“Hold on!” commanded Hole Grain to the shivering ones below him.

“I don’t wanna die!” wailed Sal Ami. He was firmly wedged between Lett Uce and Ched Err. Underneath the trio was B. R. Ead.

“It is our fate,” lamented Ched Err. “We were made for this very purpose. What use is there to whimper and moan? It is as inevitable as the sunset.”

“Shut up!” snapped Lett, who was also scared silly. “You’re just making it worse!”

As the two bickered, the saucer that they rested on suddenly halted. And then, with a bang that hurt their ears, they were set down.

“This is it, fellas,” muttered Hole Grain. “I’ve seen all my friends consumed by the Cave. It is no pretty sight, believe me. I am the last of them.”

Sal Ami wept with fright and his tears dropped onto Lett.

“Stop dripping grease on me!” Lett growled.

All of a sudden, enormous tan objects grabbed the distraught group of five and lifted them high into the air. Everyone but Hole Grain screamed. He, instead, was praying to the Invincible Meatloaf.

“Our Meatloaf, who art in Stomach, hallowed be thy grease,” he murmured. Hot breath blew on his face, and he opened his eyes.

Facing him a mere inch away was a pink rimmed cave. Its mouth was perfectly round and inside it was dark red walls coated in a clear, sticky substance. The same substance coated the pearl-white stalagmites and stalactites lined up in a perfect arc, parallel to each other. This was the acid that would eat him alive.

Even Hole Grain screamed. It was the last sound that he, or any of his friends, ever made as they were carried into the cave. They died instantly when the mouth closed.

* * *

Sam chewed happily on his sandwich. He had never gotten sick of the salami, cheese and lettuce combination between two slices of whole grain bread.

His three-year-old sister clomped down the stairs. “Don’t chew so hard, Sam,” she protested as he washed it all down with milk. “It’ll hurt them!”

“What, the food?”’ he snorted. “You’re acting as if my sandwich is alive!”