“You’ve got a lot of explaining to do.”

Gage found himself standing on a glowing blue table with two gigantic women staring down at him on either side. When he had opted for his… procedure… he hadn’t for a second expected that this would happen. He licked his dry lips and said, “I was in a Zone when somebody set a curse on me, which reduced me to this size. I was with a friend, but she couldn’t find me because I’m so small. I’ve been trying to get somebody’s attention ever since.”

“Very interesting,” said the girl who had found him clinging to her sandal. She pushed aside burnt red bangs to get a closer look at him. “And why should we help you?”

“Who cares?" chimed in the other girl. "Let’s just fuck with him for a little and then kill him." Even though he faced the red-haired girl in front, he could feel the other girl’s massive presence behind him.

“Wow, I actually like that idea a lot. Let’s do it!” Their tones set alarms off in his head – this might not go as well as he’d planned. It didn’t surprise him that they would want to end his life totally unprovoked: not only were people very different online than in the real world, but the fact that he would respawn made their actions inconsequential. What they didn’t know – and what he didn’t know, either – was what would happen if they did kill him. He fleetingly thought that whatever shady organization in charge of these transformations should have some sort of orientation.

“Hold on,” he protested. “Can’t we talk about this?”

“Nope,” the redhead responded curtly. “We’re gonna have a fun time with you, little man.”

Gage weighed his options: against their massive sizes, he would be hard-pressed to escape, let alone fight. On top of that, he literally had only his base stats to aid him in any kind of altercation – no spells, no skills, nothing. But if his only other option was death and torture at the hands of these two, he had no other choice.

“Now then, why don’t we – what the fuck?!”

Gage dashed to his right and leapt off the table. What had once been a mere surface for eating had now become a skyscraper, but he felt confident that he could survive the fall – he had certainly survived worse. His heart bursting from his chest, he plummeted to the garishly bright floor and made impact. Instantly, pain shot through his legs like lightning, but it took only a split second for him to shake it off and start sprinting away.

“Get that little shit!”

He had taken four strides when a black leather wall appeared in front of him, nearly crushing him in the process. With his inertia carrying him forward, he had no choice but to slam directly into the girl’s footwear. As quickly as he could, he leapt to his feet and tried to make his escape – but a gigantic hand like a five-legged kraken descended upon him and his bid for freedom was ended. Squeezed tightly in the grip of the other girl, Gage struggled against her vice-like strength as he traveled upwards to her face, where her narrowed eyes confronted him with venomous anger.

“What the hell was that?” Her hot breath blew across his face, and her grip tightened even more, causing him to squirm uncomfortably.

“Fuck you,” he spat in a spike of helpless rage. He instantly regretted it.

“That wasn’t very smart,” his captor hissed. Still gripping him forcefully, she brought him down by her side while she apparently used her other hand to unzip something. Before he could make any kind of protest, the hand dropped him unceremoniously into a dark, dank hole – her boot. “Since you like feet so much, maybe you won’t mind spending the day in my boot!”

He could hear the redhead laughing at his predicament. “That’s a great idea! We can’t kill him or he’ll respawn – but we can definitely make his life suck!”

Gage didn’t have much time to dwell on that statement’s implications because a colossal foot presently barreled towards him as it settled into the boot. In the blink of an eye, complete darkness enveloped him, but that didn’t keep him from rushing towards the toe section where he deduced he’d be the safest. As he scrambled, the ceiling quickly angled downwards to a point, signaling that this was as far as he could go. Not a moment later, what felt like a set of boulders slammed into him, pushing his body as far into the front of the boot as he could go. Far above him, he could hear the muffled cackles of his would-be saviors.

White-hot anger boiled up inside of him. How could this happen? With all of his strength, he struggled futilely against the girl’s toes; but when it became apparent that she couldn’t even feel him, he forced his emotions in line. It wasn’t an easy task: he had gone from what he thought was the pinnacle of power to a mere insect in the blink of an eye, and his current situation served to remind him in the most ludicrously aggravating fashion. Gage couldn’t think of anything more humiliating than being trapped in some girl’s boot, and the situation was only getting worse. The heat from her foot, combined with the leather that enclosed him, began to create a truly abhorrent atmosphere where Gage’s heightened senses went from a blessing to a curse. While he had endured high temperatures before, the rank smell emanating from her toes made him gag, and further enhanced his claustrophobic situation. Gritting his teeth, Gage resolved to endure.

As the seconds stretched into minutes, Gage contemplated his options while trying his best to ignore this discomfort of having his body jammed into the end of a girl’s shoe. Until they let him out, he really couldn’t do anything, and even once they did, he might not be that much better off. If either of those girls got a hold of him, he’d be just as helpless as he was now.

Just then, he felt his prison jerk upwards violently, only for it to crash just as quickly into the ground – she was walking. With each step, the pressure shot up tremendously, followed immediately by the vertigo of rising and falling, which in turn ushered in another spike of pressure. Any thoughts of escape fled from his mind as he tried to cope with this intense deathtrap, an oven filled with the disgusting scent of feet.

Time passed, but Gage couldn’t hope to measure it any meaningful capacity. The horrendous smell and heat of his captor’s foot and boot assaulted his senses, beating his consciousness into submission until all he could conceive of was the hope for an eventual end. Worse yet, her toes began to sweat: it didn’t take long for the acrid liquid to coat him in a filthy sheen. Whether it had been minutes or hours until this torture ended, Gage couldn’t fathom – but end it did.

Without warning, the walking stopped, and the toes that had battered and bruised him for so long retreated. Light poured in from above, but before Gage could brace himself the whole world spun and his body tumbled out of the boot like a pebble. He landed on a steel gray floor in a heap. The thought of running flashed briefly through his mind – but his body wouldn’t function. He was too exhausted to execute a daring escape.

“Wow, he looks so pathetic,” said the redhead. Both girls stared down at him from impossible heights, their expressions cruel and mocking.

“I think he’s had enough of my foot for one day, don’t you think? Let’s put him out of his misery.”

“Let me do it!”

“Be my guest.”

Panic seized him as the redhead’s sandal loomed overhead before coming to rest on top of his crumpled body; but try as he might, he couldn’t move at any substantial level. That bitch’s foot must’ve hurt me more than I thought, he realized.

“Ok, little bug,” he heard the redhead call from above. “Time to die.”

The weight of her foot pressing down on him felt like nothing he had ever experienced. His nerves screamed out in agony as the force of her shoe slowly intensified until his mind had been reduced to howling desperation. This couldn’t be the end. It couldn’t! Far too late, his body sprung to life, and he fought with the ferocity of a cornered animal. Not that it really mattered, part of him knew, but even that cynical part quickly retreated from the elemental frenzy that was his death throes. But even that gave way to a solemn acceptance of his fate. In the seconds that it took him to die, he progressed rapidly through the various stages of grief until he came to rest on a single, pure desire: Charis. As his existence came crashing down around him, he glimpsed her face.

And then it was over.

“Gage?”

His consciousness floated in some nebulous existence halfway between waking and dreaming. Lying on his back, the previously unbearable pain had receded to a dull ache, and his breath came in ragged gasps. Wait. He was breathing?

“Gage!”

His eyes snapped open. There she was, looking down on him with a combination of happiness and concern – he had never seen a more beautiful sight. “Charis!” he tried to say, but instead blood spurted from his open mouth.

“Oh my God! You’re hurt!”

Gage felt massive hands gather up his body before dipping out of consciousness.