—Epilogue 

That was her cue. As soon as any of her “treats” started to notice the pain, she would use her magic to lull them into unconsciousness. It was a common practice for every meal, regardless of how much they fought her going down. She enjoyed teasing and tormenting humans but there was a distinct line between playful cruelty and inhumane suffering. It was often hard for her to rationalize making a person experience the full extent of digestion even when she truly wanted them to suffer. Even for her, it was too much. 

She tapped her stomach and smiled. In the end, Tom gave himself to her willingly. He was still alive inside her, that was certain. It was an unmistakable sensation when she claimed a soul. Like biting into a fresh berry and the juices exploding to every corner of one's mouth, a soul’s sudden departure from the body would fill Hinba with an otherworldly sensation of pure ecstasy and satisfaction. 

She approached the giant crack in the worldtree that led to the worldstone. It was too bad that she had already made her decision to let Tom out. She made sure to walk painfully slowly. There was still a chance that the human would succumb to her stomach before she had a chance to pass through the worldstone. No one would really blame her for TRYING to save her little human. “He was the one that wanted this after all,” she told herself with a sly grin. 

There was just something that was bugging her. Last night after she left Tom’s apartment she heard him think about a door, a door she didn’t recognize. She assumed he was lying about the missing bullet, of course, but for her to miss an entire door? Thinking back to the layout of the apartment, she mentally walked to the space right outside the bedroom and bathroom, the door directly ahead went to the bathroom and the door to her left went to Tom’s bedroom. She tried to mentally turn to face the wall to her right in that same space but only succeeded in giving herself a headache. Tom was certainly a strange human to have a wall in his apartment made solely out of headaches. 

He actually surprised her. All she saw in him was fear right before she ate him. That led her to believe he was just in denial and she would be denied his soul, but somehow Tom used that fear to rationalize his actions somehow. He knew that he was willing to be eaten because of his fear rather than despite it. Even with Hinba able to see his every thought, he had still managed to come to that realization without her knowledge. “My clever little human.” She whispered to herself. 

She was nearing the worldstone, passing through the darkness with memorized precision. The walls began to dance with a vibrant blue glow. There was a brief moment where Hinba started to second guess her decision while looking at the upside down reflection of her human form laying in Tom’s bed. He was beside her in the image. There was an uneasy expression on his face and his skin was red and clearly irritated.

For a moment she hesitated. She had Tom right where she always wanted him, and now she was going to just let him go. As if in protest, her stomach let out a loud growl. “If this turns out to be nothing then I’ll just put him right back tomorrow.” She spoke to no one. “I don’t even need to wait, just drop in, look around his apartment while he’s still unconscious and if there’s nothing there then we’ll both come right back, none the wiser.” She wasn’t sure why she felt the need to convince herself. Something about this human just tickled her to no end. It really was a pleasure to mess with him. Maybe she will make him believe that she did digest him and drum up an illusion to make him think he’s in the afterlife. She’ll make everything flesh coloured and smell like her sex. Tom’s reflection started to twitch. He was reacting to her stomach's final death hug. “Better hurry.” She said quickly before reaching out to touch the worldstone. 

—-

Hinba rolled over on the queen sized bed to regard her human. A small layer of her stomach acid still clung to his skin and was now soaking into the blankets. She lifted the sheets just to make sure he still had both of his legs and arms. Digestion didn’t occur that quickly but she wanted to double check. If there was a chance that he could wake up in serious pain she would want to avoid it. For the most part he just looked like he had a really bad sunburn, a few blisters, and needed a shower. 

Hinba slowly got out of the bed to make sure that she didn’t disturb Tom. Walking around the bed she approached the door and opened it slowly. It was hard to focus but she could just barely make out the image of a door in front of her. “How strange...” Her brain was trying to make sense of the image. There was some powerful magic trying to keep her from perceiving this doorway. “It’s not going to work.” Her eyes began to glow and she was finally able to focus on the electric lock. “What do we have here?” 

She searched her memories of Tom’s experiences but couldn’t find the code, only that it was six digits. Her eyes moved around the room and landed on a magazine that was thrown onto the floor. “Where did you come from?” It was not there when they were in the apartment last. Tom would read these magazines for hours, reading them over and over again but he always seemed to detest reading about old cars. Hinba always assumed that it was some sort of coping mechanism to deal with the feeling of living on borrowed time. Time borrowed from her, she added. 

Her eyes drifted down to a series of numbers below a bunch of small black lines. The last six in the series looked familiar. She plugged those in and the door unlocked, “Nice try” she spoke with a small chuckle, “but I know you too well to-“ 

The room was not a room. The walls were not walls and every direction she looked felt “wrong,” somehow. There was only one bit of “something” that stuck out amongst all of the formlessness. Across the room that was not a room, she saw a small amber glow twinkling in a dense haze. “Is that naga magic?” She spoke as she made her way around a “something” that blocked her path but was easily avoided. There was a little box and inside was a small glowing amber stone, crackling and vibrating with intensity as it tried desperately to maintain its illusion. The stone failed. With a single large crack its glow dissipated and it broke in two. Hinba picked up one of the halves and examined it. “A naga would need several of these to hide from me.” She thought of Tom, “You kept all this from me only using one, AND you were under my charm... How did you manage that?” She asked aloud. 

With the amber broken she looked around at the room, there was a desk in the Center of the room that was covered in maps and sketches all of variety size and complexity. Tom was trying to retrace his past through the Forest even though he spent a lot of his time unconscious. Several bookshelves lined the walls with various tomes of all shapes and sizes. One wall had a large white board with her name written several times in a column with different spellings. Beside all of the scribbles were different languages in a second column. A marker connected the first two columns with a third for a list of possible translations. She zeroed in on one of the translations, “‘Fire hag?’ That’s not far off actually...” 

In the center of one of the walls was a large hand drawn map of her village, painstakingly recreated from memory with several pins sticking into the many buildings. A single red string snaked around each pin filling in a large portion of the map in what appeared to be three large triangles pointing out from the center. A portion of the string was hanging loose. She tilted her head as her arm reached up on its own. Wrapping her finger around the loose string she pulled it towards the center of the town and hooked it on an outstretched nail sticking out of an intersection.   

Stepping back, she looked at the image of a five pointed star overlapping her town. It was her star, the symbol of her magic. “Is this what you were doing while pretending to read magazines?” 

She looked back to the box that held the broken amber. A bullet sat next to it. So he wasn’t lying about that either. To think that he had the opportunity to take his own life but still allowed himself to be brought back to the forest... “I guess our night of “fun,” wasn’t a mistake after all. I must have really done a number on you.” She smiled to herself before noticing a small envelope placed under the bullet and stone. Placing the other contents to the side, she pulled it out and flipped it over, feeling something inside the paper. 

There was something written on the bottom right next to the seam. It read, “Take me, and I am yours. Keep me, and I will stay yours.” 

Opening the envelope, and gently shook out the contents. A large metal ring fell out. It was too large to fit around her fingers in her human form, and too small for her normal fingers either, but it didn’t matter, she knew it’s meaning, “So, my little human wants to be my little pet” she bit her lower lip. “Oh I am definitely going to make you think you’re in the afterlife” giggling to herself for a brief moment before setting down her findings and moving to the exit. Before leaving she turned one last time to the map of her village. “Or... maybe I'll just let you rest... “ She closed the door behind her and returned to her human.