Adrift in a Stomach

~ I ~

Getting Used to Her Mornings

The first few nights in the depth of the stomach, where darkness and encroaching growls composed its length, had been the hardest for Tough Luck to find sleep. There was always the feeling of soon meeting his end. His body was on a struck nerve.

He'd laid back on his raft of bone, one with a curve as to become a special kind of boat, as the waters boiled at his sides. It reminded him of a boiling pot on the stove. Bubbles rising and popping and releasing fumes unable to be smelled. Beneath the murky waters, there was food, or its remains, the disintegration into mush.

And then nothing.

Laying back and looking up, he was always frozen, shocked into place—tense. One roll from him and he'd go over the edge. It'd be like drowning in lava. Sleep came harder with that fact tucked in his mind. Or how, if the woman were to flip in her sleep, that he'd have to endure the transition of gravity.

And Velvet's snores were worse of all.

Tough Luck couldn't sleep in the vast darkness of an unsteady wave pool. Nor could he handle the hammer on an anvil, echoing monstrously throughout a stadium, that was the distant, beating heart. Much less the vents of currents of air. And the loud, deafening, snores that thundered from outside his prison.

But Tough Luck soon made peace with this.

That first week was nothing but naps and the attempts at planning. Relying, after the swampy waters had drained, for what drop was to come from the overhead passage of the throat. Standing beneath that valley as heaps of mash, stacked, and chewed bits lazy submerged and slid down that mountain.

Tough would throw himself into that pile. Swimming deep to bite useful bits. Pieces of bones or other matters not easily as adjustable. Anything to ensure his survival here with the attempts to soon escape after enough thought had been given.

It took to the end of the week to finish but, after a while, the tiny was able to fix a special boat of bone for himself. He made it into a box shape, with its ceiling, wedged into the space, keeping locked unless pushed on by him.

It was enclosed darkness that kept the rest of the belly outside of it. Here. He was able to sleep. No fear of rolling out or the giantess doing the same out in her mighty world. Even if she were to flip back to her stomach, his cage would change, but the water pressure on the cover would keep it in place.

Sleeping was still tough. He was at sea each morning. Forced to be rocked on the waves and able to nap despite it. Soon he adjusted. Mornings would see his box stranded somewhere in the stomach, on its sides, with a few good kicks to get the cover off.

He would crawl out onto the squishy flesh, stretch, and look out to scavenge. All was dark, and the repeating sounds were fainter on his ears. The ground undulated beneath his feet—hardly noticeable now.

Tough wandered the chamber's vastness, walking over the curves that were like exploring the room's vastness as sometimes it rolled into turns that took little hills. There'd been smaller boxes he'd made. Whatever tools or whatnot needed to be saved.

His morning was to find anything leftover from the burning of the acid. Anything strong to survive a session with that, no doubt, would be of use to him. It gave him something to do. During one such search through food, he came across a long string of hair.

To him, it was as strong and thick as rope. Tough wrapped it like a belt around himself and would find various uses for it. In finding all his little boxes, one such thing was to slip the tip of the hair through the loops he'd fashioned on each.

From there, he would pull, adding another box once they were found, hauling them back to where his home had washed up for the night. He kept this practice up and evoked as he did so. Or, at least, until he could sleep better at night.

There's been shifting to the world and, to Tough Luck, that meant time to get up. Lazily he stirred as the world around him rocked. He rattled inside of his box, a series of terrific booms outside of it. The sounding of springs, muffled through the density of skin, as the giantess sat up on her bed.

Tough was rattled inside of his box in feeling everything start to rise. The box flipped, and he fell with a crash into its underside. Sliding out from the loose cover and onto the smooth skin, he laid there, fighting to get himself.

Springs roared their final blow as an intense swirling slashed inside Velvet's stomach. The woman must have stood up to a hundred feet ascended in a matter of seconds. Her walking was never an issue. But standing up and sitting down would always be like the take-off and landing of a plane.

The giantess's ascension was enough for him to clench his eyes and grit his teeth. Dealing with the horrible thunder of footsteps on creaking wood. This girl was his vessel, now, for being able to live in a world that was now a galaxy.

She must have walked with a twist as, in every step, the walls ahead would flex. The left side would reach right before relaxing, and then the right would do the same to the left. Tough reached into his pocket to pull out his phone. With hair tightly wrapped around his forehead, he set the phone there—enabling his light.

He could better see the curvature of the wall and how it twisted. Able to sense the world outside of it as the woman carried herself across it. His stomach growled and, a second later, the one around him did the same.

It was a roar of fans in the bleachers of a stadium. The violent vibration rocked the enclosure like the sea in a storm. The flesh beneath him wobbled enough to sway him in place. The whole site contracted, shrinking, in need for food.

"Nnnghmm..." Tough shook his head and wobbled onto his feet, barely able to hold himself, with scrawny legs and torso more bone than flesh. He glanced back as the white light flashed from the pink ground to the white of his capsule. "Must have gotten another day off. Lucky girl. Sure is nice being able to sleep.”

He walked around the structure and checked it for the usual. Seeing the burned chunks of bone and how its density was becoming thin. Its walls could survive another night or two in the green sea.

His glance to afar reread another ivory box. "Should have some leftover bone that I can smooth into its shielding. But this thing is breaking apart. Can't expect upkeep to keep it around for long." He bowed his head. "I'll have to find something better soon. Or a way to fashion the same thing."

Tough thought about it some more. "Able to make a little platform would be nice. Four square blocks with a building for each." He then wiped his face as, beyond the setting, the squeak of a door handle sounded. "Would be nice to be able to sleep lying down for once. Or even to sleep for longer than an hour. I won't be able to keep alive for long like that."

Outside the tautness of the stomach that twisted a little in every step of the woman, up and out to reveal her scale, there, was the giantess that wasn't even in the know that she was a giantess. Velvet Night left her bedroom as she always did—naked.

She'd gone to the bathroom to take care of business before freshening up, a trip to the kitchen, next, to cook some eggs, bacon, and peppers. Standing before the stove in the nude, she held a plastic spatula in her hand, pushing it down on the strips of meat.

Velvet couldn't help but moan and feel good about it. Rubbing her tight little tummy in circles as it always allured her. Feeling how smooth it was, the effort that went into the tightness, how, no matter what she ate—she could always feel it inside.

It evoked special feelings that were probably unique to her. But she loved the sensation of food. Would like back on her couch, reclined, to enjoy that feeling of being full. A little did a lot for her. She'd keep like that, looking over her bust to her belly, which she stroked, up and down, sometimes a couple of pats to nail the feeling right.

And, a little to her shame, a cute, little burp, that she would laugh away.

Right now, the heat of the stove was wafting to her tummy. Warming it. Heating it. Pricking her with lovely little feelings that evoked a flick from her hips. She licked her lips and set about cooking her meal.

Deep inside that warming stomach and in the middle of its terrain, the tiny stallion pulled a string of hair over his shoulder, setting his boxes beneath the holy valve. Once all was set, he fell back, sitting, earning his breath.

The surrounding flesh beat to an unending rhythm. The colossal clatter of pots soon came to a close as the screeching of a fork had pelted a plate. It didn't take long for the footsteps to resume or for the chamber to flip.

Tough Luck squeezed the swollen flesh of the ground in waiting for it. Everything dropped as the mare sat, and a feeling shot right up through his being. Enduring the intensity for a couple of seconds before the drop ended.

All was flat and still and calm.

There was the clatter of metal and the squeaking of wood—the hitching in breath to light shining it. Outside light didn't come often—and sunlight was but a dream. When the passage overhead opened, though, through the long corridor of pulsating flesh.

There. At the top and the end of the tunnel. There came light. Like the dim reflection it has on the water as it reached the back of the giantess's throat. Sounds were clear in these brief times. The outside, suddenly, not so far.

That it was a passage and a cave away to be able to leap out through her gigantic lips.

Those hopes were dashed in the sounds of chewing. Light sealing to the chomping of the heavens. Mush breaking with a back a backdrop of crunches. Crashing waves of torn food that slick echoes had passed through the passage.

And then came the swallow. Loud and ringing and deafening. Tough Luck knew the exact spot to sit as the gulping rebounded off the walls. Seconds later. The vault opened and expanded. He watched on to see the giant mesh of a blob splat onto the ground.

It spread as it lost its condensation from being ground into the muscles of the throat. Tough Luck stood before the sprawling log of chewed up bacon. The woman never really chewed her food. Got it enough that it could be swallowed.

Which he was thankful for now.

He walked over to the edge and end of the trip and, finding a section of it that had failed to be bitten, then ripped it from the rest. Holding it both hands and starting to chew. The image of an animal chewing up its food, a mother to its cub, all so it could eat it came to mind.

And Tough did not like the mental image of that.

Yet he ate and ate and even dove a hand into the eggs, the white, untouched bits that, while being small—were of normal size to him. Even the pepper stood tall in the chamber. The size of a turbine with a hollow middle he could pass through.

He went over to one of the monolithic objects and twisted his head, leaning in and taking a bite, preferring to eat this way. There wasn't much time as more slush dropped in behind. The groans and moans started to fill the place. After the slowing rain of food behind that the real storm would come in.

Tough went and grabbed one of his boxes and tipped it onto its side. Water poured from it and washed over the stomach's flooring. He turned back to the mush and, with a sigh, started to climb the hill. Over the broken bacon and the heap of mashed eggs.

Standing to the top to get the freshest source.

Soon enough, the swirls boomed above. The washing of a cavern as waves bounced from cheek to cheek in rushing to the throat. Thus began the orange waterfall. Tough squinted to be able to see the bend of it appearing above.

How the streams swirled like a tornado and crashed through the pipe. He planted his feet firmly in the mush with the regret that this wouldn't be the shower he'd been hoping for. Still. The box was high over his head as he waited to brunt the storm.

The first spray of the current spread out from the tight opening of the valve. Running water echoing non-stop as the current smacked into Tough. The bucket filled in an instant and, in bringing it down, he sealed it.

Seconds later it'd been torn away. His stomach clenched as the rage of waves was punching into him. He didn't breathe. Opened his mouth and swallowed. The box drifted out with the current where it'd be safe with his supply.

But soon the lock of much that rose to his ankles wasn't strong enough. More gulps came as the giantess planned to down the glass. Constant gulping and moaning as the waters never stopped pooling. The next splash was too great, and Tough, raising his arms to protect himself—was blasted back.

"Aughh!"

He flew back in the air as the waters crushed beneath him. Falling and splashing beneath the current, it pushed him out, and he swirled with it. Kicking out his limbs in fighting to break to the surface. Able to peek his head out for a breath, that was, until another crash of a waterfall erupted from the center of the stomach.

Tough Luck was thrown against the stomach's wall and was ground into it. His hands swiped at the slick surface for anything to hold. Bubbles burst from the corners of his mouth as he kicked from the lack of air. Soon he was able to break above, gasping, still caught in the whirlpool.

His eyes shrunk as he realized another function was happening early. The chamber rose with the orange liquid with a dip at its center—suction like a pulled cork in a bathtub. Fluid already draining into the small intestine.

And he would be pulled in, drowned, if he were to be caught.

Tough's body was whipped on the edges of the whirlpool as he fought at once to be tucked in. Reaching out his hands to the walls, he would bang into it, grab it, be pulled back before slammed into it again. He coughed and cried. Straining himself to get that wall.

As above and beyond, that lovely girl, was simply enjoying a glass of juice. She had no idea what was going on in that naked stomach of hers. The colossal scale of the whirlpool as it drained inward. The tiny inside of her, barely able to keep afloat, threatened to be pulled inside into another unconscious bodily function of hers.

Tough Luck was then swept and bashed into a wall. He scrambled up it at once, able, on burning muscle, to pull himself into the little cot of flesh. Lying back on it and catching his breath, he watched on to the strange effect.

The pool continued to swirl inward as the levels lowered. Golden light shone down from the center of the ceiling. Yawns echoed around the colossus. No doubt looking outside during a yawn. The place was awash in heavenly light for but a moment.

The pink of the beating flesh. Distant bobs of white that were his boxes and home in being lifted by the current. Soon the plug returned, slowly closing, as the waters were slower in its power. Everything started to settle.

And Tough could hop down from his safety.

Wet splashes met his feet as he touched down. He fell to his knees in a collapse, looking out to the beyond, where that golden, holy light, was still shining. Fresh air even wafted in for a second as the mare breathed it in. The feeling of being outside. The touch of a fresh breeze. How majestic it all felt.

Until the girl closed her mouth and got back to work.

Tough was still on his knees when all went dark again. Sometimes, the outside's light was strong enough on her tummy to illuminate the walls a little bit. His flashlight was still on, that waterproof case worth the purchase. It flashed an inch in a mile of darkness.

He sighed and lowered his cupped hands to the juice. Lifting it to his lips for a drink, he noticed all the bits of chewed food in it. With a clenched eye, he dropped it, forced to drink from his box for the moment.

Everything ascended as rumbles rocked from outside. Footsteps to the twisting of the prison. Tough slumped as that was breakfast out of the way. No doubt the girl was off to her shower.

And that could go various ways.

The bathroom was expected from an elite hotel with golden tiles for the floor and a ceiling as high as the sky. Velvet settled her hands on the marble of the sink and peered into the glass. There'd been a phone call last night. The one that couldn't be knocked from her mind.

"We'd like to bring back the serum."

Her eyes closed and head shook and stomach clenched. Their previous test subject had left the lab after a week of no results. She'd given him her address and even a code to get in an absolute emergency. Yet he'd gone missing.

Runaway? Kidnapped? Killed? Lost?

Or...

Shrunk down, somewhere, lost.

Or already dead.

Velvet weirdly rubbed her stomach that she had. Causing her to feel better in being caressed—even if it was her hands. She couldn't help but feel different there. Little touches and pangs. Meaning to see a doctor about it.

But never getting around to it.

"I still need to give them an answer."

There'd be no point in doing that now. The best time to think was when one's hair was wet. She turned to the cubical glass and opened it, her feet gracing the smoothness of the shower's tiles. The door clicked behind her.

Tough Luck sat near the front of the darkened chamber, staring at the wall ahead, how it curved a little bit like a sheet of a movie screen. Squeaks roared from beyond. The unleashing of a stream as torrents of water crashed afar.

And then he could see it, feel it, and be immersed in the shower. The pelting of rain on the stomach to the continuous plit-plat on her belly. Skin being assaulted by a pleasant storm as the woman who encompassed him started to wash.

The sounds were dull in the abyss. Even the beating heart and the expanding lungs were nothing to the rains. It was his one time for peace. To be serene. Hearing how the water pelted the belly and ran down it. The heat that he could feel.

He walked up and laid a hand on the wall. Slime and squish impressing underneath his push. It was a different kind of heat, of warmth, the touch of steam that could be made out through the sheer density of the belly. His eyes closed in wondering how it would feel.

Would it be so hard for the woman to open her mouth? To drink a little bit of that warm water? When was the last time he had a wash? She drank water, sometimes, that was cool. But never would she drink a hot tub or take a shower for him.

The hottest water came around here was when it was able to boil him alive.

It was unlikely her mouth would open to swallow the waters.

And yet...

Tough Luck had been jostled out of his trance as the woman stepped back, with a light appearing behind, a cause to turn to the ceiling of his chamber. Breakfast had been swept and meshed around the dome with the center relativity clear.

He strode toward the dim, white light, that shone there. Getting there in time to feel a waft of steam flush from the opening and spread in the chamber. Then came the crashing of a seal and the mighty gulping that he was used to.

Seconds passed before waters swirled down the passages and struck the flooring of the belly. Tough's eyes widened at once as he already stored his shirt into one of those boxes. He ran forward, his feet wading through the thin, oncoming waves. His footsteps flashed the warmth of fresh, clean water.

It rose higher the closer he came as each blast of a gulp was shot outward in a circle. She seemed to be drinking the water in little bits for whatever reason. Tough couldn't care for it as he stood as though on a beach. Feeling the steam that tickled his skin and the running waters that washed the filth from him.

He reached the opening and stood in the light while looking up, in the bend of the ceiling, to the open valve revealing the throat. Water high above, coursing in a swirl, flushing downward. He closed his eyes and awaited it.

Then it came in a crash. Enough that his planted feet nearly swept him with the storm. But the douse of water consumed him. Washing down him and cleaning him, and warming him. All the acquired muck, gone, with a feeling of freshness as his hair was finally washed. In the seconds until the next crash, he stood there, breathing, with warm water dripping down him.

The currents of the water echoed in the zone and thinned out in its furthest reach. He allowed himself to be swept with the next crash like the sound of waves washing on a beach. He laid on his back, floating, as the force took him back. Relaxing as it pushed out before pulling in.

The water rose enough that, so long as he was on his back, he could be submerged. The woman soon stopped drinking the water. The passage cleared, and the light above was sealed away by the closing of her mouth. He started into the opening until even the valve closed.

And all was dark again.

But Tough didn't mind this time. Riding the waves and lying back. Allowing the warmed waters to claim most of his body. He breathed. Glad to be alive. Able to properly think and feel again. One was not the same after coming out of a shower.

Around him, in the walls that composed the woman, outside of those, the lady continued to wash. Turning around and creating a swirl inside of her. Rubbing at her back and turning back around. Stroking hands down her stomach, the dull thuds, pelting the chamber, which carried beneath the water.

Tough took a moment to think about how high he was from the ground. Of course he was in the stomach of the giantess but, to him, that was still miles above the ground. Her long legs sprawled down to the ground, the tiles of the shower.

This stomach was more like an apartment many feet from the ground. An organic one, at least. He rocked in the waves in hearing the heavy splashes of water beyond. Muffled but no doubt from the mare washing her hair.

The stray waters quickly washed from her head and down to her chest and over the terrain of her stomach. Hearing beyond the sheet of the walls, the loofah that scrubbed all around. Monolithic and scary.

He'd have to fear such things in the outside world. Were he on the outside of this stomach, then those hands would have caught and crushed him. Or he would have been washed off by the waters, killed by the fall, or drowned in the drainage.

Yet he didn't have to fear those extensive or terrific things. Nothing in this world could get to him while he was inside of here. Sure. He had to deal with the stomach acidic and the woman's sporadic actions that affected him in here.

But at least he could scale the stomach. It was large and the size of a park to him. But he could travel that distance and be safe within it. Were he to be on the woman's nightstand... needing to get down... or even escape past her bedroom.

It would be days of a journey that would only lead him to the living room. Granted, if he could even find a way down and across and not get stuck in a crack or lost in a forest of fibres of a carpet. Of all the places he could have wound up, where he could traverse the world, be safe from it, and be able to survive.

This was hardly the worst outcome.

So he allowed himself this moment of peace as the next squeak was the end of the waters. Dripping of the falls still loomed afar. Yet it was starting to quiet. Footsteps sounded, and the chamber rose and dropped from side to side. Then came a breath. The opening of a mouth.

The buzzing of a toothbrush sounded from heaven with the power of a windmill. Crashing into the stone beams of her teeth with the swirl of a tornado. The waters even buzzed from the effect, a series of ripples across the pond. But there hardly was any danger.

It was strange to be hearing it, though. In this pond in her stomach as, above, the woman brushed the teeth in her mouth. Working at it as she walked. Rise and a drop. The rocking of water all around. By the time the ride reached its end, she was spitting, a violent echo that carried now, bouncing off her stomach's walls.

Velvet washed her mouth and spat and patted it with a towel. Her mind was still not at ease, and she had even drank water to warm the inside of her. It helped—but didn't do much. She'd have to go back to the lab today and make a call.

And be able to make the last call at the bar after that.

She left the bathroom dressed in a towel and patted herself through the hall. In reaching her bedroom, finally, was the time to get changed. Nothing special. Long skirt and white undies. Tucked in a dress-shirt with maybe a blazer over it.

Sighing, she got dressed.

Tough frowned as his back touched the stomach's flooring, the light pool, already drained into its valve. He laid back in his moment of defeat. Looking up to the breathing of the walls. Listening to the movements and booms outside his prison.

Light didn't shine inside her stomach. Yet he could always feel when her clothes went on. He felt better when she was naked, as though there was less separating him from the outside world. It was already impossible for him to be seen. But maybe. If someone looked at her stomach. Pressed her ear against it someday. Possibly... his yells would be enough.

But when she put on her shirt, all became darker, tighter, and more lonely. Hearing the fabric shuffle outside to the sounds of the buttons being pushed through. Or how her shirt became tucked into whatever she was wearing.

None looking at this girl would realize the truth about her. Even those who thought about what she looked like underneath that outfit wouldn't know either. In looking at this woman, who in all the world would think, for a second, what the inside of her stomach would look like?

Rather they would see that cute and nude little thing. Not think much about her taut belly. Closest luck he would have was a doctor doing an ultrasound with an abnormal finding. Maybe she would put two and two together on that.

Or maybe she would take some pills that would kill him.

And not only that.

It meant that she would have to get knocked up by some guy before that would happen. That he would have to be trapped inside this titan as she laid on her back, rocked with her, as some random guy thrust inside of her. Tough wasn't sure if he could handle something like that.

But it wasn't like he had much choice either.

Instead, he stood up and enjoyed his feeling of cleanness for the moment. The mare had gotten dressed, and now, it was time for him to do the same. Repairs needed to be done as well as the thinking of inventions that could help or save him in here.

That and, at the very least, he could listen to how her day at work would be.