This couldn't be happening. There were too many of them, emerging as sinuous emissaries of death from the serene blue of the infinite ocean, moving cleverly to surround her trembling, pinned body with speed Adelle had not known their species to possess. What had changed in these monsters, such that their foremost aim when faced with the threat of a hunter was to feed upon them, feed with intent beyond the mere hunger and inborn aggression that had driven them before? Already the nearest Ludroth, her thick claws pierced deep into the maiden's shoulder, loomed close with drooling jaws half-parted and the primal scent of raw meat hot on her breath; this hunter was hers, and she would not relinquish her prey. Adelle could see the sick resolve behind her wild azure eyes-- perhaps even a glint of haughty pride, the assurance of victory. That gaze mocked her.
Look at you. You're helpless before me, little human. You hunters think of us as lowly, the fodder of the sea in comparison to our alpha males, in comparison to the great lightning dragon and the angler-fish... but now you belong to us. It is you who is lowly now...~
Adelle lurched, squirming and twisting beneath the Ludroth's weight, her ragged breath filling the cloudless sky with desperate, shivering screams for want of mercy, needing someone to hear her crying out, anyone, anything-- she couldn't die like this, without having even struggled to purge the land of what she now realized was an honest and serious threat to mankind. She couldn't possibly be that useless...
Her convoluted thoughts consumed by panic, her amber eyes began to deny the sick reality playing out in front of her: the Ludroth's slick maw sprawling open to encompass the entirety of her vision, her world submerging itself in soft, shivering flesh and the gnawing of ivory teeth blanched faintly with yellow. The warm slather of a broad tongue cupped Adelle's chin, blanketing layers of clingy saliva across her color-drained complexion, muffling the shrieks erupting from her lungs as the strength of will behind them diminished; her vocal cords were aching and hoarse, the breaths she drew in saturated with vile moisture that threatened to choke her as it clogged the inside of her heaving chest.
This creature... was it truly swallowing her? Ludroths had always been proclaimed to be "small" monsters, but this was only a result of their constant comparison to the towering beasts and winding sea-serpents whose sizes were easily ten times that of a man; the average Ludroth still exceeded a dozen feet in length, their serpentine forms described as lithe and flexible without contest. Adelle neglected to even allow the possibility of one of them consuming a human whole and alive to cross into her wildest dreams until that possibility was suddenly staring her in the face, the blistering, clenching tunnel of the beast's gullet stretching painstakingly open for her, wordlessly beckoning her presence with its shimmering pink walls. A shiver bolted down her spine, another scream welled inside her-- only for her to feel a thick wave of pressure squeeze down along her skull, the squelch of hungry flesh smothering her ears as her head was forced beyond the Ludroth's jaws and into the tight, kneading embrace of her throat.
Inhaling had become a non-option for Adelle in the hideous pause between breaths, her ribcage constrained viciously as the leviathan swallowed again, crunching her shoulders between her deceptively-powerful jaws. The Ludroth's body, adapted and limber as it was, still was not intended to imbibe something this large in one piece. Her instincts would never previously have compelled her to even attempt it, but the coy whispers drifting amongst the ocean's constant residents had not eluded her or her sisters; humans, and hunters specifically, were meant to be eaten. They were small and fragile beneath their armor, their steel. Again her throat pulsed, the smooth muscles within working in diligent rhythm to pull their cargo to its inevitable destination, indifferent to the crackling of Adelle's bones within their limited confines.
Slowly but surely, the human's trembling, twitching shell vanished into an abyss of plush, rippling wetness, swelling the beast's lengthy neck with warm pressure that squirmed insistently as Adelle struggled in vain for even the slightest inkling of purchase. Every movement seemed to constrict the kneading walls tighter, her fidgeting inciting another deep swallow to tug at her and quell her increasingly-muted efforts at escape. What... what was left for her to do? She strained, the last traces of energy brimming in her muscles-- and yet it wasn't enough, not nearly enough to even injure the creature devouring her alive, hardly causing her to even falter between steady, labored swallows. The heat crept into her bones, sinking beneath her soaked skin and draining the will from her crippled consciousness, her hopes and ideals splintered beneath nature's cruel heel. Quavering thighs nicked against the points of fangs worn from the meat of countless meals, followed quickly by purple-draped calves and toes half-curled in meager, thoughtless resistance. One last heavy, silky wave of force arched against her, and the valiant damsel's slender form disappeared entirely behind the Ludroth's jaws.
Her sisters watched with mild intrigue as the aching bulge in her gullet heaved into the crushing hug of her belly, weighing her down as she curled her slim tail with what might have resembled, to the scrutinizing eye, a satisfied smirk. Though her body lay sore and exhausted from enduring such toil, her innards hummed with bliss incomparable. It had been so long since she'd felt full like this. Human hunters were fools to assume their superiority... but at least they were delicious fools, a fact she was now incapable of denying. She would have no choice but to spread the word, just as the word had been spread to her.
Sealed within, Adelle shivered-- for she was unable to do any more than that, her soft groans muffled behind layers of living, breathing flesh. She would not live to see another hour, her last fragments of oxygen already squeezed from behind the safety of her ribs and the cruel nip of gastric acid searing her ankles. She wouldn't even live to feel more than a feathery ghost of the anguish that was to come, the inevitable dissolution of her succulent flesh and sweet, tender organs into a viscous soup of nutrients, fueling one of the very beasts she had sought to destroy.
What a pathetic failure. In her final moments, that was all she could consider herself.
