"What he said about you... that you ate humans... is it true?"

Crisis was stunned by the question. How could she face her friend now? How could she explain?

Beth cut in again before she could respond. "He's crazy, I wouldn't believe him normally but, something weird is going on here. I'm more inclined to believe crazy things now. This place... I've seen your art. I think you've been here before! Someone clearly hurt him. I just need to know before I die... was it you? Is all this your doing?"

Crisis thought for a while before answering. Shame overwhelmed her. She could lie, say that the giant was just insane, and of course Beth would believe her over the word of the psychopath who had just eaten her. But she owed her friend more than that.

"Yes." She searched for something else to say, but her mind came up empty.

There was a long silence as everyone there considered the implications of that one word.

“So all this time… you were a monster? You ate people? Our friendship, everything I thought I knew about you… it was all a lie?”

Crisis could hardly bear to hear the hurt in her friend’s voice. “It wasn’t like that, I swear! Our friendship was… is real! He took my memories, I didn’t know-”

“It doesn’t MATTER if you didn’t know!” Crisis startled a bit. She had never heard Beth this angry before. “You personally murdered thousands of innocents. Anyone who has it in them to do that is a psychopath, whether they know it or not! But you were so good at pretending to care about those around you, I even believed it! How could I have been so stupid-”

Beth stopped short, however, as a bright light suddenly appeared in the stomach. Crisis had suddenly started to glow. They could now see the whole revolting scene: wrinkled dark-red stomach lining surrounded them, the walls pulsating, the sludge of acid and half-digested food slowly rising.

“What-” Beth sputtered, “What are you doing?”

“I don’t know! I really don’t know!”

RRRIP! Crisis’ clothes began to tear, and soon they were falling off of her in tatters. She was starting to grow, and quickly getting too big for her clothes. At first she squeaked in embarrassment and tried to cover herself, but quickly realized modesty was the last of her concerns right now. The space was rapidly getting more cramped. If she kept growing, she would end up crushing Beth against the wall!

Crisis thought fast. She could barely see her friend in the blinding light at this point. She lunged at Beth, grabbed her with arms twice as big as normal. There was no time for shame: she had to protect her friend.

They squeezed their eyes shut as the light became too much. “Get off me!” Beth fought Crisis as a drowning victim might fight a lifeguard: she was too panicked and confused to think rationally. Luckily, Crisis was now far stronger than her, and her death grip held until there was no space left in the stomach. The walls were stretched to their limit to accommodate Crisis, who was shoving her arms outwards as hard as she could to try to avoid crushing the woman between them. It was getting harder and more cramped every second, though. There was not enough air left in the stomach. Crisis felt herself blacking out from the exertion.

The last thing she heard before she blacked out was a sickening “CRUNCH!”

======================================

Crisis woke up in a daze a few minutes later. The first thing she noticed was her long, beautiful blue tail. She was finally a naga again. The second thing she noticed was the fairy adventurer, Subeta, hovering above her, in about her size, holding the wizard’s staff. "Aha, you're awake!" she said, smiling. "It's good to have you back. Everyone has been looking for you." She groggily sat up, but then recoiled with a shout as she saw the gruesome scene around her.

Blood, shattered bone, viscera, and various other nasty things blanketed the forest floor around her. Flies and beetles crawled around amid the scene, feasting on the broken, rotting corpse. She gagged and fell back to the ground, then quickly got up again when she realized she was lying on it, frantically brushing herself off. She was covered in blood. "What the HELL happened?"

"Bastard sorcerer made you disappear. Apparently it turned you into a human too. We don't know where it sent you, but it was stupid to think I wouldn't be able to detect the surge of magic when it brought you back. I've been tracking this bastard down ever since it took you."

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In a flash, Crisis remembered the psychotic wizard, how he had eaten her. She was starting to recover from her daze and remember the violent events of the past few minutes. It was hard to understand, as new memories from decades before were still flooding into her mind at an alarming rate. "That's who that was? What happened to him?"

"The human ate you before I could arrive. But, that was a simple fix. I just stole his staff, and used it to dispel his magic, turning you back into a naga." The fairy cracked a smile and gestured at the surroundings. "You can see the results. A fitting end, if you ask me, for an arrogant human sorcerer that thought it could mess with the natural order."

Gratitude and relief (along with a bit of horror) flowed through Crisis as she understood what had happened. "Thank you... for saving my life...." She said in a small voice.

"Just doing what I do. It was fun to track these guys down. Plus, this staff is pretty powerful. I’m glad to add it to my collection." She smiled, then looked down to Crisis' hand. "May I have that human, or do you want it?"

Crisis' stomach rumbled at the mention of food. Now that the fear and confusion had died down a bit, she was starting to notice that she was VERY hungry. She had just grown to almost ten thousand times her previous mass, after all, and she hadn't had a human in years. In normal circumstances she might have offered her snack up in gratitude or politeness. As it was though, the thought didn't even occur to her.

“Crisis?” muttered the human, from within her hand. “Is that you?” It was too quiet, though. Crisis didn’t hear.

"I'd like it, thanks." She popped the human into her mouth without thinking or looking, and swallowed. She let out an "mmmmmhhhhhh" as some primal part of her was satisfied at finally feeling the struggles and hearing the screams of the little creatures sliding down her throat again. She'd missed that. She didn’t know how she’d gone so long without it. It really was good to have things mostly back to normal, to be back to where she really belonged, who she really was. She just needed a shower and…

Only now did she remember what she had been doing before she blacked out. She was a human then, after all, and her human memories seemed somehow less real to her now than they had minutes before, even as her naga memories seemed more real. They were still there, though, definitely still part of her. “Where’s Beth? She asked, looking around the gruesome scene for any trace of her.

“Who?” asked Subeta.

“My… human friend.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t know. I don’t really keep track of creatures that small.”

Crisis felt a pang of guilt and a tinge of worry as she saw the flattened clothes of the man who had been transported with them amid the general carnage. He must have been crushed against the wizard’s stomach lining as she grew. She dearly hoped her efforts to protect Beth had succeeded, and she had not met the same fate.

She couldn’t see any trace of Beth’s clothes anywhere, though, which was partially a good sign, as it probably meant she hadn’t been crushed. Where was she, though? Had she wondered off? Crisis’ worry intensified. This wasn’t a place where humans like her could just wander around. She had to find her quickly, before someone or something else did.

“Beth, where did you go?” As she called out, she felt the human she’d eaten earlier hit the inside of her stomach. A horrible thought began to dawn on her.

“Uh, Subeta… the human I ate… do you remember what it looked like?”

“I dunno. It was just a human.” Subeta seemed bored, if a little bit concerned.

“Did you eat any humans?”

“Nah, I just saw the one.”

“Was it female? Did it… did she… have long red hair?”

“Now that you mention it, I think so.”

Oh shit.

Crisis deliberately inhaled as much of the rotting stench as she could, then stuck her fingers into her throat. She coughed and heaved as hard as she could, until she vomited onto the ground. “Whoa, whoa!” exclaimed Subeta. “What’s gotten into you!?”

Crisis held her nose and picked through the disgusting mess. To her horror, Beth wasn’t there. She felt something splashing around in her stomach. She had to try again.

She dry-heaved several more times, her stomach painfully cramping. She collapsed onto the ground, holding herself up with both hands and breathing heavily.

“I think I’m out of here. See you later, I guess, after you’re done with… whatever this is,” said Subeta, with some measure of disgust, before shrinking and flying off.

Crisis kept trying to spit Beth up. Eventually she felt her being shoved back up, far too slowly. She coughed and hacked, and for one terrifying moment she couldn’t breathe around the wiggling obstruction. With one final cough, Beth came free, falling to the stained ground, screaming all the way. Crisis gasped for breath, then looked down towards her friend.

Beth’s eyes were wide in terror. She tried to scrabble backwards over the disgusting, slick ground, but she cried out in pain. One of her legs was bent the wrong way.

Crisis reached out for her friend, to take her to safety. But all Beth could see was a gigantic, fully naked snake-woman, drenched in blood, with the face of her longtime friend, who had just betrayed her, eaten her alive just like that insane wizard had moments ago.

“NOOOO!” she screamed as she saw the giant hand coming for her once again, her voice raw. “GET AWAY! GET AWAY FROM ME!”