Dante's Hell

Pablo coughed, struggling to tread in the thick frysauce. The dense liquid weighed down his limbs, acting like quicksand that held him in place. Realizing his struggles were fruitless, he looked up pleadingly.

Dante’s cliff-like chest loomed above, expanding serenely as he took gusting breaths. Pablo found himself staring at the scraggly hair on the underside of Dante’s chin and up into his thin, dark nostrils. Thunderclaps of words sounded across the table as Dante said something Pablo was too frenzied to understand.

He watched in awe as Dante’s massive palm soared down from the heavens. Outstretched like it was, it could easily encompass a large city park. The thick, grease-covered fingers deftly closed around stalks of warm, golden fries. Dante’s arm flexed, exuding a casual strength, as he swung the fries over to the dip. At the same time he faced down to make sure he didn’t miss the frysauce.

“DANTE!! I’M RIGHT HERE!!” Pablo cheered, tearing an arm free of the sauce and waving it wildly. Though Dante’s steely eyes were fixated on him, they were disinterested and vacant; he was barely paying attention to his food. He’d never notice his speck sized friend trapped within his meal.

Pablo let out an uncontrollable scream as an airplane sized fry swung down onto him with a skull crushing splat. At a normal size, the sound would have never reached his ears, but now it echoed around his cranium. Pablo was forced under the surface of the sauce by the sudden impact. Unable to breathe, he frantically attempted to swim what felt to be upwards, but quickly found he was as immobile as before.

He wasn’t given time to panic as he was sucked free from the sauce. Light streamed through his closed eyelids accompanied by a refreshing breeze. Feeling himself soar upwards, Pablo took a gasping breath and forced his eyes open.

He gasped as he came to an abrupt stop, his whole world seemed to hover lightly. Just in front of him were Dante’s thick, pillowy lips. As the lips shifted, light reflected off stray grains of salt dotting the surface at random.

Pablo yelped in fear as, without warning, the lips parted with a smack. Chills ran through Pablo’s body as he heard the squishing and squelching of the hardly visible mush within Dante’s mouth. The lips pursed and Pablo barely detected the sound of a gulp from his position.

“DANTE!! PLEASE!!” Pablo begged desperately, “DON’T EAT ME!!” Dante’s eyes remained fixated forward. Allowing himself to become more aware of his surroundings, Pablo could hear the sounds of electric cheers. TV. Because Dante was too preoccupied watching TV, he wouldn’t bother to look down at his meal before he wolfed down his friend!

“DANTE!!” Pablo screeched, a mix of fury and despair. As if in reaction, Dante’s other hand appeared seemingly out of nowhere. It cast a shadow that reminded Pablo of one that would precede the appearance of a monster. Pablo’s cheers were cut short as the hand didn’t come to him, but rather floated towards Dante’s planet sized face.
The fingernail, which was comparable to an Olympic pool, smooth to any regular person, appeared ridged and uneven to Pablo. He watched, amazed as the tip of the rough finger was thrust into one of the nostrils. Dante’s nose, which moments ago had appeared like an inflexible cliff, bent and shifted readily as Dante dug his finger deeper into his nose.

Apparently having accomplished its goal, the finger was torn free with a light pop. Small crusty boogers, unnoticeably minuscule to someone of Dante’s size plummetted free as the hand sunk below Pablo’s line of sight. He was dumbfounded by the power and recklessness Dante had displayed doing something as simple as lightly picking his nose.

Pablo wasn’t given the chance to ponder the complexity of Dante’s size as he felt the fry below him shudder forward. He was wholly unprepared for the next sight.

Dante’s mouth yawned open, wider than anything should ever be able to do. The cavern could have held skyscrapers. His tongue flowed forward, its movement like the waves of the sea. Chunks of soggy fries were abundant; spread haphazardly across the tongue, and hanging in shreds from the jagged molars. Thick ropes of saliva, mixed with discolored fry sauce, stretched between the sopping tongue and distant roof of the mouth. Dante’s tongue seemed to stretch on for miles, from its tip to where it sank into darkness beneath a swaying uvula and two large tonsils.

It almost appeared Dante hadn’t really swallowed all his food, as large chunks of half-chewed fries sat near the slope leading into the throat. A gust of sour breath washed over Pablo, eliciting an involuntary gag. As he was pushed into the scene of horror, he looked up one more time imploringly. Dante’s gaze remained locked ahead, blissfully unaware of the scene of destruction within his own mouth.

Dante pushed the entire length of the fries into his mouth, allowing the longest one to hang beyond his lips as he shut his jaws around the newest bite of food. Pablo screamed as he found himself colliding with the wet surface of the tongue, rolling to a stop in a soggy pile of fry mush. Surrounding him were the squelches of the mouth moving around him. A deafening crunch, probably inaudible to Dante, sounded as his sharp front teeth sliced through the long fry still hanging free.

The jaw dropped, giving Pablo his final view of the outside world. Beyond the lips, for a brief moment, he could see the TV screen playing some cooking reality show. However his focus was stolen by his immediate surroundings. The strands of saliva had multiplied between the already deformed fries and his off-white teeth. Light shined into the cavern as Dante maneuvered the rest of the fry into his mouth with just his tongue and lips.

With a wet slam, Pablo was sealed in darkness. He felt the tongue beneath him heave violently, followed by a crashing squish, and another one, and another one. Occasionally a brief flash of light would illuminate massive, sharp teeth; too close for comfort. Pablo heard a ringing, that he soon realized was his own horrified screaming. This was really happening. Dante was really eating him.

Everything stopped abruptly as the mouth burst open again. Quaking booms crashed out of Dante’s throat, the tongue bobbing in rhythm to it. Pablo took in his newly illuminated surroundings, while Dante laughed carefree.

He laid in a pile of soggy fry mush on the side of the tongue. To his right, protruding from above and below, were Dante’s sets of molars. Looking towards the front of the mouth, Pablo could see more strands of saliva stretching like stalks over the enormous, lumpy pile of fry mush in the center of the tongue.

Pablow was awed by the geography of Dante’s mouth. It was truly a living landscape. His long tongue stretched on like rolling hills. The massive towers of ivory that were his terrifying teeth glinted menacingly in the light. There were the thick strands of spittle formed by the abundant saliva. The soft pink walls of the huge cavern. Dante was completely unaware of the world that was his mouth, or for that matter, his vast body. Pablo, at his new size, was getting to experience the human body in a way Dante would never imagine or appreciate.

“DANTE!” Pablo wailed one last time, as the mouth started to shut, sealing him once more in darkness. The tongue heaved beneath him, though not sideways like before, but backwards.

“NO!!” Pablo screamed as he felt himself roughly relocated further to the back of the mouth. ‘This food isn’t ready to swallow!’ Pablo thought. However he immediately remembered Dante had always been a fast eater: taking huge bites and gulping them down with ease. He sunk down slowly for only a second. The sound of a gulp rattled his skull, as he was surrounded by tons of hulking pressure and soggy fry mush.

One final, miserable scream echoed around Dante’s mouth for half a second as the tongue settled back to the floor of the mouth.

---

“They’re so bad at this!” Dante thought to himself as he stared at the cooks on the television. He absently lifted a few fries to his mouth, but stopped when he felt a slight movements from his fingers. His eyes flicked downwards to discover one of the fries had snapped from the weight of the sauce. Dante returned his gaze to the television. Unconscious of his decision to do so, Dante leaned his head back and stretched his mouth open. Keeping his eyes glued to the screen, Dante slithered his tongue out to catch the hanging fry.

Had he been paying attention, Dante would have been able to see his own tongue in the fringe of his vision, but the TV was far more interesting and he never had reason to be that conscious of his body. He paid no mind to the piles of chewed mush spread across his mouth. Didn’t imagine the ferocity of his set of teeth. Couldn’t feel the flow of thick saliva dripping in his mouth. Failed to appreciate his monstrously huge mouth and long tongue.

Not an ounce of thought rested on the ordeal he put the food through within his mouth, nor the fate it awaited once he absently gulped it down. His large stomach, hidden behind a wall of skin and defined muscle was only something that crossed his mind in terms of being empty, full, or in pain. He didn’t imagine the mountains of soggy food floating in a lake of harsh acid. He didn’t think about the violent churning and acid bath his meal would face deep within his body, while he remained totally unaware of the process save for the occasional gurgle that he easily dismissed. And worst of all, trapped within the terrifying and disgusting mess of his ignored digestive system was his friend Pablo.

Pablo remained fully conscious as he was forced down the esophagus. He found himself unceremoniously dumped into the pitch black stomach feeling what had to be the soggy fries, joining previous fries and the messy remains of a large burger.

Dante was playing on the computer, celebrating happily as his team worked towards a victory while Pablo screamed unheard amongst churning acids and shifting piles of breaking down food. Dante slept peacefully as the digested pieces worked their way through his intestines; the occasional gurgle not disturbing his slumber. And finally in the morning, Dante woke up, immediately sat onto the toilet and grunted to squeeze out a massive turd. After wiping and standing, Dante took a second to glance at his creation. But only a second; before flushing it down. Had he looked just a little longer; just a little harder, he may have noticed the flash of white that was Pablo’s skeleton embedded into the log of shit. But then again, he probably wouldn’t have.