PREDHISTORIC

Out of place.

Out of time.

A window in the way the world once was, on the scales of time beyond human comprehension. Gatherings of green sprawled in every direction, interrupted only by the brown towers that stood high with drooping thin leaves.

Ferns. Ferns as bushes. Ferns as trees. Ferns as stumpy little mounds co and dense thickets clumped around the ground. The ground was barren earth, green carpets of grass only barely clinging to the shores of the shallow pools that dotted the landscape.

The ancient made reality.

The Lost Continent.

In a dense thicket of the ferns, the leaves jostled with movement. Something strained behind them, tugging back stem and root. From it emerged a human, breathing hard and sweating buckets. A young man with bright brown eyes, pale and panting. His clothes were soaked with sweat, the khaki of his short-sleeved shirt stained to a deep brown, and his jeans turned sapphire blue with the humidity. A cowboy hat donned his head, as was custom for his career.

And Rex's career had undoubtedly taken a strange turn. A few strange turns because he was more confident than ever that he was utterly lost.

He doubled over, clenching his sides and suck in the swelter of the jungle. The heat and humid air made him feel like a melting goo, sapping the strength from it with every second.

BzZzZzZzZzZzZzZzZz

A dragonfly, the size of a raven, buzzed over his head. He swatted it away with his hat, watching the massive insect dart off into the sky. It changed course and honed in on a flying beetle, snatching it out of the air with a single bite.

Rex watched it fly into the canopy and disappear with its helicopter beat. He flopped up his arms, letting them fall to his side.

"Meganeura?" he wondered. "Or maybe Meganeurula..."

He wasn't sure why he was even bothering trying to guess. Nothing about this land made sense; it was like it was a mish-mash of every primeval era of Earth, all knotted into a single place.

Nobody knew where it had come from. The press hadn't even agreed on a name yet. But it existed all the same; a new continent had just appeared in the South Pacific. The size of Australia, unspoiled and unexplored.

Rex had been one of the first to change that. He'd been part of the first expedition, sent to study the lost world the old-fashioned way. The old-fashioned way because no other way was working. Satellite imagery returned only fuzzy images; electronics failed when they approached the coast.

And now he was lost, completely lost, getting only static on his walkie-talkie and his GPS as useless as it was when they first approached the island. It was like it didn't want anything to be found.

He raised a hand, running thick strands of sweat off his brow. His muscles ached with the strain of a marathon, not the paced walking he'd been enduring. Trekking on and on just to find a trail, any trail, for him to follow. Jeep tracks, or boot marks, or something!

But nothing. The forest swallowed up any sign of other people, leaving him alone. To face nature by himself, armed with only a single piece of steel. So far, it'd been enough. Because despite his struggles, he'd yet to run into the most fantastic of the lost world's inhabitants.

Dinosaurs.

Crazy to think. Crazier to believe, but he'd seen them. Real, actual dinosaurs. From the Triassic to the Cretaceous. None so far in his excursion into the thicket, but he knew they were out there. They were why he was in here in the first place. To study the creatures that had until now been only bone.

A dry parch rose in his throat. He was thirsty. He pulled out his canteen, and watched to his chagrin as a single drop fell out of it. No surprise there. But his current selection of waters wasn't very appealing; murky pools with God-knew-what inside it. A gutter was more attractive. He needed something clear.

He turned away, pushing into another thicket of leaves. Batting away insects that bothered him, trying to taste the salty moisture of his sweat. With a final swing, he freed himself from the bush once again. When he was loose, he dusted himself off gazed upon a scene that made him stop in awe.

In front of him, a lake. A vast, beautiful lake of sparkling water. A wide waterfall roared over a high cliff at the other end, the lake thinning out into a coursing river. Wide, flat boulders lined the beach, dipping just into the gentle tide at the shore.

He licked his lips. Water.

Fresh water.

With a relieved urgency, he ran over to the beach and fell to his knees just short of the water.

He plunged his head in without hesitation, sucking in the lake's water in massive gulps. Cold, glorious refreshment that plunged his brain into a state of replenished bliss. The simple joy of a desire slaked, driving him on until his belly felt full to bursting.

A new need filled his chest, burning pain pressing into his lungs. The need for air. He lifted his head above the water, gasping in like a furnace bellow.

"Gaaa_haaaa!_"

Rex breathed hard in quickened gasps, until his body returned to a normal pace. His thirst for water and air was slaked. He moved back onto the stone with a raised leg. Taking his hat off his head, he watched as the last droplets of water flowed out from its brim. He shook it once, then fitted it back where it belonged, looking out over the lake with one arm balanced on his knee.

It was beautiful. Completely untouched by the outside world. From a different time.

It gave him an idea.

He reached into one of the many pockets of his vest. Fishing around until he found it; a plasticky texture, cool and damp.

Rex pulled out a camera. A disposable camera, a rounded canister of film bulging on one side. He held it up to the light, a knowing smile curling his lips. The flora and fauna weren't the only things from another time.

He'd brought it on a lark. An artifact from 1999 that he'd found in a garage sale. It'd been sitting in a pile of his junk for years. But here, it found new purpose. Something the continent couldn't entirely subvert.

With steady hands, he raised the camera until the entire lake was in the frame, its serene beauty sprawled out before him.

Click!

whirrrr...

A burst of light flashed from the bulb on the camera's front. The inner workings turned with a soft whine and rolled to the next slide on the film. He'd captured it, ready to preserve it forever. As soon as he got the film developed. And stopped being lost. And survived.

Click!

whirrrr...

A second picture focused on the waterfall and the white mist that fell from it like a cloud.

Click!

whirrrr...

And a third, the shutter's eye falling to a pinhole light around a tall, webbed fin rising from the lake's water.

"Wait, what?"

He tore the camera from his eyes, standing up as he saw ripples roll from the middle of the water. Something big had dived down, swells following its mass right behind. A vague, 'V' shaped bow wave.

And it was moving towards him. In a straight line, locked on a collision course for the shore.

As it poured towards him, he could see something barely visible under the surface. Something large and rising, and in moments he saw the first sign rise above the waves. Tall and earthy brown, looking like the spines of a giant fish as it parted the waters in front of it.

The sound of coursing water reached him. Something huge as swimming towards him, growing closer and closer to the surface as the spine rose from the water like a breaching sub. The spine itself was bigger than him, attached to a vague shape under the surface he could see in undulating motions. A great tail behind sweeping back and forth, pushing it on at terrible speed.

He'd barely moved. Terrified but excited, the two fighting for control as he watched the shape reach the shore and tear itself from the lake in a burst of water. White spray flew everywhere, stinging droplets forcing him to shield his eyes as it came falling as shining rain.

Thump. Thump.

He braved to tear his arm away from his eyes and looked up to a dark shape standing above him.

It was-

His heart skipped a beat.

It was a dinosaur.

A dinosaur.

Twice as tall as an elephant, it stood on arched feet with three clawed toes, rising up to thick haunches that lifted the rest of its body. Scales in the tones of earth, the color of dirt on the front of its legs and arms. A softer tone on its legs and body, tan like khaki. Its back filled with stripes of muddy darkness, dark brown stripes rising out from them in ragged groups of three like the scars of claws.

Claws it had; long, black talons from five fingers, drooping from the shoulders at its front. Not as a man's shoulders, but facing forward, elbows bend and their paws dangling down. A long tail balanced out from its end, a thick band of crimson circling the waving appendage in the middle. Another band of red on their reptilian head, swept from its jaw to over its golden eyes.

The spine he'd already seen; it dominated the dinosaur's back, a thin mountain of flesh and bone. On its head, long thin spines jutted out from the dinos's skull like quills, smaller spines rolling off its head and tapering off towards its neck.

And the teeth. They stuck out of its mouth like knives, stray rolls of water still dripping from its maw as it appraised him with a curious look.

Rex didn't know what to do. He was frozen, knees locked in place as the dinosaur stole more steps towards him, the sand and mud pressed into tracks beneath its heel.

A dinosaur. A real, live dinosaur. A spinosaurus, if he was guessing right. Not that it mattered. Because in a few moments-

He clenched his eyes shut as the footsteps drew closer. So close he could feel them through the ground, and he balled a fist and tensed his body for the bite and oblivion. But it didn't come. There was only the trill of the forest beyond and silence besides.

One eye opened in caution. He looked up, craning his head to the shape that was now loomed above him.

It was the dinosaur. It's stopped, its head twisted in something he could almost place as...curiosity?

Click!

whirrrr...

It was the only thing he could think of. Raising his camera and pressing down the button. A quick flash of white glow thrown into the creature's eyes.

His plan had been to bolt. Run for it as soon as the dino was stunned.

"Aaah!" the spinosaur cried. "Bright!"

He hadn't planned on it to talk.

Rex's mouth dropped open as the dinosaur winced, raising one of its paws to knead out the lingering spots it was surely seeing.

He spoke in a stupefied drawl. "Did...did you just talk?"

The dinosaur kept rubbing its eyes, finally pulling them away and blinking away the remaining soreness. Then it looked back to him, raise a scaly brow. "Um. Yeah. Of course I can talk."

Its voice was feminine. Young and attractive, it sounded very close to a human's voice, which made this all the crazier. Maybe that was saltwater he'd scarfed down.

"What are you?" he asked.

She tilted her head. "I'm a spinosaur, obviously."

"You're a-"

"Spinosaur!" she declared again with an air of pride. "Queen of land and water!" She shook her spine for emphasis, the last droplets of water rolling down from the fin. "Guess you're not from around here, huh?"

"I'm...not."

She winked at him. "I can tell. But seriously, what was that you flashed me with? Felt like you brought sun down on me."

With a trembling arm, he lifted his camera. "I..."

No.

Rex pulled the camera to his chest, shaking his head. "Hold on. I need answers."

"Hm?" the dinosaur intoned.

"You can talk. How?"

She swerved her head again. "You ask a lot of weird questions. I've...always been able to talk? Why wouldn't I be able to?"

This was weird. Rex still couldn't believe what he was doing, standing here talking to one of the creatures that had been his lifelong obsession. But here he was, face-to-face. Or, face to very scary-looking teeth, anyway.

"But why did you-?"

"Come out of my lake?" she finished. "Because it's my lake, you little thing. I saw those big ol' flashes and wondering what the heck was going on over on my beach."

"I didn't mean-"

She waved one of her paws and its sharpened black claws. "Oh, I guess you didn't know. But I am curious. What's a human doing near my lake?"

He stood back. "Wait, you know I'm a human?"

"Of course! Never seen a human myself, but I always heard the stories. Never thought I'd meet one, though." She smiled, more white teeth revealed in the bright of the day. "Nice to meet you!"

He rubbed the back of his head. "Uh. Same."

Her smile grew a fraction wider. "You're a bit, smaller than I thought humans were."

Rex tried a forced laugh. "Heh. Well, I guess?"

She turned her attention to his camera. "And what's that?"

He held up the camera in his grasp. It felt heavy as a barbell now. With a sigh, he tried to explain as best he could.

"It's a...how do I put this?" He tapped the side of his head with a finger. "Do you know you can remember things? Memory and all that?"

"Yeah!" she chirped.

"Well, this thing remembers things for me."

"Why? Do you have bad memory?"

"Well, no, but all the good equipment doesn't-"

"What's 'equipment'?"

They were getting nowhere.

"How about we sit down?" he suggested. "And I can explain everything."

The dinosaur smiled wide, dancing on her toes in a tiny dance. "Oooh! A story! I love stories!"

He returned her enthusiasm with a weak, exhausted smile. He still didn't quite believe this was happening. "Yeah. A story. I'll tell you, the word of academia is riveting."

"Acawha...?"

With a grunt, he bent his knees and lowered himself to the stone. The dinosaur matched his motions, her haunches bending until her tail and belly reached the dirt. She waited on him in expectant silence, the end of her tail slowly swaying in contained excitement.

"So, where do I start?" he wondered. "I guess I should tell you my name. It's Rex."

"Neat!" she answered. "I don't have a name."

"And I'm a paleontologist."

She twisted her head in inquisition.

"It means I study fossils."

"A fossil?"

"Bones. Really, really old bones. Of course, my specialty is dinosaurs."

"Like me!" she cheered with brightened eyes.

He chuckled. "Yeah, like you." Clearing his throat, he placed the camera to his side and leaned back. "Hoo boy. Where do I start? I guess I could say at the moment, I'm a little lost."

"Lost? From where?"

"That's where the story comes in, I think. Started about a year ago?"

Rex drew in a fresh breath, recounting the media circus and scramble that felt like it'd happened yesterday.

---

He went on longer than he'd expected. Getting side-tracked by constant fossil trivia and details about his work, and the spinosaurus occasionally interrupting him with another question about the world he came from. Her innocence was almost cute, in a way. Cute as a giant lizard with dagger teeth could be.

She listened through it all, patiently and mostly quietly as he trailed off on another tangent.

"-didn't know that until the 70s, can you believe that?"

He caught himself using another term she wasn't familiar with, and grinned as he tried to correct himself. "Oh, sorry. The 1970s were-"

"I think I got enough," she answered. "I've got to say, you have a really interesting life, little human. Come a long way just to drink from my lake and flash me."

He stifled a chuckle at her choice of words. "Yep. It was a pretty long boat ride. But here I am. Sitting here. With a real live spinosaurs." The words sunk in. "God. Forget me, there's so much I want to ask you. Like your habits, or your environment, or-"

The dinosaur laughed. A soft chuckle, interspersed with breathy hisses. "And why would you want to know all of that boring stuff?"

"Because I'm a paleontologist. It's kind of my job to. A few years ago I would've given anything to be in this position right now."

"Really?"

"Really."

She widened her smile, leaning in to uncomfortable closeness. "Well then," she cooed, "it's a good thing you met me, hm?"

His heart strummed with fear as she drew close. Hot breath poured from her nostrils, blowing up his hair and threatened to blow off his hat. But she remained still, not striking or biting and simply staring at him with her bright, yellow eyes.

"Sure," he replied. "I'm glad we met. Almost makes getting lost worth it, you know?"

"Same!" she giggled.

She fell quiet for a moment, her eyes still dominating his vision. And with a small terror, he watched as a long rope of tongue peeked out from her teeth. It slurped up to her upper lips, traveling a path from one end of her jaws to the other. A scary display, but if she was going to eat him, she already would have.

...Right?

She declared her next words with a cheerful smile. "It's been nice talking to you and all, but I'm going to eat you now."

Rex's head fizzled in bewildered fear. His heart bounced off ribs in fear and for a split second, he thought she'd been kidding.

Until she opened her mouth.

Opened her mouth of sharp, tearing teeth to a pink maw within. A damp, moist cave of flesh, saliva drooling from roof and sides like slime. Pouring over her gums in waterfalls of drool, dripping from her teeth and staining the earth below with thickened drops. All of it leading to her inner throat, where the flesh met in a dark, tight tunnel down into her long throat.

Her breath blew over him like a hot spring's gust. It was warm, warm and inviting as her maw drew closer, opening and widening. Her tong wrapped up the side of her mouth, trailing longer and thicker strands of dribble as she moved her head for the bite.

Rex scrambled back with a shout. A wild retreat with his blood now screaming in his chest and ears and every vein in his body. Wild panic that his thinking mind was trying to douse, and he called out to the dinosaur with a ragged plea.

"W-wait!" he shouted. "What are you doing?!"

She moved her head back, closing her mouth. She looked confused. "Huh? I'm going to eat you. Kinda obvious, wasn't it?"

So she had said that. With a new and powerful urgency he shot out a hand, a gesture to stay as he kept stumbling back. "Eat me?" he choked.

She lowered her head again. Keeping her mouth shut, but her lips curving up in a predacious grin. "Naturally," she answered, taking careful steps towards him as she advanced. "Tasty little morsel like you..."

He stammered in terror, his legs not answering his commands to pick up and run. "B-but! You can't eat me!"

"Why not?" she shot back. "You're small, you're weak, you smell awfully tasty..."

Her tongue rose from her maw. It slithered towards him with snaking speed before he could react, finding its place upon its cheek. A heat hotter and wetter than the midday jungle rose up his mouth in a tasting slurp, coating him in running drool. His hat bucked from his head under the wet assault, and the tongue coiled back inside her maw.

She smiled. "And you taste good. All the signs of food."

"I'm not prey!" he shouted.

"I'm hungry. You're food. So I'm going to eat you. Don't you know how this works?"

"But-we're friends!"

Hunger glinted in her eyes. "So?"

He had to leave. He had to run. His brain finally took control of his legs and he twisted over, throwing himself up with blinding speed and made the first stomping steps on his sprint to freedom.

Until he tripped. A firm, gripping strength wrapped around his ankles, and he went tumbling down to the ground. Before impact, his world went into a blurry haze as his body jerked up into the air, dangling him from his feet.

His eyes were forced to see her sharpened teeth, long tongue gliding over them. It coated them with slippery sheen, shining daggers of ivory that jutted from her jaw and parted to reveal the flesh of her maw. She'd caught him with one of her hands, paws wrapped around his ankle as she dangled him above her mouth.

His hat fell from his head. He swung his arms to snatch it, but by then it had already floated out of his grasp. It fluttered down like a feather, falling into the gums of the spinosaurus.

She snapped her jaws shut. The very force of it threw a gust of wind over his face, and a loud clack that echoed over the flat surface of the lake. It bounded off the cliff walls beyond, falling into the forest with repeating cadence.

Rex shielded his face as the spinosaur licked her lips again, then swallowed. A great, rounded lump of flesh traveled down her throat in an easy journey, soft and round. It fell down her throat, curving in until it met her belly and melted into the contours of her scales.

The dino winced a bit, smacking her lips in testing taste. "Well, that wasn't very good."

"Let me go!" Rex pleaded. "You don't have to eat me!"

She poked her long tongue out of her mouth. "I don't have to..."

"See?!"

"But I really want to. And besides...you're a human."

She moved him. With a forceful sweep of her arms, she brought him down past her head. He struggled as he moved him under her throat, close to her belly where the scales were the color of natural dirt.

"And humans belong in bellies. Dinosaur bellies."

A low, groaning growl emanated from the flesh of her stomach.

Grrrrrrnn~

Gllrrrrrrrnnn~!

"See?" she taunted. "My belly agrees. I'll make sure you end up right where you belong."

"I belong back in camp!" he seethed. "Let me go!"

"You're a feisty one. I hope you're as feisty when I'm churning you up~!"

She tossed him upwards. In a long arc, her talons released his ankles halfway and sent him spinning through the air. With both her paws she reached out and wrapped talons around his waist, sealing him upright and in her grasp.

Right in front of her mouth, teeth stained with drool and spit. Her dripping, waiting maw. Wet as a flooded tunnel, her breath pouring out heated blasts of air. He struggled away, squirming her grasp as she brought her tongue out to press it against the skin of his throat.

"Why are you doing this...?" he squeaked.

"You wanted to learn about dinosaurs, right?"

"I can't exactly learn about dinosaurs if I'm dino chow!"

She grew a teasing smirk. "Sure you will!"

Her mouth widened. Hotter air from deeper inside wafted over his face, and he pulled away on instinct. Instinct that helped him little as her claws around him remained tight as a vice, drawing him closer to the slick, silken insides of her maw.

The devious tongue of the dino flicked up his face, coating his face in heavier walls of drools that he couldn't fight. He couldn't do anything but flail now, try to wrench himself free. Maybe make her drop him so he could get his camera. Anything to get away from this voracious spinosaur that was ready to bite him in two like a cracker.

Her tongue whipped to the side of her head. She gazed at him with downright famished glee as her tongue matted the sides of her mouth, patting it with anticipation. Licking her lips, giving him a full display of her mouth and all its glories.

"What do you think?" she hummed. "The prettiest dino mouth around, huh?"

"I-"

"I'm almost jealous of you. Cute little human like you knowing this is the mouth that let you become a part of me."

Before he could reply, she gave a light shrug and snaked her sopping tongue around his torso. His arms were forced to his body.

"Lunchtime!" she declared, and with no ceremony, plunged him into his mouth.

He shouted as her claws pushed him into the hot interior of her mouth, her tongue reeling him in like a boa's hold. Dragged in without a chance to escape, he winced under the assault and waited for the inevitable crushing chewing death.

It didn't come. Her claws released Rex's waist, the tongue unwrapping around his arms. He was free as he could be, forced into the tight mouth of the dino with her tasting tongue underneath. It flowed beneath him like the rolling surface of a waterbed, soft and sticky and pressing against him with sensual force.

Rex felt a hot blush fall over him as the tightness worked around him, a feeling of belonging he couldn't place that send greater shivers of pleasure and shame down his spine. But the world he was in shifted, and the soft hug of her mouth lifted up from the back. His legs were still outside her mouth, rocking over her sharp front teeth.

The dino had lifted her long reptilian head upwards, sucking him down as gravity did the rest. Down past more pulsing wet flesh that slithered against him in tender movements and the maddening heat of her body squeezing all around him.

Down.

Down.

Down.

His legs sunk deeper into her mouth, sinking like a stone in claw. A few hard gulps dragging him down in sudden jerks of tightening flesh, until his boots had fallen well into her mouth.

His world was strangling wetness. Somewhere in the back of her mouth, the tunnel of her esophagus stretching before him. Only one way down. And he knew where it led. This was it. A spinosaurus was eating him, and there was nothing, nothing he could do about it.

Gulp~!

The dinosaur swallowed. The muscles around him seized his body in constricting snugness, holding tight against his face and body as it pulled him into the compressing tunnel beyond. It sucked him in with another gentle pull, forcing his body off his predator's tongue with his legs following behind.

Rex fell into her throat. Face-first, enduring the heated deluge of wetness that fell down with him as he struggled in vain. He struggled now even in the face of his new reality. She'd swallowed him. Devoured him.

From the outside, the dinosaur licked her lips as he fell into her throat. The spinosaurus tongue whipped around her lips, tasting out the delicious remnants of her meal as a new bulge swelled out from her throat. It traveled down in a graceful slide, slowly dropping from the top of her throat down towards the curve of her underside.

She opened her mouth, strands of drool stretching between jaws. Sighing in relief, breathing out in pleasure as her prey neared its final destination.

Meanwhile, Rex was stuck. Totally helpless as the dino's innards hugged him tight, dragging him down, down, down in a dragging plummet. It felt like an eternity, a forever of darkness and humid heat. But that forever finally ended, his head plunging out of the tightened sphincter of her throat. Stale but welcome air entered his mouth as he gasped out, taking in as much as he could.

He slid out in a slimy egress, squirming until his arms were free. He splayed them out in newfound freedom, just in time for her throat to release its grip. He went sliding in, his arms pressed hard against stretchy flesh that bulged under its new occupants. A cocoon of suffocating heat, forcing him into a near-fetal position as his own body crushed against the squishy walls of the stomach.

He'd been eaten. Eaten and dragged into her stomach, squelching softly around her with the sounds of her body's motions. He tried to strain against her walls, but they bounded back like rubber, pliable yet stubborn.

His prison was muggy. It made the air of the jungle seem like a frozen desert, steamy and boiling and sapping out the strength from his very bones with every second. Ragged breaths poured from his lungs as he kept struggling, trying to find some way to free himself from the horrible pouch she'd snatched him into.

From around him, a chuckle jiggled. The liquid around his knees sloshed, soaking his clothes again with their influence and sending pleasant shivers across the flesh it immersed.

"How's my lunch doing?" she giggled.

"Let me out...!" he shouted. His voice was hoarser than he'd expected, and he felt exhausted in a way he'd never felt before.

"Let you out...?" she intoned. "Why would I do that?"

A sharp bulge rose in front of him. The very flesh of her stomach bounding in in a mound of flesh, smushing the stomach tighter as it pressed against his body. It ground into him; the point of her claw as she rubbed her belly with a single talon.

"Why would I let out my lunch when they're right where they belong?"

"You-!"

"All safe and warm in my tummy, ready to get churned up~!"

Her tone sounded like someone doing him a kind favor. But her words...

The press of her finger withdrew, allowing him a second to catch his breath. A second was all he was afforded as a new force pounded out from below. It jostled him inside the stomach's soft folds as the flesh around him jiggled and quaked.

Thump!

She'd sat down, her belly pressed against the earth. The bottom of the stomach rose, rendering his tight doom even tighter. He struggled all the same, pressing open palms and digging his boots into the lower ends of her stomach. It stretched out like taffy, but always forced him back as it refused to yield.

Outside, the dinosaur watched her prey's limbs stretch against the limits of her belly, tiny swells of flesh just barely able to press through to the surface. Completely entrapped, she watched it with a smile, balancing her head on one of her paws while the others slowly traced circles across the flesh. She relished in his struggles to escape, licking her chops with every bold attempt to wrestle himself free.

"Struggle all you want. It's better that way."

Instead of driving her victim on more, the struggles suddenly ceased. She raised a brow, surprised at the prey's sudden submission.

"Don't tell me you're giving up so soon..."

A muffled voice drifted out from her belly.

"Where's my hat?"

She shrugged. "Oh, probably part of the mush you're inside. You'll join it soon enough."

"Gaaaaahh!"

Rex tumbled in her belly, fighting against the head and drenching air that coated his throat. Even talking betrayed him, and the acid of her stomach drifted fumes into his throat that spread the strange tingling all over his body. Every kick, every punch...they all felt just a little weaker, and he paused for a moment to catch his breath.

Stopped, looking up at the thick strands of viscous that were dripping from the ceiling as slimy vines, more of it gushing out from the sides of her stomach walls. Clear, warm and sticky as it fell over his clothes and face, giving the same sensation of prickling pleasure just under his skin. She was coating him like honey, surrounding him and smothering him under heavy layers of drooling ooze.

He felt warmer. Not hot, but a pleasant warmth that fell past his skin and into the muscles of his body. Like a massage it spread, making his body sluggish. But his mind remained clear, and he commanded his limbs to struggle even now. Fight against the dying light, against the darkness of the dinosaur's belly.

It became easier when he saw the true effects of the juices. On his arm, he saw as the strands of his shirt slowly became undone, melting like sugar into the globs of fluid. Part of his sleeve simply slid off, dissolving into a darkened splotch of that spread out and faded from sight.

She was digesting him. All around him his clothes were becoming undone. Her belly churning it all into the pool below him. He redoubled his efforts, straining hard as more and more of his clothing fell off his body in slimy clumps. First his shirt, the last tatters falling from his shoulders. Then his boots, the leather softened into blackened clumps that softened into the pool without a fight. Only his hardened jeans remained, and they too fell into pieces and joined the rest in a rising pool around him.

His clothes were gone. Nothing more than a soup around his knees. He tried to press up against the hole of her throat. Rex's predator chuckled against him, splashing more the goop around his waist.

"I can still feel you in there," she bantered. "Bet you feel like the luckiest human in the world right about now."

He wanted to shout a resounding no at her, but he didn't have the strength. He was saving it all to try and crawl out, and even that was a prospect that was fading fast. With a final push against her sides, he was spent. His head fell flat against the pillow cushion of her wet flesh, his body covered in the rolling juices of her stomach that soaked out his strength like a sponge.

He...had to rest. Had to regain his strength. Ration it out.

Rex laid against her belly's walls, breathing in and out in long gasps that soaked his lungs in the clawing vapors of her stomach. Filling him all with the deepest part of herself, and banishing more of his inner power to oblivion.

He laid there for a time he couldn't count, still struggling but only in bursts. Waiting for minutes until his next session, then throwing all he had into another burst of fighting against her flesh. Every time, the spinosaurus enjoyed his fight against her, rewarding his scuffle with gentle scratches against her belly.

As he did, his body grew heavier. He felt even wetter than he had when she'd swallowed him, growing heavier between the struggles and after every bout of brawling against her walls.

He felt sleepy. Tired. Lazy and spent.

"Aw, are you getting tired?" she cooed. "I hope you're still awake. Wouldn't want to miss the best part."

He struggled to push out the words. Every part of him felt like it was sagging, tugging out pleasurable stress in his muscles and skin. It felt good. Good in a way he couldn't describe, like the most intimate embrace that brought him closer to...

He thought to turn his head, resting his other cheek against her slimy innards. It gave him a clear view of his legs pressed against the bottom of her belly, and what he saw made him jump in shock.

His legs were...

Melting.

Softening like heated ice, his very limbs had begun to droop. Melting, literally melting like a candle, globs of his flesh rolling of his legs and falling into the soup below.

Digesting!

His mind cried out the word as he realized what was happening. A dreamy warmth rolled up his legs, hot and inviting. A blissful sense of belonging that his mind rebelled against, he struggled more as his lower body began to fall under the influence of her belly.

Gllrrn~!

Glmp...

But it was too late. With every kick, his legs lost more of their form. Sliding off into liquified human, joining the mush that was rising all around him. Falling apart like butter left in the sun, and crawling up his body to seize him mind-melting passion. His body began to betray him, his struggles falling to sluggish delays as he writhed in her body, trying one last time to free himself from her grasp.

Too late. Far too late. His legs spread out into the pool around him as nothing more than a mound of a gurgled meal, the dark pool of him rising up to his belly.

"N-no...!

The rest of him began to sag. Falling down in blistering rolls of dissolving Rex, his body losing form and focus as it collapsed under the assault of her stomach. Raising his arms did little, and they fell under the dino's spell as collapsing mounds of flesh. Like heated plastic they drooped and slumped, fingers falling into palms. Parts of him still sticking to the stomach walls with strands of goo, the rest of him wading and settling into the bottom of her stomach.

Glup!

Glrk~!

"Feels good, right?" the dino taunted. "A gurgled meal is a happy meal~!"

His body deformed into a rolling mound. A pale lump of what was once a human, his form destroyed into a vague mass. His arms joined the rest of him at the bottom, melting into the slime of the dino's meal.

And it felt...good. It felt wonderful, a dull pleasure that filled his formless body as it melted. A growing sense of completion as it melded into her juices, looking up to the stray strands still falling on his face.

He was almost nothing now. A soupy, mushy mass sloshing around as a super thick stew. Only his head remained above it, twisting and churning as it joined the rest of him.

No...

Glrr~nk!

Gllpppplp...

Glup.

His face sunk into the mush. The last of his features faded into the goopy stew that vaguely matched the color of his skin and clothes. The core of his being squealed with a final thrill of delight as he faded into darkness. There was nothing left. Nothing.

His mind faded. Not into oblivion, but what felt like the deepest, most welcome sleep that penetrated his mind and dragged into warm, inviting depths. He disappeared in that unconscious warmth, the last remnants of his body spreading out into a uniform paste.

The human that was Rex, was gone. Churned into nothing.

The dinosaur scratched her tummy, licking her lips in delight. "There," she hummed. "And now, for the best part. You just need a little time to get you settled..."

A yawn rolled up her throat. She opened her mouth wide, stretching her long legs and splaying out her toes as she worked the kink out of her back.

With her meal sliding into her intestines, she decided to wait for it with a nap. She laid out on her side, closing her eyes. Her stomach's rumblings serenaded her to sleep, digesting what was left of the human to become a part of her.

. . .

. . .

. . .

Glrrnk!

When Rex woke, he woke a startle. A slow, syrupy startle.

A surprise in his mind that he'd woken at all. The last thing he remembered was literally melting in the confines of the dinosaur's infernal stomach, and now...

Sensation jostled his being. Soft thuds rippled through him, sending trills of soft delight through his soul. He tried to gasp in ecstasy, but he seethed in silence as he tried to make the sound. He wanted to make noise, but it was like his mouth was sealed shut.

No...it was like it didn't exist.

Rex couldn't see, but he could feel. He could hear, dull as quiet as it was. The sound of footsteps beneath him, every one bringing another roll of pleasant jostling that made in squirm. He felt trapped. His body didn't respond to his calls, but he could feel the sensation of the jungle air on him and the roll of flesh inside.

But no mouth. No lungs that drew air, no body to move.

The-

A quiet giggle sounded nearby. It was the spinosaurus, addressing him in a friendly voice. "Oh, my lunch is awake! Well, awake as you can be."

"Wha...?"

"Hope you like your new home?"

"Where...?"

The thuds. In the haze of his mind he managed to put together what they were. They were footsteps, sounding out below him. The footsteps of the dinosaur, pressing into the soil beneath. But why has he feeling them so closely?

"Where am I...?"

Another giggle, teasing in its knowing. "You're a part of me. I churned you up, remember? Your muscles, your bones, your brain...turned it all into mush and padding. And that's what you are, now."

Alarm sprang in his mind, and he tried to struggle again. He felt only the tiniest whisper of a reply as his form strained against something that permeated his being. He flailed in darkness, his mind crying out for answers as he tried to break free.

"What's going on?!"

"You're pudge!" she answered. "Nice, plush fat to cushion my haunches!"

"What?!"

A harder step. A jiggle rolled up the dino's leg, sending his being to wobble with the force of it. It sent his mind blank with wanting more, fluttering with joy as it rolled through his being.

"I-aahhhHHHH!"

She rolled her tongue across her tops, staring at her meal with the memory of its taste. "Feels good, doesn't it?"

"Ah-ha! P-please! Let me...go!"

With a smile she wiggled her rump, sending her fat to jiggle even more and sending him into enraptured joy. It jostled away his thoughts, leaving him as nothing more than squirming adipose on the back of the dino's legs.

"Isn't this great?" she bubbled. "I get a full meal, and you get to study dinosaurs. By being a part of one!"

"Nnnnoo-ah!"

"And now you're what every human should be. Forever!"

"For-"

She resumed her walk, paying her wiggling fat no more mind as she pressed on into the forest. A thicket of leaves stretched out before them. It served as no obstacle as she moved through them, the fern leaves sliding against her form as they caressed her scales.

One of them slid over her haunches, and Rex recoiled in delight. Squirmed at the gentle sensation, trying to break free of the unbreakable prison of his captor as she carried them both deeper into the lost world.

---

A raptor burst through the forest, screeching in terror as it left feathers in its wake. Wide, greedy jaws snapped out of the green as it fled; the spinosaurus in a strike one second too late. The raptor jumped, flapping its half-wings as it ducked under another thicket and disappeared from sight.

The spinosaurus watched it flee, its cries of terror receding into the forest. Until even those were gone, leaving only the general hum of life around them.

She snapped her claws with a pout. "Darn. Almost had 'em." She remained in her disappointed frown for a moment more, then shrugged. Moving out from the ferns, she stepped into the clearing where the raptor had leaped and looked around, gazing up at the stars.

"Should have a better hunt tomorrow," she commented. She craned her head to her haunches, a contented smile rising with flashing teeth. "And of course, I always have my favorite meal right here."

She reached back with one of her arms, squeezing sharp claws into the flesh of her haunches. A presence cried out in pleasure, wobbling slightly under her careful kneads.

"MMmmmmrrrph!"

"RRrrmmmph~!"

She took exceptional care in massaging her meal, licking her lips at the memory of their meeting.

Rex couldn't be sure how long he'd been like this. Years, surely. Years trapped as fat on her haunches, subject to every little sensation of the flesh. He'd long since given up trying to convince her to free him; he was sure now she couldn't even if she wanted.

Years as part of her, and years feeling her loving teasing as she reminded him every day of what he was. Fat. Simple, sentient fat. She released her claws, craning her long neck to her haunches. She gave it a final wet lick, smiling as the flesh trembled so very gently under her tongue.

It sent wonderful, trembling shivers through Rex's being. His mind reeled in the pleasure.

As it always did.

The dinosaur let out a mighty yawn, and looked up to the sky a final time to gaze at the stars. Then she lowered herself to the ground, curling up in a tightened ball.

This was his life now. Nothing more than spinosaurus pudge. A jiggling, wobbling piece of flesh on the haunches of a lady dinosaur.

Forever.

END