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The boy was brought into the temple, the God's constant voice in his mind numbing his thoughts and filling him with a sense of peace. He scarcely noticed as he was taken into a side chamber by the priests. His road-soiled clothes were removed, and he was carried into the bathing chamber. His hair was trimmed down to a fingers-width, and his body hair was carefully removed. The High Priest himself then bathed the lad, sponging his body with pungently spiced oils, then rinsing him with rose-scented water. Finally, a thin cotton armless robe was draped over his body, covering him from his neck to his ankles.
As the High Priest left and a second priest came to lead him to a side chamber to wait for the ritual, his mind suddenly cleared. He looked around, his body tingling from the bath and his mind filled with the God's last words... "Do not fear what is to come, for I will take you in and we will become One."
Through a curtained doorway, he heard the solemn peal of the temple gong. The priest moved in front of him, two more priests appeared behind him, and in procession they moved through the doorway.
They entered into the large main chamber of the temple, dominated by the carven face of the God, 20 feet tall from chin to forehead. The High Priest, standing next to a raised dais in front of the face, spoke with his arms raised high, asking that the chosen vessel be made one with the God. The boy walked between the priests, led to the dais and lifted onto it by the two priests behind him. As their hands left him, they drew off his robe, leaving the boy shivering in the cold temple air. The High Priest looked at him, granting him strength for a silent moment, then turned towards the face. "Re-Ama, most powerful of the Gods, accept our gift, your new vessel." With that, the High Priest stepped down, and the boy felt his arms grasped by the two priests flanking him.
The silence of the temple was broken by the sound of rock grating against rock. The boy's eyes widened as the huge stone mouth began to open, a shocked gasp coming from the audience behind him. The grip on his arms loosened a bit as the priests to either side watched in surprise, then tightened once more. When the stone lips finally stopped moving, the dark mouth stood open, nearly four feet tall and wide. Then the boy felt the priests on either side pick him up by his arms, lifting him easily from the dais. He struggled some, not knowing what was going on, but the priests ignored the struggles and carried him forward, until he was held right in front of the gaping mouth. He could feel warm air coming out of what should have been a cold stone cave as the priests lifted him up higher, then slid his legs into the opening.
The boy kicked as his feet encountered a soft, warm, and damp surface that did not feel at all like stone. His struggles were to no avail as the priests maneuvered his body into the mouth of the God, his legs sliding along the surface, soon followed by his rump and back. As his head and arms were pushed inside, the stone rumbling began again, and he saw the circle of light that was the open mouth closing back up again.
Then he was surrounded in darkness. The air was moist and hot, and everything he could feel was damp and soft, except the semi-circular row of stones that his mind couldn't accept as being giant teeth. He had just rolled over onto his belly, thinking to crawl back to the mouth and try to get out, when the flexing surface beneath him pressed him up against the roof of the cave. As he looked around unseeing in the total darkness, he was finally forced to admit that this really was a mouth, that he really was laying atop a giant tongue. Then, just as panic started overtaking him, he remembers the God's final words. Although he did not know why the God's voice wasn't with him now to comfort him, he managed to calm himself, knowing that he would soon be joining his God.
The tongue beneath him flexed once more, and he felt himself moved backwards smoothly, pressed against the soft roof once more before the tongue dropped and he dropped with it. His feet felt the walls of the throat behind him, and he rubbed his bare soles against the rough surface before being fed backwards into the waiting tunnel. His legs slid smoothly in, his body bending at the waist as he closed his eyes to feel fully the warm embrace of the throat. As the muscles caught his legs, his body was pulled into the tight throat with a sudden jerk; he felt rings of muscles contracting against his body, and felt pleasure from it, completely surrounded in warmth. His arms and legs pressed tight to his sides as his body was pulled down the giant esophagus, he smiled, and was rewarded with a bright flash of intense pleasure as he passed into the chamber below.
He landed on a smooth, conforming surface covered with a slimy ooze. Laying on his back as the living walls of the chamber closed around him, his body tingling as the digestive ooze surrounded him, he slept in peace.