So, here's part two of this story, featuring a swim across the Atlantic. Also, I'm happy to say that my recent train ride home got me really working on part three, and I hope I'll be finished soon.

<<***>>

The next morning, Jess pulled herself awake. The brunette with the brown mouse ears reached up to rub her eyes, her other hand still on her stomach. The swell had dropped in the night, and her stomach was no longer aching with too much cheese. However, now it was her back that ached. As she carefully made her way up on her feet, she arched her back. She kept this up for a few moments, then she started to walk off into the forest.

“AAAHH!”

Instantly, Jess’s eyes shot open and sped down to the ground. At her feet was a… she didn’t know what it was. She very carefully put her foot down. If she didn’t know better, she could swear that was an inu, a dog-man. Jess’s lips pursed, then she ducked down on the balls of her feet. Yes, it was an inu. But then…

Jess’s jaw dropped as her mind finally caught up with her. As she stood back up, she measured herself against a nearby tree. Yep, she was about that tall: maybe 40 feet. Then she laid her hand back on her belly, flat once again. Looks like the magic size-changing cheese really did exist…

<<***>>

Inside Jess’s stomach, a neko in a green T-shirt twitched awake. Alex Watterson’s orange hair was in the same condition as when he’d been squeezed into the cheese around him. The cheese, however, had melted into goo and thinned out, now mostly having squirted into the intestines. Thus, it was just him floating in a pool of stomach acids, just below the surface.

A moment later, Alex realized where he was, and his brain instantly jolted itself awake. In a heartbeat, he’d thrashed his way to the surface of the acid. “Help me!” he shouted. “Help me! I’m drowning in stomach acid and I can’t swim and I…” He paused for a moment, sinking back under the acid as yesterday’s discoveries came back to him. “And I’m in no danger whatsoever.” He smacked himself in the face, more softly than usual due to the density of liquid. “And I’m such an idiot.”

Thus mollified, he pulled out his cell phone and looked at the clock. Seven forty-seven, San Diego Standard Time. He’d been out for the rest of the day and most of the night. Not like there was much more to do in a stomach when you were stuffed into it like a sardine. Then he checked his emails and his messages. Nothing so far, but in a few hours he’d probably get a call from his boss saying he was late for work.

Alex couldn’t help but look up at his ‘host’. No way in hell that the giant mouse lady would miss that call. And who knew what would happen if he was discovered? He couldn’t go back. He had no money, he hated his job, and in a few days… Alex quickly got out his phone. The games he’d put on it would work, which would help immensely with boredom while the giantess made her way too… where was she going, anyways?

<<***>>

“Where am I going, anyways?”

After a moment to stretch, Jess was striding down the Pacific Coast. While she’d intended to take a road trip, her newfound size meant that a lot of her intended destinations would be too small for her. ‘Not to mention too expensive,’ Jess groused. ‘Stupid jerk neko. Though that was a lot of cheese, come to think of it...’’

Jess shook her head. ‘OK, back to where I can go,’ she thought. ‘Well, I can go mountain climbing. It’ll take me less time to get to the top. I can go walking, it’ll take me less time to get…’

Then Jess’s eyes widened as she stopped herself. ‘It’ll take me less time to get where I’m going…’ Then she turned to her right. Stretched out in front of her was the Pacific Ocean. “I wonder...”

Then Jess looked down and groaned. The only clothes she had were the ones on her back: the rest were in a mouse-sized suitcase back at her hotel. Unfortunately, that included her swimsuit, and she doubted that people sold bathing suits in size…

“..I don’t know, 60-XL? 250-decuple Z?”

Jess’s ears perked up and she turned around. Standing behind her was a long naga-lady with a flatbed truck full of cloth and stone. “Hey,” the naga continued, “could I borrow you for a moment?”

<<***>>

Meanwhile, Alex was shooting zombies, a wide grin on his face. He’d gotten this game for his phone ages ago, but it’d been forever since he’d last played it. Now he was on his thirteenth level and on his way to the exit. He rounded a corner, fired off a grenade, sped forward…

And then his boss’s face popped up on the phone.

When Alex saw his boss’s beet-red, screaming face, he jerked so hard his phone almost slipped through his fingers. He quickly checked the time. One forty-six: fourteen minutes before his shift started. There was only one time that his boss called him that early. After having to set seven patrol cars straight, Alex vowed that would be the only time.

And now he was calling. If Alex didn’t answer, his phone would send the call to voicemail, which would automatically play the message for him. Alex’s fingertips slammed onto the phone, trying to punch the right buttons to send him to options. After he got there, though, his mind completely blanked. Voicemail wasn’t in the options. Was he supposed to call voicemail, was it under some strange category? As he dithered, his hands starting to sweat, he heard himself start talking. “Hi, this is Alex Watterson-”

WHUMP!

A sudden tidal wave shook the stomach. Nice and slicked up, the phone slipped out of Alex’s hands, dropping into the stomach acid. Alex dove to try and grab it, but before he could get it, the screen went dark and the sound cut out. For a moment, all he could do was watch the phone sink out of his reach.

Well, that was one problem solved. Alex breathed a sigh of relief. His ‘vacation’ could continue. Then, however, his eyes started to widen. Now what was he going to do?

<<***>>

As soon as Jess hit the water of the Pacific Ocean, her body curled up into a ball, her eyes refusing to close as she shivered and sank. Thankfully, the bottom was only a little ways away, so she stood up right when she touched it. Then a breeze blew by and she instantly slouched back down.

“YOU ENJOYING THAT SUIT?”

Jess turned back to the shore, blushing and shivering in her new bikini. The naga, Koralia, was waving from the shore. “Y-y-y-y-yeah!” Jess stuttered. Then she looked over to the left, at the naked neera statue diving into the water. “W-w-what about her? Y-you got enough c-c-c-cloth left?”

Koralia turned around to look at her statue. “Yeah,” she called back. “I usually bring enough cloth for four or five of what I need. Just in case I don’t get what I want. I think I got what I wanted with you, though.”

Jess nodded. “O-OK!” Jess slowly started to unclench herself. “W-well, I hope your s-statue goes well.”

Koralia picked up the cloth. “Oh, it should,” she said. “Now that I’ve got the design, I just have to make the clothes. Did you know that Greeks used to dress their statues? I think, at least. I’m not really sure. But I now nudes were a symbol of athletic excellence. Now there’s an idea…”

Koralia started to dive off into a tangent. Thus, since the water had started to warm up a little, Jess called out a quick good-bye. Then she turned around, pushed off from the bottom and started a breaststroke out to sea. In just a few moments, Koralia was just a speck on the horizon.

As she continued to swim, she found herself marvelling at how fast she was moving. Where it would’ve taken her an hour to swim, she could practically just dog paddle and cover that distance in minutes. For a moment, she stopped to take a look around. In the far distance, she could see people swimming out by themselves. At least, she assumed those were people: they mostly just looked like speck-

TOOOOOOOOOOOOT!

Jess spun around in the water just in time to see a yacht almost clip her. A quick dive away managed to prevent a disaster, but the yacht wobbled on the wave. “Hey, watch it!” the lion-man at the helm shouted.

Jess blushed. “Sorry!” she called back. “It’s my first, no, second day being this big!”

The lion just stared at her. In response, Jess just turned all the redder. “Sorry,” she mumbled. Then she just slowly turned out to sea and began to swim.

<<***>>

“Five-million bottles of beer on the wall, five-million bottles of beer…”

It’d been, counting time zones, almost eternity since San Diego. Land had gone away. If you put a gun to her head, Jess could not remember how to walk. Her whole world was just salty water and the occasional fish. Nothing else for leagues and leagues.

Finally, Jess stopped and just floated in the middle of the ocean. Her stomach had just grumbled. As she looked around, she couldn’t see any sort of land at all. Then she felt something beside her leg and her head snapped downwards. A fish had just brushed her leg. She winced, her tongue sticking out. She may have been desperate, but she wasn’t that desperate. Yet.

Something bumped against Jess’s leg. When she looked down, her heart almost stopped. A great white shark the size of her calf had bumped against her leg. It then instantly lunged forward, its mouth open.

Jess instantly jerked her foot away. “Hey!” she shouted. The shark still followed her leg, trying to bite at it. “Hey, knock it o-” Jess overbalanced and fell into the water.

Some water rushed into Jess’s mouth as she fell under the surface. Regardless, she had something else on her mind, and she only barely managed to pull away from another bite. Jess opened her mouth to shout again, but a sudden inrush of water made her shut it again. Instead, she jerked her foot to one side. The shark missed for the first shot, then its jaws clamped down on Jess’s toes.

“OW!” A large bubble escaped Jess’s mouth. In the next second, though, she had curled up and was grabbing the shark by the gills. She tried to pull the shark off, but it was latched on too tight. Finally, in a last fit of desperation, she slammed her hands into the sides of the shark’s head. The shark’s mouth instantly popped open and the shark swam off.

Jess watched it swim away for a moment, then her eyes sped back to her… very much unblemished skin. Jess took a quick poke at it. Not even a scratch. ‘Weird,’ Jess thought to herself. ‘Sharks are supposed to be really strong. Maybe this is a side-effect of the cheese. It’s really handy, but maybe I should find land, just in case I-’

HOOOOOOOOOOM!

The keel of a very large boat smacked Jess in the head. Stunned, Jess swallowed her mouthful of water, stars bursting in front of her head. Eventually, the boat passed over her, its horn fading away in the distance. ‘Yep, definitely gotta’ find land.’

<<***>>

Alex started to giggle. He’d tried to find the phone again, but it was too late. It was dead. Thus, he let it fall into the acid. It was probably halfway through the small intestines by now. Unfortunately, without it he had nothing to do. And he was all. Alone. Inside. A crazy. Neera’s. Guts.

He’d tried singing to himself, but his voice had gone out. Then he tried remembering the lanthanide series of metals, but he’d gotten stuck after rubidium (which he wasn’t quite sure about). Then he tried singing again, but his sore voice made him start coughing. And now, he was, by his count, eight-hundred-and-eighty-five hours into completely. Freaking. Bored. And starving! His whole world was pink and wrinkly and shield or not, the acids were pickling him! What he wouldn’t give for some relief!

And then the water came down. Sputtering, swallowing, and shocked out of his insanity, he was forced under the surface of the stomach acids. It took him a few moments, but he finally managed to find his way to the surface again. The stomach had barely changed, he noticed. One brief moment of excitement, and then back to the usual.

These doldrums paused as he noticed something faintly moving around in front of him. His eyes had adjusted a long time ago, so Alex could easily tell what that thing was. It was a fish. A fat fish, as long as his hand, green and white with a tiny mouth. As Alex was watching, another one, smaller but much brighter in color, swam by in his field of vision. He had fish.

Alex’s stomach rumbled. “Oh, yeah,” he said to himself, running his hand over his middle. Water wouldn’t be a problem: neko kidneys were the envy of other anthros the world over. And now he had food. Slowly reaching forward, he grabbed onto the giant fish. “Nothing personal,” he told it as it limply struggled, “but you’re the first meat I’m gonna’ get in a month.”

Then he shoved the fish’s head into his mouth. Before the fish could struggle, he’d swallowed the head and was moving on to the belly. In the space of five seconds, he’d completely swallowed the fish, and it was flopping around in his belly. “Ahh,” Alex said, patting his stomach. “Thank you,” he said. “You’ve been very-OOOOOORP!”

<<***>>

Jess paused. “What the…” She took a quick look down at her stomach. She’d heard that seawater was bad for people but she had no idea it was that bad. “Yeah,” she told herself, “I’m going to need to find land soon.”

She chanced a quick look up at the sky. The sun was almost completely set, but there was still a little light. She still had time to find land if she looked around. And as she looked, she finally saw something on the horizon, backlit by the sun. Thinking it was her best bet, she swam off towards it.

Thirty minutes later, the sun had set, but Jess had seen that the spot on the horizon was an island. She doubled her resolve, and she finally reached the island shore two hours later. Almost as soon as she touched the sand, her muscles seized up. Thus, she was forced to lie on the sand for several long minutes. She was happy, though. Nothing else really mattered at that moment.

Grrrrr.

Except her stomach. That had been ignored all day, and it didn’t care what else was happening. Jess tried to ignore it, but one final great pang pierced through her abdomen. Finally, she put down her hands and knees and started to crawl inland.

The island looked like a regular Pacific island: green and lush surrounding a massive mountain that looked like a volcano. Jess failed to recognize several of the plants, but her heart soared on seeing a banana tree. Her hand shot out and she grabbed at the bunch on the tree. Her face fell as she felt the pulp splurt off into her fingers. “Oh yeah,” she said to no-one. “Super strength.” She dropped the bananas on the ground and kept moving onwards.

Jess found a few palm trees soon after. She tried to pluck a few coconuts off of them, but her fingers effortly squashed them as well, causing all of the milk to run out into the dirt. Lips pinched together, she stormed off. Her stomach growled again. At that moment, Jess noticed that her mouth was dry. She’d forgotten how thirsty she’d made herself as well.

After a moment of wandering (and a brief shiver as a wind played over her), Jess slowed to a halt. She heard a new sound, a very beautiful sound coming just through the jungle. Jess pushed her way through the trees. A few bushes had prickly things on them, but Jess didn’t stop long to scrape them off. Finally, she pushed her way through into the clearing.

Her hopes were confirmed. Ahead of her was a rock jutting out of the ground. On top of it was a spring: a small thing, barely producing any water. However, the water ran down the sides of the rock and into a deep, wide pool. Almost instantly, Jess shoved her face into the pool. Happily and hungrily she guzzled, water surging and wiggling down her throat.

‘Wait, wiggling?’

Jess’s head snapped back up. It was hard to see in the moonlight, but there was a large school of fish in the water, now staring up at her in typical fish-eyed non-comprehension. She shot backwards like they’d just got out of the pond and punched her. “YAIII!” Then she stared down at her stomach, trying to mentally count how many fish she’d swallowed.

Eventually, though, her stomach growled again, and she looked back at the pool. Jess could feel her tongue like a slab of bacon in her mouth. She put her mouth on the spring at the top, but the spring was so small that it was like trying to drink from a mister at a theme park. Thus, she looked back at the trees, and she saw the squished remains of coconuts and bananas. She finally turned her head back to the pool…

Jess closed her eyes. “It’ll be OK, Jess,” she told herself. “It’ll be fine. People used to swallow goldfish all the time, and you’ve had sushi before.” Then she opened her eyes, dropped onto her knees, and slapped her face to the water, starting to suck again. All the while she kept thinking ‘don’t think about it, don’t think about it, don’t think about it, don’t-ACK!’

Jess pulled her head back up as a fish tried to take the wrong pipe down. Instantly, she started hacking and coughing, trying to fish a trickle of water out of her throat. This didn’t work, and the tickle continued to irritate her. Finally, she got up and stomped off to the beach to plop down.

<<***>>

Inside her stomach, though, Alex was having the time of his life, given the circumstances. While he had no idea where it’d come from, the influx of freshwater helped dilute the salty, bitter taste of the fluids around him. But most importantly, there were fish! Lots of fish! Not only enough to fill his stomach, but pet fish as well! He had something to talk to (well, at) as well as eat. It was perfect! Smiling, he snapped up one last fish, his bulging belly beckoning him to dreamland with one final thought.

“Mmm, she should go swimming more often.”