"So how much longer do we have until the mega dragon breathes fire, and incinerates us both in the process?" asked Omar. "Of course I know you'll be fine, and there's a decent chance I'll survive what with being a fire elemental and all, but chances are slim. It would be like somebody saying that a stone elemental could survive a huge rock slamming onto them at an advanced speed. Technically that should be correct, as in, technically a stone elemental should be able to survive such an event, but in execution generally what would happen is that the stone elemental would get flattened into a bit of a bloody pancake. If that makes sense."

"I have no idea how long we have," said the skeleton. "Generally, she will just 'get things ready' when a fight is coming up, so to speak. Almost like, well, almost like preheating an oven or something, is the way I think of it."

Omar nodded with apprehension. "I fucking hate those odds almost as much as I fucking hate undead skeletons."

"Fair," said the skeleton, a pang of hurt in his voice. "Of course, I'll be fine. And I could, if you want, I could always help you turn into an undead skeleton yourself if you'd like. Then, there wouldn't really be a risk of you losing consciousness or really dying as much as just losing your life. You'd get to keep your system and your fire powers, though you'd pretty much lose the ability to level up, so if that's something you care about... But still. I think you ought to really, seriously consider your anti skeletal prejudice. Sure, undead skeletons are different from the living. We aren't even alive. I won't argue with that, I'm strange and different. However, my good chap, I do want to remind you that everyone who is presently an undead skeleton, and that includes me, was once a living, breathing tauman much like yourself. You might find we have more in common with one another than you're admitting to yourself, lad."

"I would never, in a million motherfucking years, call someone lad. So, no, we aren't anything alike, and I resent you for even considering that that could be the case, do you fucking understand me?"

Before the skeleton could say much more, the stomach shook forcefully yet again.

"Not much time now, chap," said the skeleton. "She's going to start breathing fire sooner rather than later, and we're going to get caught in it."

Omar hated this skeleton and his defeatist mindset. Where did this skeleton get off trying to define with one hundred percent accuracy his future? Did this skeleton think it was a god? It was a fucking undead skeleton, the furthest thing from any sort of legitimate deity that Omar could imagine. Omar refused to submit to this skeleton's loser mindset, and he told the skeleton that over and over again, with far more expletives.

"Very well, what action would you have use take, then?" asked the skeleton skeptically.

"So this skeletal mega dragon has a stomach," started Omar. "And that means its mouth must hook up to that stomach through an esophagus or something."

"Sounds like someone's been studying their biology."

"Shut the fuck up. So, where does the waste go, mister skeletal?"

"Don't call me that!" the skeleton recoiled at Omar's recount of what was, for all intents and purposes, a semi-slur. "Also, what do you mean?"

"You said you used to be living, right?"

"Of course, lad!"

"Well, what happened when you ate something. Did you ever take a shit, with that stick up your ass?"

The skeleton's jaw was wide. "You aren't saying that-"

"Stop fucking answering my rhetorical questions, smartass. You gave me lip for the same thing earlier, which is funny, considering you don't have any."

The skeleton shut his boney jaw tight with a clatter.

"Now, as far as I can tell from your meandering ass, unfinished, lesbian dragon origin story, you've essentially just been laying around in this dragon's stomach for what, five centuries? Wasting your afterlife like, oh, I don't know, like some sort of a fucking weirdo?"

"Being inside a dragon is very intimidating," replied the skeleton. "And leaving a dragon's stomach to find out what the afterlife is like is, well, it's terrifying. It was easier to stay here."

"Well, fuck you, and fuck the easy way with a fucking burning cactus," spat Omar. "This is fucking stupid is what it is. How does a fucking skeletal mega dragon have a stomach, and you don't, by the way?"

The skeleton cleared his bony throat. "Actually, I do still have a digestive system, you just can't see it due to a principle of the afterlife oft referred to as-"

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Omar waved his flaming arm around menacingly. "I don't want to waste another fucking second of my life torturing myself by listening to you talk when I could be getting the fuck out of here. Let me ask you something, have you been conscious this whole time, or did I like wake you up or something when I got eaten by this fucking dragon?"

"Oh, I've been entirely conscious since I originally died, which was of course at the same time as the dragon. We undead skeletons can't really sleep, or anything similar, though if we enter meditative states we can sometimes hallucinate, which is very fascinating to me because it changes interpretation on the whole tauman theory of mind that-"

"Shut the fuck up, I don't care about any of that bullshit you fucking skeleton. Now, do you remember with your weird little skeleton mind where exactly I came in from?"

The skeleton pointed upwards. Omar could see what appeared to be a small, wet opening in the stomach lining. It looked disgusting and oily. The skeleton further elaborated that Omar should definitely not try to go up and out through that opening, because it was where all the fire that the dragon was preparing to breath would shoot out from.

"Great, thanks for stating the fucking obvious. Regardless, now I know where not to go. Here's another question. Have you ever seen the dragon expel any waste out of this stomach area?"

"That would be the large drainage pit over there," the skeleton said, pointing a bone finger over to a large, closed circle in the stomach lining. This one was nearer to the ground. "However, it's lined with lots of terrible, spiky teeth, and it-"

"Later, dickhead!" Omar dashed towards the circle, noticing as he got closer that it was more like a circular collection of six wet flaps. They didn't seem too strong - perfect. Omar raised his flaming arm to the flaps. "Time to turn up the heat."

With a light singe, the flaps opened up quickly. That was easy enough, but indeed the skeleton hadn't been exaggerating - there was what looked to be thousands of rows of spiky blades running down the side of what looked to be a long, cylindrical tunnel.

"Well, fuck," said Omar with a sigh. "Let's hope this dragon isn't used to spicy food." Omar took a deep breath and allowed all of his power and energy to flow into his flaming arm - which wasn't too terribly difficult, in fact it was a natural reaction. But the next move was going to take some doing. Omar concentrated all his knowledge on something that he'd only dreamed of in theory as a fire elemental - converting types of heat. See, something fire elementals often debated was what all could count as fire, and with that, what defined heat. See, there were different kinds of heat. And there was a specific kind of heat that, in Omar's mind, might expedite the process of being expelled by this dragon, hopefully at such a speed that he wouldn't get pulverized or otherwise digested. Omar himself had always reveled in consuming spicy food. But, see, converting heat types was more of a theoretical idea than it was something that fire elementals had ever really done, at least in the recorded history that Omar was familiar with - and he was, despite his lack of dragon knowledge, fairly well aware of tauman elementalism in history. So this was uncharted territory - Omar was going to try to make himself spicy. And not just kind of spicy - Omar was going to try to make himself so spicy that the dragon's remaining biology had no option but to expel him as fast as possible. He could already feel his elemental powers shifting gears as he focused - he even thought for a moment he smelled a little bit like a habanero, and his eyes started to water. This was all a very good sign. His flaming arm started to glow green, and then it started to glow a deep, bright red, and unnatural flaming color as opposed to its normal fiery orange. It really did seem to be working, and Omar was feeling extremely proud of himself.

"Ah, so what's the plan, chap?"

Omar jumped and grimaced as he noticed the skeleton standing next to him. "What the fuck are you doing?" Every word that Omar said was belabored. Sweat was running down his face.

"Might I say, my lad, the living wood on your face is red as a beet!"

"Shut the fuck up about my appearance, I'm doing something so amazing right now that people have only theorized about it being possible," Omar said with disdain. "Now, answer me. What in the fuck are you doing?"

"I decided I'm going to join you," replied the skeleton. "You're right. It's no use wasting my whole eternal afterlife laying static inside the belly of a mega dragon. That's no way to afterlive. I ought to be out there, afterliving my best afterlife - I'm not getting any younger, and I'm not getting any more undead, either."

Omar gestured as if he could empathize and understand what the skeleton was saying, although he couldn't fully - all the endless afterlife business seemed to complicate things a bit. "Whatever. If you're ready to get the fuck out of here, though, sure, I guess I'll... Ugh... I guess I'll help." Omar sighed and set the skeleton on fire with his spicy, unnaturally red flames.

"Oh, wow! This feels so... Different than the last fire!" said the skeleton. "What have you done?"

"Once again, this was something other fire elementals have only ever theorized about. But I did it because I'm fucking amazing. I made a spicy fire." Omar was beaming with pride, but not for long. The stomach was shaking again, and it was also starting to heat up. "Fuck, this dragon's about the breath fire, isn't it? Do you want to test out my escape method?"

"Yes, she is," said the skeleton. "By the way, I'm starting to have second thoughts about-"

Omar didn't even say anything, he just grabbed the skeleton by the neck with his right hand and yanked it into the wall of spiky teeth. The skeleton screamed in fear as he tumbled through the tunnel of teeth, but Omar only smiled - and for a number of reasons. First, he loved to see an obnoxious skeleton in fear. But second, and most importantly, he noted that as the skeleton tumbled down the tunnel, the teeth were retracting in what seemed to be horror as the skeleton's spicy flame brushed up against them. What was even better, was that the tunnel seemed to be pulsating and squeezing, and welling up with acid or saliva. It was reacting to the spiciness.

"Fuck yes," said Omar. "Time for this fucking dragon to have fire coming out both ends." With a waggle of his eyebrows, Omar jumped up, tucked his legs in order to shape himself into a semi-cannonball, and tumbled down the tunnel in a blaze of spicy flame.