Private Reese Jones pulled the large 100 lb. burlap sack down the metal walk way, stopping once he reached the large steel vat at the end.

“Urg…smells like puke.” He shivered as he pulled a knife out of his pocket and cut the sac open. There was a brown powder in the sack, protein powder for the pureed vegetable concoction that served asEyrn’s meal for the day. Eyrn had a very strict meal plan, to help keep her in optimum health and fitness. While she didn’t very well enjoy what she was given, she hardly protested.

Three meals spread out between three days, two smaller meals, and on the third day a larger meal consisting of solids, meats and various other measured portions. The vegetable smoothie substance was her second meal, it served as her ‘lunch’. Protein powder was added, more for nutritional purposes than for taste.

“Soup’s on.” Reese sighed as he set the knife down on the walk way and hoisted the heavy sac up and tipped it over the edge, watching the powder vacate the sack into the goopy drink below. “Urg, give me steak and mashed potatoes over this crud any-day!” Reese laughed, as the sac got lighter and lighter, eventually all of its load was emptied, he gave a quick shake for good measure and discarded the sack onto the ground.

Private Jones pressed a small button on a wall mounted communications device and waited for distinct buzz that informed him somebody on the other side was listening. “Alright, tell her lunch is served!”

As Reese let go of the com and turned on his heel to walk away, the burlap sack he had sloppily discarded on the ground caught off his boot. “Gah…shit!” Reese lost his balance and fell backwards. He attempted to grab hold of the railing but his reaction time was too slow, Reese fell off the side of the walkway and took a dive right into the thick swampy sludge that was Eyrn’s smoothie with a quiet but distinct ‘ploop’.

Reese landed in the soupy drink and was instantly submerged. He surfaced for a second, covered in green slime. He attempted to scream, but he quickly found himself submerged once more, sucking in a mouthful of the foul tasting drink. When he surfaced again coughing and sputtering he franticly attempted to reach for the sides, but they were too high above the liquid line. All he could do was slap his hands helplessly against the side of the slick steel vat.

“Gluber…blu…help!” He barely managed a desperate meek yelp before he sunk back down below the surface once more.

Eyrn groaned as the three toned alarm repeated intermittently, she could hear it well from her bunker. Lazily she rolled off the bed and slipped on her leather shoes. They were similar in style to moccasins. She had crafted them herself, among many other things. She busied herself with such hobbies to pass the time. Living in a world where people came and went so quickly, lived their short little lives in the blink of an eye…she had more than enough time to waste. Time was abundant, painfully so.

“Oh phooie…do they have to call me like a damn heifer! I hear the damn alarm turn if off!” Eyrn yelped, even from inside her bunker it was likely they could hear her. When she projected her voice, they could hear it well outside the base.

With a sour disposition Eyrn heaved open one of the bulky iron doors to her room and squinted as the warm desert sun flooded in, sheltering her eyes with her hand. The alarm droned loudly still. With much less grace this time she hollered. “I’m coming! Give me a minute you buncha slave drivers!” Eyrn sighed. “Let’s let everyone know what time it is eh…I think someone on the other side of Nevada doesn’t know!”

Eyrn hated feeling like a freak show. Having her meal times announced like it was some sort of fire drill made her livid. Still it was how things were done, and she had long since abandoned any hope of gaining much control over that. She was told what to do, where to go, and how to do it. She felt more like a prisoner than anything else.

Her footfalls were heavy and deliberate as she tromped through the sandy base. She had a very specific path she was normally permitted to walk. The whole base was fitted with re enforced concrete, more than able to carry her weight.

The mundane routine life around the army base was moving along as normal. Drills were being carried out, vehicles moved from here to there. Any set of eyes not occupied with a specific task seemed to be on her as she moved. Meal time was never a particularly good time to make conversation with her. She disliked being watched while she ate, it made her feel large and glutinous.

“I’m here already! Can you turn that off?” She snapped, as she approached the drinking glass sized steel vat (to her). It sat on a high walk way, about stomach height to her.

Eyrn lifted the vat from the platform it had been placed on almost effortlessly. She peeked into the green murky liquid for only a second before quickly turning her nose to it.

“Urg…this does -not- get better no matter how many times I drink it.” She muttered. “Well…bottoms up!”

Reese surfaced in time to see the underside of Eyrn’s chin as she held the vat in her hand. He struggled in desperation to scream for her attention, to make any noise that could reach her ears. Butevery time he surfaced he had only enough time to gasp for a much needed breath before falling below the surface once more. Upon surfacing yet again he had the unfortunate and mortifying view of Eyrn’s open mouth, the wet pink skin of her tongue leading to the sickly pink uvula hanging form the back of her throat. Comparatively she had a rather small mouth that fit cute along with her simple and modest features. But to a being his size it was plenty big enough to accomplish its designed task.

Eyrn plugged her nose and forced the green slime down, she wasted no time in downing the contents of the vat, quickly slamming it back down on the pedestal when she was finished. Her cheeks chipmunked as the remainder of the lunch drink pooled in her mouth, she winced as she gathered the gumption to swallow it.

Reese kicked his boots along the stainless steel floor as the green ooze drained all around him. He could hear the horrible, deep ‘glug glug’ Eyrn’s throat made as it quickly swallowed each glup of smoothie. He resisted as long as he could but as the vat was tilted at a more irresistible angle, the tide of the liquid carried him into the final destination. The last sight he beheld before Eyrn’s lips closed was the steel vat being lowered away from her lips, the dull whites of her teeth from behind, and then darkness.

Reese’s eyes bulged out of his head in terror as he felt the great, muscular tongue beneath him lift pushing him and the lubricating green slime to the back of her throat. He tried to instinctively cry out in terror but only got a mouthful of the foul drink for his trouble. He braced his legs out to side, trying to make himself as wide as possible as the green fluid drained into the abyss just beyond his combat boots. His feet caught on two large, fleshy globes at the back of her throat which most first year medical students could identify as tonsils.

Eyrn tilted her head back and screwed her eyes together at the disgusting taste of her lunch. If only someone else could get a taste of just how nasty it was maybe they would give her something nicer to eat. Suddenly she felt something big hit the back of her throat, too big to go down. Her body instantly took over and threw her head forward making a liquid filled coughing sound in an effort to dislodge the chunk.

Reese was thrown from the back of Eyrn’s throat to the front of her mouth in under a millisecond, chunks of vegetable thrown with him. He didn’t even have time to scream. His head made contact with the back of her large, front incisors and he fell dazed and half-conscious onto the warm, bed sized tongue below.

He came to as the beast below him started to move again. “Thanks guys…” Eyrn said speaking with her mouthful in a rather unladylike manner. The noise around him was like thunder, Reese’s arms bolted to his head trying to drown out the sound as he was tossed by the muscle below as Eyrn spoke. “…can you make my food properly next time and not try to kill me?”

“FOOD” Reese’s mind shouted at him. He was drenched in her saliva and covered in chunk various vegetables. That’s all he was to her, a wayward chunk of her lunch that she was going to swallow, digest and then use to keep her active for another day. He wasn’t even substantial enough to satiate her hunger for more than a few hours. He would be dissolved and broken up, never to be found. People would just assume he’d run away, unable to cope with the teasing and hazing.

Eyrn’s tongue quaked once more and rolled him over onto a sharp yet hard and lumpy surface. Reese’s dazed mind took a second to grasp here he was, he felt pressure on one of his legs as another hardened surface rested on it. He had been placed on to Eyrn’s molars, ready to be pounded and smashed into bits small enough to swallow with ease. The razor sharp tips cut into his back through his green, standard issue t-shirt. He stared up in horror at the underside of another one foot wide molar as it prepared to smash down on his head and snuff him out for good. He could just about make out its horrid outline in the dark gloom of Eyrn’s mouth.

His visceral fight or flight instincts kicked in and he started to thrash and kick. He hit out at her tongue on one side and her cheek on the other, desperately trying to alert her to just what, or rather who, was in her mouth before she went ahead with the seemingly mundane task. For the first time in as long as he could recall he found his mouth free and his lungs filled with air. “HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELP!!!” He cried in the most blood curdling manner possible.

Eyrn’s jaw rested idly on the object that had nearly killed her. She was just summoning the courage to bite into what was sure to be a horrible chunk of clumped rotten vegetable when it started to move. She had to fight the instinctual urge to bite down quickly. She heard a sickening scream from within her mouth but the voice did not belong to her. Her eyes went wide and a look of disgust and panic washed over her face. ‘Something moved…veggies don’t move…I felt something move…food doesn’t move!’ she thought to herself as she quickly brought her hand to her mouth, tilting her chin to her breast she opened and spat the object into her open palm as quickly as she could.

“Oh no…” Eyrn whispered, her free hand quickly slapped over her mouth. She had not been expecting to see Private Reese Jones in her hand right there. Her knees buckled and she supported herself off the steel walkway, which easily gave way with a groan and a twisting sound of breaking iron and steel. Quickly she let go, as dozens of eyes quickly locked onto her in confusion.

Reese stumbled to stand but fell, over and over. His eyes squinted against the bright light. He tried to scream, he tried to do anything, but his breath was gone. Panic washed over his face as he began to cough and choke once more. He was wet, covered in Eyrn’s saliva, the green mash, and his own blood coming from scrapes and cut’s along his body.

“Oh god…Reese…oh geeze…how did you…I don’t understand…what happened.” Eyrn’s voice was hardly above a whisper, her own breath was stolen at the pure shock she felt. Guilt washed over her as her eyes darted around. Everyone seemed focused on the broken walk way hanging precariously above the ground, and not to what she was holding in her hand.

“A…AHH! Baaaa!!” Reese let out a loud screech of a scream, drawing Eyrn’s attention quickly. Without thinking she quickly clasped her fingers over him gently and shoved his quivering form into her front shirt pocket.

“Opps…Um…sorry.” She hap-hazardly fiddled with the walk way, pulling the broken portion down and setting it on the ground. She then stumbled back in a clumsy manner and took off towards her room.

Eyrn nearly slammed the large double doors and ran to her bed with haste, pulling Reese out of her pocket as quickly as she could and set him on her soft mattress. As soon as she set him down she quickly fell to her knees and lowered herself to eye level with the panicking soldier. Her large almond shaped brown eyes watching him with guilty concern.

“Shit Reese I’m so sorry!” She whispered, keeping her voice low as not to give him further reason to panic.

Reese watched Eyrn as a mouse would a hungry cat. He was in a screaming crying fit when she shoved him into her pocket, and was not much better when she pulled him out. Finding himself on solid ground and unrestricted since the whole ordeal began, he wasted no time in backing himself up as far as he could away from her, stopping only when he hit the wall on the other side of her large bed.

“Shhh…nonono it’s ok Reese…shhhh I’m not gonna hurt you…shhhh.” She winced and waved her hands in a gentle hushing motion. This did nothing to calm Reese down.

Reese was still screaming incoherently at this point, it was clear he was trying to form a sentence but could not compose himself enough. His eyes were as wide as could be, his breathing was erratic and labored. His skin was pale white and he seemed completely unable to reason or be reasoned with.

“Oh come on Reese calm down…I’m really sorry!” Eyrn grew more concerned the longer Reese’s panic attack continued. She was still trying to understand what had happened. Was this some sort of sick joke, like before? Or had he suffered some horrible accident. The realization dawned on her, just what she almost did. Her own face went pale and a sick feeling washed over her stomach.

“I didn’t mean it Reese…really.” Tears welled up in her eyes. She almost killed him, she almost ate him. She would never have known it! Guilt took over and she fell back onto her rear, shaking her head back and forth quickly. “No…No please…shhh…don’t do that…Reese you have to believe me, I didn’t know you were there!” Eyrn was doing better at holding it together than he was, but the more he screamed and panicked the more she felt herself starting to slip.

“Get away! Get me out! Let me go! Please!” Words came out, they were hard to understand but the tiny frightened man finally spoke actual words. “P..please don’t eat me…” he whimpered, trying to push himself into the wall he was cornered against.

Eyrn stood up carefully and slowly, and gently reached for Reese. This proved to be a poor choice as his screaming and panic picked up to full blown panic attack at the sight of her advance.

“Reese please be quiet for a moment!” She tried not to shout but frustration was starting to take over. She looked around in a tizzy for something, anything she could use to hush him…even for a few seconds. Her eyes fell on a clear drinking glass that had been fashioned for her. It was the size of a regular water glass, only for her. Quickly she dashed over to it and then back to the bed, placing it over Reese carefully, muffling his screams to a low lull.

“Shhh…ok…I know this looks bad but you have to let me talk.” She sighed, starting to feel some sense of control. Carefully she wedged her hand under the glass and under his tiny body until he was stuck under the glass on her palm. Carefully she stood and then sat on the bed. Making sure her movements were as gentle as she could muster.

Reese’s screaming had pacified, and he was now rocking back and forth running his hands over his face nervously. Eyrn bit her lip and softly spoke. “Reese…hun…please…if I remove the glass will you please clam down?” She winced.

Reese didn’t respond.

“Reese! Please…I just wanna talk. We could both get in very real trouble for this! Just hear me out ok?” She was almost begging now.

Reese slowly looked to her, hugging his knees. He didn’t move for a while, then slowly nodded.

“I’m going to remove the glass…ok?” Eyrn said with reservation.

Reese nodded.

“And…and you’re not gonna scream?” She bit her lip once more, anxiously.

Reese gave her a nod.

Slowly Eyrn removed the glass. There was a long awkward silence before Reese let out a sad and pitiful whimpering sigh.

“There we go…see…we’re all ok…” Eyrn smiled, she was making progress.

“I’m not ok.” Reese spoke quickly, his voice high pitched and panicky.

“No…no you are…see…you’re alive…it could have been worse!” Eyrn tried to encourage him to think positive.

“You…tried…to…eat…me.” Reese spoke between sobbing breaths.

“Oh Reese! I swear I didn’t know!” Eyrn’s eyes were sick with concern. If she had been lying, she would have put the best actors on Broadway to shame.

“I…almost…was…food.” Reese muttered.

“I’m sorry! How many times can I tell you that?! I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry! I’m super sorry!” Eyrn sighed.

“I…I wanna go…please let me go…please…I won’t tell anyone…please…don’t make me stay here. Please?” Reese looked to her, clearly petrified of her. Now more than he ever had been before.

Eyrn carefully began to rub his back, she tested his reaction, when he didn’t move away she continued.

“I won’t keep you for long…I just need you to calm down first.” She sighed, her voice calming.

“W…why do I have to stay here?” He looked up quickly, shivering.

Eyrn sighed. “Reese if you go out there now a total wreck…soaking in your own piss and vomit…you’ll never live this down hon.” She half smiled. “Not to mention the load of CRAP I’ll end up in for almost eating you.” There was no humor in her tone when she spoke that bit.

Reese didn’t respond for a while, when he did his facial expression had changed to one of curiosity. “Why do you care about that?” Reese hugged his knees. “You tease me as much as the others.” There was a very brave gumption to his voice, considering what he had just been through.

“I know…but there’s fun and then there’s too much.” Eyrn’s voice took on a gentle nature; she continued to stroke his back with her finger carefully. “Can we just calm down? I won’t say a word of this to anyone if you don’t?” Eyrn raised a brow, eagerly awaiting his response.

“You’d…really do that for me?” He questioned her, there was still a great deal of quivering in his voice, but he was slowly calming down.

“I like to have fun Reese…but I don’t want you to be miserable. That’s just not cool.” She smiled lifting him to eye level, tilting her head slightly. “Deal?”

Reese looked away, hugging his knees tighter. “Deal.”

Eyrn stopped her back rub and extended her pinky to him. “Shake on it?”

Reese winced at her approaching digit, but eventually extended his hand and reciprocated her hand shake. “Ok.” He muttered.

“A…are you ok? I mean…is anything…broken?” Was the next concern on her mind.

“I…I don’t think so.” Reese moved his arm, then the other, and then checked over both legs. “But…I don’t think my uniform will pass inspection like this.” He grimaced.

“How long until you have to be somewhere?” Eyrn questioned with a serious tone.

“A few hours. After getting your lunch ready I was off shift.” He shrugged.

“Stay here…calm down…clean yourself up…and then I’ll take you to the barracks…or…close enough anyhow.”

“Ok.” Reese sighed, calming further. “Thank you.” He looked up. He was sitting in her hand for the first time since he had arrived on base. He found himself in awe, and more than a little bit intimidated. He had been briefed about her before being allowed to meet her, but no amount of training could prepare him for actually sitting this close to a living breathing giant. He found himself unable to resist the urge to compare his hand to hers. He set his palm down on hers, quickly pulling back.

Eyrn giggled a little and leant against the bed post. “You’d be surprised at how many people do that the first time.” She winked. “Actually I have really small hands.”

Reese looked up quickly, sending her a doubtful look, as if she was smoking some kind of bad weed.

“No…really…you just have to look at it in perspective!” She began to speak a little more excited, with passion.

“I…don’t follow.” Reese still looked quite skeptical.

“Well just look at it. Here do this.” Eyrn took her free hand and placed it over her face. The base of her palm rested near her chin, and her tallest finger only made it to eye level. “See? Now you.” She removed her hand and watched Reese intently.

“Um…ok.” Reese did the same, his hand easily covered his face from chin to forehead. After a few seconds he pulled his hand down, he still looked confused. “I don’t follow.”

“Your hands are bigger in relation to your body size. See how my hand only covers from my chin up to below my eyes…but those big bear paws of yours cover from chin to almost the middle of your forehead!” She sat back, with a grin.

“O…oh…wow that is kind of cool.” He laughed, with a bit of a grin.

“Mmhm, and you’re much taller than me…proportionately speaking!” She nodded with confidence.

“How…can you tell?” Reese looked up, after staring at his own palm for a few moments.

“It’s all about perspective!” She nodded. “It’s simple really.”

“Heh…I don’t think….” Reese was cut off.

“Look at Izzy! She’s…what…just shy of 6 feet right? Well look at her proportions…long legs, busty chest, long fingers…and ever notice she has broad shoulders? Her head seems much smaller in relation to the rest of her body!”

“I…never really paid attention to that kind of thing.” Reese shrugged.

“I do.” Eyrn sounded a little bashful. “If you work it out…I’m nothing but a shrimp Wolf-Bait!” She nodded, with confidence.

“I…I’ll take your word for it.” Reese rolled his eyes. “Still the biggest…shrimp I’ve ever seen!” Reese grinned.

“Careful Wolf-Bait!” Eyrn winked.

“S…so…how long to I have to stay here?” Reese changed the subject, he had stopped huffing and was starting to breath normal.

“You wanna leave already?” Eyrn tilted her head. “Am I that bad company?” She frowned.

“O…oh no…not at all. I just…I dunknow…didn’t think you liked people hanging around in here.”

“I don’t mind from time to time. “ She looked around. “It gets lonely to be honest. So I don’t mind the conversation.” She looked back to Reese. “Do you wanna go?” she asked with caution.

“I…guess I can stay a little while longer.” Reese sighed.

Eyrn lit up, setting her hand into her lap as she sat back against the bed head board.

“Heh…kind of funny.” Reese chimed in.

“What’s that?” Eyrn peeked down.

“All it took for me to get to know you was…”

“A date with my tonsils?” Eyrn teased.

Reese shivered. “I wasn’t gonna word it like that!”