``22, wait!!''
Joel sped up as fast as his fat little legs could carry him, spiralling and swerving his way through the sea of legs and feet in front of him. He looked at every face that passed by hoping it would be her face, or his, he supposed. This out of body crap was confusing.
Despite the cat's best efforts, his keen and desperate eyes searching everywhere for the soul inhabiting his body, 22 was nowhere to be found. And staying out in the open like this was getting dangerous, every booted or high heeled foot he sped around threatening to crush his tiny body.
Ducking into a smelly alleyway the cat sighed and sat down, peering out at the busy street from the safety of his vantage point. ``okay think Joel'' he told himself, splaying his claws out on the slightly damp ground ``22 can't have gone far, if you circle back around the neighbourhood and don't stray too far you should find her.''
He was so enraptured in his thoughts and plans, Joel didn't even notice the light patter of feet or the flash of white fur further up the alley.
Muttering to himself he began to walk up, thinking about what he'd say when he met back up with 22. The two of them would have to work together if there was any hope of him getting back into his body and-
Joel busted head first into something sturdy and fell back, fluffy belly up in the air. ``What the?'' The human possessed cat meowed in annoyance, realising that it was someone's chest he'd walked right into ``What's the big idea man?''
Before he could pull himself back to his feet a white furred and hefty paw settled on his belly to hold him down. Joel gulping at the sight of the large black claws splayed out so close to his most vulnerable organ.
``um....h-hey big guy?'' He stammered, looking up and squinting past the sun to see what or who was holding him down ``Can y-you let me go?''
``Big guy?'' The fox leaned in, for indeed it was a fox, and chuckled at the struggling cat beneath its stinky forepaw ``I think you're the big one here, my friend. Look at you....''
The paw squeezed and Joel gulped, trying to wriggle away from its weight and that awful, hungry grin the fox was giving as it looked over him. Fox's didn't eat cats, he told himself, right?
``Hey l-look man, just lift the paw and i'll be gone alright? didn't mean to g-get up in your territory'' Joel stammered again, and the fox leaned in closer to sniff at him ``hey!''
Leon leaned back out and seemed to chuff, a pink tongue sliding out of his lips. ``Smells good, if a bit clinical, you're one of those therapy cats from the hospital aren't you? Ate one of those before. Not too bad.''
``Hey! No!'' Joel cried, more angry than scared ``You are not gonna eat me pal. I have a gig with Dorothea Williams! I will not. Be. Eaten!''
Leon yawned as the cat went on some rant about ``meeting up with his body'' and having ``already came back from beyond''. It mattered little, all of his prey kicked and whined and struggled and it had never stopped him before. Especially cats, he chuckled to himself, such self assured creatures. It was part of what made them so tasty.
``Look'' The fox began again cutting Joel off ``I'm going to eat you. And I?m going to enjoy it.'' He shrugged much to Joel's mounting consternation, the cat's anger replaced now by a growing fear that he might not get out of this after all. ``Cry about it all you want and tell me you're a lost soul or some magical talking cat that needs to be reunited with the head wizard or whatever, I'm still going to have you for dinner. Now, sometimes I like to humour my prey a bit more but....''
He leaned into that big, plump body, a few drops of drool falling upon the cat's frozen form. ``Places to be, animals to terrorise. Bye bye kitty...''
``NO DO-!!'' Joel tried to scream one more time but it was muffled as the thick maw of the fox wrapped itself around his round little head. The cat's fail fluffing out, his claws splaying all too late. Leon lifting his paw and gulping with a greedy ullp, bringing more of the borrowed body into his waiting jaws.
The cat was good. Great even. Leon suddenly remembering the other therapy cat he'd stolen, a little black kitten that had come to him for help navigating its way back home and found itself melting in his belly. Gods that had been an upset cat, tasty though. This one beat it for taste and quality though. Such wonderfully fattened meat, well kept and clean fur and delicious little wriggles that did little to dislodge it's scrumptious from from his greedy gullet.
There was nowhere for poor Joel to go but down as he cursed everything. The fox, 22, but most of all this dumb cat for getting in the way! It had ruined everything. And now its dumb body had attracted this stinking, gluttonous vulpine. Joel could scarcely believe it, but the tight hotness of that maw and the tongue slathering over his chest left little room for denial.
Slurping more of that meaty, fat body into his maw Leon shifted his paw to lift up the cat's rump, its head and forepaws bulging out his gullet in a familiar manner. The fox's eyes lidding, moving into the darkness of the alley to eat the rest of his cat in peace. Nothing worse than having a human notice him cramming a fat feline into his maw and trying to stop him. Such nosey, controlling beings they were.
He just missed a human male, black hat and dressed in a white gown stumble into view and look down the alley. ``Joel?'' It said, just seeing the rump of the fox retreat behind the dumpster and no more ``Where did you go? Joel??''
And then it wandered off down the pathway, and was seen no more.
Even Joel hadn't noticed, belly deep in fox as he was. His own stomach slathered up, licked over and nibbled on as the fattest part of him entered Leon's drooling maw. The stink of digested meat wafting up his nose, his feline eyes staring deep into the pink darkness of the gullet, knowing exactly where he was going to go. ``H-hey!'' He tried again but all that came out of the bulge in Leon's chest was a muffled mewl ``I'm not meant to be here man, look I?ll come back and give you the cat just don't, don't eat me!''
But with two more well timed gulps it was all over, again, for Joel. His thick and well mulled over belly slipping past the white cage of Leon's teeth and his splayed out hind-paws lapped over, every inch of the soft pads touched and tasted before they too joined Joel in his inevitable digestion.
Leon took a moment as the cat's entire body stretched from the back of his mouth to halfway down his gullet, only Joel's tail remaining outside. They stood in stasis, the former human now a cat staring down that gullet and the fox, until with a delicate slurp it was all over for Joel.
slurrrrrpppp
In went the cat's tail like a strand of heavy spaghetti, and one final gulp finally sent that plump body down and down into Leon's waiting, gurgling tummy already letting some acid into the chamber in preparation for this great snack.
``ahhhhhh'' the fox sighed.
``AHHHHHH!'' Joel screamed, the stomach churning, moving around him forcing his feline form into a tightly compact ball of fur, claws and meat ``you dumb fox!''
But Leon was already disengaged from the plight of his prey, pulling his meat filled belly into a crevice of the dumpster where a ray of light shown conspiratorially on Joel's future resting place. ``Places to be'' the fox grinned ``but it'd be amiss not to digest you a little bit before I head out. Seeya kitty, thanks for the snack.''
And Joel could only cry out as the stomach began to digest him in full.
---
*pop*
Joel emerged on a gigantic staircase going up and up into a giant burst of light in the sky. The great beyond, and this time it was for real. The little blob of soul could only sulk now as he moved upwards towards.
Soon enough he was joined by another blue blob, 22.
Joel's eyes widened, ``how did-?''
``I die? Could ask you the same question'' She said with a bored expression ``How about neither of us talk about it?''
Joel could hardly disagree, and together they rode that elevator up and away, into the great beyond.
