Citrus Based Idiot

The darkness beyond the gaping maw was sweltering. The breath washed over Salem's face only moments before the jaws snapped around him.

The teeth did not puncture his skin, but in some cruel thought he'd wished they had. He thrashed as the much larger, much less kind hands gripped at his flailing form, even aggressively gripping the base of his tail and lifting him as everything shifted and suddenly he was peering down a dark and hot throat.

A few tears slicked his eyes as thick saliva and mucous began to coat his face and upper torso, Salem vaguely attempted to try and grip at the jaws before the first loose swallow fully pinned his arms. He kicked his legs up, hoping to scratch at skin, but another swallow left him too deep to hope for any escape now. Another, another, a few smaller, lose gulps brought him deep enough the switch was flipped.

Why would he want to escape?

His body was used up, he was weak, sick. He was barely a hindrance in his own demise, unable to fight back. In the moment, he went limp. Constricted, enveloped, confined. The throat had dried slightly from his intrusion, but a harsh, final swallow marked his end. The all-encompassing heat seeped into his skin as the surrounding muscle shoved him deeper.

For a split moment, he could feel the very beating of the heart against his own chest before his descent brought him through a tight ring of muscle. He was forced through, pushed hard against the slick folds as he himself was folded into the tight space. He was forced to curl around as his long tail joined the rest of him marking his complete entrapment.

There was no thrashing, no clawing for escape. As scared as he was, listening to his own pulse thunder in his ears and feeling his heart thudding against his sternum, his entire body felt numb and lifeless. He'd been so weak he couldn't even fend off his attacker long enough to run. There was no sense in longing for escape if he'd truly fallen this weak. His mind vaguely came to, the voice beyond him spoke but the words were nothing to him. Even as a strange pressure pushed into his new, slippery, much smaller world, he made no movement against the physical taunt.

The heavy pulse of the heart, the deep, roaring breaths, the very pulse of the slick stomach walls created this wet sound as he was crushed into a smaller form of himself.

And he was ok with this.

He began to feel a fluid rise, he must've been right side up as it pooled below him, and while he felt no pain yet it was hot and thick. He knew soon enough his weak skin would fail him if it was acid. And yet, he felt no desire to escape. Even as every instinct he had, every uncontrollable thought told him to scream, to thrash, to rip at the vulnerable confines just as he'd done before, he gave up.

This was all he would be good for. This was all he'd ever been good for. His life had been meaningless, his life wasn't worth much more than weight in the gut of another. Even then, he'd barely feed the one who'd overpowered him. He was skinny and frail, barely a few swallows worth of fight and wouldn't feed their muscle. There'd always be another like him born eventually, he'd be replaced among his few friends, his mate would simply find another, his whelps would forget him in time. His name would die to history just as many before him had and many after him would.

He was no artisan, no fighter, no leader. He was nothing. As the fluids rose and the heat began to seep deep into his bones, the heat of his own tears stung his face in the dark as he marely sank into the flesh and accepted it. The only light his eyes could register was cast from his own flecks, barely able to illuminate the tight walls crushing into him.

He'd always hoped the last light he'd see would be the sun rising over the horizon.