Leslie sighed as she stepped in from her front door, taking her shoes off and looking out across the living room. Her apartment was clean but slightly unorganized, she concluded, as she made a mental note to fix that at the end of the week. Not tonight, she was tired, and it had been a long week but once the weekend was here it was time to clean and organize a bit better.

Walking into her bedroom she sighed again as she sat down on the bed and leaned back, just laying there for a moment.Finally done with the day she could breathe and think about something besides work and clients, and clients and work. Today had been a bruiser, and she was ready for what had gotten her through the day.

She was ready to be pampered, and drowned in worshipful words from people that loved and adored her. Glancing over at her dresser her eyes fell lower, focusing on the tiny city underneath. She knew just how she would get it.

Sliding off of her bed she was at her dresser in only 2 thunderous steps. Her booming footsteps echoing through the room as she smiled and looked down ready to greet her citizens.

However, rather than an intact city, full of people ready to make her feel better about herself she saw something more frustrating. She frowned and immediately turned towards her open door as she shouted. “Rebecca, what did you do?”.

“Huh, what did I do what?” Her roommate shouted back from the other side of the apartment.

“my city?” Leslie said flatly before continuing,  “Why did you touch my city?” 

Leslie shouted back to her roommate, frowning again. Looking down, there was a clear and definite footprint in the middle of her city. If she squinted, she could still see the microscopic people still scrambling and scavenging amongst the rubble. Probably trying to find loved ones or their belongings.

Her eyes scanned around as she waited for a response from her bimbo of a roommate. No fires, and the scene looked fairly still, no still crumbling buildings or dust still wafting around. This wasn’t recent. Whoever had done this had done this a bit ago long before she got home.

“I don't know what you're talking about. I didn't touch your dumb city. Besides, I have my own and it's way better than yours.” She exaggerated the way better as if to make a point. The two of them had a friendly rivalry for a long time about who's city was better, even though Leslie knew hands down hers was the winner.

It had been a while since she even saw Rebecca’s truthfully, but the last time they'd had some competition hers had come out on top in nearly everything. Hers had better chefs, athletes, architecture. Rebecca skimped on the supplies she gave hers, she was sure of it.

“Well, somebody stepped on my city and it sure wasn't me.”She shouted back a little annoyed that her roommate wouldn't just admit it. The two of them had pranked and demolished parts of each other's city as far back as she could remember, but this was the first time that Rebecca had ever lied to her about it. Usually shed have some sly joke or taunt about it.

“I'll say it again leslie I didn't touch your stupid city” she said firmly, the annoyance clear in her own voice this time. She paused, then continued.

“Besides, if you're so sure it was me. Just look, you know how much larger my feet are than yours. There's no way that you could confuse my footprint for anyone else's”.

Rebecca was right, Leslie looked down and sighed. The footprint was too small to be Rebecca's. In fact, she glanced down at her own foot hovering it slowly over the city. Barely audible sounds reached her ears as people screamed, and the area emptied as the shadow of her colossal foot moved overhead. Lowering heer foot slowly, she stopped feeling the tip of something graze her heel.

She shook her head and frowned as she noted that it was a perfect match for hers. When had she done that? She had been gone all day, was this from the morning? Why were there no signs they’d started rebuilding?

“Never mind, I'm sorry.” She shouted over towards  Rebecca’s room, as she embarrassingly realized that it was her own footprint. She must have stepped on it in the morning as she got ready by accident. But there was still the question, why it wasn't rebuilt already? If they were slowing down that much there was a problem.

Well, there were two problems. Most importantly, if she wanted to destroy more of the city, for any reason as was her right, it was already damaged. Secondly, the slowdown suggested something was wrong, the city was used to rebuilding. Destruction both intentional and accidental happened frequently.. Had they run out of construction workers? Resources?

Walking over to her computer, she opened up the app she used to communicate with the microscopic people within her city and immediately reached out. Hammering a message off to the local leader demanding to know why her footprint was still left in the city.

He responded immediately, and she frowned  as her eyes scanned across the screen.  Some nonsense about out of supplies and needing gasoline to power their machinery. Her city wasn't supposed to need that stuff or wait……Was it? She scratched her chin trying to remember the last time she'd gotten a supply re-up for them.

They were pathetic and they needed her for everything sure, but a city with no one left in It was completely useless to her, so she begrudgingly would give them supplies every so often so that they could rebuild and have everything they needed to worship her like the goddess she was. That and a starving or under provisioned city would end up lame like Rebecca’s. She took pride in hers being the best.

Logging in to her tinies n’more app, She went to her “your cities” section and shook her head. Of course, it had actually been almost 4 months since her last supply run, and they were certainly out of new cement and gasoline to power their vehicles. She reviewed some charts, a notable dip in resources on a fairly regular cadence she recognized as some of her rougher “worship sessions” with a smirk.

She’d have to either slow down her usage of the city’s buildings, or supply them more. Not even taking a full second, it was clear what the answer would be. Her fingers tapping on some supply orders, adding a couple extras on top of the last one. Next her eyes flicked to some of the citie’s stats.

Judging from the population count, they probably could use another batch of newcomers too.
Leslie wasn't a particularly destructive goddess not compared to some of the people she’d seen on social media. She’d watched a woman who seemingly ravaged the entire city multiple times a week. Leslie  preferred her people to worship and make her happy in as many ways as she can imagine, but destroying the city itself was expensive.

It happened sometimes of course, but rarely was her primary focus the actual destruction. Sometimes the best foot massage was crumbling houses, or she just needed to remind them all who was boss. Thent of course there were accidents….like this one, and the occasional interference by Rebecca or one of her other friends.

She thought back to the time she had caught Sally stealing some skyscrapers when they had a girls night. Apparently too poor, or too scared to just get her own, shed found Sally collecting some of her largest buildings and stowing them in her purse.

Refocusing on the app in front of her, she made a couple more selections for her next order.

Tinies were cheap. She really had no idea where they got all of them, but all she knew is you could get a good couple hundred microscopic little midgets for some bucks, supplies were less cheap, but still not as expensive as buying a  whole new city. That got pricey fast.

Replacing buildings outright was expensive so while she wish she could be as well off and have fun like all of those TikTok influencers, making videos of them stomping over their city or dropping buildings into their cereal in the morning she wouldn't have the luxury of using up her city in such a manner, not with the frequency they seemed to.

Well, she guessed it was time to order the city some stuff!  A quick couple of keystrokes later, and the delivery would be at her house in only an hour.

She looked down at her city, may as well give them a little bit of something else to Do while they both waited for the supplies that the city so desperately needed. 

Firing off another message to the local leader. She told him she needed 200 people ready to help worship and climb all over her toes. After all, she'd been on her feet all day and she was ready to relax.

Promising him the supplies that he needed would be here later this evening, She collected the small petri dish full of specks and carried them off to her bed.

 Time to relax.

(Fin)