“Are you sure about this Alfur?”

“Don’t worry, this suit will keep me perfectly safe.”

“But wouldn’t it be easier if-”

“Please Hilda, the other elves are counting on me. They need this report.”

“Yes, but-”

“Just swallow me now, and then pull me out after diner. I promise everything will be fine.”

“Well, alright then, if you’re sure that’s want you want to do… just be careful.”

*Swallowing*

Hilda, willing, though not entirely comfortable, raised her hand up to her mouth and parted her lips before her tiny elven friend. It was clean enough, as far as mouths went, but that was hardly one of Alfur’s concerns. His specially made, low-friction suit, complete with airtight helmet made him-well equipped for the mission ahead. Or at least, that was the idea.

Alfur pressed a discreet button under his chin to begin his audio recording, before steeling himself and hopping the short distance onto Hilda’s waiting tongue. The soft muscle flinched underneath him as he made contact and twitched a few times before steadying. Alfur took a moment to look around in the dim light, spotting the white teeth that framed the edges of her maw, and the shadowed opening before him the marked the passage into her throat. A passage he intended to take, but not quite yet.

He took his first few steps, his feet squishing into the wet, pink surface. Feeling Hilda tense with each movement as she tried to control herself, he made his way toward her furthest tooth. Careful not to step too close to the drop of her throat, he walked up to the edge of her tongue and stopped in front of her bottom, rear molar.

Reaching for his waist, he found a small loop sticking out from his suit. Giving it a pull, he began to reveal a length of thin line: elven spider-thread, just thicker than a spider’s silk, but solid as stone.

Alfur hopped off Hilda’s tongue and onto the flat top of her tooth, implicitly trusting her not to bite down. Forcing the line between her teeth like a piece of floss, he wrapped the sturdy thread around her molar and fastened it into a loop. He gave his lifeline a quick tug to test.

“That should do…” he muttered. He hopped back up onto Hilda’s tongue and stepped dead center. Crouching down, he went as far back as he could.

“Alright Hilda, I’m going down!” he called, trying not to let his nerves show. In an effort avoid cold feet, he squeezed his eyes shut and forced himself to leap forward, plowing headfirst into the entrance of the girl’s throat.

“*COUGH* *COUGH* *COUGH*!”

Alfur felt himself squished tightly and then suddenly thrown backwards by a gust of air, landing with a tiny splat towards the front of the squishy tongue.

“Sorry!” he called awkwardly.

“Maybe- *cough*- maybe you should let me do that part,” Hilda offered.

“Right, good idea,” he agreed. A few more puffs of air rushed over him as Hilda tried to relax her throat again. After a few seconds, everything in her mouth returned to normal and her breathing resumed a steady rhythm.

“Alright, here I go…”

Her tongue sprung to life at those words, suddenly and firmly pressing Alfur against the roof of her mouth. What she had tried to restrain into a gentle motion came across more like a hungry maw finally taking a firm grasp on its food. At some level, that was what was happening after all, and it sent a primal fear through the little elf despite his better knowledge; his tiny heart skipping a beat.

Alfur’s world went dark as the flesh around him suddenly encompassed his entire view, blocking out all light as it folded over him before tugging him back sharply towards the waiting throat. He was held there for a moment along with a puddle of saliva as the passage below readied itself. And then Hilda swallowed him.

Alfur quickly tried to steady his breathing as the frantic motion of the girl’s mouth transitioned into the firm but rhythmic motion of her throat. Trying to keep calm, he decided to start his audio log so he’d have something to focus on.

“Right *pant* okay, as you just heard, I have just been swallowed by a human: Hilda of Trolberg. She’s a friend of mine, actually, who kindly volunteered to help me with this report. I have to say, having her, um, aware of my expedition this time does ease my nerves a bit, considering I’m heading somewhere significantly more dangerous than usual.

“I’m currently being squeezed down her throat, and any second now I’ll presumably- woah!”

*squelch* *splash”

“Uuugh... well, I guess this must be it.” Alfur reached under his helmet again, found another button and pressed it. A steady glow suddenly sprung to life, emanating from his suit.

Now able to see for the first time since Hilda had begun to swallow him, he examined his surroundings. Pink, wrinkles of flesh undulated all around him and above him, gurgling and sloshing against the pool of liquid he was currently wading in. Overhead, his lifeline dangled loosely out of the sphincter through which he had passed, faithfully connecting him back to Hilda’s tooth with the hope that he would eventually be able to leave the way he came in- unlike everything else he was expecting to see in the coming day.

“Well, um, you should be in there by now I suppose,” Hilda said awkwardly, “I hope that wasn’t too uncomfortable… I guess I’ll go have breakfast now.”

“Yes, that’s fine! Thank you, Hilda!” Alfur called, but he got no reply. It didn’t seem she could hear the little elf from all the way buried inside her stomach, but he had been told to expect as much. Instead, the only response he received was a series of jarring thuds as the girl he was now inside of began to walk toward the kitchen.

“Oh dear!” he yelled. The squishy floor and sloshing juices, combined with the churning of the walls and the swaying of her steps made it almost impossible to stand upright. Falling over into the sloshing liquid a few times, he finally managed to make it over to the outer wall and prop himself up against it. It wasn’t easy, but the grip pads on his suit’s gloves allowed him to hold on to the slimy surface enough to stay upright.

“Phew, well, I’ve only been in here a few seconds and I can already tell you that the inside of Hilda’s stomach is quite active; everything is either rippling or sloshing. If it wasn’t for this suit, I’m sure I’d be quite thoroughly covered in stomach juices by now.”

“Oh! I haven’t logged the plan yet have I? Yes, right, the plan is for me to stay in here throughout the whole day while Hilda goes about her normal life. Faithfully logging everything I see, of course. Woah!”

*splash*

“Uh, oops, lost my grip there for a second… *sigh* It’s going to be a long day, isn’t it?”

*Breakfast*

Alfur felt a sudden lurch downward and then everything went relatively still. Sure, the stomach was still undulating, but it seemed Hilda had stopped walking. Alfur tried to listen for what was going on outside, but he couldn’t hear much of anything over the sounds of the girl’s body. He waited patiently, relieved that now he could at least stand without too much trouble.

After a few seconds, he heard a rather loud and unexpected splash. He turned to see a distinct ripple in the liquid’s surface, with something floating in the center. Tentatively letting go of the stomach wall, he carefully waded over.

“Oh my, what is that?” he asked aloud, poking at it with his foot. ‘That’ was some sort of squishy, brownish blob. It deformed easily as he poked it, breaking gradually into smaller clumps that floated off into other parts of the stomach.

A fait squelch came from above him, but given all the other sounds inside it didn’t really catch the elf’s attention. Unfortunately, that meant he was caught completely by surprise when another large glob landed right on his head, splattering over his helmet and knocking him down into the stomach juices.

“Ah! What in the-?”

He pushed his way back to the surface and cleared the gunk from his vision. Only then did he look up and realize that he was standing directly underneath the exit of Hilda’s throat.

“Oh, of course! It seems Hilda has sat down and started eating her- oh!” Alfur jumped out of the way as another blob squeezed its way into the hungry girl’s stomach, just avoiding it as it splashed next to him.

“-she’s started eating her breakfast,” he finished, propping himself up against the wall again. Yet another in a presumably long line of boluses left the throat, landing on top of the its predecessors.

“She’s only had a few bites so far, but her food’s already spread across almost the whole area of her stomach,” Alfur remarked as rather large bits of her meal began to float his way, brushing up against him in the churning liquid.

“Hmm, I didn’t quite recognize it before, but I believe this is cereal if I’m not mistaking. Or was, I suppose. After being chewed, it’s really quite difficult to tell.”

Another minute or two went by, punctuated every few seconds with gulps of food regularly sliding in to join the observant elf. With each new arrival, the sound of the food landing in the stomach gradually changed from a splash to a wet splat as the consistency of the stomach contents became less fluid.

“Alright, she’s been eating for a little bit now, and by the feel of things, I’d say things are getting a bit full. The individual swallows have mixed into one big mush now. I can feel it pressing against the suit.”

But Hilda ate on, continuing to gulp down more and more of her breakfast without much real thought as to what was going on inside, beyond the general knowledge that whatever was happening, Alfur was there watching it.

“Well, I think I’m going to have to make a correction. Hilda’s food is piling up here at a rather alarming rate, and I think her stomach is actually starting to stretch! I hope she doesn’t eat too much more.”

An uneven stream of colorful liquid started to poor out from the hole above, spattering onto the mass of chewed food around him and loosening things up a bit.

“That would be the juice,” he commented. A few moments later, another glob of munched up cereal squished through.

“And she’s still going…”

A few more minutes passed.

“Alright, I think she’s finally finished now. Thanks to the stretching, there’s still a fair bit of room above me, but I think I’m more floating now than standing- if you can call it that. Her stomach used to be filled with liquid, but now everything is a rather firm lump of mush and I’m just sort of caked in with it.”

At that moment a section of the stomach wall contracted, plowing firmly into the sloppy mass with a loud *glorp*. Well, it was loud on the inside, outside Hilda probably didn’t even notice it beyond perhaps a faint sensation in her chest. The digestive muscles gradually retreated, letting the girl’s breakfast begin to sink back into place. But then another bit of the stomach contacted, squeezing her food from a different angle.

“It looks like things are getting under way in here, her stomach seems to be breaking up her breakfast by squishing it around.”

Alfur felt Hilda stand up and preemptively tightened his grip on the walls before she began to walk again. As the rhythmic thudding reached her belly, the elf could see her stomach contents tremble with each step; shaking apart small piles of digesting food which would flatten out just in time for the powerful walls to come together again and squeeze them into new piles. All the while it ground the mushy clumps down and mixed them with the digestive juices which were quickly accumulating to meet the stomach’s demands.

The little elf was watching all this keenly, trying to find the words to describe it, when suddenly the section of the stomach wall he had been hanging on to contracted, thrusting him abruptly into the sloppy fray. His grip slid off the slimy surface and he was quickly buried within a mound of chewed cereal.

“Oh dear!” he cried, quickly losing his bearings as the organ continued its work, churning around him, rolling him onto his side and upside down amidst the mass of Hilda’s meal. As far as her stomach was concerned, he was a part of that meal, and it was treating him no differently.

He scrambled around frantically for a few moments, trying to climb his way up through the semisolid mounds of slop, only to quickly lose track of which way ‘up’ was. Just when he was beginning to think that he might be stuck churning like this for the rest of the day, he got an idea.

Alfur reached down to his waist and found the end of his lifeline where it attached to his suit. Grabbing hold, he began to trace it with his hands, pulling himself along as he went. After a moment, he felt his hand stick out on top of the other stomach contents. He kept going, dragging himself up out of the mush until his whole upper body was free.

He panted for a minute as his nerves settled, gripping his lifeline tight. The stomach continued to shove food his way, but all it did was push him slightly to the side until the walls contracted again.

“I must say, being inside a human stomach is quite tiring. If I’m not mistaking, Hilda should be walking to school right now. It’s usually quite a pleasant trip on the outside, but in here it’s a madhouse! I’m currently hanging by my lifeline, waist deep in breakfast. The walls have proven too wild to hold on to and the floor is buried underneath somewhere. The only way I can keep from tumbling around with her food is to keep a firm grip and hope things calm down before my hands tire.”

…

*Exploration*

“So, it’s been about three or four hours,” Alfur said with notable exhaustion. “Hilda’s been still for a while now, probably sitting in class, but her stomach has been quite active. Amazingly, her breakfast- which previously was quite solid- has now been almost completely dissolved. Instead of chewed up mush, the stomach is now filled with more of a thick liquid.

“It’s something I can more or less float on too, so I’ve taken to laying on my back to give my arms a break. There’s still a bit of churning going on, but I’ve gotten used to being occasionally dunked under.”

Just as he said that, another contraction of the walls knocked into him along with a wave of chyme, pushing him under the surface for a moment, but this time he felt his bottom press up against something solid before he slowly floated back up.

“Huh, was that…?” Alfur turned himself upright for the first time in a while and was surprised when he felt his feet reach the floor of the stomach.

“Wow, with all the stretching and rippling, I couldn’t even tell that the amount of food in here has gone down quite a bit! I can touch the bottom again! You know, I should take another look around while I can, before Hilda decides to eat again. I need to make sure my report is complete after all. Hmm… I wonder where all this stuff lets out?”

The little elf looked around. He was standing in the center, so it wasn’t directly below him. He took a look at the way the organ curved, it seemed to be sloping off in one direction. Looking that way, he thought he could see a little bit of space hidden there, which revealed itself whenever the waves of chyme dipped.

He swam/walked over to that side. Submerging himself for a moment, he ducked underneath the slope of the stomach wall. He was expected to just bump into it after another step, but he found more space than he expected. A second later, he resurfaced in a small pocket of air.

“Interesting, I thought her stomach was round but it’s actually more of a ‘J’ shape,” Alfur recorded. He was in the middle of examining the area, when suddenly he saw something change on the far wall. Something had shifted underneath the surface, and he felt the thick fluid begin to flow past him as it drained for a moment and then stopped. He took a step closer to that side and ran his hands along the wall.

“Huh, there seems to be some sort of pucker here. I suppose that makes sense. It’s closed up right now, but it seems to open every now and then to let things move on. I wonder how often it-”

The sphincter suddenly stretched open again, taking in another gulp of chyme. Alfur’s eyes widened as he felt the rushing fluid pull at his legs, dragging him in along with it. In what was now a practiced reflex, he quickly grabbed at his lifeline, clutching it hard as he was yanked under the surface.

A second later, he felt the pucker of flesh close around his legs. Thanks to his suit, he managed to slip out quickly by tugging on his lifeline and immediately swam all the way to the opposite end of the stomach, back into the main chamber.

“Well, that was close…” he breathed. “I almost got sucked in! Who knows where that would have taken me!” He took a few seconds to catch his breath, but before too long, he felt the distinct lurch and tremor that signaled Hilda was standing up.

*Lunch*

“Huh, looks like she’s on the move again. Her morning class must be over,” he remarked. He grabbed on to the stomach wall like he had earlier that morning, finding that he could once again keep himself upright despite her walking, now that he wasn’t being assaulted by mounds of food.

But that was about to change, as he would soon realize. After a few minutes of walking, Hilda sat down again. Alfur loosened his grip and relaxed a bit- that is until about ten seconds later when something new splashed down into the stomach next to him. He looked quickly and saw a new lump of some indistinguishable substance floating in the digestive soup.

“Oh dear… I guess that means it’s lunch time,” he muttered.

He didn’t bother to go examine the bolus this time, because a few seconds later another gulp of food fell in on top of it, and then another, and another. It only took a couple of mouthfuls for the globs of Hilda’s latest meal to start filling her stomach and drifting over to the little elf where he clung to the wall.

“Hmm, this one’s a bit harder to make out…” he said, trying to identify the thoroughly chewed mush. For a moment he thought about trying to smell it, but then realized he would need to remove his helmet, which would not be a good idea. Plus, at this point he probably didn’t really want to find out what that food smelled like.

Having gotten use to the rather unpleasant contents of the human stomach, he reached down with one hand and picked up a small clump, trying to sort through it and see what it was. It seemed to be a bunch of different things all lumped together. A sandwich maybe? Whatever it was, it was too chewed up and mixed to be positively identified, so he gave up and threw it back to the acids. As he did so, he saw the stomach wall next to him go through a large contraction.

“Oh, things are starting up again, I better get away from the walls before they start pushing me under again.”

Using his lifeline, he pulled himself through the growing mass of floating lunch into the center of the stomach. But as soon as he got there, another glob of Hilda’s food fell from her throat and landed right on his head, knocking him under momentarily.

“Right, I can’t stay in the middle while she’s still eating or I’ll get buried anyway.” He tried to move away but another firm trust from the stomach walls knocked him back.

“Agh! I can’t stay by the walls without getting squeezed, I can’t stay in the middle without getting buried, I can’t stay by that hole without getting sucked in! Where can I stay?!”

Another glob of food fell onto his head as Hilda continued to swallow.

“Nowhere,” he stated miserably for the record. “Nowhere is safe to stay. Of course not Alfur, it’s a stomach!”

He tried in vein to move towards one of the walls again, but it quickly pressed him down into the chyme and back out into the center of the chamber.

“Oh, forget it!” he declared. “Go on Hilda’s stomach, just do whatever you’d like with me…”

…

*Bathroom*

About twenty minutes went by, but it felt like an eternity for the poor little elf. He had allowed himself to sink down into the growing pile of Hilda’s meal, mashed around in a pool of digestive juices along with the rest of her food. With his suit protecting him from the acids and giving him air, he wasn’t in any particular danger, but getting tossed and churned and squeezed from every angle wasn’t exactly the most pleasant experience.

Once he felt her stand up again he knew that she had finished her lunch, so he climbed his way back to the surface using his lifeline again. He tried to climb up further like he had before, to keep himself out of the churning mush, but he found his arms were too tired. After a couple tries, he gave up and let himself become buried once again.

“Well, I’m lying at the bottom of Hilda’s stomach now. She’s just finished eating lunch, and from what I saw on the surface this thing is even fuller than it was at breakfast. I’m exhausted, so I think I’ll just stay down here and endure her digestion until things dissolve a bit.”

That’s when Alfur heard a distinct sound. He had been able to hear a couple of things from the outside world throughout the day, but they were mainly muffled, inaudible voices and dull thumps. This sound, however, was sharp enough to make it through relatively clear. It was the sound of a toilet seat hitting the bowl.

He felt Hilda sit down. Within a moment, all the activity in the stomach seemed to calm down. The undulations slowed and the constant sloshing quieted. In its place he started to hear gurgles and groans; deep rumbles coming from somewhere below him. The girl’s digestive system was switching gears, refocusing its attention on something further along.

*phrt*

Alfur turned red as the sound reached his ears.

“Oh dear, not again…” he muttered. “It, um, it appears Hilda is relieving herself,” he reported. He immediately scolded himself mentally for not have predicted this at the start. Had he expected her to hold it in all day? Then another thought crossed his mind. Did she even realize he could hear her? Did she even remember he was in there?

Whatever the answer, he heard another series of groans and gurgles, and then he felt the walls- along with all the food around him- press downwards as Hilda clenched her abdominal muscles. A muffled splash reached his ears as something hit the water’s surface a few feet below him, having completed its long journey through the girl’s body. He heard her let out a long breath as the pressure around him relaxed.

After a few seconds, he started hearing a new sound: a gentle trickling as Hilda released a different form of waste from her body. It was actually somewhat difficult to make out, but Alfur recognized it immediately. He happened to be uncomfortably familiar with that noise, and everything that came with it, for reasons he would really rather not get into.

After a few long seconds the trickling stopped, and he felt her clench up again, grunting ever so slightly as she expelled another clump of excrement, resulting in a few light plops from the water below.

Upwards of two minutes later, he finally heard the sound of the toilet flushing as Hilda stood up again. He heard the running water from the sink and felt relieved (emotionally at least) that that awkward moment was finally behind him, but within a few seconds, he felt the stomach walls begin to start up again, returning to their task of digesting Hilda’s latest meal so it would be ready for her next trip to the bathroom. The elf groaned, realizing that he was now back to churning in the girl’s gut.

Was this day ever going to end?

…

*Escape*

“Okay, it’s been another few hours now, and Hilda’s stomach has finally dissolved her lunch enough so that I can float on top of it. It’s still pretty thick, and there are still a few chunks here and there, but at least I’m not buried anymore.

“Hilda’s walking now, so I believe school has ended for the day. I’ve decided that I’ve seen quite enough of her stomach, so I’m going to try and get out early before she has dinner.”

Alfur grabbed hold of his lifeline and began to climb. He had been resting for hours now (if you could call being tossed around in a digesting stomach ‘rest’), and his arms were feeling somewhat better now. That, and he was determined not to spend another minute inside his friend’s digestive system if he could help it.

Despite the shaking of Hilda’s footsteps, he reached the top of the swaying line and came face to face with the sphincter that marked the exit of the girl’s throat. He reached out one hand and thrust it into the center of the pucker. It was tight, but to his relief, his low-friction suit allowed him to slide in easily.

“Alright, here it goes.”

Alfur stuck his helmet into the sphincter and began sliding his way up into the throat, pulling himself along using the line. One hand at a time, he drew himself in up to his feet. That’s when he felt the first wave of peristalsis. He gripped the line tightly as it washed over him; Hilda’s body attempting to keep her food down where it belonged. To his relief, it passed him by without much trouble, so he continued climbing, slowly but surely making his way up through his friend’s chest and into her neck.

After he had made a bit of progress, he heard- or rather, felt- Hilda grunt a few times in an attempt to clear her throat, not realizing that the odd disturbance she was feeling was coming from her esophagus, not her windpipe. But her body was starting to catch on. She started to salivate more and more, which meant she was swallowing more and more, sending globs of droll down on top of her elven friend as her body tried to lubricate her throat and wash away the blockage.

But Alfur pressed on, continuing his climb until finally he reached the top. He pulled himself up through the top of her esophagus, ready to taste freedom, but his sudden, unexpected presence at the back of her throat sent the girl into a sudden fit of coughing.

The elf was suddenly blasted into Hilda’s soft palate by the gusts of wind from her lungs. He flipped and tumbled about as she coughed around him, until she quickly realized that something large and solid had appeared at the far back of her throat. Following her instincts, she suppressed her coughs and clenched her throat muscles, squeezing Alfur tightly. And then she gave a loud, firm gulp.

“Hilda!!” Alfur yelled as he felt himself shoved back into her throat. After all the coughing he had accidentally managed to get himself flipped around, so he was now descending headfirst. Without the room to turn himself the other way, he was in no position to try and climb back up. For a moment, he was overcome with dread at the thought that he was now headed right back down to the girl’s stomach. But a very nearby voice spoke up and gave him a spark of hope.

“Alfur!?” Hilda called, startled and confused. She had just barely heard his cry, and though she wasn’t entirely sure what was going on, it seemed clear that her elven friend was trying to get out. Sticking her fingers into her mouth, she felt around for the string that he had tied to her tooth. It wasn’t hard to find; she had been feeling it digging into the back of her throat all day. It took her a few tries, but she finally managed to get a grip on the thin, wet line and began to pull.

“Hilda? What are you doing?” Johanna (Hilda’s mother) asked. She had been walking her daughter home from school, but was now staring perplexedly as she watched the girl sticking her hand in her mouth.

“It’s Alfur, I think he wants to come out,” Hilda explained.

“Come out?” her mother echoed.

Inside, the elf felt the line connected to his waist suddenly come taut, stopping his decent midway down Hilda’s throat as the waves of peristalsis rolled past. Then he felt himself begin to quickly slide back up the passage, slipping swiftly through the fleshy tube as Hilda hurriedly reeled in his lifeline.

A brief moment later, Hilda felt her friend reach the back of her throat again. With one last pull, she felt him slide down the length of her tongue and then there he was, dangling awkwardly from her fingers.

“Oh, sweet freedom,” he breathed, letting his limbs go limp as he began to twist idly in the light breeze.

“Alfur? Are you alright?” Hilda asked, “I thought you wanted to stay in there until after dinner?”

“Oh, yes- well, um- I think I’ve learned quite enough to fill my report,” he replied.

“Hold on just a minute. Hilda, you ate Alfur!?” Johanna asked.

“He asked me to,” Hilda explained, “So he could write a report about my tummy for the other elves.”

“Honestly?”

“That’s right, reports like this are quite sought after,” Alfur confirmed.

Hilda put the elf down on her open palm so he was no longer dangling by his waist.

“Ew, you’re all slimy,” she remarked.

“Oh, you should see what your insides are like; slimy is an understatement. You’ve no idea.” Alfur replied.

“Actually, I do have some idea,” she corrected. “We learned all about it in class today. The textbook even had pictures.”

“Wait, you have whole textbooks about the human stomach?” he asked.

“You mean you didn’t know?” Johanna interjected, “We have all kinds of books on biology, and you can get most of them at the Trolberg library. Hilda, why didn’t you tell him?”

“I tried to mum. But he just kept insisting that I swallow him.”

“Well, I guess there is something to be said for firsthand observation.”

Alfur groaned as he realized stupidity of his mistake.

“Note for future reports: check the library for existing material first,” he muttered. Then he pressed the button on the bottom of his helmet again and ended the recording.