Cracks in the Glass

The minutes passed as the acid in the Grouper's stomach ate away at the outer skin of the BeefSub. Little patches were beginning to appear where the skin was peeling and bubbling. Captain Ingleman was beging to worry that his plan wasnt working, and he nervously wiped the drops of sweat forming on his brow away quickly before the crew noticed. Ingleman was not a beef chunk to crack underpressure, but he wanted to look confident to boost morale for the crew.

The tanks of the cheese drive motors had almost completely emptied all of the radioactive cheese onto the stomach floor. Even if the plan worked at this point, the burrito submarines motors would be unable to function properly.

Suddenly, there was a slight tremor in the floor of the sub. The crew looked up startled for several seconds and then looked back down doubting that they had felt anything. Then, without warning, a great ripple passed through the stomach of the Grouper. The crew lept to their feet as the sub lurched upward again. "Its working!" they cried. By Now, the groupers stomach was roiling like great earthquake. The submarine tossed back and forth as the waves pass through the floor of the stomach.

There was a ferocious heave as the Grouper began pushing the beefsub and the rest of the contents of the Groupers gut up and out of its throat. With a disgusting gurgle the submarine rocketed back out the mouth of the Grouper. "Hooray! We're out!" the crew shouted. They could see a few of the tapeworms who were caught in the upheaval floating out into the Maw. "Freedom, freedom, we have freedom!" they chanted. Looking back out the aft windows they could see the Great Grouper writhing and twisting with radioactive cheese streaming out of its mouth. It bellowed a deep moan as it began to sink out of sight.

The initial joy of their escape began to fade as the crew of the BeefSub realized that they too were sinking. With no power to the ships motors or pumps, there was no way to raise the sub. The sub slowed and began sliding downward tail first. The crew could see the last glimpses of light trickle down through the water through the windows as they sank deeper and deeper. To make matters worse, they were now deeper than any previously know burrito submarine had ever traveled. Surely, the pressure of the sauce at such great depths would soon crush the sub like a tin can. The crew waited in silence. Everyone was sweating now including the captain, and it was obvious they were in big trouble. Then the crew heard a noise that confirmed their worst fears: a crack. They looked in horror as a crack slowly spread its way across one of the forward windows like a spider web. There was another loud crack as the middle window on the starboard side began to crack as well. The crew sat motionless, with their eyes transfixed on the spreading cracks in the subs glass as they slid further into darkness.

White Worms

The BeefSub slid for what seemed like an eternity down the slimy trench of the Groupers gullet. Awash in slime and green sauce, the windows of the sub were nearly impossible to see out of. The crew could only see small glimpses of the walls of the slimy cave as they rushed further downward. "Hold on!" Cpt Ingleman bellowed as the submarine teetered over, and then dropped off a steep ledge into what would surely be the Groupers stomach.

The sub slammed down hard as it hit the bottom and skidded to a squishy stop deep inside the belly of the Grouper. Several of the crew were knocked unconscious in the fall and now groggily raised their heads. Two had broken arms and one a broken leg from the large gimballed stove in the galley, which had dislodged from the wall and nearly crushed beefchunk Jagerson. "My leg!" he cried in his thick German beef accent. As other crew members rushed to help Jagerson, the captain and rest peered out smeared windows.

The stomach of the Grouper looked soft and wet, but was bubbly with what could only be presumed to be stomach acid. The acid bubbles popped and sizzled in what looked like a sickly yellow fog that smelled like stale nachos. It appeared this slimy acid dungeon would be the final resting place of the burrito submarine. Cpt Ingleman realized that unless they found a way out soon, the acid inside the Groupers stomach would soon damage the subs hull beyond repair, and their chances of escape would be zero. "Don the bio suits we're going out there!" he yelled to remaining uninjured crew. "We have search for a way out before the hull gets damaged by the acid. The suits wont last long in these conditions so we need to be quick about it!"

The crew quickly dressed in their bio hazard suits which made them look a little like spacemen. These ultra thick suits would protect them for a short period of time against the burning acid. As each chunk finished putting on his suit, he signaled to the captain that he was ready to depart. The sub had come to rest on its port side so they scrambled to climb out of the starboard hatch and into the fog. They found, as their boots squished into the Groupers stomach lining, that the acid was about a foot and a half deep and did indeed smell oddly like stale nachos. "Follow me chunks." said the Cpt as they headed North out into the fog.

They walked nearly a mile in the stale yellow fog with no sign of anything except more fog, and the captain was beginning to worry about the condition of their suits. "If we don't find something soon we're going to have to head back." he said. The crew grumblingly agreed as their situation now indeed looked more dire. At this point they heard a loud pop. First one, and then several more, and then lots more. The crew looked around startled and several reached for their toothpick harpoon guns. Ahead of them in the fog they could now see hundreds of blinking eyes, and as the fog cleared they could make out spindly white forms. More appeared with popping sounds as they seemed to be sucking on the stomach lining beneath the fog and acid. The forms began hoping towards them and soon they found themselves completely surrounded by tall white worms.

The worms were ghostly white and had big holes for mouths. Their skin was smooth and looked entirely unaffected by the bubbling acid all around them. One worm in particular was extraordinarly long and wore a blue headband around his brow. As the captain took several steps back the tall worm hopped towards him and in a strangely childish voice said
"Tapeworm, tapeworm, I am a tapeworm."
"Ok..." the captain said slightly confused. "And what is your name? Mine is Cpt Ingleman of the burrito submarine BeefSub."
"Tapeworm, tapeworm, I am a tapeworm." the tall worm repeated, which was this time echoed in hundreds by the other worms standing around the beefchunks.
"Uh ok...can you tell me where we are? Our sub was swallowed and we need to get out before the acid destroys our ship." said the captain.
"Grouper, grouper, this is a grouper." replied the head worm.
"Yes, I know, but where in the grouper are we?" Sensing that the worm was not in possession of the most powerful alien intellect the captain answered with a hint of impatience.
"Grouper, grouper, this is a grouper." responded the worm again.
"Yes, I know that, but where speci...nevermind" the captain said with a sigh.
"How long have you been here?" he asked.
"Long time, long time, weve been here a long time." the worm said.
"Great. Now that doesn't speak well for us now does it?" said the captain sounding exasperrated.
"Long time, long time, you'll be here a long time." the worms echoed.

The captain, annoyed with the time wasted with the worms turned back towards the ship and ordered the men to follow him. "Strange that they dont make the Grouper sick, and unfortunate they are not of more help" he thought to himself as the beefchunks trudged forward. "If only there was a way to make the Grouper sick we might actually be able to get out of here...Ive got it!" the captain cried suddenly full of energy. "Hurry men! Back the ship I have an idea. We've got to make the Grouper sick" he shouted.

When men reached the ship the captain rushed inside and ordered the chief engineer to follow him. "I need you to release the cheese waste from the cheese drive motors." he said. "If we can get enough of that radioactive cheese into the Groupers stomach it just might be enough to make him ill!" "But sir!" the engineer said. "If we release all of the cheese the engines wont turn!" "I know." said the captain "but its our only chance." With that, the men opened the exhaust valves to full and pulled a large lever that began to jetison radioactive cheese from the cheese drives into the Groupers stomach. As the cheese spilled out it caused the smell to turn to stale nachos and cheese. The only thing for the crew to do now was wait and hope the Grouper would find the cheese more sickly than the tapeworms.

A Powerful Dungeon

Without further hesitation, Cpt Ingleman yelled "Fire!!" and a red pepper torpedo sprung from the forward firing tubes. The green sauce sizzled around it as it rocketed towards the Great Grouper. The Grouper now lunged forward churning the sauce with its huge tail, and its mouth gaped wider and wider. The crew frantically threw the burrito submarine in reverse but it was too late. The torpedo disappeared down the groupers gullet without so much as a pop. With its mouth now as wide as an airplane hangar, the Great Grouper swallowed the submarine. The crew cringed in anticipation of the great jaws crushing the submarines hull, but miraculously the submarine slid past the enormous teeth. Everything went black as the Beefsub washed into the gut of the Grouper.

The Great Grouper

The crew of the burrito submarine quickly returned to reality when they realized the ship had struck something hard. The beefchunks scrambled to their posts while checking pressure gauges to make sure no green sauce was leaking into the ship. They threw the ship in reverse and turned on the forward flood lights to try and see what the submarine had just run into. As the black bean fish scattered in every direction, an orange glow began to shine through the sauce. Two enormous luminous eyes now bathed the ship in light. The eyes were huge and round and radiated as if they were illuminated by a hidden fire. The crew could now see that they were face to face with an enormous grouper. Not just any grouper, a grouper so large it was 50 burrito submarines long. Its mouth gaped open in front of them, easily large enough to swallow the whole submarine with one gulp. It appeared that the sub had hit the grouper square between its great glowing eyes which now welled with anger. "Who dares invade my home!" shouted the grouper. "Answer me or be eaten!"
As Cpt Ingleman fumbled with the microphone on the inside the submarine, most of the crew looked on in both shock and horror, while a few scrambled to hoist a red pepper torpedo into the tubes. "We are the beefchunk crew of the burrito submarine BeefSub." the captain responded. "And I am the Great Grouper of the Maw! You have interrupted my lunch of bean fish, and now perhaps I shall have you for lunch instead."

Swallowed Whole

As the trepidation faded in the chest of Cpt Ingleman, he grew bolder and more adventurous with every second. He was now determined to explore the Great Maw which the burrito submarine hung silently over. It was as if the ship itself had been frozen with fear at the sight of this endless black mouth poised to swallow it whole. Surely, this void was someplace no burrito or chunk of beef had ever explored before. Despite protests from a number of the crew, Cpt Ingleman pointed his beefy hand at the first mate and ordered the burrito to dive. With a whir, the cheese motors engaged and the burrito slid silently into the darkness.

As the minutes passed and the depth increased, the crew turned the interior lights off inside the sub in order to peer out through the thick portholes. Their eyes gradually became aware of the fact that they were not alone in the Maw. In fact, they were completely surrounded. On all sides and in all directions teams of a strange kind of black bean fish swirled around them. The bean fish were so black that they blended perfectly into the dark sauce of the Maw. If it wasn't for a faint shimmer of from their scales caused by the soft glow of the submarines exterior lights, they might not have been visible at all. The fish churned all around the burrito in unison making shimmering waves as the crew looked on. The black cloud boiled with energy. As the crew gazed outward, now completely lost in the dance of the fish outside the windows, no one paid attention to what laid ahead of the sub. It was at this point that there was a sickening thud, and the ship shuddered to a stop.

The Maw

After fixing some small electrical problems with the lights in the aft of the cabin, the burrito submarine and its crew set a course north through the Green Sauce Sea. After traveling a distance of approximately 120 nautical miles at a depth of 2000ft, the crew came upon a great chasm in the ocean floor. The exterior lighting off the burritos bow could barely illuminate the great gaping maw that laid before them. The sauce was somewhat murky with small chunks of a strange luminous form of tomato drifting in a current that that swelled up from the depths below. As they peered over the edge, the members of the beefchunk crew couldnt help but feel like they were looking into blackest soul of the earth. It was as if they had found the requiem for every dark secret that has ever been held inside their chest, every dark thought that had ever crossed their mind, and every dark nightmare that had ever blackened their dreams.

A Sadness at Sea

The explorers are saddened today by the loss of one of their own. Shipmate Daymeson died after succumbing to what can be described as a severe ulcer, not so much an ulcer even, as a hole burned through his entire midsection. Daymeson was the first to eat a peice of an oddly shaped eel like creature found living amongst the shrimp near the salsa vents. The creature was feeding on the jalapeno buildup, which formed dark green outcroppings along the vents as the salsa was expelled outward. So concentrated apparently was the buildup of jalapeno inside the body of the creature that when consumed, it burnt clear through Daymeson. Daymesons personal belongings which consisted of his uniform, shaving kit, smoking pipe, and a picture of his wife Laura where gathered in a cloth and then jetisoned with the body out of burrito tube number one.

Hot Salsa

The intrepid beef submariners have reached the hot salsa vents on the bottom of the ocean floor and have discovered a new species of blind shrimp, which they presume will taste delicious once inside the burrito.

We Wish You Luck

May your burrito submarine and its beefchunk passengers dive deep into an ocean of green sauce.