Internet-Anon

This is a story about Alice, a 21 year old university student, who finds themselves in a predicament involving hiccups after eating bread.

The house was particularly empty that evening. Alice was petting her cat while relaxing by a chimney. The heat was making the animal very comfortable, and the silence helped the woman focus on a book. After a while, the cat purred and changed its position on her lap, which distracted Alice from reading. As she snapped back to reality from an interesting story, she looked around the living room, and to her delight, the house seemed empty. By now, her mother was supposed to come back from work. Something must’ve happened. She reached for her phone and turned it on. A message appeared, sent by her mother around 30 minutes ago. Alice was so focused on the book she didn’t hear the notification. She read the message: “I’ll be back after midnight. Our team decided to throw a party to celebrate a project we just finished. BTW: don’t order anything, we have food in the house.”

Alice was happy with the news. Her brother was out of town, and her father worked abroad. This meant the house was empty and she could relax without worrying about anyone.

If her mother was to come back, Alice would have to go back to her room and continue reading there. The living room had a sofa and a TV, which made it frequently occupied by everyone. But now, since Alice was alone, she could enjoy the comfy chair and the heat of the chimney in peace. She could even use the TV if she got bored. It was a perfect recipe for a perfect evening.

But then, she got hungry. It was only natural. Her last meal was half a day ago, when she was coming back home from university and walked into her favourite sushi place, very originally called “Sushi Japan”. They served delicious food there, but alas, it couldn’t satisfy her needs for that long. It was time to make something to eat.

She carefully placed her cat away and walked into the kitchen. She walked back and forth between the pantry and the fridge, thinking about what to eat. Her stomach wanted something fulfilling, but her brain was feeling lazy. After careful consideration, she grabbed a plate and put 5 slices of plain bread on it.

This wasn’t anything special - Alice was lazy when it came to taking care of her diet. That’s why her mother forbade her from ordering food, expecting her daughter to make something healthy and nutritious while saving money. She underestimated her laziness, though.

Alice walked back to the living room and placed the plate on a table beside the sofa. She read a section, fully invested into the story approaching its climax, and reached towards the plate. She struggled to grab onto the bread, as she was too invested into the book. When she focused on the task and paid attention (because she couldn’t manage to mutli-task reading the book and taking the bread), it suddenly became very easy. She took the 5 slices of bread, not bothering to take the plate, and slowly but surely prepared herself to consume the delicacy.

When she was ready, she pushed the bread into her mouth all at once. At first, all seemed well, but after a while it got harder and harder to chew. After a minute, she noticed she had difficulty with eating that much bread. The young woman considered spitting it out, but decided against it, as it would mean wasting 5 slices of good bread. 

So she pressed on and chewed with all her might. After another minute, Alice decided to risk it. She swallowed the food. Almost immediately, it refused to go down, getting stuck in the throat. She gulped, and gulped, and even touched her neck with her hand to help with moving it. More and more air went down with the bread mass as it slowly made its way through the pharynx into the oesophagus.

As it made its way into the stomach, Alice felt discomfort and a little pain. Her eyes watered in response to the mouth lacking moisture, and she put her hand in the middle of her chest as she felt the bread painfully make its way down. 

Fortunately, with uneasiness also came relief. She could breathe again. She almost choked on the food, after all, so regaining the ability to breathe made her relax.

“Mrphh-” - she belched silently with her mouth closed - “Damn… That was clos-”

Alice felt her stomach and neck contract, cutting her words short. It was a hiccup. She wasn’t surprised - she did just give her diagram a workout. What she didn’t expect was a full blown case. When her body contracted again and again, she wasn’t happy.

“God da-hmg’h! Dammnit!”

She tried to ignore them and continue reading the story. Unfortunately, this case of hiccups turned out to be especially deep, which distracted her a lot.

“Should have eaten-hmlg’k!-something normal. That’s on m-mglk!-me.”

Normally, Alice didn’t mind the hiccups. If she got them, which happened sometimes due to her eating habits, she wouldn’t care and would just continue with her day. And, to be honest, she even found them a bit unique and enjoyable. They just sparked a little bit of surprise into her mundane everyday life. But to get them right now? She was way too invested into the book, and the hiccups were just a little too deep to be bearable.

“Time to ge-urgk!-get some water. Hiccu’gh! Damn! That was a loud one-hmg’lk!”

Alice didn’t know much about hiccup remedies, so her first idea was to get water. She walked into the kitchen and grabbed a cup from a cupboard. As she filled the cup with water from a water dispenser in the fridge, she thought about all the times she had hiccups. Last time she had them they were really bad. She caused them by overeating - another weird thing she enjoyed doing. Whenever she overate, she belched, and the belches induced hiccups, which in turn made the belching worse. It was a spiral of mutual inducing, which almost made her consider going to the hospital that day. After a bad night, though, everything was fine. 

Her face embraced a mixed reaction when she thought about that. On one hand, she didn’t want to have the hiccups right now. On the other hand, some deep, hidden part of her was considering actually letting the case stay for some reason.

Definitely not today, though. She had a good book to finish. When the dispenser finished filling the cup, she put it to her lips and drank with haste to get rid of the hiccups.

“...Ah! Did it wo-Higgu’hk!- …No. Oh well, more water it is.”

She filled another cup and drank it again. “...How about now? …I think they’re go-HIGGU’LK!- Ouch! That hu-Urgk!-hurt!”

Alice got angrier and angrier with each hiccup. She once again filled her cup with water and drank it. When she swallowed, she didn’t even wait for a hiccup this time to confirm if they’re gone and just filled another cup.

“Gulp! Gulp! …Maybe no-HICUG’H!- No. Still the-HIGGU’H!-there. Ugh… Thi-HULGK!-This water isn’t helping-”

She got cut off by another hiccup. Although she noticed the water wasn’t effective, she really didn’t want to have the hiccups right now. Especially now that they seem to have gotten louder and deeper. They were even making her larger than average chest jump.

“Maybe if my-HIGGU’HK!-stomach is filled to the br-HICCU’GH!-brim with water, they’ll -HIGLK!-god… They’ll stop-hg’k!”

Alice filled the cup again and drank again. She repeated this process multiple times, to the point she started feeling nauseous.

“Ugh… -HULMGK!- My stomach -HULGK! HUL’KH!- hurts now… -HULK!- And the hiccups -HIGGU’LK!- have gotten worse…”

The hiccuping woman decided to stop drinking the water. She started to regret drinking it in the first place.

“-HIGGU’LK! Urp!- Great! Now I’m -Hmp!UOORP!- also burping. My evening -URGK! - is ruined…”

Alice only partially meant that. Since her reading session was ruined either way, she figured there’s no need to cry over spilt milk. She decided she might as well enjoy the current predicament a little, as it might be a long time before she gets another case.

“Might as well -Hmk!UUUUUORP!-mm~ lie in bed -HICC’GUH!- to wait them ou-HIGGUH’K!”

The burps made Alice struggle a bit with breathing, but it wasn't something she was unfamiliar with. The worst cases of hiccups she had made her unable to speak properly, so the current sensations were a league below the worst she had.

Alice slowly approached the stairs. The hiccups were intense enough to disrupt her while walking, so she had to be careful. As she took a few steps up, she felt the big amount of water in her stomach hit the organ’s walls back and forth. She never experienced this before, so this took her by surprise. She was only familiar with overeating - drinking large amounts of fluids was foreign to her. 

“Oh go-HICCU’GH!-od! This is -HULK!UURP!- too -HIC’GUH! HIK’GH!- much!”

The sensations were a bit too much for Alice, whose hiccups intensified for a short while due to the water sloshing in her stomach. After a few seconds, she managed to regain composure and walk up the stairs.

“I definitely -UUURP!-’cuse me, overdid it. -HULK’GH!- Can’t afford th-EM’gh!- Getting worse-”

Once again cut off by a hiccup, she decided against speaking to herself for now. She liked to do that whenever she got hiccups as it was a little funny when they interrupted her, but now it would make them worse.

She went to her room, still hiccuping like crazy, and packed her things for tomorrow before jumping into bed. She focused for a few minutes on the hiccuping. It definitely felt different when her stomach was filled with water compared to regular overstuffing. Since it was so quiet, she could hear her stomach slosh every time it contracted due to the spasm. She wondered if she could see it wiggle like jelly if she drank enough water, but it definitely wasn’t filled enough to do that now.

Speaking of jelly, her chest definitely met the standards to be considered that right now. When she wasn’t on the bed, it only jumped up and down, but now that she was on the bed, it was wiggling in unison as her body hiccuped. Normally, Alice would get a little excited, but right now she was exhausted.