She was indigestible—this, a gift from her godmother, the one with bright eyes and brighter lips dancing around wine cups who blurted out her offering to the babe as she had no tangible offering in hand—this girl may be consumed but she will never pass.

It seemed like no true gift at all, until when she was older, past her bleeding, a bear all scruff and brown came upon her sleeping under an oak tree and gulped her whole. The swallowing was a quiet thing, and she did not awake until she was fully in its belly, tickled by the acids and disgusted by the stench. This is the end of me, she thought, and waited for her body to disintegrate in the juice. Yet, as time passed and the juices bubbled up against her skin, no part of her passed away. She remained snug and she remained warm and she remained.

Others came through: one, a grandmother whose hair fell out in clumps, gasping that she didn’t want to die like this, a whole life dissolved away; another, a young boy who cried for his mommy and whom she could not shush nor comfort, though she laid her hand on his cheek and whispered all kindness before his skin bled to his bone. Then, another girl, like her, who peered at her with dark eyes and smiled, who grasped her hand and said she was happy that she would not be alone at the end of all things she knew. They brought their lips together and kept them pressed tight until there was nothing left of the other girl but those two strips of flesh. She balled her hands and beat at the belly after the girl had passed, but all she heard was a muffled roar.

Eventually the body of the bear stopped moving, and she continued to beat her fists against its belly, but though he grumbled and though he roared he would not give her a short-lived companion. Time was loneliness in the dark.

It was not until she heard voices, muffled and masculine and coming closer, that she was renewed with her desire for a friend, and she punched the belly again to wake the bear so it would eat. When he did not move, she brought her teeth to the slippery lining of the stomach and bit down.

How the bear moved then! Yet no matter how much it jumped and scratched at its own stomach, the girl continued to rip through the blubbery wall, spilling the acidic juice over his organs, and then she took to his grease-fat and his skin, tearing it open from the inside.

She emerged, covered in blood and yellow bile and slime. It was cold outside, and colder still were the expressions of two hunters, staring at her wetness like they were seeing a creature they could barely comprehend. She moved towards them with her hand outstretched, but they shied from her and crossed themselves. When she opened her mouth to speak, she dribbled acid onto the ground, and it smoked up around her. The men howled and clutched their axes and hunting knives to their chests and ran from her, screaming, “Hail Mary!” the whole way.

Only for a moment did she consider running after them, but it was so cold and she had no shoes, and so she returned to her bear, and clamored back into his belly to wait out the winter. Then, she decided, she would find those men who ran from her, and she would bite them, too.