(Hetalia AU. CONTAINS HARD VORE.

Arthur (a sexy English God) visits a parallel universe every 10 years and claims 1000 sacrificial humans that they have chosen to give to the God.)

"Do you have anything to say before sentence is passed?"

"No, your honour," said a nervous-looking young man named Ivan.
"Very well. In light of the evidence presented today I hereby find the defendant guilty of theft and sentenced to execution by sacrifice."

"No!" screamed some of the defendant's friends who made up part of the audience.

"Order!" called the guards. The crowd settled down to a restless sea of murmurings.

"Sir," said Mr. Wang, "if I rescind my complaint of larceny perhaps we could give the young man another chance."

"You may be the victim of this crime, Mr. Wang but that gives you no authority to pardon a young ruffian who has been found deliberately acting outside of the law."

"Your Honour," said Mr. Zwingli, standing up. "The penalty of death is an extreme sentence for such a small crime. Surely a stint of hard labor would fit the circumstances…"

"Mr. Zwingli, talented lawyer that you are, I am not given to having my judgment questioned in my own court. Nor am I in the habit of explaining my reasoning for passing out a sentence. However, in deference to the young gentleman," he nodded to the accused man, "I shall explain myself."

The judge paused, cleared his throat and turned his attention entirely to the poor boy that he just condemned to die.
"You all are aware of the shadow under which our people live. We must sacrifice the lives of our fellow citizens as a payment to stave off a disaster that would take the lives of innocent people. "You all know that there are rarely many crimes in our peaceful nation, however in the year of a return we must amass a number of one thousand citizens for the giant. Without this, we are lost. He would take from us without prejudice. Countless women and children would die before he was satisfied. You all know that an individual may offer himself up for the good of his neighbours but this year, volunteers were slim indeed.
All magistrates have therefore received orders to sentence any and all lawbreakers to death to fill the gap in numbers. You all know that the day of sacrifice is tomorrow. This young man will be the one thousandth sacrifice for tomorrow. He will make a penance for his lack of respect for the law and his fellow man by dying to save us all."

It was a sombre mood in the courtroom as Ivan was led away.

From where he stood on the hard rock desert cliff-side, Ivan could feel the ground beneath his feet vibrate slightly. It was coming in beats, like the near-silent tempo of a song yet to begin. A song of death and destruction that would claim his life, he thought darkly.

He cast his eyes about in one long last look around at the people about him. All of them, like him, were naked. They had noticed the vibrations too and were becoming panicked. Everyone understood that the steady beat of the shaking was caused by the impact of gigantic feet on the hard, sun-baked desert floor.

Several groups of people tried to climb the towering walls that imprisoned them despite it being a completely futile effort.

Ivan, along with the others, had been manhandled into a paddock earlier that morning. The enclosed area was quite wide, plenty of space for the one thousand people which it contained, but escape-proof. They had no tools to tunnel out; digging with hands was not an option with the hard, red dirt below them. Even if they had the proper equipment they lacked the time to dig. The wall surrounding them rose thirty feet high, mutely baring their escape like some pitiless hand of fate. That fact, their impending doom, took away any feelings of embarrassment and shame of their nudity.
Several groups of people tried to form a pyramid shape, strong men forming a base of wide shoulders upon which their comrades could clamber to try and reach the top. They succeeded in getting three layers of people up before either the balance of the climbers or the strength of the men at the base gave way and they crumpled in a heap.

It mattered little now. The giant came into sight. He was just as Ivan remembered him when he had seen him ten years ago as a child. Blonde hair blew back slightly from the wind, caterpillar eyebrows creased as he squinted in the harsh sunlight, his body well muscled and fit. His face was one to make both men and women rip off their clothing. Why he looked no older than Ivan himself. A strange thought, since he had been coming here to terrorise Ivan's people since their history began.

He gazed down at the human offerings with a quick smile. It was as if those sacrificial humans were crumbs for the birds; but what thoughts went through those human crumbs? The males' hearts obviously filled with terror, the females' probably conflicting due to the sexiness of the giant, his superb figure, and especially the sight of his bare, toned chest.

He had always taken one thousand people. Always. Finally it was realised that if society selected one thousand souls and left them for the man, he would take them and leave the others. He always came once every ten years. If enough criminals were not found, some people would donate their lives to the cause. If there were insufficient donors, a lottery would begin with each citizen baring a number. If they called it then your number was up.

Everyone, even those re-attempting the wall, stopped to watch him stride closer. His eyes were upon them. The thudding upon the ground made the earth shake until Ivan's legs tingled. All was eerily silent between the giant's steps.

He reached the compound and bent over at the waist. His face loomed over them, maybe a hundred feet above them, hiding the blue sky behind him and casting some of the people into shadow.

He smiled only slightly as he gazed down on them with his emerald eyes. The people within the compound could only look back in terror and awe. His eyes searched through the party below, each shift in his gaze apparent to all below by the sheer size of his retinas.

'He's deciding who he wants to take first.' The realisation struck Ivan like a knife to the gut. He stepped behind his rather tall neighbour and tried to look inconspicuous.

Something appeared to have caught his attention over to Ivan's left. His attention seemed to be centred upon a young lady, with sandy blonde hair. The giant's lips parted into a slight open-mouthed smile, showing perfect, milk white teeth. His hand reached out for the girl and that was when everyone started to scream.

The silence shattered, all fled from the female who seemed to know her own position was hopeless. She didn't bother to run, only scream her lungs out as she watched the hand pick her up. The fingers coiled around her and lifted the screaming woman up, up, up.
The mouth of the giant's face opened as he brought the woman to him quickly. The giant eyes glowed with anticipation. The mouth received the poor screaming woman, who now looked very tiny when framed by a gigantic mouth. In she went quick as a flash. The watched as the giant swallowed.

The hand returned and scooped up several people trying to run away from him. The mouth was open again and he lifted the screaming people to his mouth, tilted his head back to catch the people sliding out of his grip and over the rim of his mouth.

Alfred screamed as the chasm stretched out before them just below him opened the dark mouth of this man. His face rushed towards him as he tumbled head over heels down the length of his palm. His lower lips cushioned his landing but he couldn't stop his momentum from carrying him over his lips and falling past his tongue, gravity pulling him downwards towards his gullet. Alfred had assumed that he would not keep his head tilted back and he would come to a stop on his tongue but this was not the case, he kept sliding/falling downwards where he could dimly perceive the throat. His own screaming drowned out that of the people above him, likewise falling in a similar manner.

Alfred tried to dig his hands into his tongue but it was slick with saliva and offered no help.

Francis was looking down from the giant's hand as he watched other people tumble into the darkness. The giant lifted him by one leg over his mouth like a giant crane dropping it's payload into the dark belly of a ship. Only in this case the ship was a beautiful, large eyebrowed giant and he was his food. He looked down in time to see several people struggling and sliding downwards towards his throat. Some looked up at him, their last desperate hopes of escape being snuffed out with their swift decent deeper into the giant's mouth which they were powerless to stop. It would be the last sunlight they would ever see. Alfred landed on the back of his throat and the mouth snapped shut.

Francis heard the sound of a swallow below him. The giant's eyes closed and he heard the low rumble of a "mmm" coming from his throat. The lips, still together, curved upwards as the giant relished the taste of those who were now being pushed deep into his body where there was no hope of escape. 'He has such a beautiful mouth!' thought Francis. What an odd thought to have at such a time. Still, there it was and Francis realised in this brief moment of calm that it was quite true. He was beautiful in every way.

The eyes opened and focused upon Francis. The lips parted and the smile turned into a wide grin. Nothing beautiful about that, only sinister. The green eyes upon him were too much. They showed malice. To him, he was nothing more than a snack to be enjoyed and forgotten. He was there to be his food. That was his purpose in life; merely to fill his belly.

He knew he could expect no mercy. He would be eaten like the others and just as quickly forgotten when he seized several more victims.

Francis closed his eyes. He prayed for help but knew none would come. He felt the fingers suspending him in mid air release him and gravity pull him downwards towards that hateful pit of death; a hateful pit of death? Wasn't it beautiful mouth a moment ago? It's all in perspective. When one is within a giant's mouth and about to be swallowed alive it's pit of death, no matter how beautiful the giant. The tongue caught him, caressed his wiggling form and Francis recognised the savouring of his taste and motion on his tongue before the blue sky above was snuffed out. He closed his mouth, righted his head so he was no longer tilting back, and swallowed. Who, but only Francis (who was a notorious Nymphomaniac), would find some erotica by being eaten or swallowed by this pretty Englishman…

Arthur enjoyed the struggling of the tiny man, wiggling down his throat. "Ahhh." he said as he traced Francis' progress with one finger until it came to rest over his stomach. He turned back to the people below him and reached for another handful, shifting his weight so he could sit down with legs crossed, and give his undivided attention to his prey. He could relax and enjoy himself.

Down in the compound he spotted a victim who was obviously shoving others towards him. 'Hmm... A helper?' He selected the scrawny man he had just shoved, winked at the helper and popped the scrawny guy into his mouth.

Inside his mouth, Kiku was pressed between his tongue and his pallet, a tight fit with all the pressure he was putting on him. Saliva oozed around him and he found himself closing his eyes to keep it from washing over them. He closed his mouth too but he could not close his nose and it began to leak in. Suffocating him.

No! He couldn't take it anymore. He had always been claustrophobic but this was worse than he could have possibly imagined. The heat in his mouth was unbearable the saliva drowning him and the dark and tightness of being trapped inside something that was alive! He cried out, letting in more saliva, and thrashed as wildly as he could with the tongue holding him so tightly to the roof of his mouth.

Arthur, not quite appreciating Kiku's predicament moved his tongue back and forth underneath the body of the tiny man. A muffled laugh escaped him and terrified the man within his mouth. He was really going crazy in there. With a gulp he sent the writhing thing down his throat to start the journey down into his belly.

Kiku had not even entered his stomach when he was reaching out for the man who had pushed him towards Iggy.

"Since you've been such a nice helper there's no reason for you to wait in line. You can be next!" Arthur said with a smile. He reached for the helper, got him, tossed him into his mouth and sent him after Kiku.

And so it continued. Arthur merrily devoured ninety people before forcing himself to stop. Gathering up the ten that were left, he placed them in a pack and walked away from the settlement.

Within his belly, Gilbert screamed. Bodies crowed all around him, floating in the muck that was half digested people only some of whom were dead. Wails of despair, shouts of rage, cries of agony could all be heard. How could their lot in life be to become a lunch for this giant?! And why did he eat people?

Gilbert gagged on a wave of the liquid in which he floated and tasted, blood, acid and what even tasted like flesh. Ugh. He could not stand it in this hot dark pit. His feet brushed up against something as he pushed some thrashing body away from him. Reaching out in the darkness he felt something slimy and holding firm. The stomach wall! Maybe he could climb out of the acid. He kicked over to be next to it and tried to climb out. It was useless. The walls were far too slick. "This is so un-awesome!" He yelled.

Suddenly everything really started moving. Gilbert realised that this was more than the stomach churning up its food. The giant was moving. He must have finished eating and started home. The jostling only got worse as he walked. Gilbert lost all orientation as he was thrown into his fellow food, sometimes to be hit by flailing arms, sometimes to simply thud against a lifeless body or the stomach wall. He imagined that belly in which he now resided, being burned with acid so hot it felt like molten lava. He had such a toned, hot stomach. He imagined the villagers staring up at his belly knowing that their friends were dying within. They couldn't have a clue, however, of the pain they were in. Gilbert imagined the graceful hip motion of the giant when he walked and how the young men and women would watch, captivated by the sway of his hips, and despite themselves, reach for their vital regions. Why, he himself had done that only ten years before, and ten years before that.

Now it was his turn to die. To be digested.

Arthur placed the last little man on the desk to study him intently. He was tall, muscular build and with silver hair. He sat down on the chair in front of the desk and tried to smile down at him. The hardest part was always getting them to talk. Some simply refused to say anything to him, be it in anger or overwhelming terror. These he simply ate without much thought. It was a pity when more than one in his normally saved number of ten refused to cooperate.

Still this one proved to be standing upright and regarding him sort of curiously that seemed to suggest he didn't know or didn't care that he was going to eat him sooner or later.

"I know you're probably scared of me right now. I don't blame you," Arthur started.

"You shouldn't," came the response.

Arthur blinked. He usually had to build up the little fellows before they answered him. Such quick responses were rare indeed. Perhaps there was much he could learn from this one.

"My name is Arthur," he told him gently. "What's yours?"

"Ivan."

He noticed that Arthur was giving him a serene smile, nothing like the grins of anticipation, enjoyment or satisfaction that he had used when devouring the others. This one seemed genuine and friendly. Why the hell would that be?
"Can you tell me why you were offered to me, Ivan?" It was usually a question he built up to but the food seemed comfortable with his station in life. 'Why not ask directly?' he thought to himself.

"Because I was caught robbing a house with a friend." The response was automatic, as if programmed. Perhaps he was simply too emotionally scarred to show or feel anything else. "They sentenced me to die as a punishment."

"That's a little extreme, don't you think?" asked Iggy gently.

"Yes, so did they but they hadn't filled the quota for this decade and there were no more volunteers so they were convicting anyone they could. I hear of one guy getting eaten because he didn't pay his taxes."

"What of the friend who was your accomplice in the break in?" asked Arthur, more interested now.

"He's in your stomach." Dead response.

"Do you feel bad for him?"

"Do you?" countered Ivan.

This caught Arthur off guard.

"Why do you eat us?" asked Ivan.

"How many volunteered?" asked Arthur.

None of the other nine had been volunteers and only three had talked to him. This was unusual. Usually there was at least one volunteer in ten; sometimes more than half.

"I don't really know. Only a few."

"Why so few?"

"Because maybe no one wanted to be eaten?" said Ivan with a little more emotion behind it this time.

"If they had filled their quota to feed me, what sort of sentence would you have got do you think?" asked Iggy, trying to get back the man to resume his unemotional monotone.

"I don't know. Why don't you go back and ask them?"

This amused Arthur greatly. "What do you think you would have got if they hadn't needed you to feed me?"

"Community service. I don't know. Maybe a fine," said The evenly.

Arthur nodded, looking pleased.

"Why do you want to know all this anyway? Aren't we just food?"

Arthur smiled. "Yes, you are but you're also an experiment. I was bored and I thought it would be interesting to see what would happen if I were to take exactly the same number of people from a city every ten years. It turns out, the society begins to select people to be eaten."

"And?" asked Ivan in a bored voice.

"It means that the wild group of humans will select and submit to the loss of an acceptable number of people every year. More than that, they use it to get rid of undesirable members of the society. Of course the flaw in the system is that some minor offenders get the shaft but the point is that it's a sustainable way of taking from natural populations of humans."

"Sustainable?"

"Sure. What we generally do now is just harvest everyone. This way we won't constantly have to seed so many planets in so many universes with humans."

"You mean there are other humans on other planets out there?" asked Ivan, this time looking genuinely shocked.

"Of course. And other universes too! You're the most common, and most enjoyed food item for my species."

"What species is that?" he asked.

"Gods! I'm a god!"

"How wonderful for you," he replied sarcastically.

"Thanks for being so cooperative Ivan!" Picking him up and dangling him before him, Arthur opened his mouth wide in a smile of pleasure and anticipation.

"I don't suppose my talking to you will make you want to show me some mercy?" he asked.

"Nope. Sorry, Ivan~" He shifted his grip and inserted him into his mouth. For Ivan it was all a rush, he barely had time to take account of what he saw around him before he was thrust into that inky blackness before him and his mouth closed, sealing him in. With a gulp, Arthur sent the helpless man down his throat and into his belly. Patting his stomach he said "Thanks again, Ivan!" He wondered if he had been able to hear him.

Within Arthur's digestive system, Ivan, now a soup of broken down proteins and amino acids, was being absorbed through the intestines and throughout his body along with all those who had gone before.

"Hm... Almost as tasty as my cooking!" Arthur commented whilst planning his next trip to his beloved parallel universe.