Incredible How You Can

“I mean, how does she even work, right?” A guy chuckled. His name was Mike, and he was laughing about the physics of Marvel’s Invisible Woman as he walked down the street with his buddy, Brandon. “She would be blind.”

Brandon responded, “I mean, if she can just bend light around her so she looks clear then I guess she'd be able to do it in a way so she can see.” He rubbed his chin, then continued, “Maybe she's like Daredevil though.”

Mike laughed, “The Invisible Woman: Matt Murdock. That'd be one hell of a story.” He took a sip from a bottle he was holding in his hand. “You're probably right about her bending light in a weird way though. She's pretty powerful.”

“Yeah I mean one time-- Oof!” Brandon unexpectedly bumped into something, though after backing up, he saw nothing.

His friend started to laugh, “You tripping, Brandon?”

Brandon scratched his head, saying, “No I… thought I hit something.”

Mike waved his hand through the space in front of Brandon, then said, “Nothing there compadre. Drank a little too much?”

Brandon shook his head, saying, “I coulda sworn…” but they continued walking anyhow. They walked for about another minute, and right when Mike was about to start a new topic, a growling belly filled the air. Mike started laughing again. “Brandon, you still hungry after that lunch?”

He shot a look at his friend and said, “Nah man, you the hungry one here. Don't try to pin this on me.”

Mike frowned, “What? That wasn't me man. Gotta be you.”

Brandon shook his head. “Wasn't me either. Look man if you're still hungry...”

Mike suddenly felt rather wet near the top of his head. He almost instinctively tried to look up, though he found his head somewhat locked in place. He could vaguely feel the sensation of something like a ring of dull sharpness around his head. He tried to reach his arms up to feel his head, but was interrupted by something. He was going to feel further when he was suddenly jerked downwards, falling onto the ground and smashing his bottle.

Brandon immediately stopped walking as his friend fell down, looking on with concern and saying, “Whoa man, are you okay?” Other than the fall, he didn’t notice anything too worrisome. He watched as Mike seemed to move slightly upward, looking rather odd while doing so. Mike appeared to mumble something, and moved further upwards. Brandon became particularly alarmed, however, when Mike’s head started to tilt backwards. Mike became alarmed as well, starting to thrash for no apparent reason to any outside observer. Brandon took a step back and said, “Jesus Mike, did you get something in your drink?” He glanced around, worrying if they were attracting attention.

Mike, meanwhile, felt like he was suffocating, somewhat. He was also soaking wet up to about his shoulders, now. He could feel them too become enveloped in whatever was enveloping him. Despite being able to still see clear as day, he felt extremely tight, and uncomfortable. He tried to call out to his friend, but felt crushed in the invisible tube he was in. He tried to squirm his way back out of whatever the hell he had gotten himself into, but to no avail. He could see back down the sidewalk they had come from, and people were starting to look at the two of them rather strangely.

His friend thought Mike had been acting crazy a moment ago, but as he was unable to take his eyes off the situation unfolding in front of him, he noticed that his friend seemed like he was soaking wet. Furthermore, unless Mike was exercising like crazy in secret, there’s no way his legs should be able to support his full body in a pose like that. Then when his friend’s legs finally left the ground, leaving him apparently dangling in midair, he knew something was truly wrong. Brandon exclaimed, “Oh shit!” and almost immediately started trying to tug on his buddy’s legs, hoping to pull him out of the… whatever that was going on.

As the physics-defying man abandoned the ground, scaring him deeply, he felt respite shortly thereafter when his head left behind the crushing pressure. He took a deep gasp of air, and screamed at the top of his lungs. He could see, while upside down, all around him, people staring in his direction, mostly with looks of confusion. The rest of his body began to also be relieved of the pressure in the order it came under the pressure. He watched with joy as he grew closer to the ground once more, smiling widely, and then… He was suddenly denied the cold concrete by a warm liquid. His hands were freed from being attached to his sides, and he was able to explore this newfound prison, feeling a slimy warm rubber all around him.

As Mike discovered a new setting, Brandon was following right in his footsteps. The invisible nature of whatever it was manipulating Mike prevented him from being aware of the “event horizon”, in which he started to notice the wet feeling across his hands as well. Before he could even think about pulling them out, they were tightly gripped by a crushing, but soft pressure. “Oh no…” he muttered, trying to pull his hands out, but only finding himself being pulled forward. His eyes followed his hands and Mike’s feet as they continued downwards. Brandon was further confused as he saw Mike starting to bundle up, apparently floating above the ground. It was like he was in some sort of clear hamster ball.

Finally achieving freedom from the pressure in its entirety, Mike shifted around inside his rather cramped space. He found himself reclining awkwardly against what was, at least visibly, thin air. He looked down and saw himself floating above the ground, and looked up and saw his friend taking his own journey through the pressure tube. He groaned as he watched his friend inch closer, bearing the uncomfortable half-smile of someone too nice for their own good. He muttered to himself, “Brandon, you fucking idiot.”

A crowd was gathering around the two’s apparent magic act. People watched in awe as the white man struggled against an invisible confinement, and the black man was pulled through the air, as if going down a slide. Several in the crowd got out cameras and started to record the floating mime act in front of them. People applauded the two when Brandon finally joined Mike inside the “container”, looking like two cats in a bag. Some people did find it odd however, that they were soaking wet. Even if they could somehow float, why would they be soaking wet like that?

Their mouths opened repeatedly but the crowd heard nothing, reinforcing their belief it was an act. The two men continued to interact with their prison of air, trying to grab the audience's help, but only receiving applause. Then something remarkable started to happen: the two’s clothes started to seemingly disintegrate. The audience made exclamations of surprise at the new event, while Mike and Brandon were simultaneously terrified and embarrassed.

Mike hit the invisible wall. “Fuck! Can they not hear us at all?” The crowd seemed almost taunting, recording, cheering, applauding. Some people even threw change below them, as they were hovering about two feet off the ground.

Brandon was trying to cover himself as his pants disintegrated. “Man, what even is this?” he said, frightfully. “It's like… man. I can't even think what this could be.”

Mike simply continued trying to push through the walls, and though they did budge, they were very elastic and it mostly just caused them to tumble about as if they were in a washer. He was about to complain once more when they felt themselves get shaken up by some outside source. They bumped into each other and their clothes disintegrated even faster leaving them naked after about a minute of this. Several things that had been in their pockets disintegrated instantly in the liquid around them, but notably, a phone remained.

Brandon realized almost immediately what they could do to save themselves. He reached downwards to grab his phone. After a bit of flailing and readjusting, he was able to grab it. Right as he was about to dial 911, the walls around them seemed to convulse, knocking the phone out of hands. Then the phone seemed to fly through the air, and was finally ejected onto the ground -- with a loud belch from above punctuating its release.

Around this time, a majority of the crowd started to realize something was off, though there was no way to pinpoint it. The belch they heard startled them all, and seemed to come from above the two “performers.” Someone was going to pick up the slimy phone, when the floating men suddenly descended, and a soft thump was heard. They didn't seem to be floating anymore, though careful inspection would reveal that they weren't quite touching the ground. It was at this point that a small child decided to try and reach out to the guys, but she was stopped by something she described as, “like Play-Doh.”

Brandon swore as his phone left him, and then both his friend and him swore again when they hit the ground unexpectedly. Mike watched as a young girl tried to touch their invisible prison from the outside, only managing to push inwards slightly. Her parent pulled her back when the naked man moved toward her, trying to get her assistance.

Meanwhile, Brandon looked down at the ground and saw his phone, beneath them again. He decided to try and continue dialing for help, as he should be able to press on the screen… especially if where they were was what he had started to think. He told Mike to sort of stand up, so that he could submerge his arms in the liquid to reach the bottom. Mike stood awkwardly, arching across the top while Brandon dove his hands in the liquid to interact with his phone. After several forceful tappings, he finally managed to successfully dial and call 911.

Just as he finished, they both felt the walls ripple, then they were shaken up again. Mike then fell onto Brandon, deeply submerging themselves in the liquid. When the shaking stopped, they both came back up and gasped for air. Over the noise of the crowd, they were just barely able to make out, “911, what's your emergency?”

An operator sat inside a 911 call center, active on a new call. The phone's location suggested it was coming from a street a fair bit away. However, there was no actual response coming from the phone. She could hear what sounded like bubbling, perhaps, and also a large crowd of people. She asked again, “Hello?” and briefly switched lines, saying, “Any available unit, possible 10-32 near Seventh and Trade.” She switched back to the caller’s line, but still heard no response.

The audience was both horrified and confused by this point. Someone had noted that one of the two tried calling 911, so a few others followed suit. But worse, the two seemed to be melting. They watched as the black man started to drip, as if he was a wax figure of himself. That said, the crowd were glued to the event, and several were still recording for posterity.

“Ohhhhhhh fuck,” was all Brandon could stammer out. He turned to Mike, pointing at his melting hand, and shouted, “Holy shit! You know what's happening to us? We're being fucking digested!”

Mike swallowed nervously and said, “H-how d’ya figure?”

Brandon just stared at his blob of a hand and said, “I-- We didn't notice-- didn't realize when we came in here, but… doesn't it smell so acrid? And it’s soaking wet in here. And now we’re dissolving? This has to be… a stomach. And above us,” he looked up at nothing in particular, “the throat.”

Mike opened his mouth, originally wanting to say, “That’s ridiculous,” but he just shut it instead. He couldn’t think of another explanation. As if reminding himself, he brushed his hands across the invisible boundaries, feeling the slimy folds. He tried to get up and renew his struggles, but found himself incapable of doing so. He looked down, and found a Mike-colored puddle beneath him. He looked over at Brandon, who was becoming more indiscernible by the moment, features smoothing out and long strings of slime connecting his body to the puddle of himself.

Outside, it would appear that the two were undergoing a transformation to a liquid, though with no easily visible damage. No blood or gore and such. It looked as if they were thick and soupy, with a muddled brown color as the two’s liquids mixed. The liquid had the additional characteristic of starting to sort of outline a shape of their container. Though only the bottom was outlined, viewers could tell that the container seemed to lay against the ground, with two invisible “mountains” where it still hovered above the ground. While one tried struggling against the container, the other just seemed to be blankly focusing on the whole process itself. Indeed, whatever was going on seemed to be in full swing now, loud gurgling could be heard around them for some distance. Another belch populated the air, causing the liquid to seemingly shake.

Overall, this went on for some more minutes, the humans adopting the appearance of fictional slime monsters, a silhouette of a normal human. And finally they both lost form and all that was left before them was a large volume of floating goop. The liquid very clearly outlined the container; as distended as it was, many people recognized the curving shape of a stomach. The outlined organ “breathed” in and out, and several people stepped even further back as they realized what happened. A final belch echoed loudly, as the invisible thing shook with seeming satisfaction.

People only finally started to actually leave when a police car showed up. The mass of chyme moved up in the air, sagging now and more easily showcasing its stomach shape. A policeman hopped out of the car, unsure what to make of the situation. This mostly certainly was not a drowning. The stomach then began moving down the sidewalk, shoving aside several people. The police officer tried to give chase, though as he did, he watched the floating liquid start to drain out into nonexistence. Ultimately, the stomach rejoined the rest of the invisible being, and the policeman had no idea how to continue pursuit after that. He radioed back, “Well uh, disregard the 10-32, but I lost the… suspect. Um, code 4 but I’m gonna take witnesses.”