# Belly Bug

By: TheDragonBoy

## Content

“Uuuuuhhhhhhhhoooo…”

The groan spread through the house repeatedly, quiet at first but getting steadily louder and longer each time. It wasn’t too long before Marco noticed and decided to take a break from organizing his hoodies to investigate. Following the noise out of his room and down the hall, he started to recognize that it sounded like it was coming from… Marco stopped in front of a familiar door covered in hearts and colorful writing and gave a cautious knock.

“Star? Are you okay in there?” he asked.

His only answer was another moan, so he cracked open the door and peeked inside. Glancing over the room he quickly found his friend, sitting doubled over on her mattress, slumped against a bedpost.

“Star!” he exclaimed, letting himself in.

“Uuuuhhh, Maaaarcoooo?” the princess moaned in reply, sluggishly turning to face him as he approached. She had her arms wrapped tightly around her midsection.

“What’s wrong?” Marco asked with his usual tone of concern.

“It’s my belly,” she groaned, slumping back onto her bed.

“Oh, um… are you having- erm- lady problems?” he asked awkwardly.

“Ugh, no. My dad sent me a rainbowmelon from Mewni and- uuuuggghhhhh- it must have given me a stomach bug,” Star replied, seemingly too focused on her pain to be embarrassed by the question.

Marco gave her a sympathetic look. “Man, that must have been one rotten melon,” he remarked, judging by how much discomfort she seemed to be feeling.

“Oh, no, the melon was- argh- great, I just never- ooooooh- checked it for bugs,” Star corrected, writhing lightly in her sheets.

“’Bugs’? You mean like parasites!?” he asked in alarm.

“Yeah, rainbowmelons attract some -oof- real nasty ones ‘cause they’re so tasty, and they can torture your belly for hours,” she replied before letting out another long moan. “Ugh! It’s like it’s beating up my insides!”

Marco opened his mouth to speak, probably to ask if there was anything he could do to help, but he was interrupted as Star suddenly bolted upright, the hearts on her cheeks briefly morphing into little light bulbs.

“Wait, Marco that’s it! I can shrink you, so you can go inside and beat up the bug with your karate!” she exclaimed.

“Whoa, whoa, hold on, you want me to do what!?” All-to-vivid flashes of an all-to-recent event rushed through the boy’s mind. “The last time you ‘accidentally’ ate me I almost died!” he snapped.

“Yeah, but this time I’ll be awake and tooootally in control! As soon- ugh- as you beat up the bug I can cast a spell and get you right out,” Star insisted.

Marco began to feel a strong anxiety creeping on. “Can’t you just use that spell to get the bug out?” he asked.

“I triiiied, but it’s holding on too tight, it won’t let go! I need you to karate it first” she explained, emphasizing her frustration by pounding a fist against her own chest. She could see her friend was a little scared by the idea, but she was desperate. As another wave of nausea washed over her, she threw herself against Marco’s chest. “Pleeeeeaaaaseeee,” she pleaded, letting herself slide off him and onto the floor.

Marco sighed. “Fine. Just… be gentle, okay?” he conceded.

“Thanks Marco,” she said, relieved. She did her best to pull herself back to her feet as she felt around her bed for her wand. When she found it, she tried to position herself for spellcasting, forcing her arms away from her belly. “Alright, here we go,” she said, taking a deep breath for composure and aiming the wand at Marco.

“Whoa! Hold on a second,” he said, putting his hands up.

“Uuuugh, what now?” she asked. He tried to ignore her crass impatience on account of her pain as he quickly ran out of the room, gesturing that he would be back. Sure enough, after a minute of rummaging and several more wails from the unfortunate princess, he returned with a large flashlight mounted on top of a helmet.

“What do we need that for?” she asked with a groan.

“Well I won’t be able to fight this thing if I can’t even see it. Your stomach doesn’t exactly have a light switch,” he answered.

“See, I knew I could count on you,” she replied with a hint of her normal cheer. But a moment later she bent over again and groaned. “Now can we pleeeaaase do this already?” Marco took a deep breath and donned the helmet.

“Okay, I’m ready,” he said with a mix of sympathy and fear. Star didn’t waste any more time. Quickly pointing the wand in his direction as best she could, she cast her spell.

“Shrinkus Dinkiticus!” she declared, bathing Marco in a stream of pink light. When the glow faded, it looked as if he had just vanished, but as Star looked down she could see his miniature form rising just a few centimeters off the checkerboard floor at her feet.

In different circumstances, she might have taken a moment to admire how cute he looked at that size, not that he didn’t always look cute, but instead she only groaned again as she reached down to pick him up, dropping her wand and putting her free hand back to her aching belly. Marco found himself being hoisted up by his hoodie, off the floor, past Star’s dress and up to her eye level as she let herself flop back and sit on the edge of her bed.

I’m doing it for Star. I’m doing it for Star. I’m doing it for Star. He told himself as he did his best to keep his breathing and heartbeat steady. He felt like he was even smaller than last time. But unlike last time, Star was there with him- awake and fully herself- looking at his terrified face with clear concern in her pain-stricken eyes.

“Ready?” she asked him.

Marco nodded bravely.

So Star slowly tilted her head back, carefully raising Marco over her face as she opened her mouth beneath him. His heart skipped a beat as he looked down. Below him lay Star’s gaping gullet, framed by her princess-perfect white teeth. And while he couldn’t see what lay beyond the back of the innocuous pink cave, boy did he remember.

She went slowly, for his sake, gently lowering his feet onto her firm tongue, gradually letting him slide into her mouth. That is until another wave of pain erupted from her belly, causing her to groan again. The sound vibrated softly around Marco as he hung halfway past her lips, producing the smallest of openings behind her glistening tongue, giving him a tiny glimpse into her throat, where he would soon be headed. The discomfort also threw her off focus for a moment, allowing her mouth to relax a bit.

“Hey! Watch the teeth!” Marco shouted, noticing the large, white incisors growing suddenly closer. To his relief they stopped a good distance away.

“Sorry,” she tried to say without moving her lips, causing her tongue to flare up as she tried to form the word, inadvertently squishing his legs against her hard palate. Marco squirmed a bit in panic.

“Alright, alright!” he yelled, “Don’t try to talk.” He took a moment to calm himself as Star held him there, her breath washing over him with every rise and fall of her chest. “Let’s just get this over with,” he said.

With his renewed consent, Star continued to lower Marco into her waiting mouth. She went a bit faster now, seeing as he was already halfway inside and also not wanting to drag this out and make it any more uncomfortable for either of them. Before he knew it, he felt her releasing him, letting him slide the last few millimeters along her slick tongue before closing her mouth and letting her head fall back to its normal position.

There he was again, in the moist darkness of Star’s mouth, about to be swallowed alive for the second time. He felt her tongue begin to squirm underneath him, curling up around his sides and spreading her fresh saliva over his tiny form. He resisted the urge to complain or struggle, knowing that she had to do this in order to swallow him easily. The last thing either of them wanted was for Marco to get stuck in her throat and start choking her.

After a moment, Marco felt his surroundings vibrate again as Star groaned, and his world tipped forward as she bent over, sending him sliding down along her tongue until his head pressed up against her bottom lip. The tiny boy tried to push away with his arms to keep the pressure off his neck, and as he looked back he found himself staring for a moment through the sliver of space between Star’s lips. It was all he could see of the world, framed by the deep pink of her mouth and the pure-white of her teeth.

A moment later, he felt Star’s tongue swell up underneath him, drawing him back further inside as she recovered, closing her mouth fully and sealing him inside once again. He felt thoroughly wet now, her hot spit having made its way into places he didn’t dare mention, and a moment later it seemed Star reached the same conclusion.

“Here goes,” she said, with a hint of nervousness in her voice that didn’t do much to steady Marco’s nerves. But he didn’t have much control over the situation anymore. Short of some serious struggling and shouting, he was going down that gullet.

He felt Star tilt her head back, his feet pushing up against the back of her throat. And then the firmness of her tongue suddenly gave way, and she swallowed.

In an uncomfortably familiar experience, Marco found himself suddenly squished between the powerful walls of the princess’s throat as they sucked him down the length of her neck, pulling him deep into her body. All he could hear was the squelching of the peristalsis and the beating of her enormous heart as it overlapped with his. He felt another long vibration pass through his surroundings and his body, but to be honest he couldn’t quite tell if she was moaning in pain or pleasure- after all she had seemed to thoroughly enjoy him the last time he had been in there. He did his best not to think about that.

An intensely long moment later and Marco felt his feet pass through a tight ring and out into open space. He quickly found himself being deposited unceremoniously into the hungry pit that marked the root of his friend’s painful problem: Star’s stomach.

Marco landed with a splash on his hands and knees in a pool of the princess’s existing stomach contents. He tried to stand for a moment, but the stretchy floor made things difficult. In his all-fours position, the liquid surrounding him rose up to his shoulders. It was warm like a swimming pool but thick like a smoothie, filled with squishy masses of sweet-smelling goop: the remains of her aforementioned rainbowmelon.

“Are you okay in there?” he heard Star ask after a moment.

“Yeah, I think so,” he shouted back, trying to catch his breath. The air was surprisingly pleasant-smelling, though whether from the fruit digesting around him or her weird Mewman biology he couldn’t say.

He reached up with one hand and flipped the switch on his helmet light. The sudden illumination hurt his eyes at first, but he soon found himself staring comfortably down at the strange mixture he was crawling in. It looked almost like a rainbow snow cone, with swaths and patches of various vibrant colors floating around him.

I guess I was right, her stomach acids are rainbow colored! Marco thought to himself, recalling the question he had asked himself the last time he was in there. Then again, she did just eat something called a ‘rainbowmelon’… I guess I’ll never know for sure.

Suddenly he heard a loud squelch as the walls around him began to contract violently, and a slimy yet familiar form pressed into him from behind, forcing him up against the squishy sides of the princess’s belly. He heard Star groan loudly once again.

“Of course, how could I forget about the tentacles?” he remarked aloud. Yet another interesting quirk of her Mewman biology that he had learned about on his previous visit. In this case, though, the mindless digestive aid had actually helped him: pressing him firmly against the wall gave him a solid surface he could use to finally get upright. After another moment, the stomach walls receded.

“Maaarcoooo!? What’s going on in there?” Star asked desperately, slumping against her bedpost again.

“Whoa!” Marco yelled, her sudden movement nearly knocking him off his feet again. “Let me look around Star, just try and stay still!”

Casting his gaze and his light around, he began to survey the stomach he found himself in. The first thing that seemed odd, were that the tentacles that sprouted from the walls (which were already pretty strange themselves), all seemed to have swollen, discolored blotches- and some of them even had cuts or little craters. As he looked around more, he found similar disfigurations on the stomach walls as well.

“Oh, man Star, things don’t look too pretty in here,” Marco said.

“Hey! I’d like to see how pretty your stomach looks! I mean just because I’m a princess doesn’t mean I can somehow make my guts-”

“No, Star that’s not what I meant! It’s just that it looks like things have been kinda… chewed up in here,” he explained. “And I don’t just mean your food.”

Without thinking, he put out a hand curiously and touched one of the damaged spots on the stomach wall. Instantly the walls contracted around him and the tentacles spasmed as Star recoiled from the pain, sending the entire contents of her belly sloshing around. There was a moment of silence.

“Uuuughhh… Marco are you still okay?” she asked, realizing that she had probably just tossed him around quite a bit.

“Yeah, sorry about that. I guess I should be careful what I touch in here,” he replied. Right, I’m in her stomach and I’m the one who has to be careful about hurting her.

“So did you find the bug yet?” she asked.

Oh yeah, the bug, Marco reminded himself. He hadn’t seen anything else that seemed alive in there besides himself, not on the walls, not on the tentacles, what about…

“Oh my-! Ugh! What is that!?” Marco yelled. Looking straight up, he finally noticed a grotesque, black form hanging from the roof of the stomach. Its many legs pinched the supple tissue, apparently tightly enough to climb even on these slimy walls.

“Star, I think I found it. Geeze, it’s even more gross than your tentacles!” he announced.

“What’s wrong with my tentacles!?” Star replied angrily.

“Never mind! I’m gonna try and get it,” he said.

Marco looked around. It was definitely too high to jump, especially with the squishy floor, and there was no way he could climb the walls like it could, but maybe… He waded over to the nearest tentacle and wrapped his arm around it, managing to pull himself up out of the liquid, but he didn’t get far before he felt himself sliding off and he fell with another splash into the rainbow pool.

Getting a bit more used to his squishy surroundings, he got back on his feet and tried again. He managed to get onto the tentacle again, and then even to grab a higher one as it passed by, but it was way too slimy to grip and again he found himself splashing down back into Star’s stomach contents. The princess must have felt him, because the shrunken boy heard her start to giggle.

“Marco, that kinda tickles. What are you doing in there?” she asked.

“I’m -ugh- trying to get up to the bug, but it’s really slimy in here!” he explained, exasperated, trying for a third time to climb using the tentacles. But his frustration made him sloppy, and this time he accidentally hit hard against one of the swollen spots.

Marco heard Star cry out as his world shook like an earthquake. There was a flurry of motion and churning fluids, and for a moment he found himself totally submerged, but he quickly found air again and tried his best to reorient himself.

Something was different, the wall he was staring at now seemed to have a tightly-shut hole in it, like the one he had entered through, and the tentacles weren’t on the walls anymore, but on the ceiling and floor. It wasn’t until his entire world started to rotate around him that he finally figured out what had happened.

“Marco! That really hurts!” Star scolded as she started to sit up again. That last pain had been so bad that she had accidentally fallen back on her bed.

“Star, wait! Lie down again!” Marco yelled. The pink, slimy world around him abruptly stopped shifting and returned to its previous orientation.

“Alright, if you say so,” Star answered, resting her back against her comfy mattress once again.

Marco turned around as things settled again. With Star in this position, his target was no longer above him, but in front of him. He waded toward it cautiously.

“Marco? What’s going on?” Star asked, hearing things go eerily silent inside her belly. That is until she suddenly heard Marco bellowing out his karate war cry. She felt her belly contents begin to bounce around, to the point where she could even hear the sloshing as her two occupants presumably wrestled inside of her. A few more pangs of pain and nausea swept over her as the battle raged, but then before she knew it, everything was suddenly calm again.

“Marco!” she yelled in alarm, still trying to stay still. “Please tell me it didn’t drown you, or eat you or I didn’t accidentally digest you or-”

“Star! It’s okay!” he yelled, barely audible over her voice. “I think I knocked it out. It put up one heck of a fight,” he bragged.

“You did!? Yay!” the princess cheered. Leaping up off her bed and dancing around her room… for all of about three seconds until she remembered her best friend was still inside her.

A moment later Marco sputtered to the surface, wiping rainbow gunk from his face. “Star!” he scolded.

The princess gasped. “Sorry, I just got excited,” she apologized.

“Just cast that spell already so I can get out of here!” Marco demanded. Star thought for a moment.

“Hold on a sec, I have an idea!” she exclaimed. Marco felt the stomach start to sway back and forth as Star excitedly walked somewhere nearby. He did his best to keep stable, all the while keeping an eye on the vicious little ‘stomach bug’ he had just dispatched.

“Here, take this,” Star said. A moment later he heard the princess take a gulp and a few seconds after that a large glob of saliva splashed into the stomach to join the rest of its contents. He was just about to ask what she had done, when he noticed something floating in the pool where all the spit had landed. He waded over. What he found was a long, thin strand of white.

“Is this… dental floss?” he asked, running the line through his hands.

“Yup, I want you to tie that thing up,” Star instructed. A bit confused, but not inclined to argue, he proceeded to wrap the floss around the parasite’s legs, binding it so it couldn’t move. By the time he was finished, he just had one question.

“Okay Star, it’s all tied up, but, why did you want me to do that exactly?” he asked.

“So it won’t wake up and start biting me again after you get out, duh,” she answered.

“Wait, so you’re not going to spit it out with me?” he asked.

“Nope, that thing went in with the rainbowmelon, and it’s going to leave with the rainbowmelon,” Star declared.

Marco looked at the unconscious creature again, now realizing that in a few short hours it would be reduced to nothing more than a pool of goop in Star’s intestines. Somehow, he started to feel a little sorry for it… but not sorry enough.

“Whatever you say, Star, but can you just get me out of here first? I think things are starting to burn,” he said, noting the growing sensation on his legs.

“Oh, yeah! Of course!” she said. Marco felt the world jiggle again as Star reached for her wand. “Reluctant friend regurgitation!”

*** The Next Day ***

“Hey, Marco! I think that bug finally made it out! You wanna see?”

“What!? Star! Gross! No way!”

“Alright, suit yourself.”

*Flush*

Originally Published: 5-Oct-2018