Andrew was dumbfounded at his current predicament. No matter how his mind tried to make sense of it, he just became more and more confused. Last he remembered, he was inside of his bedroom getting ready for class, before he was hit with a sudden dizziness. He blacked out, and awoke in this... place. A bright, white place, illuminated with sunlight shining off in the distance through what looked like massive windows.

Indeed, as he more closely examined his surroundings, he began to see that he was in a room. A gigantic room that stretched as far as his eyes could see. He could see brown cabinets that stretched high into the sky--or rather, to the white ceiling. In the same direction was what looked like an oven and sink, which combined with the massive island in the middle of the room let him deduce that he was in a kitchen. A giant kitchen with white tiled floors. He stood in the dead center of one of these tiles; it looked to be the size of a city block.

Still taking in this strange environment, Andrew inhaled and exhaled to calm himself. "Okay, Andrew... Get ahold of yourself. Maybe you just passed out somehow. ...Yeah, that has to be it." Though he wondered how exactly he passed out. Was there a gas leak in the area or something? He doubted it; he did not smell anything odd prior to this.

As he stood there, pondering over his next move, he felt a tremor. And another one right after, except it was slightly stronger. And yet a more powerful one after it. Each quake was accompanied by a crashing sound that became much more loud as the tremors became more fierce. He looked around for the source of these quakes; though considering that this was a giant kitchen, he already had an idea as to the source of those powerful tremors.

Therefore, he was not so much surprised that an unbelievably gigantic woman appeared in the doorway behind him as he was surprised at who this woman was.

"M-Mrs. Wen!?" Andrew exclaimed.

Indeed, he had somehow ended up inside of the kitchen of his neighbor Deborah Wen, a woman that he had had a sort of a "pet crush" on for a while now. She was an Asian woman in her late 30s who still looked rather attractive, at least in Andrew's eyes. At present, she wore a lavender blouse, black skirt, and black flip-flops; on her face were glasses, and her dark brown hair was tied in a ponytail behind her head.

Andrew could not help but marvel at the sight of her, larger than life compared to him. However, he was quickly brought out of his daydream when he realized that she was walking right towards him.

"Mrs. Wen!!" Andrew called as he waved both of his arms above him. "It's me!! Andrew!! Look on the floor!!"

No luck; she merely looked forward, not paying any attention to the floor below her. Meanwhile, she drew ever closer.

"Hey!!!" Andrew called once more, before she was practically overhead, standing tall like a mountain.

Immediately, Andrew made a mad dash to his left as the dark shadow of her sandal engulfed him. Then, with all of his might, he lept as her foot stepped down right behind him. Laying on the floor with his heart beating at an alarming rate, he brushed sweat from his brow as he watched her walk towards the counter on the other side of the island.

"That was a close one..." He sighed. "She almost squashed me like a bug..."

He stood to his feet as he heard the sound of dishes and water off towards where Deborah stood. She was apparently washing the dishes left behind by her husband and children as they went off to their own obligations.

Andrew thought about his next move. In truth, he knew what that was; the only move he had. That was to get help from the only person around that could help him. He had to somehow get Deborah's attention and hope that there was some way to rectify this situation; he had too much to live for to spend the rest of his life as a speck of dust on a kitchen floor.

"Now, how am I going to get her to see me?" Andrew asked himself. "Plus, I can't run all the way over there in time. This place is as big as the entire city!"

He continued to watch the backside of Deborah on the other side of the island as she continued to wash the dishes. He stood there and thought of how to get to her. Surely it would take far too long for him to reach where she currently was, and that was assuming that she would stay there the entire time. At the same time, the other option of waiting for her to approach him was equally ludicrous, if for no other reason than that it was too dangerous he had avoided being crushed by her once, a second or even third go would be pushing his luck.

Perhaps the safest place was at the island in the center of the kitchen. There he could wait there for someone--if not Deborah--to draw close enough, and latch onto them.

"Sounds like a plan," Andrew said, before taking a deep breath and making a mad dash towards the island.

The island was huge, like the tallest skyscraper. That much he could tell from how far he was from it. And he was very far; it would take him hours to reach it.

After crossing the fifth massive tile, he slowed to a stop, placed his hands on his knees, and began to pant. His legs were tired already; yet he did not seem that much closer to his goal.

"Dammit..." he muttered. "...My legs are gonna give out before I can even reach it."

He looked up towards Deborah, whose back was still turned towards him. One by one, she placed clean dishes in the nearby dish racks. He watched as she placed what looked to be the final platter into the rack, as she then dumped the used water down the drain afterwards. Then, she took a few steps to her right and grabbed a sheet of paper towel to dry her hands with, before walking to where Andrew assumed a garbage bin was and threw it inside.

Afterwards, she walked to a nearby broom closet and opened it, then taking ahold of a broom and dustpan and pulling them out of the closet.

"...Oh crap," Andrew said. "Tell me she isn't going to..."

Then, as she made her way back to where she had been in front of the counter, Andrew heard the sound of the broom repeatedly sweeping against the floor. At that moment, he knew he was in trouble.

He knew that the island was his only salvation, but it was so far away that it was all but hopeless that he would reach it in time. Regardless, he bolted for it. He ran as far as his legs would carry him, them still tired from his last burst. Meanwhile, Deborah slowly made her way from the other side of the island and was steadily heading around the island and in his direction.

Andrew hastened his pace; however, no matter how fast he ran, his destination was still quite a ways away. To make matters worst, Deborah was practically upon him; the enormous broom was drawing closer, sweeping up gusts of wind that nearly drew him towards it. There was nothing he could do to escape it.

He immediately came to a halt and dropped down onto the floor, standing on his knees and ducking his head onto the floor while covering it with his hands. He listened as the near-deafening sounds of the broom's straws brushing against the floor drew ever closer. He looked up, only to see the enormous Deborah standing right above him; she was looking towards the floor, but did not seem to see him. With the broom in her right hand, and the dustpan's pole in the left, she was focused on her task of sweeping up the dirt on the floor.

It seemed that he had become one with the dirt.

The broom touched down behind Andrew and began to draw near at an alarming rate. There was no way for him to avoid it. As its straws brushed over him, he was picked up by a gust of air that carried him towards the dustpan.

Surprisingly, he settled onto the floor just mere inches away from the dustpan. However, the broom approached again, and this time he was certain that he would not be so lucky. He needed another idea... and he quickly thought of one.

He quickly stood and waited for the broom to reach him. Soon, as the mass of straw swept over him once more, he held his hands up high in the air, and managed to grab onto one of the straws, just as he had planned.

With a very tight grip, he climbed higher inside of the broom and held on for dear life. This was perhaps the safest place for him, at least until Deborah was done with her domestic task. Darkness and dust surrounded him, and below all he could see was the white tiled floor and the occasional peak of Deborah's red-painted toenails. He held on for dear life as the broom swept through the entire room, each stroke rattling his entire world and threatening his grip; his increasingly sweating hands did not help matters either, as he was constantly drying them off against his shirt.

After what seemed like an eternity, the sweeping came to a stop, and the broom was suspended some distance in the air; not too high for Andrew. Not wanting to be trapped inside of the closet, he released his hold of the straw and plummeted back onto the floor. Deborah's titanic foot stepped over him, completely bypassing him. It seemed that Lady Luck was still on his side.

"I hope she doesn't mop next," Andrew said as he caught his breath. He watched her unexpectedly set the broom and dustpan on the wall right outside of the broom closet, and then pull out a rag and some type of cleanser in a spray-bottle from within the closet. She walked to the island, and sprayed its surface with the cleanser before wiping it with the rag.

As she was doing this, Andrew remembered what he was trying to do before; that was, taking cover underneath the island. Luckily for him, he had been dropped a bit closer to it than he had been before he was swept up.

He started to run again, in hopes that he would reach his destination point this time, or at least would make some significant progress. It was still quite a ways away, but he held onto hope that he would reach the island before long. Even if it took him all day.

As he ran, he heard a ringing sound emanate throughout the house; the doorbell. Deborah placed the rag and spray-bottle on the island's surface, and began to walk towards the doorway--right in Andrew's direction.

"Shit!" Andrew yelled as he prepared himself.

She approached fast; Andrew could not easily tell where her foot would step down, but he tried to find what he thought would be the safest spot to be in, to avoid succumbing to the power behind each footstep. As she drew near, he found it impossible to get completely out of her path, and before long her right foot was nearly directly over him. Before he could react, it stepped down.

...Right in front of him.

Just as quickly, it stepped off the floor and Deborah continued to walk out of the room.

Andrew's heart was racing once more. That was far too close for comfort, he thought. However, in that instant, it drove home just how small he was; she was wearing flat sandals. At his size, the soles of those flip-flops looked more like a two- or three-story building. He was truly miniscule, microscopic; he even believed that a flea was bigger than he was.

Off in the distance--outside of the kitchen--he heard voices, two sets. One belonged to Deborah, while the other sounded like it belonged to another woman. He could not make out what either of them were conversing about, but he decided to not pay it any mind. After regaining his bearings, he started to run towards the island again.

Minutes passed without any sign of Deborah. Perhaps this was some kind of reprieve for him, as this allowed him more time to reach his destination without too much worry.

This relief would not last for long, as the sound of heavy footsteps from behind him signaled the return of the diligent housewife. As he ran, he turned around and saw her walking back into the kitchen, this time with several letters in hand. She was shifting through each one as she walked, seemingly not paying any attention to where she was going. Again, she approached his direction, once again putting his existence into jeopardy.

Andrew ran faster; at this point, his legs felt as if they were made of jelly, that they would give out on him at any second, leaving him all but immobile and helpless on the kitchen floor, to be crushed underfoot by Deborah. ...Or any of the other members of the family.

Deborah walked ever closer and closer... until she stopped mere inches away from him; inches on her scale, that is. He looked above him, and saw that she was looking at one letter in particular.

"Ugh," she said in an annoyed tone. "What do they want now? We already paid them off."

As she stood there--the sound of paper ripping filling the kitchen--Andrew stalled to a stop. He turned around and looked at the giant woman standing before him, completely oblivious to his presence. This was an opportunity for him; he had originally planned to wait underneath the island for an opportunity to latch onto someone's idle foot and from there climb their body until he was in a position to get their attention. With Deborah standing there at the moment, he would not even need to run all the way to the island as long as she kept still long enough for him to reach her.

Without a moment's hesitation, he dashed towards her left foot. He wondered how he would climb the sole of her sandal upon reaching it, but decided to not think about it until he reached her.

He heard a sigh from above, perhaps a result of the letter she was reading. He heard the letters shifting in hand again, before hearing her voice once more. "Oh!"

He looked up, only to see one of the envelopes falling onto the floor. It hit the ground nearby, impacting with a papery thud. Deborah was looking right on the floor at the envelope, and began to kneel down.

Andrew stopped running, and began to call out to her again. "Hey, Mrs. Wen!! Hey, it's me!! Can you see me!?" He waved his hands above him as he did before.

As Deborah picked up the envelope, it seemed that something caught her eye. Something right in his direction. She squinted her eyes, as if she was trying to detect something that was hard for her to see even with her glasses. Was it possible that she had finally found him? Had he been rescued?

"Yeah, Mrs. Wen!!" Andrew said in a cheerful tone. "I'm right here!!"

Deborah let out an annoyed--perhaps even disgusted--sigh, before standing back up, letters in hand.

Andrew became confused. "Mrs. Wen?" His hope for an early rescue began to die.

Suddenly, he saw her lift her right foot... right in his direction. It moved right over him--giving him a nice view of her sandal's smooth black sole--and began to quickly descend, enveloping his surroundings with the shadow of her foot.

"Mrs. Wen, nooo!!" Andrew frantically screamed as he bolted in the opposite direction. "It's me, Andrew!! Don't you see me-"

~~~

With her right foot, Deborah stepped down as hard and fast as she could. Then, lifting her heel slightly, she twisted her foot for a few seconds, before pulling it back. All that remained of that bug was a very small and faint red stain right in the middle of one of the white tiles on the floor, with a slight smear in the direction that she had brought back her foot.

"Where are these bugs coming from?!" Deborah asked herself. "That's the fifth one I've seen in here this week."

She added "call the exterminator" to her mental list of things to do that day. In the meantime, she set the letters and envelopes onto the island in the middle of the kitchen, tore off a sheet of paper towel from the rack nearby, and used it to wipe up the insignificant mess left behind by the bug she had killed. After disposing of it, she grabbed the rag and cleanser that she was using earlier, and started to spray and wipe off the counter.

No bug was going to stop her from completing her tasks for the day.