A mouse.

One measly, pathetic, insignificant rodent. That was all Michelle had caught. Out of the dozens of prey she had chased for the past twenty minutes all that she had to show for it was one tiny, little mouse.

Michelle could hardly believe her luck when she had first stumbled upon the group of prey. There, in the middle of the woods, she had discovered a small gathering of forest animals clustered together around a clearing to share a meal. There were mice, rabbits, squirrels, voles, a wildcat, a stoat, a weasel, and even a plump little mole. They all sat there, merrily talking, laughing, and eating their various favored meals. It was a gathering of friends and family, a time to share food and companionship.

So many helpless little meals all completely unaware that less than twenty feet away they were being watched by a mischievous predator. As Michelle stalked unseen through the foliage around the clearing she chuckled to herself. She considered how very soon, rather than sharing food they would all share in becoming food. It made her drool just to think about.

When the moment came the red fox reared back and sprung from the bushes in what was meant to be dramatic fashion. Michelle meant to catch the little company by surprise and she knew that, if she was quick enough, they would all find their way into her mouth and down her throat before they even had time to realize the danger. Perhaps one or two would escape if she was not quick but, even then, she would have her feast. The thing she did not account for was the root which protruded from the earth which her footpaw had snagged on as she leapt so that rather than pouncing into the middle of the clearing with a terrifying snarl, Michelle had fallen flat on her face in the mud near the edge of the clearing. As she picked herself up off the ground, the entire band of prey saw her. Before she knew it, even the slowest of them had dashed away into the undergrowth.

Michelle cursed her bad luck, however knew that she still had a chance to catch herself a meal if she hurried to chase them. Without even bothering to dust herself off from her tumble, she gave hot pursuit of the prey. During the chase that followed she kept her ears alert for any sound. A rustle of leaves to her right and she adjusted course to follow but found no trace of what had made the sound, then a patter of tiny paws to her left and she pounced again with the same result. Sometimes Michelle thought she was only inches away from catching one of them, sometimes she had no idea where she was in relation to her prey, sometimes the sounds came from directly behind her but no matter what she couldn't quite catch any of them. It was infuriating, Michelle felt as though she was chasing shadows. She ran and ran until her sides ached but she realized she was no closer to catching her quarry than when she had been face down in the mud.

Then, just as Michelle was about to give up hope altogether she had caught him, that one little mouse. Not much of a prize, especially after all of the effort she had put into catching him. He wasn't a full meal, he could hardly be called a snack, but he was all she had. It was almost as if fate was laughing at her.

As her belly gurgled hungrily, demanding to be fed, the vixen vocalized her dissatisfaction to the rodent.

"So you're it, huh? You're all I've got?" The little rodent shivered, terrified and helpless in her grasp. "Well, you're better than nothing. Do me a favor and squirm on the way down."

With that she opened her muzzle and flicked him inside. He was tasty and he certainly did squirm. Michelle rolled him back and forth from one side of her mouth to another. She savored the little mouse's flavor as best as she could but there wasn't much meat on his body and soon she grew tired of him. With a tilt of her head, she swallowed and sent the mouse down her throat. When he reached her belly his frantic struggles continued and Michelle let herself enjoy his writhings while they lasted, but after only a few seconds they stopped; much too soon for Michelle's liking. He couldn't have digested yet. Perhaps he wasn't much of a squirmer after all. Still, she had had a meal, it wasn't much but it was enough to take the edge off of her hunger. With any luck she would be able to catch something else, something bigger and more filling before she grew hungry again.

Michelle licked her lips of the mouse's flavor and wondered where the best spot would be to hunt some more prey. Just then, she was surprised to see another mouse dash out of the undergrowth and stand defiantly in front of her just out of her reach.

"Oh, hello there." She cooed as she prepared to pounce on him. "Have you come to be my second course?"

Just as she was about to give chase, a rabbit emerged and stood next to the mouse. This was getting better and better. Then came two squirrels, then another rabbit and a mole, then another prey and another and another.

The entire gathering of prey that Michelle had been chasing were now delivering themselves right to her, only now Michelle was beginning to grow nervous. Prey didn't usually behave like this, offering themselves up to a predator as food. What's more is that none of them looked like they were just submitting themselves to Michelle for her to eat, they looked angry, some of them stood defiantly at a cautious distance but most were readying themselves to fight. Michelle really started to worry then, even though they were small, edible even, the prey had her outnumbered.

"Give him back!" the mouse at the front squeaked.

Michelle blinked. "What?"

"My brother, you just ate him. Give him back. Spit him out, now!"

"But... why?" Michelle asked. She couldn't comprehend why she would ever do something like that.

"Because if you don't we'll teach you a lesson!" one of the rabbits answered as he adopted a fighting stance. There were general murmurs of agreement from the rest of the animals.

"What? Why would you want to hurt little, old me?" Michelle pouted as she put on the cutest, most innocent face anybody could while digesting a living thing. "I'm bigger than you anyway."

"Well there's more of us." the mouse replied.

"Even if you beat me up, it isn't going to get you your brother back." Michelle pointed out. The mouse had no answer for that. "All it would do is give me the chance to gobble up a few more of you." There was silence as each of the gathered animals considered if they might make it out of a fight with the fox, even with their friends backing them up. "This little guy is mine," Michelle said as she patted her gut, "but I don't want to fight you either, so if you leave now I won't eat any more of you."

"What about my brother? You already ate him. We're not going to just leave him." the mouse shouted. "He's my brother!"

"And he's our friend." one of the rabbits added. "You spit him up and then we'll leave, then nobody has to get hurt."

Michelle sighed. "I guess we're in a stalemate then."

"What if..." the weasel stammered, "what if there was another way?"

"What do you mean?" the mouse asked, he sounded just as confused as Michelle felt.

"I mean I have an idea but... you're not going to like it. Come here." The weasel motioned them all closer and the animals all huddled together to hear his plan.

Michelle watched them curiously. For a moment she wondered if she could grab one of them for a quick snack while their attention was diverted, but she realized that if she did that then the rest were likely to attack. Michelle wanted to avoid fighting all of them at once if at all possible. Her next thought was to leave, but she quickly dismissed that option too. All she had had to eat so far was one mouse and she was still hungry, there were plenty of prey here and if Michelle left now she wasn't sure to find anything else for a while, plus she wasn't sure her pride would ever recover if she was seen running away from a bunch of prey. So Michelle stayed, patiently waiting for the meeting to conclude.

After a minute they all turned back around to face her. "What if we could get my brother out ourselves?" the mouse asked.

"What do you mean? How would you do that?"

"I mean you'd eat one of us and-"

"I like this idea already." Michelle interjected as she grinned a toothy smile and licked her lips.

The mouse glared at her. "Let me finish." he insisted. "You'd eat one of us and then the rest of us would pull him and my brother back out."

"How would you pull them out?" Michelle asked, a little annoyed that the mouse thought she was just going to give up her lunch.

"We would form a chain." the mouse explained. "Each of us would hold onto each other's feet."

"That sounds delicious." Michelle said cheerily. "I could just swallow you one at a time until you're all in my belly."

The mouse paused, he hadn't thought of that. "Well... you can try, but we'll all be pulling against you. If we can pull my brother out at the end of the chain then you won't have anything left to swallow."

"But what if I manage to swallow the other end of the chain?" Michelle reiterated. "Then you would all be in my belly with no one to pull you out."

"Well..." the mouse was a little nervous, but he was sure that with all of them pulling together they would be stronger than the fox, "I guess that's just a chance we'll have to take. Either all of us will be eaten or none of us will be."

"Deal." Michelle grinned then voiced the question that none of the prey had wanted to ask. "So who's going first?"

There was an awkward silence from the group of prey. None of them wanted to look each other in the eye, some pretended not to have heard her and some kicked at pebbles on the ground, none of them spoke up.

"Come on," Michelle coaxed, "I'm getting hungry again waiting for you. If you like, I can decide who I'll eat first."

"I'll go." the mouse finally spoke up. "He's my brother, it's my responsibility."

"No." the weasel cut him off. "I'll go. It was my idea."

"That's the spirit!" Michelle encouraged. "Now hurry up and get in my mouth."

One of the rabbits grabbed the weasel's feet, then a squirrel grabbed the rabbit and so on until all of the prey had assembled themselves into one large chain with the mouse at the very back. Michelle got down onto all fours and opened her mouth wide for the weasel. Flexing her tongue like she would her index finger she beckoned him into her jaws. The weasel shuddered to see the predator's open mouth before him, he was beginning to have second thoughts. He looked back over his shoulder at the rabbit holding his feet. The rabbit nodded solemnly at him, indicating that he was ready. The weasel did his best to force a smile, then shut his eyes and dived into the fox's maw.

It was an odd sensation for Michelle to have a prey willingly push its way into her mouth rather than having to be shoved inside by force, he didn't taste any less delicious though. She wanted to take a moment to run her tongue over his furry body before she swallowed him, but the weasel wasn't keen on being tasted, instead he almost made Michelle gag as he forced himself into the tight confines of her throat and began the trip into her digestive system. Michelle soon recovered from the weasel's enthusiasm and swallowed him down, his body forming a large lump in her esophagus. Once the weasel was inside of her mouth the rabbit began to force his way in next. He was just as hasty to reach the back of Michelle's throat as the weasel had been just as she was eager to swallow him.

After a few more gulps from the fox the weasel's head poked out of the tight esophagus and into fox's belly. The first thing he noticed was how bad it smelled, the damp air reeked of digested meat and foul acids but it was surprisingly spacious. The stomach was dimly lit, very little light filtered in through the fox's fur and the weasel found it difficult to see. He peered around for a moment, searching for the mouse he had come to save. At first he didn't see him, for a moment he thought it was already too late, then he saw him, a little ball of brown fur huddled at the far side of the fleshy sack. "Hey!" the weasel called out to the mouse.

The mouse turned his head to see who was speaking. "Oh," he grumbled miserably, "she caught you too then?"

"No, I let myself be eaten." the weasel tried to explain hastily, he had noticed that he was still sinking deeper into the stomach, the rest of the animals hadn't begun pulling yet and so each time the fox swallowed they lost a little more ground. "I'm here to get you out."

"And how are you going to do that when you're stuck in here with me?" the mouse sulked.

"I don't have time to explain, just take my paw. Hurry!" the weasel insisted as he felt the fox's peristalsis muscles ripple around his lower half again. The mouse still looked confused but he reached out and put his paw into the weasel's. "Hold on tight." the weasel said and then shouted as loud as he could to the rabbit behind him. "PULL!"

"PULL!' the rabbit repeated the command. The word echoed it's way up the chain and out of Michelle's mouth until every animal in the chain heard it. All at once every one of them set their feet into the ground and yanked as hard as they could on the legs or tail of whoever was in front of them.

"YEOWCH!" one of the voles called, "You nearly pulled my tail off." One of the rabbit's wasn't paying attention and stumbled over a loose stone, nearly losing his grip. While the mouse at the end of the line hauled with every muscle in his tiny body he was much too small to have any kind of effect on the rest of the chain. The prey animals were disorganized, it was an opportunity that Michelle was all too eager to seize. With a hungry smile and a few gulps she had already managed to pull another squirrel into her esophagus and she was beginning to work on the next prey behind him.

Just as Michelle was beginning to think that lunch would be even easier than she expected the shrill voice of the mouse could be heard. "Keep it together!" he squeaked in a voice that commanded respect. "We need to work as a team or else we are all going to end up as her prey!" That seemed to get everyone's attention. In an instant everyone seemed to forget about their distractions and focused all of their efforts on pulling. Perhaps the little mouse was good for something after all Michelle thought with a hint of irritation. What was more irritating was that once the animals had focused their effort their plan was actually beginning to work. "1, 2, 3, Pull!" the mouse chanted. All at once the entire chain pulled with all of their might. Michelle nearly choked as the vole in her throat started to slide backwards out of her mouth, his fur rubbing the wrong way against the inside of her gullet was not a pleasant sensation, neither was the feeling of her stomach getting lighter as her prey was forcibly dragged out of her gut and back up her throat.

Michelle could hardly belive it, after all of the effort she had gone through to catch her mouse it now seemed that she would be denied even that one, small source of nutrition. Her meal would be pulled from right out of her mouth and there would be nothing she could do to stop it. She would have nothing left except the lingering flavor of her meal, and if that was all that Michelle would get then she decided she was going to enjoy it. Right now her mouth was filled with the wonderful flavor of her prey and nobody could take that away from her, even though in a minute she would be left with nothing.

Michelle closed her eyes and focused all of her attention on the wonderful flavor of the squirrel that currently occupied her mouth. She let her tongue roam over his body, she played with his tail, lapped at his belly, and suckled his face. The taste of his body was so exquisite that Michelle started to drool.

The squirrel suddenly found that the maw he occupied was getting wetter and slimier. Strands of saliva dripped from the roof of the fox's mouth and pooled around him, soaking into his fur and his body and his paws. His paws! The squirrel stiffened as he realized his grip on his rabbit friend was loosening, the vixen's drool wetting his paws and slickening them. He tried to readjust his grip, his claws sank into the rabbit's ankles, he squeezed as tightly as he could, but he was just delaying the inevitable. All at once, every animal in the chain fell flat on their back as the tension suddenly slackened and the chain fell free from the vixen's jaws.

"Did we do it?" asked the mouse at the back of the line as he stood up and rubbed the spot where he had bumped his head. "Did we get my brother out?" The only answer he received was the sight of the squirrel staring agape at his own paws.

A horrible, muffled scream was heard and all of the prey animals looked up to see a squirming bulge sliding down Michelle's throat. Once she had swallowed she let out a satisfied sigh. "Ah! Well, I guess your friends are my lunch now." She turned to leave, eager to get away to somewhere she could digest her prize. "Let me know the next time you-"

"Wait!" the squirrel shouted after her. "We aren't giving up. We can still save them." There were general sounds of agreement from the other prey animals.

Michelle was sure she had been about to lose her meal before the squirrel had lost his grip, now that she had not only the mouse safely back in her belly but a few other creatures as well she wanted to quit while she was ahead. "But I've already-"

"No!" the squirrel cut her off. "Either all of us will be eaten or none of us will be. That's what we all agreed to."

"All of us or none of us!" the other prey echoed.

"And no more mistakes this time." the squirrel insisted. "No one is letting go again, not until we get them out." Again, the other prey all agreed.

Michelle looked around and saw the conviction in the faces of all the prey. It was clear that she wasn't about to talk them out of trying to save their friends. It seemed she didn't have a choice. Reluctantly, she opened her mouth and again felt her prey climb in and press to the back of her throat, the squirrel boldly diving in without hesitation. Michelle swallowed him and as soon as he reached her stomach the chain again began to pull against her. This time, however, the prey started with fewer animals on the pulling end of the chain and as a result the pulling force of the chain seemed perfectly matched with the pulling force of the vixen's throat. Michelle swallowed and the animals pulled back. The animal's pulled and Michelle swallowed them back.

For a full minute the entire chain hung there in perfect equilibrium, balanced on the precipice of the fox's throat. It seemed entirely unclear who would win the tug of war, or even if there would be a winner. Michelle was starting to think that she would spend the rest of her day pulling against the chain and getting nowhere. She clenched her throat muscles, reeled back and put everything she had into one painfully long, deep, rolling swallow. With all of her peristalsis muscles pulling at once Michelle felt the rabbit in her mouth budge the tiniest inch closer to the back of her throat. The vixen's eyes went wide as she realized what that tiny inch meant, she would have her feast.

With another heaving gulp the chain inched a little further down her throat, and then a little more. With every inch that Michelle advanced her prey had a little less leverage to pull with, and there was a little more weight in the fox's stomach for them to pull against which made every swallow a little bit easier for Michelle.

As the chain slid deeper down Michelle's throat she found that she no longer had to swallow so forcefully to get them down. The vixen changed her tactics from frantically preventing her prey from gaining any ground to casually enjoying her meal.

Unfortunately they prey also noticed that they were losing the battle. "Keep pulling!" the next rabbit in the line insisted. "We can still pull them free!"

"1, 2, 3, PULL!" the mouse shouted again. But pull as they might the prey were unable to regain any of the ground that they had lost.

'Tsk, these guys need to chill.' Michelle thought to herself as she took another gulp. 'After all,' she smiled, 'there's plenty of room for all of them.

She let her tongue roll over their delicious bodies, savoring each of them in turn. It was wonderful how the flavor of one prey transformed seamlessly into the flavor of the next as the first was sucked into her throat and a new prey entered her mouth. Michelle no longer treated the whole thing like a competition with lives, or more importantly, her lunch at stake, to her the long line of prey that slowly descended one by one into her belly was just another meal.

At any point any of the prey animals could have saved themselves as well as every one of their friends behind them in the line simply by letting go, but none of them did. They had all promised each other that nobody would let go again. They knew that if they were going to have any chance of saving their friends that had already been swallowed that they would have to continue pulling as a group, as so one after the other slid into the tight confines of the fox's throat and into her waiting belly.

Finally the mole, the second to last prey slipped between Michelle's lips. The tiny mouse still held onto his friend's tail with a death grip, the little rodent being the only part of the chain that still remained. Michelle simply grabbed him with one paw and plucked him free of the mole's tail which she then slurped in. The vixen rolled the mole around on her tongue for a minute, relishing the earthen flavor of his plump, furry body then with a tilt of her head and a long, wet, rolling *GRLP* she swallowed and the whole chain slid into her belly. The mouse could hear the muffled cries of terror coming from the bulge in Michelle's neck as it slid down past her collar-bone and he knew that his hopes of saving any of them, or even himself, were now gone.

Michelle opened her mouth and the mouse could see all the way to the back of the dark, pink, undulating tunnel, down the throat that had just swallowed all of his friends. For a moment he expected that he was about to be tossed into that maw and meet the same fate, but then Michelle let out a loud, deep belch. A foul stench and flecks of drool pelted the little mouse's body as he looked on in terror. Michelle licked her lips and heaved a contented sigh. "Oof. Well, I'm stuffed." she said. "I guess you can go, little mouse. Your friends made a very filling meal and I just don't have room for you right now."

At that the mouse's face lit with a victorious smile and he almost laughed. "Then we win." he chuckled. "You can't eat all of us. You have to spit my friends out now."

"What? Why would I do that?" Michelle growled. She had spared the mouse, she thought he would be happy just to be alive but now he wanted his friends back too.

"Either all of us will be eaten or none of us will be. Those are the rules you agreed to." the mouse reminded her. "You couldn't eat all of us so you can't eat any of us. You have to spit them all out."

Michelle furrowed her brow. It was true, she had agreed to those terms, and as much as she wanted to eat the little mouse she knew that her belly had no room left for him. Was this it? Was she really about to lose all of her prey, her entire meal because of this mouse, this one measly, pathetic, insignificant rodent? There had to be some way of keeping her meal. Michelle was a fox, she was naturally clever and sly and her brain was hard at work. Then she thought of something and a wide grin spread across her face, a grin that sent a chill down the mouse's spine. "Maybe I agreed that all of you have to be eaten, but I never agreed that I have to be the one to eat you." She sneered.

The mouse gulped nervously.

*****

Sheila the wolf lay on her back in a green field, soaking in the afternoon sunlight. It was a lazy day and she had nothing to do so she had been napping to pass the time. Her eyes fluttered open as she thought she heard someone calling her name, she ignored it though and tried to fall back to sleep. Then she heard it again, louder this time, somebody was definitely calling for her.

"Sheila? Sheila!"

The wolf grumbled and turned her head toward the sound. Through her half-lidded eyes she saw a ball of bright orange fur bounding across the clearing toward her, it was her vulpine companion Michelle. Sheila sat up and greeted her. "Hello, dear. Looks like you had a good hunt."

The fox's belly was nearly as round as she was tall with at least a half-dozen bulges of unfortunate prey clearly visible through the vixen's fur, it was a wonder that the fox could walk at all, but somehow the fox was managing to skip around like a little kit. She held her paws behind her back as though she were hiding something and chuckled with giddy excitement. "I did, thanks for noticing." she said in a sing song kind of way, as though she were playing a game.

"Alright, what have you got there?" Sheila coaxed in her usual, mellow tone of voice.

"For you!" Michelle announced as she held her paws up for sheila to inspect.

"Oh!" the wolf said in surprise as she saw what Michelle held, a little mouse with a miserable expression on his face, around his neck was a pink ribbon tied in a neat bow.