The next day, when the alarm went off, Ann didn’t even bother to check it up, she just lied in bed, curled in a ball with her eyes shut.

Her hunger didn’t go down; if anything, her “late night snack” only worsened it. She needed a much, much more substantial meal to get rid of that creeping, relentless and awful feeling.

She felt so starved and hungry that she felt light headed all the time, with frequent headaches; it was as if a demon was gnawing at her sanity, whispering in her ear words dripping with malicious intent.

But right now, another matter was compromising her already crumbling self.

The fact that that night she crushed and ate a living, breathing person, was like an oppressive, ominous judgement that she could not shake off.

No matter how she tried to not think about it, in the end her mind returned to it. Then, she tried not to think at all, cutting contact with the present.

But the real world was not going to be ignored that easily.

She felt something poke the back of her neck, and she slowly and carefully rolled to the other side, noticing Al standing right in front of her face. He looked deadly serious. 

“Do you feel unwell?” He asked

“Yeah, a little bit” she answered, with a weak smile.

“I see, that’s a shame. Well, something happened this night, you should come and see for yourself"

Her smile vanished. Then a slow, growing feeling of dread grabbed her by the neck. Did they find blood anywhere? No, she was sure to be thorough, and triple-checked the whole room. Then, they noticed they were one short?  

Panicked thoughts swirled in her head as she got up and slowly walked to the box,  carrying Al in her hand. 

What she saw in there, however, wasn’t what she expected.

First, she noticed that the tinies were particularly noisy. Her confusion grew when she saw a single tiny in a corner, surrounded by the rest of them.

Looking a bit better, she could see that he was a bit late in his thirties, quite chubby and was hiding his face, curled up in a ball. He looked a in a bad shape, with a lot of bruises on his body.

Ann asked, upset  “What happened? Did you guys do this?” 

Dan, still in her hand, looked up to her and said “This disgusting pig is a pedophile. I saw him this night trying to rape a kid”

For a second, she felt relieved that she wasn’t discovered, but she quickly changed mood. She always held deep disgust for child rapists, but now she had one just in front of her.

The tiny seemed to sense her hateful eyes burning through him, and scooted even closer to the box wall. After a few seconds, Al added “We were just going to decide what to do with him. You were the only one left we needed for the poll”

She slowly nodded. Then, as suggested by Niel, she carried out of the box the defendant and trapped him under the flipped glass; she wasn’t gentle, as testified by his yelps of pain when she threw him on the floor.

Al coughed to get everyone’s attention “Now we’ll begin the trial” he paused “I already explained what i saw, now the other witnesses will speak”

A few tinies stepped ahead and stated that they all saw him multiple times talking with that particular kid, but nothing much else.

Then the victim was accompanied to talk as well. Ann noticed he was the youngest one, and felt sorry for him

Al, on her shoulder, whispered in her ear “we tried to keep the kids out of this, right now they’re playing in your shoes. His name is Tim, he’s really young so he must have had a hard time processing what happened. Or was going to happen, luckily i stopped him in time”

Al got down with the help of Ann and asked a quick few questions to the child:

“Did that guy try to approach you these days? Answer with yes or no” 

The little kid looked nervous, as he was in front of this many people and the giant blonde girl “Yes”

“Did he try to attract you, giving you food for example?” 

“… yes”

“Did he talk to you for a lot of time? Did he ever touch you? Did he ever mention he liked children?”

“Yes…yes and yes”

Al paused “i have no more questions”

The kid took courage, and it seemed he wanted to say something, but his weak voice was submerged by a sea of angry shouts and insults, and he was quickly accompanied to the other kids.

When the noise stopped, Al spoke again “Now, we’ll cast the vote” He paused for a few seconds “Who believes that he’s innocent, raise your hand”

He scanned the group. A few ones looked uneasy, and some of them even tried moving, but angry glances from other tinies quickly discouraged them. 

Between them, Rick was in the middle of the group, with a strange look on his face, and Dan in the back, looking down.

Al waited for a few seconds, and said “Who believes he’s guilty, raise your hand” 

A roar of voices shot up, and the vote looked almost unanimous. He noted that both Dan and Ann raised their hands, but Rick didn’t.

After the clamor died down, Al announced “Now we’ll decide what to do with him. The choices are, we either keep him alive and seclude him somehow, for the rest of his days…”

A lot of people seemed not keen on the idea

“… or we sentence him to death”  A lot of faces nodded in approval, but others looked worried.

Rick was astonished. Not only his friend was openly proposing to commit murder, but the vast majority of the crowd seemed to agree with him.

Al had always been the most charismatic of them, and it went just natural for him to manipulate people, but this was beyond words.

It looked like he was the spark that lit the sea of repressed feelings of the tiny prisoners, their pent up anxiety and fear bursting in an event of mass bloodlust, directed to a single scapegoat.

The vote turned the defendant into a condemned, even if Rick’s vote was against it. What shocked him was that even Ann and Dan voted in favor, even if the latter looked a bit hesitant.

A few voices arose from the crowd, when the vote was finished. From among them, one asked “How will we execute him?"

Al cleared his throat, and announced with a stern look on his face “I think that we should have Ann eat him”.

The chatter instantly stopped. Maybe it was a bit much. But a low murmur of approval slowly arose from the group, eventually turning into a open roar of agreement.

Al smiled: he didn’t even need to use the poll.

Ann was unsettled by the decision. She always believed that death penalty for child rapists was a right thing, but that she didn’t expect they wanted her to kill him.

Besides, she wasn't sure she would be able to pull off something like that... again.

They looked at her, their eyes demanding for blood. She picked up Al and said to him with a worried look on her face “i’m not sure i can do this… i mean, i can’t kill a person, let alone EAT him, you know how i am right?” 

Al smiled reassuringly and said “Don’t worry, it’s for your own good. You’re hungry right? At least that piece of garbage will be good for something. Trust me, you’ll just make the world a favor by making him disappear”.

Ann looked at him, then at the rest of the group, and thought about her empty stomach. Then, she slowly nodded. 

So, she put Al down and got up. Before heading to the glass where the condemned was kept, she turned and said “You might want to look away. It won’t be pretty”

The blonde girl walked to the trapped tiny, taking her time. She noticed he was standing now, his back on the wall of the glass, gazing terrified at her. Apparently, he knew what was coming.

She slowly raised her bare foot and tipped over the glass with it, and the tiny sprinted to flee. Still, from Ann’s perspective, he was extremely slow.

She watched in disgust his pathetic attempt, and slowly took a step forward. The little man saw the enormous, pale and slightly dirty bottom of her foot hover above him as he ran, and he cried in terror, until the gigantic heel settled just in front of him.

Ann murmured “You know, it would be fitting for you to be squished beneath my foot. You’re nothing but a disgusting insect after all”

After that, she raised the other foot and hovered it on top of him, causing him to scream in terror and fall on his back, trying uselessly to protect himself with his arms.

She lightly pressed her heel on him, just enough to hurt without breaking anything.

After a few seconds, she removed the foot and crouched down to examine him a bit more closely. “But then, as much as i wanted to see you become a red smear on my sole, i’m really hungry”

After saying this, she licked her lips. It was mainly to scare him, but she was already starting to see him more of a snack then a person, as testified by her salivation.

“It’s different, this time he deserves it” she thought, trying to justify her appetite.

Then Ann picked up the screaming guy between her fingers and set him on her huge pale palm, raising him in front of her face.

She swallowed nervously, and said “I just hope you don’t cause me an indigestion. Do you have any last words?”

He sobbed, on his knees “I-I’m innocent” 

She clicked her tongue “Yeah, sure. Now stay put and be a good snack. Enjoy your trip to my stomach” and without many ceremonies, she opened wide her mouth, sticked her tongue out and threw him in it.

Then she waited a few seconds so that he could see the light for one last time, and closed her mouth.

In the slimy darkness, the air humid and hot, he screamed in absolute terror, fighting for his life against the titanic tongue

She swished him around, tasting him, feeling his useless, desperate struggles.

He needed to suffer more. 

Ann started to lightly chew on him, not with enough force to kill him, but just to injure him lightly. Once, she bit too hard and felt his leg snap under her molars, which caused him to howl in pain. Well, he deserved it.

When she felt it was enough, she used her tongue to place him in the back of her mouth, and stopped moving for a few seconds, letting him see where he was going to end up.

He was paralyzed in terror, lying face to face with the wide, bottomless abyss that awaited him. After seemingly eternal moment, he felt he was sliding towards it, as gravity shifted. She must have tilted her head. 

“PLEASE, OH GOD, I’M INNOCENT, DON’T EAT MEEEE..” he shouted on top of his lungs as he fell into her throat.

Ann found herself closing her eyes when she swallowed. Could it be… she enjoyed this?

Sure, it felt right, since she was punishing the guilty, but was there more to it?

She felt the tiny struggle as he fell, until he dropped into her stomach. She placed her hand on her belly and softly caressed it. Of course she liked eating, everyone would after starving for this much time.

Ann looked back to the group, which was staring at her. Some in awe, some in fear, some in morbid fascination… She quickly looked somewhere else. 

The girl felt uneasy under their gaze, so she excused herself and went to the bathroom.

She sat on the toilet and tried to calm down, then felt that the tiny in her stomach had started struggling and screaming again. He felt very different from the other she ate that night, a lot more… lively. 

“That’s what you deserved, now be quiet” she whispered, closing her eyes, feeling his movements inside of her. He would stop moving soon.  

After a few minutes, she noticed she had started rubbing her crotch.

She bolted up. Now enjoying a meal was one thing, but getting off on the screams of a dying person was something else.

She slowly sat down again, covering her face with her hands.

“What kind of monster am i turning into?” she whispered, upset and scared.

She started sobbing, while the struggles of tiny man inside of her stomach became weaker and weaker...