Carl woke up one morning to find that his father was blue. His face was blue, his lips were blue, even his eyes had a tinge of blueness to them where the whites used to be. Father generally took on a more white-ish, pink-ish hue, Carl recalled, so this was abnormal. What was even more abnormal was that he was dead. 

And he was growing.

Father expanded like a balloon, filling with gas until all of the details in his limbs and torso were gone. He became a swollen, blue balloon animal. Carl would have preferred a balloon dog, he thought, or even a snake. But Father didn’t stop there. He expanded and expanded, far beyond the size of a normal person, until he nearly filled the entire bedroom, only leaving Carl a tiny spot of floor to cower on — then he took that away, too. Father sprung up like a Jack-in-the-box and his inflated belly towered over Carl and crept towards him. His back was pressed against the wall; there was nowhere to run. Father’s belly button bloomed open like a fleshy flower and grabbed Carl’s hand, sucked in his arm up to his shoulder, and swallowed him whole. 

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Carl had never been inside of his father before, at least not that he could remember, and he was not impressed. He didn’t like it very much at all. The lighting was horrendous, for one. The only light was a dim orange glow high above him — the morning sun shining through Father’s outstretched belly, he presumed — and he almost wished that there was no light at all. He couldn’t see more than a few inches in front of his face, but everything he did see was wet, goopy, slimey, sloppy, and it all smelled like sour goat’s milk. 

He plugged his nose and stumbled around a bit, annoyed, hoping to find an orifice to climb out of and return back to the adequately-lit, neutral-smelling real world. A glob of something warm and jiggly fell from the ceiling and onto his shoulder while he walked. Trying to brush it off just got it all over his hands, and trying to get it off of his hands just matted it into his Sesame Street pajama pants. The  matching Cookie Monster slippers on his feet became more and more saturated in god-knows-what with each step, so he kicked them off and went barefoot. The feeling of his father’s intestinal lining rising up between his toes gave him the heebie-skeebies, but Carl was a brave boy and marched on. 

With no real destination in mind, he walked forward, taking things one step at a time. He couldn’t tell where he was going, exactly, but he had the vague sensation that he was moving upwards. That was a good sign, he thought. Maybe he could reach the stomach-ceiling and pound on it until help arrived. It was wishful thinking to say the least, but it was all that kept him going. 

However, his optimism waned with each squelching step. By now, he was sure that he was moving upwards, but the faint light above did not seem to get any closer. In fact, it looked like it was getting farther away. Was he moving away from it, or was it moving away from him? He studied the light as he walked, watching it grow dimmer and dimmer, which is why he didn’t notice the steep drop ahead of him, and walked straight off a cliff.

Carl fell and landed face-first on a mound of… something. The something was soft and pliable, just like everything else, so it didn’t hurt too bad, but Carl didn’t feel like getting back up. He rolled over onto his back and saw that the light was even farther away, so dim that he couldn’t see anything around him. He laid there, defeated, wishing that someone would save him from this mess.

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A voice echoed through the black room.

“Huh?! What was that?!” it said.

Relief washed over Carl for a moment, but fear quickly took its place as the voice moved closer.

“Who’s there? Show yourself!” the voice boomed. 

Someone else is here? Inside of Father?

Whoever he was, he didn’t sound happy.

The room was suddenly illuminated by a ball of white light, and the owner of the voice loomed over him, gawking at him with a pair of beady, black eyes that blinked independently of one another. He was an old man, short, no taller than Carl, with a long white beard and stringy hair stuck to the sides of his face. He wore a tattered nightgown that appeared to be drenched in water. 

Carl scrambled to his feet and tried to run, but the only exit was past the old man. He clawed at the wall behind him, hoping to go back to where he came from, grabbing handfuls of Father and hoisting himself up, but he’d only rise a few inches before sliding back down.

“Oh? A human? Here?” the old man said. “Well I’ll be darned. It’s okay, boy. I will not do you any harm.” He held a walking stick in his hand that was taller than he was, and the ball of light sat on top of it. He flicked the stick and the light rose to the ceiling, casting light all around the room. 

Carl stopped his futile attempts at scurrying up the wall, but he did not approach the old man. 

“Really, it’s alright. Apologies for the hostile greeting. My name is Orndorf, aspiring member of the Order of Sages. Pleasure to meet you. I seem to be lost, and feared you were a stray goblin, or perhaps a nymph. Nasty little things. I once had a goblin try to steal a lock of my hair in the middle of the night — as if I have enough to just give out to whoever wants it! I don’t leave my window open at night anymore, I’ll tell you that much. Even when it’s hot outside.” He seemed to be talking to himself.

“You’re lost?” Carl said. The trembling in his hands stopped, though he still didn’t dare move his feet. “I’m lost too, I guess you could say.” He explained the morning’s events to Orndorf.

“Really? Oh my, this is worse than I thought,” Orndorf said. “I might’ve guessed, but I never would’ve imagined. Where are we, exactly? Aside from inside of your father, of course.”

“Greenville?” Carl said.

“Greenville? Never heard of it.” Orndorf replied.

“North Carolina? The United States of America? Earth?” Carl elaborated, hoping one of those names would ring a bell.

“Hmmmm, The United States of America,” Orndorf thought deeply. “Is that near The United Burroughs of Aranthia?” 

“No.”

“Oh dear. This is much worse than I thought, indeed.” Orndorf stroked his sopping wet beard, sending drips onto the floor. “But I think I know what might’ve happened. I was practicing for my exam, you see, for my entrance into the Order of Sages. I was in the process of drawing a Glyph of Windswept Feet when I got a nasty cramp in my back, and my staff slipped. Something must have gone awry.”

“Gone awry?!” Carl said, his voice rising. “That’s what you call this? My father is dead and I’m stuck inside of him!” 

“Yes, yes, I see what you’re saying. The Order will not be giving me good marks for this, surely.”

Carl balled up his hands into a fist, ready to punch the old man in his big, rat-like face. 

“But I can fix this. I will fix this. I have to fix this, I know.” Orndorf looked up at the dim light of Father’s belly, still growing dimmer. 

“Oh, that’s bad. That’s very bad. Has it been doing that this whole time?”

“It? You mean my father? I think so, yeah.”

“Oh my. Oh my.”

“What?” Carl said, annoyed.

“If he keeps expanding at this rate, he’ll be the size of a small planet within a month!”