An American Nightmare

Concentrating, Max looked onto the display beside the entrance to the terminal area of the airport, looking for the identification code for his flight to the US. Lost in thought, he looked back at his ticket to check if he remembered the code correctly, then the screen jumped to the next page. Now he immediately recognised his flight’s number in the first line. Max let out a quiet sigh of relief, stuck his ticket between the pages of his passport and then put those back into his neck pouch. Then he picked up his backpack again, threw it around his shoulders and began to walk over to the security area. Just as he was about to line up for the passport check, he suddenly felt a gentle vibration in his pocket, signalling to him that he had just received a text message. So, he stopped again and pulled out his phone. It was a message from his roommate Leonie, who wished him safe travels and then sent him a winking emoji, jokingly warning him about ‘these American women’. Max grunted mildly amused, thanked her, and then wrote back that he was a big boy and could take care of himself. Then he put his phone away, intending to go on to the passport check.

“Sorry, am I in the right place here?” He suddenly heard a warm, feminine voice beside him, and though the woman spoke German very well, Max still recognised traces of an American accent, including the slightly creaky vocal fry that was so common among young women.

Max turned around and saw a young woman beside him, who probably was only a few years younger than himself. He caught himself staring at her for a split second, caught somewhat off guard by how good looking she was. She was a little smaller than him, but still quite tall and athletic. Her light blonde hair, which she had pushed back with a thin, white hair circlet to keep it from falling into her face, flowed down to her shoulders, her skin was tan, and she had clear, blue eyes, which looked at him inquisitively. Her gaze reminded him that she had just asked him a question. Max looked at the plane ticket she held towards him with her left hand, noticing that she was pointing at the gate number with her right index finger.

“Yes. Actually, I’m also headed for gate 14.” Max explained, realising that she was booked for the same flight to the US as himself. He furtively glanced at her ticket again. Her name was Ashley Taylor, and she was also booked for the economy class, but to his slight disappointment, her seat was located a bit further to the front than his.

“Oh, that’s funny.” Ashley said and gave him a friendly smile that revealed her perfect white teeth behind her soft lips. “Are we, like, on the same flight?”

“Seems we are.” Max answered and smiled back at her while they got in line for the passport check. He made an inviting gesture to let her queue up before him, which she accepted with a grateful nod and another enchanting smile.

As she put her backpack down on the polished, shiny floor and started to look for something inside, Max furtively glanced at her again from the corner of his eye. Her left wrist sported several colourful bracelets and wristbands, some of them from concerts and festivals he himself had attended as well. As she produced her blue American passport from her backpack, Max noticed a small, heart-shaped tattoo on her other wrist, and as his gaze travelled across her smooth hands, he also observed that she wore pink nail polish which matched her pink yoga top. And even though it wasn’t easy, Max tried to look away as she now leaned over her backpack once more to pull out another document, since her generous cleavage now allowed for some pretty deep insights between her large breasts. But instead, he accidentally looked at her ideally proportioned, round ass, which perfectly filled out her tight-fitting yoga leggings and now visibly jiggled back and forth as Ashley picked up her backpack, casually swinging it around her left shoulder. Somewhat embarrassed, Max turned his head around and looked behind himself, where a businessman in an expensive looking suit just joined the queue. The man first looked at Ashley and then at Max, then he flashed him a short, knowing grin and nodded appreciatively. Max rolled his eyes and turned back to Ashley, who also was just turning back towards him as she stretched out her right hand.

“I’m Ashley, by the way.” She said with another broad grin.

“Max.” The young man responded and also smiled as they shook hands.

“So, you’re headed for America too?” Ashley asked as she moved up a couple of steps as the queue moved on for roughly another metre.

“Yes, but only for a short time. I’m visiting a friend on the West Coast for two or three weeks, but then we want to go on a trip down through Mexico and Central America. And next month, we’ll be taking part in a volunteer project in Guatemala.” Max explained.

“That sounds amazing.” Ashley answered with a genuinely interested expression on her face and looked at him again with her piercing, blue eyes. “What kind of a project is it?”

“We help save sea turtles, or their eggs, to be exact.” Max began and pushed a strand of his long hair out of his face. “Unfortunately, many of the locals consider them to be a delicacy. So, we take care that the newly hatched turtles get to the ocean safely.”

“That’s totally sweet of you.” The young woman said with a touched expression, before both slightly moved up the queue again. “I think I saw, like, a documentary on that once? So sad.”

“Yes, we also do educational work and show up some alternatives to the locals. What about you? Are you flying home?” Max asked and pointed at the passport in her hand.

“Yes.” Ashley replied. “I did my year abroad here.”

“Your German is very good indeed.” Max said. “Are you studying German?”

“Yup. My grandma was German, and I still remember how she used to speak German with me when I was little. So, I’ve always been really interested in Germany.” Ashley said and looked over to the security area, as it would be her turn next. Then she turned back to Max: “Hey, since we’re on, like, the same flight, I guess we’ll see each other again at the gate? We could go grab some coffee together.”

“Sure, if you don’t mind.” Max replied and smiled shyly.

“Don’t worry, I won’t bite.” Ashley joked and flashed him a playful grin, again showing off her pearly white teeth. They were unnervingly perfect, like out of an ad for a dental clinic.

“Okay. Well then, see you soon!” Max said.

“See ya!” Ashley replied and gave him a quick wave before heading over to one of the booths that just had become available, where a grouchy looking older officer began to check her passport. While he took a closer look at her other documents, another booth became available and a younger, more friendly looking border guard indicated Max to come over to him. As he stepped up to the window, he noticed that Ashley had been given back her passport and proceeded to go through the turnstile towards baggage inspection.

“Good afternoon.” Max greeted the officer, who just nodded at him and then took his passport, browsing through the pages and looking at his ticket.

“Ah, America. Nice.” The officer said and then scrutinised Max for a moment. “You will be gone for how long?” He asked.

“About three months.” Max explained. “Around two weeks in the US first and then approximately two months of volunteer work in Guatemala.”

“Guatemala.” The border guard repeated. “Pretty warm place, isn’t it?”

“Uh, I guess so.” Max replied a little hesitantly. He had heard that it was standard procedure for the border police to ask slightly odd questions to catch people off guard and see if they reacted in a suspicious way. But he wasn’t sure if that was actually the case or not.

“Okay. Safe travels.” The officer then said suddenly and returned Max’ passport and ticket to him. “On through the turnstile on the left, please.”

“Thank you. Have a nice day.” Max replied and walked past the booth through the turnstile, stepping into another area full of barrier tape where the passengers were guided into different queues leading towards the baggage screening.

“Sir, along here, please.” A female airport employee said with a polite smile and pointed at a queue that didn’t have too many people waiting in it yet.

Max complied with her instructions and stepped into the queue. As he waited, his gaze drifted aimlessly through the large hall, which was filled by the quiet murmurs of countless different voices. These were occasionally drowned out by almost incomprehensible, disembodied announcements from the terminal further onward, behind the baggage inspection. After a few moments, he noticed Ashley standing in a queue slightly further away. She also caught sight of him and waved at him again, smiling. Then the personnel suddenly opened another gateway, and she was asked by an airport employee to proceed to the end of the hall with another group of passengers, so that Max lost sight of her again. Max had to wait in line for about another ten minutes, then he was allowed to step forward to one of the conveyor belts. Like the other people around him, Max somewhat hurriedly began to place his personal belongings in plastic boxes before pushing them onto the conveyor belt, which slowly began to move them through a large, boxy scanner. He patiently waited for the passenger in front of him to go through the metal detector, then the beefy officer on the other side instructed him to walk through. Since the detector didn’t make any kind of sound, Max already was about to go on, but at that moment, the stern looking female border guard at the scanner gestured towards her colleague, prompting the man to block his way with his body.

“Would you come along with me, please?” The officer then asked, though his sharp tone indicated that this was an order, not a question.

“Uhm... okay.” Max replied somewhat confused, not sure what the problem was.

The guard pointed into the direction in which he wanted him to go, then he closely followed Max, as if he wanted to stop him from suddenly making a run for it. Which was pretty ridiculous, since the security area was full of airport employees, police officers and various barriers. Both nervous and slightly annoyed, Max walked over to an area behind the scanners, where the female officer just put on some latex gloves and reached into his backpack. As he stepped up to her, she first glanced at her colleague and then gave Max a serious look as she began to rummage around in his backpack. Then she seemed to have found what she was looking for and pulled her arm out again. In her hand, she held a small plastic bag with marijuana.

“What’s this?” She asked coldly, even though it wasn’t even really a question.

Max began to feel slightly queasy and noticed how his heartbeat began to accelerate, his face feeling hot all of a sudden. He vaguely remembered taking this backpack onto a weekend trip to the Netherlands a couple of months ago. On that visit, he had also bought a little more pot for himself. Had he overlooked one of the bags?

“I... uhm...” Max stuttered and tried to take a deep breath. The officer just rolled her eyes and placed the small bag on an electronic scale.

“2.4 grams.” She stated dryly and then nodded to her colleague again, who harshly grabbed his upper arm and began to lead Max to a small police office beside the security area.

***

Letting out a sigh, Ashley lifted her belongings out of the grey plastic boxes again after they had gone through the scanner, finding herself having to hurry up a little due to the speed with which further boxes kept piling up behind her. Then she lifted her backpack over her shoulder again and proceeded towards the entrance of the actual terminal area. Just as she was about to continue onward towards her gate, she realised that Max should have gone through the baggage screening as well by now. She had decided that she liked him within the first minute of meeting him, and he was quite cute as well – tall, with long, blonde hair, as well as a rakish stubble on his face and dreamy, brown eyes. And he also seemed to be an interesting kind of guy, someone who travelled around the world and cared about things. Definitely a person she would like to get to know a little bit better.

She didn’t exactly remember in which queue he had been, but it had been somewhere towards the other end of the security area, so she decided to stroll over and furtively looked around. Ashley recognised some of the other people they had been standing in line with at passport control, so she assumed that he also had to be here somewhere. Then she suddenly recognised him – he was standing slightly apart from the other passengers, in an area behind the scanners. One of the officers grabbed his arm and lead to him towards an office of the border police a couple of metres further. She slowly approached the two, and as Max caught sight of her, she threw him a questioning look. While he did seem to be a little nervous, he only rolled his eyes and indicated her to go on without him. For a few moments, Ashley pondered if she should wait for him nevertheless, but the way Max behaved, it seemed to her that it was only a misunderstanding or some kind of minor issue. Furthermore, she now felt a slight vibration in the side pocket of her yoga pants as her phone received a text message. So, she simply shrugged and then pulled her smartphone from her pocket to see who had messaged her.

It was a text from her mother, who had just gotten up at home in America and was inquiring if all was okay on her end, and if she was at the airport already. Also, she confirmed that Ashley’s father would indeed be able to pick her up this evening. Ashley smiled and replied that she had just gone through baggage inspection and that she would now go on to the gate, followed by a smiling emoji and a little heart. Then she let the phone slip back into her pocket und glanced over at the door to the office of the border police, through which the guard had taken Max a moment ago – not entirely sure what to do next. Since there weren’t any benches in the area, she finally decided to simply walk over to the gate for now. Max would catch up with her once this issue had been resolved.

For a couple of minutes, she strolled through the busy corridors of the terminal, past countless shops with duty-free goods and, of course, souvenirs. Several times, she found herself stopping in front of the stores, repeatedly getting close to buying some of their goods. In the end, however, she always decided against it. Over the past year, she had bought enough stuff she didn’t need, and most of it was now neatly tucked away in the suitcase she had given up earlier. Her backpack was heavy enough and she really didn’t want to take any more things on board with her. So, she ultimately continued down one of the long corridors towards the gates, stepping onto one of the moving walkways simply for the fun of it. For her, it was just part of the experience of travelling and being at an airport. She looked out of the large panorama windows onto the airfield, which was bathed in golden afternoon light and appeared to be quite busy now. For a moment, she felt something like a sense of melancholy rise inside of her, realising that her year abroad was indeed over now. It had been a great time, and she had made many new friends – she would definitely come back again once she was finished with college. But now, she would first have to deal with all the boring responsibilities that had seemed so far away for the last year – like her final exams. Since she had moved out of her shared flat for her study abroad, she also would have to start looking for a new place to stay soon. At least she could stay at her parent’s place over the next couple of weeks.

Ashley reached the end of the moving walkway and then noticed with some surprise that she had already reached gates 13 and 14. However, both were still occupied by two other flights; the display for gate 13 showed that boarding for a flight to Canada would begin there in about three quarters of an hour, and at gate 14, there currently was a queue of passengers boarding another flight to the US. But this one was headed for the East Coast. Yawning, Ashley sat down on one of the benches in the waiting area, and since there was still no sign of Max, she pulled out her phone again. She still had almost two hours until boarding, and since she currently had no one to talk to, she opened one of her social networks and posted an update for her friends, stating that she had checked in at the airport and was on her way home now.

***

Max nervously looked around the small office of the border police where the employee of the airport security service had handed him over to a fairly young, female officer. She currently was busy entering his data and some further comments into the form on her computer, after having asked him several questions regarding the situation earlier. This woman at least was quite polite and seemed to regard the whole thing as not that big of a deal, something that had to be put on file, but nothing much more than that.

“Well then.” The police officer said and gave Max something like a sympathetic smile as she began to print out the form documenting his case.

Then she picked up the piece of paper, cross-read it again and got up from her chair as another police officer entered the room. Walking past Max, the man dismissively glanced at him and was about to enter the office the next door when his colleague handed him the document.

“Call Franziska, she can pick him up.” The man said in a somewhat annoyed, flippant tone after he had briefly looked over the document.

“But why? This is ju...” His colleague began before he rudely interrupted her.

“This is clearly a case for section V.” He replied curtly and handed her back the piece of paper, his body language making it very clear that he was not going to discuss this with her.

Max nervously noted how the female officer’s eyes widened and her friendly facial expression suddenly froze. “For such a small quantity?”

“They’re here right now and we have very clear instructions.” Her colleague muttered and stepped into his office without even bothering to look at Max again.

But what was arguably worse than the hostile behaviour of her colleague was the visibly perplexed and pitiful look the female police officer gave Max as she sat down again. For a moment, she seemed to hesitate, then she picked up one of the many stamps on her desk, pressed it into the ink pad and finally onto the document. She glanced at Max again, then she pressed a button on a hands-free unit on her desk.

“Franzi, can you come up, please?” Got one for section V here.”

“Again? For goodness’ sake, how many more do they need?” The slightly tinny voice of another woman sounded from the loudspeaker. This seemed to stress out her young colleague even further, because she now cursed beneath her breath and pressed the button on the hands-free unit again, cutting the other woman off before she could say anything more.

“What’s going on here?” Max asked fearfully, but also with rising anger in his voice. “What are you talking about? Section V? What’s that?”

“You... Your case needs to be processed further by our colleagues; this is outside our competence.” The young officer replied unconvincingly.

“What was that supposed to mean, ‘how many more do they need’?” Max shot back furiously, his voice almost shouting all of a sudden. “You fascists are keeping something from me!”

“That’s enough now!” The loud voice of the male police officer now sounded from his office as he stepped back into the doorway and gave Max a warning look with his cold, blue eyes. “You are going to shut up and wait for our colleague to pick you up, do you understand?”

Max was about to say something in return, but the police officer’s severe look and his threatening body language made him reconsider doing anything rash. He waited until the man had disappeared into his office, then he looked over to the young female officer again, who now seemed to deliberately avoid his gaze. Several minutes of tense silence passed, then the door was suddenly flung open, and a stressed looking middle-aged policewoman entered the room.

“The young man here?” She asked and gave Max a blank, scrutinising look. Her colleague nodded. “Come!” The newly arrived police officer then said impatiently and made a brusque movement with her hand, indicating Max to get up and come with her. He had barely rose to his feet as she turned around again, moving back towards the door.

“2.4 grams of cannabis inside the carry-on baggage.” The young female officer who had documented his case then said suddenly. “This is madness.”

The older policewoman turned around to her again and shrugged. “Hoffmann and Thiele are downstairs; do you want to discuss it with them?” She asked tersely.

“We’re the police, not a fucking catering service!” The younger woman hissed.

“You’re free to come along and present your view to them.” Her colleague replied dryly and turned back towards the door, grabbing Max’ arm.

Then they stepped outside again and the woman lead Max down a longer corridor with more offices of the border police, until they stopped in front of an elevator and she pressed a small button beside the door. Again, several moments of unpleasant silence passed, then the elevator doors rolled open, and the officer impatiently dragged Max inside, pressing a button with ‘basement / car park’ written onto it. As the heavy doors closed again and the elevator started moving downwards, Max inhaled deeply and looked over to the police officer.

“What’s going on here? Where are you taking me?” He asked, now visibly trembling.

The woman looked at him from the corner of her eye and then gave him a somewhat reassuring smile. “Don’t worry, this won’t take long. My colleague is just a little overworked.”

“But what did she mean by catering servi...” Max began but was interrupted by a quiet ringing sound as the elevator came to a halt and the doors opened up again.

The officer gave him a slight push and they stepped into the dimly lit parking garage, which smelled of cold concrete, bitumen, and petrol. Max did not have a good feeling about this at all, but at the same time, he felt almost as if he was in some kind of trance – something about the whole situation simply felt surreal, as if he were having some kind of bizarre nightmare. They went around a corner and down a couple of stairs to a lower level, where Max now saw an older, important looking police officer talking to a stern, but beautiful middle-aged woman. The two interrupted their conversation and gave him a dissecting look, but right in that moment, Max found himself distracted as he noticed a large, black truck with a stylised swirl on its side behind them. The logo was complemented by a couple of black letters, spelling out a single word that suddenly explained everything: Vortex.

Almost as if in slow motion, he looked back at the older police officer and the woman in the elegant, business-like pantsuit, then he broke free from the grasp of the officer and tried to make a run for it. But unexpectedly, he was grabbed at both his arms, not by the woman who had brought him down here, but by two burly men who had suddenly appeared out of the darkness behind him. These two were not police officers, but civilians clad in black clothing, their shirts sporting the same white swirl as the one on the truck. Even though Max began to thrash around as he tried to free himself, they mercilessly dragged him towards the truck, past the woman in the business suit, who only nodded slightly and then turned back to the male police officer. The two men pulled him towards a door, opened it and shoved him inside, then he was suddenly blinded by a bright light and lost consciousness.

***

After having spent half an hour in the waiting area, Ashley looked around again and peered down the long corridor with gates towards the area with the shops and the security area, her face showing a slightly worried expression. Somehow, she got the feeling that Max was in bigger trouble than he had cared to admit. She thoughtfully picked up her backpack again and walked back towards the foyer with the souvenir shops, restaurants and cafés, half hoping to see Max walk towards her and explain that it had been a misunderstanding. Not that it really was her problem – she barely knew him and maybe he had indeed done something wrong, but to her, he had seemed like a nice guy and she wished him no evil.

She stopped beside a fountain in the foyer and indecisively glanced down the concourse leading to the security area, listening to the sound of the many conversations and announcements around her, and the sound of planes taking off and landing. Ashley briefly considered sitting down in one of the cafés next to the fountain and keep an eye on the security area, but since she still had quite a lot of time left, she decided to walk all the way through to the back again, and to check if she could find Max around there somewhere. Once she had arrived back at the baggage inspection, she looked at the door leading to the offices of the border police. Just as she was about to turn around and head to the foyer again, she saw how a young female police officer came out through the door and walked into the security area, heading in her general direction. Slowly walking towards her, Ashley carefully waved at her, causing the officer to stop and look at her questioningly.

“Yes, miss?” She asked tiredly. Ashley noticed that she looked stressed.

“Excuse me, but a colleague of yours went through that door over there with a friend of mine, about half an hour ago.” She explained and pointed at the door behind the young policewoman. “Red T-shirt, long, blonde hair, bit of a stubble...”

“Mmmh, yes...” The officer began cautiously.

“I just wanted to ask how he is.” Ashley said and put on her sweetest smile.

“Unfortunately, I cannot disclose any information regarding an ongoing investigation.” The policewoman replied formulaically.

“But is he, like, in trouble? Will he be able to catch his flight?” Ashley asked.

“I, uhm... cannot answer that with absolute certainty.”

“Oh... Okay then.” Ashley gave up. “Thank you, anyway.”

“No reason to thank me.” The officer replied in a dry, slightly self-deprecating tone, since she was fully aware that this was indeed the case. Then she moved past Ashley and disappeared through another door which was only accessible for airport personnel and the police

“Germans.” Ashley muttered to herself and rolled her eyes before heading down the corridor towards the foyer with the fountain again.

There, she went into the café next to the fountain and ordered a caffè latte. Her accent seemed to further confuse the already quite dim-witted barista, who visibly struggled to take her order and finally reached her a plastic cup with ‘Äschli’ written onto it. With an amused grin, Ashley sat down at one of the tables with a good view over the foyer. Following her unproductive conversation with the police officer, she no longer had the feeling that poor Max would make it to the flight in time, but maybe she was mistaken. She absent-mindedly sipped at her caffè latte and pulled her smartphone out of her pocket again. Apparently, she had received a text message from her best friend Rachel in the meantime:

hey sweetie, i saw you’re at the airport? when is your flight? <3

at 5:30 pm here, so at 8:30 your time. Ashley wrote back. why are u up already??

got the early shift at the café :-( when will you be back?

around 8 pm, i think. need to check again. Ashley typed and opened the e-mail with her flight itinerary once more. yup, 8 pm!

is your dad picking you up?

yeah, exactly :-)

okay, lmk if something comes up! Rachel wrote after a few more moments. i’m meeting up with chris this afternoon, but i have time in the evening, so i could pick you up too!

aww that’s so sweet of you <3 i’ll let you know if anything comes up during the next hour, but i’ll be on the plane after that :-D

duh, i’m dumb, of course! ;-D it’s too early in the morning!! and what are u gonna do now, sit around the terminal for an hour?

i’m afraid so :-( met this cute guy who was supposed to be on my flight, but he apparently ran into trouble during baggage inspection. Ashley explained.

omg!! :-O for real? what happened?!

no idea :-( i asked, but they aren’t telling me anything... pity, he looked totally yummy :-P

shit… oh well, plenty of yummy guys back home as well ;-)

Ashley laughed and replied to Rachel’s last message with a couple of laughing emoji, then she gulped down the rest of her caffè latte and got up, casually throwing the empty plastic cup into one of the bins beside the fountain. It appeared that the coffee had awoken her digestive system somewhat, as she could now feel her stomach contract a little as it let out a slight growl. Ashley considered getting herself some food in one of the surrounding restaurants, but then she remembered that she had put a sandwich in her backpack this morning, just in case. They also would be serving dinner on the flight, but it was still a couple of hours until then, so the sandwich would be just the right thing to tide her over until then. As she walked down the long corridor with the various gates once more, she produced the slightly squished sandwich from her backpack and took a bite, looking around again. But Max still was nowhere to be seen. Another pushy groan emanated from the depths of her belly, leading her to swallow down the bite inside her mouth. Ashley’s stomach thanked her with a content gurgle and immediately got started on digesting the newly arrived food. But Ashley was distracted. Something felt weird about the whole situation.

“I hope he’s okay.” She muttered to herself and took another bite of her sandwich.

***

Max awoke with a gasp and shrieked, instinctively sitting up and lashing out around him. But since his punches just went into thin air, he suddenly came to realise that nobody was holding onto him any longer, and only a few more moments later, he realised that he wasn’t in the car park any longer, but inside a dark room. For a split second, he thought that he was in bed and had just dreamt all what had happened to him, but then his foggy brain worked out that the ground beneath him was far too hard to be his mattress. He rose to his feet with a groan and felt around, only to realise that he was surrounded by walls made of hard plastic, and that his prison probably was no wider than one square metre, a bit like a very solid shower cubicle.

Trying to get his bearings, he suddenly heard a deafening noise, followed by a strange buzz that sounded a bit like an opening garage door – only that it was far too loud. Light began to shine into his prison through one of the walls, and even though he was briefly blinded by it, his eyes adapted to the new situation quickly. Since his surroundings appeared to be indeed nothing more than some kind of shower cubicle, he turned around and looked out of the window the light was shining through. The light grew increasingly bright over time, forcing Max to squint a bit, but once his eyes grew accustomed to the glare once more, he suddenly gasped in shock as he looked out onto a scenery that left him lost for words.

He was looking at a sheer endless wall, which was somewhat reminiscent of the glass façade of a skyscraper, consisting of countless small rectangles. Every single one of them housed the shape of another human being. All of them seemed to be just as disoriented as him and carefully felt around the walls of the small cubicles they were trapped inside – it was only now that Max realised that he was looking at thousands of reflections of what just as well could have been himself. He was only one of countless people who were trapped inside these little boxes, and now he also fully grasped that he had indeed fallen into the hands of Vortex.

Vortex was a large international restaurant chain which, along more mundane food like hamburgers and sandwiches, sold shrunken people as food. The argument with which the company defended this business model always boiled down to the utilitarian claim that the shrunken people were individuals who did more harm than good to society. In a world in which everything and everyone was subjected to the merciless logic of economics, it was a line of thought that all too many could get behind. Max had even gotten into several fruitless arguments with his roommate Leonie over this issue. Leonie was a self-declared vegan and even co-organised demonstrations against climate change, but she also was an avid Vortex customer, having repeatedly brought back boxes with shrunken people to their shared flat and eaten them right in front of him. Even she had argued on behalf of Vortex, spouting the usual nonsense that these people had only themselves to blame for their fate and that the earth was already overpopulated anyway. She even had claimed that shrunken people were a perfect substitute for regular meat, being both animal- and eco-friendly. For Max, this logic was so insane that he hadn’t ever been able to come up with a sensible response, so that Leonie seemed to believe that he didn’t have any proper arguments on his side. But since they still tried to get along with each other, she had ultimately agreed not to eat any Vortex products while he was at home, ‘out of respect for his feelings’. Max knew that there probably were many more people who had at least mixed ‘feelings’ about Vortex, but who were too afraid to openly speak up against the company and its massive political influence – such as the young female police officer, whose tentative protest he now could finally make sense of.

Now that he knew that he was inside one of the cubicles which Vortex boxes consisted of, he could start thinking about escaping from his prison, before he ended up being fed to one of those sheeple out there. Another glance outside confirmed his suspicion that the wall of cubicles on the other side of the canyon was made up of countless Vortex boxes inside enormous catering trolleys, which in turn had been strapped onto open trailers that were commonly used to move cargo around the airfield. As he carefully looked at the opposite side to compare how far up his own box was inside his respective catering trolley, an unexpected jolt went through his surroundings and he fell flat on his back.

Max clenched his teeth and looked outside, where the trailer he was on slowly began to move out of the parking garage and onto the airfield, past enormous trucks, containers, airport employees and of course airplanes, which were currently being refuelled and loaded with cargo. For a few moments, he just gaped at the outside world, which was more than a hundred times larger than merely an hour before, and tried to get up again. But before he could form a clear thought in his head, he noticed how the vehicle with the cargo trailers began to slow down again, moving towards a plane which belonged to the airline he had intended to travel to the US with. Then it finally stopped alongside another trailer with more silver-grey trolleys onto which someone had written ‘catering’ with a thick, black marker. They had arrived, and now the food for the passengers would be loaded onto the plane.

***

Ashley spent the remaining time in the waiting area exchanging text messages with her mother and Rachel, although the latter unfortunately was often distracted by her work at the café and only replied occasionally. So, she opened her social networks once again, where her post already had been liked, reacted to, and commented on dozens of times by her friends and acquaintances, who all were looking forward to seeing her again and wished her a safe journey home. She proceeded to answer some of the comments and reacted with plenty of heart emoji, so that the time until boarding ultimately went by quicker than expected. Following the priority boarding of first and business classes, the airport employees at the gate finally also called for the economy class passengers to get in line, prompting her to rise to her feet again and pick up her backpack once more. She casually grabbed the plastic foil of the sandwich she had eaten earlier, crumpled it together and dropped it into one of the nearby bins, then she walked over to the forming queue and got in line. Ashley yawned and pulled out her ticket and her passport again, then she let her mother and Rachel know that she was about to get onto the airplane and that she would turn off her phone soon. She also informed her dad, but her mother already had stated that he was busy tinkering in the garage again. Ashley smiled. At least that explained why he wasn’t answering again.

After another few minutes, it was her turn and she stepped up to one of the airport employees at the gate, holding her ticket and her passport in front of a scanner. Once the computer system had determined that she was a valid passenger, it made a jovial beep and showed a green light, then the smiling airport employee gestured Ashley to go through the turnstile. Having passed through this last barrier, she went down some stairs and stepped into the jet bridge. The muffled echo of the passengers’ steps in this relatively narrow tunnel, which ultimately led to one of the aircraft’s access doors, filled Ashley with a renewed sense of excitement and anticipation. She didn’t exactly remember how often she had already travelled by plane, but the last moments before stepping into the machine always were something special to her.

As she stepped through the door, she briefly took note of the slightly metallic and mechanical smells of the plane, then Ashley was greeted by a smiling stewardess. The woman glanced at her ticket and then indicated her to move on to the back. She carefully squeezed past the other passengers, who were in the process of lifting their carry-on baggage into the compartments above the seats, and started to look around for her seat, 32 J. There, Ashley also took off her backpack and put it into the compartment above her, before she finally dropped down into her seat directly at the aisle, letting out a sigh. She closed her eyes and calmly breathed in and out, then she noticed another person stop in the aisle right beside her.

“Hi there! I’ll just need to squeeze past you in a second?” A warm, feminine voice asked in German, albeit with an audible American accent.

Ashley opened her eyes and looked up at a woman who was just lifting her carry-on baggage into the compartment above their seats. Even though she was almost twice as old as Ashley, she was still remarkably good looking; with smooth, browned caramel skin and long, black hair as well as large, brown eyes, which right now were looking at her enquiringly.

“Oh, sure.” Ashley replied and got up again to let the woman squeeze past her. Once she had sat down on her seat again, she turned to the new arrival and gave her a friendly smile. “I’m Ashley, by the way.” She said in English, having noticed that the woman was American too.

“I’m Kayla.” The woman replied, switching to English as well. “You flying home too?”

“Exactly.” Ashley answered. “I spent my year abroad here. How about you?”

“Oh, I was here only a couple of days. Business trip; I work for Vortex’ SCM and were currently running trials on new systems to speed up deployment of our products.” She interrupted herself and grinned apologetically as she noticed that Ashley didn’t really understand what she was talking about. “Sorry. Business speak. I work for Vortex and we’re currently testing some new systems here in Germany.”

“Cool.” Ashley replied and nodded. “But you still have to fly economy?”

“Unfortunately, yes.” Kayla laughed. “I guess I’m not important enough for the fancy seats. But at least I get a lot of free food.” She explained and softly patted her slim belly, which was hidden beneath an elegant, black top. “Speaking of which, we’re running a special promotion and are providing one of the menus on this flight. In case you’re interested.”

Ashley’s belly let out a virtually inaudible, watery squelch as the first pieces of the sandwich she had eaten before were sucked into her small intestine. “Really?” She asked enthusiastically and subconsciously placed her left hand on her gurgling stomach, which was making short work of what remained of the sandwich. Soon she would be hungry again.

“I’m not sure what the other food is, but we’ve introduced new, smaller boxes for on the way, or on the plane, in this case. It probably all says so in the menu.” Kayla explained and pointed at the menu card, which was tucked inside the net beneath the in-flight entertainment system, along with some other brochures and the on-board magazine.

“Nice. I’ll take a closer look at that later.” Ashley replied.

For a few moments, she leaned back in her seat once more, then she pulled her smartphone from her pocket again and quickly let her mother know that she was on the plane now, before turning it off completely. Just as she turned back to Kayla, the pilot announced that boarding was now complete and that the plane would be leaving very soon, all according to schedule. Soon after, the flight attendants began the safety demonstration, but Ashley paid little attention to it, as she now noticed how all the exhaustion of her last day in Germany began to fall off her and she started to feel incredibly tired. As the plane started moving, she began to feel a little more alert again and curiously looked past Kayla and out the window, observing how the machine now rolled across the taxi strip and onto the runway. Then the aircraft suddenly accelerated and lifted off a few moments later. Ashley smiled to herself, feeling thankful for the wonderful time she had spent here. For a while, she kept looking out the window, feeling slightly melancholic as the city began to shrink beneath her and finally was no more than an abstract web of roads and blocks of houses. Then it disappeared altogether behind a wall of white clouds and was replaced by the blue yonder of the sky.

As the machine reached its cruising altitude, a quiet ‘ding’ signalled that the passengers could loosen their seatbelts again. Ashley slipped out of her pink-white sneakers and stretched her slightly sweaty feet on the carpet floor of the cabin, then she yawned again and tapped on the screen in front of her to select a movie from the in-flight entertainment system.

***

Trembling uncontrollably, Max had retreated into one of the corners of his cramped cubicle, while the world around him was recurrently shaken by massive quakes as the enormous flight attendants started placing various bottles on the trolleys in one of the personnel areas between the cabins. Only once the trolleys had been loaded into the plane, he had finally seen normal-sized people close up for the first time since his metamorphosis – in his case, this had been the flight attendants. It turned out to be the most frightening experience of all so far. The area the catering trolley with his box was located in was served by two stewardesses, one slightly chubby woman with glasses, who he mainly saw walking around in the background, and an exceptionally attractive woman around his age, with dark blonde hair and slightly mysterious, grey-green eyes. According to the name tag attached to her perfectly cut, dark blue uniform above her large breasts, her name was Kelly.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Max knew Kelly really was just a friendly, well-dressed flight attendant who was simply doing her job. But to him and the other shrunken people, she seemed more like a goddess who caused moderately strong earthquakes with every step she took in her elegant high heels. His cubicle was only at around the same height as her naked knees, which just about peeked out beneath her tight-fitting skirt. Her knees alone would almost entirely fill out his field of view any time she would stand in front of the catering trolley. Occasionally, Kelly would turn around as she took some enormous bottles out of the small kitchen and placed them onto another trolley loaded with drinks. But as Max tried to look up further to orient himself a little better, he could see nothing but her huge, well-built buttocks, which gently nestled against the smooth fabric of her dark blue uniform. Shortly after finishing her preparations, the flight attendant pushed the trolley with the beverages through a curtain and into one of the aisles of the aircraft. This provided Max with the opportunity to rise to his feet again without risking getting knocked down again by giant footsteps.

Panting, he began to look around, but regrettably, the walls of his cubicle seemed to join together perfectly, and the plastic foil with airholes which formed the ‘roof’ of his prison was just too far up to reach. Max had tried jumping up there several times, but he had always just about missed the foil before crashing down onto the plastic floor again. Some time passed as he feverishly thought about what to do next, then he heard and felt the thunder of giant footsteps again. Max carefully sat down on the cold plastic floor of his cubicle, so that he would not be thrown off his feet by the tremors again, then Kelly pushed herself through the curtain, pulling the trolley with the beverages into the small galley again. She pushed the cart into a corner beside the worktop of the small kitchen, then she leaned against the counter and let out a sigh as she reached for a plastic cup and filled it with mineral water. Only a few moments later, her colleague returned from the aisle on the other side of the plane.

“Man, I need a vacation.” Kelly said in English. “This is my fourth flight this week already.” She continued, with Max noticing a certain Southern drawl in the way she spoke.

“Well, take some time off.” Her colleague said with a benevolent smile und poured herself a cup of water too, before leaning against the counter beside Kelly.

Kelly sighed again. “I’ve got a mortgage to pay off, you remember?” She replied and placed her left hand onto the area beneath her left breast as a moist growl sounded from her belly. “I’m famished.” She then added parenthetically and leaned down to the catering trolley.

Down below, Max had involuntarily flinched at the sound of Kelly’s stomach growling and crawled into one of the corners of his cubicle. To him, the normally inconspicuous sound had sounded like an approaching thunderstorm. Aghast, he watched the enormous flight attendant squat beside the catering trolley, her green eyes scrutinising the boxes with the shrunken people. She was eerily reminiscent of a hungry cat ogling a mouse. Then she suddenly stretched out her left hand in his direction and wrapped her enormous fingers around his box, causing him to let out an anguished scream, with the other shrunken people in the cubicles crying out in a similar fashion. It was a truly bloodcurdling sound, as if straight from the depths of hell. An animalistic wail Max had never heard before.

“Don’t mind if I do.” Kelly said and pulled at his box. It didn’t budge. The flight attendant let out an annoyed groan and rolled her eyes, then she tried again with the box immediately next to the one containing Max. This one came out a lot easier, and also made the box with him inside slightly jump out of its bracket in the catering trolley.

For a few seconds, Max kept squirming in the corner of his cubicle, until he finally realised that he had been miraculously spared. He gaped out of the window incredulously, up towards Kelly, who was just rising up again. She casually tore the plastic foil off the small box, which easily fitted in the palm of her hand, then she crumpled it up and threw it into a bin beneath the counter. Moments later, she reached into the box, plucking out a thrashing shrunken person and lifting him up to her face. Max watched with bated breath as the tiny man who was pinched between Kelly’s perfectly manicured, red fingernails was mercilessly lifted up to her mouth, his screams becoming more and more panicked. As he begged for his life, the flight attendant’s wet tongue darted out from between her full, glossy lips as she gave them an anticipatory lick, then she opened her mouth and effortlessly tossed the screeching tiny inside.

His cries became muffled all of a sudden as Kelly closed her mouth and began to suck on the poor guy for a few seconds, then Max suddenly heard a loud, wet gulp and his gaze travelled down to the giantess’ throat, where her larynx now visibly bobbed up and down. While he couldn’t see anything else than that, he was painfully aware that Kelly had just swallowed the shrunken man whole, and it was apparently down to sheer dumb luck that it wasn’t him who now was sliding down into the young flight attendant’s stomach. Shaking uncontrollably, he looked down further towards the giantess’ large breasts, whose cleavage was covered up by the blue-white-red scarf of her uniform, and Max found himself wondering who that man was. Or had been, because although Kelly had swallowed him alive, he was now dead for all intents and purposes. He would never learn that the man had gone by the name of Thilo Busch, and that he had been a journalist who had been on Vortex’ hit list for a long time now, until they finally had grasped the opportunity to get rid of him as he checked in at the airport for a flight to South America. Instead of reporting on the business practices of a Peruvian ‘recruitment agency’ acting on behalf of Vortex, he would instead be digested alive by this American stewardess called Kelly over the next couple of hours, her body ultimately converting him into some additional fat on her big breasts and large, taut buttocks. Almost at the same time, his profiles on social media and his blog also vanished from the internet, as if he had never existed. Not that this was something Kelly would have taken any note of, she only spoke as much German as was necessary for these flights, and she had no interest whatsoever in politics. The only thing she cared about was that she was getting some protein into her belly.

“Want some?” She asked and held the box over to her colleague while she fished a shrunken woman from her cubicle and almost instantly swallowed her with similar callousness

“I’m on a diet.” The other woman declined and drank another gulp of water.

Max looked back and forth between the two women as they now placidly began to talk about the calorie count of tinies, as if they were just another type of food. Even before he had been shrunk, this casual disregard for human life had always sickened him. But now that he himself was small enough to be swallowed down in one gulp, it brought him close to a full nervous breakdown. He could not expect those giant people outside to help him, quite the contrary. He had to get out of here and hide somewhere, and that as quickly as possible.

***

Ashley stretched herself and quietly yawned once more as the closing credits of the first movie rolled across the screen. It had been a rather superficial, but cute rom-com she had already seen multiple times, and which she had mainly watched to alleviate the slight heartache she felt over leaving Germany. Then she got up and strolled towards the toilets, which didn’t appear to be particularly busy at the moment. There, she freshened herself up a little and then decided to take a walk through the aisles of the economy class, as she intended to stay awake a little longer. In fact, she didn’t really want to sleep at all until she got home, but judging from how exhausted and tired she felt, that probably wouldn’t work out. So, all she could do was try to stay awake as long as possible. As she went along the aisle on the other side of the plane and fleetingly looked at the other passengers in their seats, she suddenly remembered Max. Throughout boarding procedures, she had been so preoccupied that she hadn’t thought about looking around for him again, so perhaps he had managed to get onto the plane after all. With newfound curiosity, she looked at the faces of the other passengers, most of which were staring at the screens in front of them. Max didn’t appear to be amongst them.

Finally, she reached the small kitchen in the back of the plane and stuck her head through the curtain. But the only people she could see there were Kelly, the stewardess attending to her aisle, and her colleague Megan. Both were leaning against one of the counters and chatting with each other. Ashley noted that Kelly was holding a small Vortex box in her hand and was just lifting a shrunken person up to her mouth.

“Can I help you?” Kelly asked warmly and sucked the tiny through her full lips before almost instantly swallowing him.

“Uhm... maybe.” Ashley replied. “I met someone at the airport who was, like, supposed to be on this flight? Tall, long, blonde hair, stubble... red T-shirt...”

“Hmmm.” Kelly wondered and lifted a shrunken woman to her mouth. “I don’t think someone like that is aboard. But some people didn’t show up. Something about problems at the security check.” She explained and flipped the woman into her mouth.

“Yeah, exactly.” Ashley said. “That was his problem too.”

“I’m sorry.” Kelly replied with a compassionate smile and swallowed the screaming woman inside her mouth. “It happens more often than you’d think. A friend of yours?”

“Oh, not really.” Ashley answered. “I literally just met the guy.”

“I’ll keep my eyes open, but as I said, I don’t think he’s aboard.” The flight attendant said with another smile, and her colleague Megan indicated with a nod that she would do the same. “You want something to drink?” She then asked.

“Oh, uh... yeah, why not, thank you.” Ashley said and nodded appreciatively. “Orange juice, please.” She added as Kelly questioningly pointed at the different bottles.

Once the flight attendant had poured her some orange juice, she thanked her again and then carefully squeezed pass the stewardesses and the catering trolley, completely unaware of the fact that Max was currently hammering against the window of his cubicle and crying out her name. Without realising that she had walked right past him, she mentally ticked off the whole thing with Max and went back down the right aisle towards her seat. As Ashley sat down and took a sip of her orange juice, Kayla looked at her again and took off her headphones.

“Is it okay for you that I spread out my stuff here like that?” She asked with a friendly smile and pointed at several pieces of paper she had laid out on the empty seat between them as she began transferring some information onto her tablet.

“Uh... yeah, sure!” Ashley answered cheerfully. She hadn’t even noticed the documents, and was simply glad that her arms had a little more space.

She took another gulp of her orange juice and then looked back at the screen of the in-flight entertainment system, where the flight radar showed that the aircraft was somewhere around Iceland. Ashley tapped the home button and returned to the selection. For a few moments, she considered watching another movie, but then she found the new season of a comedy series that wasn’t available in Germany yet, and started the first episode.

Around an hour passed, during which she only briefly got up to let Kayla go to the toilet, and then another time when she returned to her seat. As the opening credits of the third episode began to play and Ashley quietly hummed along with the melody, the in-flight entertainment system was paused for a moment as the pilot announced that the cabin crew would soon be serving dinner, and that he asked all passengers to put their seats in the upright position for this. This reminded Ashley of what Kayla had said earlier, and she reached for the on-board menu to read up on this ‘special promotion’ by Vortex. While the regular option was an omelette with spinach, the Vortex promotional offer was a lasagne with salad and one of those small Vortex boxes Kelly had just been eating from. For Ashley, whose stomach let out another impatient gurgle at this moment and who wanted something more substantial than just an omelette, the choice was pretty clear already. But what finally sold her on the Vortex offer was that this included a piece of carrot cake for dessert.

She contentedly placed her hand on her growling stomach and put the menu back into the net with the on-board magazine. Then she tilted down the small table and was just about to continue watching her series, when she noticed that Kayla was leaning over to her again with a curious expression on her face. Ashley lifted up her headphones again.

“So? How does that sound to you?” She asked. “I’m asking strictly for business.” She then added, laughing, and gave her an amicable wink.

Ashley grinned mischievously. “You guys have carrot cake. How could I say no to that?”

***

Following the pilot's last announcement, Max went into a complete nervous breakdown and collapsed onto the floor of his cubicle, sobbing. This was just too much for him. He had been both moved and dismayed when Ashley briefly came into the kitchen and asked for him – so she hadn’t forgotten about him, even though they had only briefly talked to each other. But obviously, neither she nor the stewardesses knew that he was right next to them, inside one of the Vortex boxes. And so, he had been forced to impotently watch on as the enormous Ashley walked right past him. He had desperately cried out her name and hammered against the window of his cubicle, but she obviously hadn’t heard a thing, and in the end, her thunderous footsteps had even thrown him to the ground once more. And now, Max thought to himself, he would die, served to one of the passengers and eaten like any other piece of food.

He had only calmed down a little as the giant flight attendant Kelly started moving again, her massive, booming footsteps shaking his prison once more. Then Max suddenly felt how the whole catering trolley started moving as it was slowly pushed into the aisle. Soon afterwards, the stewardess leaned down to the boxes and began taking them out of the gigantic brackets of the trolley, adding them to another pre-packaged meal and a drink before handing them to the gigantic passengers all around. Dinner was being served.

While Max desperately tried not to hyperventilate, more and more boxes kept being lifted out of the trolley and handed away. Never in his life had he ever felt so helpless and at the mercy of others – there was nothing he could do to escape his doom. The walls of his cubicle were sealed off completely, and the foil above him was out of his reach. And even if he somehow had been able to hold onto it, it probably would have been too strong to tear open anyway. At less than a hundredth of his original size, he was simply too small to achieve anything.

Following what felt like an eternity, but what was probably only around ten minutes, Kelly’s impeccably manicured fingers wrapped around the box with Max inside it again. Since it already had come loose as the stewardess had lifted out the neighbouring box a while ago, the giantess lifted up his prison without any tangible effort whatsoever. For Max, this meant that he was caught completely off guard by the sudden movement, being brutally thrust against the window of his cubicle by the rapid acceleration. The forces acting on his body were so strong that he was simply squeezed flat against the hard plastic and an oppressive pain began to spread through his body, making it almost impossible for him to breathe. Finally, the box was placed on solid ground and Max fell down onto the ground again, frantically gasping for air. Then he sat up with a pained groan, looked outside and froze in horror.

He found himself looking at an enormous, pink wall, and even though he already had a hunch as to what this meant, he gradually looked upwards to resolve any remaining doubts. As expected, the wall went over into a large bulge high above him, as the airy fabric it consisted of stretched over two taut breasts, finally giving way to naked, tan skin even further above. Tilting back his head, he looked onto an enormous human neck and finally into Ashley’s friendly face. The giant woman didn’t see him, but instead smiled at the flight attendant and thanked her as she handed her a beverage. Then her clear, blue eyes, which now were bigger than his entire body, turned towards the box and she smiled again, as if to greet the shrunken people on her table. Max had been served to Ashley, and he maybe had only a few seconds to get her attention before she, of all people, would eat him.

Panting in disbelief, Max jumped back on his feet and began to desperately cry out her name again, but just as the young American grabbed the small flap at the side of the box to tear off the plastic foil, she suddenly paused. For a moment, she seemed to think about something, then she pulled her hand back again and took off her headphones. Getting up from her seat, she stepped into the aisle and then opened the compartment above to take something out of her backpack. Looking on speechlessly, Max found himself particularly overwhelmed by the elegance and ease with which her gigantic body moved, a sight that seemed to defy the laws of nature. It was almost impossible to imagine that Ashley had only reached up to his nose a couple of hours ago. Now she was the size of an average skyscraper, and when she stood up straight, Max found himself having to lay down flat on the ground to even look up to her face. For a few seconds, Ashley was busy rummaging around in her backpack, then she pulled out a pair of in-ear headphones and began untangling the cable. In doing so, she slightly turned away from her seat, and as the stewardess squeezed past her through the aisle again, Ashley made an inconspicuous step backward to let her through, slightly bumping her butt against the table. From her point of view, this was inconsequential, but down inside the box, this knocked Max over yet again and he fell flat on his face. Moaning with pain, he turned around on the hard plastic floor and looked back towards Ashley, but he couldn’t see anything else than her gigantic, taut ass, which smoothly pressed against the tight-fitting fabric of her black yoga pants. Then both her butt cheeks, which alone were as big as housing blocks from his perspective, jiggled around slightly as she shifted the weight of her towering body slightly forward again and finally turned around. Far above him, Max saw Ashley squeeze back into the row, then she dropped herself down on her seat again, her large, soft breasts visibly bobbing up and down in her revealing cleavage. The giantess unplugged the somewhat cheap and fragile looking headphones of the airline and put them on the empty seat beside her, then she plugged in her own ones and stretched her hand out towards the box again. Max jumped back and instinctively retreated into one of the corners of his cubicle once more.

With frightening indifference, Ashley pulled the plastic foil off the box, causing the shrunken people inside to collectively let out another anguished cry. Trembling like never before in his life, Max held his hands over his ears and pressed himself against the walls of his prison, then the hand of the young American descended into the cubicle right beside his own. There was a shrill scream, then Ashley lifted a rather lanky man out of the box. He was still fairly young himself, probably around Max’ own age. But even though he desperately begged for his life, it was twice in vain – it was highly unlikely that Ashley would suddenly have a moral change of heart, and she also simply didn’t hear him with her earphones in. In the end, events unfolded as was to be expected: Ashley lifted the wailing tiny to her slowly opening mouth, revealing her perfect, white teeth and her gaping maw. The small man cried out again, but was suddenly interrupted when the giantess casually flicked him between her lips, closing them again mere moments later. Since the shrunken person had landed on the tip of her tongue, his flailing legs peeked out between her closed lips for a few moments, then Ashley suddenly sucked him further inside with a subdued slurp and swallowed.

Max let out another cry, although this time it was more like an agonised moan, and averted his eyes as he saw the faint contraction in Ashley’s throat, which marked the beginning of his fellow sufferer’s descent into her digestive system. Wheezing laboriously, he looked up and tried to jump towards the upper edge of his cubicle, completely overwhelmed by an atavistic drive that only cared about one thing: not to be eaten. But while he now desperately tried to climb up the smooth walls, the hand of the giantess cast another ominous shadow over the box. Not even a second later, the fingers of the soft, feminine hand he had shaken only earlier this day reached into his cubicle and gently, but firmly grabbed his collar, effortlessly lifting him off his feet and out of the box. For a second, Max feared that he would have to throw up due to the sudden upward acceleration, but then he composed himself and disbelievingly looked at the giant Ashley as she lifted him further up towards her face. He flew by two colossal breasts, which slightly moved up and down with her breathing, and found himself gliding across the canyon of her tanned, soft cleavage. Since he was so small, he could even see right between her breasts at one point, but the only thing he could see down Ashley’s top was her soft, naked belly, which also slightly moved up and down whenever she in- and exhaled. Max knew that he was looking at his grave, because now this likeable young woman would devour him, without ever knowing what had happened to him.

As her enormous mouth moved towards him, ultimately filling out almost his entire field of view, time seemed to slow down around him. He suddenly felt the heat emanating from her towering body, and also registered a slightly sweaty scent. Glancing up into her eyes, which weren’t even really looking at him, he noticed that Ashley looked tired, the skin underneath them showing just a hint of dark circles, and that her long, blonde hair was starting to get a little oily as well. These were small details he probably could only perceive because he was so small and close to her face – it was an almost intimate moment, but it was utterly eclipsed by the fact that he would now get much closer to Ashley than he would have ever wished for. Because right at that moment, the lips of the young American suddenly parted and Max felt a wave of her almost unbearably hot, moist breath wash over him, almost as if he were being cast into some kind of furnace. Then he was suddenly thrust forward and landed on her warm, wet, and slimy tongue. Once more, he found himself caught in another gust of humid breath being exhaled from the depths of her body, and suddenly, the gigantic tongue tilted back a little, causing him to slide deeper into the giantess’ mouth.

As the enormous lips began to close behind him, almost as if in slow motion, Max looked up and felt another wave of mortal fear as he found himself staring right across Ashley’s enormous tongue and into the looming darkness of her colossal throat. To the sides, it was framed by her enormous tonsils, and at the top, he could see her dangling uvula, glistening with saliva and mockingly jiggling back and forth, like a taunting finger pointing into the depths of her digestive system. Wheezing and coughing, Max tried to turn around on Ashley’s sticky tongue, attempting to crawl back towards the source of the gradually disappearing light. All around him, he could see nothing but long, sticky strings of saliva, which stretched between the giantess’ palate and her tongue like columns, as well as raw, red flesh and sharp, pearly teeth. Again, another surge of hot, slightly rank air washed out of the darkness behind him, blowing across the tongue and teeth like a heavy gale as Ashley exhaled once more. Then the rows of oversized teeth in front of him suddenly snapped shut like a mousetrap, plunging everything inside her mouth into complete and utter darkness. Apart from the almost deafening, rumbling breath of the giantess, Max could now also hear his own hoarse breathing echoing through the humid darkness of this organic cave, realising that he slowly began to slip backwards. He frantically tried to wipe the thick, viscous saliva out of his face and suddenly felt how the gigantic muscles all around him began to tense up. A split second later, the slimy, warm surface beneath him suddenly dropped down, making him slip into the gaping throat.

“No! Please don’t! Ashley!” He shrieked and began to cry. “Please don’t eat m...”

His pleading would remain unheard, as suddenly his aching body was washed into the giantess’ gullet with a surge of hot spit, accompanied by a deafening, moist gulp. All around him, Max felt nothing else than warm, slippery flesh and slime, then he fell down and was forced into a tight, muscular tube. Ashley had said that she wouldn’t bite. She had kept her word.

***

Ashley closed her mouth and broke into a slight grin as she felt how the shrunken person on her tongue apparently tried to crawl towards her lips. Since this caused a pleasant tickle in her mouth, she let him be for a few moments and simply relished the slightly salty taste spread over her taste buds. She wasn’t entirely sure, but something about these shrunken people tasted different compared to those one would have at the restaurant. Were they fresher? Maybe it had something to do with this new system Kayla had mentioned? It was a pity that the boxes were so small –then again, they also had to fit onto the tables of economy class seats. At least the lasagne and the salad looked very good for airplane food, and the piece of carrot cake also appeared to be nice and moist. She was particularly looking forward to that.

She swallowed the tiny man inside her mouth and licked her lips as his squirming little body began to slide through her oesophagus and down into her belly. The feeling gradually subsided behind her breasts, before she felt another tingling sensation inside her stomach one or two seconds later, indicating that the shrunken man had arrived at his final destination. Then she picked up the plastic bag with the cutlery, noticing that – just like all the other packaging – it had the hypnotic swirl of the Vortex logo printed onto it. The company was almost obsessed with spamming its logo all over the place. Ashley indiscernibly shook her head and tore the bag open, pulling out the fork and spearing a small tomato in her salad. Then she lifted it to her mouth, chewed it once or twice and then gulped it down just as passingly as she had swallowed the two shrunken people before. As the masticated tomato dropped into her stomach, she suddenly felt another distinct tickle in her belly as the two tinies apparently scurried to safety, trying to avoid getting buried by the newly arriving food.

Oops. Ashley thought to herself and let out a girlish giggle. Look out below!

From the corner of her eye, she noticed how Kayla gave her a curious look as she herself also fished a shrunken person from the box on her table and tossed him into her mouth. It was the end of Heiko Brandt, a member of a violent biker gang who had been sent to prison for aggravated assault and who had belonged to a group of shrunken people Vortex had delivered to the airport from a nearby prison. There, he had spent many days in his cell daydreaming about going on a bike tour along the US West Coast after his release, and to swim in the Pacific one day. In a way, the latter would ultimately become true – following a rather lengthy detour through Kayla’s digestive tract, the American sewer system, and a treatment plant.

“Sorry.” Ashley said and pulled out one of her earphones, pointing at her soft belly. “Shrunken people on an empty stomach.”

Kayla swallowed and laughed understandingly. “Oh, I know the feeling. Best to keep eating, that usually makes them calm down a bit.” She added and drank a gulp of water.

“I’m on it!” The young blonde answered with a smile and scooped a forkful of salad into her mouth, happily chewing and then swallowing once more.

Again, she felt a tickle in the pit of her stomach and put her hand in front of her mouth as she let out another involuntary giggle. It had happened to her before that she could actually feel the shrunken people squirm around inside her stomach, and normally she found the feeling to be quite pleasant, but right now, it was starting to get on her nerves. She quickly opened the packaged cup of still mineral water and took a deep gulp, and after another couple of seconds, the tingling indeed subsided as the liquid splashed into her stomach. Ashley scooped up a big bite of lasagne and forked it into her mouth. Just like the salad, it tasted surprisingly good.

“This is pretty nice.” She said with her mouth full and nodded at Kayla before swallowing.

“Glad to hear it.” She replied and sprinkled a couple of tinies onto her own salad before sticking her fork in right between them, nearly impaling one of them. “Enjoy!”

“You too.” Ashley replied and put her earphone in again as she lifted another piece of lasagne into her mouth, shifting all her attention back to the series she had put on hold before.

***

Once Ashley had swallowed him and the entrance to her oesophagus had closed behind him with a wet smack, Max suddenly found himself inside a tight tunnel of slippery, warm flesh. Everything had gone very quiet around him, and the only sounds he could hear somewhere in the distance were so muffled that he had no idea what they were. The only thing he did still perceive was the overwhelmingly powerful muscles all around him, which periodically contracted and mercilessly forced him deeper and deeper into Ashley’s body. Since the oesophagus already felt somewhat like an organic straitjacket even in between the peristaltic movements, Max found himself moaning in pain whenever they wrapped around him and squeezed him down again. To make things worse, he found himself unable to breathe during these brief moments of unbearable pain and anguish. Wheezing and coughing, he tried to inhale some more air whenever the muscles would let go of him for a few instants, but even then, his tiny lungs barely managed to pick up any oxygen. The small amount of air he did manage to suck in was hot and insufferably moist, just like everything else around him.

“Hel...” He began and gagged as his mouth began to fill up with thick, warm saliva, then the muscles around him contracted yet again and forced him to exhale, making him spit out the viscous slime with a raspy cough. “Help.”

As he slid downwards, he repeatedly tried to stabilise himself against the slippery walls of the oesophagus with his arms and legs, hoping to pry them apart just a little bit more, but apparently all this caused was a slight tingle inside Ashley’s throat. After another few moments, he heard a deep, majestic thumping sound all around him, which made the inside of the oesophagus vibrate with every beat. It felt like the bass of a stereo system turned up to full intensity, but the frequency made Max recognise it as Ashley’s heartbeat. It was completely calm and regular, totally unfazed by the fact that she had just eaten another human being alive. This sound was soon complemented by the noise of the giantess’ lungs calmly in- and exhaling, and Max could actually feel how the enormous chest he was travelling through gently moved up and down with every one of Ashley’s breaths. He felt like he had been buried alive, and in a way, that was indeed what had happened. The only difference was that he wasn’t surrounded by soil, but by flesh, muscles, and fat, in his case in the form of Ashley’s gigantic breasts, whose soft curves he had seen from the outside mere minutes ago.

After a while, the inside of the oesophagus seemed to turn even more hot and tight, then the sound of the giantess’ heartbeat and breathing became more muffled and was largely replaced by the ominous gurgling and squelching of Ashley’s stomach below. Following another couple of moments, the pulsating tube that carried Max to digestive oblivion began to slope to the side a little, then his feet bumped into a tightly shut ring of muscles. As it started to open with a soggy slurping noise, Max’ olfactory senses were suddenly attacked by the appalling stench of vomit and acid rising up from the darkness below. Retching uncontrollably, he tried to pull himself up the sloping tunnel of flesh again, but to no avail. He began to slip down, and any attempts to hold onto the slimy surfaces around him were immediately rendered moot by the unrelenting stream of hot spit flowing down from above. At the same time, the squishy ring of muscles began to mercilessly wrap itself around his feet, then Max was suddenly sucked down with a loud, wet smacking noise.

“No!” He shrieked and cried out in pain as he was pressed through the ring, the raw brutality of this movement nearly dislocating his helplessly flailing arms.

Then he suddenly found himself in freefall, plummeting through an incredibly hot, humid and terribly stuffy void. Moments later, he finally landed on fleshy ground again with a wet splat, the slimy surface slightly budging beneath him and jolting up again like an organic trampoline. Max frantically tried to breathe in, but the smell of vomit was so oppressive that every attempt made him retch violently. Only after several moments of agony, his olfactory senses seemed to gradually adapt to the stench and he managed to breathe in again without having to gag right away. Wheezing and coughing, he turned on his back and unsuccessfully tried to wipe some of the thick, burning slime off his face, but just like everything else, his hands too were completely covered by the sticky mucus. Since it was completely dark around him, his hearing was the only sense that allowed him to get his bearings. Somewhere high above, he could still hear Ashley’s muffled heartbeat and her steady breathing, but what dominated the soundscape was a visceral squelching and smacking, accompanied by menacing growls and gurgles coming from all directions. Max knew that this was Ashley’s stomach.

Letting out another laboured cough, he tried to sit up, which proved to be quite challenging on this squishy, undulating surface that was entirely covered in slime. Confused and disoriented, Max crawled over the gently billowing ground, which probably was the lining of Ashley’s stomach. Apparently, the fleshy cave was almost entirely empty at the moment, apart from some small ponds that had formed between the stomach folds and which gave of a foetid smell of semi-digested orange juice and acid. This also explained the strange echo of Ashley’s bodily sounds and even his own laboured breathing – for Max, it sounded almost like he was inside an empty, organic cathedral. But there was no god here, this place was the closest thing to hell on earth. Almost as if to confirm his thoughts even further, he now heard a quiet cough somewhere in his vicinity. It probably was the other shrunken man Ashley had eaten before him. But before Max could muster his strength to call out to him, he suddenly heard a loud gulp, and he instinctively knew that he had to get out of the danger zone. As good as was possible on the slippery mucosal lining, he began to crawl away from the spot where he had landed inside the stomach. Only a few seconds later, he heard the moist smack of the cardia again as it opened up high above, then an enormous, wet lump of chewed-up food was squeezed into Ashley’s stomach, hitting the ground right behind Max. The impact showered him with smaller pieces of debris, and from the smell of the chunks landing on his synthetic clothing, Max could tell that it was a masticated tomato. From his perspective, however, it was the size of an SUV, and he had been mere inches away from being buried underneath it.

To his dismay, Max could now hear a muffled, but also unbelievably loud giggle from above, which sounded far too innocent to be linked to this infernal place in any kind of way. He didn’t know why she was laughing, and perhaps it didn’t have anything to do with him, but to him it sounded almost like the giantess who had unknowingly eaten him was making fun of him. As he kept crawling further across the slippery ground, he heard Ashley say something, but her voice was too muffled and distorted for him to understand anything. The only thing he could tell from the tone of her voice and her inflections was that she was speaking English. But due to the tremendous difference in size, even her soft, feminine voice was so loud and powerful that it sent slight vibrations through her stomach, causing Max to slip and splash into one of the rank pools around him. Although the putrid liquid only reached up to his hips, he suddenly felt an intense burning sensation around the lower orifices of his body, as if he had sat down in a bucket of citric acid. He hectically felt around in the sloshing broth to hold onto something, but apart from orange juice and stomach acid, the thick soup contained nothing but a few soggy lumps of semi-digested food. These felt a little like wet, masticated bread – perhaps the remains of a sandwich or something similar.

Max had only just managed to pull himself onto one of the undulating stomach folds when he heard another wet gulp, which announced that Ashley had swallowed something again. Starting to panic, he crawled away from the middle of the stomach again, using the gently slope of the stomach walls as a rough indicator as to where he currently was. Mere moments later, the cardia opened up once more and released another wet gob of masticated food into the young American’s stomach. Thankfully, this lump splashed onto the ground a bit further away from him. Judging by the smell that now began to fill the organic cave, it was some kind of salad. He was almost thankful for this pleasant whiff, at least when comparing it to the obtrusive smell of vomit that was still prevailing throughout the stomach.

As Max launched a pitiful attempt to crawl up the sloping stomach walls, his entire surroundings began to wobble again, accompanied by Ashley’s loud giggling further above. It was only now that he finally made the connection, and to his dismay, he realised that his frantic struggle for survival inside her stomach translated into nothing more than a slight tickle for Ashley. Max began to cry again. What was even worse than the pain and the stench was how unfair all of this was. He had done no harm to anybody, but he still had been sentenced to die inside Ashley’s belly and be digested by her. And even though he was furious at her that she too apparently believed in the lies of this bunch of murderers, he also knew that she was just doing what most people did. In her mind, she was doing nothing wrong, quite the contrary; her behaviour was perfectly in line with mainstream society’s values and morals. She only was one of millions, if not billions of people whose minds had been corrupted and twisted by this evil corporation. But to wake these people up and make them see Vortex for what it truly was, apparently was impossible, just as vain as his pathetic hope that he could somehow escape from Ashley’s stomach. Based on the fact that she had even asked the flight attendants about him hours after meeting him for the first time, Max concluded that she would never have eaten him if she had only recognised him. But it was too late for that now.

Yet again, Max heard a loud gulp from above, but this was immediately followed by another, and then another one again, and before his brain could piece together what was happening, a veritable waterfall began to pour out of the cardia, flushing an ocean of mineral water into Ashley’s stomach in three surges. He let out a panicked cry and tried to hold onto something, but it was a pointless struggle. Max was washed away by the sweeping current and could do nothing more than flail around helplessly as the waves effortlessly tossed him around inside the giantess’ stomach. The ocean of mineral water had only calmed down a little when Max heard Ashley say something again, but it dangerously sounded like she was speaking with her mouth full. His fears were confirmed as yet another wet gulp echoed through the giantess’ body, then the cardia spat out another gigantic chunk of chewed-up food.

Since Ashley’s stomach was flooded by now, the newly arriving blob gave birth to a small tsunami as it splashed into the ocean of mineral water, pushing Max against one of the stomach walls. Gasping for air, he tried to stay above the surface as the stomach now filled with a distinct odour of molten cheese and warm minced meat. Apparently, Ashley was now eating lasagne. However, one advantage of this was that the bite of lasagne had crumbled into several smaller pieces as it hit the surface, some of which were now drifting through the ocean of mineral water like little islands. Coughing, Max swam over to one of the chunks. Since it turned out to be large and stable enough to accommodate him, he pulled himself up onto a soft cushion of molten cheese and turned onto his back as he tried to catch his breath.

While he tried to collect himself, he realised that the conditions inside the stomach had ironically improved a little. His involuntary bath in the mineral water had washed the orange juice and stomach acid off his lower body, and Ashley had inadvertently also swallowed some air during her last few gulps. So even breathing turned out to be slightly easier, even though the smell inside her stomach was still far from pleasant. But none of this changed anything about the fact that he was still inside the stomach of another person, a fact he was once more made painfully aware of when he yet again heard a loud gulp from above, which sent another piece of lasagne dropping down into the young American’s digestive tract. Max clenched his teeth and held onto his island of cheese and minced meat as another enormous wave rolled through the stomach. As his makeshift raft bounced off the stomach wall and floated back towards the middle of the digestive organ, there suddenly was a hoarse, panicked cry from above, followed by a wet splash as a freshly swallowed shrunken person fell into Ashley’s stomach in Max’ immediate vicinity. Max cried out for the poor man, but all around he heard nothing but the sounds of the gigantic body he was trapped inside. After a couple of minutes, Max finally gave up – whoever it had been, he had most likely drowned by now. He caught himself wondering if this actually was preferable to his own situation. Exhausted by the previous ordeals and the profoundly traumatising experience of being eaten, Max collapsed and began to sob.

“Damn it!” He suddenly yelled and furiously kicked against a chunk of minced meat, which dropped down into the churning broth with a wet flop. “Ashley! I’m in here!”

The giantess’ answer came almost instantly, in the form of another gulp, followed by the visceral smacking noise of the cardia opening seconds later. Then a lump of masticated salad crashed right onto Max and his island of lasagne, dragging him down into the depths below with a wet splat and sending another wave billowing through the stomach.

***

During the next half hour, Ashley continued eating, sending gulp after gulp of lasagne, salad, and shrunken people into her belly. Not in the slightest did it even cross her mind that Max had been amongst the shrunken people she had eaten, and that he was now fighting for his life inside her stomach. Finally, she began to dig into the carrot cake, which truly was pleasantly moist and tasted almost as good as the one her mother made. As she chewed, Ashley briefly took her attention off the show and glanced over at the flight radar, which showed that the aircraft was now somewhere beyond the arctic circle. The taste of the cake in her mouth reminded her of home, and the melancholy regarding her year abroad having come to an end yielded to anticipation. She was looking forward to seeing her family and friends again.

Shortly after she had popped the last piece of cake into her mouth and swallowed it, the flight attendant came by again to collect the dinner trays and empty packaging. As the stewardess asked if she had enjoyed her meal, Ashley nodded and handed her the empty tray with a friendly smile. Then she leaned back in her seat with a content yawn, placed her left hand on her gurgling stomach and finished watching the current episode of her series. But before the in-flight entertainment system could continue with the next episode, she returned to the main menu and got up from her seat. Stepping into the aisle, she briefly stretched her arms and legs, and then strolled over to the toilets, placing her hand on her belly again as she felt the contents of her stomach slosh back and forth. She waited in the short queue for a few minutes, then she stepped into one of the vacant stalls and locked the door behind her.

Ashley sighed and looked in the mirror as she ran some water over her hands. After being on the go for around twelve hours, she had started to look a little battered and her hair was getting a bit greasy. She rubbed her eyes and let more cold water run over her fingers, then she cupped her hands and gave her face a quick wash. As she looked back up into the mirror, she felt the contents of her stomach shift again, and the slight pressure she had felt ever since her meal began to travel upwards through her oesophagus. Ashley half-heartedly lifted her hand to her mouth and let the air escape as a hearty, wet burp, finding herself caught slightly off guard by how loud it was. Luckily, she was inside one of the stalls at the moment, and the monotonous noise of the aircraft did a fairly good job at drowning out sounds anyway.

She gave her belly a content pat, then Ashley pulled down her trousers and sat down on the toilet seat with her naked buttocks, relaxing the muscles in her lower body. The first thing to escape from in between her butt cheeks was a quiet fart, then she first emptied her bladder and then her rectum into the toilet bowl. Then she farted again and pushed out another small lump before rising to her feet once more, thoroughly cleaning herself. Once she was finished, she dropped the used paper into the bowl and pressed the flush button, flinching as she was surprised by the loud suction of the vacuum toilet. Ashley snorted.

“Every fucking time.” She muttered to herself and washed her hands once more before stepping out of the stall and returning to her seat.

As she walked back down the aisle, she noticed that the cabin was a lot darker than before, and that it was now only illuminated by some blueish light above the baggage compartments and the screens of the in-flight entertainment system. Apparently, the pilot had given instructions to lower the blinds, since it was somewhat dusky north of the arctic circle anyway and this would allow the passengers to sleep during the flight. When she reached her seat again, she noticed that Kayla was already making use of this opportunity, as she had jammed her small pillow between herself and the cabin wall, allowing her to lean her head against something as she dozed off. Ashley smiled. Like herself, Kayla too apparently didn’t want to just tilt her seat back in economy class. Then she sat down and put her earphones in again, but only a few minutes after she had started the next episode of the series, she let out a long yawn and noticed how her attention was starting to dwindle. For a few more minutes, she inattentively followed the events on her screen, then her eyelids dropped down and her head tilted a little to the side as she fell asleep with a quiet, almost inaudible snore.

***

Within the rumbling and gurgling darkness of Ashley’s stomach, Max had been forced under water by the chunk of chewed-up salad, but just as he thought that he would lose consciousness and drown, the lump had suddenly broken apart, allowing him to swim back to the surface. He was somewhat aware that it would have been better to just let himself drown, but in this situation, his survival instincts worked against his better knowledge. Gasping for air once more, he instinctively swam towards the stomach walls, which by now had started to contract and expand in long billowing motions, causing the stomach contents to slosh around with wet smacking and slurping noises. Furthermore, they were beginning to secrete more and more slime and stomach acid, which reacted with the mineral water wherever it touched the surface. This reaction was accompanied by menacing hissing sounds and emitted sour, acidic smelling clouds, a process that was somewhat reminiscent of lava flowing into the ocean. Whenever he happened to swim through one of these stinking swaths, Max noticed how his eyes began to burn, so he paid close attention to not accidentally inhaling them. Finally, he bumped against another chunk of chewed-up lasagne and pulled himself up, providing him with the chance to relax his aching muscles and to collect his thoughts again.

Over the next half hour, which seemed more like an eternity to him, the cardia kept spitting lumps of masticated lasagne, salad and hysterically crying shrunken people into the stomach, though Max managed to stay clear of the danger zone this time. At least some of the tinies also had managed to drag themselves onto floating chunks of food, because now he began to hear the muffled coughing, sobbing and wailing of at least a dozen other voices. The stomach had not been a pleasant place before by any measure, but this infernal soundscape now finally turned it into something like an organic, fleshy rendition of hell. After a brief pause, new chunks of food began to arrive in the stomach, their smell telling Max that it was carrot cake. This had to mean that Ashley had moved on to dessert by now. But what preoccupied him a lot more was the fact that all the food the young woman had swallowed had soaked up most of the lake of mineral water, turning it into a thick swamp. This, among other things, also had caused the pH level of the stomach to drop down considerably again, and Max felt how his skin was beginning to itch. Also, it was safe to assume that all the shrunken people Ashley had swallowed by now were breathing away most of the oxygen in the air, because Max had also noticed that breathing had become a lot more difficult again. And due to the increased secretion of stomach acid, the vile smell of vomit also had become a lot stronger again.

Nevertheless, Max tried to keep his breathing calm and consistent, but after the giantess had apparently finished eating, she suddenly got up, causing the tinies inside her stomach to cry out in fear at the abrupt upward movement. Max began to hyperventilate and desperately held onto a chunk of minced meat as the stomach contents began to slosh back and forth, accompanied by the mighty boom of giant footsteps deep below. After a while, Ashley seemed to stop, or at least move around a lot less, then nothing seemed to happen at all for a few moments. An almost ghostly silence began to spread among the shrunken people, then the stomach walls suddenly contracted, and Max felt how nearly all the rank air was suddenly pushed upward through the cardia, finally exiting the giantess’ body even further above with a guttural, wet rumble. The noise was accompanied by an intense vibration, which once again reminded Max of the bass of a stereo system that had been turned up to maximum. The sudden shift in air pressure also caused his hearing to go muffled for a few moments, accompanied by a sharp pain in his auditory canals which only subsided as his inner ear adapted to the new conditions with a loud plopping sound. He knew that Ashley had burped.

This was followed by a muffled pat from somewhere beyond the stomach walls, which Max couldn’t really place, then the entire stomach suddenly dropped downwards, causing the tinies trapped inside to collectively cry out again. There was another rumbling sound, somewhat similar to the belch a few moments before, but this time it sounded a lot more muffled and came from the opposite direction, somewhere deep below them. Then there was a loud, continuous roar like that of a large waterfall, accompanied by another rumble and a soft splat. Max suddenly felt sick and retched again as he realised that Ashley currently was on the toilet, releasing the digested remains of whatever she had eaten yesterday from her body. Sometime tomorrow, it would be him and the other shrunken people who would drop into Ashley’s toilet as a few semi-digested bones buried deep inside her shit. And that would be the end of his life’s story, digested alive by this young American woman he didn’t even really know.

Once Ashley had finished her business, her stomach suddenly moved up again as she rose to her feet and pressed the flush button. The flush was so loud that even the tiny people inside her belly could clearly hear it, and as the whole colossal body jolted up a little, Max couldn’t help himself but laugh. It seemed like the sound had given Ashley a bit of a jump as well – a strange reminder that the gigantic creature that was currently digesting them was actually just a normal human being. Again, he heard the giantess say something, then the bubbling stomach contents sloshed around again as she walked somewhere and finally sat down once more. The tremors due to these movements made the mountain of chyme his island had turned into finally collapse under its own weight, and Max rolled down a slope of sticky morass before splashing into a shallow puddle of mineral water. Letting out another groan, he turned on his belly and automatically began to climb up the slope of another hill of semi-solid chyme. All his brain told him was to stay away from the hissing ponds of stomach acid that now began to form in the lowest pits of the morass. He didn’t want to die.

As he further pulled himself up in an almost trance-like state, completely covered in a thick mush of lasagne, cake and stomach slime, he noticed that the situation inside the stomach had calmed down a little. The crying and wailing of the other shrunken people had fallen silent for the most part, and even Ashley’s majestic heartbeat and breathing seemed to have slowed down a little. The only thing that had not changed was the incessant squelching and gurgling of the stomach. Max assumed that the giantess had fallen asleep and was now taking a digestive nap, and almost as if he already were a part of her body, the thought began to make him feel sleepy as well. Or it was just hypoxia starting to affect his brain. After all, Ashley’s burp had forced most of the oxygen out of her stomach. Whatever it was, his limbs now began to feel heavy, and his movements grew slower and slower, and as he tried to reach for a ledge of splintered sugar icing, his body finally went limp, and he lost consciousness.

***

Only distantly, Ashley’s brain registered a sudden change in brightness, but for a couple of moments, her perception remained limited to the most basic functions, so that all she knew was that this light hadn’t been there before. Then she suddenly felt a pulling pain in her neck, and once her remaining senses slowly began to come back to her, she remembered that she was inside an airplane, and that she apparently had fallen asleep in quite an uncomfortable position. She squinted and let out a small moan, then she opened her eyes and looked towards the source of the light – it was the window beside Kayla’s seat. Just like all the other passengers, she had pushed up the blinds, and apparently, it had gotten bright again outside. A little surprised, Ashley glanced at the flight radar and realised that the plane had almost completely crossed Canada by now and was approaching the border of the US. There were only about two hours left until landing. She let out another subdued grunt and stretched herself.

“Good morning, sunshine.” Kayla said and looked at her over the edge of the reading glasses she had put on for the work with her documents, breaking into a broad grin.

“How long did I sleep?” Ashley asked and yawned, massaging her aching neck with one hand.

“You were out a couple of hours.” Kayla answered. “Did you get some rest?”

“Not really.” Ashley replied and grimaced. “Economy seats.”

“Right?” Kayla agreed. “My neck is pretty stiff too.”

“Would y’all like some more water?” The two were interrupted by Kelly.

“Oh yes, thank you.” Ashley said and let the flight attendant pour her a plastic cup with cold water from a bottle on the drinks trolley. The stewardess offered some refreshments to Kayla as well, but she politely declined and shook her head.

Ashley lifted the water to her mouth and first used it to moisten her dry lips a little, then she drank a sip and swirled the cold liquid around in her mouth for a moment, as it had dried out a bit during her nap. Then she gulped it all down, feeling the water travel down her oesophagus and into her stomach, which now also appeared to wake up with a faint gurgle. She lifted her hand to her mouth and let out a petite burp, which was inaudible to anyone but herself against the background noise of the aircraft, then she took another gulp and decided to continue watching her series. Since she didn’t really remember what had happened in the episode during which she dozed off, she simply restarted it and leaned back in her seat.

***

For Max, the last hours had been marked by a strange twilight state in which he would drift in and out of consciousness but didn’t really retain a sense of self any longer. His body now was nothing more than a barely functioning husk which only perceived certain sensations without cognitively processing them any further: Darkness. Heat. The sounds of the enormous body he was buried inside. And pain. Unbearable, burning pain which had encompassed his entire body, even spreading to areas which normally shouldn’t have been able to perceive pain. He hadn’t been able to move for a long time, as the little remaining energy he still had was required for the most basic task of in- and exhaling. But even this fundamental bodily function was now accompanied by a hellish burning sensation in his airways, which were completely covered with burns and so swollen and charred that every single breath sounded more like a suffocating rattle. The only good thing was that many of his nerves had been completely destroyed by now – the pain would have been even worse had this not been the case.

Only distantly, almost as if in a dream, Max felt that the enormous organism began to move around a bit more after a while, accompanied by the muffled, almost other-worldly voice of the young American he was quite literally melting into. Another few moments later, he heard a loud, wet gulp again, then the stomach was suddenly flooded by a surge of ice-cold mineral water. For Max this was both a gift and a curse; on the one hand, the water cooled the charred skin that had already partially peeled off his body, on the other hand, the sudden temperature shock seemed to have delivered the final blow to his dying nervous system. His spasming body drifted through the gradually shrinking slosh of digested food on top of a piece of masticated cake, then he could hear Ashley burp again high above. It was the last thing he ever heard and felt in his life, then his brain finally shut down and he closed his eyes forever.

As the chunk of masticated cake bumped into one of the stomach walls mere moments after, it tipped over and Max’ lifeless, semi-digested body sank into the viscous sludge of chyme and concentrated stomach acid, slowly beginning to break apart. This was accompanied by a sudden peristaltic movement which forced it even deeper down into the depths of the giantess’ stomach. There, the tiny corpse was sucked through the pylorus and into Ashley’s duodenum, beginning the next leg of its journey through the young American’s digestive system.

***

Meanwhile, Ashley was fully concentrated on her series and barely took any note at all of the small contraction in the lowest part of her stomach, accompanied by a quiet, moist glorp. She wouldn’t have dreamt that this marked the end of Max and that her digestive system would now start to assimilate the remains of his body into her own. Instead, all of her attention was devoted to the series, which was so interesting and funny that she again binged on several episodes in a row, making the last two hours until landing go by even quicker than she had thought. As the pilot announced that they were approaching their destination and would soon begin their approach, Ashley finished watching the episode and then went back to the flight radar via the main menu. This indicated that they were indeed getting close. Ashley looked past Kayla and out of the window, where she could now see the suburbs of her hometown glittering in the red evening light, and behind those the majestic chain of mountains that separated the city from the open sea. The sight made Ashley smile. She was home.

A little later, the plane descended into the final approach, turning to the side once as it flew over a small island in front of the city. As she observed the many tiny cars whizzing along the streets of this affluent suburb like busy ants, Ashley was overcome by a strange feeling – the architecture, the vegetation and the lighting had been familiar to her since her earliest childhood, but after a year abroad, she could also see how this place would appear exotic to foreigners such as her German friends. While she still processed these thoughts, the machine straightened out again and flew over a small bay with many piers and harbour installations, where a ship of the US Coast Guard was just heading out to the open sea. The sight inadvertently reminded her of her father, who served in the Coast Guard himself and who was waiting for her at the airport now. Ashley heard a mechanical whirr as the aircraft extended its landing gear, then they flew over solid ground again, and only seconds later, a slight jolt went through the machine as it finally touched down after almost twelve hours in the air. The cabin began to shake and rattle slightly as the airplane quickly decelerated, then it reached the end of the runway and slowly turned onto the taxi strip. While the plane now taxied towards the terminals and the pilot greeted the passengers at their destination, Ashley joined the others in loosening her seatbelt a little too early and slipped back into her sneakers.

Once the plane had finally reached the gate and parked beside a machine from Great Britain, Ashley got up and squeezed herself between the other passengers standing in the aisle. She reached into the overhead compartment and pulled out her backpack, then she decided to take out Kayla’s hand luggage as well and hand it to her, since she wasn’t able to step out into the aisle yet. Kayla thanked her with a broad, warm smile and then wished her a safe journey home. Ashley also wished her farewell and then headed down the aisle, so that she would not hold up any of the other passengers. At the exit, she walked past her flight attendant Kelly again, who amicably waved her goodbye as well, then she stepped out onto the jet bridge, breathing in the fresh, mild evening air coming from the outside. As she walked down the long corridors and concourses of the arrival area, she casually took out her phone again and turned it on. She had barely gotten past the lock screen when it suddenly began to vibrate constantly, receiving all the messages, notifications and emails she had missed during the last twelve hours. The first thing she did was open the conversation with her father, who had written to her that he had arrived at the airport and was waiting for her about half an hour ago.

just landed! :-) Ashley wrote back. on my way to passport control and gonna pick up my suitcase after that! see you soon!! <3

ok. Her father replied parsimoniously, making his daughter grin to herself affectionately. He, for one, hadn’t changed in the slightest.

As she queued up for the passport control, she also wrote to her mother and a couple of her friends that she was back in America. After a few more moments, it was her turn to walk up to the booths of the border police. The officer there appeared somewhat bored and disinterested, and waved her through quite quickly, so that she arrived in the baggage claim area a bit early. While she impatiently waited for the conveyor belt to start moving, she exchanged a few more messages with Rachel, then the belt finally began to turn, and the first suitcases and bags came sliding out of a chute-like piece of equipment in the middle. Since the first two classes were given preferential treatment, Ashley had to wait a little longer, until her suitcase too came crashing down onto the conveyor belt. She frowned a little, grateful that she at least wasn’t carrying anything fragile, then she walked over to the conveyor and lifted her luggage off the belt, finally making her way out to the arrivals lobby. After a couple of moments, she recognised her father standing amongst the people waiting there, a somewhat stern looking, burly middle-aged man with a military-style haircut and a bushy walrus moustache. As usual, he was sporting fairly worn-out sneakers, an old pair of jeans and a T-shirt as well as a baseball cap with the seal of the Coast Guard.

“Hey, you.” He said, laconic as usual, though the corners of his mouth lifted just a little, hinting at a loving smile, and the gaze of his cool, blue eyes became a lot warmer.

Ashley, on the other hand, was much less restrained. She noticed how her eyes became moist and flung her arms around her father’s neck, causing the sturdy man to chuckle benevolently.

“You still speak English?” He then asked her with a wink and took her suitcase.

“I missed you guys sooo much.” Ashley snivelled and kept clinging to her father as they left the lobby and walked towards one of the elevators leading to the parking garage.

As they made their way towards the exit, they passed by a confused, lanky young man who kept looking over towards the gate and then at his phone. What the man did not know was that the person he was looking for, his friend Max, was actually right next to him – though by now, he consisted of nothing more than a few small bone fragments and disembodied nutrients floating through the tight, winding intestines of the young woman who was just walking past him. Ashley looked at him for a passing moment and asked herself if the man was having some kind of problem, but she currently was too tired and drained to ask him if there was anything she could do to help. She would never have thought of drawing the connection to Max, since she simply assumed that he had been held up at the airport and never boarded the plane. To her, he was nothing but a fleeting memory by now.

Ashley and her father stepped into the elevator and rode it down to the car park, where she once more breathed in the mild, pleasant evening air, mixed with the slight scent of petrol and bitumen typical for parking garages. Then they went over to her father’s car for a few more moments, an old, but trusty white jeep with which her family had gone onto many camping trips in the mountains and which she therefore associated with many happy memories. While her father loaded her suitcase into the trunk and took her backpack off her to put it in the car as well, Ashley sat down on the front passenger seat, turning on the radio with another tired yawn. Listening to an advertisement for a local steakhouse, she found herself slightly alienated by the fact that everything around her was in English again suddenly, and by how much pushier the radio commercials were. At the same time, she noticed how the whole past year began to shrink down in her mind, as if she had never been gone at all.

Once they got on the road, Ashley opened the window and closed her eyes, letting the soft breeze brush over her face. Only occasionally, she opened her eyes and looked out onto the streets of the city flying by, then her father drove onto the highway, prompting her to close the window again. She let out another yawn and leaned back in her seat, turning her attention back to the radio. After a while, her father drove off the highway again and steered the jeep through the roads of another neighbourhood that was a bit closer to the city centre, then they crossed over a long bridge and drove into the part of town where the home of Ashley’s parents was located, and where she had grown up. As they passed her old high school, she instinctively began to relax even further, then her father turned into the road where the Taylor residence was located and parked it on a gravel path beside the house.

As they stepped through the front door of her parents’ house, she received a warm, welcoming hug from her mother, who also struggled to hold back her tears and kept embracing her over and over again. Then she led both of them into the dining room, where she had prepared some macaroni and cheese – one of her daughter’s favourite foods. As Ashley sat down at the table, she began to tear up again.

“Mom, you shouldn’t have.” She said with a sob and kissed her mother on the cheek as the latter forked a large portion onto her daughter’s plate.

“Oh, I just thought that you’d want something real to eat before you go to bed.” Her mother explained with a knowing wink as her daughter calmed down again and began to eat.

“Mh.” Ashley began as she hungrily dug into her dinner. “The food wasn’t half bad, actually.” She explained, happily munching on the macaroni and cheese in her mouth.

“But not as good as your mom’s mac 'n' cheese.” Her mother objected as she prepared another two plates for her husband and herself.

Ashley swallowed the bite in her mouth and grinned. “Of course not.”

While her empty stomach began to fill up with macaroni and cheese, Ashley continued chatting with her parents a little, until she began to feel very tired again and finally excused herself for the night. She went up into her old bedroom under the roof, where she pulled some old clothes from her wardrobe and went into the bathroom, getting undressed and stepping into the shower. As the warm water ran down her naked body and Ashley washed her slightly oily hair, her stomach let out another quiet gurgle as it began to digest her dinner. Deep down below, accompanied by a moist squelch, another peristaltic movement pushed the softened bones of Max and the other shrunken people deeper into the winding labyrinth of her small intestine. Most of their flesh, however, was already drifting through her bloodstream as fats, iron, protein, and other nutrients, which were gradually converted into energy for Ashley’s body, or small fat reserves on her breasts, her belly, and her buttocks, just like countless tinies before them that had been used by and assimilated into this healthy young woman.

Once she had finished her shower, Ashley dried herself off and then slipped into the clothes she had taken from the wardrobe in her room, some airy pyjama pants and an old T-shirt with two crossed anchors and ‘Semper Paratus’ printed onto it. It had originally been her father’s, but then had shrunk in the laundry, making it almost the right size for her. Yawning, she returned to her room and then dropped down onto her bed, pulling the blanket over her shoulders and finally falling asleep just a little later. Over the course of the night, the remains of Max and the other tinies slowly continued on their journey through the murky depths of her digestive system. As Ashley intermittently turned around in her sleep and cuddled against her blanket, there was another wet gurgle from her stomach as they were pushed through her ileocecal valve and into her large intestine, where they were further drained of fluid until they began to accumulate inside her rectum as soft, brown stool during the early morning. As they began to settle and compress a little more, they forced some air bubbles towards her sphincter, causing Ashley’s body to release them as a short fart in the morning hours, something the sleeping young woman didn’t take any note of. She was only awoken a little later, as the first rays of sunlight began to fall into her room, rolling around in her soft bed a little longer before becoming fully aware of the pressing issue in her lower intestine. Ashley let out a yawn and sat up, then she cast back her blanket and moved her feet out of bed. Once she had gotten up, she thoroughly stretched, feeling the tired muscles of her jetlagged body awaken. Then she shuffled out of her room and went to the bathroom, locking the door behind her and pulling down her pants before sitting down on the toilet seat and relaxing her sphincter.

This caused another wet fart to escape from between her soft butt cheeks, then she pushed the end product of her digestive process out of her rectum, letting it fall into the water of the toilet bowl with a moist plop. Ashley grunted quietly as she pressed again, releasing another soft bowel movement from her body. Never would she have thought that the tiny, bleached bones that partially protruded from the brown logs inside the bowl like undigested pieces of sweet corn also included the mortal remains of Max. But these were nothing more than waste products her body had been unable to process; most of what had once been Max was now nothing but small fat reserves on her large breasts, her belly, and her taut butt cheeks, which jiggled slightly as Ashley got up again and cleaned herself. As the paper touched her sphincter, she wiped away a few more small brown chunks containing tiny splinters which had once been part of his ribcage, then she perfunctorily dropped the used paper into the toilet and flushed.

While the contents of the toilet bowl were washed into the sewers, Ashley pulled her pyjama pants over her large, shapely derrière and washed her hands. Then she looked at herself in the mirror. Although she had washed the sweat from her skin and the grease out of her hair last evening and smelled fresh again, she still had slight circles beneath her eyes and looked a little battered. But that didn’t really matter – she was at home now and would give herself a few days before she would start caring about everyday trivialities again. As she recalled the events of the day before, she suddenly thought about Max again. She really wondered what had happened to him, hoping that he was okay. But she’d never know.

At that moment, her thoughts were interrupted by a ravenous growl from her empty stomach, which loudly insisted on her getting some food into her young, athletic body again. Ashley shrugged and dismissed the thought of her fleeting acquaintance one last time, then she went downstairs and into the kitchen to make herself some breakfast.

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