Daniel
Part 1: Superliminal
Friday
Alina Robinson charged out of the classroom. She had already been in a bad mood this week, but today it had boiled over. The classroom bell rung and she was already out of the hallway and turning the corner before other students started emerging.
“You going to the show? Becky and Danny are going together.”
It had been a ten-minute-old whispered comment from the chatty girls behind her in class. Alina's ears tuned in when she heard the magic words. T

Daniel
Chapter 2: Tinker, Tailor, Stalker, Spy
Saturday
Alina had loved Saturdays. She had no classes, no work, and she usually put off homework until Sundays, which gave her ample time to relax on Saturdays. On this Saturday, however, Alina wasn't having a relaxing time. Sure, the first minute of warm sleepiness under her blanket was the essence of a blissful Saturday, but the night had been hard on Alina, and she had woken up repeatedly in a cold sweat.
The previous evening's events tormented

Daniel
Chapter 3: Camgirl
Sunday
Alina sprinted through her dreams. She'd been trapped in the mall all night, yet it was still completely packed. Somehow the path to reach Elizabeth in the costume shop had been warped. Endless swathes of deranged shadows of shopping people stuffed the narrowing halls. Hundreds of people had been crammed into a five foot wide corridor, the only tunnel to the third floor where Elizabeth could be heard, screaming and running for her life.
Alina pushed through the i

Daniel
Chapter 4: Portrait
Monday
"Oh my gosh, did you hear about Rebecca and Daniel? She totally ate him!" Kim leaned over to her friend as they loaded their backpacks from their lockers.
"What? Like, his whole body?" Her friend responded.
"Yeah, she's carrying him around right now. You can totally see the outline of him in her belly. See? Look." Kim shoved her phone in the other girl's face. She almost swatted the phone away, but took it at the last second. She browsed the pictures Rebecca h

Daniel
Chapter 5: Bokeh
Tuesday
The academy library was a quiet place to get work done, though it was sparsely populated this early in the morning. Like any other institution with the same name, it was staffed by literature zealots and contained a huge haul of dry paper. It smelled faintly of old leather and dust-coated knowledge, but, mostly, it smelled like coffee to Alina.
The library, like all libraries in the twenty first century, had attempted to modernize... about fifteen years ago. The o

Daniel
Chapter 6: Exposure Value
Wednesday
"Hey, thanks again for your help. I don't know why I'm so bad at trigonometry. I'd like to think I can handle a camera well enough, and that’s all about angles and shapes, but when it's put on paper I just blank." Alina stated. She was in Faith's dorm room.
Alina had spent the morning trying to catch up on schoolwork. When she found herself stuck, she decided to wander the halls for a moment. That was when she found Faith's dorm, right next door t

Daniel
Chapter 7: Under Her Skin
Friday ~5 Days Earlier
This is different. Daniel thought.
Hours prior, Daniel had been in full possession of his liberty. He had driven to a concert in the town adjacent to his college with a girl. Not just a girl, but a hot girl that was into him. He was pretty sure Rebecca had started it and by now had been flirting with him for a few days. They hadn't spoken much previously, but that was strictly due to natural social dynamics keeping their paths from crossing

Daniel
Chapter 8: Devour Me, Colossus
~14 Years Ago~
“Again, Daddy! Again!” A little girl squealed. Huge hands wrapped around her waist and launched her a foot or two off the ground. She screamed for joy. Their dog, Macbeth, barked excitedly.
A mile down a winding but well traveled path was a stack of stones. The girl's father, with a smile peeking through his beard, once explained that such a formation was known as a cairn. The small pile could blend with nature had it not been for

Daniel
Chapter 9: Informal Gluttony
Thursday
Rebecca lived off campus in the same building as the senior students from the academy. It was a squat old brick building with ivy growing up two sides along the cracks and mortar. It was beautiful and served as exclusive housing for a few lucky seniors each semester. These were no mere dorms however, they were actual apartments. To students who had been cramped into tiny single rooms with a communal bathroom at the end of the hall, this was a palace.

Daniel
Chapter 10: Relinquish
Friday
This might have been a dumb idea. Alina considered. She never thought that she'd be acting so vindictively.
After her scare in the darkroom, Alina had laid low. She considered it to be miraculous luck that her best friend had been present, because otherwise Alina would have been a quivering mess. Instead, Dez had steadied her and they worked on a plan to rescue Daniel.
It's okay, Alina. This is to help Daniel. She centered herself and recited the plan to her

Daniel
Chapter 11: Faust
Saturday
It was far too early to need to remember important things. Every bone in Alina's body ached. It felt like she had exercised all night. Particularly: ab exercises.
In a way she had. Her still engorged belly was working very hard to constantly massage and constrict it's occupant down to a more manageable size. Her lower abdominal muscles were working extremely hard to keep her belly from sagging.
Oh my god. Colin! Alina thought soberly, jolting herself awake.
Ali

Daniel
Chapter 12: The Price of Mercy
Saturday Night
Alina checked her watches again. One displayed the current time, 10:05 PM. The second watch displayed the countdown Alina had set up days ago for Daniel.
3:04:34
Though it was just an estimate, it had haunted Alina for the past week. Seeing it so close to zero now made Alina nervous.
She reflected on the events of the last week. It had probably been the worst week of her life. She had witnessed her one true love being devoured whole by a repu