I had just eaten my big brother Tom. I felt a little guilty about that. I loved my brother, and he’d always tried to look out for me. But there wasn’t anyone else around, and I needed to eat somebody.

Gretchen had shown me how. She did something to me that changed my body, gave me the ability to swallow things as big as or even bigger than I was. I didn’t understand how it worked. Magic, maybe.

All I know is, I took his head into my mouth, then the rest of his body, and pushed him in, and swallowed, and before I knew it he was squirming around inside my bloated belly.

Gretchen held me tight, and we giggled together as we felt my brother’s struggling grow gradually weaker inside of me. Then Gretchen rubbed my belly to help with the digestion process.

As the bulge shrank, I felt Tom’s mind and memories flowing into my own, and felt less guilty. He was mine forever now. And the extra body mass would let me add several years to my own body.

I would grow up fast—and then I could finally leave this town.