Sent Down Pt. 4

Story by Lithier on SoFurry

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#4 of Sent Down

I've been sitting on this one for a bit ^.^; But I finally finished proofing, and I hope y'all enjoy :3 And once again, one of my "lots of sex in a small amount of text" plans kind of... just turned into a whole lot of text x3 So it looks like this little segment will have to roll over into a Part 5, if and when our kind, anonymous commissioner sees fit ^.^;

Sevens has earned the right to see Pandora, but it looks like she isn't taking it easy on her. As soon as he shows up again, she sends him off with a mission... and a Sharpie?


The black Sharpie retractable fine point permanent marker held a special meaning at Dragged Under. When Pandora had a fresh specimen of this fine brand of marker waiting for the coyote on his next visit, he was not particularly impressed, but giggles rose around them at the table. The leopard offered up her marker, and Sevens took it with a soft frown, giving it a click. Looked pretty normal.

As the leopard sipped at her straw and explained, surrounded by tittering "girls" and a few men, the marker dropped to the coyote's side, slowly squeezing in his tightening grip. When she was sure he understood, Pandora waved him off to do her bidding, and he turned, wringing at that marker.

Down on the floor, the marker was a beacon. Sevens held it high before him as if to light the way in the darkness and the pale, swimming rainbows of the dancing masses. The crowd parted before him, half-hidden smiles turning away as he approached. He wandered the floor, waving his marker slowly as he parted the tides of dancing transvestites like a scowling, fluffy figure out of the bible. He nearly jumped when a paw seized the marker.

Out of the anonymous walls of declining furs emerged a grinning wolf, his haggard visage pinned together by one blood-red eye, possibly a burst vessel. One paw wrapped round the proffered marker, the wolf slung the other round the yote's rear, giving him a rough grope and pulling at his pants. Sevens gave a snarl and shifted to pull away, but the wolf managed to pluck the marker from his grip. The coyote swallowed, and undid his belt.

Pushed against the front of the bar, Sevens snarled through his teeth as the wolf squeezed into his ass, barely bothering to drag down both their pants enough to jam his dick in. A widespread paw on the coyote's back pinned the marker against him, and another dragged at his hip as the wolf claimed his bitch, shoving balls deep in one long, shuddering push. Dark words leaked from the larger canine's lips as he worked that ass, uncaring that he wasn't as well-equipped as the yote he had the opportunity to put a dick to. Others averted their eyes as Sevens fell victim to one of the scummier elements of the club.

When those heavy balls finally set to twitching and unloaded in the yote's ass, the wolf howled out, piercing even the heavy thuds of the music overhead. That marker peeled off his back as the red-eyed menace dragged out, and he thumbed the button. One heavy black mark dragged down the yote's bare ass, jagged and stark against his dirty white fur. With that, the wolf dropped the marker on the floor and hitched up his pants, disappearing into the crowd.

Collecting himself with a scowl and a painfully massive swell down the leg of his jeans, Sevens took up his marker and stormed off the dance floor, trying not to walk too oddly. The dark halls were still mostly a mystery to him, but before too long, he found a doorway radiating a familiar, mellow blue light. Inside, couches, fluffy chairs and a few beds made for the cushioned playground of the snuggly and the sleepy, and a wide array of furs lounged all around him, hopefully a bit more mellow in nature. Swallowing slowly, he lifted his marker again.

More amused smiles. Appraising eyes traveled up and down his slim form, but many turned away from his constant frown. His marker wandered among the chairs, weaving around great sprawling sofas. How many, called a voice to one side. Sevens turned to find a rabbit sitting alone in a chair with great armrests swollen with padding, her chin sitting on the back of her paw. By her dress, at least, she was female, but Sevens had his suspicions. He stepped closer.

Twenty, he said. Twenty? She asked, caught between disbelief and amusement. Well, she wasn't sure if she could go that far, but she could help... She smiled, and offered him a seat. His pants would have to stay behind, though. The marker changed paws, and quietly slipped into her bra.

She sat back as he crawled into her lap, a slow smile crawling across her lips, and two paws spread his cheeks. He was slowly leaking, but she had a plug for him. A thick grunt burst from his lips, the coyote's eyes popping wide as he was punctured. She'd barely flicked her skirt up before he had five inches stuffed up his tailhole, and she was still pushing in more. He grit his teeth and sunk his claws into the back of the chair as her hips started bouncing hungrily under him, straining his hole. He thought she was a little too big to be thrusting that fast, but obviously she disagreed muchly.

She was hardly getting started, in fact, when he burst, soaking her cute little blouse with his juices as his orbs flexed on her belly, jerking and jumping as he grunted and fired, his floppy length half-bending downward at the tip each time he rocked up under her rutting. She just giggled breathily and hammered in harder, her eyes strangely innocent even as she plundered his ass.

It didn't take her all too long to blow-- it took him a moment to realize what was happening, since she didn't slow in the slightest. She just moaned out slowly, her breath faltering slightly as she blasted his bowels with seed and kept jerking her hips up into his tight ass. At his incredulous look, she just smiled, and hauled him up, half pushing him with the force of her grinding hips. She threw him across one armrest, landing him on his back as she pushed his legs up, keeping his ass up and open to her use. Hooking his legs over her shoulders, she went to town almost cheerily, cooing little appreciations for him being able to take her so easily-- she didn't find many that she could really let loose on, apparently. Sevens might have responded, but every time his mouth opened he only cried out desperately as his hole was reamed through, the rabbit intent on rutting his ass at a breakneck pace.

Head falling back to hang, the coyote stared out at the sea of comfy furniture, lost in the pleasure of getting his ass stuffed. Between the two thick loads of seed coating his insides, there was little pain, only the incredible rush of flesh dragging against his insides, the crush of her thick dick squeezing in and out over and over. He was already fucking hard again.

Her second payload was a thick blossom of warmth spreading in his belly, and the coyote's eyes drifted shut as he squeezed down around her. The rabbit was true to her overactive heritage, though-- she didn't even falter. The spry slap of balls against his ass became a constant background noise, even as it sharpened with the moisture of her excess juices creating two big, wet ball-prints across his cheeks. He focused on fighting down his orgasm-- even if he was enjoying himself, he didn't want to be too shameless about it, and he grit his teeth and focused on slowing the throbs of the thick yote dick half-reclining on his belly. The rabbit wasn't going to make it easy, though.

Slowly, sliding his legs to either side, the lapin leaned down over her little cum receptacle, grinning as her belly pressed to his, trapping his shaft between them. Her ruts actually slowed as her face drew closer-- trading speed for ferocity. The coyote gasped out at the unexpected force of her hips' blows to his widespread ass, and he throbbed thick between them, mashed between his worn jacket and the cum-soaked film of her blouse. Slick fabric warped and twisted around him, grinding in time with the savage claiming of his ass and he snarled out, clutching at the devious rabbit. When her sack gave its first twitch against his ass, he lost it.

Head flung back, he shot off again, thick, hot cream plastering her top to her fur and painting her neck, under her chin, and a deal of the carpeting off the side of the chair before making a mess of his own face and clothes. The lapin hummed thickly as her hips ground snug against his ass, her shaft giving potent throbs as she fired one more thick ballful into his ass, possibly the biggest load of the three. She licked a bit of his seed off her lips, but when the marker emerged from her bra utterly soaked in his jism and dripping, she offered it at his lips for cleaning off. She giggled softly as she watched him put his tongue to work.

Three neat, vertical lines of black joined the large, jagged mark on his ass before the rabbit jerked his pants back up and handed him the marker. He had to clench tight to hold onto all of it now, and he felt rather stuffed, if not near as much as when the leopard had had his way with him. Swallowing a groan as he took his first experimental step, Sevens went on with his mission, trying to convince himself he wasn't sloshing.

Among the titters and moans and murmured conversations, he had to perk his ears to anything that might have been a signal for him to approach. When a sudden 'hey' rose from a loveseat ahead, his eyes landed on a pair of otters in miniskirts, intertwined and giggling softly. He couldn't tell if they were related, as he'd always thought all otters looked the same, but they were pretty intimate for blood relations. Not that that guaranteed anything, he supposed-- they may well have been twins. At the moment, they were squirming and playfully bickering: it seemed they were both feeling rather poky, but neither wanted to take it. It made for an odd game of wrestling, trying to escape a mounting and mount in turn. Before long, however, they noticed they had something of an audience.

Their eyes found the marker hanging at his side, and suddenly they were all smiles. 'Come,' they beckoned, 'have a seat.' The two untangled themselves and pulled apart, offering a rather snug space between two grinning mustelids and their obviously tented skirts. Sevens' sigh rattled in his throat as he drew closer, and his rear hardly hit the cushion before it was pulled between a pair of legs, little paws rooting in under him and dragging down the back of his pants as he found himself locked in a sloppy kiss with the other needy creature. The two dragged him sideways between them, moving in unison to probe him out. A tongue jutted rudely into his muzzle, wagging about and tasting him as two fingers firmly rooted up his ass, earning a giggle behind him as he promptly gushed seed all over that devious paw. The paw disappeared barely a beat before a hot poker stabbed against his cheek jerkily, that paw stroking his extra juices over the length quickly as the lust-blinded otter struggled to find her mark. Not to be outdone, the horny creature slurping at his muzzle abruptly abandoned the kiss to shove his face into her crotch, grinding at his cheek through her skirt a moment before dragging the fabric out from between the two of them.

He was so lubed up, Sevens hardly realized the otter had found the mark until her hips slapped to his ass, and a soft groan leaked from his throat as he squeezed around the otter's throbbing shaft, wringing at it-- though she simply took this for an invitation to start pounding right through his wringing grip. Hot meat stuffed his cheek, and he coughed before pulling it properly into his muzzle, suckling best as he could when she kept humping his face. It was all he could do to pull back before she thrust right down his throat-- until her paws found a proper grip on the back of his head, and his eyes popped wide as his virgin throat stretched around a drooling otter cock, every eager twitch palpably trying to crush his windpipe. She popped out after barely a beat, only to drive right down his neck again, burying several inches before her crotch mashed to his face and ground in, fingers tight on his scalp. His body shook under waves of revulsion and violation, veined with some horrible thrill of being filled that just held him from trying to jerk away. He held his ground, and the otter went to work on his neck.

Skewered between the two of them, he found the two moved in almost perfect unison: they pulled and rammed in simultaneously, grinding his body tight between two hungry, driving pairs of otter hips as they throbbed emphatically against his inner walls, straining his throat and stirring up the thick pool of jism in his gut before drawing to leave him abruptly numb and empty for one terrible half a beat. The relief when they rutted his face and ass again was disgusting. The two breathed little teasing compliments about their new toy, agreeing with each other about what a lucky catch he was, and how they'd have to hunt him down next time they couldn't agree on anything. They teased each other about how good their own side was, insisting the other should try it. Finally, as the one humping his face started to pant, she admitted she might like a shot at his rear right now.

Four paws closed around him, and Sevens found himself hauled up again, his legs up and spread as far as they could get while half-tangled in his pants. His heavy, throbbing shaft was still stabbed into the messy crotch of his jeans where they caught between his knees, his pendulous balls giving a twitch as the needy ferret pulled them up to expose his ass, firmly wrapped around her twin's shaft. Sevens groaned and let his head fall back as she snuggled up close, grinding up her twin's meat to nestle her head against his hole. He should have seen it coming, he supposed. A choked noise leaked from his throat as she punched inside, and the two shafts crossed inside him to grind against his front and back. They started to heave him up and down together to double-stuff his ass together, scissoring their cocks through him with the needy drives of their own hips. Lost in the bitter lust of feeling two throbbing creatures gnawing at his insides, Sevens took a long moment to realize someone was calling to him and shaking his shoulder.

His eyes cracked open blearily, almost afraid this had all been a dream, but the twins were still plunging away at his ass with their little coos and titters. The rabbit from before was smiling down at him, saying something about helping out. At first, the room seemed to shift behind her-- then he realized, blinking rapidly, that it wasn't the room behind her, but a massive... polar bear? He must have been nearly eight feet tall, giving a slow grin as the yote's eyes finally wandered up to find his face. House rules were, the rabbit explained, that he counted as two. She smiled brightly. When she stepped aside, Sevens could see why.

To be fair, it didn't look all that big on the broad-shouldered ursine. His eyes kept re-focusing, trying to figure out just how big it had to be on a man whose head nearly scraped the ceiling. Finally, he had to use the mischievous rabbit next to him for reference, and he was suddenly jarred-- the purple-scarred, heavy black creature hanging between the bear's thick, muscled legs must have been wider around than her arm, and almost as long. On the polar bear, it didn't look much bigger than Sevens' own-- "only" very large. Behind, an overstuffed grocery sack of balls half-propped the threatening creature up. One broad paw --barely seeming formed enough to have fingers-- reached down to stroke over the bear's exposed flesh as he grinned and drew closer.

Set on the couch, folded up between the otters, Sevens was more or less at eye level with the bear's crotch-- and the bear seemed quite ready to take advantage of the fact. His spare paw seized hold of the yote's head, and, catching his intention, the twins changed gears. Their united pumping up and down folded into an instense sawing at his insides from front and back, drawing and pushing in a perfect counterpoint such that he seemed to have dick constantly rolling along his inner walls, grinding down against his spine to push up against his prostate and back again, like a hungry tide of flesh, back and forth. This intense rhythm was the background to the bear's low rumbles as he brutishly shoved the head of his dick to the yote's face. The slow taper down of the shaft from the base flared suddenly at his head, forming a slanted diamond for stabbing and stretching out anything that got in its way-- and Sevens' mouth was its next victim.

He gagged almost instantly-- the high point of the head jammed right to the back of his throat with the first push, even as his lips strained around the wide flares of the head itself. This posed the bear's gaping cumvein perfectly-- a thick gush of bitter prefluid coated his tongue and filled his mouth, slopping down his chin as he shuddered. The bear allowed him only a taste, however, before he pushed on. A fit of paralysis seized the coyote as that ebon spear wedged into the entrance of his throat abruptly, straining his neck till he was sure he'd simply tear apart. The bear knew what he wanted, and even if he had intentions for the coyote's rear, making full use of the other end was obviously his step one, and Sevens was either going to satisfy him or die trying.

The second option was looming in his mind as a thick wedge of bear cock lodged itself partway in his throat and kept pushing for more. He could only stare vaguely upward at the ursine, his vision swimming and his tissues and bones creaking audibly in his ears as he strained around the mass of the bear's pleasure rod. All he could see was that big, toothy grin as his vision seemed to pulse in and out in time with the thick throbs of that head. And suddenly, with a startling rush, the broadest bulk of that cockhead slipped past his gate muscles, and the full bulk slid firmly into his throat, lurching to fill his neck in an obscene swell. In that moment, he couldn't imagine dragging that beast out again-- it had fit through once by some miracle, and he didn't think he could survive another pass. Luckily, the bear seemed intent on pushing deeper.

Watching on either side, the otters couldn't hold back their admiration, though they didn't seem to be trying much. They tittered about the bear's size, and what a lovely slut the coyote made with three dicks in him. They might have been talking dirty half for their own benefit, as he could feel the throbbing rolling through his hole intensifying. Thick, urgent twitches shoved against his button and strained his hole, and he could just feel the coming payload-- his body was picking up the instinctive recognition of the impending storm. His body quivered and convulsed as his tailhole was worked with a growing, vicious hunger and his throat stretched beyond recognition, the bear handfeeding him inch after inch of monstrous bear dick until he could feel that creature straining against his collarbones, jamming at the top of his ribcage. Trapped, dying, destroyed by dicks. That was all he could think-- he felt like he might disintegrate between the lot of them, and his damned foolish pleasures would be the end of him. He just... he just couldn't make himself sincerely regret it. His ass squeezed down.

The otter "girls" moaned out in an almost eerie unison as they both jammed in to the hilt in his ass and blasted his bowels with a double dose of seed, adding another species to the thick, musky brew of semen stewing deep in his gut. He might have groaned out himself if he had the ability as their combined output strained his insides, making his intestines churn and gurgle around the fresh bloating even as the excess squirted out between their shafts to coat their balls and the couch below. The orgasmic writhing surrounding the coyote seemed to catch the bear's attention, as he gave a rumble that Sevens might have thought was supposed to be speech, if it wasn't scraping out the bottom of the bass register. Abruptly, the impatient ramming that was straining his ribs became a firm hauling, a paw planted over his face as the bear attempted to pry his dick out.

That dread from moments before swelled as the flares of that shaft, the two outer points on the rough diamond of his head, dragged against the back of his swallowing muscles. The top of his gullet was meant to pull food down and hold it, not to take anything this massive-- let alone to let go of it. His arms flew up, clutching, clawing at the polar bear's arm desperately as he felt that terrible strain tear through him, and when the head hauled free, he was sure he was dead-- the coyote launched into a coughing fit, and he had to swallow several times, rubbing at his throat, before he could believe he managed to endure the bear's throatfucking relatively undamaged. By the time he was done with his little episode, of course, everyone else was growing impatient. Two shafts dragged from his ass as he tried to get his bearings, and he found himself shoved forward, landing on his belly in a mess of extra jism on the loveseat.

A violent creak in the furniture and a heavy heat engulfing his legs announced his new company half a beat before a thick slap of meat all the way up his legs, ass, and half his back confirmed its identity. A long, slow drag pulled that fat head down the small of his back and up his ass before those paws slipped down to jerk his cheeks wide open. A sudden chill up his insides assured him his tailhole couldn't even close at this point-- which was likely a blessing right now. The hole was promptly plugged, however, by the pointed tip shoving firmly against his inner walls, suddenly pressing hot to his sore ring and the cum-soaked flesh within. Those almost pointed flared nuzzled tight to his cheeks, giving one good throb before-- wait, came the cry. Sevens trembled violently, suddenly feeling very much the man on the chopping block under a hesitating blade.

Wait, cried the otters, and when he managed to drag his head up enough to see, one of them was holding up the Sharpie dramatically. The bear rumbled, and shifted, leaning back. Small trembles broke into twitches and jerks throughout his legs and torso as the otters leaned over him. He could feel the steady throb of the bear's manhood straining him, pushing him just a little too wide with every pulse, and he had to fight off the need to seize down, to wring at him as his own shaft throbbed helplessly below, pinned between his legs pointed at his knees with his balls mashed in between it and his thighs. From above, the two phalluses were a surprising match-- the polar bear was, by his scale, impressively endowed with an ebon monster that could well knock a fellow unconscious with a good swing of his hips, and it stood in strong contrast to the white of his fur. Below, the dirty white of the yote's fur played well off his burnt black, oversized shaft and its silver piercings, though it was dwarfed in an instant by the languid, pulsating violet-tinted log half-puncturing his rear end.

Two lines. One quick, vertical line barely squeezed in alongside the sharp curve of the bear's flare on his right cheek, and one long, horizontal, dragging line from one side of his left cheek to the other. Six. Was that all? He was ready to curl into a ball and black out for days, and he was hardly more than a quarter of the way there. The thrill of hunger that shot through him as that unnaturally massive man mast dug at his ass was a bitter shot of life-- he was alive, and he would keep going, because he needed more. He needed every dick, every load, and he needed her. For one foolish moment, he pushed back as the bear hauled in.

His muscles strained and turned to water in an instant, and his body mashed into the bed as the impossible bulk of that polar bear's dick strained against him, grinding his hips into the cushioning until he could feel the wooden supports underneath through the springs. Half a dozen wads of cum and a thick coating of saliva, and the bear had to grind and grind that trembling little mess of coyote into the bed until his ass finally stretched wide enough for one instant, one yelping moment of mind-bending strain, for that cruel cockhead to bury inside him, bloating his already overburdened gut with a heavy, slow-throbbing mass. He felt palpably heavier.

The mere presence of that boulder of flesh, that flinty black cockhead inside him was tearing at him. More than it punished his insides with every throb, every twitch as it strained his distended bowels just a little further, it was rapidly strengthening the terrible, disgusting creature in his mind he had been trying to stifle. The slut. Yessss, it hissed, fill me. He could only tell the bear was inside by the pain, but the pain was all he needed. If he kept this up for long, he would become a true masochist. The pain told him he was pushing his limit, the limit that Pandora had already pushed a dozen notches higher than it ever should have gone. More, came the hiss in his mind. His own voice.

Promptly, the lumbering ursine shoved deeper, his monstrous shaft scraping along the insides of the yote's cheeks before dragging inward at his ring, squishing the fleshy outer mass of that cunt-breaker into a tight, compact mass under the compressing ring of Sevens' thin-stretched tailhole. The bear peeled his teeth in an exultant snarl over the canine's back, savoring the yote's insides clamping down around him, his various guts foolishly blocking the way a moment before being plowed aside as the coyote bloated with his new contents. The coyote jerked his head about, groaning out, though the sound never reached his ears-- the scraping of that beast against his depths was thundering in his ears. Cum squelched through him, shoved into every crevice of his being around that beast, seeping into his very blood. He barely noticed when his own balls finally began to flex and fire a thick mess between his knees.

That first, steady, unfaltering shove finally came to a halt when the air abruptly shoved from his lungs-- the bear had already pierced half his torso to grind against the limit Pandora had flirted with. His arms flung up in a surge of desperation-- half to help him breathe, half to accomodate the creature grinding against the inside of his spine. He clutched at the bed, claws sinking into the padding as he pulled himself up, stretching his shoulders out as far from his hips as he could. He managed to gasp a deep breath as he slid up the cum-slicked puddle to settle his collarbones and chin on a relatively dry spot, not bothering to root his claws out of the cushion in front of him.

The pull nearly hauled him up and back with the cushion attached. He gurgled as the bear dragged his hips backward, and the mass plugged into his middle hardly even budged until the bear planted two paws on his back to pin him in place. The slow pull had the yote's eyes watering, his nerves firing to squeeze but his muscles simply incapable. There was too much meat to even begin-- his muscles were little more than a thin layer of padding around that log of flesh, now.

And after the long, slow roll of the draw, the sudden break of momentum to shove in jarred reality for a moment. That horrendously wonderful cock burrowed deep into his ass, fresh inches squeezing in thanks to the yote's little stretch, and the head soon shoved between his lungs again, his breath gushing out in a dejected moan. There was still meat to be buried, however, and the bear ground in deeper, snarling impatiently. Sevens grit his teeth, turning a little blue in the face as that fat cockhead stabbed around his insides, searching out a way to go deeper, straining his deepest reaches, far beyond any limit of decency or safety and still hungry for more. A sharp pinch, and a bizarre sense of pressure bloomed in his chest, and panic rose in the back of his mind as inches rapidly squeezed into his ass, his cheeks burning under the friction. He choked out a gurgling noise as the bear stretched its way right through his diaphragm into some barely existent space between his lungs and his ribcage.

Well, asked the rabbit somewhere overhead, how do you like him? For the space of a second in which Sevens thought she was talking to him, he formulated an answer that came roughly to what the bear replied with: a low, contented rumble tinted with a chuckle. Oh, really? The bunny tittered. You always were a quick shot when you got a hole that could actually fit you.

Sevens could barely make out the words around the rumble of that throbbing beast beating against the inside of his ribs. When they finally deciphered in his mind, though, he was at once flooded with hope and a horrible sense of being robbed. He could feel it, too-- etched through every impatiently throbbing inch of that monstrosity, it was impossible to miss the signs that the bear was close. Flesh was turning to steel, making his hipbones creak and his heart skip a beat with every potent throb. Tears were pouring down his cheeks as they started to take a blue hue, but the yote could only wish for more.

Those monstrous balls only barely dragged up his thighs far enough to push against his ass before they flexed up in cresting pleasure. Sevens had only a heartbeat, the time it took for searing bearseed to travel a little over two feet, to treasure the incredible, nigh-impossible sensation of that monstrosity buried to the very hilt in his ass, fur bristling against his ass and a tip gouging at his highest ribs, his spine tingling in ominous ways as it brushed the top and his belly swollen in a fat line up the middle against the couch, his lungs almost collapsed and his heart begging for mercy as that broad battering ram of pure meat throbbed against him, before the first unholy barrage of seed flash-boiled his insides.

If one could listen to a river squeezed through a straw, one could speculate at the sound thundering inside the yote's head as his body was savagely flooded with bear spunk. It took three pulses for the gunk to suddenly surge up his throat-- going the long way around. A thick wad burst from his mouth, coating his arm and soaking into his tongue. He might have coughed, but more was only surging up. His system was flooded all the way through. He swallowed as best he could, his neck still weak from the throat-fucking, but he managed to hold down more than gushed from his maw. He could only stare in dismay at the fresh puddle forming under his folded, cum-soaked arms as those small planets rocked industriously against his ass, feeding more and more in. Counted for two, like hell! He could probably milk five guys and not get this much! He tried to gripe, but the words echoed in his head with the tone of a gushing enthusiast.

Darkness was creeping in on him as his system went into shock. All he could think in his last moments before unconsciousness dragged him into a warm, wet abyss was, twelve left. He wasn't even half way there. He didn't know it, but his lips were crooked in a smile.