SATURDAY 7:00 pm

Kevin had spent dinner thinking about the dream, Tessa, and the ladybug.  Maybe it was just a coincidence.  Or maybe he had subconsciously noticed the ladybug when he was in Tessa's room on Friday, and it had resurfaced in the dream.  But there was another possibility.  Kevin was a skeptical person; he didn't think often about the supernatural.  But he had heard about things like astral projection and remote viewing.  He had been relaxed last night, almost in a meditative state, focused on seeing Tessa... maybe he had untapped... abilities.  It certainly seemed so real... more real than a dream.

He decided that, whether there was anything to it, it was worth trying again.  He laid on his bed, the conditions were almost the same as last time.  Jake had gone out for the night; he probably would not be back until much later, so Kevin had the room to himself.  The room was lit only by the TV.  Kevin closed his eyes, visualized Tessa in his mind's eye, and began to relax into sleep.

***

 In the moment that Kevin found himself standing in the dwelling place of two giant girls, he had the odd feeling that his being less than an inch tall here in a girl's dorm was not something out of the ordinary.  It felt... natural.  Examining his surroundings, he found himself at the foot of Tessa's futon.  Looking in front of him, past the left end of the futon, he saw the titanic Tessa at her desk, using her laptop.  Of course, he thought.  She had always been the size of the Statue of  Liberty.  Then a vague memory grabbed his attention.  It worked, he thought.  I'm here again.  It worked.  This world felt so real.  The objects in Tessa's room were clear and in focus.  The air of the room felt cool in his lungs.  The dorm room floor felt hard beneath his feet.  The noise from the TV on low volume and the other ambient noises of the dorm completed the scene.  The sights, sounds, and feelings of the room carried on with a sense of natural orchestration.  This sure didn't feel like a dream.  Then Kevin heard a bellow that he recognized as Alexa's voice.

"Got it!"

He couldn't see her, but he could tell by Tessa's looking up that she was standing behind the futon.  Alexa continued:

"So, did you want to watch it now, or..."
"Um, yeah..." Tessa responded.  "Gimme one sec..."

Kevin looked under the futon in the direction of Alexa's voice.  He saw a pair of all white, Nike high top sneakers, each one the size of a house.  They began to move.  They lifted one in front of the other, until Alexa had walked around the left side of the futon and into view.  She was holding a DVD box.  Kevin recognized the movie by the title on the box.  It was one of those college comedies that came out a few months ago.  Tessa got up, and the two girls walked to the futon.  Kevin was still a safe distance away, near the corner leg of the futon.  Tessa sat down as Alexa began to put the DVD in.  Now, Kevin could only see Tessa's tan feet, in her Adidas sandals.  Once Alexa had finished setting up the movie, she sat next to Tessa, on the side closer to Kevin.  Now they wouldn't be moving for a while.  Kevin walked carefully underneath the futon, closer to the four feet. 

He approached her right heel.  Her sandal was almost as tall as he was.  He walked cautiously through the space between her feet, taking in her intoxicating scent on the way, and past her toes far enough to get a good look up at the goddess.  From his point of view, he could only see up to the tops of her knees, and her face looking past him at the TV.  To his left, he could see Alexa's gigantic, scary sneakers.  The girl had big feet.  He kept his distance.  He turned his focus back to Tessa.  Back to her feet.  For a moment he imagined that he climbed up onto her sandal, and stood among her toes.  He imagined what it might feel like to touch them.  What it might taste like to kiss them.  He began to have an erection.  He resisted his desire to climb onto her sandal.  It would be too dangerous.  What if she moved her feet or stood up and began to walk?

Kevin began to survey the room.  Or what he could see of it at this vantage point.  On the floor in front of Tessa's closet, he saw her backpack and her black soccer cleats.  He walked toward them.  As he got closer, he could make out the fine details of the shoes.  The dirty, worn black leather resembled an elephant's skin.  Of course, from Kevin's point of view, each shoe was a much bigger beast than an elephant.  The air around them smelt strongly of grass.  The shoes were elevated off the ground by rubber nubs that extended from the soles.  There was enough room for Kevin to walk under the shoe.  He did.  This was safer than getting too close to her feet.  He imagined Tessa wearing the shoes, playing soccer.  Running across the field, the entire weight of her body crashing down on these shoes with every step.  Her powerful feet tearing up the turf as she ran.  Her big, powerful legs would propel a gigantic soccer ball miles away.  Then he imagined what would happen if she stepped on him with the cleats.  If he was positioned just right, she wouldn't crush him.  If not, she would destroy him.  Kevin realized that this thought turned him on.  The idea of being a speck at the foot of a goddess. The girl he admired -- this was the ultimate way to put her on a pedestal.  This was domination.  Make her enormous.  Give her godlike power.  The power to crush him under her foot like a grape.  He focused on this thought, and, standing in the privacy and safety of the space under the shoe, he relieved himself of the tension that had been building.

Kevin walked out from under the shoe, and something caught his eye near the foot of Tessa's desk.  Some large red object on the floor.  He approached it.  It was shaped like an hourglass, and had a sharp metal spike sticking out one end.  A bulletin board pin.  Getting closer, he knelt down and, with some effort, lifted up the spear end of the object.  Suddenly, Kevin felt impelled by some subconscious urge.

Gotta find out.  Gotta know if this is real.

Holding the spear in one hand, he brought the other hand to the tip, and clenched it tightly in his fist.

***

Kevin awoke as if from a deep dream.  He sat up.  He remembered lying down for a nap.  Jake  had gone out.  He felt as if he had been in a deep, deep sleep.  It took him a while to come to.  He looked at the clock.  7:35.  Why had he taken a nap?  Then he remembered last night's dream.

That's right.  I was trying to get back there.  Back to Tessa's room.

Then, gradually, the events of the dream came back to him.  It sure was a vivid dream.  Images of giant girls with humongous feet came back to him.  They were watching a movie.  Then he remembered stabbing himself in the hand.

That's strange.  Why would I do that?

Kevin looked at the palm of his left hand and became faint at the sight of the blood.

Oh my God...  It can't be.

Yet there it was.  A streak of dark red blood dripping from a puncture wound in his palm.

This means... it wasn''t a dream.  No... No.  This is... this is Freddy Krueger shit!!

Somehow, it was real.  Somehow, what happened there... really happened.  Getting up from the bed to tend to his wound, Kevin's mind raced with questions.  What happened to his body lying in bed when he was there?  Did he have another body while he was there?  Could people see him when he was tiny?  If what happens there really happens, was he in real danger there?  Why was this happening?