Content Warnings:

  • Gagging/choking sounds
  • Food-related difficulties
  • Mild body horror
  • Loss of control over one’s body

 

The Thing in the Throat of Elliot James

 

ANNOUNCER: You're listening to K.I.L.L. FM. Keeping you company on the road to hell. This next segment of the show is sponsored by The Supernatural Protection Company! So please enjoy The Thing in the Throat of Elliot James.

 

[Spooky music/drone]

 

STORYTELLER:

It did not happen all at once. The change was gradual, at least to start, just a slight feeling of discomfort in the back of their throat. No worse than something sticky leaving a residue on the way down or a pill struggling to reach the stomach. Elliot James barely noticed it, an occasional tickle that was easily ignored.

They went about their life; work, eat, sleep, repeat. Nothing worth lingering on, nothing that would have helped. But as the seasons transitioned Elliot started to feel it. Most often it felt like food was getting stuck on the way down, some unknown blockage getting in the way. And then it would gradually lessen, bit by bit until it was once again just discomfort they felt.  But it wouldn't stop happening. And as the weeks wore on it became harder to ignore. Larger chunks found themselves caught, but worse than that Elliot could swear they felt… something in there. Something that was growing.

Occasionally it was so undeniably there that their body would start acting on its own, trying to force it out. A movement of the throat, a cough, occasionally just emptying the contents of their stomach altogether in an effort to dislodge the thing.  A piece here and there, small bits that clearly weren't all of it. Sometimes it was a slimy thing like mucus, others a hard mass tinged with something the color of blood. Proof that something was there that shouldn't be, its presence becoming impossible to ignore.

 

As time passed, they could almost feel how more and more food was disappearing before it reached their stomach, how they were having to eat more and more just to get enough past the thing. It was getting hungrier.

And then it happened, the first time Elliot choked on their own words.  It was small, simple, just a "see you later". But it wouldn’t come out, stuck in the throat like everything else and consumed by the thing.  It no longer mattered where it came from, what it was. The thing in the throat of Elliot James was too hungry, too greedy. It ate the words from their chest, the food from their mouth. How long until it started consuming the air from their breath, the blood from their veins?

The panic was overwhelming, they felt it filling every part of them, the desperate need to run despite being powerless to escape. The sharp urge to claw out their own throat just to get at it, to get rid of it, was barely contained. It was just all too much.

Elliot felt the bile rise from their sickened stomach, the burning acid making its way towards the thing, a last ditch effort to dislodge whatever it was and escape this nightmare.

 

Only for it to seemingly disappear, just like everything else.

 

[Spooky music/drone fades out. Complete tonal shift as The Supernatural Protection Company jaunty elevator music starts]

 

AGENT *Overly cheerful customer service voice, especially considering the tone of that story*: Elliot James was not fortunate enough to be protected by our insurance offerings, but that doesn't mean you have to be as vulnerable as they were! We are proud to provide coverage for all things spooky and mysterious, during and after the Halloween season. Give us a call and one of our experienced customer service agents will be happy to walk you through the optio- [cuts out as listener changes channel]