Kaleb woke up on a hard, cold surface. His mind was foggy, and he took several minutes to process his new environment.

The sky above was white, the ground an endless plain of linoleum. Huge wooden cliffs loomed in the distance, casting a shadow over everything. The orange-tinted light seemed to suggest that it was late afternoon. It quickly became clear that Kaleb was a miniscule speck on a kitchen floor. Worst of all, he was buck naked.

Kaleb had no recollection of how he’d gotten to be this way. He could still remember basic stuff, like his name and birthdate, but even the name of the high school he went to was evading him. Even so, the kitchen that surrounded him seemed vaguely familiar. In lieu of his more pressing issue, he decided it best to deal with the memory loss later.

Kaleb shakily got to his feet, and took a few steps. He shivered, both in awe and with cold, gazing up at the impossibly large countertop that stood before him. For a time, Kaleb was entirely unable to process the sight. He pinched and slapped himself for good measure, but no dice. This wasn’t a dream.

He tried to guess his current height, but found nothing to compare himself to. Everything was just so big and far away. The linoleum tile he was standing on looked to be about twice his height along each side, though he didn’t know how big the tile itself actually was.

Looking around, Kaleb decided he should at least try to get off the floor, not wanting to go out under someone’s foot. After he was somewhere a little safer, he could try to come to terms with what was happening. Kaleb started the long trek to the counter, looking to climb up the side.

The new, magnified landscape was deeply unsettling. The floor looked like some endless, sterile plain. Crumbs of food littered the tiles, each one almost the size of his fist. As Kaleb walked, the warmth seeped from his bones, even though the kitchen wasn’t especially chilly. He sped up a little to warm himself and perhaps arrive at his destination a little sooner. Kaleb watched the counter grow closer, and began to wonder how he could ever hope to scale the thing.

When he was half-way to the base of the counter, the ground beneath him began to shake. Kaleb paused and tried to find the source of tremors. They grew stronger with each repetition, as if…

Kaleb saw an unimaginably large shape appear from behind the table, and looked up in awe. It was a person.

She came thundering toward him, talking on her phone. She was intent on something on the countertop and never looked down at him. Even at such a monumental size, she was pretty, a brunette with a light smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose. She wore a tank top and workout shorts, with grey ankle socks. Additionally, her skin seemed to glow, somewhat confusing Kaleb. He felt her footsteps in his chest now, as an uncomfortable, deep trembling. Kaleb was unable to move, frozen with fear.

Before Kaleb could leap out of the way, the woman’s socked foot crashed into him, throwing him forward and winding him. He landed under the countertop. For a second he was dazed, flat on his back and gasping for breath. He propped himself up on his elbows in time to see the foot rushing toward him again. Kaleb was unable to scream.

The toes slammed down just short of his trembling legs, and stopped. The girl appeared to be doing something on the countertop, and had never even noticed him. Kaleb collapsed with relief.

As he lay down and caught his breath, Kaleb began to detect a faint odor washing over him. Simultaneously, the leeching cold was banished by a radiating warmth. Kevin peered at the sock. He immediately noticed how filthy it looked. Dark, sweaty stains blossomed on the underside, and the silhouettes of her toes were painted with ingrained dirt. The smell quickly strengthened, becoming a sour reek that stung his nose. The humidity and heat radiating off the girl’s foot soon followed suit.

Despite his unfortunate position, Kaleb didn’t get up or try to move away. He reasoned that this was probably the safest place to be, even though the smell was starting to get to him. She wouldn’t step on him if he just stayed right here, he thought. Right here, under the counter. Once she’s gone, he could  make his way up and maybe get her attention.

Waves of foot odor washed over him, and the humidity began to condense on his body, forming a thin film of muggy sweat. The heat, wetness, and cheesy stink was beginning to make him dizzy. Kaleb decided perhaps retreating deeper under the countertop would be a better plan. He was still fighting to catch his breath though, and could only manage a pitiful crawl.

Kaleb looked back at the monstrous foot. The toes wigged menacingly through the saturated fabric of the sock. The big one seemed to be about as long as his own body. From that, Kaleb guessed he was only two inches tall.

Almost imperceptibly, he started to shrink. By the time Kaleb noticed, he was only half his “original” height. He paused, dumbstruck, as the shrinking accelerated. He watched the world grow even mightier around him, watched as the girl’s foot swelled. The sight was so utterly alien, his mind was refusing to process it.

Kaleb struggled into an upright sitting position and gawked. The shrinking had mercifully slowed down, and his height seemed to be stabilizing. The girl’s smallest toe was now twice as tall as him.

The view at this size was even more disgusting. Feminine sweat gathered in pools around her toes, and the beginnings of a pale-yellow crust were visible near the tip of her socks. The smell was cloying, a vinegary, stinging miasma that seemed genuinely thicker than normal air. Desperation began to take hold.

Kaleb stumbled toward the open kitchen floor, giving the putrid feet a wide berth. Before long, he was out from under the countertop and breathing fresh, cool air. He chuckled with relief.

Then the ground shook, violently enough to bring Kaleb to his knees. He looked behind him and saw the titaness pivoting on her heel. He had severely overestimated how far away he’d managed to get, and this motion put the ball of her foot directly over him. Her socks from this angle were more terrifying than any sight Kaleb had ever witnessed, a great grey-yellow expanse, with the outline of her sole marked in dark grey dirt particles. The underside of the sock was full of holes along the ball and heel, many of them twice his size or bigger.

In the fleeting moments before the sole came down on him, Kaleb caught a glimpse of his torturer’s face. In those moments, a name appeared inexplicably in his mind, among a flood of vague memories and sensations.

Emilia.

Then she put her foot down.

Before Kaleb had any time to process his revelation, he found himself surrounded by Emilia’s socks. Luckily, her step had placed him in the gap between her toes and the ball of her foot. Unluckily, this part of the sock was drenched in sweat, and he was quickly covered in the thick, oily exudation. He had the sense to clamp his mouth shut, but the action forced him to take in the pungent reek of the titaness’s feet.  When Emilia took another step, Kaleb was shocked to realize that the frayed fabric of the sock had looped around his arm, tying him to the behemoth ped.

Kaleb went up and watched the tiled floor blur past him, before being smashed back down into it. Miraculously, he remained unharmed, though he was dazed from being so violently shaken. The ratty sock fabric was so infused with old sweat that a flood of the stuff came gurgling out when the sock was pressed against the floor. For a moment, Kaleb was entirely submerged in it, close to drowning in nothing but this girl’s foot sweat. Then Emilia took another step. Relentlessly, the cycle repeated. It was on the fifth step that Kaleb noticed that he was growing smaller yet again. Caught off guard, he failed to keep his mouth closed during the next cycle. Emilia’s foot smashed him against the floor, squeezing out another torrent of sock-borne, stale perspiration, much of which ended up in his mouth.

Try as he might to spit it out, Kaleb swallowed at least a mouthful. The fluid was gummy and somewhat viscous, quickly adhering to face. The taste was beyond his comprehension; a cocktail of salty, bitter, and cheesy sensations assaulted his tongue.

As he suffered through this sampling of Emilia’s personal nectar, Kaleb shrunk yet again, dwindling down faster than ever. He watched the water-logged fibers of the sock become thick ropes, covered with a film of stale sweat. He was soon small enough to slip between the miniscule holes between the threads.

The interior of Emilia’s sock was an order of magnitude worse. The air may as well have been liquid. Great salty droplets stuck to his body, swallowing his limbs and threatening to drown him. Through the veritable ocean of sweat and the obscuring darkness of the sock, Kaleb caught glimpses of Emilia’s toes. They were monolithic, each one the size of a skyscraper and faintly glimmering in the dim light of the sock. The gap between her toes was distant enough to be obscured by what looked to be haze. Or maybe that was just the smell.

For what seemed like an eternity, Kaleb was tossed around in the hellish sock space, suffering the occasional shrinking spurt and swallowing more and more of Emilia’s filth. As time went by and her feet cooled off, the sweat began to solidify a little, approaching the consistency and stickiness of honey. Emilia eventually stopped moving, granting Kaleb a moment’s well-earned rest, lodged in the grungy sock fabric under her toes.  

By now, even the soggy thread he was resting on was as wide as a city block. Kaleb watched the grimy toes above him as they fidgeted. Every movement was an enormous, subsonic tremor to him. When one of the toes brushed up next to him, the bits of dirt and lint that clung there were dislodged and landed around him with great thuds. The patch of skin between her toes was off in the hazy distance, but he could still see a trickle of sweat down there, as it reflected the dim light filtering in through the threadbare sock.

Kaleb had trouble seeing this expansive landscape as part of another person. The lowliest part. The space underneath Emilia’s toes may as well have been the entire world to him. It was there, breathing in the sour, stinging aroma from between the giantess’s toes, that Kaleb finally snapped.

As he sank into the gooey slime of Emilia’s sweat, he began sobbing. Kaleb felt so impossibly unimportant, so puny and powerless. Worst of all, he really was all those things. As the world crumbled around him, Kaleb felt the toxic stench finally reach a lethal intensity. His nostrils flared as he took deep breaths of it.

A few minutes later, he was unconscious.

Again, Kaleb woke up.

The events of the previous…day? To be honest, time had lost its meaning to him. Either way, what had happened when he was last awake remained fresh in his mind. Every crushing, disgusting moment of it.

Kaleb stood up as quickly as he could manage, and surveyed his surroundings. Thank god. He was bigger now. The world still seemed unimaginably large, just not to the soul-crushing level of before. He stood on what appeared to be a coffee table, in a familiar living room. A nearby window revealed the morning sun; he must have slept through the night. Kaleb was maybe half an inch tall.

Behind him, two dirty socks stretched up like great towers. Through the holes, Kaleb could see faintly gleaming, ridged foot flesh. The smell was incredibly ripe, matured, he assumed, since last night. A rattling snore burst the silent morning, proving that Emilia was still asleep. Seizing his chance, Kaleb turned tail and jogged to the other end of the coffee table. There was no way in hell he was going through that again.

Despite his tiny size, Kaleb was able to reach the edge of table in only a couple minutes. He played with the idea of shimmying down the leg and back onto the floor, but dismissed it quickly. Being on the carpet would only increase his chances of having another run-in with those rank peds. Instead, he sat on the edge and breathed in the fresh air, savoring it while he could. Kaleb eventually leaned back and dozed off.

Kaleb was jolted awake as he fell from the table’s edge and smashed into the carpet below. He was shaken but unharmed, and inexplicably, a whole one inch tall.

As Kaleb tried to understand what the hell was going on, he heard something very large starting to move. His blood ran cold.

Kaleb began sprinting under the coffee table. He heard Emilia grumble something unintelligible and put her feet on the carpet, causing the table to creak. The table that, to him, was bigger than most office buildings. The thought filled him with even more fear.

But, maybe…

He had been regaining height steadily since last night. Hell, she could probably notice him by now. He hated to think it, but a cockroach-sized man had to be pretty obvious to a normal sized human-being. And she wouldn’t have to distract her this early in the morning!

Suddenly changing his plan of action, Kaleb ran straight for Emilia, who was sitting on a couch. He could see only her feet, as they fidgeted and played with the carpet fibers. Nonetheless, he forged on.

Charging headfirst into the light, he jumped up and waved at Emilia…who chose just that moment to get up and stretch.  

  The filthy sock slammed into Kaleb, crushing his body and his hopes. Fortunately, Emilia had high arches, allowing Kaleb to escape being totally flattened, but his head hurt like a bitch and the wind had once again been knocked out of him. Yesterday’s sweat had dried into a sharp, crystalline crust that poked him harshly. Even through the hard, brittle surface of the sock, Kaleb could feel the fleshy sole wrinkle and flex powerfully.

The odor radiating from Emilia’s feet had soured since he’d last sampled it, though it was now much less wet and oppressive. Kaleb coughed fitfully and began squirming, but he could hardly move under the immense weight and unyielding stiffness of the sock. Above him, Emilia paused and tensed up, but then kept going as if nothing had happened.

Emilia stepped away. Kaleb was stuck to the crusty sock for a moment, adhered to it by residual sweat, but he fell off before she made landfall. Dazed and disappointed, he watched the immense figure recede into the unattainable distance.

Kaleb lay down again, to rest and think of a new plan. He was back on the floor, with no reasonable means to get onto any nearby furniture. He supposed the best option was to go somewhere flat and open, where it would be easier for Emilia to notice him.

He also took some time to assess his own state of being. His naked body was lightly bruised and scraped in several places, but there were no serious injuries. When he ran his fingers through his hair, he found it matted and greasy. His skin was dirty and covered with a thin sheen of dry perspiration.

Disgusted in himself, Kaleb got up and began walking the way Emilia had gone. Ahead of him was a short hallway, leading to what he guessed was her bedroom. Maybe she was taking a shower? That would be nice.

As Kaleb went approached the middle of the carpet, he kept getting the feeling that he knew this place. Every piece of furniture, the color of carpet, even the view out the window, rang a tiny bell in his head. But nothing came up.

He was still lost in thought, trying to remember, when Emilia emerged from her room and rushed toward him. She was unfortunately still wearing the same clothes, and looked just as gross as before. Kaleb snapped out of it and yelled to get her attention. To his utmost horror, she just kept coming. She was putting on a motorcycle helmet, which may have been covering up her vision or distracting her just enough to miss the bug man in the carpet. Either way, her foot bowled him over, and he found himself flying through the air.

He landed awkwardly at the foot of the couch, mouth agape as he tried to draw breath. The shuddering thump of Emilia’s footsteps grew stronger. She appeared above him, paused to finish adjusting her helmet, and sat down.

Kaleb was utterly paralyzed. All he could do was watch as Emilia reached over the side of the couch and grabbed a pair of scuffed-up, black boots, letting them land just a few yards shy of his prone body. She then lifted her foot to her lap and peeled the tattered, crusty sock off. The poor thing dropped to the floor nearby, still holding the shape of her sole. She did the same with her other foot, and proceeded to plant it directly on top of Kaleb.

The fleeting sight of her naked foot burned itself into Kaleb’s mind. It was pink, with a faint dark outline of grime on the toes and heel. The sole was fleshy and wrinkled, and shone slightly with old sweat. In addition to the rim of dirt, her heel and big toe were mildly callused.

The clammy, sticky flesh smothered him, making it even harder to breath. Luckily, her foot lifted quickly, allowing him to gasp for air as he was lifted up with it, stuck. Straining his neck, he saw her pointing her toes toward the mouth of the boot. Only naturally.

The light was suddenly extinguished as he dove headfirst into the confines of Emilia’s boot, and was replaced by the musty, dry stench from within. Before long, he found himself lodged in the gap between her toes and the ball of her foot, his head gripped firmly by her pinky toe. He knew that the pressure from her weight would squeeze his head even tighter, and tried desperately to squirm and her attention. Surely she’d notice something his size flailing around?

But she didn’t. There was a muffled sound as she put on her other boot and stood up. Barring a slightly tighter pressure around his body, he was unharmed. When she took her first step, he was still unharmed. As she walked out in the blistering summer heat, he was starting to realize just how cruel the universe could be. 

Emilia rode her motorcycle in no particular direction, weaving and zipping through the city streets. The road was empty, though she could hear the faint roar of traffic somewhere. The wind in her face was a welcome relief from the mounting heat of the day. The sky was empty, a blank slate waiting for her to do with it what she pleased.

Kaleb’s day was not quite as free as Emilia’s. His head remained stuck in the vice-like grip of the toes. The old, sour layer of grime had dissolved in the influx of new sudor, producing a vile combination of the fresh, salty sweat and stale bitterness. Occasionally, she would scrunch the fleshy appendages together, cutting off his breath and circulating the raunchy air inside the boot. Somehow, through all this torture, Kaleb remained unhurt.

It was stiflingly hot even outside Kaleb’s toe sauna, making the inside of the shoe completely unbearable. More and more sweat continued to pour from between Emilia’s toes, filling the insole of the boot and forming a shallow pool. Without socks, there was nothing to soak up the excess.

Adding to Kaleb’s growing list of woes was the wild, bucking motion, and the fact that all of it was happening in utter darkness. He was dazed, disoriented, and disgusted.

By the time Emilia decided to stop somewhere, the pool of sweat collecting at the bottom of her boot had swelled to six inches deep (from his perspective, of course), and the scent had exploded to unimaginable levels. To make matters worse, the crevice of her pinky toe was sweating heavily, drenching his hair and causing him to swallow several mouthfuls of perspiration.

The relative regularity of Emilia’s gait was a welcome change, even if it squeezed his body a bit more than he liked. The sour reek had acquired a cheesier by tang now, and Kaleb was growing a little more accustomed to it.

Without much warning, Emilia took off her boot. He was dragged along by her toe down the sole of the shoe, before her foot lifted up and out. He slipped from her grasp and dropped into the squelching foam of the insole. Above him was a pale circle of light, blinding after so long in complete darkness. For the first time, he could see this little hell he had been trapped in.

The interior of Emilia’s boot looked no better than it smelled. It shone on all sides with moisture, some of it dripping down in glimmering rivulets. The insole itself was torn up and flaky, with several small, rubbery pieces lying in the vast plain of the shoe.

Actually, the boot seemed a little too large. Kaleb crawled into the light to confirm his mounting suspicions. Now with some reference to compare himself with, he realized he’d shrunk yet again, and now stood at only about a quarter inch tall.

Kaleb had long since stopped trying to find any sort of rhyme or reason to the fever dream that had become his life. He was coming to accept the fact that his height was no longer a constant, but rather an ever-changing variable in the equation of his survival. He also realized that his strategy of getting Emilia’s attention was no longer a very good one. She probably wouldn’t notice him at this size, no matter how much he flailed around.

Kaleb sat down, causing a droplet of lukewarm sweat to ooze out of the fabric. There weren’t very many good options. He could try to leave the shoe by climbing up and out of the heel, but he’d need to climb up several hundred yards before reaching the rim of boot. And then what? Jump?

He could try heading to one of the edges, so that Emilia would be less likely to crush him when she put her foot back in. He had a feeling that if he were to try that, the violent motion would put him underfoot whether he liked it or not. As much as he hated to admit it, the best place for him was between her toes, where he’d be safe from slipping under her sole.

Having prepared his new strategy, Kaleb got up and began the long trek back into the toe of the boot. The atmosphere became heavier and more oppressive as he went, the sour, cheesy reek quickly strengthening. His eyes watered, and he found it difficult to suppress the racking coughs.

His eyes eventually readjusted to the darkness of the boot, and he found himself gazing at the greasy imprint of his torturer’s feet. The insole had been gradually eaten way by the repetitive pressure of Emilia’s walking, leaving a clear indentation in the shape of her sole. As Kaleb approached the very tip of the boot, the toe imprints seemed more like lunar craters.

Kaleb paused for the moment on the edge of the precipice, looking down at the dark circle that represented Emilia’s big toe. Then it dawned on him that he was standing on the outermost side of the boot, and that the imprint he now saw was indeed the smallest of them. Without his noticing, he had shrunk yet again. He now stood at a mere tenth of an inch.

Just as Kaleb realized the sudden change in stature, he was jolted off his feet and into the greasy abyss. He slid down the crater as the boot was shaken, and the dim light was snuffed out. It was only all too clear what was happening. Kaleb tried desperately to climb his way out of the pit, but he found the surface too slick to gain any traction. At his miniscule size, even the shallow indentation proved too great an obstacle. He felt the air move around him in the pitch blackness, sensing the approach of Emilia’s toes, utterly unable to do anything about it.

A moment before her pinky toe landed, Kaleb could feel the air compress ever so slightly, as if tensing up. Then, the building-sized appendage crashed down on top of him.

It was a humbling experience, having someone’s smallest toe so completely dominate you. Kaleb was totally immobilized by the crushing weight. His mind went fuzzy as a result of the renewed and intensified scent. Worst of all, there seemed to be a thin layer of gritty filth surrounding him on all sides. Emilia clearly hadn’t thought to take a shower when she slipped off the boot.

For an eternity, Kaleb lay prone, smashed against the underside of this woman’s toe. Untold quantities of her sweat slid into his mouth and down his throat. By now, he was starting to become desensitized to the experience.

For no reason at all, Emilia’s foot began pressing down harder, putting even greater pressure on him and squeezing more foul sudor from the tattered insole. Kaleb accidentally inhaled some, immediately triggering uncontrollable spasms and retching. The next moment, her toe lifted, flinging his convulsing body into dark, empty space.

Batted around between Emilia’s immense, unseen digits, Kaleb gave up on trying to resist. Even if he could see them, there was no way he could do anything to stop her toes. One might as well try to stay the wrath of god.

For better or for worse, Kaleb ended up lodged in one of the toe crevices, though he was entirely unable to guess which one. All he knew was that the warm, reeking flesh clutched him from all sides, undulating, its motions more powerful than any embrace. He remained limp in its grasp, knowing that any resistance could result in a shattered arm, or worse. Kaleb was soon surrounded by greasy cotton fibers and lumps of unidentified rubbery material.

The lint held him in place, like any other piece of toe jam. The cotton was much too strong for him to tear it. To make matters even worse, the lint was had marinated in Emilia’s sweat for at least a few days, making it even more pungent than the rest of the boot.

Kaleb remained there, immobilized by the humble piece of sock lint. He managed to rest up a little, though the disorienting combination of violent motion and the cheesy funk prevented him from recovering in any meaningful way.

When Emilia took off her boot, Kaleb almost didn’t notice. His reaction to the sudden, blinding light was delayed, but he eventually tried turning his head to shield his eyes from it. Even this minor motion was restricted by the lint. His own weakness was becoming painfully clear.

Looking down, he noticed his own body was encrusted with sweat and flecks of dead skin, forming a rough, wet cocoon. He hated to think how it would feel once it dried out. The enormous toes on either side of him wiggled, partially dislodging the lint. His stomach leapt into his throat as he and the huge cotton prison slipped down and crashed onto the floor.

From his new position, Kaleb saw Emilia’s toes as great cliffs or mountains, flesh-colored masses rising into the sky. The skin between the toes was wrinkled and crisscrossed with shallow fissures, some of which held yellow flecks of a more organic kind of toe jam. The whole foot was flushed and damp with accumulated perspiration. When the great toes wiggled, they wafted a renewed scent in his direction.

Looking even further up, Kaleb was able to make out some of the rest of Emilia’s body, though much of it was out of view. She appeared to be sitting down on something. Her face was just visible past her knee, but she was looking ahead, not paying the slightest bit of attention to the crud between her toes. Of course she wasn’t. It would be weird is she did.

Without ever acknowledging the bit of sock lint, or the human life so closely bonded to it, Emilia got up and walked away. The air she displaced was enough to send the greasy cotton ball flying under some piece of furniture. A forgotten speck of dust left to rot in the dark.

At least the smell was a little better.

The next morning came, and Kaleb gradually returned to the land of the living. He was still in a dark, dusty place, but the oppressive, intimidating size of everything had diminished somewhat. Sighing with relief, he realized he was back to an inch tall.

He staggered up, but his head bumped the “ceiling”. It felt good to be too big for once, even if it was just the space underneath a table.

Carefully, Kaleb crawled out from under the furniture, emerging to a fresh new dawn in a new room. It looked to be a bedroom, probably Emilia’s. Again, it was very hazily familiar, but a solid memory evaded him.

Looking up, he noticed that he had actually been left underneath a dresser. Directly ahead of him was Emilia’s bed. The woman herself was unseen and unheard. With any luck, she wasn’t there at all.

Kaleb was starting to rethink his approach to his recent conundrum. It appeared that Emilia was absolutely intent on making him suffer, his attempts to draw her attention going completely unnoticed. He was even starting to get the feeling she was willfully ignoring him. Even if that turned out to be nothing but a paranoid suspicion, there was no harm in being careful. He’d travel only when he was sure Emilia wasn’t nearby, hide and bunker down when she was, and try to climb onto a table or something during the night. That way, he could remain reasonably safe, and stood a good chance of getting noticed, for better or for worse.

Kaleb found it somewhat difficult to move through the carpet at his current size. It was like trudging through a heavy snow, knee-deep in polyester cords. His motion was also somewhat hindered by the brittle crust of dried sweat and toe jam from yesterday’s outing.

Nonetheless, Kaleb felt driven, with a definite goal in mind and some hope for the future. So he kept going. Before too long, he had arrived under the bed. From here, he’d be able to survey the rest of the room and figure out his next move, without fear of getting stepped on for the third time.

 Not long after, there was a resounding creak, followed by the telltale thumping of Emilia’s approach. Kaleb hit the deck and watched her move around the room. The terrible peds were socked now, with the same threadbare things she’d worn when he’d first seen her. Eventually, the oblivious goddess wandered out of the room, neglecting to close the door behind her. Once the cannon shots of her footsteps had receded into the distance, he got back up and continued his survey.

Near the front of the bed was a nightstand and the door out of the bedroom. There were a few other pieces of furniture: a chair and what might have been a TV stand, but nothing that might guarantee that he’d be noticed. He could try leaving the bedroom entirely, but the prospect of facing the huge carpeted plain outside was not an especially attractive one. The nightstand looked to be the most promising option. If Emilia left something important there, like her phone, he could draw her attention much more effectively, even at a smaller size. As long as he didn’t shrink to some truly insignificant size, she’d notice him.

Maybe.

Kaleb spent the next several hours getting to the nightstand and arduously scaling it. During that time, he experienced all manner of heights. At two inches, he strode through the carpet almost as easily as he would normally, quickly reaching the base of the nightstand. There was a terrifying stretch time during which he was stuck in one of the microscopic imperfections in the nightstand’s wood, unable to do anything but peer out at the titanic, blurred shapes that made up of Emilia’s bedroom. By the time he reached the top, the afternoon sun was slanting through the windows, and he his stature had largely stabilized at about an inch. He took a moment to assess his options.

There was no phone, but he did see an alarm clock, a pack of gum, and a picture frame. None of them were ideal, and Emilia had so far proven quite unobservant. If he tried either the clock or the gum, he’d end up smashed or going down someone’s gullet. To be quite honest, his best chances were to just stay somewhere on the nightstand and hope for the best.

Having already decided on inaction, Kaleb took some time to further investigate the framed photograph. He looked at it, and kept looking at it. And yet he couldn’t actually put into words what was there. For whatever reason, it made him uneasy.

Far away, a door opened. To tiny Kaleb, it sounded like the end of the world. After a moment’s frozen terror, he hurried into a clear space near the middle of the nightstand. He heard the titaness approaching well before he saw her, as was the norm. When she finally appeared in the door, he was struck speechless.

It was only his second time seeing Emilia fully upright. Even from his artificially elevated position, she was simultaneously stunning and monstrous, a creature of great terror and beauty. It was difficult to see her as merely human.

She ignored the nightstand and went straight for the dresser. Kaleb shouted and waved his arms, knowing there was no way she’d see or hear him. But it was something.

Emilia rummaged through the dresser for a few moments, then pulled out a tank top, similar to the sweat-stained rag she was already wearing. From the greater distance, Kaleb could almost imagine he was about normal size. The mindset allowed him to realize that Emilia was an utter mess. She appeared to have avoided showers for at least a few days. Her hair was matted and her face flushed, as if she’d been exerting herself. Her body was toned and athletic, but not exceptionally so. This was no divine being.

He looked down at himself. He was shocked to realize how thin he looked. His ribs were beginning to show, and the definition in his limbs had diminished significantly. Of course, he hadn’t eaten anything substantial in at least three days. And yet he felt no hunger pangs.

In addition to his feeble frame, his cleanliness had only deteriorated since yesterday. His skin was covered in black specks and hard-brittle patches of brown-yellow crust. A thin layer of dark grime enveloped him.

It began to dawn on him that perhaps he was the inhuman one.

Caught up in these revelations, Kaleb didn’t notice Emilia’s departure. He looked up to hear the distant front door swing shut. He was alone yet again.

Kaleb tried to get some sleep before he got his next chance. Bothered by the question of his own identity, he found it difficult to settle down. To make matters worse, there was nothing soft to rest on. He curled up inside the box of gum, choosing the relative warmth and softness of the cardboard over the bare surface of the night stand.

When he woke up, the world was dark and shaking. The top opened, and he saw a set of monolithic fingers reaching for him.

They plucked a strip of gum from the box, bringing him along by pure chance. Kaleb realized he was now about a quarter inch tall, small enough to stand comfortably on the strip without bending it very much. He looked around and noticed he was being maneuvered into a set of open, waiting jaws.

It was Emilia. He began jumping up and down, screaming at the top of his lungs in the hopes of at least giving her pause. All the while, her hot, wet breath rolled over him, smelling of stale hunger. Her teeth were enormous white blades, gleaming with saliva. He could make out the shape of her tongue and throat by dim, glinting reflections.

And then she stopped. She looked confused, and Kaleb kept at it, yelling even louder. He let some hope creep into his shouting. Emilia looked directly at him, and brought the piece of gum closer to inspect the tiny, squeaking speck on the end.

Her eye was huge and terrifying. The iris was grey-green, the pupil a dark, empty hole, in which he saw his own pathetic reflection. Emilia’s eyes went wide as she realized what she was seeing. To Kaleb even that tiny motion was a show of force, as walls of flesh thicker than his torso rushed along the curve of the eyeball, quite literally faster than he could blink. He cowered against the minty strip.

“Oh my god,” she whispered.

This was the first time the giantess had spoken in Kaleb’s presence. He’d expected the sound to match the rest of her, a deep, ultrasonic rumble that would shake his bones. But it sounded almost…normal. Much louder than a real whisper, but he could understand the words, and it sounded like any woman’s voice.

And if he could understand him…

“I need help! Please!”

Emilia flinched a little upon hearing the tiny person talk, and began to set the gum down as carefully as she could. Her mouth tried to make sound, but nothing came out.

For his part, Kaleb felt a great weight slide off his shoulders. He collapsed into a sobbing, joyful pile. Emilia finally set the strip of gum down on her nightstand. She took a moment to gawk at the impossibly tiny being resting on top of it, then managed to speak.

“Are you…a person?”

Kaleb collected himself and responded. “Yes, I am. I am and I need help. Do you think you can get me to a hospital or something?”

Emilia, still wide-eyed, seemed not to hear the request. “What’s your name?”

“Uhh…Kaleb. It’s Kaleb. But I need medical…”

Emilia shook her head and stood up. She began pacing. “Ok, whoa. This is crazy.”

Kaleb was disappointed, but still happy to have been noticed. He knew that finding someone like him must be just as shocking for her as shrinking had been for him.

Emilia eventually settled down and sat down on the floor, her eyes level with him.

“Ok, tell me how you ended up like that. This is just so weird!”

Kaleb was beginning to feel ignored, but he soldiered on. “I’m not sure. I don’t remember very much from before I shrunk. But I know I had a normal life before this, and it ended when this happened.” He gestured to his reduced body.

“Huh. So you can’t remember anything?”

“Not really, no. Can you take me to a hospital, please? I think I need a doctor.”

Emilia’s brow furrowed for a moment, as if she were annoyed, but the expression passed in an instant. He’d probably imagined it.

“Wow. And you’ve been shrunk for three days! You must be starving.”

“Yeah, I guess I am,” said Kaleb, lying. He felt angry for some reason, but he couldn’t figure out why that was. He decided to forget about it.

“Oh, you poor thing! Here, I’ll clean you up and get you something to eat.”

Without waiting for Kaleb’s response, Emilia roughly plucked him from the nightstand and carried him to the bathroom. Her fingers were a little moist and sticky, but well within manageable levels. He welcomed the soft, radiating warmth. The motion was surprisingly calm; she was clearly holding him with a good deal of care. Her face was bright with a combination of concern and curiosity.

Emilia shuffled into the bathroom, holding her hands as still as she could, and turned the faucet on with her elbow. She waited, to make sure the water was nice and warm, before easing her fist and the tiny being inside it into the stream.

It was absolute heaven. Kaleb basked in the warmth and soothing rush. He felt the grime being washed from his body and relaxed into the pillowy flesh that surrounded him.

Emilia began scrubbing him softly with the tip of her finger. At first, the experience was a little frightening, but she was surprisingly careful with her pressure. The repetitive motion was calming. For the first time in several days, he felt at ease.

He opened his eyes and saw Emilia’s face. She was looking back at him, her expression one of concentration and concern. She was an attractive woman.

Kaleb blinked and looked away. There was no way he could start thinking of her that way. She was at least a few million times his size. At best, she viewed him as a cute oddity.

Abruptly, the bubbling warmth of the water receded. Emilia drew her fist from the sink and turned it off.

“That was nice, wasn’t it?” she asked, smiling down at her tiny guest.

“Yes, it was. Can I have some food now, please?”

“Sure! Here, let me put you down somewhere while I go look for something your size.”

Emilia took him into the living room and set him down on the coffee table, before heading into the kitchen. She had a little jump in her step.

Kaleb recognized the table from the previous day. Emilia had deposited him near the edge closest to the couch, more or less where he’d woken up after that first terrible day. It was a little concerning, but Kaleb was confident that things wouldn’t go quite as badly this time around.

Emilia came back carrying a single cookie. She sat down on the couch, facing him, and snapped off a small piece of the pastry. She crumbled it up over his head, allowing a shower of cookie crumbs to fall around him. Though he didn’t feel especially hungry, Kaleb knew he probably needed to eat something, and started picking apart a nearby morsel. It was about a foot across to him. Not exactly a healthy meal, but it would have to do.

Emilia took a bite out of the remaining cookie, all the while staring intently at the shrunken human being on her coffee table.

“So what’ve you been doing for the past three days? At that size, it can’t have been a whole lot.”

Kaleb didn’t remember telling her how long he’d been this way, but decided to roll with it.

“Mostly just trying to survive and get your attention,” he said, tactfully neglecting to mention the close encounters he’d had so far.

“Oh, wait. I can’t hear you.” Emilia got onto the ground and turned her ear toward him. He repeated himself, shouting this time. This time she could hear him.

“You’ve been in my room for days and I never noticed you! Are you sure you were really trying?” she said, somewhat playfully.

“No, no, its just … that I’m not always the same size. Yeah, sometimes I’m even smaller than this,” Kalbe gestured to himself, “sometimes a little bigger, and I always seem to get unlucky in that department.” Again, he avoided mentioning his unfortunate experiences.

“Oh, okay. Huh. So, you’re saying that this isn’t as small as you get?”

“Uhh.” Her inflection concerned Kaleb a little. “No.”

“Ha! Any smaller than that and you’ll be too small for me to see!”

Kaleb realized that he could, indeed, become too tiny for her to see, even if she knew where to look. If that were to happen…

“I suppose that’s true, isn’t it? If that were to happen, it would be easy to lose me, though.”

Emilia paused in her chewing and thought about it. “Yeah…you know what? I’ll be right back.”

Emilia got up, and went to her bedroom, presumably to find something to help her find him if he got unlucky. Kaleb smiled to himself. Things were looking up.

But fate saw his smile and frowned back at him. He began to shrink.

“Fuck! Emilia! I’m getting smaller! Emilia!” Kaleb shouted into the ever-expanding open space, hopelessly trying to prevent what was apparently inevitable. Crushed by the pointlessness of his efforts, he sat down and waited it out.

By the time the shrinking spurt had ended, he stood at maybe a twentieth of an inch, though any attempt at estimating his height was shabby guesswork at best. The crumbs were several times his height now; he was no more than a speck of dust to any normal person.

At this size, he was able to detect Emilia’s movements as deep tremors in the ground, her steps downright geological in scale. Kaleb’s mind, unmuddied by motion sickness or odor, found the sensation horrifying. He collapsed into a fetal position and clapped his hands over his ears. He could feel the colossal vibrations through his skin.

Emilia came back to the coffee table, holding a shoebox. She spoke, but now the sound impossibly loud and low, a ship’s foghorn on steroids. Kaleb clapped his hands against his ears, and closed his eyes.

For a few seconds, Kaleb felt nothing but a wave of new, stronger tremors. He cracked one eye open.

Emilia loomed across the sky. She was immense, mountainous, dominating such a large part of his field of view that it was impossible to look at all of her at once. She bent down to take a closer look at him, her eyes scanning the tabletop. The air displaced by her motion became a gale, lifting him up and rendering him airborne.

Being so small, Kaleb’s body interacted with the air in unusual ways. For one, it was thick, dense enough for him to float through. He remained suspended in it, a mote of dust riding the minute indoor breezes. Somehow, he remained able to breathe without difficulty.

In addition, the heat generated by his body was quickly radiated out into the vast, empty expanse, leaving him cold and shivering within seconds.

This might be a preferable way to go. Hypothermia offered him more dignity than Emilia’s boot, even if it claimed him in the middle of summer.

But it wouldn’t happen today. Kaleb grew again, in time to save him from chill, and causing him to plummet back to the ground. By then, he’d floated beyond the coffee table and over the carpet, which now rushed up to meet him. Things had a habit of repeating themselves.

While Kaleb was recovering from his brush with death, Emilia continued to search for him on and around the coffee table. By chance, she checked behind the table, and saw a tiny, pale thing squirming on the rug.

“Oh, thank god, there you are!” she cried. “I thought you shrank!”

“I did, but just for a second,” said Kaleb, holding back the shakes.

“Here, I found a place to put you, so that you’re safe.” She held out the shoebox for his appraisal, but he was preoccupied with a minor nervous breakdown. Talking Kaleb’s silence for approval, Emilia carefully picked him up and placing him on the cardboard, and carrying the box to her bedroom. Along the way, she chattered anxiously.

“I was so worried! You’re so small and fragile and I couldn’t bear to lose you so soon after I found you, it would have been just heartbreaking! I’m sorry about the box, by the way, it’s the best I could find on short notice. I promise I’ll get you some felt or something to sleep on, and some actual food too. I’m not sure what we can do about clothes, though. Oh my god, it’ll be like having a little hamster!”

She looked down and grinned happily at him.

Kaleb, dazed by the emotional rollercoaster of the day and soothed by the soft rocking motion of her walk, risked a smile. He fell asleep.

Kaleb woke up the next morning, refreshed and clean. The walls of his new home rose up all around him. He couldn’t help but regret his imprisonment, but it was a very fair price to pay for the assurance of safety. As long as he didn’t leave the confines of the box, he could live out his days in peace.

Morning sunlight colored everything rosy orange. Kaleb heard something shift and mumble, and Emilia appeared above the walls of the box, looking as bedraggled as ever. It was disappointing to see that she’d still not gotten herself into order, but Kaleb could hardly ask her to go take a shower. At least not directly.

Emilia stretched herself, groaning slightly, before getting up and shambling over to the shoebox. She brought with her a heady musk. It wasn’t bad, per se, but still extremely strong. She smiled down at him.

“How’s my little buddy doing?”

“I’m good!” he shouted back.

She chuckled and said, “God, you’re so cute. Wait, I’ll be right back!”

She wandered off, making her signature tremors. Kaleb watched her go, then sat back down. The air cleared up a little, and he found himself feeling lonely somehow.

Kaleb tried to imagine what life would be like from now on. He guessed that whatever curse had befallen him was probably not something a doctor could fix, so remaining under someone’s protection would be his only way to survive. That being said, he wasn’t sure Emilia was the best choice. Sure, she had a certain charm, but he doubted he could stand living in this one little box for the rest of his life. If only he could remember the names of any friends or family members he could trust…

But at the same time, he felt some unnamed urge not to bother with any of that. Life with Emilia could be interesting enough, and she certainly did seem to care about his well-being. Maybe staying put wasn’t such a bad idea. And he was already missing her badly.

To Kaleb’s delight, Emilia came back with some jam and toast, bringing with her the fresh scent of good food, as well as her own intriguing smell. She prepared a tasty-looking spread, tore off a chunk, and tossed it into his box.

“Here you go! You look absolutely starving.”

That he was. Kaleb hurried over to the toast and began scarfing it down. Maybe the starvation of the past few days was finally catching up to him?

Emilia watched him eat with glee. Kaleb didn’t mind much, and was happy stuffing his face with sweet bread. Besides, he enjoyed the company. When breakfast was finished, Kaleb sat down and craned his neck to look back at Emilia.

“So how was your meal?” she asked him.

“It was great! Thank you!”

“Aww, it was nothing. Least I could do for such a cute little thing.” She got up and retrieved a backpack from a distant corner of the bedroom. “I swear I tore the apartment apart looking for something for bedding. The best I could do was this:” she held up an old t-shirt. “I’m heading out for work now, but I’ll be back with something a bit softer. You be good while I’m gone, ok?”

Kaleb, throat already sore from yelling so much, made an exaggerated nodding motion to show his acknowledgement. Emilia giggled and threw in the t-shirt, “to keep him company while she was gone.” The t-shirt piled up against one side of the box, forming a formidable looking hill.

The clothing was, of course, less than pristine. It looked very well-worn, with dark, grimy stains here and there. Emilia’s smell permeated the clothing, but at such proximity, it was hard for him to stomach it. Emilia was heading out the door by then, so Kaleb retreated to the far corner of the box in an attempt to escape the overwhelming, musty aroma. He wasn’t successful.

The hours ticked by. Kaleb began to pace inside his pen, wishing for something to happen. he quickly grew numb to the shirt’s scent. As if to spite him, his body remained at a couple inches tall, large enough that the shoebox felt cramped. He could leave by climbing up the t-shirt, but he didn’t want to leave the relatively safe walls of the box. The mounting heat of the day began to bake the apartment, but Kaleb’s miniaturized body was able to cool off quite easily. Even the weather was boring.

As the sun crept through its motions, Kaleb found himself eyeing the t-shirt more and more. He had long since stopped avoiding the clothing, seeing as he could no longer smell the odor it emitted. He now stood right at the edge, near the frayed arm hole. The t-shirt was logoed, but the crumpling made it hard to read what it was. Kaleb decided to make it his mission to find out.

He grabbed the sleeve and began to haul it toward the far corner of the box. He had to exert himself thoroughly to move the fabric, which made sense. After all, he weighed maybe a tenth of an ounce? Less? Either way, the shirt was heavier than he was.

Once the sleeve was stuffed into one of the corners, Kaleb rested a little, then repeated the process with the opposite sleeve. When he was done, he collapsed into the cotton field and rested there for a moment. He could faintly detect Emilia’s scent on it.

He was still recuperating when the distant sound of opening door echoes through the apartment. Kaleb was happy to have someone to talk to, but felt too tired to stand. He stayed put, wand waited for Emilia to come by and check on him.  

In no time at all, he saw her lightly freckled face crest the walls of the box. As usual, she was smiling, her expression a combination of delight and astonishment.

“Hi! I’m back! How was your day?”

Kaleb took a moment to decide if she was joking. “A little dull, but I can’t complain,” he yelled.

“Really? It looks like you really enjoyed my present.”

Kaleb looked around and noticed that he’d chosen to collapse near the armpit of the t-shirt.

“Uhh…”

“Well, if you liked that old thing, you’ll love what I got you!” Emilia showed him a cushion and some assorted fabrics. “I found these at some prissy craft place down the street. You don’t mind the color?”

He hadn’t even noticed the color, and told her not to worry about it.

“Well that’s great! Could you step off that shirt so I can take it? I think I might need it for tomorrow.”

Kaleb complied, and watched the mountain of fabric flutter up and away. Emilia lifted it effortlessly. For all his effort, he never got to see what the logo was. Once the t-shirt was gone, Emilia put in the new “furnishings”.

“And what do we say when someone does something nice for us?” she said.

“uhh…Thanks?”

“Aww, what a polite gentleman.”

Emilia smiled down at him and turned as if to leave. Kaleb, desperate for some break in the monotony, called out for her to stop.

“What’s wrong little buddy?” Emilia asked, concern written across her face.

“Could you, uh, let me out for just a bit!? It’s getting a little boring in here!”

Emilia paused. “I’m not sure… wouldn’t that be dangerous? What if you shrank again?”

“You could carry me around in your hand. That way, you would feel it when I got lighter, and you could me somewhere safe.”

“That doesn’t seem like a good idea…”

“Listen, I’ll go insane if I stay in this box much longer. Please, just let me take a look around.”

Emilia considered his plea. “Okay...but you have to stay in my sight at all times. And I expect some sort of compensation too!”

She waited for some acknowledgment. Kaleb shouted back up, “Sure! Whatever you say!”

Emilia carefully reached her hand into the shoebox and curled her fingers around Kaleb’s frame. It was a little frightening, but she never squeezed too hard, and his fear quickly melted into a sense of security.

Seeing Emilia’s apartment from his place in her fist rang some very loud bells in Kaleb’s memory. Even so, there was nothing distinct, just shadowy connections, a familiar shape here and there. Still, the view helped restore some sense of normality. He could imagine that he was a normal person, albeit an unusually short one.

Above him, Emilia spoke. At this proximity, her voice was loud enough to cause him some pain. “I’m going to make some dinner. I bet you’re pretty hungry too, huh?”

Kaleb was, and he nodded to let her know. Curiously, he didn’t remember ever feeling peckish during his hours’ wait in the box. Then again, his memory wasn’t all that reliable lately.

Emilia entered the kitchen, and set him down on the counter, where he’d be within reach if anything bad happened. She started gathering preparing some basic ramen.

“So, is there any reason you spread that shirt out?” she asked. “Must have been pretty hard for a puny thing like yourself.”

“Oh, I was just trying to read what was printed on it. Things got pretty slow in there.” Emilia was standing directly over him, so Kaleb didn’t feel a need to yell.

“If you say so,” was her only response. She continued preparing her dinner, glancing down at him from time to time.

“You know, it’s been a while since I did any laundry,” she said after a time.

“Has it? I really didn’t notice.” Kaleb immediately regretted his sarcastic snark. If there was one thing to avoid, it was angering the sixty-foot tall behemoth of a woman.

“Oh yeah. The water’s been out for a while and the damn landlord can’t be assed to do anything about it. I could take them down to the laundromat, but I keep forgetting.”

“Well that sucks,” said Kaleb, lamely.

“Oh yeah. You don’t mind? I could probably…”

“Oh no, don’t worry about it. I really never noticed.”

“Well…okay. As long as it’s not a bother.”

A few minutes passed in awkward silence as the water boiled and the noodles cooked. He could have said something. Why the hell didn’t he tell her to have some self-respect and clean herself up? It wasn’t like she was going to kill him, at least not if he was tactful about it.

“Noodles are ready!” she said, and piled the steaming ramen on a paper plate. Looking around, Kaleb noticed that, as far as apartments went, the kitchen wasn’t especially filthy. The counters and floor were mostly clear of debris or stains, the stove still gleamed. But the sink was bone dry and stacked with dirty silverware. Kaleb began to sympathize a little.

Emilia, holding her dinner in one hand, gathered him up again and moved over to the living room. Setting him down on the coffee table, she started to slurp up the ramen.

“So…what do you do for a living?” asked Kaleb, hoping to strike up some conversation and maybe learn more about his new roommate/owner.

“Hmm?” Emilia couldn’t make out what he’d said.

“What do you do for a living!?”

“Oh. Right now I’m a stocker at some big box store downtown. Gotta pay the bills somehow, you know.”

“I take it you’re not in it for the long haul?!” he yelled.

“Wait.” Emilia picked him up and placed him on her shoulder. “This should make it easier for us to understand each other.”

Kaleb repeated his question. Emilia was wearing a tank-top, as usual, and Kaleb hugged one of the straps to keep from falling.

“Ha, no way. I’m in school for business. Thank god it’s summer or else I’d have to stop by the gym every day to stay in presentable shape. It’s hard enough to keep everything organized in my head as it is.”

At least I’m not the only one forgetting things lately. “Hey, uh, you wouldn’t know if there’s been any missing persons around here, would you?”

“No, not really. Oh, you think…shit, you have a family out there?”

“Ah, maybe. I can’t remember anything from before I shrank. I’m pretty sure I told you.”

“Ohh, right. You did. Slipped my mind. I’m not sure about that missing persons thing. I’ll take a look later.”

Kaleb thought to tell her that she could just search it up on her phone right now, but the hunger was starting to bite. He eyed the ramen, which was almost gone. “Could I have some?” he asked.

“Oh, sorry. Here you go.” She lifted a forkful of the stuff to her shoulder. He breathed in the nourishing fragrance and took a few awkward, sloppy bites. It didn’t take long for him to eat his fill. Emilia examined her fork after his was finished.

“Wow, that’s all? Guess you’re pretty low maintenance, aren’t you? I don’t even have to go buy extra food!” She finished the remainder of the noodles.

The way she spoke was unsettling, as if she thought of him as a pet. Though it wasn’t an inaccurate assessment of their relationship, what with him being smaller than most rodents.

“Okay little guy, I’ve let you out of your box for a bit. Don’t you think it’s time you held up you’re end of the deal?”

“What deal?” asked Kaleb, genuinely confused.

“Don’t play dumb! When I let you out, you agreed to compensate me for the stress of having to worry about you.”

“Well…Okay. I don’t have any money or anything…”

“I can see that, silly. Do you know how they used to do business before there was money?”

Kaleb wasn’t sure where she was going with this. “Uhh…”

“They traded goods and services directly. My chicken for your goat, these pearls for that corn, a short massage for some freedom…”

It took him a moment to process what he’d heard. “You can’t be suggesting…”

“I am! I’ve been working my ass off all day, I’m feeling sore, and I’d really appreciate a massage.”

“But I’m too small!” said Kaleb, holding up his hands. “It’d tickle more than anything!”

Emilia looked at him with puppy eyes. “But my feet hurt!”

The mention of her feet brought on some bad memories. Emilia seemed to notice, and blushed. “Oh right, I forgot about that. How about a back massage instead? Does that sound better?”

Kaleb admitted that it did. Without much warning, he was plucked from Emilia’s shoulder and lifted up vertiginously as she stood up and went to her bedroom.

“Thanks a bunch for doing this,” she said. “You’re really helping me unwind.”

Emilia set him down on the nightstand and took off her top. The motion was so fluid and shameless that Kaleb almost couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Her torso was toned, her waist slim, and her tits, still contained inside a somewhat abused bra, were full and perky. His brain shut down as his blood supply redistributed itself.

Emilia picked him up again, and laid down on the bed without moving him too much. Then, she deposited him on her back. “Get to work, little man,” she said. Her voice resonated through his legs.

Unsure of how to proceed, Kaleb took some time to survey the bodyscape. Her shoulder blades, neatly framed by the straps of her bra, were sharp crags. Above them was the greasy mess of her auburn hair. Further down, the curve of her spine formed an elegant groove down the center of her back. Her ass, still obscured inside some grey yoga pants, was a soft, well-defined hill.

Kaleb took a tentative step. Currently, he stood at the small of her back, right in the central groove. Her skin was warm and soft, and yielded easily under him. Kaleb took a few more steps, putting more force into it. Emilia yelped a little.

“You’re poking me!”

Kaleb cringed, and resolved to kneed at her with his hands instead. After doing so, he noticed the flesh loosen up even further. At the same time, Emilia released a contented sigh. Whatever he was doing was working.

Over the next few minutes, Kaleb continued to work on Emilia’s back, slowly traveling back along her spine. Occasionally, he would be regarded by some words of encouragement, or a sigh. Eventually, he ended up near the base of her imposing butt. His sense of smell was largely numb to her personal fragrance at this point, but even he picked up a faint musk. Kaleb made sure not to let it on.

“You enjoying the view down there?” teased Emilia, wiggling her ass and causing Kaleb to hit the deck, scared to fall off. The mountain of flesh continued to jiggle for several moments, looking somehow enticing despite its monstrous size.

Kaleb, still shaken, didn’t notice the shadow of Emilia’s hand. All of a sudden, he was whisked away, and found himself gazing into her deep grey eyes.

“I don’t know about you, but that felt really nice for me.”

Kaleb squirmed in her grasp.

“You know, I feel bad having you do all this work with such a minor reward. I’ll let you stay out of your box for a bit longer, but you don’t have to do anything for me. Just stay nearby.”

She placed Kaleb on her back again and settled back into bed, seeming to ignore him. Kaleb, free to do as he pleased, decided to head south. 

Her ass beckoned to him, and he followed. Before long, he found himself scaling the tight fabric of her yoga pants. He felt a soothing heat radiating from the skin underneath, more than offsetting the musky, heavy odor.

What exactly brought him to do this? He supposed it wasn’t all that weird to be attracted to a woman’s back end, but this one was the size of a hot-air balloon. He could hardly associate it with a person.

And yet, when he thought back on Emilia’s smiling eyes, his stomach fluttered. He couldn’t be falling for her, could he? Kaleb told himself that any feelings he had for her were a result of Stockholm Syndrome.

The rounded hills lurched underneath him as Emilia began to turn over. Kaleb, still unaccustomed to how fast things could move at his size, didn’t react at all until she was laying on her back, her butt pressed into Kaleb’s tiny body. The pressure constrained his movements, keeping him from poking Emilia and maybe getting her to notice him. The generous volume of her cheeks surrounded him. It was warm and soft. Comfortable, actually…

Kaleb spent the night under Emilia’s right ass cheek, somehow breathing comfortably, despite the immense weight stacked on his chest. She sifted in her sleep, working him ever more comfortably into her butt. He was still out when she got up the next morning, and didn’t wake up until she’d already started her day.

He was partially stuck in the crack, and so he didn’t fall out even when she started walking. The experience was less than pleasant, being suspended by just his arm in the musty folds of fabric. He squirmed a little, and successfully attracted a probing hand.

Emilia quickly extracted him, and held him up to her face to make sure what she’d felt was right.

“What the hell are you doing in there?!” she yelled, surprised and a little angry.  

Kaleb was utterly humbled by the power of her voice. His ears rang, and he was unable to respond. His mouth flapped open and shut.

“Oh shit, I didn’t mean to shout…” she said. “God, I’m sorry.”

She put me down and made sure I was okay. “It was my fault,” she said, looking apologetic. “I shouldn’t have fallen asleep while you were still on me.” Looking around, I noticed we were someplace I didn’t recognize at all. There were hundreds of huge cardboard boxes, and harsh fluorescent lights above.

“I forgive you, don’t worry about it. What is this place?”

“Oh right,” said Emilia bashfully. “I went to work, and never even noticed you were hitching a ride. I didn’t even check your box at all. Wow, I feel bad.”

Emilia picked him back up and hurried through the aisles.

“Here, I’ll put you in my bag for safekeeping. Just promise me you won’t get mad or anything because of all the shit I’ve put you through today.”

Kaleb agreed and watched as she flung open her locker and pulled out a small gym bag. She zipped the bag open and moved to put him inside.

“Wait. I bet it’s pretty rank in there.” She pulled out a small toiletry bag and put him inside. “That should be a little better. Here I’ll leave the zipper open just a smidge so you can breathe, even if the air isn’t all that great. Sorry again!”

Before Kaleb could respond, he was tossed into the gym bag, and swallowed by near complete darkness. After some erratic motion and shuffling, Emilia was gone, and silence set in. Alone again.

She wasn’t lying. The smell inside the bag packed a stronger punch than even her own transient musk. It had a complex texture to it, leather, body odor, the sour-sweet reek of old socks. Not very pleasant, but there wasn’t much Kaleb could do about it. He made himself a place to rest in the bottom of the bag and lay down.

The hours passed in darkness. Kaleb didn’t have a way of telling how soon he might be let out, and the boredom soon caught up to him. By the time he got up and climbed out of the toiletry bag, his nose had already grown accustomed to the musty cocktail, and he was interested in testing just how bad it could actually get.

The moment his head cleared the zipper on the toiletry bag, Kaleb realized just how much it had been protecting him from the environment inside the gym bag. The smell was qualitatively the same as before, but several times thicker. He had some difficulty breathing. Nonetheless, Kaleb soldiered on.

Tumbling out of the bag, Kaleb slammed into the ‘floor’ of the bag, then rolled for a bit before coming to rest on a large plastic cylinder. Unable to see it on account of the pitch darkness, Kaleb got up and traced it, getting a general sense of its size and shape. It soon became clear that he was standing next to a can of deodorant. Hilarious irony.

Kaleb continued to stumble around the gym bag, using his nose to lead him. The dominant smell in the mixture seemed to change as he moved around; it was currently the cheesy, stinging foot-smell that he’d become so accustomed to. It wasn’t long before he ran face first into a wall of damp fabric. His face was immediately assaulted by a thin layer of raunchy sweat. Trying to rub it off just aerated the stuff, intensifying the smell and getting it all over his hands.

This hadn’t been a good idea.

Kaleb decided to make his way back to the deodorant and wait there, but quickly got lost in the darkness. He kept running into dirty clothes, and getting a good whiff of each of them. It was difficult to tell which was which, but he was fairly certain he ran into at least one pair of underwear, as the scent reminded him of his ill-fated experience the previous night.

Traveling around the bag and experiencing such a menagerie of odors, Kaleb’s sense of smell never fully acclimatized. Just as he was beginning to lose hope of ever getting oriented in the immense gym bag, the world shook violently, sending him head-first into a fragrant pile of clothes. For a time he lay there, entombed by the grungy fabric and forced to breath in the potent aroma. Then, a pair of enormous fingers grasped him by the waist, and pulled.

“Sorry about that,” said Emilia. She brushed some pieces of lint off his body. “My shift ended up running longer than expected. Hope you’re ok.”

Kaleb nodded drunkenly and watched as Emilia slipped him into a pocket. Coddled by the warmth and softness of her thigh, as well as her relatively sweet, amiable smell, Kaleb soon drifted off.

When he woke up, he was back in the shoebox, and feeling refreshed. Looking around, Kaleb quickly noticed that he’d shrunk again, and now stood at half an inch. The giveaway trembling came, and Emilia stood over him.

“Good morning, little guy! How’re we feeling?”

He yelled up at her, but she didn’t seem to hear him.

“Don’t bother, there’s no way I could hear you unless you were practically standing in my ear. I brought you something to eat!” She dropped some bread crumbs and a sliver of apple into his cardboard enclosure.

While Kaleb ate, Emilia continued to speak. “I feel really bad about leaving in that gym bag all day. All alone in the dark, gah, it must have been terrible! So I decided I’d let you crawl around for a bit free of charge! You don’t have to give me a massage or anything like that, just scurry around of your own free will.”

Kaleb wasn’t sure if that was the best idea, considering his current size, but it didn’t look like he’d have much input in the matter. Before he’d even finished eating, Emilia grabbed him and placed him at the edge of her bed. She followed him soon after, impacting the surface of the bed with cataclysmic force. He stayed on by the skin of his teeth.

“I still have to keep my eyes on you, though! Feel free wherever you want on the bed.” Emilia settled in.

From his current position, the side of her body was an impassable mountain range. She was wearing full clothes, so it would be possible to scale her flank if he tried, but it didn’t seem worth the trouble. Kaleb moved toward the head of the bed, hoping to maybe strike up some conversation with Emilia. By the time he arrived, she was asleep.

It was weird. Both tonight and last night, she’d nodded off in a remarkably short time, and with the light’s still on. Either way, her lightly freckled face had a calming influence on him, and he took some time just to sit and stare.

Eventually, he got bored of admiring the giantess and made his way back to the bottom of the bed. The panorama of Emilia’s prone body scrolled by, and before long, he caught sight of her socked feet.

Why was she wearing socks? The unspeakably old, holey ones at that. His question went unanswered but for the nauseating reek.

By the time Kaleb arrived at Emilia’s feet, he was struggling to stay conscious, weighed down by the thick, consuming effluvium. The bottoms of the socks were pockmarked and stained dark grey where they were once white. What little he could see of her feet was dirty and damp.

Despite all the signs pointing him away from these toxic peds, Kaleb felt himself drawn closer. He wandered between them, noting that her toes alone were easily taller than he was. The smell was cheesy and cloying. Truly disgusting. But he somehow felt good when he breathed it in.

Climbing on top of the upturned sole, Kaleb surveyed the immense plain of Emilia’s feet, felt the spongy, wet surface of the old sock beneath him. He reveled in it. Every now and then, he could feel the twitches and flexion of the great sole underneath him. On a whim, he found the nearest hole and clambered down into the warm, humid enclave that lay beneath.

Nestled in between Emilia’s toes, Kaleb was in heaven. He stewed in the viscous, aromatic liquid that seeped from her pores, felt the granules of spongy, linty toe jam, and breathed in the ambrosial miasma. He remained there, happy to stay in this filthy crevice, despite never having shown any such interest beforehand. This time, for whatever reason, his sense of smell never grew accustomed to the ripe odor, allowing him to derive continuous stimulation from it as the night progressed.

In seemingly no time at all, Kaleb felt the greasy appendages wriggle around him, rubbing filth onto his body. They seemed to pause and tense up, and Kaleb looked blearily up through the hole in the sock. He saw Emilia gawking back at him. After a moment’s time, she grinned.

“Well, you could have just told me you had a foot fetish, little guy!” exclaimed Emilia.  “I’m pretty open minded about that sort of thing!”

Being confronted by his inexplicably decision, the lustful feelings that had overwhelmed him vanished, and Kaleb began to struggle in the tightening grip of Emilia’s toes.

“No use in trying any of that, silly. I know your secret!”

She squeezed his body playfully, constricting his ribcage and forcing the air from his lungs. Kaleb was beginning to panic. There was a blur of disorienting motion as Emilia repositioned herself. Then, she took off her socks. The air immediately got a little better, but the humidity and smell were still overbearing.

Emilia was now sitting on the bed with her legs stretched out in front of her. Kaleb was lying on his side now, and had to crane his neck to look at her face. A sickening wave of motion jolted him as Emilia wiggled her toes.

“I can’t believe I didn’t notice until now!” she exclaimed. “We could have been having so much fun!”

Kaleb wanted to protest, but found himself unable to speak.

“Well? What are you waiting for? I expect my new little slave to earn his keep,” she said, giggling with the absurdity of it. The situation wasn’t nearly so funny to Kaleb.

Not wanting to anger the enormous goddess, Kaleb struggled to extricate himself from the sticky crevice between her toes. His movements stirred up the thin layer of toe jam, renewing the stinging, vinegary odor. He reeled at the smell, but steeled himself quickly. Unsure of what to do, Kaleb reached down and began to press his hands into the soft, warm skin. Almost immediately, the toes came together and smushed him between their considerable masses.

“No, bad slave,” said Emilia. “No tickling.” The toes separated, pulling Kaleb along with them. He ended stuck to the side of her fourth toe.

“I’ll give you another chance. Try again.”

Kaleb pulled himself from the toe’s surface with great difficulty. He looked to Emilia, who was staring at him with an excited grin. Her green eyes were almost hypnotic in their intensity, and he found himself staring at them for an awkwardly long time.

“You look shell-shocked, little guy. Too much to take in?”

Kaleb looked away and blushed. Why did he blush? She probably couldn’t even see that he’d been looking at her.

“You know, you’re a little too small to be a masseuse. Everything you could try just tickles me. Why don’t you try cleaning out all little nooks on my toes? I know they’re a little worse for wear, but you’re just the right size to clear them up. Please?”

Her politeness, despite the appreciable power she held over him, warmed Kaleb’s heart. He was drawn to fulfill her request, despite every instinct and his own gag reflex screaming at him not to.

Kaleb began clearing out the thin film of crud that had accumulated between Emilia’s toes. He gathered as much of it as he could, pushing it to the side in a sorry attempt to clean things up. The longer he worked, the more pointless his efforts seemed, and the more desperately he flailed.

“Okay, that’s enough,” said Emilia, taking pity on him. “I should be heading to work anyway.” Kaleb was unceremoniously plucked from between her toes and deposited roughly into his box. Before he could properly get his bearings, or even muster a word of response, an overwhelming mass of aromatic fabric came tumbling in after him. He was pinned beneath Emilia’s sock.

“I’ll leave you this for company. See you soon!”

Company it might have been, but the sock was far heavier than Kaleb thought it could have been. It felt like any other fabric, albeit a little moist and with a very potent odor, but his struggles barely moved it. Underneath the heavy, blanket, already warmed by Emilia’s foot, Kaleb quickly grew uncomfortably hot.

As if in answer to his needs, his body began to dwindle. The immovable weight of the sock disappeared from his back as he shrank. Looking up, Kaleb realized that the ratty threads now formed a ceiling over him. Though the constricting weight was gone, his smaller size made the humidity and smell far worse. The ripe, stinging cheese fetor consumed his lungs. It weighed almost as much as the sock had.

Crawling, Kaleb struggled to escape the hothouse. His limbs seemed agonizingly slow, unresponsive, as if the atmosphere was actively eating away at his muscles. Looking ahead, he could see the faint sliver of light where the outside beckoned. He continued moving forward.

It seemed hours before the Kaleb emerged into the light. After so long in the dark, smelly confines under the sock, his senses had trouble adjusting, and he was blinded and dazed for some time. Once he could process his surroundings, he could tell his body was about the size of a grain of rice.

Kaleb was now able to breath freely, without the concentrated, overbearing stench of Emilia’s drying sweat. To be sure, the smell was still there, but some fresh air was circulating, easing the stress of his senses. Kaleb got to his feet and trotted away from the mountainous socks. Before he’d taken three steps, a feeling of vertigo took hold, and he grew. Startled, he stumbled and fell. By the time, the growth stopped, he was about as tall as one of the socks was long. Bigger than he’d ever been.

Before Kaleb could come to terms with this fact, the distant door banged open. Emilia appeared above him. The light above framed her face beautifully, illuminating her hair in a halo of reddish-brown and glinting off her skin.

“How’s my little man doing?” said the goddess. “Did you have a good time with those socks? Oh, and you’re bigger now! That’s just perfect!”

Kaleb was unable to respond, his thoughts trampling each other in the rush to be enunciated.

“So now that you’re the right size, how about a good foot rub?” said Emilia, her voice rising in teasing excitement. She lifted him from the box, her fist wrapped around his waist, and set him down at the end of her bed.

“I got a few more hours of work today, my feet are super sore. You have to really put you’re back into it, okay?”

Emilia settled onto the bed and extended her soles to him. They were pink and glistening, clearly busted up after a hard day of work. Looking out over the edge of the bed, Kaleb noticed that Emilia had been wearing extremely worn flats, and that he could probably jump from the bed, roll, and make a run for it. 

The sharp, vinegary smell from Emilia’s feet wafted over him. Instead of recoiling in disgust, Kaleb found himself drawn to it.

Looking back, he noticed how shapely and soft her soles looked, how the curves of her arch and toes were almost as sensual those of her body. All thoughts of escape purged from his mind, Kaleb stumbled over to her soles and began rubbing.

At first, he just pushed his hands into her foot and slid them back and forth. He noticed that her big toe was about level with his eyes, a significant improvement to his usual plight. Her drying sweat was a little sticky, adhering his fingers to her skin. His attempts felt hollow and insufficient, so he put more pressure into it. He found himself using the length of his body to press and kneed the warm flesh, hugging it to himself like some long-lost lover. Its warmth seeped into his bones, dispelling the constant, uncomfortable chill that accompanied his small stature and filling him with a sense of security. The shining coat of sweat rubbed off on him, lubricating his motion. He pressed himself further into the soft pillow of Emilia’s sole, eliciting a moan of pleasure from on high. He kept up the pace, undulating along the length of her foot as best as he could.

It didn’t take long for Kaleb to ignore the terrible smell radiating from between her toes. He was just as wet with sweat as her foot, so that didn’t matter either. All that mattered was that Emilia was satisfied with his work. He kept going, encouraged by her sounds of pleasure. Inexplicably, he was getting excited himself. Though he wanted to speed up, he kept the same pace for her sake.

His own excitement crept up on him, and he was near the edge before he even fully realized that he’d been deriving sexual pleasure from this. All of a sudden, the smell and clammy film of sweat plastered to his skin struck him, and he gagged. Kaleb stepped away from the offending foot, peeling away sickeningly as the flushed skin gave up its wet grasp on him.

“Aww, are you shy?” inquired Emilia. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll get there!”

Realizing that she had been fully aware of what had been going, Kaleb’s cheeks flushed red. He tried to yell something up at her, but her next words drowned him out completely.

“Well, if that sort of thing’s a little too much for you, I’ll leave you alone for a bit. I’m expecting you to finish the other foot at some point, so look forward to that!”

She grabbed him, and lifted him up. Kaleb breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that this hell of a day might finally be coming to a close. Emilia dropped the doll-sized man into his box, bid him a goodnight, and left him to wonder what the hell was going on.

The next morning, Kaleb was happy to see that his size had not changed during the night. It was refreshing to be so large, and, for once, Kaleb felt empowered. In fact…

Grabbing the side of the shoebox, Kaleb realized it would be an easy matter to vault over the top and escape his confinement. He could hear Emilia snoring. He could do it.

For some inexplicable reason, Kaleb paused. He wasn’t really reconsidering; rather, something fundamental seemed to be holding him back. He quickly overcame his unspoken qualms and clambered over the edge of the shoebox.

Just as he landed on the tabletop, Emilia stirred, yawning. Kaleb’s froze in his tracks, trying to keep as quiet as possible. His captor began to mumble and sat up in bed, stretching. There was no doubt. She was waking up.

Scrambling, Kaleb got back in the box. His heart was thrumming. All of his confidence melted at the slightest stirring of this girl.

Emilia appeared before him, giving him a small, tired smile. “Sorry, I’m not really feeling it today. I think I caught something last night. Here, I’ll make it up to you…”

She bent down and picked up one of the flats she had worn the previous day. She took out the crusty old sock and replaced it with the somewhat fresher shoe. Kaleb realized that now was his chance to explain the misunderstanding that was occurring here.

“Hey… E-Emilia,” he stammered, weakly.

“Yeah little guy?”

“I just thought you should know…” Kaleb paused. Know what? That he didn’t really like her foul feet? That she should take more showers? She’d seen what she’d seen. Could his words really sway her? Would they anger her?

“I thought you should know that I really appreciate everything you’ve been doing for me…”

“Aww! Thanks little buddy!” Emilia moved to head out.

“But!” shouted Kaleb after her. She turned to look at him expectantly.

“but, could you, um, try to bathe a bit more? Don’t take it personally, b-but, I mean, I know the problem with the water and your landlord…”

Emilia, taken aback at first, started giggling. “Oh man, I thought you liked it! Why didn’t you tell me sooner? I promise I’ll head over to the gym sometime today and shower.”

Kaleb surprised at his success, didn’t respond when she bid him goodbye.

Left to his own devices, Kaleb tried to remember something about his previous life. He found himself quite easily able to ignore the musty smell wafting up from the stained confines of the nearby flat. He knew that Emilia and her apartment were both very familiar. It was only logical, that he knew her before he shrank. And if he knew her, then why didn’t she recognize him?

Maybe she did recognize him, but only feigned ignorance? What if she had done this to him?

The theory made more and more sense as he thought it through. Why did he wake up in a random woman’s kitchen, with his memory conveniently wiped? Why else would he recognize her? The only flaw was that he couldn’t imagine a reasonable incentive for shrinking him. Not, at least, without knowing something about his old life. Maybe she a family member or significant other, who had something to gain from his disappearance. Maybe she just found his smallness to be a turn on.

Either way, he felt certain that she’d done it. Regardless of her intentions, letting on that he knew would be a mistake. There was no telling how she would react. Kaleb decided he would play along, and try to find a way out.

The remainder of the day was uneventful. Kaleb poked around the tabletop, trying to find a way down, but eventually concluding that he couldn’t be sure that he could climb back up if Emilia walked in.

Late in the afternoon, her footsteps thudded throughout the apartment, as they had so many times before. Kaleb prepared to put on his act.

“How’s my tiny man doing? Here, I brought you some dinner.” Emilia deposited a few shards of a cracker into the flat. How nice of her.

“Thank you, Emilia!” he yelled.

“You’re welcome.” She sat down on the bed. “I took that shower today, by the way.”

“That’s…good,” said Kaleb, not sure exactly how to respond.

Emilia hesitated, and looked to the ceiling as if searching for words. “Hey, listen…” she eventually said. “Do you feel, you know, comfortable here? I don’t want to keep you against your will or anything like that…”

This was unexpected. Why would she be offering him freedom like this if she’d imprisoned him? Kaleb decided to keep up the image, just in case.

“Oh no, I’m alright here. I love…spending time around you. But it’d be really nice if…”

Emilia cut him off. “Oh man, that’s a relief. After you’re done with dinner, would you mind joining me in the living room. I bet you’re getting tired of that box.”

Kaleb tentatively agreed, and went to eat the food she’d given him. The flat took up almost half the space inside the box. By now, it’s smell had mellowed a bit. White sweat stains covered the insole. At least the cracker wouldn’t be wet. Kaleb ate as quickly as he could, trying to avoid tasting the slight tang of salt.

Once he was done, Emilia carefully grabbed him and carried him to the living room. It was the first time in a while that he’d left her room, and the need for some new scenery hit him like a freight train.

Emilia crashed onto the couch and flipped on the TV. She placed Kaleb beside her.

Even at his relatively large size, the feeling of her enormous body so close by was humbling. Standing near her lap, he couldn’t even see over her thigh. She could roll over and kill him without knowing it.

Emilia was quick to ignore whatever was airing, and struck up a conversation.

“You know, you don’t have to keep pretending,” she said.

“Pretending? Pretending about what?” he asked.

“Dude, you were practically having sex with my foot last night. Do you think I didn’t notice?”

“Uhh…”

“Well I’ll just let you know again that I’m perfectly open to it. You can ask to do whatever you want.”

Kaleb considered this. If he was honest, she looked good. There were a lot of things he was tempted to try. If her tried really hard, he could even get over the fact that she was the size of a building. But acting on those urges was an easy way to entrench himself further. If she thought

Fuck it.

“You know, I’m not really feeling all that frisky tonight. But I wouldn’t mind getting a better view of the TV…”

Emilia smiled slyly in response and repositioned herself. “You’re going to have to be more specific little man.”

“Well, I was thinking about chest-height would do it.”

“Oh, you’re naughty.” She lifted him up, a feeling that had started to become commonplace, and inserted him feet first into her cleavage. The sensation was intense, like being hugged on all sides, absolute, soft warmth. His limbs were constricted by the pressure, but he didn’t feel confined. He could hear Emilia’s heartbeat and breath from deep within her chest. He could smell only a slight hint of coconut. He was in heaven.

For the next hour or so, Kaleb was caressed by Emilia’s tits. At times, she seemed to ignore him completely, allowing him to forget all his concerns and melt into her skin. In those moments, he felt safer than he’d ever really felt before.

Maybe this whole thing wasn’t so bad?