Not feeling at my most creative today but here's an update to save the story from sinking into oblivion! lol

Pt3

The hour passed slowly. At first, Penny tried to sleep but the florescent lights above her were too bright even with her eyes closed. She wished that she had asked for some kind of blindfold – perhaps her T-shirt rolled up and draped over her eyes. At least that would have blocked the light. She was very conscious of the weight of the soil on top of her but it was not crushingly heavy. What it reminded her of most was being buried under the sand at the seaside, something her little brother and she would happily take turns at when they were younger. Every time she breathed in, she felt the loose compost settle a little but it was not so heavy that it kept her from breathing out, as she had been afraid it might be. Although she knew she was going to die in that box and had long since made her peace with the idea, the thought of being crushed and suffocated still scared her.

To pass the time, as her tomb began to grow ever warmer, she pondered what the experience of dying was going to be like. What would actually kill her? She was grateful that she was not being cooked over coals or an open fire and she did not like the thought of her skin burning, drying out and cracking. They had discussed the technical aspects of cooking her meat many times but the thought of how it would actually feel to be cooked never seemed to come up. This form of cooking was supposed to cook evenly, inside and out, rather than outside through to the inside so she imagined it would continue to grow warmer until her organs started to shut down. The trapped girl could not help wondering just how much heat she would live to experience and how much, if any, pain she might experience as she slowly cooked to death. She hoped that it would feel like falling asleep in a nice, hot bath.

Despite the weight of the soil above her, Penny found that she was able to move her fingers a little, just enough to give some stimulation. Her restricted movement and the overall circumstances meant a climax was highly unlikely but it still felt nice and was a welcome distraction from what was happening to her, although she could not help but wonder if her increased heart rate would speed up or slow down the cooking process. At least, for now, she was relatively comfortable.

“Hey there!” Penny was snapped out of her musings but April’s voice. She turned her head to the side and saw both girls walking towards her with large soda cups in their hands. Jessica appeared to be finishing some kind of pastry. “How’s it going?”

“Well, I think.” Penny smiled, glad to have company again. The loneliness of laying alone in the box in an otherwise empty exhibition hall was not something that she had anticipated, “It’s kind of hard to tell from here! Hey,” she chuckled as she watched Jessica pop the last morsel into her mouth and lick her fingers, “Make sure you leave room for lunch! I hear the main dish is slow-cooked ginger and you wouldn’t want to miss out on that, would you?”

“Oh don’t worry!” Jessica laughed. “I’ve got plenty of appetite left for you! So,” she pulled a stool from the side of the booth and sat down next to the table, bringing her to the same level as Penny’s exposed head and making it easier to chat, “How does it feel?”

“Just kinda warm at the moment.” Penny replied after a few moments consideration as April sat down on her own stool next to Jessica. “A bit like being after the bath when you wrap yourself in a towel that’s been hanging over the radiator.”

“That actually sounds quite nice!” April observed. “Not that I wanted it to, but I was worried that it was going to be painful for you.”

“Maybe it will be at some point but not yet.” smiled Penny. Then a thought occurred to her. “You know, maybe we should do a little more filming? The camera has a time-stamp on, doesn’t it?”

“Well yeah but there’s nothing to see yet.” April looked a little puzzled. “Just your head sticking out of the box and nothing really has changed about that since you went in, other than your cheeks being a little pinker maybe?”

“But we don’t just want people to want to cook girls this way, do we?” Penny explained patiently, mildly amused by the confusion on her team-mates’ faces, “We want girls to choose this method! To want it and look forward to it! If I can prove to them it’s nothing to be afraid of then it might help with marketing and that sort of thing when we win!”

“If we win.” Remarked April, ever the pragmatist. “But yeah, good idea!”

“When we win!” Penny corrected her forcefully. “It’s okay for you two, you can go invent other things but this is my only shot and I wouldn’t have got into this box to be turned into lunch for a room full of strangers if I didn’t believe in what we were doing! Now,” she added with a grin, “go grab the camera!”

Considering herself the most experienced at handling it, Jessica bounced up from her seat and retrieved the camera. Pointing it at Penny’s face she selected the fade-in option, hit record and gave her friend a thumbs-up from behind the camera to show that it was rolling.

“Hello again!” Penny greeted her potential viewers, “Last time I spoke to you, we were about to begin the process. You saw how the box was assembled and how my body was prepared ready for cooking. Well, as you can see I have now been cooking for a little over one hour and I wanted to tell you a little about the experience.” April leant forward with interest, waiting to hear Penny’s description, while Jessica held the camera steady with a close-up of the red-head’s cute, slightly warm-looking face.

“So far,” Penny explained, “there is no pain. Not even any real discomfort. I was worried that the compost on top of me was going to feel too heavy but it doesn’t. The box seems to be warming up steadily, much more slowly than an oven would. It’s designed to hold its temperature for far longer but I’m sure I won’t be around for too much of it once it reaches its peak. I don’t know exactly how long I’ll survive in here or whether I’ll have an opportunity to talk to you again so I’d like to say that, from the point of view of the meat, I can really recommend this cooking method and would definitely choose it over an oven or spit! Well,” she grinned a little cheekily, “in case I don’t get another chance to speak to you, I’d better say ‘bon appetite!’”

“Great!” Jessica grinned, having turned off the camera and set it back on its stand. She took out her phone and glanced at the time. “I suppose it’s going to be another couple of hours before anyone else starts arriving. Is there anything you need? Anything we can do to keep you comfortable?”

“I could do with a little drink of water?” Penny asked, tentatively, “If that’s allowed?” She and Jessica both looked at April.

“I guess a little couldn’t hurt, just to wet your whistle, as my Gran used to say?”

“Exactly.” Penny smiled gratefully. “Don’t worry, I know nobody likes their meat stewed in pee!” All three girls laughed as April went to the fridge and took out one of the plastic water bottles that had been provided by the organisers for all the teams. Carefully, so as not to spill it, she tipped a little of the delightfully icy liquid into Penny’s open mouth.

“We’re gonna go again for a bit.” April explained after checking that Penny had got enough water. We’ll come check on you again in another hour but one of the organisers is here and wants to go through some paperwork with us, contracts and that sort of thing. We said we had to come check on you first. Hopefully by next time we’ll be able to smell some cooking going on?” she added with a somewhat wolfish grin. Although she was a little sad to be losing her friend, she could not hide the fact that she was looking forward to finding out how she tasted!

“Is there anything else you need?” Jessica asked kindly. Penny remembered the issue she had experienced the first time she was left alone.

“Do you think you could put something over my eyes?” she asked meekly, “So I can try to sleep?” April went to search for a suitable blindfold while Jessica stood next to her friend, smiling down at her and gently stroking her hair.

“I’m not sure I said it properly before,” she smiled a little sadly, “but I really am so grateful for what you’re doing. We both are. When we win,” she grinned, “and I know we will, we will owe it all to you!” Penny wasn’t quite sure what to say so just smiled back.

“Oh come on,” she managed after a moment, “this is totally a team effort!”

“Yeah,” Jessica agreed with a little giggle, “but I think you’ve managed to totally redefine taking one for the team!” Just then, April returned with a clean, soft hand-towel which she folded over and over until it was a little less than four inches wide. She laid it carefully over Penny’s slightly sweaty face, covering her eyes. The moment she did so, Penny was enveloped in darkness. This was much better. The darkness combined with the strange comfort of the increasingly warm box seemed to guarantee sleep.

“Here.” Jessica surprised Penny by leaning down and kissing her. Not an affectionate peck like April had given but a full, romantic and passionate kiss on the mouth. Without even realising what she was doing, Penny began to move her fingers again. “Stick around until we get back,” Jessica whispered cheekily in her ear, “and there’s more where that came from!”