Short story

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Amy squirmed on the floor like a caterpillar. She had no limbs, and she could only say "Hwwph" around the ball gag in her mouth. She was saying "Hwwph" with fear in her voice as she wriggled her way toward a small box with a button on it, which was plugged into the wall at the far end of the locked, windowless room.

The button would activate a homing decide so she'd be rescued from her underground prison. There was a complication, though: the button would lose power soon. There was a circuit-breaker switch halfway up the wall, and a hanging dumbbell tethered to it with slack rope. The dumbbell hung from the ceiling so it would not fall and pull the switch, but the ceiling rope was coiled up in a block of ice which was slowly melting, and when the ice melted enough the coils would be freed. The ceiling rope would get longer, lowering the weight enough to pull the circuit-breaker, cutting off power to the homing device so Amy would die a very thirsty caterpillar.

The hardwood floor was strewn with thumbtacks, sitting points-up like caltrops. Some had stuck in Amy's belly, breasts and vagina as she'd made her way across the room, squirming on her belly and saying "Hwwph" each time she lurched forward. Her voice was very cute. She was not trying to be cute though.

She hit another tack and squeaked. Her embedded thumbtacks scraped on the wood floor as she moved. With more time, she could nudge the tacks out of her way using her chin as she went, but the ice looked thin around the rope now and it could fail at any moment. The little caterpillar grunted and began to wriggle faster, leaving small smears of blood and drool behind her.

There was a crack. Some ice fell, and the dumbbell jerked lower. Amy began to cry. She had ten feet to go, and at this pace it would take 30 seconds. To see the blue sky, strewn across with summer clouds! To hear the cicadas! To hear another human being, any voice but her own after two years in isolation. This cute little caterpillar would never complain, god to feel the sun again, to taste food, to feel a human being's arms around her.

Anything but oblivion. The total cessation of being, never to think or feel again… an eternity of nothing! Amy neared the button. She felt dripping on her back from the ice above. One foot to go. Then it all happened at once:

She heard the switch. Ice fell on her back. The twang of the rope as the dumbbell twisted and gibbered in space above her head. The room went dark. At the same time, she brought her chin down on the button. There was no sound from the box, no light turning on to indicate that anything had happened. Silence.

Amy lay breathing in the darkness, riddled with thumbtacks, in a pool of melted ice. Pieces of ice slowly slid off her naked back and down to the floor. "Hwwph… hwwph…" She let her head fall off the button. Breath returned in ragged gasps.

In the dark, she ran her tongue over the ball in her mouth. The straps pulled back painfully on the corners of her sore lips. Three days before she died of thirst. The ball gag was a nice touch. This way she could not drink from the meltwater on the floor. It had been a substantial block of ice. Amy laughed, exhaustion overcoming her. Maybe there was a homing device, and maybe it was battery powered, and maybe she had hit the button in time.

She slept without dreams, and woke up still in darkness.

I've been drooling…

Amy flipped onto her back, and felt the tip of a thumbtack under the small of her back. She adjusted her arch to keep off it. Dumb of me. With her face aimed upward she managed to contain the drool in her mouth. Swallowing it was hard with the ball between her lips, and more kept coming, but she managed to keep pace.

She lay there in the dark. Fuck this.


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The sun was setting. Birds formed lines over the fields, sloping down to the river. Amy lay upright in a big chair on the porch, swaddled in blankets, as the warm breeze tousled her short hair. Someone beside her spoke.

"Ready to come inside?" His huge hand on her head, petting her.

Amy nodded.

She was lifted from the chair and cradled against him. With a ball gag in her mouth, "Hwwph" was all she could say. But it was a different ball gag, and a different man, and if she wanted him to he would remove it.