FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

"I realize you're one of the smartest dragons alive Tzakiel, but what you are suggesting sounds impossible," I said disbelievingly. There was a lot to disbelieve about what he said. My friend Tzakiel claimed to be able to open up portals into the humans' realm undetected. Such a thing had never been done before. Dragons had been able to travel to the humans' world for some time now, but the reverse had never been done before. It really was the reverse too. Most dragons normally increased their size when paying a visit to the humans. Tzakiel claimed to be able to shrink the humans when they entered our realm. Some of the other dragons increased their size for their own protection, but us black scaled dragons did it to make the extermination of the little pests much easier.

"Of course I can do it Reban. How else do you think those little red stains on the floor got there? You had to be able to tell from the scent of it that it belonged to those vile little humans. My method is still in the experimental stage, but I believe I can get them to appear in my house by now," explained Tzakiel. I had seen plenty of little red stains on one of his floors and the smell practically screamed human to my senses despite the fact that I had never seen one of the vermin before. The smell excited me more than I hoped that I showed Tzakiel. It had been a long time since any dragon had been able to terrorize the humans, despite how much those slow witted moronic little creatures deserved it. I would bet that they didn't even discover how to crack the atom until at least 400 years ago.

Humans could not use magic so there was no way that they could create world bridges like Tzakiel was doing, not at their stage of technological advancement anyways. Even Tzakiel had to tax that beautiful mind of his in order to do what he was doing. The equipment he was using combined magic and science at a level I had never heard of before and I was not exactly a slow witted dragon by anyone's standards. I was pretty amazed with all the equipment Tzakiel was able to get his claws on. Everything pretty much took up an entire room. There was everything from computers to stones with glowing runes written all over them. It would probably take years of extra study for me just to understand the explanation Tzakiel had given me on how everything worked. I was surprised that Tzakiel had been able to come up with all this stuff by himself. That was probably why he had enough money saved up from patents that he never had to work again. He also had a nice big pretty much empty house. That was why the rooms he had set up for the humans were nice and available to him. The miniature city I had seen was a fun one. It would be fun to go on a rampage through an actual human city, but you take what you can get.

I just let Tzakiel get back to work on creating his little portals. It seemed too good to be true. In a few moments I was going to be one of the very few dragons that had been able to play with humans in a very long time. While I was waiting I started to get a little bored. Then something caught my eye. It was a rune covered rock that looked slightly transparent and it had what looked like a mini computer sealed inside of it. I wondered how Tzakiel had managed to do that and I tried to touch it. As I did so Tzakiel turned toward me and I could tell I had done something wrong just by the expression on his face. Everything in the room seemed to become much more active all at once and then there was a bright flash.

******

It was a beautiful day for a game. That and the fact that it was one of the games the entire area had been looking forward to all year meant that the there was not a single empty seat in the stadium. Personally, I was not much of a sports fan, but my friends were and they had managed to drag me along with them. Things were not too bad. Tens of thousands of people having fun and really getting into the game was kind of addictive and I found that I was enjoying myself as my friends hooted and hollered with the best of them.

The first time the screams started no one really had a clue about what was really happening. Everyone thought it was just part of the game. It took the sun getting blocked out and being replaced with an eerie glowing light to get everybody's attention. Up in the sky were numerous disc shaped things of various colors. At some points those things were no more than a few feet above the packed stands. In those places I could see people being sucked up into those things and I could even feel wind tugging at me even though I was nowhere near any of those things.

I remembered seeing one of these things on the news just a few weeks back. Some train and a few dozen vehicles had disappeared through something that looked a lot like one of these things. The authorities had been trying to figure out what was causing these things. It was the first time one of those things had been caught on camera, but a bunch of people were claiming to have seen these things all over the planet. Nobody had claimed they had seen more than one at a time though. There were at least three in this stadium right now and I think I saw the edges of another over the parking lot.

Everyone in the stands started to panic. No one that had disappeared from the incident a few ago had shown back up and few people here were curious to find out about what had happened. Getting out of a stadium can take a good amount of time when people are being nice and orderly. What was happening around me was anything but nice and orderly. People were falling over each other in their attempts to get to safety. Then more of those things started to appear. At first nothing was there, and then they were just there. A huge red one appeared right over the section we were in and the gentle tugging I had been feeling up to that point turned much more intense.

I could feel myself being lifted off my feet and all I could do was hold onto a chair. Other people in the crowd were doing the same or trying to hold onto other people that were holding onto the chairs. If they did not do that then they were sucked up into the things hovering ominously above us. Whatever those things were, they were powerful. I knew it was only a matter of time before I lost my grip like so many of the people around me. People were being pulled by the dozens into those things and as one man lost his grip on his chair he grabbed for anything in range. I happened to be in range. With his weight added to my own I did not stand much of a chance. My arms felt like they were on fire, but I managed to hold onto the chair until my arms went numb.

Despite my best efforts I could not hold on any longer. I was pulled screaming into the air like many other people before me. I would not be the last either. When I hit the disc there was no resistance to it. It was like that thing was not even there. The inside of the thing was just so weird my mind could not comprehend what I was seeing. Just trying to figure out what was going on had a sort of hypnotic affect. I did not even notice I had exited the thing until a saw a brown wooden floor rushing toward me. It was a hard fall, but fortunately it was only a two foot fall from the disc and I did not break anything from the fall.

My body ached a bit from the fall, but it was fortunate the disc just seemed to drop us out of it instead of blowing us out with the same force that it pulled us in with. I happened to look up at the disc just in time to see another body falling in my direction. There was just enough time for me to dive out of the way of that body. Then I found myself having to dodge many other bodies as human's started to rain all around me. I had to crawl out from under the portal before anything could happen to me. It seemed odd that there was only one disc around though. I had assumed that all of them would lead to the same place since they showed up at the same place.

After I managed to get to a place of relative safety I just watched as people continued to pour through the disc. There had to be hundreds, if not thousands of people that came through that thing. The thing stuck around for a while and then just disappeared behind one person. That person claimed to be the last person left under the disc in the stadium. It seemed awfully suspicious that the thing would wait to disappear right after the final person was hurled through it. That made it seem like we were being purposefully pulled through what I was starting to think was some sort of portal.

We were all too busy being confused about what had happened to notice where we were. I don't think anybody noticed we were on a flat wooden floor with more than enough room for all of us within the first five minutes of the portal disappearing. After we did notice we spent a few moments in silent awe of our environment. The floor was incredibly vast, but the walls that proved it did not go on forever were unbelievably tall. The ceiling of whatever structure we found ourselves in was so high up it looked like multiple mountains could be stacked on top of each other without ever touching it.

Eventually someone brought up the question about what we were going to do if we ended up stuck here. This place looked like a giant hallway and it also looked like it would take us days to walk anywhere. The only food and drink we had was what had been pulled through that portal with us. Altogether I would say that everything we had would last us about a day. That meant we would have to hope the residents of this place eventually noticed us, which was extremely doubtful since all of us together might not equal one ant if this hallway was any indication of the size of the people that lived here. I did not doubt that we had somehow been shrunken. A structure of this size was simply impossible to build without it collapsing.

As it turns out, we did not need to worry about our supplies. We heard what sounded like a muffled explosion mixed in with an odd clacking sound. I owned a dog and I knew what claws clacking against a floor sounded like. That made me wonder if we were about to encounter some sort of giant dog. What showed up around a corner was anything but. Two creatures of titanic proportions came around a distant corner. Even across what seemed like a vast distance there was no mistaking how large those creatures were and what they were. Those creatures looked like bipedal dragons and they were too busy and too large to notice things as small as us on the floor.

They were both mostly black scaled dragons and they both had thin stripes on the backs of their limbs and their backs. Bat like wings sprouted from their backs. The colors of those stripes and the colors of their bellies did vary. One was green and the other red. The one with the green belly had two long horns jutting out the back of his head as well as thick looking scales running down his back. He had a vicious looking tail that looked as if it could be used effectively in combat. The dragon had four toes and fingers even though the dinosaur like feet made it seem like he should have had three. He also had a wedge shaped head set on top of a long serpentine neck with blood red eyes that seemed to glow faintly against the dark scales surrounding them.

The dragon with the red belly looked a little different. He had spikes jutting out the back of his head as well, but it looked like he had four instead of two. Most of those spikes were obscured by a thick red mane of hair that ran almost all of the way down his back. His eyes were solid black in color and they almost blended right in with his scales. The claws on his hands and feet were noticeably longer then the other dragon's and he was about a head taller.

I did not care much for the look of either dragon. It did not really matter to me that I was judging a book by its cover. My instincts were screaming that I might not want to be noticed by either of those two monsters. When I saw where the two dragons were heading my mind said I did want to be noticed by the dragons. They were walking in our general direction and I was certain that either of them could crush our entire group with a single toe. The one with the green belly was walking slightly ahead of the one with the red belly. They were having some sort of conversation and even from the distance we were from them the sound of their voices were enough to rattle my very bones. If the one with the green belly stayed on course we would be right between his legs when he walked by and we did not have to worry about the other one.

At first I was relieved that I was not in the path of any of those rather large feet. Then I looked at something else right behind the dragon. His thick tail was dragging along the ground and I realized I was in its path. To me that tail was immeasurably wide and it was bearing down on me at a hideous rate of speed. I turned to run and saw that a few people already had the sense to start running well before I did. Chances were that it would not do us any good even if we had a decent head start. I would say the dragon was only a four or five steps away from us.

Both of the dragons' footfalls sounded like the approach of death. Each loud thump meant they were getting closer and closer to us. There was not even enough time to try and get to the side of the tail. It only took a couple of seconds before the dragon was towering over us like some sort of unstoppable titan. Then he continued on, not noticing the miniscule creatures beneath him. One more step and the dragon overtook us and his tail started to mow us down. The screams were terrible and I did not want to look back to see what was going to happen to me. Someone else was curious though. I was not sure who that person was, all I know was that looking back caused him to trip over himself, then another person tripped over that person, and it continued on like that until I was caught in the little pile up.

It was really nothing to get angry about. There was no way I was going to outrun that tail anyways. The only thing I regretted was that I did get a good look at what was coming at me. For some people, simply coming in contact with the well armored fast moving wall of flesh was enough to cause their tiny bodies to explode. Most people were not fortunate enough to have such a quick death. I could see them get knocked to the ground only to have the massive tail grind over them. That could be very messy for some of them. With so much weight rolling over one portion of their bodies, things that used to be in one portion of the body were sometimes shoved up to the other part of the body. An event that reminded me of an extremely gory version of toothpaste getting squeezed from a tube would occur when that happened.

Then the tail was on me. It was so close that it completely filled my vision. Pieces of bodies were being dragged before the tail. The sight would have made me vomit if I had the time. When the tail ran over my feet they were instantly crushed. Even though I knew the tail was moving fast it seemed to be moving far too slow for my own taste now that I was beneath it. At one point shock took over and the felling of my bones being shattered no longer hurt. I was not alone. The sound of others being crushed filled my ears, but there was nothing I could do for them. I could not even help myself. All I could do was hold up my hands in a futile attempt to stop the tail from crushing me. The tail rolled over me so fast that I would not have had the time to scream if I had thought of it and my body just added to a stain so small on the floor that the dragons would have been hard pressed to notice it.

******

"It couldn't have been that bad Tzakiel," I said.

"Oh yes it could Reban. Even for a dragon you are abnormally gifted. You are magically one of the most powerful dragons to have ever lived. When you touched that device you fed to much power into the system," Tzakiel explained. "That messed up two things pretty badly. Those humans could have come out anywhere. I tried to fix that as best I could and I hope they are still where they should be, but there is no way to tell. The other thing that was messed up was the size modification properties of the portals. None of the humans will be any larger than they should be, but they might be so small that we would never notice them now. We could have stepped on thousands of them by now and we would never know."

"Well, let's at least check the proper room first. They might have shown up. I'll bet that they are at least somewhere in this house if they aren't in the proper room. I can feel them you know. There are humans somewhere in this house," I said.

******

I could not believe what I was seeing. One minute I was watching my team loosing one of the biggest games of the season, and then I was sucked through some sort of weird portal. Now I seemed to be stuck in some sort of weird giant room. What's worse is that even if we could reach the exit to this room, it seemed to be sealed of by some sort of low glass wall. The room itself was barren, so most of us figured we were just going to end up dieing of thirst or starvation.

Then two malevolent looking dragons came into view. Each step sent little vibrations racing through the floor and most people were stunned speechless by the sight of the creatures. They easily stepped over the glass barrier that was not easily scalable by any of the humans present. I was so absorbed by the sight of the dragons that I did not notice the danger I was in. Thud. Crackle. Those two sounds caused me to jump and turn around to see a massive scaled foot a mere five feet from where I was. Hundreds of people had to have been in the space that foot currently occupied. The crackling noise had to have been the sound of thousands of bones being crushed at once.

I stared in horror at the sight until the time the dragon took another step. When the foot lifted up I could see little sticky strings of human goo stretch out between the floor and the dragon's foot before eventually snapping. Some people fainted and others had less pleasant reactions. I could only stare dumbly at the scene. The sound of the two dragon's talking is what shook me out of my state of shock. They seemed to be arguing about something, but there voices were far too deep for me to understand even if we spoke the same language. The one with the green belly stomped his foot on the ground which sent a tremor so violent through the floor that I was knocked off my feet. Then he went storming out of the room, narrowly avoiding stepping on anybody.

The dragon with the red belly was not so nice to us. He followed the dragon with the green belly out of the room, but we were right in his path. The foot was too huge to avoid. I did not even bother to run. If he was going to step on me then he was going to step on me. There was no point in trying to avoid something so large that it could crush a few city blocks without even noticing it. Other people were falling all over each other in their attempts to run away. It was not hard to tell that the dragon's foot was going to descend on us all. I had never liked running and I did not see the point in doing so now, even if it looked like I only had to avoid a toe. The underside of the toe descending on me was already littered with bodies. That must have been the same foot that crushed all of those people on the way into the room.

The size of that claw tipped toe was simply staggering. The smallest scale on it looked like a nice sized island to me. People were throwing up their hands and pleading for mercy, but I saw that as completely pointless. It was obvious the dragon did not notice us lesser beings beneath it. I just watched the toe get larger and larger as it descended. Then I closed my eyes at the last second. A hard leathery surface hit my face and knocked me to the ground. I briefly felt every bone in my body popping before I was added to the pulpy red mess beneath the dragons toe.

******

"I'm telling you they are somewhere in this house Tzakiel," I said.

"They could be. And they could also be so small that we'll never find them," Tzakiel spat out.

"I think we'll find some of them that will be large enough for us to play with," I said soothingly.

"Is that another one of your feelings Reban?" Tzakiel mockingly asked.

"It's just a hunch. Why don't we get you something to eat? Eating tends to calm you down."

"Alright, but I'd still prefer to be munching on some humans right now."

******

I found myself in a dark and strange smelling place. It was cold and the ground beneath me was lopsided and slick. For some reason everything around me smelled like ham or some sort of deli meat. I had been getting drunk at the game, but I did not think that I was drunk enough to explain all the strange things I had just seen occur. There were others here with me. I could hear them moving around and calling out to see if anyone was there. It was hard getting to anyone on the slick surface we were on and in complete darkness.

In the long run I kind of wished we had remained in the darkness. A huge door swung open and an artificial light came on above us. With the light on I could now tell that we were within some sort of giant refrigerator. We really were standing on a titanic piece of meat. That sight was shocking enough, but the pair of blood red eyes staring hungrily at the piece of meat we were standing on. If we looked larger than small grains of salt we might have been able to get the dragon that was looking at us to notice us.

That dragon showed not the slightest hint of noticing the additional seasoning on his soon to be meal. When he picked up the plate we were on and rapidly pulled it out of the refrigerator everyone had to struggle to stay on their feet. Most of us failed. Some people even slid off the meat and plummeted to the ground thousands of feet below us. Things did not work out much better for the rest of us when the dragon sat the plate down on a table and started dissecting the meat with his claws and tossing it into his mouth. The only thing slowing him down was the fact that he seemed to be having a conversation with a friend of his.

That did not slow him down enough. Our meat island was disappearing awfully fast. The dragon would chew his meal slowly and then swallow. Each of the lumps descending his throat had to carry at least three or four dozen people along with them. Then it was my turn to get carried into the dragon's cavernous maw. Claws far larger than me cut of the section that I was standing on along with a couple of dozen other people. The speed at which we were lifted up to the dragon's snout was dizzying. By the time any of us were able to regain our equilibrium we were already moving past ugly yellow fangs. We were dropped onto a sickly looking gray tongue that undulated beneath us as it pushed us and the meat towards it fangs. I was knocked off the meat and onto what looked like a taste bud around the same size I was.

Foul smelling saliva coated my body, but that was the least of my worries. The tongue was still pushing me towards towering fangs and there was nothing I could do to stop it. After a piece of meat touched one of those giant pointed teeth they immediately began chewing. Meat was easily torn to shreds and whoever happened to in the way of those gnashing death bringers did not stand a chance. One person was even impaled on a tooth and I caught the occasional glimpse of the limp lifeless body as it was lifted up and down along with the tooth as the dragon chewed. Then the tongue forced me in between two fangs and I tried to get out from in between them before the dragon could chew again. I slipped on some dragon drool before I could get out of the way. A massive fang descended on me. I had no idea that I was about to be much more lucky than the people that managed to avoid getting chewed up and were about to be swallowed whole. When that fang hit me my body was pretty much obliterated and death was near instantaneous.

******

"Something about this tastes better than usual," Tzakiel said happily.

"I told you eating something would make you feel better. Now why don't we go and search for some humans," I said.

"Sure. Your type really is good at detecting humans. I wish I had a nice mane of hair that helped me sense the environment around me like that."

"No you don't. Taking care of this unruly mess takes forever. Up until now I've never really had a need for it. It's about time it started paying me back for all the work I have put into taking care of it," I said with mock disgust.

******

Things certainly had gotten weird today. Sure, things had started out good and it looked like my team was about to win the game when those portals showed up. After getting sucked through one of those things I somehow wound up shrunk and stuck on some sort of giant couch. No one had any clue about where we were, but this house seemed to be owned by some sort of dragon lover. There was a billboard sized picture of a family of dragons sitting on a table in the distance. They were a real mean looking family too. The picture looked so real I thought it might have been an actual photograph. It was too bad the artist had to waste his or her talent on doing stuff like that. The person would be able to make some real money doing more mainstream artwork.

Then I heard something thumping in our direction. I was expecting some giant human to coming waltzing into the room like in some cheesy B movie. My jaw dropped when I witnessed the appearance of two colossal dragons that proved that the picture I saw really was a photograph. I did not even think of trying to get their attention. Then one of the dragons sat down on a couch across the room. He looked pretty relaxed and I did not even think about what the other dragon would do, the one with a green belly, until I saw him standing over us.

Everyone scattered as they realized the dragon was going to sit down. It did not matter if the couch was relatively soft. If all that weight came down on us then we were finished. It did not look like there was much hope for us. The dragon's scaly rump was descending right in the middle of our little group. I happened to be a little fortunate since I was toward the back end of the dragon. That tail was still going to be a problem though. I just ran for my life and put the tail out of my mind. Tripping because I was thinking of other things would cost me my life.

The shadow of the dragon surrounded me and it did not look I was going to escape my fate. I chanced a look up and saw that I was still beneath the dragon. There was something I noticed though. There was a little slit around the base of the tail that I was under. It was an unfamiliar sight to me and it took a second for me to recognize that I was underneath some sort of tail hole. The dragon's rump came down on everyone with crushing force, including me. I was forced into the fabric of the couch by the lips of the tail hole I was directly under. The bodies of other people started giving out one by one to the uncountable tons of flesh on top of them. At one point I thought I was going to add to the red stains on the dragon's rear when the lips of his tail hole parted just enough to let me inside of the dragon, or at least the top half of my body anyways.

Things were not exactly pleasant for me at that moment. I was pinched tightly by the flesh of the dragon's tail hole and I was having trouble breathing. That could also be due to the noxious smell of the dragon's insides, but at least I was alive. There were a few hundred people that could not say the same right now. I tried to escape my little prison, but my hands were pinned to my side. Then something hit my head and I hoped it was not what I thought it was. It took a bit of struggling, but I managed to get an arm free. Then I used that arm to pull my other arm free. I could not pull myself free of the dragon though. In fact, I managed to wedge myself a bit further in. If I was going to escape I was going to have to push off against the thing that had hit my head earlier.

I slowly reached up to touch what had hit me and was surprised to find it much more firm than I thought it would be. It did not feel at all like what I thought a giant piece of crap would feel like. Then the piece I was touching became dislodged in my hands and at first I felt revulsion. Curiosity won out though and I eventually brought it in front of my face where I could get a slightly good look at it from what little light was filtering into this place. I kind of wished that I did have a piece of crap in my hand, but what I was holding was a human skull a little over half the size of my body.

When I tried to investigate the rest of the mass above me I discovered it was a big mass of bones, not all of them human. I did not know why there were so many bones within the dragon, but I now wanted out of the dragon more than ever. My frantic struggles must have been able to cause him some discomfort because I felt flesh shifting as the dragon lifted up his rear. Then I discovered how much I did not want the dragon's attention in this way. I wailed in pain as a claw pierced my leg and forcefully pulled me out of his rear. He was just scratching the itch that had been me and did not really know I was there. I was dragged against the tail hole a few times as the dragon scratched, but my leg eventually became dislodged from the dragon's claw and I fell back to the couch.

Despite being in incredible pain I was happy to be free of the dragon. The fresh air smelled all the fresher, even though the smell of the dragon's leathery hide now filled my nostrils. With my injured leg I should have known better than to think that I could escape. The dragon sat right back down and I was still beneath his tail hole. This time I popped right into the dragon. The dragon's tail hole sealed shut behind me and I could not force my way out. I was stuck in the dragon with a large mass of bones and I would have to say that I was freaking out. Then I heard the dragon scratching himself again, but an opening never appeared for me to escape.

A few minutes later the dragon started to get up while I continued to try and fight my way out. All I did was exhaust myself and annoy the dragon. Then something happened. I don't know if I hit the wrong muscles or if what happened was completely natural for the dragon. His muscles clenched all around me. It was like having a vice clamp down on my entire body. The mass of bones faired better than I did. A few of them cracked, but not many. My tiny bones were no match for the dragon's flesh. Me and every bone in my body were shattered.

******

"Are you alright Tzakiel? You're scratching your tail a lot there," I said.

"I'm fine. It was just a persistent itch, but it's gone now. I think I have to go to the bathroom too. Those humans I ate the last time I brought them here are ready to come out now," Tzakiel said as he headed toward his bathroom.

I let him go. Dragon's only needed to release their waste once every few weeks. Not like those vermin that called themselves humans. They were no better than animals really. And their bodies were so wasteful too. They failed to absorb so much nutrients that they always let out those disgusting brown logs instead of just a few bones.

Then I heard Tzakiel shout, "Hey Reban, come look what I've found."

******

I would have never guessed that the crazy glowing disc would have sucked me into a bathroom. And a giant one at that. At least it was clean and had a fairly nice scent to it. The sudden series of rhythmic thuds did start to unsettle people. We had been scattered all over the floor, but people started to gather in one big group at the sound of that thudding. Then the thing causing those thuds finally appeared. At first it looked at us with surprise, and then it smiled a malicious smile.

"Hey Reban, come look what I've found," it bellowed. I would have been surprised it could talk if my ears did not feel like they were about to explode. Just about everybody was covering their ears and wincing in pain. The dragon's smile just widened. "Did I hurt your tiny inferior ears little ones? I'll try to be more careful," the dragon chortled. That dragon had toes that were two or three times our size and he obviously enjoyed causing us pain. I did not think we were in a very good position.

Then another dragon came thudding into view. The new dragon with a red belly smiled toothily at us the moment he saw us on the floor. I could swear there was hunger in those dark eyes of his as well. His gaze was extremely unsettling to me. It made me think that I did not stand a chance of surviving more than a day or two in his presence. "Go get the cages and get these vermin out of here so I can take care of my business Reban," said the dragon with the green belly.

"Sure, no problem Tzakiel," said Reban. At least I knew their names now. I did not think it was going to do us any good. These dragons did not seem like the type to spare us just because we used their names. The dragon named Reban came back with what looked like carrying cages for all of us. At our size, he only needed two. He sat the cages on the floor and ordered us to enter.

For the most part we followed directions. One person did disobey and the punishment for doing so was not pleasant. The dragon pinned that person under a thumb and began to slowly apply pressure. "Now we can't just have vermin like you just running around and messing up my friend's house with your filthy little bodies," said Reban. The screams of the person trapped beneath the dragon's thumb became a burbling noise and then there was a sickening crunch as the person was crushed like an ant. That made it known to the rest of us what the dragons thought of us. A few people still tried to flee and suffered similar fates.

The rest of us where sealed into our cages and carried off to some other location. I could swear that the dragon was jostling us around more than he needed to. We were sliding all over the place and I was sure that I was going to get at least a dozen bruises from the experience. It still turns out that I was in the lucky cage though. The dragon let us out without any troubles, but the people in the other cage were not so fortunate. I watched as he shook up the cage just for the fun of it. If somebody did not die from that then I would have been amazed. When he let the people from that cage out he looked like he was suppressing a laugh as he watched the survivors limp out. After they were finished Reban shook the dead bodies out of the cage into his hand and he repeated the same process with the other cage just to make sure no one was hiding in the cage.

Then he clapped the hand the people were in onto his open mouth. We were stunned. Reban seemed to be savoring their flavor. I did not take it as a good sign that a little bit of drool leaked out of his mouth and fell to the floor. The dragon gulped down his little snack and looked at us before saying, "You really are as good as the legends say. Feel happy that your taste pleases your new masters."

I did not want to know that I tasted good to the giant monster. My legs felt weak beneath me. If the dragon stuffed himself he might just be able to eat everybody here. So far he liked crushing us, shaking us around in boxes, and he liked eating us. Those three things combined did not bode well for all of us. I was starting to think I would be lucky to survive another hour. Later, I would discover just how wrong I really was. The people that died within an hour were the lucky ones. It would be those that survived for days that were the unlucky ones.

The other dragon soon came into view and then the one called Reban began to speak. "Humans, if your tiny little minds have not figured it out yet then let me tell you that we are the ones responsible for bringing you here. You exist solely for the purpose of providing us with entertainment now. We are your masters and you will treat as us as such. You are our possessions, to use and abuse at our leisure. Any questions vermin?"

I would have been surprised if that dragon could have heard us. He did have an impressive set of ears though. Even with his mane of hair the tips of his pointed ears could still be seen. The only creatures I could think of with ears of that size compared to the rest of their bodies were rabbits and a few species of canines. To my surprise someone actually stepped forward with a question. It was a young man that came off as awfully foolish to me. His face was red. It was as if he were outraged about what was happening. If I did not know any better I would have thought that he was going to make a few objections to the creatures of god like proportions that now claimed to own us.

"Now listen hear Reban and Tzakiel. I don't know who the hell you think you are, but you'll put us right back where you got us from or else," said the man with a slightly slurred voice. He had to have been drinking a little too much, make that way too much, at the game. That was the only reason I could think of for him to actually be threatening a dragon he had just seen eat some people. If I ever made it out of this I was never going to touch an alcoholic beverage again. There was just no telling when I would need to keep from saying something stupid like that man had just done. Even the dragons seemed a little stunned that someone would talk to them like that.

Their stunned looks quickly turned to anger. The people around the man had been edging away from him, but they had not been moving fast enough. Tzakiel surged forward and just stomped repeatedly one the man and everyone around him while shouting, "How dare you! Vermin! Filth! Who do we think we are?! Your betters! Your masters! The ones that hold your lives on our hands!" The sound of his voice felt like it was going to make my head explode. His stomping foot shook the ground beneath me violently. I was tossed off my feet and I was surprised that the floor did not crack due to the pounding he was giving it. When Tzakiel had finished venting his anger on the little pile of human mush he stepped down one last time and ground the remains contemptuously into the floor. No one else objected to the dragons like the drunken man had done.

I was paralyzed with fear. The dragons had been frightening enough when they were happy. Now they were both enraged. Someone approached Tzakiel and bowed down before him. "Please forgive us master. That man was just too foolish to recognize your obvious greatness," the new man said humbly. Tzakiel's anger seemed to fade away awfully fast and he actually smiled down at the human.

He picked the man up between thumb and index finger while saying, "Looks like we have at least one that knows how to behave properly. I think you deserve a little reward. What do you want little one?"

"I am honored just to be held by a creature as grand as you master," the man responded.

"Good answer vermin. I was thinking about crushing you in my hand, but I think you have just purchased yourself a little extra time in this world," said Tzakiel. I could not believe how well that man had just done. He read the dragon's desires masterfully. If that had been me I'm sure I would be dead right now. That man had to be a natural born survivor. But, the dragon had said he had only purchased himself some extra time. I wondered how much longer he would be able to last.

Tzakiel walked next to his friend Reban and then placed the man on the ground in between the two of them. Then Tzakiel said, "You are excused from the little game due to your good behavior, but the rest of you are expected to participate. I want you all to separate into two groups. The group that forms to my right is to be the group that thinks I look better than my friend here. If you think Reban looks better than me then form a group to my left. There is no middle ground in this, so you have to choose. If your opinion on our looks happens to correspond with what most other dragons think about us then you will be spared. If it does not you will be either be crushed by the better looking dragon or serve as our dinner for the night."

That one scared people half to death. If they chose wrong the dragons would help them out with the other half. I did not know what to think at first and started to gather in the Tzakiel group. Then I noticed something about Reban. The way he looked made me think he was looking forward to stomping on some bugs. I quickly moved over to the group that thought Reban looked better. If I had been a few more seconds to change my mind it would have been too late. The dragons ordered our groups to separate further apart. It was obvious that was to make sure that the losing group did not try to merge with the group that chose correctly.

A malicious grin spread across Reban's face and I knew I had chosen correctly. I felt more relief than I knew I should as I saw Reban walk towards the other group of people. Tzakiel just sighed and said, "I'm afraid Reban is considered the better looking dragon. For some reason all the girls seem to like that goofy mane of his." I could hear the wails of the other group of people as Reban treaded heavily into their midst. He looked like he was having fun as he crushed the life out of countless people. The sound of crackling bones was hard to ignore and many people tried to cover their ears. It was a messy affair and a good section of the bare floor became soaked with blood, even the dark undersides of the dragon's feet looked more like their natural color was supposed to be red.

At one point the dragon looked like it had become bored. That might have been the saving grace for the many people that still remained if it was not for the fact that both dragons were hungry. I had been so busy watching Reban have his fun that I had not noticed Tzakiel go get a little glass enclosure. It was shaped like a square and open on the bottom and the top. Reban had gathered the survivors of his little stomp fest into a dense group and when Tzakiel placed the enclosure on the ground they were all trapped inside.

"For choosing correctly you get to clean my feet of this filth while I eat. Normally, we would kill any human that dared to touch us. You should feel lucky," said Reban. "I should not need to tell you what you are to clean my feet with. Animals like you don't really need clothes anyways." I knew he made that request with the sole purpose of degrading us. There was nothing any of us could do about it though. He and his friend were in charge here and if we disobeyed, well, Tzakiel looked like he was looking forward to stepping on a few people as well. The only good thing about that whole situation was that there were a lot of us. That meant we might be able to clean both feet with only the loss of our shirts.

Getting close to the feet of Reban was not an easy thing to do. I was able to make out more details than I would like to have been able to. There were a few bodies that had managed to stick to the underside of his foot. They looked like twisted parodies of life and no one was looking forward to peeling stuff like that off of Reban's feet. I decided to take that job though. Bodies like that were stuck close to the center of his foot. I wanted to avoid those plump toes of his. The man that had apologized to Tzakiel seemed to be excluded from this activity. He had a spot on the Tzakiel's shoulder and the dragon seemed to be talking amicably with him. The rest of us had a grizzly task ahead.

I tried to ignore the screaming people as the dragons swept them out of their enclosure and into their waiting maws. The dragons were not willing to let us ignore their feast though. They chewed slowly and the sound of their fangs crushing bones was impossible not to pay attention to. We could not even try to concentrate on what we were doing. To concentrate on the task of wiping the mammoth foot before us clean was an easy way to lose our previous meals. Cleaning even one foot was no easy task, and not just because of what we were cleaning off of it. Without anything to stand on there was no easy way to many parts of his gigantic foot. Some people tried standing on the shoulders of others while others climbed to the top of Reban's feet using his scales as handholds the best they could. Then they would try to hold each others ankles and dangle one or two people upside down to clean those hard to reach places.

My choice to avoid the toes turns out to have been a good one. I don't know what caused the dragon to do what he did, but he flexed his toes. Some people just fell to the floor, but about three or four people were caught in folds of flesh as the toes curled up. A series of sickening crunches as well as a little spray of blood let us know that we had a bit more work to do now. Everyone was hesitant to clean off Reban's toes, but it had to be done. Fortunately, Reban decided not to flex his toes anymore and we just had to worry about or blood soaked clothes being able to absorb a little bit more blood.

When the two dragons finished their meal they just stood up and started to walk off. They weren't paying any attention to us, so we had to dodge their feet. It was discouraging that Reban had not made a single comment about the job we did on his feet. For some reason, I was expecting a thank you for the job we had done. They seemed more concerned about the man Tzakiel had let sit on his shoulder than the rest of us. I even think I saw Tzakiel carefully pet him with a single finger. Somehow, that man had managed to get his status upgraded from vermin to pet. I wished that I was good enough with my words to charm a dragon.

Reban flicked a light switch on the way out and he closed the door to the room behind him. We were left in total darkness and it was impossible to tell what everyone was doing. The dragons were done with us for the night and I could not have been more relieved. I could hear some people sobbing themselves to sleep as well as the occasional frightened scream. It did not take long for me to drift off to sleep. Even in my dreams I could not escape from the dragons. I spent that night going over the many ways they could kill me in my dreams. Every time I thought I was about to get away from them I would suffer some misfortune. Then, just before I died, I would find myself in a new predicament. I can't even count the times I was nearly stepped on or swallowed alive.

When I heard the sound of bones being crushed once more I thought I was still dreaming. Then I heard Tzakiel bellow, "Wake up my little playthings. If you don't then it will be awfully hard to avoid being a part of our breakfast feast." The dragons had stepped on a few people as our wake up call. I should know since I was in between two of Reban's toes as I woke up. Things were too much like a dream for me and I was sick of running from the dragons. It took me a while to realize that I was not dreaming at all. Tzakiel and Reban were picking up drowsy people and tossing them in their mouths. I had just barely started running when Reban noticed me right next to his foot. He casually knocked me over with a toe and sent me tumbling across the floor.

Before I could get up I was pinched tightly in between to thick leathery fingers. I was lifted high into the air and the dragon held me within inches of his terrifyingly large muzzle. "I'm feeling a bit full human, but I think I can fit one more of you in. Aren't you happy that you get to satisfy your master's hunger?" asked Reban. Each time he opened his mouth I was able to get a good look at the hideous interior of his maw. The tip of his tongue was triangular and there were odd protrusions on it that looked sort of like gills, but without any openings. The rest of his thick tongue was a purplish gray color that looked very slimy and had little veins running all over it. Close to the back of his throat were some odd little growths that made me wonder if they would allow him to breathe fire. There was a little pink on his gums and the roof of his mouth, but these black splotches seemed to be consuming what little pink there was like the dragon planed on consuming me.

The dragon licked his pebbly lips as he waited for me to respond to his question. I wanted to beg for my life, but no words would come out. "To overcome with joy to respond are you? Then I guess I should just eat you then." His breath reeked of decay as it washed over me and before I could say anything the dragon tossed me into the air and caught me on the tip of his tongue. His saliva was far stickier than I thought it would be. I might as well have been glued to Reban's fleshy tongue. His tongue wrapped around me and then he started to suckle on me like a piece of candy. The dragon's tongue was much rougher than it looked. Together, his sticky saliva and rough tongue made it feel like my skin was going to be torn off at any moment.

"Mmm, you are an especially tasty one. You taste considerably better than any human I have yet had the pleasure to eat," Reban's voice echoed all around me. He seemed content to just enjoy my flavor. I hoped that he would keep me around so he could enjoy my taste later. Unfortunately, the tongue unwrapped and one mighty gulp was all it took to send me plummeting down his throat. The muscles of his gullet battered my frail body as I was forced down to the dragon's belly. It was not nearly as spacious as I expected it to be. He really was not kidding about being nearly full. I was about all that he could fit in.

The inside of the dragon's belly was a squirming mass of humanity. Then something happened that I did not expect. Welcome to my belly human. I have already given the others the message and now it is your turn. The more you squirm the faster I will decide to digest you. I love it when my meals squirm. You should take extra care and rub up against the walls of my stomach. The walls of my stomach can taste things even better than my tongue can and I really enjoy your taste. If you squirm really well I will digest you quickly. If you don't then you will be here for awhile.

I do not think that the dragon was speaking. That voice, Reban's voice, was coming from inside of my head. It was like he was telepathic or something. I stopped thinking about that after a short time. The dragon's belly was filling up with digestive acids. I wanted to prolong my life for as long as possible so I did not do what he asked of me. That turned out to be a mistake. For some reason, even though everybody was in the same digestive acids, people were being digested at different speeds. The ones that did what the dragon said were gone within minutes. For people like me, we were being digested at excruciatingly slow rates of speed. What was worse was that we were not drowning in the acids. We seemed to be able to breathe the stuff in. Some people tried to kill themselves only to find that they could not die. This dragon was in control of whether or not we died.

I started to do what he wanted me to do just to end my suffering. When other people did as I did the dragon would digest some of them pretty quickly while others, like me, were left to digest slowly. When I tried to protest Reban just laughed in my head. What makes you think I would be obligated to keep any promises to my food? Since you're so delicious I've decided to keep you around for a while. I was angry and tried to stop complying with his demands. It did not seem like there was anything he could do to punish me now that I was already slowly digesting in his belly. That was when I found out Reban could increase the pain of the digestive process without increasing the speed of the process.

I was eventually forced to swim back to the walls of Reban's belly and I squirmed just for him. He kept me around for a good long time. Occasionally, other people would drop into the stomach to replace the ones that had already been digested. I lost track of time when my watch dissolved without me. It seemed like days had gone by, maybe weeks for all I know. The dragon never ate anyone he liked better than me. That was why I found myself alone within Reban. When I felt my body start to melt away I thought Reban had finally decided to show me some mercy.

I was wrong. Even as my flesh melted away I did not die. Even when I was sure that I no longer had a brain I was still conscious and still in pain. As long as you are in my body I can keep you alive little one. I would think you would be happy for the opportunity to see what it is like to travel through a dragon's entire digestive system. He was more than able to keep me alive. All of my senses were still there. I was pulled into the dragon's intestines and the rancid smell of decay in the place filled my nonexistent nose. I knew all that was left off me was a skeleton and a little bit of meat. As I made my way through the dragon's labyrinthine intestines that little bit of meat was absorbed into the dragon.

I was amazed at how clean Reban's intestines were despite the smell. Of course it is clean human. I'm not a filthy little animal like you. We dragons are superior to you humans both mentally and physically. I did not voice that thought and I found it disturbing that he was in my head. The pain was worse though. I had no idea a skeleton was even capable of feeling pain. When I ran into a little ball of skeletons I thought my end might finally be near. Reban said he was only capable of keeping me alive while I was in him. I was one bathroom break away from the sweet release of death. It was just too bad Reban only had to release his waste once every few weeks.

When the ball of bones I was in finally started moving towards an exit I was overjoyed. Then something happened. My skeleton started moving in the opposite direction as the bone ball. Then Reban's voice entered my mind once more. I couldn't just let a delicacy like you go yet. You are going to be with me for a very long time. Maybe you will come to enjoy this one day my tasty treat. I know I enjoy you. I made my way back up through the dragon's intestines and back into his stomach at a relatively quick rate of speed. Once back in the stomach I found that my body was being reformed. Reban gave me everything back, my organs, my muscles, my skin, everything. Then the digestive process began again.

I would never know how long Reban decided to keep me within his massive body. The process of digestion seemed to repeat endlessly for me. It took me a while, but I did eventually come to enjoy being digested in a twisted sort of way. I even carried on quite a few conversations with Reban. I came to view him as my best friend. His body was where I belonged and I started to dread the day he would banish me from it.

******

"I'll have to find out why that one human tasted so good one day. Maybe I can get the other humans to taste that good somehow," I said to Tzakiel.

"There are over six billion of them to experiment with, my friend, and there are more born every day. Chances are that there are millions that taste just like that one anyways. I even managed to find one that was worth keeping as a pet," said Tzakiel.

"I do wish that we could travel to there world though. If it were not for the treaty we have with the golds then we could have our way with these little vermin," I said.

Tzakiel snorted and said, "You've got that right. I've checked on these humans. They actually think nuclear weapons are powerful. Can you believe that?"

"You're kidding," I was honestly surprised by that one. "My six year old nephew was just playing with a few those at his friend's party a few days ago. A dragon could do whatever he wanted in a realm like that."

Tzakiel smiled malevolently. "I know. That's why I have not contented myself with simply finding a way to bring them here. Now that I am so close to perfecting a way to bring them here undetected by the golds, I think that I will be able to figure out how to send a dragon to the humans' realm undetected. If you would be willing to volunteer I might be able to send you on a nice overnight trip in a few weeks."

"Tzy, did I ever tell you that you're my best friend?"