You have to get a good night's sleep so you pick to sleep in the burrow. You enter. You find a nice clean part of the straw nest and curl up into a ball to sleep. You are just about to drift off when suddenly you hear the sound of something entering the den. You jump up and get in a defensive position. A purple head with two yellow eyes with black slits pokes its head in the burrow entrance. Oh no, it's an ekans. This is bad. It looks just as surprised to see you as you are of it.
A feminine lispy voice comes from the ekans, "what a nice surprise. I come home to a midnight snack." There's no way an ekans made this burrow. "You probably thought you were safe in here. So did the previous residents." It probably ate all the rattata then made this it's home. You feel so dumb now.
She continues, "I've been stalking that eevee for a few days now. She likes to come to the stream in the morning. She was going to be my breakfast, but it looks like I've had a change of plans. A pika inside my coils is hard to pass up. It's never disappointed before."
"Get back! I'll shock you," you warn the hungry predator.
"Oh, it's worth a couple shocks to get some pika-meat in my gullet." It starts slithering in the den.
"Pika-CHu," oh no, you're still too tired to shock. You are defenseless.
The ekans winces expecting a shock but when it sees you're out of juice, it smiles. "Oh my, I don't even have to pay for my dinner in pain? This is my lucky night."
You growl in a vain attempt to scare the snake but it knows you are helpless meat, ripe for the plucking. It comes closer and opens its maw. Its breath reeks of previously digested rotten meat. The smell alone strikes fear into your tiny heart. You scream for help, "pika-pi!" Two fangs jut out of the roof of the ekans mouth, shooting streams of venom from the tips. She lunges toward her future meal. You try to jump out of the way but there is not a lot of room in the burrow. One of the fangs sinks deep in your hind leg.
"CHAAAAAA," you scream in pain. Searing pain starts in your leg and slowly works its way around your bloodstream. Your own heart works against you, pushing the venom to all parts of your body. The ekans retracts its head to the entrance, blocking any hope of escape.
The ekans smiles and flicks its tongue towards you, enjoying the smell of its poisoned victim. You pace the back of the burrow trying to stay standing. The initial pain has subsided and is now replaced with a warm buzzing feeling all over, making you want to lay down and rest. If you fall, you've given up and the ekans will move in to finish you. It can't end here, can it? You maintain walking for a couple minutes, clinging onto a hope that someone will interrupt your killer, but suddenly, your body gives out and collapses on the ground. You lay there dazed and mumbling, "pika-pika." You are about to give up but you think to yourself, 'can't give up yet, Thunder Mountain.' You pick yourself back up slowly and keep pacing the back of the burrow, now limping. The poison slowly works its magic, transforming a strong willed pikachu into easy pickings for a hungry predator.
The ekans just sits there, enjoying watching its meal struggle for its life. She coos softly, "come on pikachu, give into the venom. Let it consume you, so I can too."
The warm buzz fades and is replaced by the feeling of being ill, a lot like having the flu. Your legs become shaky. You do all you can to stay up but soon your legs give way and you fall face first into the burrow's straw floor. You try to get back up but it's over now. The poison has rendered you feeble.
"P-please... let me... go," you weakly plead with the ekans. It comes closer and nudges you with its head. Its tongue flicks all around your tender body.
She whispers in your ear, "I love seeing a pikachu laid low. A pikachu with no electricity is just a plumper juicer rattata. I'm going to enjoy this. Let's take this outside so we have a little more room to get you into a more... snug burrow." She pulls her head from the entrance. Soon a yellow tail rattler comes in and wraps around your back leg. It drags you into the night. You are pulled from the burrow under the weight of all her writhing coils. You fight but she is so heavy. The ekans works the coils around your soft body, squeezing you tenderly until you are wrapped up tight. Your head pokes out from the coils and is the only thing visible. You just lay in the coils limp, soon you'll be on the other side of them. She doesn't have to squeeze hard to keep her prize from going anywhere.
The ekans tells you, "Your muscles may not resist your fate now but those pesky joints need to loosen up." She tightens the coils and squeezes hard.
Your eyes feel like they are going to pop out and you let out a breathless quiet, "chaaaa." Four loud pops ring out in the space of a few seconds. It has dislocated your shoulders and your hips. It could easily crush your bones and end you right there, but it relaxes it's coils to let you breathe. The ekans is playing with you. You go limp again, resting your head on the ekans coil. You are so weak and helpless. Thunder Mountain seems so far away now.
"No more obstacles stopping the pretty pikachu from sliding down easily." She relaxes the coils and lays you on your back.
You are too weak to move. You try and scream but all that comes out is a pathetic, "pika-pi."
The ekans lays out straight and slithers up to your back legs. She rises up and flicks you with her tongue starting at your tail. She takes her time working her way up your body flicking every inch of you. She is taste testing you and judging by the look on her face she likes what she tastes.
"Mmmm, so young and tender. Just the way I like them. I like to nickname my pikachu. Do you mind if I call you Meatball? It only seems fitting."
You don't respond. It was rhetorical anyway. Responding would just give her pleasure. You can't stop yourself from crying though. Tears stream down your face and an occasional sniffle comes from your nose. Why does it have to end like this?
She flicks your salty tears from your cheeks. "Thanks for salting my meal, Meatball," she taunts. You lay there powerless unable to stop your killer. After she's done enjoying your scent she slithers over your body between your legs and over your face. She stops about two thirds of the way down her length.
"Your body will rest right about here. You will be a squirming lump as my acids break your tender meat down. My stomach muscles are so strong that, once softened, your meat will be pulled off the bone. Then even your bones will melt away. See, we ekans use every part of the Pokémon. None of you will be wasted. Find solace in that, Meatball." She continues to slither up your body, "once turned into a fine paste, your nutritious soup will travel through me, turning you into useful energy and snake scales. And your journey will end here." She stops where her sphincter is right over your face. She slithers off you. Is this really going to be your fate? It feels so wrong. You set out to be an adventurer not a meal, but it looks like you don't have much say in the matter. The will of the more powerful snake is now the only thing determining your destiny and she wants you for dinner.
The end of her tail flips you over on your stomach. You look up to see the ekans slithering towards you. She opens her maw wide. Her jaws crack as she dislocates them to accommodate a big pikachu head. The pinkish red gullet drips with strands of saliva, preparing to welcome a pikachu dinner. A site for many a pikachu that was their last and now, yours too. You enter her maw headfirst. It is clammy on the inside and cool like the night air. Your head smacks into the back of the throat, everything goes dark. She rotates her head around trying to get a better grip, taking you in slowly. She takes the back of her coil and drapes it over your back, anchoring you in place.
Soon, enough of the circumference of the head is in the gullet so that powerful slimy muscles can get a good grip and start easily pulling you deeper. Adrenaline fills you and you muster all your strength to struggle. You squirm but to no use.
*glp-glp-glp*
Each gulp takes more of you into the tight tomb. Every inch taken makes it easier to swallow as more muscles can work together, forcing their yellow meal deeper. Before long the ekans is to your mid-section. Your legs and tail dangle outside of your predator's maw. You can feel her pick her head up and tilt it to the sky. With the path to the gut now straight, she gulps powerfully. Your hips bend back unnaturally and crackle. The rest slides down the gullet fast.
The ekans stops its meal's descent and lowers her head, parallel to the ground. Now in the tight throat, you can hear the ekans cold blooded heart beating calmly, as if to say this is normal for her. You are just the most recent meat in a long line of meals that came before. Now, all that is left in her mouth are two twitching pika-paws, still fighting for their lives in vain, and a yellow heart tipped tail. The tail is now the only visible evidence, to a would-be observer, of the ekans’ meal’s gender and species. The ekans flicks her tongue over your paws, tickling them and slathering them in thick saliva. She smacks her lips savoring your flavor. She opens her mouth wide and gulps one last time. The rings of concentric muscles tighten and contract, pulling their Electric-type victim deeper towards its final resting place. You struggle as hard as you can, but between the poison and the dislocated joints, you just make little ripples in her coils. The tail disappears into the maw, and the now empty mouth lets out a hiss, declaring victory.
With the tail gone, a would-be observer now could not tell what exactly the ekans managed to get a hold of. Only that the ekans did capture a small plump something or other, made visible by an amorphous lump sliding freely down purple coils. To the outside world, and more horribly to yourself, your identity is now gone. You're just another exchange of flesh up the food chain, indistinguishable from another.
Like a wave, the coils tighten behind you, quickly forcing you down the tight slimy tunnel. After only a few seconds, you come to a stop. You're in the stomach of a predator. Your journey now over, no Thunder Stone here, just a cold squishy grave. Something scratches your side, probably a claw or tooth of a previous occupant. It smells so bad that you throw up and your acids join the ekans' in helping break you down. However, the stomach barely moves and only a small pool of acid burns your belly. It's not digesting you, yet. Out of options, defeated and demoralized, you cry one tear. It is all the energy you have left to do. You are ekans food now.
You can hear the ekans' coils slide smoothly across the dewy grass and with it, your body swishes back and forth, flowing in tandem with the graceful movements of your devourer. She crosses the stream and then back on to grass. Soon, the sounds of moving grass are replaced by the gripping of a ruff woody surface. You are pushed face first against the tight end of the stomach. She must be climbing a tree to digest her meal in peace. You slosh back to the center of the gut as she slithers on to a branch. She starts spiraling around a limb making you nauseous. She comes to a halt suddenly and then you free fall for a couple feet then are stopped, suspended in air. You are being cradled in a U shape. A force begins rocking you back and forth gently.
A voice rings from within the snake's gut, "good, my little Meatball. Right where you should be. Up high in a tree where we can spend some intimate quality time. A perfect place for an impeccable pikachu picnic." She giggles at her own self-indulgent alliteration, squeezing the stomach around you. The predator is not content with just claiming victory and consuming its prize. It also feels the need to tease its victim. You wish she would just let you die in peace but just like her eating you, you don't have much say. "Does it feel nice to be wrapped up tight in your hammock?"
To be honest, it kind of does. It reminds you of how your mother would swaddle you after you first hatched but instead of warm and loving, it's cold and killing. It's a veritable living hell in the ekans gut. Most of the air swallowed with you is used up and reeks of previously melted guests. The poison makes you feel ill. The flu-like symptoms intensify as the venom further weakens its prey. To make matters worse, it's so cold in the snake's gut, you might as well be sleeping outside covered in slimy water. Each beat of the ekans’ heart whisks away her blood that captured some of your heat and brings in new cold blood for you to warm. You shiver trying to heat your dying body. The combination of these horrible factors means you only have a few miserable minutes left in this world.
The ekans continues to taunt its catch, "I'm sorry Meatball, I can't start turning you into goop yet. It's too cold out tonight. I usually like meals to have a gurgly death, but you'll have to wait till the morning to become ekans meat. You'll be dead long before then but let's enjoy your last moments together, huh? I like to spend this time getting to know my prey. Tell me, did you have friends and family that cared for you?"
"Pika-pi-pika," you babble nonsense. You've completely gone feral. Something about your fate has made you crazy. Maybe it's the lack of fresh air, the poison eating holes in your brain, or your body going into hypothermia from the cold. Or, worse yet, maybe it's your mind, once stripped of your identity, of hope, reverting back to a primal state, accepting its role as snake food. Whatever it is, your very being, drenched in the acids of despair, is melting long before your body will succumb to the acid of a stomach.
"What was that, my sweet little Meatball? Did you say something? All I heard was muffled rambling. To be fair, it doesn't matter what food has to say anyways. If you had friends or family, they wrote you off as dead as soon as you stepped outside their little territory. They'll forget about you as soon as I will. Nothing but another lost kin to them and nothing but another simple meal to me. You're not the first. How do you think we ekans got this long? It wasn't just from eating rattata. Plenty of adventurous pikachu have ended their journey nestled snugly in a sinewy tube. I don't know why you thought you would be any different. In fact, you were much easier than the other's. They shocked me at least once, but you went down so easily, a nice little meatball. Adventurers always taste better too. You can almost taste their dreams being suddenly crushed by the cold hard reality that they are just weak flesh, meant to be extracted for nourishment then excreted to make room for the next worthless meat bag."
"Pi-pika-pi." You are so weak now your eyelids start to close. Cold, so cold, you shiver harder. All you can do is focus on trying to get warm. Her mocking is just background noise.
"Cold, little Meatball? If it makes you feel better, you're heating my cold blood nicely, such a good little gut warmer. I'm lucky to have gotten a hold of such a plump little rodent before some other predator did. Don't worry, I'll put your energy to better use than you would have. Maybe that eevee will get squeezed by the same muscle that you'll help power."
"Piiii..." Your eyes close and you start to shiver less. These are your final moments. You try and fight a feeling that has been growing in you ever since you first gave into the poison. Now, just like the venom, the feeling is taking hold of you. No, she can take your body and your mind but you can't let her have that too. It's all you have left. You suppress the feeling with all your will.
"Awww, It's okay, my tasty Meatball. Snake eats mouse, it's a tale as old as time. Out there right now, in this big ole world, is another ekans and its pikachu meatball having the same conversation we are. It's only natural, our relationship. They say there's no shame in being eaten. It's only right that weak Pokémon, like yourself, feed the better. Me, I try to avoid it, but you seem to embrace it with open arms. Don't lie to yourself, no point this close to death. If you didn't want to get turned into belly mush, why did you leave your tribe?" She's waiting for you to respond. "Meatball? ... Meatball?"
You don't say anything, you can't anymore. Long gone are your faculties for speech. Your body gives up trying to keep its core organs warm and instead floods your extremities with intense warmth. It feels so good to go from freezing to warm that you start drifting off to sleep, this time for good.
As your body gives in to death, so does your will to the feeling. You accept your scaly prison as the true purpose of your life. All of your short life was leading up to this very moment. Finding a Thunder Stone was just a delusion designed to bring a tasty meal to a hungry predator. You were meant to feed this ekans and to fulfil your true destiny brings peace to your soul. The ekans' victory over the once ambitious pikachu is now total. She has claimed your body, your mind and your spirit, as her prize. All of which you resist giving to her but now give gladly. She did win them fair and square, after all. Her will and yours are melding together and soon, so too your bodies.
Something is rocking you back and forth gently. Now, with your senses dulled and will subjugated, the ekans' swaddling coils do feel like your mother's embrace, so warm and loving. The coils do love you, even if for all the wrong reasons but you're just glad something cares for you as you approach death. Before it seemed so wrong to be eaten, to have your life cut short in such a degrading manner, but now you're happy. Like the ekans said, there's no shame in becoming food for a more powerful Pokémon. It's only natural. As you fade, a peace washes over you.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Meatball? ... Meatball?" The ekans is wrapped tight around a limb of her favorite tree. Her center hangs down in a U shape and at the bottom a prey's impression. She pokes the tiny bulge with her tail. The pika-meal swings gently locked tight in its soon to be liquefier. The lump is still and silent. Looks like the pikachu finally died, shame. She can tell by the warmth radiating from the warm blooded dinner. When prey dies, especially on cold nights like tonight, their little bodies release all their heat at death. Feels good but it won't last long, the pikachu is already growing cold.
The ekans sighs. It was too easy, but it was still delicious. She likes when she has to stalk the prey for days, learning their routines, their weaknesses and when they are alone. Then setting up in the perfect spot and striking. Makes it more of a challenge but sometimes the tastiest snacks come easy. As the night cools and so the pikachu, the ekans metabolic rate slows to a point of near hibernation. She lays her head down on the limb and quickly falls into a slumber.
The lethargic snake wakes up the next morning. Groggy from the cold night and a full stomach, she yawns. She smacks her lips and the rich savory flavor of a former adventurer is brought back to the tongue, reminding her of last night's yummy grub.
Pikachu are always fun to eat. Definitely worth a shock or two and even better when they are too tired to fight, like this little one. Eating rattata and pidgey gets tiresome but a pikachu is a nice reprieve from the normal belly warmers. They are so fat and tender and they way they melt in the stomach, amazing. Sometimes a tiny electrical shock tickles the stomach as their cheeks turn into mush.
But the best part of eating a pikachu, by far, is putting them in their place. They are so fun to tease. She doesn't even bother talking to rattata and pidgey. For them it's in the coils, in the mouth then to the stomach. A very professional efficient exchange. Everyday, they live their lives on edge, never but one misstep from death. They know a maw is likely their end and when they see one coming to finish them, they've already made their peace. No fun in mocking that. It would be like a caterpie making fun of a leaf it is eating.
Pikachu, however, think themselves above the gut, that somehow they are special. Maybe it's their relatively low number of deaths. They stick together, form tribes and patrol their territory. No ekans, or most any other predator for that matter, with half a brain would go near a pikachu's territory. That doesn't mean a pikachu won't end up in an ekans' coils. The safety of their territory breeds complacency. Then stupid little pikachu leave, not realizing how dangerous it is out in the wild. Maybe they leave because they were exiled, looking for a mate or trying to find a Thunder Stone. It doesn't matter, they all end the same. It's just a question of which predator gets the honor of teaching them where they belong on the food chain.
The ekans is under no hypocritical delusions of where she is on the food chain. She is much wiser than an average pikachu. She spends most of her days looking up, making sure not to be in the open if a pidgeotto is nearby. One day, hopefully far in the future, one will catch her and it will be her turn to be the digested. That is the way of the forest, no sense in trying to deny it. She lives for the moment and this moment, she's enjoying an easy come pika filled stomach.
The ekans picks up her head and looks at the little motionless lump and gives it a poke. It's softened a little but only due to the poison tenderizing the meat. The ekans' gut will have to do the rest of the work. The stomach hasn't even started the process of making it pudge. The ekans can't wait till summer gets here. That way she can hunt and digest all night long. This was probably one of the last cool spring nights of the season.
The sun is starting to rise. The ekans looks across the stream and sees the eevee come down to watch the sunrise. She's lucky it's the pikachu that is inside her right now and not it. If she's still around in a couple days, after the pikachu is digested, she will be the next victim. After her? Maybe the human girl she's with. Talk about meat that doesn't know their place, humans. No claws, no talons, no fangs, just fleshy meat bags begging to be eaten. They rely on their intelligence and their numbers to not become prey, a lot like the pikachu in that regard. The ekans has always dreamed of teaching a human the same lesson she taught this stupid pikachu. She's probably just big enough to swallow the girl. The ekans imagines slithering into the warm tent then, about a half hour later, slithering back into the forest with a full shapely belly. A meal like that would last a week.
A sun beam peaks over a far away hill and lands right on the ekans stomach. She's digested many prey, including quite a few pikachu, on this very branch and knows exactly where the warm sunlight hits.
*grrrrrr-GRMP*
"Sssssss..." she lets out a hiss in pleasure. So the meal starts. The warmth activates her metabolism and the stomach churns and fills with bone melting acids. Time to turn this worthless electric rodent into breakfast. She looks down at the lump, it's pushed and pulled by powerful muscles up and down in the U shape. She opens her maw wide. "URRRP..." the contracting stomach forces a large amount of air out of the gut, flying with it strands of saliva and yellow fur. It taste strongly of dead pikachu, yummy. She giggles, "excuse me, Meatball. I swallowed a lot of air to make sure you lived as long as possible." She wishes the pikachu was still alive to be apart of this process but the ekans takes her victories as they come. She yawns again. Meals make her sleepy. Catching them is easy, it's all that hard work breaking them down that really saps the energy. She'll remain in the tree until she's free of her extra weight. She lays her head back down and dozes off, listening to the pleasant gurgles of a pikachu's digestion dance. Always a welcomed sound to an ekans.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thus ending your story. You are a softening sack of meat inside an ekans. A classic way to go for a pikachu. Over the next two days, your lump is turned to mush and absorbed by the ekans. Nothing but scat is left after she's finished using up the nutritious parts of your tasty body. You helped her add about one one-hundredth of an inch to her length. You become just another tiny notch in the burgeoning evidence of her hunting prowess. Like the ekans mentioned, you are forgotten by the tribe and even by her as just another easy meal.You leave no legacy, but hey, at least you learned an important lesson about just where you belong on the food chain.
