Chapter 5: Starrborough

The citizens of Starrborough were disconcerted. Did Starr come back early? They heard her mention the karaoke contest the other day, and it sounded like a group thing. Plus, those steps sounded a bit boomier than the dainty feet they were used to. Starr never wore shoes in her room: partly out of consideration for their well being.

So it couldn’t be Starr, but it was unlikely to be anyone else in the ZZ sorority either. They all knew not to come in her room uninvited. It quickly became apparent this was a stranger.

Eryn waltzed up to the nightstand and loomed over the little petri-dish. A smile grew on her face as she studied it. “Looks like Starr’s got her own private pet city now doesn’t it.” She lifted her phone to view herself from the city’s lovely and lowly perspective. Just like in ZZ-World, there wasn’t a password or anything needed to interface. It was only by trust none of the other gals played with Starr’s little city. That and fearing her wrath, of course.

Thankfully, Eryn didn’t go to this sorority though. She had no stakes here, and nothing to fear since they wouldn’t know she ‘visited’ at all. The tomboy saw her crotch loom above the city and chuckled. She crouched down to get eye level with it. She turned on the city audio relay with the Micro Manager app, and was surprised to hear comparatively few screams. Even as her freckled face loomed right above the enclosed civilization, she hardly heard any panic.

Seems Starr had them well trained. The tomboy had an idea. She’d try to talk to them.

“Hello.” she said. The speaker played back her voice from the audio-mic system underneath the city. “You little guys better figure out a way to communicate with me before I get bored and just trash you.”

Starrborough had a ruling council of sorts. They had no real power, since everyone knew Starr’s word was law. Still, they were elected and managed the city’s water distribution, indoor gardening departments and other utilities for the city. Now, they had their first real challenge. They were aware of some sort of microphone system with which Starr could hear them. She never wanted to listen to them, however. In fact, she chastised them heavily the only time they tried. Starr had said gods didn’t need to listen to their subjects.

Thankfully, as part of the advanced city Starr purchased, there was that tiny microphone at the city’s central park. It was in addition to the microphones under the city’s surface which were probably too weak for any one person to be picked up. The council remembered the day the microphone booth was put there by some sort of metal tweezers. It had been unused till now: by Starr’s orders.

The council ran out into the streets. The park wasn’t too far from their building. The council leader went into the microphone booth.

“Hello!” shouted the council leader. She was a gray haired micro. “Hello, can you hear us.” She looked up in anticipation. Any one of this woman’s freckles stretched big enough to park a few cars on.

Eryn squinted. Her phone played back a voice. Some old woman.

“Who’s this? You the city mayor or something?” said Eryn. She didn’t deign to speak in her phone. She knew her voice was loud enough to be heard.

The micros covered their ears, but got the message.

“M-my name is Wanda. I am the council leader for the city. There is no mayor. We follow the demands of Starr when she gives them out. Who might you be?”

“Name’s Eryn.” said the redhead. Her smile stretched wide in their sky.

“Are you a friend of Starr’s perhaps? We know she lives with other god-beings and-”

Eryn interrupted. “Nope. I hate her guts in fact. I am a god though, your new one.”

Wanda’s heart dropped. The sentiment was shared with many others in the city. A few screams rang out of the speakers.

“What? That’s impossible once Starr hears about this she’ll-”

“She won’t” said Eryn. Her hand came down and another symphony of screams rung out. The tomboy was rotating their lid off.

“Stop please!” cried Wanda. Eryn just chuckled, dwarfing that plea and all the others. She already had the perfect idea on how to get rid of them all. As though to hint at it, her stomach rumbled. The fleshy roar of it spread terror over the city.

“Hear that?” said Eryn. “Your new god’s famished. Shame for you that she’s not a very nice one. You’ll make a nice sacrifice though.”

The lid popped off and Eryn set it aside.

“To my appetite, that is.”

Eryn began to raise the city towards her mouth. Without the lid, the tomboy’s breath wafted over them. The humidity of it fogged their windows.

“No!” shouted Wanda. “Don’t it’s... this is being recorded. Starr will find out.”

“No she won’t. You can’t store feeds to anything but a laptop or computer I’m told, and I don’t see any nearby.”

She had called the bluff.

“Please, we’ll worship you instead.” cried Wanda. “Spare our city. Whatever your grudge, there are hundreds of thousands of innocents.”

Eryn chuckled yet again. “Grudge or no, I’m curious what you taste like. Enough of this. In you go.”

Eryn tilted the petri-dish of a city over her wide open mouth. The entire city slid off its foundation into that awaiting maw. Shimmering bands of drool broke the buildings as the flew down into the tomboy’s gob. Hundreds of people got stuck in them, while many more fall past them and right down Eryn’s gullet.

Some of the city held on to the underlying foundation of the dish, but a few shakes sent them out and free falling into the pitch-blackness of her throat. Once her mouth was full of the city, she swallowed. The buildings were brittle enough that she had no risk of chocking gulping them down like that. In fact, the tugs of her throat did quite a number of the structures, given the noises coming from the speaker.

Eryn smiled, both at that and the fact that she could still hear. That little microphone booth had its own wiring and WiFi connection. By sheer luck, it survived the swallow. Eryn listened to the sounds of her body and the countless screams as her throat gripped all those micro lives down.

Sadly, none of the cameras made it. Even if they did they couldn’t get too much without lighting. The built in lights on the thing wouldn’t have a chance of illuminating something as comparatively vast as her gut.

She didn’t mind, the audio was enough to put together a visual. She heard her stomach gurgle at the new arrivals. She heard the churn of that organ, and the resulting screams as all that city matter got tossed and tumbled about. She shut her eyes and exhaled a sultry breath at the screams of burning agony once her acids started to tingle.

Wanda was one of the first to die. A stray steel girder crushed her legs, so she was stuck in a pool of stomach juices. Mobs of people were crushed by the stomach flesh as it moved. Buildings collapsed. Every home was destroyed. Everyone stumbled in the dark, screaming as their eyes stung in the torrid air.

Eryn had the perfect thing to listen to on her way out of here. She hooked her earbuds into her phone and clipped it back on her belt. A new set of screams rung out as she stood fully upright. She heard her own chuckle, muffled by the flesh of her stomach. Her heart beat in the background too.

“I’m huge.” she mused to herself. She smiled. Her plan was a success! She knew TT was sitting out of the karaoke competition, so they’d have no alibi for her framing. Eryn was sure her actions here would start an inter-sorority conflict that’d get the whole university involved. The entire sorority system on campus would probably collapse as a result.

She scooped up the petri-dish and stuffed it in one of the side-pockets of her backpack, zipped up for safety. She wiped everything she touched of her prints, then hopped back out the second floor window, slid down the tree, and walked out to her car.

After such a successful plan, she decided to treat herself. She’d stop through a drive through for a nice burger. Maybe some of the city she ate would survive long enough to get crushed by the chewed thing? The thought made her grin.

Afterwards, Eryn planned to buy herself a micro-city of her own. She had seen some signs advertising some half-off and ‘buy one, get one free’ deals at the local micro-civ store. Her experiences today were too fun to ignore, and she had some fun, intimate ideas on how to play god in the privacy of her own apartment tonight.

She drove off 15 minutes before Starr returned.

--==--==--==--

Arianna and Nance carried the big gold-colored trophy inside. They passed it off to the sophomores. “Just put it with the rest.” said Starr.

“Great singing out there Starr!” said Arianna.

“Yeah you really nailed those high notes.” said Nance.

The brunette giggled. “Oh stop. It is true though. My singing lessons paid off.” She giggled with a flip of her hair.

“Anyways, that was fun but a tad exhausting. What do you say we check on ZZ-World again?”

“Do you think they repaired that damage from Nance’s finger?”

Starr spoke. “Oh they’re fast at all that. Roads are easy to fix.”

The three gals walked up the stairs to their floor of the house.

“I’m sure we’ll step in that room and find everything good as new.”

“We do take good care of them don’t we?” said Arianna.

Starr’s hand was on the door knob to the vivarium room. She gave it a twist.

“They’re lucky to have us.”, she said.

Fin