Someplace so cozy had no business being so terrifying, Alex thought as he gazed up desperately at his narrowed view of the sky.
Well, “sky” might not be exactly correct, really more like fluorescent-lit ceiling. And Alex’s oddly occluded view was in fact the direct result of him finding himself not in the great outdoors, but standing in the heel section of a 19-year-old college girl’s discarded Ugg boot.
At his current height of ¾ of an inch (on a good day), Alex had certainly been in some tough spots, but this had all the makings of a disaster. And it was all thanks to her.
As if on cue, the sheepskin-covered floor beneath him began to tremble as his captor returned, her every footfall shaking the ground and reminding Alex (as if he needed any reminder) of their enormous difference in stature.
Kneeling with an earth-shaking thud, her smirking visage eclipsed the boot’s opening and dimmed the harsh dorm room light. Hovering there, she was immense, terrible, a looming storm cloud on a sunny day. He had expected her to look furious, as she had when she had put him in this foul prison, but all he saw flashing across those delicate, yet colossal features now was a look of wry amusement. Somehow that was worse.
“Ah, you’re still there, good.” At this distance, her voice beat down on him with almost physical force. Distinctly feminine, yet amplified to such a degree as to be almost painful.
A not-yet-buried part of Alex wanted to be flip.
Where did you expect me to go, exactly? he thought.
But his now-ingrained deference won out, and he said nothing.
Looking up at her in silence, not for the first time Alex felt a certain twinge of anger at the undeniable beauty of his jailer. Long, dirty blonde hair perfectly framed flawless fair skin, high cheekbones were decorated with a faint splash of freckles. Her full lips pursed slightly and her piercing pale blue eyes gazed intently down at him, pinning him in place. And he knew all-too-well the lithe body and sensuous curves that lurked out of sight.
At his former size, she would have been the ultimate girl-next-door, and indeed, she was in fact just that, occupying the single next to his in their shared freshman dorm. Not that he had known her well, only barely remembering her name -- Maddie -- when she had found him so many weeks ago pathetically, nakedly struggling on his own doorstep post-shrink.
After all, she was, in so many ways, his opposite: D1 volleyball hardened body to his couch potato physique, a statuesque 6’2” to his measly 5’8” (oh to be 5’8” again!), outgoing and social to his reclusive tendencies, Immune to his, well, clearly not. Needless to say, despite their shared hallway, they ran in different circles.
“They call this one ‘The Pit’,” she boomed, snapping him out of his thoughts.
He knew the ‘they’ she referred to were the meme-generating hordes on social media, the Immune influencers she scrolled non-stop. It continued to amaze him how people she didn’t even know could inspire so much cruelty. And all based on a movie reference he was willing to bet she didn’t even recognize.
“You like climbing so much,” she smirked, “here’s how it’s going to go: you climb your way out of this boot by the time I get back from class, and you go back to the good life -- fed and happy in Shrinky Manor. You don’t, and, well…” she trailed off ominously.
Her colossal countenance retreated, and Alex felt the thud of her standing. He could still feel the weight of her gaze far above, her long, toned bare legs now towering into the sky, ending in the swell of an ass pushing the limits of a pair of tight jean shorts.
In the strained silence that followed her words finally sunk in and his heart seized, his thoughts becoming panicked, She was just going to leave him in here?!
She said nothing, continuing to stare down at him from her now even loftier vantage, grinning smugly as she raised her pink-cased iPhone and its omni-present camera to her face.
And of course she’s filming…
Before he could even finish the thought, she was moving, his sky darkening as his view was once again eclipsed -- this time by a gargantuan foot and five long, wiggling toes tipped in perfectly applied light blue polish. The toes flexed and grasped at the boot’s edge, seeming to relish the feel of the soft shearling, or maybe yearning to feel him under them.
He stood there, stock-still, stunned into stupor.
RUN! his animal brain screamed.
He turned to flee towards the inky black of the toe, his legs straining against the twisting fibers of the thickly cushioned sole. He felt more than saw her enormous foot enter the shoe behind him, the whole boot shaking violently with her slightest movements as she drove deeper into its confines. The shoe bucked again, and Alex fell hard, burying his face in soft sheepskin, inhaling the smell of natural fibers, worn suede and the deeply embedded scent of her foot.
He could feel her getting closer, deliberately slowly, and in desperation he half-ran, half-crawled deeper into the toe until blindly he ran headfirst into a soft wall arching back over his head. He scrambled to his back, pressing himself hard against the toe, trying to get small, hoping she couldn’t reach him, wondering about what the point of all this was if she was just going to kill him now.
The shoe continued to quake and shift around him. His eyes adjusted to the gloom and in a flash he could see the outline of her long toes reaching for him, a big toe wider than his entire body curling over him, ready to erase him from existence, to make him a small stain on the once-tan insole.
And then the monstrous toes stopped. Retreated. In an instant he felt her foot exit the boot completely, landing with a jarring thud next to it.
“Good luck, little bug,” came the sing-song call, slightly muffled by the thick walls of boot around him. A series of thuds signifying her exit was followed by the sound of an opening and closing door.
His whole body slowly unclenched until he was lying prone on that cozy surface, staring into the darkness all around him, sheer terror ebbing, but not truly leaving him.
Now what?