readhead's meak answer, her eyes wide and her face pale.
 
"VERY WELL, THEN. LET US GO, FOR THE MAGICIAN WAITS," The demon grabbed Chloe with one of it's appendages, and although it felt terribly awful to the touch, the redhead didn't make a sound or had any reaction. Not even when the pair started to disappear in a cloud of hellish supernatural smoke did she react in any way whatsoever.
 
And once woman and demon were gone, the building where the self-defense classes took place was left empty of life, permanently covered by a strong stench and with one of it's room's occupied by a mountain of manure that almost reached the ceiling. That'd be a mystery that never would be solved, although many an occultist would have strong opinions on what really took place there.
 
 
...
 
 
Chloe fell into a hard floor, coughing hard and with burning nostrils. Her whole body was slightly numb and her mind was a mess. Turns out being transported between places by a demon was a terrible experience.
 
"Holy shit!" She heard a male, surprised voice that she thought she recognized. "Formog kept his promise!"
 
Her eyes took some time to adjust to the dim room, but when they did, she recognized the man in front of her and was cured instantly of her stupor.
 
"ROBERT! YOU MOTHERFUCKER!" Chloe jumped from the floor, blushing with anger. "OF COURSE IT HAD TO BE YOU, YOU PRICK!"
 
She tried to rush against him, to beat him into a pulp, but fell on her knees, still too tired from the stress and from her supernatural journey. Still, tears of hate filled her eyes.
 
"Calm down, will you? No need to scream," Robert Whateley said smugly, a sardonic smile on his face. His eyes burned with the flames of wicked triumph. He could get used to this feeling. "I always knew we'd make a great pair, you and I, but sadly, you never noticed it before. So I called upon some... supernatural agencies to help you understand."
 
"You bastard...he ate them all...even Laurie..."
 
"Well, he's not called Formog the Engorger for nothing, is he?" Was Robert's nonchalant reply. "But it's not like you need any lame friends or a self-defense class anymore. I'm here for you now."
 
"B-Bastard! I'll break your face if you..."
 
"Now, now, be a nice girl. You wouldn't want me to call upon Formog again, would you? He's a bottomless well when it comes to women as beautiful as yourself..."
 
Chloe froze, then started trembling, traumatic memories flooding her mind. The Whateleys really never played fair.
 
"N-No! Please, I beg of you!"
 
"That's better," Robert smile became friendly, but it was still a wicked sight to behold. His confidence had never been so strong before. He felt like nothing could stop him. "Let's see if you're really going to behave yourself: Chloe, would you give me the pleasure of being my girlfriend?"
 
"You warlock, piece of s..."
 
"Formog! Formog!" Robert pretended to call on the demon in a dramatic voice. "Want some dessert?!"
 
"O-Okay! I accept! Please, be my boyfriend!" The redhead begrudglingly gave in.
 
"How I waited for this moment!" The creepy wizard gave his new beautiful girlfriend a hug and a passionate kiss. "Don't worry, babe, you won't regret chosing me from your own free will..."
 
Chloe just gulped, reflecting if she had really made the right call on refusing to become part of the pile of shit where most of her friends were.