Content
How Not To Become Lunch: 77 - Dare Truthfully
“You know, I really wasn’t sure about this party at first, but…” Jack glanced around the room with a little smile as he pulled up a fancy, upholstered stool next to his werewolf companion. “I think tonight’s actually gone pretty well.”
“Yeah…” Fiona replied dreamily. She was currently laid far back in a comfy recliner, stroking her large, very much still squirming stomach. Jack chuckled.
“Man, you really liked that guy, huh?”
Fiona chuckled at herself along with him, pulling herself back to reality for a moment to give a slightly more coherent, “Yeah.”
As more guests gathered ‘round the area in anticipation of the next game, Jack saw Harry snag a spot next to the girl he’d met during spin the bottle. The decision not to bring her over next to Fiona and her dinner was understandable- might be a bit of a mood killer. But it also showed Harry was getting brave enough to venture out on his own. It made Jack smile a bit wider. His new friend seemed to be getting along well. His new friend. Jack could hardly believe he’d made one here of all places.
And his other friends seemed to be having a good time as well. ‘His other friends’ basically consisting of any predator in the crowd that probably wouldn’t eat him if given the chance. Like Lily who was… okay maybe a bit grumpy, to be fair, but she always seemed kinda thorny, and she did look like she was enjoying the place despite her attitude. Chelsie was… not exactly easy to read, but she certainly didn’t seem unhappy lounging on that sofa with her gurgling dinner. And behind her well-practiced, polite exterior, Jack was sure Sarabeth must have been having a great time. After all, this was her party, what more could she want?
Against all odds, Jack actually found himself looking forward to this next game, hopeful that he could have another bit of fun with his friends.
If only Sarabeth had been thinking the same, rather than furiously plotting the marked boy’s death.
I am sorry, Fiona; I did not want it to come to this, the vampire told herself. But all other attempts and tactics had failed; most predators had already claimed their dinners, and at this point she seriously doubted the remainder would succeed in claiming Jack. She needed to prepare for her final move, the ace up her sleeve. It was time to get the pieces into place. It was time for the most underhanded, ingracious, callous moment of her night.
“The final event for this evening,” Mr. Belv finally announced, “will be a game of truth or dare.”
The birthday girl discreetly watched the faces of her guests. Fiona’s blissful grin became mildly perturbed for a moment, like a random raindrop on a sunny day. Jack went from relatively content to just slightly uneasy.
When it came to the events of Arthur’s party, one week previous, their vampire hostess didn’t know too many details, only the rumors she’d managed to overhear at school. But she did know that Jack and Fiona had had a massive argument, and that this simple little game, ‘truth or dare’, had set it off. She hated to include deliberately upsetting Fiona in her plan, but if she could drive those two apart, even just for a few hours, it would make her task much easier, and then the ends would justify the means.
Truth or dare? Jack thought a bit nervously. That’s… fine. I mean, this is totally different than… that… was. Truth be told, he wasn’t particularly happy with the many similarities, but he was determined to shrug it off and try to have some fun.
“Naturally, we will begin with Lady Sarabeth,” the butler instructed. “You may call out politely if you wish to be next.” He passed the group’s attention onto the young vampiress with a wave of his hand and took his leave.
She took a small moment, watching Fiona from the edge of her vision. This was the onset of the penultimate match, and it was her opening move. She took a breath and readied her first strike.
“Lily,” the birthday girl addressed, “truth, or dare?”
The rather disgruntled frog girl perked up, her eyes flicking from her empty belly. She hadn’t expected to be first, not that it made much difference.
Well, don’t wanna seem like a wuss. What’s the worst Sarabeth can dish out anyway?
“Dare,” Lily tossed out indifferently with a slight roll of her eyes. She ignored a quiet burble from her empty stomach, which may or may not have been contributing to her current mood. Sarabeth didn’t seem to pay the attitude much mind, though. She simply let slip the thinnest of smirks and promptly delivered her challenge.
“I dare you to use solely words no longer than four letters for the duration of the game.”
“…You want me to use only four-letter words?” Lily echoed.
“Four letters or fewer, yes. And I will point out that ‘letter’ and ‘words’ are six and five respectively.”
The crowd could visibly see the frog girl ‘look back’ for a moment, as she repeated her last sentence in her head and realized the vampire was right. She grumbled, annoyed. A few of the other guests, Fiona included, gave some friendly chuckles at her expense.
“Fine,” the amphibian grunted, with a growing little smirk and a not-so-subtle look of playful vengeance. She stared Sarabeth down challengingly and retorted. “Truth or-”
“‘Truth’ is a five-letter word,” the vampire interrupted.
Lily tripped over her dexterous tongue and stumbled. Her brow furrowed.
“But- …But then how am I supposed-”
“Bertram,” Sarabeth called, interrupting once again.
“Sorry, miss,” Mr. Belv told the increasingly agitated amphibian, “but ‘supposed’ is an eight-letter word.”
The frog practically growled. “Grrr, I… I…” She scowled boldly and her amphibian cheeks puffed out, as if inflating with anger. A few of those chuckles turned into laughs, including a certain panda girl whose amusement sounded perhaps a bit less sympathetic- though maybe she just wasn’t putting in the effort.
“I’ll go next,” chimed in a new voice, considerably cooler than Lily’s. Eyes shifted to the big-bellied cat, stretched out sideways atop a comfy sofa.
Lily shifted her glare to Chelsie, but let her anger fizzle out. She’d lost that round, best to let it go. Sarabeth gave a permissive wave, letting the game continue.
“Fiona,” the feline said, in her characteristically unreadable tone, “truth or dare?”
The werewolf, lounging back in her cozy recliner, glanced with playful suspicion over the shifting lumps of her wriggling belly toward the other predator.
“Hm…” Fiona thought, as she gave her gut a slow stroke. “Truth,” she decided. ‘Dare’ might include having to get up, and she wasn’t interested in doing anything other than laying right there with her delicious, digesting dinner. Chelsie replied without missing a beat.
“Tell us the first embarrassing thought that comes to mind.”
The satisfactorily stuffed werewolf raised a playful eyebrow. Embarrassing thought? Her? All she had on her mind were thoughts of this fun night and this warm belly. She glanced idly around the room for a moment, as if to prove that nothing could trigger any such ideas in her head. Then her gaze landed on Jack, and her smug, buoyant mood popped like a balloon, speared through by a rogue memory.
“What?” Jack asked, reading the surprise off her face.
She snorted awkwardly, which turned into a little self-directed, self-conscious chuckle, as she put a hand to her now definitely embarrassed face.
“Oooh?” Lily remarked, quickly catching the scent of something interesting.
“What?” Jack asked again, grinning curiously. He could see Fiona holding back from laughing at herself; whatever this was, it was probably something silly.
“Go on then, tell us,” Chelsie urged, awaiting the completion of her dare with her perpetually curious gaze.
“Okay, okay,” Fiona yielded. “Truth is, I… I miss Jack’s old scent.”
“Huh?” the marked boy responded.
“Nuh-uh, no way he used to smell better,” Lily chimed in in disbelief.
“‘Better’ is a six-letter word, Miss Padders. And ‘smell’ is five,” Mr. Belv pointed out. She grumbled again.
“No, not ‘better’, it’s not that.” Fiona ran her claws lightly through the fur on the back of her neck. “It’s just… I’ve had to sort of block out his scent now- you know, mostly- so the mark doesn’t get to me. So I don’t get to really smell him like I used to. And his old scent was sort of, I don’t know, familiar, and friendly. It’s like not seeing someone’s face for a really long time. …It’s- erm- it’s probably a werewolf thing.”
She kept her face firmly pointed away from everyone, hiding behind her towering bulge. But Jack was sitting right next to her, and he could still see the embarrassment clearly, right along with the happy, nostalgic smile painted on her muzzle. He smiled too; he’d grown up to get quite a few comments about his scent, and though this was definitely kinda weird, it was the first time since he’d been a little kid that anyone had said anything about it that didn’t make him feel some mix of discomfort and mortal terror. She made the mistake of glancing in his direction, met his gaze for a split second, and immediately looked away, her embarrassment doubling.
“Hehe, nice one Chel-” Lily stopped herself mid-compliment; ‘Chelsie’ was a seven-letter word- erm- name.
Jack took his eyes off Fiona to find the frog girl was staring him down with devious interest. This latest development had reminded her of something. Something juicy.
“Jack,” she said, “Dare or not dare?”
He did not like that predatory look in her eye, even though it was clear she wasn’t after him in the usual ‘predator’ sense. No, it was more in the ‘gossipy teenage girl’ sense. …Like how she’d looked at the dinner table after asking about-
Oh no, the boy thought. If we start talking about that… He wanted to keep this night fun- not just for himself but for Fiona too.
“Um, dare,” the marked boy chose, somehow feeling that was the safer response to give to the empty-bellied amphibian.
“What? Dare? Ugh. Come on. I can’t dare you to do anyt- any fun stu- Ugh.” She complained inwardly, with the full use of her colorful vocabulary, at how annoying Sarabeth’s dare was turning out. “Fine. Um, just, I don’t know, feel some pred’s gut.”
“Miss Padders,” Mr. Belv called disapprovingly.
“What?! That was all four!”
“‘Pred’ is four letters, but ‘pred’s’ becomes five.”
“Whatev- Ugh.”
Another few chuckles came in response, with Petal once again being a tad more jeering. Internally, Sarabeth was having much the same reaction, but had the good sense to keep it to herself.
Regardless of her verbal misstep, Lily had made her challenge clear, and she now focused her newly angered eyes on Jack to show that she meant it. It wasn’t the most well thought out dare, but it was something.
Feel what!? The initial thought sent a jolt down the mark boy’s spine- you know, the instinctive ‘bellies-digestion-death-bad’ kind- but his senses took hold and reminded him he wasn’t in any serious danger of that here. He wasn’t going to be feeling the inside after all. This was just part of the game; he could handle it. He swept his gaze around the room.
Lily? No. She already seemed a bit steamed, best not to throw this dare back at her- especially with an empty belly. Sarabeth? No. He’d never get away with that. His eyes passed over a few humans, and then reached Petal. She grinned at him. Definitely not. He overlooked another human cluster, catching Harry’s nervous-yet-encouraging gaze on the way. Chelsie? Honestly, he wasn’t really sure how safe a bet that was, but he was sure that she was an advanced predator, with her belly already starting to soften up quite well from dinner, and he did not want to inadvertently end up a feline dessert.
Coming nearly full circle, he glanced by another group of humans, this time noticing Brutus. But the buff kid’s eyes weren’t on him, as most others’ were. Actually, they seemed to be settled on the only remaining predator belly Jack hadn’t considered yet.
Jack turned directly next to himself to look at Fiona. She was already looking at him, having figured the outcome from the start.
“I won’t bite,” the werewolf said, ‘comfortingly’.
“Very funny,” he replied with sarcasm. All nervousness at the dare melted away. “You don’t mind?”
“I mean, if you’d prefer to poke the bear,” she offered, even more sarcastically.
Jack rolled his eyes playfully and scooted off his stool in her direction, putting himself well within arm’s reach. He looked down at the wriggling mass of fur and muscle that was his best friend’s stomach, reached out his hands and, pushing them through the awkwardness, made contact.
Something inside him felt a jolt at the touch, as his hands sunk into her soft coat; soft enough that he couldn’t help the thought about exactly how ‘soft’ her unwilling occupant was getting. But as he pressed further, beyond the play of her taut bulge, he quickly met something much firmer.
Her dinner was still alive and kicking… Her human dinner… The human kid Jack had handed over to her personally. He was being digested alive, right at his fingertips, beneath a few thin layers of skin and fluff, and it did not sound pleasant.
And Jack was… okay? No, not okay. But also… kinda? It was a very strange, almost completely contradictory mashup of feelings.
There was that familiar fear, that deep unease. Being confronted this closely and directly with a sample of the digestive death that threatened him every day. He’d been right where that kid was now, right inside her belly, where she was right in that moment melting her dinner down into wolf chow. Is this how he’d felt while he was in there? And this time he’d played a hand- however slight- in sending this latest human straight into that hungry, rumbling grip. It was a reality that couldn’t possibly go unnoticed or unfelt.
And yet at the very same time, there was that friendly warmth (almost literal in this case), that deep compassion, perhaps even more familiar than the fear and unease. The simple closeness of his best friend. The lingering amusement from their little banter. The unwaning trust, as pervasive, fundamental, and implicit as the very air itself. Paradoxically, there was no other person who could make him feel this safe, this close to a churning stomach. Especially one he’d been in before, and even despite the fact that it was hers and she had put him in there. Against all odds it was a depth of security so great as to push out even his most primal fears. And juxtaposed against the terrible fate he had subjected that poor boy to, the terrible efficiency with which her stomach converted creatures to calories, there was the pride, the happiness, secondhand but just as real. In this world of predators and prey, she was an amazing predator, he could feel her power beneath his palms, and she was proud of it, and he was proud of her, happy for her, even for this. He loved seeing her happy like this, just as much as it unnerved him- no… he loved it more.
Her stomach gurgled, pressing in against her meal, and he felt the rumble vibrate through her skin and against his, felt her muscles tense and harden below his touch. The doomed boy inside wriggled vehemently in response.
Jack flinched lightly at the jerk, called back to his senses, then quickly pulled away. How long had he been like that? Just a second? Or a much longer, much more awkward moment? He couldn’t tell; time, it seemed, had left him, like it had when he’d been inside.
“Sorry dude,” he muttered under his breath. But as much as he meant that apology, the thought seemed a passing, almost subconscious impulse. He’d never touched a predator’s stomach like that. He’d never touched Fiona like that. Fresh thoughts spun in his mind as he sat back down on autopilot.
“You alright?” the werewolf asked quietly, just a touch of concern poking through her bliss- which was a considerable showing in her state.
“Yeah, yeah,” Jack replied reassuringly, focusing back on her face. “Just… weird, ya know?”
She watched him shrug it off and smiled back at him, content enough with his answer. And with another burble and squelch from her dinner, her smile widened further, and she began to droop back into her blissful basking-
“Fiona, truth or dare?”
Surprised (and maybe a tad annoyed) she lifted her head again and peeked over her dinner. All eyes followed hers. The kid who had called her out was… Brutus? Jack in particular gave the muscular boy a very confused look. For Fiona, though, the confusion was passing at best. She had better things to do than wonder at some human’s decision making, better things like enjoying the digesting human in her belly. And the faster she got through this, the faster she could get back to that.
“Truth,” Fiona answered once again, still not interested in potentially having to get up.
“That human you ate was marked, right?” Brutus opened rhetorically, some thoughts clearly buzzing behind his words. “What is that like? What makes marked prey so much better for- you know, predators.”
What? Jack asked himself, even more confused. Okay, so not nervous. Maybe just morbidly curious? Or just so nervous that he can’t help but be curious? Is that a thing?
Fiona didn’t understand the motivation any more than Jack, but she didn’t particularly feel the need to either. Rather than confused, she was somewhat pleasantly surprised at the question. After all, she was in a particularly excellent position to enlighten.
“It’s…” Fiona mused and stroked her beautifully stuffed bulge and dove into the sensation. A few stray words came to mind, but each one seemed woefully inadequate on second thought. Nothing she could come up with could possibly convey what she was feeling when her belly rumbled around a marked meal. Maybe someone else, some booksmart pred who was better with words, maybe a mage pred, could put together an adequate description. But the blissful werewolf was in no mood to put in the effort. “It’s too hard to explain. I think it’s the kind of thing you just need to experience for yourself.”
Across the room, several predatory bellies sounded their agreement with squelches of various volumes, stimulated by the mere thought.
“It’s that good, huh?” Brutus half-muttered.
Jack was watching Fiona now, but she didn’t see him, a bit too preoccupied with her meal.
“Yeah,” the werewolf sighed happily, just before her gut gurgled again. The human inside let out a muffled cry, but it didn’t carry far in the vampire’s home.
There was a moment of silence as the question and answer hung in the air. One more truth dutifully answered, another round of the game over and done, ready for the next round to-
“Ugh!”
“Ugh!”
From two distinct corners of the crowd, two distinctly loud grunts broke the silence. Each one an exclamation of frustration and pent-up tension, turning to sudden, maybe almost desperate release. Various heads turned quickly to one source or the other, or to some confused point in between. Jack’s head turned to where he had been looking last.
And then came another one of those moments.
A particular, all-too-familiar kind of moment. The kind where the ticking clock and your heartbeat take a brief holiday together, leaving you with the frozen image of the instant where, from one blink of an eye to the next, you suddenly find yourself staring down the greedy jaws of death.
And for Jack, that last bit was quite literal. From a fair distance away, another kid had leapt up from the crowd and thrown himself in the marked boy’s direction, jaws gaping wide, hurtling toward him with inhuman speed. And yet that was the most startling thing about the sudden scene burning itself into Jack’s eyes: the kid was human. And in the fractions of a second that it took Jack’s eyes to widen, he realized an even more shocking fact. It was a human he knew.