*Ring, Ring, Ring, Ring!*

Parker groggily awoke to the far-off sound of a cell phone ringer.  Immediately groaning upon feeling a pulsing pain in his head, Parker lazily slapped the area around him for his phone.  About 20 seconds later, the ringing ceased, and he gave up.  Still suffering from extreme drowsiness from a long night and a near-concussion, Parker rolled around on the rubbery surface below him and attempted to return to sleep.

*Ring, Ring, Ring, Ring!*

Fuck.

Parker, frustrated, sat up and began to look around, this time with more diligence, for his phone.  Slightly put off by the fact that not only was his phone not in his pants, but that he didn’t have any pants at all, Parker decided to stand up to continue his search.  His memory was incredibly hazy; all he remembered at this point was the constant shots of whiskey and dancing with Victoria.  He awkwardly smiled at the possibility that he might have finally gotten with a woman the night before.  Always hoping to escape his loneliness, he hoped that she would still be around and he could muster up the strength to ask her to breakfast or something.  The annoying echo beginning to fade, Parker stood up and tried to take a step forward, but slipped on the moist ground and lost his footing.  Nearly falling and reinjuring his head was enough to begin to make him more alert and question what exactly happened that night.

Is it even still night? I can’t see shit in here.  My head…This can’t all be from drinking, can it? And the smell! Is that me, or this room? Plus, it’s stuffy as all hell in here.  The ground is wet and it definitely isn’t soft or pillowy enough to be a bed.  I need to get out of here; Victoria can’t be too far away, can she?

Like a locomotive train, Parker’s mind began to roll faster and faster, his nervousness prompting him to ask more and more questions to himself.  He knew that he shouldn’t have gone out last night; it never ends well.  The stench in the room slowly beginning to make him nauseous, Parker regained his footing and made a beeline in a random direction to try to find any exit of some kind.  He didn’t get very far, however.   Parker’s foot, as if he was stepping into a pothole, missed the ground and landed much further down than he intended, causing him to lose his balance once again.

“Ah!” Parker exclaimed in surprise, increasingly becoming more upset and confused at his predicament.  “Hello! Victoria? Anybody?”  Parker’s calls went unanswered; he was going to have to fix this mess himself.  Trying to ignore his aching head, he started by bending down and inspecting the craterous obstacle in front of him.  “God!” Parker shot back up after noticing that the cheesy smell became significantly stronger as he neared the ground.  “Jesus, HELLO!” Parker yelled again for help, but was given a response that he wasn’t looking for.

*Ring, Ring, Ring, Ring!*

This time, the ringing was accompanied by another set of noises.  Again coming in as a far-off overhead echo, Parker could clearly hear ruffling sounds and what sounded like of a hand slapping around on a table.

“H…Hello?”

“Victoria!” Parker happily called out, easily recognizing a voice that he heard almost five days a week.  Her voice sounded as distant as the ringer did.  But like the ringer, the sound was all-encompassing, rather than sounding like it was coming in from one direction. 

“Oh, shit! I mean…Yeah! I can come a little earlier.”

That must have been her phone; I better change my ringtone.  That’s right, she had to set up and work a high school prom tonight with Patricia.  Victoria isn’t the best at times and dates. Thank god I’m off this weekend.

“No, no! I just…Stayed up a little late watching Netflix and slept in, that’s all.”

It must be Patricia.  That woman could even tell if you were lying about what you ate for breakfast that morning. 

“Okay, bye.”

“Victoria! Do you know where my stuff is? I can drive you there.”  For the first time, Parker was struck by how little his voice carried.  He somehow knew that she wouldn’t have heard him.  Parker was about to try to walk further across the cryptic room, this time without hurting himself, until the very ground beneath him began to rumble and vibrate.

What the hell was that?

The sudden vibration ceased for a second, then reemerged, this time it was more powerful.  The earthquake-like sensations became stronger every time they occurred, until they gave way to a chilling stillness and silence.  The silence resembled that of a moment in a horror movie before a ghost or monster suddenly pops up and scares the protagonist.

“Damn that bitch pisses me off!  That doesn’t even leave me time to go home and change.” 

Oh my god.

This time, Victoria’s voice sounded louder, as if her voice was projecting itself across Times Square to hear.  The unusual sensation of hearing a large, powerful voice triggered a twitch in Parker’s brain, unearthing a few memories.

Wait, wait.  Victoria left to go to the bathroom, then…I told my bus story to that guy…That woman! Shit! I ran into her, then what? God, was I drugged last night?

Parker didn’t have much time to think about it, Victoria’s overwhelming voice beginning to fill the room yet again.  “Hey, Parker.  I’m not sure where you went last night…but I hope you’re okay!  I ran into a few issues of my own; maybe you were luckier than I was.  I’ll scan around the house for you, but your keys are in my purse and I have to go to that damn prom in a half an hour.  I won’t even bitch to you though, I know that Patricia is harder on you.   I know that you live close to the banquet center, so I can swing it back whenever you need it though, just call me back. Bye!”

Why is she leaving a message on my…“AHHH!”  

The entire room that Parker was in was violently swung upwards; twisting Parker’s stomach as if he just went steeply upwards on a rollercoaster.  Without any warning, light beamed into his room.  Parker, his heat thumping out of his chest in fear, squinted to make out a large pale mass that was rapidly approaching him.   If Parker’s eyes could have adjusted faster, he would have noticed that the “mass” was five impossibly gigantic, fleshy, threatening toes rushing towards him.  Instead, he was unwaveringly smushed by the mass into the rubbery surface of the room.  Parker’s entire body was locked into place; the pressure that he was experiencing was unlike anything that he had ever felt before.  To make matters even worse, that now-familiar, unpleasant smell increased ten-fold.  The whole ordeal forcibly uncovered the rest of Parker’s memories.  In that instant of contact, the entire night flashed before his eyes.  The amazon.  The growing.  The ambiguous dialogue.  The shrinking.  Hovering above Victoria’s boot.

“NOOO!”  Parker cried in anguish as he quickly realized that he was under the massive feet of his coworker.  The shock was enough to have induced a heart-attack, but Parker was lucky in that respect.  Again, Parker’s thoughts even overpowered the pain that he was feeling in his entire body; the sheer scale of his friend boggled his mind.  He became overwhelmingly scared of his coworker, whose tiny feet were now powerful enough to crush entire cities.  He was now cowering under her toes, terrified that the moment that she shifted her foot around he would lose the safety of the lessened pressure there. 

Victoria, the unknowing giantess, quickly walked around the house, temporarily ignoring the small bump under her right foot because of the rush she was in.   Convinced that Parker had either taken a taxi home or gone home with a girl, she walked outside and made her way towards his car.  She was legitimately happy for him; she remembered him laughing and dancing the past night.   

Meanwhile, Parker was fighting for his life inside of Victoria’s boot.  Amidst all of the jarring rising and falling of her steps, Parker was able to grab onto her second toe, pulling himself out from being completely under her toes.  Afraid that he’d plunge back into the oblivion, he hugged her toe and held on for dear life.  Having his face pressed against this amazonian appendage, the perspiration from a long night of dancing stuck to his bare skin, the smell just as intolerable.  He was in awe of the situation that he was in, reduced to the size of an insect, relying on his coworker’s pretty toe for survival.

Victoria reached Parker’s car, started it up, and headed towards the local banquet hall to begin setting up for the prom.  Whatever was under Victoria’s toes had now made its way in between them and over her second toe, Victoria becoming more conscious of it as the ride went on.   She began to idly toy with it and try to figure out what it was. 

I physically can’t take much more of this.

The air becoming scarcer in the boot, Parker realized that he was in legitimate danger of suffocating inside her boot.  As the ride went on during the hot spring day, Victoria’s toes began to sweat more and get hotter with each push of the gas pedal. To make an awful situation even worse, Victoria began to grind her toes together, the massive pillars manhandling Parker’s tiny body.  Still having a decent grip on her toe, Parker was able to think a little more rationally.  To not do so would be life-threatening.

She must notice that I’m here.  If I move too much, she could freak out and think I’m a bug or something.  I’m going to have to pray that she doesn’t plan on setting up in these shoes.

Luckily, the ride was only fifteen minutes long, which bought Parker more time to escape his predicament.  Already being 30 minutes late, Victoria grabbed her bag and fast-walked into the banquet hall, the event already half set-up.  Parker’s arms were growing tired and he was becoming light headed; he was not too far from passing out inside the boot.

“I can see that you had quite an exciting night with Netflix, huh Victoria?”

Parker heard the muffled voice of Patricia from high above.  He almost had an anxiety attack at the thought of his now-gigantic boss.

If she saw me at this size…I don’t even want to think about what she would do. 

“Uh, yeah.  The Game of Thrones finale was pretty wild,” Victoria fell far short of convincing in her response. 

Patricia rolled her eyes and responded, “Alright.  We have 500 kids coming here in a few hours, I need you to run to the truck in the back and start running supplies back and forth.  Are you up for it? You might want to change shoes,” gesturing towards the obviously-painful heels of Victoria’s boots.  She was oblivious to the fact that her miniscule employee was in there, beginning to see spots and lose consciousness.

“Yeah, I keep a spare pair of flip-flops when I go out…I mean, for stuff like this!”

“Honey, just go.”

Flustered and embarrassed, Victoria sped off to a nearby dinner table and set her bag down. She pulled out a pair of worn-out flip-flops, no doubt having braved many drunk nights where she became fed up with heels but still didn’t want to walk around barefoot.

Parker, meanwhile, fought to stay awake.  At this point, the godly voices became registering as low, incomprehensible roars in his head. 

I…I can’t stay…aghh…

As Victoria finished removing her left foot from the constraints of the boot and replacing it with a colorful flip-flop, Parker’s grip on her toe loosened, his body and mind falling flat.  Oxygen had almost completely run out inside the boot.  Everything went black for Parker.  He had given up.

“Let’s go, Victoria!”  Patricia shouted from across the room.

“Okay! Bitch,” Victoria cussed under her breath as she began to hurriedly remove her right boot, forgetting about the nuisance in her shoe.  She pushed her boots in a pile with her bag under the table for the time being. She took a deep breath, simultaneously enjoying the comfort of the sandals, yet dreading the night ahead. She then headed off in the direction of the truck, leaving Parker in a helpless heap in her boot, albeit with more breathing room. 

The next few hours were absolutely chaotic for Victoria, who didn’t even have time to do simple things, such a check her phone or get some air.  She cursed Patricia’s existence every step of the way.  Despite her spunkiness, she needed the job, and wouldn’t say anything until she had another one lined up. Before she knew it, the chefs were preparing the teenagers’ dinners in anticipation of their arrival, Parker still alone and out cold in the depths of her shoe.