There's few things in this world more terrifying than finding yourself completely lost. And that's finding yourself completely lost, but in outer space.

Eventually, I decided to make the hard call and cryogenically freeze myself, set the ship to conserve power mode, and to be revived once I land on a planet. The ship's artificial intelligence would see to the rest, and solar power panels will collect enough energy from any stars I pass.

I was nervous, of course. There was the chance that this could fail, and I would just be walking directly into my grave. But at this point, I had no other option. My warp drive had malfunctioned during a routine trip, and I was legitimately fucked.

 The cryo-sleep chamber is heavily reinforced, so even if the ship breaks, there's an even smaller chance I would be recused by someone, perhaps even extra terrestrial life.

I got inside, closed my eyes, and the chamber hissed to life. I wondered how long it would take? Would this work? My heart was pounding, but not for long. Everything about me felt cold, my movements were either slow or impossible.

 "Cryo-sleep: disengaged," the familiar voice of the ship's artificial intelligence startled me.

 "What the f--" I started to ask, but began a coughing fit as stake air entered my lungs. I decided to address the ship directly.

"Alex, is something wrong?" I asked. It felt like a minute ago I was just getting into the chamber.

"Negative, Captain. Alert: Recently landed on unknown planet," Alex replied.

My heart was pounding. An unknown planet? But we had documented every single planet in the Milky Way already.

"Er... What... Are we still in... How many years have passed?" I dared to ask, and held my breath.
"Calculating..." Alex replied.

No, no, no... This was bad. Alex has never had to calculate the time before. I kept holding my breath as I waited for an answer.

"Five billion, eight hundred seventy-nine million, five hundred and sixty-three years have passed since last function," Alex replied, unfazed.

"Oh..." was all I could manage to say.

Everything I knew, everyone I knew, was long since dead. Whether I accidentally went through a worm hole, or Alex was malfunctioning by a small margin of error, the fact still stood that the planet we had reached was unknown.

I would not be able to achieve lift-off again at this rate, since I apparently also ran out of fuel eons ago.

"Is this planet habitable?" I asked Alex.

"Oxygen detected in atmosphere, but outside temperature is too cold for extended exploration," Alex replied.

"Ah," I uttered back, dryly.

There were no other options left.

I walked over to the weapons compartment, and opened up the locker that contained my pistol, fully intent on ending my life. The minute I saw the state my gun was in, I shut the door closed again. Right. Five billion years, I don't know what I expected, but one glance at that rusty antique told me it would never fire another round again.

"Welp, guess I may as well freeze my ass off and see what's out there. Maybe it'll be more exotic than your usual ice planet," I deadpanned.

"Alert: Life detected," Alex responded.

I blinked.

"Any chance it's intelligent life?" I asked.

"Inconclusive evidence," Alex responded. "Alert: life support systems failure. Maintenance suggested."

I rubbed my forehead in annoyance. I can't fix something like that, I would need a repairman. And they're probably all dead by now.

"Alert: Critical power failu--" Alex began, and shut off. The entire ship went dark.

"Damn it!" I yelled. I fumbled around in the darkness, trying to find the exit. "Guess I'll go freeze my ass to death instead..."

What's the point, after all. I survived all this time just to land on a snowy ice planet and die?

I popped open the exit door, and a snowy blizzard began to flood into my ship. The sight outside was mostly white, almost as if I had landed on Antarctica back on Earth, but with more hills. My outfit wasn't built for this, and I imagined I'd be dying in less than an hour unless a miracle happened.

"Welp..." I muttered under my breath, and began trudging through the snow, with no destination in mind.

Looking around, there wasn't too much to see. Most of the scenery was ice or snow. However, after several minutes, I noticed something... Footprints. Well, rather, paw prints. It looked like it belonged to some sort of quadrupedal creature like a bear or tiger of some type.

Hmm... Yeah, there's no way that will be intelligent life. Seems like some sort of predator footprints. I kept up my journey, rapidly getting exhausted from the harsh environment.

My next step found me falling through a hole in the ground which was camouflaged by snow. A burrow?

I regained my bearings, and looked around. I was in a massive underground cavern, with more rock than ice, and a huge heap of snow had broken my fall. Off in the distance, I heard a low growl. I turned my gaze to see something that resembled a polar bear and pig hybrid, but with a bigger mouth and no eyes.

I kept my composure, and slowly backed away from where I fell. The creature began a full sprint where I made all the noise, and began tearing into the snow with a vicious fury.

I am well aware that earlier, I had wanted to shoot myself in the head. But dying to this creature looked painful and horrific, and something within me told me that I needed to survive. Carefully, I knelt down, and picked up a chunk of ice.
I threw it as hard as I could in the opposite direction. It made a loud, echoing noise when it broke against the far cave wall. The creature snapped its neck in that direction, and charged over in unbridled fury. I used this chance to sneak away as quietly as I could manage. Eventually, after probably twenty minutes, I was certain I had lost the thing. I was hungry and tired, and fell in a slope against the wall in a new, different type of cave.

The lighting in this one was better and less dark, which somehow made me feel a little bit safer. I closed my eyes, and attempted to nap. This would probably be where I die. Alone, far in the future, on some random ass planet with a weird alien carnivore less than seven hundred feet away. It would probably find my body sometime and not think twice about digging in.

I cried myself to sleep. I had, well, a strange dream. A dream of my childhood, and everything that led me up to this point. Was my life flashing before my eyes? I suppose. I was too exhausted to care anymore.

***

The crunching of ice woke me up. It had barely been thirty seconds, surely, since I had rested my back against the wall. I opened my eyes to the most bizarre thing imagineable in front of me.

Something I would never have expected.

The form of a towering woman was a relatively short distance from me. The cave was massive compared to the last, and she stood tall, probably between a hundred to a hundred fifty feet tall. A veritable giant by all accounts. Oddly enough, that was not the strangest thing about her. Her skin was extremely dark, absorbing most of the light that hit her. A similar color came to mind: vantablack. Her features were difficult to make out, but not impossible. She looked human, but more like a shadow or a silhouette. Like an unlockable character from a video game. Her body was slim and shapely in contrast to the walls of the cave behind her. Well, besides her bright blonde hair and eyebrows, there was one very creepy and ominous feature on her face. Her eyes were piercing, with golden irises with a very white surrounding sclera, and her smile showed her snow white teeth as well. It was almost like looking at someone from a horror comic.

I was frozen in place, and not because of the frigid environment, but because I was well and truly terrified of the woman standing before me, just staring at me with an uncanny smile and inhuman skin tone.

My breathing began to pick up, and I noticed my teeth were chattering together. She didn't make a move towards me, though. But she did... Well, something.

Her eyes started to subtly glow.

"Hello!" a voice popped in my head. It sounded like a chorus of multiple different feminine voices at once.

It dawned on me that it came from the woman far ahead in front of me, and she had done it without twitching a muscle. In fact, she was eerily still.

"H...Hello?" I answered back, in disbelief.

I studied her closer... She didn't even seem to be wearing any type of outfit. She was well and truly nude, despite the harshness of the environment.

"Approach..." the alien replied. Her tone sounded like a polite command.

I wanted to run. I was freaked out. But... Could I trust her? She could have just walked up and done whatever she wanted to me, if she meant me any harm, right?

I slowly stood to my feet, but my legs were shaking a bit. I'm not sure if she knew how I was feeling about this. The amount of courage I required to take a few steps forward was overwhelming. I wanted to stall and collect my nerves.

"My name is Niall... w-what may I call you?" I dared ask. Somehow, it seemed this giant woman knew some sort of telepathy and simultaneously was able to understand me.

Suddenly, her right arm folded over her chest and she did a moderate bow towards me, with her left hand outstretched behind herself and fingers splayed open. Her face, however, kept trained at me the whole time, eyes focused on me and her smile continued going strong.

"Ymyr!" she answered happily. The resemblance of her name to the Norse ice giant of the past was not lost on me.

I took another cautious step forward, though I was still a considerable distance away from her. Every fiber of my being was itching for me to run away, but my rational mind told me that she would've harmed me already if she intended to. She's already shown she's capable of movement.
I decided I would just be honest with her.

"I... I am, uh... Quite nervous about all of this," I mentioned. "You're very large compared to me, and, well..." I failed to elaborate much further.
Ymyr stopped bowing, and laid down completely on her stomach. As she moved, more detail was visible whenever her silhouette contrasted with the background of the cavern. Her face was hard to make out but her features seemed Nordic, and she was rather beautiful, in a strange way.

"Smaller!" Ymyr answered, her voices sounding almost giddy.

I exhaled a breath I didn't realize I was still holding. It was a nice gesture, and helped me realize she was trying to make me feel more comfortable by minimizing her apparent size to me, although she was still massive in comparison.

My steps forward started resembling something closer to a normal walk. I was just slightly braver, now. And with bravery came braver questions.

"I'm actually happy you're able to communicate with me, but I've noticed... You're using single word sentences?" I asked.

Ymyr nodded, and tapped a finger on her chin while staring at the ceiling, to emulate 'thinking.' "Nature...?"

I pondered heavily what she could mean by that. For something to act by nature means that's something like their first instinct. Maybe she was only capable of single word sentences? Maybe she wasn't 'talking' to me at all, but sending concepts to me instead, with my mind filling in the blanks? It was the best answer I could quickly come up with, given the limited information I had on hand.

Eventually, I was directly standing in front of her, and adrenaline was still rushing through my veins. Maybe I died already, and this was just some strange dream my mind was hallucinating.
Ymyr smiled sweetly at me, and very slowly slid one hand towards me, with her pointer finger outstretched.

"Shake!" Ymyr sounded bubbly.

I cautiously reached my hand out, and rested it on her finger. She carefully moved it up and down. How did she know arbitrary human customs like bowing and handshakes?

"Nice to meet you, Ymyr," I replied after the handshake was concluded.

Ymyr practically trembled at my greeting, seeming excited.

"Friend!" Ymyr announced joyously.

This was a bit surreal. What were the odds of meeting a friendly giant alien on an ice planet?
My vision started to go... dark. It was just now I realized how absolutely cold I was.

"I... I'm a bit c-cold, I--" I felt myself lose balance and landed sideways on the ground, one of the last things I saw was Ymyr's face. Her smile was gone from both her mouth, and her eyes. Her face was replaced with genuine concern. Worry? Fear? I didn't know. I didn't have time to think much about anything.

***

Once again, I woke. I felt extremely warm, now. I must have passed out, but where was I?
I felt around. I was on something squishy. It was wet, moist, and constantly undulating. I was covered in a thick, warm liquid. I slowly opened my eyes, and noticed I could see a small sliver of the cave I was just in, and now I was in a pink cave surrounded by giant white teeth.

"What the--" I spoke aloud, before the pink floor pushed me up against the roof, and a force pulled most of the thick liquid off of me, somewhere behind me.

Suddenly, it all clicked. I must have been in Ymyr's mouth, and she was swallowing the excess saliva that coated me. I started to panic.

"P-Please don't eat me!" I began to beg, and tried to squirm my way towards the light. Ymyr pressed her tongue slightly firmer on me, pinning me in place. I felt very powerless, and could hardly struggle free.

"Warmth!" Ymyr answered, still sounding a bit nervous.

I stopped struggling, and remembered I just fainted from the cold outside a little bit ago.

"Oh... Oh! You're just... Warming me up, Ymyr?" I managed to ask, trying to get a hold of my breathing again.

"Yes!"  Ymyr enthusiastically replied with her usual telepathy.

I stopped struggling, and let her tongue have its way with me. A few moments later, her lips parted a bit more, and her tongue relaxed, dropping into a resting state again.

"T-Thank you, Ymyr... You probably just saved my life, if I'm being honest," I admitted. While it was a bit odd, I welcomed the sudden warmth compared to the bitter chill of the outside.

"Friends!" Ymyr repeated herself, sounding happy as usual.

I smiled, and began to relax a bit more. The 'cave' of Ymyr's mouth also changed shape as well, suggesting she was smiling on the outside, too.

I found myself feeling extremely grateful now. Ymyr was actually acting kind of... Sweet? I considered everything I'd already been through, and considered myself very fortunate. I decided I should probably trust my new friend if I wanted any chance at survival on this bizarre new planet. I had nothing else to do, so I decided to get to know her more.

"You've been very gentle and nice to me so far, Ymyr. What made you want to be friends with me?" I asked.

I no longer felt any fear from her, despite being in her mouth, which could easily spell my doom if she had the desire to eat me.

"Lonely..." Ymyr replied, with notes of sadness creeping into her voice now.

I actually felt bad for her now.

"Well, not anymore!" I replied happily.

Through Ymyr's lips, I watched as she brought her silhouetted hands up and made the shape of a heart with her fingers. The display melted my heart.

"So, how old are you?" I asked. I had all the time in the world, and befriending this giant telepathic alien woman was all I currently wanted to do.

"Megaannum," Ymyr replied.

"I've never heard that one before, but I'll just assume it's a long time," I replied with a nervous chuckle. "I'm twenty-six, if we're going by Earth years."

"Earth?" Ymyr asked, sounding confused.

"Oh, it's a long story. Are you sure?" I asked.

"Absolutely!" Ymyr responded, sounding intrigued.

"Well, okay..." I began my story.

***

"--and now I'm here in your mouth. It's very comfortable, by the way! Not unbearably hot, surprisingly," I finished my story.

Ymyr waited for a moment before finally responding. "Amazing!" She finally answered, sounding genuine about it.

"Yeah, I thought I was a goner. First that creature out there, and then, I was also scared of you for a minute or two... But you've proven you're a huge sweetheart, honestly," I admitted. Normally I'd get tongue-tied saying something like that to a normal woman my size, but somehow that nervousness didn't translate when I was complimenting an ice planet giant...ess? I think that's the term for a female giant.

"Creature?" Ymyr asked, before opening her mouth and pointing directly at the beast that was threatening me earlier. My blood went cold when I saw the thing again.

"Y-yeah, that's the one," I replied, a bit shakily. "It seemed pretty vicious when it was chasing me earlier--"

"Yummy!" Ymyr cut me off, and started walking towards the creature. Her footsteps were making a lot of noise, so the animal started running at her.

What did she intend to do? She... Didn't seem afraid of the thing at all. I watched, a bit curious. The thing was far too small to hurt her. In a swift motion, I watched her pick the creature up with her right hand.

"Nice. But what are you--" I began to ask, but started to genuinely panic once she started bringing the creature closer to her face. "Whoa whoa whoa!"

I started to scramble away from Ymyr's lips as she brought the roaring creature closer. Ymyr's tongue pushed my entire body to the left side of her mouth, resting on some of her teeth. They were pure white, and I suddenly remembered that teeth were very good at crushing things. I felt uneasy, but stayed put. It only took a moment or two, but Ymyr popped the beast on her tongue, and started working it toward the back of her throat. The creature was putting up a huge fight and making all sorts of angry noises, before her tongue pushed back and thrust the beast into her throat. I couldn't even hear the thing at all anymore. I stared at the abyss of Ymyr's throat for a moment, her uvula and tonsils had returned to their usual state, and it was almost like nothing even happened in the first place. Ymyr then re-situated me back in the middle of her tongue... But that was it. I was back where I was originally, but her tongue made no effort to swallow me like it had with that vicious beast from earlier.

"Filling..." Ymyr eventually stated, sounding satisfied.

My mouth was still agape in horror at what I just witnessed. That thing was so easily overpowered and sentenced to digest in her stomach, when on my own it could have gored me to death. I instinctively backed away from Ymyr's throat, but only by a little bit. My rational mind reminded me that I shouldn't be in danger.

"That was... an experience," I mentioned. "I've never watched anyone eat food this closely before," I began to laugh.

"Hungry?" Ymyr asked me. The inflection in her tone suggested it was a question rather than a statement.

"Me? I suppose. What's here for me to eat?" I asked.

Ymyr paused for a moment.

"Ymyr?" I asked, my laughter dying down a bit.

"Trust?" Ymyr asked me, and let me watch her hand tap against her chest, referring to herself.

Trust? I... supposed I did, but why was she asking that?

"I..." I hesitated. My life was in her hands, and she had done right by me so far. If I can't trust her, I have nothing else. "I trust you."

"Enter..." Ymyr brought a finger inside her mouth, and pointed at her throat.

I blinked. There was no way I understood that right.

"You... want to... eat me?" I slowly asked.

Ymyr removed her finger and shook her head, along with me inside her mouth as well.

"Safe!" Ymyr replied, sounding desperate to communicate something to me.

I swallowed a lump in my throat and began to inch my way towards the back of her mouth.

"If I go down your throat, I won't die or be harmed?" I finally asked the absurd question that had been burgeoning in my mind.

"Promise!" Ymyr answered, her tone sounded genuine.

Here, in this moment, I was scared as much as the moment I first met Ymyr. I weighed the options in my mind, and decided to trust what she was saying. After all, I had considered suicide the minute my spaceship crashed on this forsaken planet. What difference would it make if this was the way I die? There's nowhere else to go, no other humans left alive. I'm eons into the future, and the only thing I have left to my name now is Ymyr. If this is all just a game to her, then I'll die a pathetic death like I initially thought I would. On the other hand, if going into her stomach won't actually kill me, if she's telling the truth and has some type of plan, then...

I laid on my stomach, head first peering into Ymyr's throat.

"I don't have the... courage, if you understand... But I trust you, Ymyr," I finally spoke up.

Ymyr seemed to understand what I meant. I couldn't step into her throat on her own. She would have to choose to swallow me.

"Brace!" Ymyr politely instructed me.

I shut my eyes tightly, and tensed up, in preparation for what was to come.

Ymyr's tongue rose, guiding my feet above my head, and escorted me into her throat. A few moments later, I felt the muscles of her esophagus pulling me in further and further, until I was entirely inside of her throat, being sent down into her stomach. The long fleshy tube kept undulating around me, guiding me down and coating me in saliva. I had been swallowed, and it was probably the most terrifying and bizarre experience I've ever felt. Funnily enough, my it popped my spine in just the right way, and relieved some stress I didn't even know I had built up back there.

A moment or two later, I reached the entrance of Ymyr's stomach. My head was the first part of my body to pop through the entrance, and I noticed Ymyr's stomach acid was bioluminescent-- it glowed a dim turquoise color, barely illuminating the rest of the organ's walls.

I fell a short distance into the acid, expecting it to sting or feel unpleasant... or something. I was completely submerged, and wasn't prepared for the liquid to get in my eyes or mouth, yet it did.

And...

And...?

I felt fine. It was as harmless as water. I scrambled my way to the surface, and climbed onto a relatively drier part of her stomach's wall.
Why didn't any of this hurt? Why was the air in this organ easy to breathe? I couldn't wrap my head around it.

Suddenly, something popped back up in my mind. I was now down here with the animal Ymyr had previously eaten. If it was down here too, then surely...

I glanced around frantically, and noticed a commotion in Ymyr's stomach acid. Soon, something emerged from underneath the surface. It was the strange creature from earlier. It was thrashing around, squealing horrendously. My eyes went wide as I noticed it was bleeding, flesh halfway melting off already. It was getting the 'true' digestion experience I expected I would also get. I almost felt bad for the creature, if it weren't an aggressive predator.

The spectacle before me was surreal. Within a minute or two, the creature was entirely dissolved, blood and all, as if it were never in here in the first place.

"Niall?" Ymyr's voice projected into my mind again. She was able to talk to me in here, too?

"Y-y-yes ma'am!?" I answered, heavily shaken up.

"Drink," Ymyr replied.

"Are... Are you sure?" I asked. I don't think my conventional assumptions about how things work would come in handy anymore. Everything Ymyr has asked me to do so far hasn't killed me yet, though.

"Yes," Ymyr replied again, in her characteristically happy tone.

Again, my loyalty would be tested. I returned to the edge of her stomach acid, and scooped some up with two hands. I brought it to my mouth, and sipped some.

It didn't burn. It tasted like plain water. I wasn't sure how much I needed to drink, so I just lowered my head and sipped up as much as I would at a water fountain.

After I was done, I realized something. I was no longer thirsty, nor hungry. It was such a counter intuitive method of sustenance, yet it had worked.
It seemed every second I was with Ymyr, questions kept popping in my head.

"So what happened to that pig-bear looking animal?" I asked.

"Digestion," Ymyr replied happily.

"But not me?" I asked.

"Correct," Ymyr answered.

"But how?" I asked again, still dumbfounded.

"Choice," Ymyr responded with a delightful tone again.

"Choice? Do you mean you can just choose what you want to digest or something?" I asked, incredulously.

"Correct!" Ymyr replied once more.

"Hmm... I'm a bit confused on how your stomach acid can nourish me, and yet eradicate something else entirely," I mused, and rubbed my fingers against the temples of my forehead.

"Complicated..." Ymyr answered, in a neutral tone.
Hmm... I was still on the fence about it, despite all the evidence in front of me. A small test would confirm my suspicions. Was I just dreaming all of this? Was it a hallucination?

"Hey, Ymyr? Can you jump in place just one time for me?" I asked.

"Sure?" Ymyr replied, and it was the first time her voice sounded curious.

Soon enough, me, and the rest of Ymyr's stomach acid were briefly launched in the air, and slammed back down in place. I fell to the very bottom of the pool in her stomach, and began to swim upwards, afraid I might suffocate. However, a bit did enter my lungs, and nothing happened.

So, I truly was in her stomach, and Ymyr seemed to have complete control over what happened inside of it. My head breached the surface of the glowing pool.

"You can even control whether this liquid will drown me or not..." I said aloud, accidentally.

"Friends!" Ymyr replied, in a very deliberate tone.

Talking to Ymyr was neither hard nor easy, she seemed to truly be limited to one-word replies, meaning I have to carefully consider the interpretation of each word she said to me. So why would she choose to say "friends' in response to that question? Eventually, I decided on an answer that made sense to me, even if it was a bit insane. Ymyr obviously had total control of how everything in her body worked, and she wouldn't let me die inside of her-- not by digestion or even asphyxiation. She really did consider me to be her friend, so of course she wasn't going to let me get hurt in here.

She had spared me, and an overwhelming sense of gratitude came over me.

"You're actually very kind, aren't you?" I eventually stated. It was pretty obvious, or at least to me it was.

Ymyr let out something that sounded like a happy squeal, using her own vocal chords, and not telepathy. It was a bit endearing to listen to, and immensely exotic. There was no way I could replicate the noise I just heard come from above.

"Cozy?" Ymyr eventually asked me, once she was done celebrating in her own way.

That was a loaded question. Cozy. Yes, the place was comfortable. The stomach acid was warm and pleasant, and the stomach walls were squishy and soft. I could probably sleep in here if I so desired.

"Yes it's very comfortable, but are you asking me if I want to stay in here?" I asked. I hope she didn't intend on keeping me prisoner.

"Yes," Ymyr replied.

"I could stay in here for awhile, but I'd also like to hang out with you on the outside again at some point as well, even if it's cold," I replied. "I'm guessing you can let me out somehow when I'm ready?"

"Yes..." Ymyr responded, but this time she did not sound as confident as usual.

A sinking feeling crept back into my stomach. I would trust Ymyr with my life, I've already done so several times already, but why was her last reply so... shady?

...Don't tell me.

"Ymyr... Are you able to regurgitate?" I asked. A very important question.

"...No," Ymyr responded, sounding distraught.

I gulped, and looked around. It was a normal stomach with two holes in it. One led to the esophagus, and one led to the duodenum.

"If you're unable to throw me up, then does that mean--" I asked, and Ymyr quickly cut me off.

"Forgive!" Ymyr responded and sounded extremely embarrassed. It was one of the few times she didn't sound in control.

"I'm... not upset with you, it's okay my friend. Is that path at least as safe as your stomach is?" I asked.

"Yes..." Ymyr replied, but still sounded like she was hiding something.

I sighed.

"Is the pathway out the back door free of debris?" I asked, preparing myself for the worst.

"...no..." Ymyr eventually answered, and I could swear it was the tone of someone who wanted to hang themself.

Excellent. If I wanted to leave Ymyr's body, I would simply have to dig my way through her shit, or let her expel it and give me a heads up when the time is nigh.

I sighed, but decided to count my blessings. I wasn't dead, Ymyr was good company, and she seemed to care about me.

Exhaustion, however, started to hit me again like a ton of bricks.

"I think I'll try take a nap for now, Ymyr. I'm a bit tired after all these miniature heart attacks and it's pretty comfortable in here. Thank you for your help thus far. I will be looking forward to your company again when I wake up..." I paused briefly, then added something brazen on a whim. I was feeling very comfortable with Ymyr already to the point I felt like I could say it. "Say goodnight for 'Goodnight', or say Niall for 'Goodnight Niall, I'll miss you bunches and bunches until you wake up.'"

Ymyr didn't miss a beat. Not even a half second passed before she basically shouted:

  "Niall!"