The Mermaid in the Tank

A thick, viscid surge came flooding through the black tube — not water, but something denser, heavier, like jelly or oil. The instant it traveled down her esophagus and struck the barren floor of her stomach, Na-bi's body jerked.

"Mmph—! Ghhk—!"

It was cold. No — it was hot. A grotesque temperature differential, as if a chemical reaction had ignited inside her gut. The liquid began to fill her, unfolding every fold and crease of her stomach lining as it rose.

On the monitor in front of her, the red inner walls of her own body writhed. The endoscopic camera painted her insides like a sewer pipe. An unidentified white fluid poured from above, mixing with her gastric juices, foaming as the waterline climbed higher and higher.

"You see it, don't you? Your body filling up."

The Hospital Director cranked the pump higher. A deep, wet rumble answered from inside her.

Her stomach stretched to its breaking point. The taut wall shoved her neighboring organs aside — liver crushed, diaphragm driven up into her chest — until there was no room left ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to breathe. Each inhalation sent her lungs colliding against the swollen mass, a sharp, electric pain lancing ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠through her with every gasp.

Na-bi's lower belly ballooned grotesquely — not like a pregnant woman, but like a patient drowning in ascites. Beneath the thin skin, the liquid's sloshing waves were visible to the naked eye.

"Ghhhk... my stomach... it's going to burst..."

Drool and gastric fluid ran in strings from the corners of her mouth, which the gag would not let her close. On the endoscopic screen, her stomach had filled so completely with white fluid that the red of the inner wall was gone. It looked like a balloon packed to bursting and tied off at the neck; the gastric sphincter trembled violently, straining against the pressure.

"Perfect. The filler's in. Time for the real work."

The Hospital Director switched off the pump and yanked the tube from her mouth with a wet pop.

"Khack—! Cough! Ghhk—!"

The moment the tube came free, her esophagus convulsed, trying to send everything back up. He was faster. His gloved hand clamped over her mouth and nose.

"Swallow. Don't spill a single drop."

Tears streaming, Na-bi forced her throat shut. Her belly was so full that every slight movement produced a heavy, liquid slosh.

Looking satisfied, the Hospital Director smacked her distended stomach with his open palm. A wet slap, then the unmistakable sound of a water balloon rocking inside her.

"That's a good sound. Packed tight."

He flicked the fluid from his gloved hands and dragged over another cart from the corner. The wheels rolled with a weight that sounded different from before. The instruments laid out on top were nothing like the delicate gynecological tools he'd been using. These were crude, massive, brutish things.

"Tools for working bone and muscle."

The Hospital Director picked up the heavy mallet and a surgical reamer that looked like a power drill. The silver metal caught the fluorescent light and gleamed.

"The interior's been filled with fluid. Shall we set the skeleton next?"

"Nngh... hh..."

A high mechanical whine. The spinning tip of the reamer locked onto Na-bi's pupils. Imagination outran reality, invading her brain faster and more horribly than anything that had yet been done to her.

Is he going to drill that through my ass?

The vision hit her all at once: cold metal tearing through the fragile ring of her anal sphincter, grinding into the hard bone of her coccyx and pelvis with a wet, rotary shriek. Bone reduced to powder. Flesh winding up the drill bit. The sensation crawled over her entire body.

And that wasn't all. The heavy hammer in his other hand. If that slab of metal came down on her lower belly — already swollen tight with fluid—

It'll burst. Like a water balloon. My guts will spill out of me.

This wasn't mere torture. This was dismantling. A mad craftsman's hour, in which a human shape would be broken apart, bone and muscle carved into pieces, and fitted back together into whatever grotesque sculpture he desired. Na-bi saw her pelvis pulverized, her spine bored through by the drill and skewered like meat on a spit. Her breath caught. Her heart hammered as if terror itself would split it open.

"Ah... nngh... don't... don't do it..."

She squeezed her eyes shut and waited for the catastrophe to arrive. She wanted to faint. The whirring motor was at her ear—

"...Boring. Your reactions are far too monotonous."

The Hospital Director tossed the reamer aside. The steel rod hit the floor with a sharp, ringing clatter. Na-bi, still shaking with terror, could only blink, uncomprehending.

"Carving bone and boring holes is so old-fashioned. Your regenerative capacity is excellent — you need a more ecological approach."

Humming to himself, he crossed to one wall of the examination room and swept a curtain aside. Behind it stood an enormous tank.

"Ah...?"

Na-bi's mouth fell open. The tank was not filled with water. A transparent, jelly-like fluid, visibly viscous, occupied every inch of it — and inside, writhing, tangled, swimming, were dozens, hundreds of slick living things, each as thick as a finger. Translucent organisms that looked half eel, half leech.

"My adorable little pets. It's feeding time — and look, a fresh trough has just presented itself."

The Hospital Director came toward her. Delicate gynecological instruments were in his hands.

"Now then. We should leave the door wide open so our guests can enter comfortably."

"N-no... what are you doing...?"

He spread Na-bi's legs and reached into her vagina, already torn and ragged. Rather than removing the uterine probe he had seated earlier, he drove it deeper.

A wet thrust. A grinding squelch.

"Nnghhhk—!"

The tip of the probe forced its way through her cervix and locked there, holding the mouth of the uterus open so it could not close. With it still in place, he fitted a speculum to the entrance of her vagina and turned the screw.

A ratcheting click. A snap.

The vaginal opening yawned to its maximum. The probe seated deep inside and the red of the inner walls were laid fully bare. He wasn't finished. He drove a cold metal anal dilator into her anus as well — a slow, relentless insertion, then a lock.

"Hhaaah—! The back—! It's spreading in the back too!"

Both holes had been forced wide open. The Hospital Director nodded, apparently satisfied, and folded her legs up, drawing her knees tight against her chest before binding thigh to calf with leather straps. The pose of a crouched fetus — or of meat trussed for packing.

"Time to go in."

A metallic clank, then a motor's whine. Chains descended from the ceiling. He hooked suspension restraints under Na-bi's arms, and her body was lifted into the air. Her arms locked above her head; her bound lower half dangled, utterly exposed.

"No! Stop! Please!"

Na-bi thrashed in empty space, but the pulley turned without mercy. Her body traveled out over the tank, then began its slow descent.

A heavy splash.

Her ass and thighs sank into the sticky fluid. Everything below the navel was fully submerged. The eels, catching her scent, swarmed in a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠frenzy.

"Hiiik—?! AAAAAAH—!"

Hundreds of eels fastened themselves to Na-bi's bare skin. The cold, clinging slime secreted from their bodies coated her thighs and buttocks. That slick, writhing contact provoked a physiological revulsion worse than pain.

And then they found the holes.

A slick slither. A wet suck. A push.

"AAAAAAH—! They're going in! They're going inside—!"

Through the anus cranked wide by the dilator, through the vagina locked open by the speculum, the eels bored inward as if competing with one another. The probe already occupying her vagina left little room, but they squeezed through the gaps regardless. Their slick trunks writhed in the friction between the probe and the vaginal wall.

A grinding squelch. A wet churn. A heavy internal roll.

Her insides became a slaughterhouse. They stabbed at her cervix, coiled around the probe and spun, and drove deep into her rectum. Suspended in midair, Na-bi screamed.

"Ah! Ah! It's disgusting! They're so slimy! They're moving in my stomach!!"

The slime the eels excreted filled her. Every time they writhed, her viscera were scraped, her mucous membranes ground together — a sensation that raised every hair on her body. Eyes rolling back, she convulsed in horror and revulsion.

The Hospital Director watched from outside the tank with evident pleasure. It was not her pain that excited him so much as the extremity of her disgust, the depth of her humiliation.

"Yes. Very good. They've taken a liking to you."

He stepped around in front of her. Her upper body hung outside the tank; her lower half was being ravaged by the eels within. He stroked the swollen dome of her upper belly with a gentle palm — the stomach still packed tight with the unidentified fluid he had pumped in through the black tube.

"This is full too. We can't have you being greedy, eating all ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠by yourself."

His eyes glittered with sadistic light.

"You should share with your friends."

"...What? Nngh, hhkk...?"

The moment her tear-soaked eyes found his—

A heavy thud.

"GHAAAK—!!!!!"

His fist slammed into the bloated pit of her stomach. No warning. Her stomach crumpled, and everything inside it surged violently back up her esophagus.

"Ghhk—! Cough! Wretch—!"

Once was not enough. Like a man working a punching bag, he hammered the abdomen of the woman thrashing in midair.

Thud. Thud. A deeper, wetter impact.

"It hurts! It's bursting! My stomach's going to burst! Waaaaah—!"

"Throw it up! Bring up everything in there!"

The merciless shocks to her stomach broke her. Writhing in agony, Na-bi opened her mouth. The gastric sphincter gave way, and the fluid she had been forced to swallow — mixed with bile and blood — came pouring out of her in a waterfall.

A torrent. A splattering cascade.

"Bleeegh—! Cough! Grrlk—!"

The thick, reddish vomit spilling from Na-bi's mouth fell into the tank. Straight down between her own legs. The eels that had been boring into her lower body caught the scent and went mad. They pulled their heads out of her holes and began frantically lapping up the vomit floating on the surface.

Wet lapping. Slurping. Greedy, smacking sucks.

Some of them licked the vomit from the flesh of her thighs and ass. Others, hungry for something fresher still, tried to leap toward the mouth it was still pouring from.

"Hhh... nngh..."

Vomit running from her lips, Na-bi hung limp. The world spun. Her stomach was empty and raw; below, her body had become a feeding ground, slathered in clinging slime. They ate what she had thrown up, and then they crawled back inside her. A hell that fed on itself and began again.

The Hospital Director held his stomach and laughed at the wretched, nauseating spectacle.

"Hahahaha! Magnificent! The finest feeding trough I've ever had!"

Still roaring with laughter, he seized her by the hair and shook her.

"Kill me... just kill me..."

Na-bi's hoarse voice vanished beneath the Hospital Director's laughter. The mermaid in the tank was no beautiful fairy tale. It was a cruel fable of filth and slime and the reek of desire.