# HNTBL 78: Truth Daringly

By: TheDragonBoy

## Content

How Not to Become Lunch: 78 - Truth Daringly

Lily had not been having as nice a time as Jack up until that point.

‘What is it like eating a marked human?’ Did you have to ask that question?! The frog girl grumbled inwardly. She’d been silently struggling with the concept of dinner ever since spin-the-bottle, when her lips had tasted the stand-out, number-one meal in the building. She’d already been kinda hungry beforehand, and tasting Jack definitely hadn’t helped. She’d kept her trap shut ever since, if only because she couldn’t quite guarantee that her tongue wouldn’t accidentally swing Jack’s way… and she couldn’t quite decide if she could justify or get away with gurgling him. She liked Fiona and all, but frog was that mark delicious.

And now here was this annoying rando human kid, asking about that exact flavor? Like he was trying to work up her stomach. And Fiona was not helping either, stroking that big gut of hers. Ugh! It must feel amazing!

I’ve gotta gulp someone, Lily thought, feeling her poor, empty belly clench around a bunch of nothing. But who? Jack? Should I just go for it? No, no, no, I can’t. But then who? She glanced around at the humans, all distracted by the latest round of truth or dare. But every time she tried to contemplate which one looked the tastiest, all she could think about was Jack’s taste. She tried over and over and over until finally-

“Ugh!” she yelled, and she sent her tongue flying. She’d picked a kid completely at random from the other side of the room, just the first humanoid thing her vision identified the moment she snapped. It could have been Jack, it could have been another predator, it could have been anyone.

Lily’s eyes focused by about the time her tongue was halfway to its target, and by some combination of luck and statistics, it was neither Jack, nor a fellow predator, just some brunette chick who had been lucky enough to survive the party until this very unlucky moment.

The fleshy projectile struck its target with a wet thwack, molding around the girl’s belly like the physical personification of hunger itself, greedy, invasive and slimy. Lily was reeling her meal in before said meal even had the opportunity to scream, tugging them off their butt so fast their feet didn’t even hit the ground.

The taste raced back through her tastebuds in advance of the coming meal, promising the rush of delight over her palette and the blissful, filling sensation that was to follow in just another brief second when-

Wait, what was that? A-Another human? Where had he come from? Why was he rushing toward her catch!? No no no! You dirty little piece of-

…

Jack didn’t even process everything he’d seen until it was already over. And even then, the miracle by which he wasn’t processing these moments while himself being processed inside a human-pred’s mutated guts, would take him several more moments to fully comprehend. But as the clatter of impacts faded out and the uproar of surprise rushed in, he came to understand what had happened.

Brutus. Brutus had rushed him. The buff kid had been buff for a reason! He’d been a predator the entire time! And he’d lunged at Jack out of nowhere; when he’d least expected it!

But then, that streak of pink. A tongue. A frog’s tongue. Lily’s tongue. It had shot right between them. Lily had grabbed someone else and pulled them and-

“OW!” The amphibian girl complained. That was as far as Jack had processed before Lily finished unwrapping her tongue from around a couch. The sleek, pink projectile had been flung hard off course when the weighty, airborne meal on the far end had crashed straight into another desperate, hungry pred. Both humans, predator and prey, had gone flying off into the crowd together, where a series of shocked and frightened exclamations were currently emanating, along with a rather distinct-

*GULP*

As Jack turned toward the commotion, his mind processed another few moments of the incident. Brutus had lunged toward him, but Lily’s tongue had pulled someone else in between, and the head of Lily’s chosen dinner had just so happened to- against all conceivable odds- align perfectly with the buff kid’s gaping, inhuman maw. The moment where human engulfed human, that split-second image, stuck in Jack’s mind, halting all further thought until another *GULP* jarred him back to the present.

His eyes focused. There, buried under an overturned sectional, was Brutus, with a pair of kicking calves jutting out of his jaws. He reached out and grabbed one and then the other, holding each leg still in turn just long enough to pry the shoes off, before taking another hearty:

*GULP*

And then another and another, until the entirety of his stolen meal was gone from view. The predator let out his breath, smiling with a mixture of adrenaline and satisfaction, before starting to push the furniture off his back.

*burp*

“Wha- Hey! That was mine!” Lily complained.

“What? Uh…” Brutus glanced down at his belly, bare skin now bulged out and squirming for all to see, then up at the sectional he had crashed into, and then he scanned the crowd until his eyes fell on Jack. The marked boy felt an odd mixture of confusion, shock and betrayal as he met the gaze, slack jawed.

“Would you continue this conversation somewhere else?” interjected a new voice.

Lily, for the first time, looked down, and realized she wasn’t just resting on some soft upholstery, but something distinctly furry and a bit squishy. The impact on her tongue had flung her some distance as well, straight into a nearby sofa. She hadn’t even noticed it had been occupied. And as she rolled uncomfortably off of the dark-furred mass that was the previous occupant, she recognized Chelsie. But she didn’t spare a word to the feline just yet. Instead she dragged herself right to her feet and glared murderously over at the newly gorged human.

“She was mine,” the frog girl repeated.

“S-sorry. Sorry,” Brutus replied earnestly. Everything was a bit of a blur, it had all happened so fast, such a rush… “I didn’t mean to take your prey,” he said, with the unmistakable attitude of a predator. “I was going after someone else; it was an accident.” The buff kid had a concerned look on his face, the kind of look where he was probably wondering if the short, angry frog girl could manage to swallow him with her original meal in tow.

Unfortunately, the answer was no, and Lily knew it, as much as she might still like to try. So she just stood there, fuming, until the awkward silence was finally broken again, this time by Sarabeth.

“Well,” the vampiress said with emphatic disapproval. She might have said something earlier, if she was not still trying to comprehend the inexcusable chain of events that had not only saved Jack again, but also made a mess of her drawing room. She couldn’t very well be openly mad about the former part, so she was certainly going to show her frustration regarding the latter. “Well,” she repeated again, “what do you two have to say for yourselves?”

“Me? It wasn’t my fault!” Lily complained.

It’s your fault Jack is not presently digesting in that boy’s stomach! Sarabeth screamed through her eyes as they settled on the amphibian. After an entire night spent getting close to that marked boy, the brute finally makes a move, and you just- But her thoughts were interrupted, well before they could become words.

“I’m sorry, Sarabeth, really I am,” Brutus offered, reaching out with some difficulty around his fresh bulge to attempt tipping the sectional right-side-up again. “It was an honest accident; I didn’t mean to make such a noisy mess. It’s just, I haven’t caught any marked prey yet, and the way she was talking about it…”

If there was one thing a good budding mage-predator learned, it was to pick one’s fights. Arguably he hadn’t exactly done that when he’d impulsively launched himself at Jack, but he was a bit more levelheaded now with a full stomach, and he knew he did not want to end up on his hostess’ bad side. Sarabeth, as furious as she was, could not deny an earnest, sincere apology for a simple mistake; it would be in very poor taste. She calmed herself a tad.

“Yes, well, I suppose it can’t be helped.” You, after all, were the only predator who even attempted the most sensible dinner. Then she turned to Lily, and with a last bit of suppressed frustration, pointed out. “‘Fault’ is a five-letter word. Take a seat.” You’re lucky I need you here, or I’d kick you out into the dirt.

Lily harrumphed and plopped down onto the arm of the sofa next to the neko she’d been flung on top of, watching with disdain as that fat mage struggled to clean up his mess with her dinner in his gut. But she wasn’t the only one staring at him.

Jack stared with a completely different set of emotions, eyes jumping between the predator’s very human face, and his very human, very squirmy meal. When Mr. Belv stepped in, expediting the situation with a wave of his wand and quickly putting the toppled couch back in order, Brutus was left with nothing else to do but to turn around and go back to his previous spot and he could avoid Jack’s fixed stare no longer.

“Come on, man, this is awkward enough,” the predator half-mumbled. Jack could imagine that having to talk to the kid you meant to have stuffed into your belly would definitely be a bit awkward, but he was a bit too preoccupied with his latest near-death experience to care.

“You were a predator this whole time!?” Jack finally exclaimed, with enough sense to keep his voice at a reasonable volume. Brutus simply nodded. “Did you know?” he asked, turning to Fiona.

“I thought he smelled a bit funny, but…” she trailed off in the negative, sounding a bit disturbed herself. How long had that kid spent sitting next to Jack…?

“Hey, um… no hard feelings, huh?” the muscular mage offered, walking towards them. “I mean, you’re a marked human, can you really blame me?”

Fiona let out a pointed, fairly savage little growl, sitting up a bit in her recliner. Brutus stopped in his tracks- warning received. Jack was still a bit too shocked to say much of anything else.

“Okay, okay, I’m… I’m just gonna go,” the human predator backed away cautiously and slunk back to his seat, accidental dinner in tow. Maybe it wasn’t his first marked meal, but it wasn’t bad either.

Meanwhile, in another corner of the crowd, seeing that kid’s failed attempt at an apology made Lily finally realize she was awkwardly sitting next to the cat she’d plowed into a moment ago and then ignored.

“Hey, um,” she caught Chelsie’s attention. “Sorry,” the frog grumbled.

“‘Sorry’ is a five-letter word,” Sarabeth interjected, letting only the tiniest hint of venom slip through- tiny enough to give her deniability. Lily’s scowl flashed larger like a splash of oil thrown onto hot coals.

“It’s alright,” Chelsie replied, ignoring Sarabeth’s comment. “I don’t blame you for your poor luck at the hunt.”

“Poor luck at the hunt? What’s- what does- that mean?” the amphibian asked through her frustration, implying that it better not have been an insult.

“Well, you are one of the only predators here without a meal,” Chelsie replied, completely matter-of-fact. But Lily didn’t know the cat very well, and through her rage-tinted eyes, that sounded an awful lot like the kind of underhanded jab she herself might make.

“Err. You-! Dare or not dare?” Diving back into the game and hoping to weaponize it, Lily awaited her chance for vengeance- any kind of vengeance unto anyone she could manage.

The neko, looking rather unfazed, cocked her head slightly. “Dare,” she replied.

“I dare you to- …to… I dare you to coug- erm- to hack up some of your meal.” Despite the awkward, four-letter delivery, Lily smiled smugly to the cat’s whiskered face. ‘Poor luck at the hunt?’ Pah! She’d teach that feline for lording her ‘lucky’ dinner over a poor, hungry girl. And if it grossed out Sarabeth in the process, all the better, that stuck up, pointy-toothed jerk.

Chelsie, for her part, cocked her head slightly in the other direction and seemed to consider the challenge for a moment, then she simply gave a nod. She sat up straight and leaned forward a bit over her bloated belly, the remains of the kid she’d eaten only at the top of the night sloshed audibly for those nearby. Placing a hand to her gut, she pressed her palm into the dark fur.

…*urp* …*urch* *urch* *urch* *blurch*

Several partygoers averted their eyes as a relatively small lump- relative to her original meal, that is- worked its way up her neck like an oversized hairball. The neko dipped her snout into one hand as her jaws parted, and something slipped out with a distinct crackle of spattering slime. And as her muzzle withdrew, and her fingers relaxed, several distinct flashes of white gradually revealed… well, exactly what was left of the ‘guest’ she’d eaten a few hours ago.

In the neko’s palm, was a skull. Acid-bleached white. Dripping with remnants of slime and slop. Everything in it or on it having been thoroughly dissolved away by the feline’s brutal belly, say for the few strongest bits of lingering tissue holding it together.

Chelsie, expressionless, turned the specter around and stared for a moment into the vacant eyes of the meal she’d devoured. Then she just as casually turned her dinner to face the crowd along with her challenger.

“Satisfied?” she asked Lily. The entire room, say for the musicians’ ambiance, was deathly quiet.

“…Eww! Guys, that’s gross,” Fiona laughed, half looking away. Her bliss-fueled giggling injected some much-needed levity back into the heavy air.

“Nah, that’s a good one!” Petal countered, laughing noticeably louder, and Lily took some amount of victory in the fact that the stupid panda was finally laughing with her this time.

Most of the other guests didn’t find it very funny, particularly the humans. A few of them held back from showing their own dinners, and many more gawped on in horror. Jack met those lifeless eye sockets with a similarly grim, unblinking stare. It wasn’t just seeing a skull; he’d seen a couple in his biology classes. But that skull had been inside another kid’s head just a few hours ago; it’d been a person. He suddenly became fairly conscious of his own skull in his own head, and how easily it could be wiped clean of all that he was, washed out and dissolved by a predator’s relentless metabolism, and reduced to a morbid calcium supplement.

And somewhere in between Fiona’s mildly uncomfortable chuckle, and Jack’s morbid horror, was Sarabeth. The vampire scowled at the scene with visible disgust and disdain, recoiling slightly as a thick glob of ex-human dripped onto her floor.

“Mr. Belv, could you-” she crinkled her nose “-please do something about this mess,” she requested. There were tiny hints of urgency and even sympathy in her voice, as she asked her human house staff to tend to the ex-human remains.

“Would you like me to dispose of it?” he asked. Sarabeth was very tempted to say ‘yes’, but a little thought in the back of her skull told her that this was technically part of the game, and it seemed Jack was far more upset by it than she was.

“…No, I suppose not. Just… clean it up a bit if you can.”

“Yes, Lady Sarabeth.” The butler, to his considerable credit, was doing an excellent job of concealing most of his discomfort. His face only contorted slightly as he drew his wand and focused on the regurgitated mound of bone. He began to mutter a few incantations quietly under his breath, and Chelsie watched with clear, quiet fascination as her stomach’s handywork floated up into the air above her palm, rotating slowly in suspension as little trickles of fluid crept outwards like tiny tendrils and vaporized into thin air.

Lily scowled vexedly at the feline, whom she clearly hadn’t succeeded in upsetting- at least not that she could tell. But at least she’d thrown off Ms. Vampire Princess; that had improved her mood at least enough that she could smirk when she thought of it. Though a certain panda girl was still doing a bit more than smirking.

“Heh, the look on all your faces, priceless,” Petal chuckled, still fairly amused. “I gotta get in on this game. …Hm… You.”

An already unnerved Jack found himself suddenly pinned beneath the gaze of an ill-intentioned predator.

“M-me?” He glanced over toward Fiona; the plump, happy werewolf’s smile had shrunk as she cast a suspicious, warning glance toward the black and white bear.

“Yeah, the marked kid. I dare you toooo…” she thought for a moment, perhaps weighing the amount of fun she could have against the amount of trouble that wolf girl would cause. “…give a predator a dare,” Petal finished. “Someone besides her,” she added, gesturing to Fiona.

“Um… aren’t I supposed to be able to choose truth or dare?” he reminded the predator meekly, throwing in a glance at Sarabeth for assistance.

“…Well, I suppose those are the rules,” Sarabeth conceded with concealed reluctance. She couldn’t well deny that, lest she seem like a fool.

“What, so you can wuss out and pick truth like your werewolf friend? Come on, it’ll be fun,” the panda insisted.

Sure, tons of fun for you, I’m sure, Jack thought, but then he took a look around. Fiona seemed worried about him now, and so did Harry for that matter. And the whole mess and subsequent argument with Lily and Brutus had really brought down the mood. Things had been so nice at the start- relatively speaking. Was this game just cursed?

…Or… maybe this was his chance to turn things around? Maybe the very-definitely-sarcastic panda was actually right. Maybe this could be fun if he played it right.

“Er… Fine. Um…”

Jack once again found himself inventorying preds. He ran through his options a few times. He had to pick someone who wasn’t upset and wasn’t likely to take offense, so he didn’t risk souring the room further. Oh, and it also had to be someone who probably wouldn’t eat him. Since Fiona was out of the picture, all of that really only pointed to one cat.

“Chelsie,” the marked boy said finally.

Okay, that was the predator selected, but what about the dare? Those intense, unreadable, curious eyes settled their full weight onto him as he thought.

Come on. Something simple, and silly, and innocent… He stared at the flat, unreadable, almost lifeless expression on the neko’s face, and couldn’t help but think of how strangely similar it was to the literal lifeless face she was holding in her hand. And then suddenly, it hit him.

“I dare you, to smile,” Jack said proudly, as if he had just solved a tricky riddle. It was perfect! A perfectly harmless, silly dare! And he was sure it would help lighten things up. He’d never seen Chelsie smile, so he imagined it had to be pretty goofy looking.

“Okay,” the neko replied simply. It was such a stupidly mundane request, that a good chunk of the crowd didn’t even look at her, instead shooting various glances at Jack for his silly ‘dare’.

Those guests who hadn’t looked were the lucky ones.

For everyone else, the sight that followed was one they likely would never forget. As lips receded to reveal teeth, and the corners of her mouth pinched upwards at the back of her muzzle, the expression on the neko’s face subtly, insidiously shifted into something uncanny and unreal. A growing, paradoxical, un-smile of a smile, so unnerving as to clench at the guts of human and predator alike, sending a disturbing rush of confused alarm into all those who gazed upon the unknowable, alien emotion that it imparted.

It only lasted for a second or two- probably. With a feeling after it passed like one had just awoken from a coma to rejoin reality. And in that following moment, as Jack contemplated the repercussions of his actions, he had one lingering thought: The digested human skull she was holding was somehow by far the less disturbing face.

…“Phahahahah!” It was Petal who belted out first, but she wasn’t alone. Lily joined in a second later, followed by Fiona who at least made a polite attempt at stifling herself. From there, even a few of the humans joined in, and even Sarabeth’s eyes widened noticeably. It had been horrifying, but it had been so unexpectedly, bizarrely horrifying that it was somehow comedic, and they just couldn’t help it.

Jack kept his eyes on Chelsie as he covered his mouth to hide his own growing smile, but the laughter came so surprisingly hard that he had to blink a few times to contain it. And through the flashes of vision he thought he saw what just for a second looked like a tiny, actual grin on the feline’s enigmatic face. Whether that had been real or not, she certainly didn’t look upset, if that meant anything.

“Haha- phew- Oh, wow, Jack,” Lily choked, “that was good.”

“Just- hehe- wanted to end the game on a high note,” he replied modestly, as the rounds of chuckles started to die down. It had looked a bit dicey there for a bit, but he’d actually done it! He’d cheered up the whole room! Take that truth or dare!

“End the game? Why would you want to end it so soon?” Sarabeth asked, with the perfectly believable amount of faux concern.

All it took was that one remark, for Sarabeth to completely turn the tables on Jack’s little victory.

It had been a rhetorical question, but it had been just questiony enough to enter the minds of the crowd. Particularly Lily, who suddenly remembered that she had some truths she wanted to get to the bottom of, didn’t she?

“Yeah, why end the game here?” the four-letter frog asked, a tad less rhetorically, with a growing smirk. Jack braced himself as he realized what was coming, but her eyes shifted away from him. “Fi, dare or not dare?”

Oh no. Jack’s mind suddenly went from relief to panic. Should he say something? Should he warn her? Wouldn’t that only draw more attention? Fiona, blissfully oblivious, answered in the same, predictable way she’d been answering all game.

“Not dare,” the werewolf replied, playing into Lily’s wording and still smirking from Chelsie’s horror show.

“What did Jack not want to say?”

“…Huh?”

“At… food time,” Lily explained, her devious grin growing despite how frustratingly careful she had to be with her words. “Jack did not… want to talk. You tell us. Did he have a date?” The frog made a teasing kissy face.

“A date?” The poor werewolf kept her mildly confused smile for a second before she remembered that moment at the dinner table, and realized what Lily was asking about. Jack watched the happy expression melt off her face like the kid she was digesting. She turned her head to look at him, her ears drooping. He was already staring at her, frowning, nervous. She opened her mouth to speak, fumbling for words in her head.

“Lily.” It wasn’t Fiona who spoke, but Chelsie, her tone revealing no further details beyond her words. “You should choose something else.”

“You know too?” the frog girl replied, surprised and maybe even a bit betrayed- she’d known Fiona a lot longer than this cat had! She turned back to her bloated, canine friend. “Come on, Fi, talk.”

Jack looked away, frown deepening. Fiona felt a pang in her heart. Should she just keep quiet? No, Lily would just keep pestering them now, and that would only prolong the uncomfortable inevitable, with the subject coming up again and again. There wasn’t any sense trying to keep it a secret, and the look on Jack’s face said he knew it too.

“…Ruby,” Fiona finally said, just barely loud enough for the crowd to hear.

Jack felt a little jolt as he heard the name, slipping out through the very same lips which had claimed its bearer. He’d only mentioned her name to Fiona maybe twice… he hadn’t quite expected her to remember it.

“They… they were going to go on a date,” Fiona answered quietly, “but they never got the chance…” The warmth of the meal in her belly was all but gone now, replaced with a cold pit in her stomach like she’d just swallowed an armful of snow. “…because she got eaten… by me… I ate her.”

“Wh-what? You ate Jack’s date!?” Lily exclaimed. Someone might have pointed out that ‘Jack’s’ was technically a five letter word, if the entire room were not thoroughly stunned at the revelation, Sarabeth included.

“Yeah…” Fiona breathed; voice thick with regret. Her belly gave another audible gurgle, but despite the marked meal inside she felt nothing. Like a numbing winter wind had blown in a dark storm cloud to cover up the sunny warmth of her catch and cast it in the shadows of her mistakes. So many mistakes. And in that moment she relived every one. Forget Ruby’s name? After the way Jack had said it? She couldn’t even if she tried…

“You never would have been there if we hadn’t brought you to eat Jack.”

Such blunt, direct words, cutting through the thickening air, could only have come from one person. Fiona glanced around her bellyful of regret toward Chelsie. The feline’s deep, unwavering eyes were locked on her. Though it didn’t show in the neko’s tone, judging by the circumstance those were likely supposed to be words of sympathy.

“…But I still went,” the dejected werewolf murmured. “I let you take me there. I went inside… I told you where it was,” she scoffed at herself. “…That whole time, all you guys wanted me to do was eat my best friend… and I went right along with it like a stupid pup.” The werewolf’s voice cracked. “I ate Ruby… and Zach… and then…” She’d already told them every other horrible, awful truth; why not go all the way? “Jack.” She whimpered out the last sound as a tear rolled down the side of her muzzle. A jerk from her dinner disguised what might have been a suppressed sob.

Of all the dumbfounded expressions in the crowd, none was more eye-catching than Sarabeth’s, if only for how boldly out of place it was on her commonly composed face. A million thoughts whipped around in her head, bits of rumors she’d overheard now piecing themselves together. Her own theories and preconceptions shattering in unbelievable ways. She motioned abruptly to have her butler halt the music just to give her more room to think.

Arthur was trying to get rid of Jack!? And he got Fiona to eat him!!?

There was an abrupt, total silence; all-consuming in the vampiric mansion. For a long moment, no one outside of a stomach moved. But of course, when someone finally did move, it was Jack.

Small but certain, he twisted toward Fiona on his stool and reached out. He’d been biting his lip, holding back his own intense flurry of emotions, but somehow all the bitter heartbreak and smoldering resentment he had in him just couldn’t stand up to the sight of her crying. He hated seeing her like this. Look at how sorry she was…

Fiona felt a touch on her shoulder and slowly turned her head. She saw the sympathy in his eyes, and for a moment her shame blocked it out, but the way he looked at her, looked right into her… Somehow all the self-loathing and regret she had in her just couldn’t stand up to his caring gaze.

“It’s okay, Fi,” he said softly. “I’m still here.”

Now it was Fiona’s turn to bite her lip as her eyes welled. She nodded and tried to pull herself back together, reaching over a clawed hand and placing it on top of his. They faded into their own little world for a few moments, quietly consoling each other with their eyes locked.

Sarabeth stared at the scene, and the wild whirring of her mind all but faded out into one thought. She’d never seen Fiona look this sad before… And she didn’t like it, not in the least.

Just about every other party guest was staring too, but for most of them, with no emotional stake themselves, this was the definition of awkward. A fun party game had turned to tears and silence and gotten way too personal, and no one else dared to make a sound. That was, except for the enigma of a cat that was Chelsie. She gave the tearful pair a well-earned moment, before seemingly deciding to just continue on with the game.

“Lily, truth or dare?” the neko asked, her flat tone abruptly breaking the silence, and giving away exactly none of the emotion she may or may not have been feeling.

“Wha-?” The frog girl was a bit startled; seeing the big scene she’d caused, she’d just sort of shut her yap, shrank back, and apparently tried to pretend she was a chameleon instead of an amphibian. Part of her wanted to shoot back a ‘What do you think you’re doing? Can’t you see something’s happening here?’, but she found herself fairly lacking in confidence at the moment, something the cat’s eyes were full of. “Um…” Taking a moment to think, she realized that with Sarabeth’s rules, she only really had one response she could give. “Dare.”

“I dare you to eat this,” Chelsie said plainly, and held up her regurgitated skull for everyone to see. And see everyone did, with a fair number of eyes being drawn to the new activity, and away from the quiet, unhappy pair.

“Wha- what?” Lily stuttered, surprise redoubled and laced with disgust. Chelsie tossed the bony remains of her dinner straight into the empty gut of the shorter predator. Lily couldn’t do much else other than catch it, despite how little she wanted to.

“Eat it,” the neko repeated.

Now even more eyes were turned onto her, many more eyes. And none of them seemed particularly happy with her. Suddenly, she felt under the spotlight in the worst way. She was the one who’d upset Fiona and Jack and brought down the whole room. Chelsie had tried to warn her off it but she hadn’t listened. Was this the neko’s idea of revenge? Making her eat a barf skull? She couldn’t read the feline at all, but that was certainly the vibe she got from the rest of the crowd, particularly from Sarabeth’s scowl.

Swift and merciful retribution for the pain you’ve brought, the vampire thought, ignoring for the moment the little voice in the back of her head which pointed out that this had been her plan.

Lily felt a few flashes of indignant rage and disgust, and they showed on her face. It’s not like she’d meant to upset them like that! She’d just wanted some juicy gossip! How was she supposed to know Fiona had eaten Jack’s crush!? And then apparently Jack too somehow!? But as much as she tried to justify it, she found it hard, if not impossible, to refute the outcome of her prying when it was tears being wiped away from her friends’ faces just across the room. She felt a guilt rising up in her that overwhelmed any resolve to refuse her punishment.

Lily reluctantly picked up the skull from her lap and eyed it with great distaste. Despite how well Mr. Belv had managed to clean it, it had still come straight from another pred’s guts. She’d been a bit jealous of Chelsie’s dinner earlier, hadn’t she? Now she was gonna get some of it after all, whether she liked it or not. She felt another surge of disgust and considered bailing for a split second, but her many watching peers held her right there in place.

She closed her eyes.

…*thwack*

*ulp*

“…BLECH! Ugh!” Lily slapped a hand over her mouth as she resisted the bony lump’s attempt to rise back up a throat for a second time. Every sensation against her tongue from the texture to the taste made her insides turn. With ample revulsion combusting to fuel her anger once again, she glared at the niko’s blank, unfeeling face and yelled, “That. Was. DISGUSTING!”

She could feel the vile thing sitting in her belly, and even though at that point it wasn’t anything she hadn’t had sloshing around in there before, just the knowledge of where it had come from made her skin crawl. How in the world could someone even ask her to do something like that!? She opened her mouth to chew the feline out, but she was interrupted.

“Lily,” came a stern, some might even say spiteful voice. The frog girl’s glare jumped over to Sarabeth; the vampire’s expression was cold and disdainful. With clear retribution in her words, the birthday girl spoke. “‘Disgusting’, is a ten-letter word.”

“Arg! That’s it! You know what, Sarabeth? This whole party sucks! This is all your fault, not mine! You’re a stuck-up jerk, and if it weren’t for your fancy mansion, I bet no one would even show up for your birthday.”

Sarabeth was stuck frozen for a moment. She probably would have spat back a slew of vile, grandiloquent insults, and likely even thrown the frog out on her face, except that Lily had inadvertently struck perfectly at the vampire’s freshly exposed nerve. This was her fault, wasn’t it? She’d known this game would upset Fiona, and she’d pursued it deliberately. Was she really any less culpable in this? Wasn’t she just as bad? Or even worse? After all, Lily’s participation had at least been unwitting.

“Hey, come on Lily,” came a somewhat weak voice. It was Fiona, still sounding more regretful than antagonistic. A meek attempt to keep her friends from fighting.

“Yeah, I mean, that’s kinda harsh, isn’t it?” Jack chimed in. Lily looked back over to them, a shameful frown taking over her short-lived scowl.

“L-like you’d be here if it wasn’t for Fiona dragging you along?” The words had a bit of her usual sass but none of her usual confidence. She’d dug herself a hole and she did not want to be in it.

Jack glanced over at Sarabeth, still stuck at a loss for words. This actually seemed to be getting to her. He felt something click inside him. He was just… tired of seeing his friends upset, especially because of a stupid game like truth or dare.

“You know, the truth is, probably not,” the marked boy answered. “But you know what else? I would have been missing out. Sarabeth might be kind of… intimidating sometimes, but she’s actually a really nice person if you get to know her,” he said honestly. “She’s gone out of her way to help me when I really needed it.” He recalled how she’d saved him from deep in the stomach of another predator when he was as good as dead. “And she can actually be really fun to hang out with.” He cracked a smile, remembering the lunch breaks they’d spent ragging on Arthur from across the cafeteria. “Maybe she doesn’t show it, but she really cares about her friends. I mean, I’m sure it wasn’t easy putting this party together with me here, but she did it anyway. And I’m glad I did come, because I actually had a pretty good time.” He turned directly to the vampire and looked her right in the eyes. “Thank you, for being a good friend, Sarabeth.”

The birthday girl looked around dumbfounded for a moment. Lily’s eyes were now firmly toward the ground in shame. Jack was smiling at her. Fiona was smiling at him. Everyone was staring wondering what she would say next, and here she was with these feelings rising up inside her that threatened to turn any following reply into a sloppy mess.

“…Yes, well… You are… welcome, Jack. I- … I believe that is enough for now, please excuse me.”

And Sarabeth quickly stood, turned and walked briskly from the crowd and out of the room.

Originally Published: 3-Jan-2024