When Omar woke up, the first thing he noticed was that it was pitch dark and extremely musty wherever he was, and it smelled of acid and rotting flesh. His whole body ached, and he felt absolutely dreadful, with a massive headache. He felt like he was floating in some sort of disgusting, murky moat.

Where the hell am I? he thought. He stood up, noting that he had really only been laying on something wet and sticky next to a couple of small puddles. Omar tried to look around, but he saw nothing at all. Ah, shit, I'm not in Hell, am I?

Omar was seriously concerned that he was in Hell. Then again, there wasn't any fire anywhere, it was just pitch black nothingness. Of course, with Omar being a fire elemental, Hell wouldn't necessarily be hellish for him if there was fire everywhere. Fire everywhere actually sounded kind of nice right now.

Then again, it did kind of smell like brimstone and sulfur. Still, absolutely no fire. Well, Omar would fix that.

With a light focus, his [Flaming Arm] set alight, illuminating everything. And that everything was exceedingly grim.

"Ah, fuck. All alone, except for a dead guy," said Omar with a grimace at a tauman skeleton lying only a coupled paces away. He seemed to be in some strange, wet and sticky cavern.

"Actually, that's where you're wrong, chap," said the skeleton with a boney chatter. The skeleton clambered to its feet and cracked countless numbers of bony joints. "Well rattle me sideways! This is about the last thing I every expected to see in my whole afterlife!"

"Oh gods," Omar sighed. "Afterlife? I must really be in Hell, huh? Well, know this, vile skeleton - I will burn you to, uh, to fucking double death if you take one boney step closer. So fucking watch yourself, punk."

"Well, now!" the skeleton chattered. "Trust me, you've got me wrong! I'm not that kind of bloke."

"Bloke?" Omar groaned. This skeleton was unbearable to speak with, with was like his own bones were being torn out through his ears.

"Yea, my good chap. No, no, you've got me all wrong." The skeleton bowed lightly, then reached out a hand as if to shake Omar's flaming arm.

Omar laughed and set the skeleton's hand on fire. "Dumbass."

"Oh my, that's quite uncomfortable," replied the skeleton. He tried to shake the fire off his hand, but it ended up getting his clavicle bone caught on fire as well. "How unfortunate. Well, no use, I'll just let it run its course."

"Run its course?"

"Oh, my, yes. Eventually it'll just stop, the fires always do."

"So we are in Hell!" Omar looked almost triumphant at this.

"No, no, not at all," said the skeleton with a sigh. "I'm afraid we're in the stomach of a mega dragon, my good chap."

"The stomach of a mega dragon?" Omar was, in a word, perplexed.

"Yes, yes, and an undead one at that. Which of course goes back to my earlier statement, you know, when I said to you that you were the last thing that I expected to see in my afterlife!"

"I'm not a thing, I'm a person, you... You fucking skeleton." Omar's glowing orange eyes, so often wide as saucers, were angry little slits at this moment.

"Yes, well, of course. But, rather, consider listening to what I have to say, my good chap."

Omar said nothing, but his flaming arm puffed out with extra light and energy, an instrument of his will that was all too eager to signify his growing frustration with this chatty entity.

"You see, my good lad, I hadn't expected to see a living tauman being because, well, I was in the spirit world. See, you're not in the stomach of just any mega dragon, you're in the stomach of a skeletal mega dragon."

Of course, this made a little bit of sense to Omar. He didn't seem like he was in a stereotypical hellspace, and an afterliving, talking undead skeleton generally would make more sense to have originated from the spirit world. Along with that, of course, there was the matter that living mega dragons were scarce to the point of nearly being nonexistent except for terribly exploitative dragon zoos that were generally advised by tauman-animal relations specialists to be avoided at all costs. The idea of a dragonn eating him hadn't ever really occurred to him, but this statement also jogged Omar's foggy memory a little bit. He'd been floating in the air by way of his fire power when a skeletal, flying beast had snatched him... Yes, this had to be the terrible truth. He'd been eaten by a skeletal mega dragon, all right.

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"I've been in this mega dragon's stomach, actually, since before I was undead," added the unbearably cheerful skeleton. "See, I'm actually very, very old, although you couldn't really tell by looking at me, now could you?"

Omar looked at the skeleton with disdain. "Yea, you look like a beaming picture of youthfulness."

"Regardless, if I peeled off your living wood, your skin, your muscle fibers and drained away all your blood and organs, you'd look a lot like me too, my good lad. It's kind of like your hair going gray or something. Become a skeleton once, and of course you look older than you did before you were a skeleton, but once you're a skeleton, you'll never look older again. Unless you become a blue skeleton, of course, but that's another thing entirely," replied the skeleton with a hearty chuckle. "Regardless, let's not get hung up on all that business, it's really not consequential anyways. I've been inside this dragon's stomach for, oh, about five centuries or so. I was one of the last, if not the very last, of semi-modern taumanity to [pair] with a dragon. Can you imagine my face, when I paired with a mega dragon? Oh, thought I hit the jackpot with that one."

Omar looked at the skeleton's bare skull. "No, I cannot imagine your face at all."

"My question was rhetorical, my good chum."

"And my response was sardonic, fuckhead," said Omar, waving his flaming arm around. "But, seriously, do you expect me to believe that you got eaten by the mega dragon that you [paired] with? And along with that, that you [paired] to a mega dragon at all? I mean, forgive me, but that sounds like honey bunches of bullshit if you ask me, you... Skeleton."

"What? Oh, of course not, my good chap! Not at all, my lad, not at all. My dear Bodymuncher would never eat me. See, what happened was that another mega dragon ate me."

"Another mega dragon? Forgive me for totally not fucking believing you, but why would I believe you? I've never really encountered a mega dragon before now, in my whole wide life, and you're saying that while you were alive not only were you [paired] with one, but you were eaten by another mega dragon? Do you realize how absolutely batshit that whole thing sounds to me right now?" Omar was scowling, and he could feel it grinding and chipping on the living wood that covered his face. Still, he couldn't help but scowl - he hated and detested undead skeletons with a passion.

"You weren't alive five centuries ago, though, were you?"

"Of fucking course I wasn't!" Omar spat, getting bits of spittle on the skeleton's skull.

"Of course. Well, I can tell you must be a real salt of the Nomachiato type of a fellow, probably a hardened day laborer, or possibly a blacksmith, what with your powerful flaming arm-"

"Wrong again, shithead. I'm the fucking curator for the Gifflenberg Historical Society, and I use my flaming arm to burn duplciate records, like any good fire elemental. I am the fucking expert on all things historical!"

"Oh. Well then, you would of course know that mega dragons were much more common than they must be presently in your current time, and-"

"I know fuck all about that! And why should I? It's hardly relevant to Gifflenbergian history!"

"I'm... Not entirely certain I agree, but that's my opinion, and I don't want to further upset or preturb you, my good chap. Now, that being said, would you like for me to explain exactly why I got eaten by another mega dragon?"

"Sure..." Omar said with a sigh. "Go ahead, tell me everything about your ridiculous, obviously bullshit origin story, mister skeleton."

"So my [paired] mega dragon, Bodymuncher, she was a real beauty. She always had all the other mega dragons chasing after her, but there was only ever one mega dragon that she seemed interested in - and that was Organharvester, who happened to be [paired] to my brother until an unfortunate rock fell and killed him to death."

"As opposed to killing him to life?"

"What?" The skeleton looked confused.

"Nothing..." Omar growled. He really couldn't stand this fucking skeleton.

"So when Organharvester's [paired] tauman died, my brother died, Organharvester got very distant from Bodymuncher, which was a very sad affair. I remember getting her an enormous, mega dragon sized bouqet of flowers to assist in her mourning. See, she was convinced Organharvester would never be with her again. Organharvester, of course, she was very emotionally fragile, unlike Bodymuncher who could just shrug things off all the time, and-"

"Wait, are you telling me that both of the dragons were women?" Omar looked incredulous.

"Um, pardon?"

"Are you fucking telling me a story about dragon lesbians, mister skeleton?"

"Um... Yes, I guess I am. Hadn't really given it that much thought, but yes, the dragons were lesbians," said the skeleton. "Why, do you have a problem with that or something?"

"Why would I have a problem with that?"

"Well, you were swearing at me, and-"

"I'm always fucking swearing, you stupid fucking skeleton! It's what I do!" Omar wanted to chop this skeleton to bits, but he knew that wasn't really worth it, so instead he just set it on fire with his flaming arm.

"Oh my, this is dreadfully uncomfortable. Please, I beg of you, don't set my bones on fire again," replied the skeleton as he lit up like a matchhead.

"No promises, douchebag," replied Omar with a sneer.

Suddenly, the fleshy ground underneath them started to shake and quake, and a wretched smell emanated through the stomach. Omar was brought down to his knees.

"What's going on?"

"The mega dragon's getting ready to breathe fire," said the skeleton with a sigh. "Do you know a lot about mega dragon biology, my good chap?"

"I know fuck all about dragons, mega or otherwise. Full stop."

"Well, let me just put it this way," said the skeleton. He sighed again. "You're probably not going to be alive much longer, lad."