Alice woke slowly, her head was ringing, her vision a bit foggy, she thought she could taste a bit of bile in the back of her throat. She shook her head in an attempt to clear it and get a sense of where she was. She recognized her surroundings immediately and groaned. She was on a large silver field; it was the pad that was made specifically to absorb the radiation put off by her family’s minimizer.

She remembered it now; her older brother had been waiting for her at the front door, the shrinking device had been ready to fire.

As if on cue the landscape behind her changed, a massive wall of deep blue had filled up her entire vision as she turned, it was his shirt.

Alice had shrunk before, however Jake had decided to shrink her to what seemed like microscopic levels. She looked upward, thousands of miles away his face, a bit blurry, looked extremely worried and apologetic.

“I’m going to give you one chance, one chance, to explain why it is that the literal moment I got home from an already shitty day at school, you used the minimizer on me as I walked in the door and made me so small that I’m invisible to the human eye”.

Alice spoke slowly, her speech was calm, but behind that sentence all the fury in the world was brewing. She heard her voice emanating from the computer screen above her, which to her might as well have been a giant silver wall stretching for miles and miles in either direction. It was also the only way her fool of an older brother could communicate with her at her current size. The microphone hovering nearby was able to pick up even the smallest of noises, like the voice of a shrunken girl for instance. Clearly he’d set everything up to be able to communicate with her, which meant he had some serious explaining to do.

Jake scratched his head, embarrassed, and despite the fact that currently he could inhale his sister if he chose to, he was utterly terrified of the microscopic girl that he barely even knew was there.

He scooted a bit closer to the metal slab, he’d been extra careful to shrink his sister on top of it so he could find her and fill her in on the unfortunate situation he was now in.

“W-well you see….it’s about mom…a-and Becca….” He started, speaking half to the platform he knew she was on and half to the screen that actually had an image of her on it, unsure where to direct his full attention.

“Where are they?” Alice asked, hopefully one of them could return her to normal size and shed some light on why Jake was acting so strange.

“W-well see…that’s the thing…I’m not one hundred percent sure…”

Alice was confused, needless to say, and annoyed, why couldn’t Jake just give her a straightforward answer?

“Okay well…where do you think they are?” Alice asked him. She immediately wished she hadn’t.

Jake scooted backwards slightly, and before she could protest, Jake had brought his dirty, meaty foot upwards, level with the table she was on. The world in front of her changed, the massive landscape became a wrinkled foot, which was dirty and sweaty, a wave of cheesy foot stink emanating from it, the wave washed over the small pad Alice stood on.

“Ugh! God Jake that’s not funny!” Alice said, holding her nose and reeling away, not that a microscopic girl like her could make much of a difference by moving anywhere. Throughout their whole lives, Jake had always had the raunchiest smelling feet Alice had ever smelled, according to her mother Jake’s foot stink came from his father, whom her children had met on a few brief occasions.

“Quit messing around and tell me where they are!” She shouted, her nose held shut by her fingers and her eyes watering. At this size, Jake’s feet were practically a toxic hazard.

“I uh….I think I just did….” Jake said slowly.

Alice was completely baffled.

“What do you mean?”

“Here” Jake put his foot in his lap and stretched an arm forward over her head, flipping a dial on the computer screen. It changed from a close up of Alice to video footage, Alice’s older sister Becca was in focus, dressed for housework, her brown hair tied in a neat little bun.

“Mom, do we really have to do this?” the twenty year old asked the camera, apparently a headset that their mother had been wearing.

“Yes!” came their mother Amy’s voice, “I’ve asked him a thousand times to do it and he won’t listen! So while he’d at school well just get in there and get the job done!”

“But mom, you know how bad Jake’s feet stink!” Becca complained, “and at this size…”

“Here”, an arm thrust a small mask forward and Becca took it, strapping it on. “These should make it a little better”

Becca groaned, “I always hated his sneakers”.

Alice gasped, she was beginning to understand, but kept watching, Jake sped up the video, stopping as their mother and older sister revealed in one shot that they had shrunk themselves for household chores, as was usual, and what their destination was, a pair of ratty old converse all stars that Jake had been wearing for two years.

Alice was shocked. “No! You mean they-“

“Watch” Jake said, guiltily.

The video sped up again, Alice watched as her mother and sibling climbed into Jake’s shoe with a few buckets and mops, and began to get to work on cleaning it. They looked to be around 1/8th of an inch tall each, and despite that they had actually almost finished Jake’s first shoe.

The speed up stopped and the camera shook.

Boom

“What was that!?” came Becca’s worried voice.

“I’m not sure…” Her mother replied, the camera panned around to the heel of Jake’s shoe, light pouring in.

“MOM? BECCA? I’M HOOOOOOOME!!!” Jake’s voice was deafening, even the audio capture made it sound as though he were a god.

“Oh god! Mom! We have to get out of here!” Becca shouted, grabbing her mother’s arm. The two shrunken women left their cleaning supplies at the toe end of Jake’s shoe, and the camera shook violently with Jake’s footsteps, as well as their mother’s running.

Just as they reached his heel, the camera panned upwards.

Alice held her hands over her mouth in horror.

Five hungry, sweaty toes had filled the opening of the shoe. Jake seemed to be scratching or cleaning them on it, as they wiggled and slid across it, bits of dirt and lint raining onto the helpless women inside.

“RUN MOM!” Becca shouted, the two girls turned and sprinted back from where they’d come from, they could hear sobbing on the audio, but the footage was dark, the only moments of light came when their mother would turn around and catch a glimpse of her son’s giant foot as it chased them to the toe end of the shoe. Then nothing. The footage had stopped, the headset had broken.

Alice had tears in her eyes.

“Are they…?”

Jake shook his head and flipped another screen attached to the minimizer in her direction. It showed to pulsing heartbeats, Labeled “Becca” and “Amy”.

Alice breathed a heavy sigh of relief. They were alive.

“Thank god” She said. Alice was glad her mother was so careful whenever she used the minimizer on herself.

“I went for a walk with them in there, somehow they survived” He said. “But their too tiny, I can’t see them.”

“Oh no…” Alice said, taking a step backwards.

“Alice you’re the only one who can find them! Once you do, I’ll get all three of you off of my feet!”

Alice groaned she felt sick to her stomach; her brother’s feet had no small part in that.

“But your feet-“

“I know! They stink! But don’t you think that should be all the more reason to go down there and get them out!” Jake shouted, shaking poor Alice, forcing her to sit to avoid toppling over. “They’ve been down there awhile now, and I don’t know how much longer they’ve got! Starvation, dehydration, not to mention the smell…”

“O-okay…” Alice said, swallowing nervously.

Jake nodded, not looking any more thrilled about this than she was. A large pair of silver tweezers entered her view, and Alice eyed them nervously. Luckily Alice was just large enough for Jake to see, barley even a speck, he pinched the tweezers around her.

“You okay?” He asked.

She nodded.

“There isn’t another headset, so I won’t know where you are once you’re down there” Jake said, “I’ll try and keep movement to a minimum.”

“Okay, where should I start?” Alice asked, looking down, she noticed Jake had propped his foot up in his lap, his sole facing up. His toes flexed and wiggled and Alice watched an ocean of dirty wrinkles move.

“I’d start with my sole; they’re probably stuck in one of my foot wrinkles.” He looked up at her, “You ready?”

She swallowed again and gave a nod.

“Hold your nose little sis” He said, and began to lower her.

Alice felt fear grip her as she neared her brother’s giant, stinky sole.

Jake felt awful, truly, he couldn’t imagine what Alice must be going through. He’d always kind of enjoyed how bad his feet smelled. He’d often used their odor as a way to tease or punish his sister’s, now however, his foot odor would prove to be quite the test for the female members of his family.

He knew she must be suffering as he lowered her closer and closer to that dirty landscape of sweaty wrinkles.

“Sorry Alice” he muttered, and released the tweezers just above his foot flesh.

“Aaaaaaaagh!” Alice shrieked as she fell, in Jake’s defense he’d thought she wasn’t to high up, but for her the fall was substantial.

She fell through his foggy foot odor and smacked into his moist sole loudly and abruptly.

“Oof! Uuugh….” Alice groaned as his cheesy stink pressed against her face. She peeled herself off of his sole and gazed around in dismay, she truly was a speck, in every sense of the word. What had once been  a landscape of wrinkles had changed drastically. She appeared to be between two of those wrinkles, and they’d formed a canyon on either side of her, smudged with dirt and grime. The heat below her emanating from Jake’s sole was intense; Alice was already beginning to sweat profusely. Her eyes, already watering from the overpowering stench, did no better when sweat dripped into them as well.

“This is insane” she said, clambering up the side of one of Jake’s slick sole wrinkles. It was like a whole new world down here. Alice struggled upward, the sweat and grime making her climb more treacherous. After a good few minutes she emerged from her stinky canyon, and breathed some slightly fresher air.

She looked up and saw Jake, concern on his distant and blurry face, his eyes scanning his foot as he searched for his shrunken family members. Alice returned her attention to the odorous world around her, her eyes scanning her brother’s sole for any sign of life. It almost looked like a desert, filled with hills and valleys. It was also massive, stretching for miles and miles in every direction, a few round-ish mountains in the distance moved, those were his toes.

Alice shook her head. There was no way she could do this. The stink was already getting to her and she’d barley been down here ten minutes. How could her mother and older sister be doing this? It was horrible!

“Wherever they are” Alice said aloud to herself, “I sure hope they know what’s going on…”

***

“MOOOOOM!?!?” Becca shouted, her hands cupped around her mouth, then around her ear as she listened for a reply. Nothing.

“Goddammit Jake!” Becca muttered angrily as she trudged through ankle deep toe jam, “Damn you and your nasty feet! And shoes! Damn it all!”

It had been a while before Becca could accept where she was once she’d woken. It had been the smell that jostled her to consciousness, with a start her head had shot up, peeling away from a grimy, dirty, flesh colored floor.

“What the-!? Where am I!? Mom!? MOM!?!?” Becca was filled with fear. She pried her aching body from the disgusting floor and gagged, it smelled awful here, wherever here was.

“Mom!?” She had shouted, the last thing she remembered her and her mother had been running for their lives, Jake’s meaty toes chasing them relentlessly to the toe end of his disgusting shoe.

Becca had felt the heat above her and realized all too late that Jake’s toes had over passed her.

“NO!” she screamed as they lowered, the stink increasing by a thousand times.

Then she’d been in hell. Her mother was gone. Her back ached as Jake’s foot pressed her into the sweat soaked insole of his shoe.

“I’M GOING FOR A WALK GUYS! I’LL BE BACK LATER!” His voice boomed, and Becca let the tears stream from her eyes. How could this be happening? Her mother had always been so careful when they shrunk in the past.

His sole pummeled her, her mouth and eyes filling with sour sweat. The heat grew to impossible levels as she was slammed, over and over again.

She begged for it to stop, to God, to anyone.

And at some point she’d passed out. Then she woke and pulled herself from the muck between her brother’s giant toes. She was trapped on his foot, nothing but a speck trying to survive in an unfamiliar world.

She needed to find her mother, that was priority one. So far though, her shouting had proved useless, what else could she even do? And on top of that, she’d been at this for at least an hour and she was still barley free from between his toes.

She didn’t even know if her mother was Alive. Jake’s foot had left Becca beaten and tired, there was every chance her mother had been crushed to death, or maybe she’d drowned in Jake’s foot sweat. It looked very grim for her.

Becca trudged on, despite her doubts, because it seemed Jake was aware something was wrong. She couldn’t tell from where she was, but Jake had positioned his foot facing upwards, and Becca thought that he might be trying to keep his foot still.

“Jake, I swear, I’m gonna get off of your stinky foot, and then I’m gonna shrink you so small no one can see you, and then, I’m gonna put you between my toes and let you suffocate!”

“Becca!?” came a distant voice.

It seemed Becca’s ranting had drawn the attention of her mother.

“Mom!” Becca smiled and ran, meeting her mother with a hug, the two then peeled away from each other, grinning apologetically.

“Looks like Jake’s foot did a number on you” Becca said to her mother Amy, whose hair was a mess and her clothes stained.

“Yes, your brother’s feet are quite dirty….and smelly…..and sweaty…”

“I’m aware” Becca huffed, “The question is, how do we get off of them? Look how small we are, there’s no way he can see us!”

“I don’t know…” Amy said hopelessly, “I’m normally so careful….I just figured you and I could work together and clean his shoes before he…” She broke of into quiet sobs.

“It’s okay mom, it’s not your fault. It’s no ones.”

Amy smiled and dried her eyes.

“Well…that still doesn’t help us, how do we get him to notice us?” She asked to no one in particular.

“I think he knows we’re down here, maybe he’s working something out, but my guess is he might be working on a plan of his own, he knows hos stinky his feet are, he won’t leave us down here if he can help it.”

“If he can help it.”

Becca nodded, “Let’s get to his soles, it’s more open there, it might even smell better.”

Amy nodded and the two set off.

***

Jake was beginning to really feel for his shrunken family. Just sitting her, his barefoot propped up, he was beginning to get a little queasy. After all this was over, he really needed to do something about his foot stink.

“And just think” he muttered, “right now three tiny women are struggling in the folds of my sole and between my cheesy toes” he shook his head. “I really owe them something after this, something special…”

A knock came at the door.

“Uhh…COME IN!” Jake shouted, if it was one of his or his sister’s friends he would just tell them to get lost anyways.

The door opened and a large, semi- muscular man stepped inside, wearing a tank top, some shorts, his big feet in flip flops.

Jake was stunned.

“D-dad?”

Jake was stunned.

“Dad what-what are you doing here!?”

His father Trevor looked confused, happily so though, as a big grin spread across his face.

“What? A father can’t visit his kids every now and again? Come here and give your old man a hug Boi!” The big man spread his tree trunk arms wide in an expecting manner.

“But...” Jake continued, “Why now Dad?”

Trevor let his arms fall to his sides as his son stayed seated on the couch.

“Well, the warehouse is getting’ a reset, so I’ve got a couple days off, paid o’course, an I figured I’d use the time to see what you’ve all been up too, and of course bother that witch of a mother o’yours!” He practically bellowed with laughter at that.

The warehouse in question was actually a branch of the company that made minimizer devices, Trevor being the only reason that jake’s family had one in the first place. His father was a Tech, and a good one at that. The mention of his job gave Jake an idea.

“Wait, this is perfect!” Jake said smiling.

“See! Knew you’d come around Boi! Now git up of yer ass and gimme that Hug!”

“No Dad! Not that! There was an accident with our minimizer!”

Trevor’s smile faded slightly, but his eyebrow perked up, he was always happy to show off his technical know how, especially in front of his only son.

“Well that is a good thing then ain’t it? Not to worry kid yer old man know’s what he’s doin’ , get yer sister’s in here and I’ll show ya all how it’s done! But first, My goddamn hug!”

“Umm, well you see dad…they can’t really watch this, they’re here but..”

*****

Trevor waited patiently as the situation was explained by his son. He’d taken a seat on the couch next to his son, giving occasional nods and glancing down at his son’s wrinkled sole from time to time.

“…And now Alice is down there, looking for them both, but I figure since you’re here maybe you’ve got some way to fix this?” Jake left the question hanging.

Trevor nodded slowly, still smiling.

“Yep, those girls are in quite a mess alright, but! Not to worry! Your dad is quite the genius you see.”

Trevor stood, walking toward the minimizer.

“See your dad’s team was part of the initial ‘blue print’ process for the first minimizers, and we thought of just this type of scenario, so…”

Trevor crouched, pulling a small panel off of the vacuum sized machine.

“We had what you might call a ‘safety net’ put in place for just such an emergency.”

Trevor fiddled with a nob and flicked a switch on the machine.

“Once I press this button here, the minimizer will send out an electric pulse in about a 50ft radius, reversing any effect triggered within the last 24 hour period.”

Jake was grinning ear to ear.

“Hear that guys?” He shouted down at his sole, “This is all gonna be over!”

“Well….not quite…” Trevor said, pressing the final key with a knowing smile.

*****

“It’s her! I don’t believe it!” Becca shouted happily down to her mother, who was slightly behind in her ascent one of jake’s many slimy foot wrinkles.

“Are you sure? I’d hate to find another one of those mites, or whatever the hell that awful beast was!” Amy said to her oldest daughter. After all this was over She and her son would be having a very long conversation about personal hygeine, particularly the foot area.

“Mom I’m sure! ALICE!!!!” Becca waved her arms and the figure in the distance waved back.

“See?” Becca gestured to her mother.

“Okay okay, let’s just worry about getting to her now. God this stink is unbearable!” Amy wiped her brow, her effort forcing her to breathe in even more of her son’s oppressive and disgusting foot stench.

The pair made their way back down the opposite side of the wall of foot flesh they’d climbed earlier, then back up again on the next one. All in all, it was a good five minutes before they reached Alice.

They all hugged, tears in their eyes, half because of emotions and half because of the overwhelming stench that was ever present in this hellish foot landscape.

“Yeah, he got me as soon as I came home, no warning. I guess he figured I’d never agree at normal size, and he’d be right, this place is disgusting!” Alice said this as she nudged a steaming pile of blackened foot sludge that had accumulated between one of Jake’s foot wrinkles.

“Amen, when we get big again, I’m gonna shrink jake down and go for a jog with him in my shoe, see how he likes it!” Becca huffed.

“Oh now, come on guys, It’s not Jake’s fault were down here, it was a lack of planning, I should’ve just cleaned the shoes myself and had you watch out for me Becca, if anyone is to blame it’s me.”

The other girls cooled off at this and apologized.

“I still wanna make him smell my socks at least” Becca grumbled as they headed upward once more.

The girls figured their best chance would be to get out in the open, and as high up as possible. After all, Jake had been able to see Alice on the metal shrinking pad, with some serious effort and a solid background, so it wasn’t crazy to think he’d spot a group of all three of them on his sole.

The truly hard part was finding a large enough area that wasn’t smudged with dirt or grime. Jake’s sole was incredibly filthy from his day’s activities. When they’d found a decent spot they started shouting, jumping and waving, but it seemed to have no effect on the distant giant, who’s eyes constantly scanned his foot. That is until he looked up and began talking to someone.

“Is that….Dad!?” Alice asked her mother, pointing off seemingly miles upon miles into the distance.

Amy rolled her eyes. “What on earth is that pig doing in my house, uninvited!?” She shouted angrily, Becca likewise seemed bothered and annoyed by his addition.

The two giants talked while the three tiny girls listened uncomfortably from the smelly crevices of Jake’s sole.

They all perked up however at the mention of Trevor’s solution. Jake even looked down at them and smiled, telling them it was about to be over.

Unfortunately, that’s not what Trevor had in store for them just yet.

They felt it through their whole bodies, and to each of them it felt as though they had pins and needles all over themselves all at once, and then suddenly it was gone. Each of the girls having been shrunk before recognized this as a growing sensation, however when it was over with Jake’s foot was still a large landmass.

*****

“Dad I…I don’t understand…” Jake muttered. He could definitely see them now, his family. To describe them, he would compare their new size to that of small ants, still absolutely pathetic in size in comparison to even just his dirty foot, but not quite so small as to be nonexistent all together.

Trevor walked over to him.

“Well I figured you and I could use some Father/son bonding kiddo.” The large man sat himself beside his smaller son, shaking him and the couch as he did.

“But why didn’t you…”

“Because these little ladies…” He waved down to the now visible women, “Are gonna help us with that.”

Jake looked quizzically at his father. “How?”

Trevor grinned at his son and leaned forward, plucking his ex wife off of his son’s meaty foot. “Watch.”

“Well hey there babe” He said to the tiny woman, pinched between his fingertips. At her new size, Amy was capable of making small squeaking noises.

Trevor only chuckled and brought his own foot into his lap, his size 14 ½ sandaled foot dwarfing his son’s 12.

He slipped off the sandal and held it up under his son’s nose.

“Get a whiff o’ that!”

Jake hesitantly sniffed at the thong of his father’s dirty sandal. Moist warmth and sweat entered his nose, as well as a rotten cheese stench.

Jake gagged a bit and Trevor laughed.

“Yeah! And you thought your feet were bad! I imagine had our roles for today been switched, and these three tiny gals had been unlucky enough to end up at my feet…”

At this he hovered Jake’s mother over the toe end of his sandal.

He chuckled, “Well, I’d bet they’d just be smears of toe jam between my digits right about now.”

He dropped her, a tiny, squealing speck, right into the blackened crater that was the imprint that his big toe had left behind all these years in his sandal.

Jake watched, frozen in a mix of shock, revulsion, and deep down a secretly powerful lust as his father rolled his mother around the dirty toe imprint, tipping his sandal this way and that. Chuckling.

“See, this size is better, at a quarter inch, you’re still practically a god to them, but they’re just big enough so that you can see how they’re handling things.”

Now he lowered the sandal to his barefoot, tipping it forward so that Amy rolled of the toe end and into the waiting wrinkles of Trevor’s smelly foot, which was, thanks to his choice of foot wear, just as, if not more so, as dirty as Jake’s foot was. It was definitely smellier.

“God I love doing this. We had a gal back at central who we used to call ‘Tina Toe jam’!” Trevor said as he leaned back, playing with Jake’s mother as he scrunched his sole, burying her in his stinky foot flesh over and over.

“Yeah every week or so one of us guys would ‘accidentally’ shrink her on the test floor and not notice that she’d somehow end up in one of our shoes. Occasionally in our lunches too.”

Jake’s jaw was practically on the floor as he watched his tiny mother played with by his father’s giant, meaty foot. The tiny woman had to fight for every suffocatingly cheesy breath she took before she was plunged beneath Trevor’s foot wrinkles once again. His father played with her as though she were nothing, all the while he was picturing his dad playing with a tiny female co worker.

“Yep, most o’ the guys just liked her under the sole, y’know, just smashin’ her over and over, the minimizing process increasing density and all, but when your dad here got his turn, that bitch ate toe jam for her lunch break. Can’t tell ya how many breaks I spent just playin’ with her down there, seein which size I liked best, seein what tricks I could do with my toes. In the end I just settled for her stuck between my two biggest toes, I’d scrunch and wiggle em’ so much that by the end o’ the day, you couldn’t tell her apart from the rest o’ the filth between my toes! And the smell! No one wanted to go near that poor girl!”

At this point Trevor noticed his son’s expression, and his growing erection.

“Somethin’ you like there kiddo?” He asked with his big grin still intact.

Jake swallowed and nodded, unsure of where this was headed.

Trevor rotated away from his son and brought his other foot, still sandal clad, up onto the couch, still playing with Amy on his other sole.

“You know it’s been awhile since anyone’s cleaned between my toes for me…” He started, smiling as he watched his son lick his lips. He wiggled his toes and let the sandal fall to the floor with a loud clop. He spread his toes, watching the toe jam build up, hearing it squelch as he squeezed. He could smell his feet from here, so he could understand why Jake’s eyes were watering.

“Just a word of advice” Trevor told his eager son as he lifted his wrinkled sole towards his face, “Don’t bother holding your nose, better to just let the smell in so you can adjust to it. Pretend it’s cheese.”

Jake nodded.

Alice and Becca looked on in horror. What the hell was going on?