Unlucky Break-In

The sound of shattering glass filled the air as Tanner punched a hole into the back door's window, cloth wrapped around his glove. As he reached inside and fidgeted with doorknob, his friends anxiously watched both him and their surroundings for any watchful eyes who may have heard the noise.

"No one's looking," informed Jude to his left.

Tanner's fingers worked the lock on the round metal knob, turning it from its original horizontal position to a vertical one. Then, he squeezed the knob and pulled the now-unlocked door open. He opened it just far enough for his five friends to hastily sneak into, and he followed after them once they were all inside. He pulled the door closed, and briefly scanned the outside neighborhood before joining the other teenagers.

All six of them stood inside of the mostly white kitchen, and it was a rather impressive kitchen at that. In the middle of the room was an island table nearby, its surface consisting of white marble, above which an unpowered light chandelier hung from the ceiling; further away was a more mundane wooden table against the wall, with three matching wooden seats underneath. The counters against the walls were spotless, and all of the dishes in the strainer near the silvery sink were clean and pristine enough to reflect the sunlight shining on them, and the appliances too were without blemish.

"Man, this is a nice kitchen," Kendrick, the meekest of the group, remarked as he marveled at his surroundings.

"Yeah," Lee agreed. "It's a nice house period. Ms. Fields definitely has a lot of sweet stuff in here. I mean, she's pretty much rich."

"When does she get off work?" Kendrick asked.

"At five," Jude answered.

"Hah, we have plenty of time," Kendrick happily remarked.

Tanner turned to face the others. "No, we need to get what we can and get out fast."

"True," said Stan, the tallest of the group. "Someone else might see us, or Ms. Fields might come back early. She's an executive, remember? She can really leave whenever she wants."

"Alright," Tanner said. "I'll go check out her bedroom."

"I'll keep watch out front," said Jeremy, the sole Black youth of their ensemble.

"Good idea," Stan said. "I'll see if she had a den or office or something."

"What about us?" Jude asked, referring to himself, Kendrick, and Lee.

"You guys hash it out," Tanner said. "But hurry up."

"Alright," Lee said with a nod, before the group split up, half of them departing for different parts of this one-story home, while the other half remained in the well-illuminated kitchen.

Some would see their actions as a waste of potential. However, they had all since determined that they had little potential to fulfill. All six had graduated--if only barely--from high school two months earlier, but while most of their peers were preparing themselves for college--some having already left the city or even state--Tanner and his friends preferred their life of freedom, to do what they wanted. They were rather infamous at school, and none of them were high-performing students, to say the least, but they did not care. All they wanted was to have fun.

But fun costed money, and with no jobs, all of them had very little of it to go around.

And it was not like this was the first house that they had burglarized.

"Alright," Jude said, facing the other two pale-skinned faces with him. "Where do you guys want to go?"

"Is there a basement?" Kendrick asked.

"Yeah, I think so."

"Then I'll go there. Might just be useless junk down there, though."

"Well, don't spend too much time down there. If Jeremy makes the signal, you might get stuck."

The three started to walk out of the kitchen, heading towards the same exit that their friends had departed through earlier.

"I wish we could take her TV," Lee said. "I just know she has a nice, big one in the living room."

Jude shook his head. "But it might be too-"

Suddenly, there was a loud beep around them. Taken by surprise at the shrill noise, all three of them stopped their trek and looked around in confusion.

"What was that?" Jude cautiously asked.

"That wasn't your phone?" Kendrick asked in turn.

"No, my phone's not that loud. ...And it's off."

"Same here," Lee said. "...Whatever. Let's just go-"

The beep sounded again, and now, all three teens were anxious as to the source of the sound. However, it did not take two brain cells to figure out that it was some sort of alarm system, one that was just about to trigger its warning signal.

"Shit, we gotta get outta here," Kendrick said, nervousness in his voice as he started to back away from the other two.

"Y-yeah," Jude agreed. "Screw this house, we need to get out before-"

There was a third beep, and immediately after, all three of them whited out.

~~~

Tanner did not know what just happened. He had just arrived inside of what was no doubt Ms. Fields' bedroom, a rather large one for someone who lived by herself. Though the room was somewhat dark due to the drawn shades and navy blue curtains over the windows, everything inside was still visible, from the bookshelf near the doorway to the two nightstands on either side of the queen-sized bed covered with dark blue sheets. Tanner in particular had her jewelry box upon her dresser in his sights before he heard the strange beeping noise and then lost consciousness.

As he came to, he saw that the room and everything in it had grown exponentially. The aforementioned dresser rose like a high-rise office building, and the bookshelf hung even higher, more like a skyscraper grazing the sky that was in fact the white ceiling. Everything in the room was mind-bogglingly huge. ...Except for him, lost on the field of blue carpet fibers below.

He was extremely frightened. He pulled out his smartphone and attempted to call up Stan. However, his phone did not pick up any sort of signal. Looking onto the screen revealed a cross icon superimposed on top of the signal strength bar.

"Shit..." He muttered. He looked around. He had taken several steps into the room while he was big, but now, those same steps looked to stretch off for at least a mile.

He did not know what to do. He could not wait for the others to find him; he could not hear them moving around at all, so it was possible that they had also met with the same fate.

Perhaps he could meet up with the rest and plan their next move.

With that in mind, he headed for the doorway.

~~~

Everything around Jeremy was huge, much moreso than they had been before. He scurried along the solid wooden surface in front of the house's main entrance, now more like a vast field than a small part of the front hall.

He had been heard the strange beeping noise before everything grew, and believed it to be a security alarm system. However, he could see no such control device besides the door. Before he could give it more thought, he saw white and everything went quiet for a time, after which he met sight with this new perspective.

Confused and frightened, he ran back towards the direction of the kitchen, but it seemed to be miles and miles away. He wondered if he could reach it or at least one of his friends in time before Ms. Fields returned. Last he checked, she would not be back for another three hours, but he wondered if that would provide ample time for him to return to them.

As he bounded across the brown surface, he heard something from outside of the gigantic heavy door behind him, muffled by the surrounding wall. If he had to hazard a guess, it sounded like a car pulling in before being turned off, followed by a door being shut, and then footsteps. Footsteps that, one-by-one, drew louder and nearer until they sounded as if they were right outside of the door.

"Oh shit!!" Jeremy blurted in terror as he heard a jangling metallic sound outside the giant door and then that of steel scrapping against one another. It was clear what the source of those sounds was, and the door opening confirmed the worst.

Ms. Fields had returned home.

Jeremy stopped running and watched as the greyish-tan-haired woman entered into the house, and shut the door behind her. Carrying a large leather via a strap on her shoulders, her bespectacled eyes were focused dead ahead as she walked further inside of the house.

Her gait was taking him right in his direction.

Jeremy briefly glanced at her fastly approaching feet--donning heeled black thongs that exposed the shiny red polish on each of her toes--before looking back up at her face high above. He started to hop and wave both of his hands above him.

"Yo, down here!!" He shouted. "Yo, Ms. Fields!! Hey!!"

No response. His calls were drowned out by the loud sounds of her heels banging against the hard floor.

As she was practically looming overhead by then, Jeremy turned around and quickly bolted away from her, trying to flee from her impending deadly footsteps. However, a dark shadow formed around him, and he had just enough time to look above him to see the bottom of her left shoe directly above.

He was unable to do anything else as the sandal fell upon him when it hit the floor, crushing him beneath Ms. Field's casual stride.

~~~

Back in the kitchen, Jude, Kendrick, and Lee were all trying to work out what had happened to them. After that strange beeping noise, they had all whited out, and when they came to, the already-large kitchen had become far more impressive. Particularly the island, which was now more like a long, tall tower in the distance.

They had since come to the unbelievable conclusion that they had been microsized. After brainstorming, they had also figured out that whatever that beeping noise was was perhaps the source of whatever reduced them to mere ants on the white linoleum floor.

As if their situation was not bad enough, they also heard the booming sound of a door in the distance, and then approaching footsteps immediately afterwards.

All of them knew what it meant. It meant that the owner of the house had returned.

"Shit!" Kendrick panicked as the three of them nervously watched the doorway. "She's back already!?"

"What do we do?!" Lee asked, fear in his tone as well.

"I don't know," Jude replied, trying but failing to keep his cool. "But we need to get out of the way."

"Get out of the way?" Kendrick asked.

"You see where we are? If she comes in here, we'll be right in her path!!" Jude exclaimed.

Both Kendrick and Lee's faces wore frightened expressions as they listened to Jude, before Kendrick turned towards the entryway and pointed towards it. "Loo- There she is!!"

Jude and Lee turned to the doorway, and indeed, there was Ms. Fields--first name Janet--the older woman who called the house they attempted to ransack her home. Having obviously returned from work, she wore a feminine black business suit--jacket and pants--with a pattern of thin vertical white lines, and most of her slightly wavy, graying sandy-brown hair was tied into a ponytail behind her head. Burgundy glasses with a thin frame covered her eyes, and in spite of being in her late 50s, she had minimum wrinkles or any other sagging or blemishes on her milky-white skin; because her age-defying appearance she was regarded as a borderline-"GILF" by the boys in the neighborhood. Despite said GILF status, she had no grandchildren or children or even a spouse; perhaps as a result of focusing almost entirely on her career, she had warded off any would-be suitors.

They had almost lost themselves in her mature, professional beauty before the loud sound of her heel striking the floor brought them back to reality. She was mesmerizing, yes... But she was also gigantic, terrifying so. As her other sandal-clad foot too walked onto the white floor, bringing both feet in their direction, the three tiny teens on said floor knew what they had to do.

"Run!!" Jude shouted.

The three teens bolted to their right, fleeing from the unsuspecting giant woman as she walked in towards them, her other slow gait quickly approaching them. As she very soon towered over them, they screamed in terror as they found themselves within the shadow of her left sandal, which began to quickly descend.

...Luckily, the three all managed very narrowly escape the foot as it stepped down, hitting the ground with a loud thud right behind them.

Recollecting their bearings, they stopped and watched as she continued on. She placed her purse onto the surface of the island, and then proceeded to walk to the refrigerator.

"Shit, that was close..." Kendrick said, breathing heavily.

"Yeah, no kidding," Lee added, also trying to catch his breath from the shock of almost dying.

"So, what do we do now?" Kendrick asked. "Do we get her attention?"

"We don't really have a choice," Jude said, watching as the giant woman pulled a carton of fruit juice from the refrigerator and then a clear glass from the strainer. "She's our best shot of getting out of this alive."

"What if she thinks we're bugs?" Lee wondered aloud, which elicited worried looks from his friends.

"...We just have to hope that she doesn't," Jude said.

They turned back to the older woman, who by then was sitting down on an unseen seat--perhaps a stool--and enjoying the cool red beverage from the glass in her hand. Placing the cup onto the table, she pulled her bag closer to her and unzipped it, her hand fishing inside until it retrieved what it was going for: a sleek black tablet. Placing the flat device onto the surface in front of her, her fingers started to tap and swipe at the screen.

"...How do we get her attention?" Lee asked.

Jude folded his arms and closed his eyes, as if he was thinking over their possible courses of action. Kendrick and Lee anxiously watched him, waiting to hear what he felt they should do, even if it seemed as if there was little that they could do.

He reopened his eyes, and looked at the two of them. "I don't think we can do anything but call and yell at her, and hope she sees up."

Lee sighed. "I wonder if she'd even hear us?"

"We'll just have to see. ...But first, we have to reach her."

The three again turned to the relaxing older woman, her eyes down towards the tablet on the island before her. She took another sip of her juice as her head and eyes casually moved around the room.

As her gaze shifted to her right, they heard her let out a shocked gasp as her eyes widened with surprise. Placing the half-full glass back onto the table surface, she stood from her seat and rushed over to the back door, her heels clopping on the floor with each hurried step. She first looked down at the shattered glass on the floor, and then examined the hole in the door's window that Tanner had punched.

"Ugh..." she groaned.

"Shoot, now she knows someone was in here," Lee said as they kept observing her.

"That's a good thing, though," Jude said. "I bet she set up whatever shrunk us, and now she'll be on the lookout."

"Really?" Kendrick was still somewhat unconvinced.

Indeed, as Mr. Fields turned around, her visual focus was on the floor. She took slow, stalking steps forward as her glasses-covered eyes scanned below, perhaps for any sign of life, a sign of the intruders that she now knew were inside of her house.

"She's looking for us now," Jude stated, before taking a few steps forward and shouting. "MS. FIELDS!!! OVER HERE!!!" He started to wave his hands in the air over his head.

Kendrick and Lee joined Jude in yelling and shouting to get her attention. Their arms swung wildly in the air as they kept calling the slowly approaching woman, whose eyes had not yet caught sight of them near the kitchen's entrance. Still, they did not stop; they were determined to reach out to her, and despite wronging her in the first place, and see that they escaped this house and safely returned to their lives.

Whether it was through their efforts or if it was luck, eventually--after walking halfway from the door to their position--Ms. Fields looked ahead and finally laid her eyes upon the three of them. She let out a quiet gasp, before quickly walking towards them. The sight of an unfathomingly-huge giant charging right at them sent a shiver down their spines; Kendrick even took a few steps back.

After reaching the group, she stood over them, looking down at the unfortunate teens on the floor at her feet. "Here you are..." She said, before kneeling down, bringing her face closer to their bodies. Her hazel irises closely examined each one of them as she readjusted her glasses with her fingers.

"Ms. Fields!" Lee shouted. "Thank god you saw us!!"

"Hm. What are you kids doing in my house?" she asked, her voice like thunder against their eardrums. "Were you trying to be little burglars?" Her tone was almost teasing.

"Yes!!" Kendrick very quickly admitted guilt. "We're sorry!! Please save us!!"

"What happened to us?!" Jude asked the looming giant. "Why were we made so small?"

"That was the security system I had set up in my house," Ms. Fields answered as she crossed her arms on top of her knees. "It's not available to the public, and in fact is still in an experimental phase. Only two other people aside from me have it in their homes. ...But I'm happy to see that it at least does work properly, after pouring so much cash into the project." Her mouth curved into a proud smile.

Jude and Lee exchanged nervous glances to each other; Ms. Fields did not seem all too concerned or worried about their current state, and that sent a bad feeling down their spines.

"Tell me," she said. "How long have you boys been in here? And how many of you are in here? Is it just you three, or...?"

"We just got here not too long ago!!" Jude shouted up at her. "Aside from us, there are three more guys in the house!!"

"I see. Hm..." She rubbed her hand around her chin. "Six little boys inside of my house..."

"Can you make us all big again?!" Kendrick yelled. "We promise we won't mess with you ever again!!"

"Well, in theory, there is a way to reverse the shrinking," Ms. Fields told them. "But it's still under development and the engineers have not had any success with it."

The three teens listened on to her explanation.

"Simply reversing the polarity of the mechanisms that cause the shrinkage turned out to not only not work properly but also resulted in a radioactive pile of organic sludge," she continued. "It was quite a setback, and we almost had the whole project scrapped entirely. But those eggheads reassured us that they'd get it to work. Though they estimated that it could take years to figure out. They are messing around with the laws of physics, after all; no one expects it to be easy or quick. Frankly, it was a miracle that they got the shrinking bit to work at all."

"Wait, 'years'?!" Lee shouted. "Like, how many years?"

"Well, the initial project plan for the shrinking and enlargement tech was presented to us almost two decades ago, and they were only just able to figure out the shrinking part nearly two years ago," she answered, to the shock of all three teens. "I'm hoping that I can see the full fruition of their labor before I retire, but I'm not holding my breath."

"So, you mean we're going to be stuck like this?!" Lee asked, which made both Jude and especially Kendrick tremble at the thought.

"No!!" Kendrick cried, almost in a panic. "I don't want to live the rest of my life like some bug!!"

Ms. Fields smiled warmly. "Don't worry. You boys will not live like that, I can assure you that."

"R-really?!" Kendrick excitedly said, though Jude and Lee were a lot more trepidatious.

She nodded. "Yes." Then, she stood back up, once again revealing to the three young friends her full imposing height, lifted up even higher with her heels.

As she stared at the three of them on the floor, Jude and Lee seemed to have gotten an ill feeling, and were already backing away from her. Kendrick turned and saw the nervous, if not terrified looks on their faces, and the relief that he was just feeling soon faded to fear along with them.

"You boys committed a crime, and you need to be punished," Ms. Fields said, before the visage of her gracefully-aged face high above disappeared behind the beige sole of her right sandal.

All three teens screamed and pleaded--and cried in Kendrick's case--as they attempted to scramble out from beneath the shoe's shadow.

But, her foot fell so fast, too fast.

Unlike before, they were unable to escape in time.


Janet's foot hit the pristine white floor, and with it was the audible wet crunching sound of all three of those tiny, centimeter-tall bodies breaking apart underneath her size-8 thong. Then, like a discarded cigarette, she twisted her foot left-and-right, her scarlet toes putting in much effort to ground them all into pulp.

Most would find this needlessly cruel; after all, they were just teenagers, in the prime of their lives. However, it was just as she had told them: the process to grow them back was several years at least away from being stable enough to use, and there was no guarantee that her successors on the board would be as lenient as she and her colleagues have been with the project. Those three would have had to adapt to living at least a good chunk of their lives at their tiny sizes, and she knew that they or their families did not want that.

She thought of it more as a mercy kill. That, and as she also told them, they needed to be punished for breaking into her house.

Janet lifted back her sandal on its three-inch heel, revealing the crimson, sticky mess staining the otherwise spotless linoleum. She lifted her leg and reached down to hoist it by the ankle, turning the bottom of her heel toward her to get a look at the red mess plastered on its sole.

She let go of her foot, but made sure that it did not completely touch the ground. Balancing on her left leg, she hopped over to the sink, pulled off a sheet of paper towel from its roll, and ran it through hot water from the faucet. She then folded the sheet and picked up her ankle again to clean the blood and whatever else from the bottom of her shoe. After tossing it into the bin underneath the sink, she pulled off three sheets of paper towel, dampening one of them, and walked over to the flattened remains of the three teens.

She bent down and used two sheets--the wet one and one of the dry ones--at once to wipe off the mess from the floor, making sure to get every last bit of it. After much of the blood and gore had been removed, she used the remaining dry sheet to soak up the remaining water and small bits of blood, completely sanitizing the spot, as if the red blot had never been there in the first place.

After disposing of those wet and bloody sheets of paper towel, Janet turned back to her glass of berry juice, and calmly chugged down the rest of the sweet red beverage. All the while, she thought about the intruders; according to one of the teens, they had arrived in a group of six. That meant that there were still three more lurking on the floors in her house somewhere. She could not risk a single one getting out and exposing the top-secret nature of their work; even having it set up as a security system was dangerous enough, but the engineers needed real world results and willing volunteers.

It was long since decided; she would comb the house and seek out the remaining three burglars. Luckily, it seemed as if they had just broken into her house just before she arrived home from her early day. There was no doubt in her mind that none of them would have been able to reach the outside world in that time.

Placing her now empty glass back onto the island, she picked up her tablet and returned it inside of her leather bag. Next, she removed her jacket from over her lavender shirt, laying it onto the surface next to the cup. After that, she placed her right foot onto the steel bar below the nearest stool's seat and reached down to unbuckle the sandal's strap from her ankle, and then her left foot replaced its twin as she unbound it as well. Once they were both back on the floor, she slid her feet out from their heels, letting her peds finally relax after a tiring day on the cool floor, if only briefly.

Taking in a quick breath, she then turned towards the kitchen's entryway and made towards it, her bare feet slapping against the hard linoleum with each step.

~~~

Stan had no idea what to do. His mind was trying to work out just what was going on around him, but all it told him was that everything around him had gotten huge to an absurd degree.

On his way to the den, he felt a sudden urge to answer nature's call, and decided to make a brief pit stop to the nearest bathroom. He was in the middle of releasing his amber stream into the porcelain toilet when he heard those strange series of beeping noises, and then saw white. When he woke up, he was both on the white floor and bore urine-soaked pants. The bathroom was already bigger than any he had seen in his life, but now it was massive, more like it was fit for a giant than anything else.

Still standing below the toilet, he pondered over his next move. He had already tried to contact Tanner or Jeremy with his phone, but the device was not picking up any reception, leaving him with radio silence. The large door off in the distance had been shut on the way in, meaning that unless there was a way he could crawl underneath it, he was trapped. Especially as this bathroom had no windows; just a ventilation shaft near the top of the wall.

He gawked at his surroundings, illuminated by the two lights embedded in the ceiling: the massive white toilet overhead; the wooden sink next to it with a mirror placed on the wall above it; far ahead to his right a peach-colored rug that matched the paint on the walls; and the plastic curtain partially enclosed around the bathtub/shower above said rug.

Stan had spent quite a bit of time being awestruck by this massive room, almost forgetting that he was in a bad spot. He had to hurry to the door and find a way out. He wondered if his friends had also been affected by whatever had altered his body the way it is, but judging from the fact that he could hear nothing past those doors, no shuffling about or anything, he figured that they too had been downsized.

For a while, things were quiet outside. Until, about ten minutes after he had regained consciousness, he heard the sound of heavy steps. They seemed to move past the door, before they came to a stop for a period. After several more minutes had passed, he heard them again on the carpet outside the door. He wondered who they belonged to, but quickly determined the answer. If all of his friends had been shrunken, then those footsteps--footsteps belonging more to a giant--could only mean one thing.

That Ms. Fields had returned home.

"Shit," Stan uttered. Coming into contact with her would have been bad news enough; while they had no weapons, the six of them could have easily restrained the aging woman, but he would have preferred to avoid her completely, especially as she could have ID'd them later on. But now, it was very probable that the same woman was one that he would have to depend on to survive.

He wondered if she had found out that her house had been infiltrated yet. And if so, assuming that she set up whatever had reduced him in the first place, was she currently searching for her intruders?

Alan's heard the footsteps move about again, until they seemingly stopped right outside. His eyes were glued onto the wooden door in the distance across the vast field, and he crept in its direction, anxious to see what would happen next.

The golden doorknob turned, and the door swung open, sure enough revealing the regal Ms. Fields in all of her gigantic glory. The 59-year-old woman--at least, he believed she was 59--looked around as she stepped into the bathroom, her bare feet slapping against the white tiled floor.

"The light's on," she spoke, perhaps to herself but maybe not. "I know it wasn't on when I left. Hmm..."

Hearing this, and seeing her focus towards the floor her feet as she slowly walked further inside, it was all but clear that she knew that someone was in the bathroom. Alan gazed at the woman--dressed in a short-sleeved lavender shirt and black business slacks--and found himself taken in by her mature radiance. Especially now that there was far more of her than before.

As her eyes kept scanning the floor, he quickly snapped himself back to reality. He knew that he had to get her help and fast.

He ran a number of steps in her direction, but perhaps his swift movement combined with his dark clothes against the backdrop of the white floor brought notice, as her glasses-covered eyes immediately spotted him scuttling from the toilet.

She smiled. "I spy with my little eye, a little robber!"

Alan's heart raced as the giant woman approached him, her footsteps like thunder that only grew louder as they approached. With her words and smile, Alan knew that Ms. Fields had found out about the break-in, and that she was specifically searching for him, and perhaps the others. Perhaps she was relieved to have found him; it was better than the shock or anger that he had expected.

And yet, something inside of him sensed trouble. He backed away from her as the titan of a woman came upon him, and stood overhead, looking down on the teen at her feet.

"M-Ms. Fields!!" Stan shouted. "Ms. Fields, help me!!"

She did not respond. She simply folded her arms beneath her bosom as she tilted her head to the side. Was it possible that she did not hear him? Furthermore, what was going on inside of her head that caused this pause?

"Ms. Fields!!!" Stan called again, louder than before. "Ms. Fields!!! I need help!!!"

"Hm. I think I heard you say you want me to help you," she said, her tone rather frigid. "Now, why would I help someone who broke into my house and used my bathroom without permission? You even got some of your piss on the seat and floor."

"I'm sorry, I'm really sorry!!! Please help!!!" Alan pleaded. "I swear I'll never do it again!!!"

She smirked. "Yes, I know you won't."

Then, the red-polished toes of her right foot lifted off of the floor and rushed towards him. Alan shrieked and bolted in the opposite direction, escaping the digits as they nearly fell upon him.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?!? Alan yelled behind him as he frantically ran back towards the toilet. "YOU JUST TRIED TO STEP ON ME!!!"

"I know. And if you hadn't have run away, you would be with your friends."

"WHAT!?" Alan could hardly believe what he had just heard. Not only had she found his friends, but she had perhaps already slaughtered them all. "YOU OLD BITCH, WHY!?!?"

Ms. Fields sighed. "You're really not making me regret my decision with that mouth of yours, little boy." She slowly stalked after him as he ran towards the underside of the toilet's water tank. "You really should have been taught to respect your elders."

"WHY SHOULD I RESPECT YOU, YOU HAG!!!" Alan defiantly yelled back at her; his never exactly had a handle on his anger issues, even if this situation did merit his indignation. "YOU KILLED MY FRIENDS, AND YOU'RE TRYING TO KILL ME!!!"

Though he sought out and reached his sanctuary underneath the toilet tank, Ms. Fields was right on his trail, standing right behind him outside.

"I would explain why I'm doing this like I did to your friends," Ms. Fields censured as she stretched her right leg out under the toilet, and her foot reached towards him, "but since you lashed out at me like that, I'm just going to end you."

"NOOOO!!!" Alan screamed as her massive foot reached for him. Specifically, its big toe, which was very quickly bearing down on him.

He tried to turn and curve around behind the toilet's base, but as the shadow of her digit grew darker, he knew that he would not be able to get away. His life was over, and it would end in such an undignified way. Right before her titanic toe hit his body, he was overcome with the need to shout out one last thing to the woman who would be taking his life.

"FUCK YOU, BITC-"


Janet's toe pressed down on the foul-mouthed teenager, his body exploding in a tiny wet pop under its force. She pulled her toe back from underneath the toilet, shredding the burglar's body and smearing him into a red trail along with it.

"What a rude brat," she muttered as her leg returned to her body, her eyes taking in the mess her digit created. "That's what's wrong with kids these days. No respect for their elders."

Janet tsked as she shook her head in pity. Perhaps his rage was understandable, but really, the only person who should be angry was her. After all, they had violated the sanctity of her abode. If it were anyone else, they would have been shot on sight, confined to a hospital bed, gaining life-changing injuries, or even--as was the case here--death.

She thought of the news of a string of break-ins in the area. She wondered if the young men inside of her house were responsible for those as well. While her house upon an outside glance was not any more special than the surrounding homes, she was rather known in the neighborhood as one of the leading executives of an influential research firm. As she never settled down and started a family, many would assume that she had lots of free money to spend--and they would be correct--which may have been reflected in some of her possessions. While she considered herself rather frugal, she did occasionally splurge and treat herself to any artifact that struck her fancy, or even just to get the latest gadgets and gizmos. Perhaps it was no wonder she would eventually be targeted.

This time, however, they picked the wrong house. ...Or in her case, the right house.

Pulling off a few sheets of toilet paper from the roll on the wall next to the toilet, Janet wiped off first the blood from her toe, and then the gory smear on the floor below. Next, she took another bunch of sheets to clean up the urine from the floor in front of the toilet and on its seat, before dropping it all into said toilet and flushing them away.

After washing her hands, she briefly gazed upon herself in the mirror and readjusted her glasses, before walking out of the bathroom, switching the lights off in the process.

Two more... She had to find the remaining two burglars.

~~~

Tanner heard the noise out past the massive doorway in front of him. He heard the sound of a heavy door closing in the distance, then footsteps. Next, there was a bit of silence before he heard what he believed was speech; though he could not discern any information, he did know that it was a female voice. That meant only one thing.

Ms. Fields had arrived home.

He was frightened, for he knew that she would be unhappy to see that he and his friends had infiltrated her home, but at the same time, appealing to her was their only shot at getting a resolution to their current predicament, as it was probable that she knew of a way to restore them back to normal. He hoped that his friends had thought of the same thing.

Several minutes later, Tanner heard Ms. Fields moving about the house, her distant but heavy footfalls traversing through the house. Eventually, he heard her open a door, then more words which, again, he was unable to decipher. As Tanner ran, she too went about the house, as if she was searching for something; perhaps she was looking for every one of them, gathering them up and placing them somewhere safe.

Due to his small size in comparison to everything else, he made very gradual progress towards the door, not helped by the difficulty he found in moving through the carpet fibers. He wondered if he should risk running out at all, as he was already at a prime risk of unknowingly being stepped on by her should she enter. At the same time, hiding in a corner would only made it harder for her to find him.

These thoughts were interrupted as he heard the constant thunder-like noises become louder, as if they were drawing closer to his location. He knew that she was coming, and he was already psyching himself for the no-doubt fearsome sight that was only mere seconds away.

Sure enough, from the left of the doorway, she appeared.

Tanner stopped dead in his tracks. Even his mental preparation was not enough to prepare him for the giant tower of a woman who stood before him. Ms. Fields was huge, so huge that Tanner felt that he could barely even reach the top of her pinky toe. She donned a light lavender top and black pants upon which were thin white lines going from top to bottom; the latter looked as if it was part of a set with a matching jacket, but no such thing was on her body, and neither were any shoes or nylons or anything on her bare feet. He could not blame her for having gotten comfortable after a long day at work.

The deceptively-middle aged Ms. Fields walked into the room, her footsteps creating tremors and crashes only partially absorbed by the soft carpet.

"Ms. Fields!!" Tanner called up to her as her stride brought right in his direction. "Ms. Fields, hey!!!"

It seemed that she did not hear him, as her eyes were focused right ahead of her. She had no clue of the tiny person who was down on the floor below her.

Sensing this, Tanner turned and attempted to run away from the approaching giant. However, the fibers around him made his escape difficult, and he soon found the sole of her foot right above him.

"AHHHH!!!" He yelled as he ducked and curled into the floor as it fell upon him. At that moment, he expected to be reduced to a mere stain on the bottom of her foot.

The foot stepped down; he could feel its weight upon his body.

...However, as the foot stepped off, he was surprised and relieved that he had not been destroyed by the giant ped. He physically examined his body for any broken bones, and found that he was not worse for wear. He let out a huge sigh of relief; perhaps the save carpet fibers he had so much trouble moving through aided in absorbing the shock that may have killed him just then.

Tanner stood up and watched as Ms. Fields walked on, heading towards the two windows on the far wall. He stared at her lean backside and the ponytail of graying hair on the back of her head as he watched her pull the curtains apart and raise the shades on each window, bringing the light from the outside world into the room. He could see the blue cloudy sky through the glass, and at that moment, he wished nothing more than to be back out there, at his regular size, enjoying his youthful years with his friends.

"There," Ms. Fields said, after opening up the second window to the world. She turned around, and then started to slowly approach back the way she had come from, this time her focus shifted downward. In Tanner's mind, that confirmed it; she was indeed searching for them.

He started to hop and wave his hands above his head as high and wide as he could. "HEY!!!" He shouted. "HEY, I'M DOWN HERE!!!"

Through her glasses, her eyes scanned the floor at her feet. Tanner kept up his waving and calls for attention; he wondered if due to his bluish clothes if he was somewhat camouflaged with the carpet around him. Still, he had no choice but to continue and hope that she would see him before it was too late.

"HEYYY!!!" He yelled. "MS. FIELDS!!! I'M OVER HERE!!!"

"Huh?" It seemed his voice finally reached her, if only barely. Her gaze shifted around her briefly as she made a more concentrated attempt to seek out the source of the voice, before looking ahead towards the door.

"YEAH!!!" Tanner shouted. "I'M RIGHT HERE!!! NEXT TO THE DOOR!!!"

She took a few steps closer, and then looked down, right at his exact location. Her eyes, squinted, before she let out a perhaps relieved gasp and then completely closed the distance between them. As the borderline-senior citizen stood over him, her sight upon him from high up, Tanner was once again taken in by her sheer, dizzying height. At that moment, he knew what it was like to be an ant crawling at someone's feet.

"So one of you did come into my room," Ms. Fields spoke. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised; it was either here or the office that had most of my valuable possessions."

Tanner kept hopping and waving. "HELP ME!!! I'M SO SORRY WE BROKE INTO YOUR HOUSE!!! CAN YOU SAVE US?!!"

She smirked. "Alright."

Tanner felt the coolness of relief brush through him. "THANK YOU!!!"

She bent her upper body downward and reached down towards the floor with her right hand. Tanner held both of his arms high above him, allowing her massive index finger and thumb to more easily pinch his body and pluck him from within the carpet. Now suspended in mid air, he watched as Ms. Fields went on the move, expecting her to reunite him with his friends, wherever they currently were.

However, rather than head out of the bedroom from where she had come from, she instead made a turn towards her right, heading towards one of the other closed doors in the room. With her other hand, she opened it and switched the light on, revealing a private bathroom attached to her own bedroom.

With aqua blue walls and a white floor, it was rather large, even taking his minuscule size into account. Nearby was a long white cabinet with two faucets installed in it, over which was a wide mirror in which Ms. Fields was reflected; he could just barely see himself in her fingers. Far off was a light blue toilet, and to his left was a large bathtub and shower, its floral curtain pushed off to the side; in front of both were small blue rugs. Additionally, there were other items such as bath towels, creams and conditioners, fragrances, a box of tissue, and framed pictures of generic flowers on the walls. It was truly a spectacular bathroom, and one that he was envious of.

She walked to the center of the room, and held the teen between her fingers in front of her billboard-like face. Looking into her hazel eyes beyond the burgundy frames of her glasses as their pupils focused right upon him made him shudder. It was as if those eyes were judging him, rendering a verdict all on their own.

"Ms. Fields..." Tanner muttered, feeling a sense of anxiousness upon him.

"I can't believe you boys," Ms. Fields spoke, with a disapproving tone. "You're all so young, but you're throwing your lives away like this."

"Yeah, what we did was wrong, and I'm really sorry for it!!" Tanner cried out. "I promise we'll never do it again!! We learned our lesson!!!"

"I bet you did," she said. "I'm sure you did not expect the security system to shrink you down like this. It's quite an amazing piece of tech, really. When triggered, it scans the house for any new bodies that entered once it sensed the infiltration. Then, after two warning tones, it fires an invisible burst of radiation through the whole house with the third, targeting specifically the individuals it detected."

Tanner was astonished to hear of such a device, and how it worked. "Whoa, what!! Why would you install something like that in your house?! What if it accidentally shrunk you?!"

"It won't," Ms. Fields answered. "The database that controls it has my DNA signature in it, and so it won't affect me or my relatives. My genetic ones, at least. That said, I always disable it if I have guests in my house; the system isn't perfect and there's the risk that it could go off and shrink them, and that would be... problematic."

"But couldn't you just grow them back up?" Tanner asked.

Ms. Fields shook her head. "No, unfortunately. We haven't had a breakthrough in restoring the sizes of the things we shrink. And I wouldn't expect it to happen for years and years, even after I retired."

Tanner's mouth dropped in anguished shock. He could not believe what he had heard, that there was at present no way for his size to be restored.

"WHAT!!!" He yelled. "So, what's going to happen to me!?"

She smiled warmly, a rather motherly one at that. Seeing it calmed his nerves a bit.

"You don't have anything to worry about, young man," she said. "I guarantee you; you won't be living your life like this, or like some lab experiment."

"R-really!?" Tanner happily exclaimed.

She nodded. "Yes, really."

Then, he was turned upside down, as the grip her massive digits had on his body separated. Tanner found himself taking a dozens stories-worth plunge to the floor below. He screamed on the way down, watching as the white floor rapidly approached. He saw his demise approaching; he feared that the floor would soon be painted with the blood of his impact.

As he hit the tiled floor, he simply bounced a few times, before tumbling to a stop. Though he was bruised, he was otherwise okay. Perhaps he was so small, that he was light enough to survive the fall. Nonetheless, he was thankful that once again, he brush with death had left him unscathed.

Picking himself up from the floor, he turned and looked up at the giant Ms. Fields standing before him.

"W-why did you drop me?!" Tanner shouted up at her.

"Because I'm about to send you to your friends," she answered.

"What?" He looked around on the floor. There was no sign of them at all; and why would there be? This was the first time she had come into either of these rooms since the break-in. "Where are they?!" He yelled back at her.

"Well..." She started as she folded her arms. "Three of them are in the garbage bin in the kitchen. One was flushed down the toilet in the guest bathroom. And while I was searching through the house, I found one of them flattened at the front door."

His mouth dropped in sheer horror. Right then, he knew what exactly Ms. Fields meant when she said that she would be "sending him to them": she had killed them all, and she intended to add him to her list.

"You're the last one, young man," she continued. "I'm glad that I didn't have to start crawling around after all to try and find you."

"WAIT, NOOO!!!" Tanner cried. "PLEASE DON'T KILL ME!!!"

"Sorry, but I am," she replied in a cold, calm manner. "It's for your own good."

"NO, PLEASE!!!" Tanner pleaded. "I WANT TO LIVE!!! I'LL DO ANYTHING!!!"

Tanner wondered what he could do to show her just how desperate he was to keep his life. But at his size, there was nothing that he could do, except... He looked at her massive feet in front of him, its toes adorned with a coat of red polish. Suddenly, he rushed to the right foot, particularly its big toe, and threw himself at it.

He started to plant kiss after frantic kiss upon the toe. His palms pressed against its supple pale flesh, his puckered lips did whatever they thought they could to appease her. It was a very humiliating and humbling experience; he never even thought of kissing the feet of girls his own age, let alone a woman who was pushing 60. And yet, he did not stop. He wanted- nay, hoped that this display showed her just how much he wanted to continue living, even at his ant-like size.

Ms. Fields grunted high above. "What are you doing? I'm not the St. Peter's statue in the Vatican. Stop that."

The massive toe flicked up from the floor, knocking him back down onto the floor in the process.

"MS. FIELDS, PLEASE!!!" Tanner begged. "DON'T DO THIS!!! DON'T KILL ME!!!"

His cries and pleading seemed to fall on intentionally-deaf ears, as Ms. Fields lifted her foot--the same foot upon which Tanner had kissed--up from the floor and hover it overhead.

"Sorry, young man," Ms. Fields spoke, her face obscured by the view of her bare sole. "But this is how it has to be. You have to learn that your actions have consequences."

With those words, the foot started its fast descent.

"NOOOO!!!" Tanner cried out as he brought up his arms in an attempt to ward off the impending flesh ceiling.

Said flesh ceiling was the last thing he saw before his young life was brought to an abrupt end.


Janet's foot hit the floor, and with it the sixth and final burglar's body exploded underneath with a crunchy splat. His warm blood spread out underneath the ball of her foot, as his body compressed more and more under the weight of her foot as it settled onto the hard floor. Pressing down a bit harder, her toes flexed against the floor as she ground him, tearing him apart with the pressure.

She then lifted her foot and examined the mess that remained. The brown-haired young man's tattered remains were plastered on the center of the ball of her sole, and his blood poured along her foot and dripped onto the floor below, where a second splatter marked the spot where he had been before his demise.

Janet let out a sigh of both satisfaction and relief. She was fully expecting to have to thoroughly search through her home--ground floor and basement--to seek out the remaining three young burglars, but had found the remaining three relatively quickly. Or two, as the third was more than likely eliminated during her first steps back home.

She staggered to sink--careful to not track any of the blood with her during the short trip-- and removed a sheet of tissue from its box set upon the wood. Using it, she cleaned off her foot, whereupon most of the gruesomeness had been pasted. She walked to the toilet and lifted its seat, dropping the used sheet into the waiting water. Next, she went and pulled out another sheet, this time damping the soft paper with warm water from the sink and then wiped up the red splatter from the floor. Once the floor was clean again, the second sheet of tissue was also tossed into the toilet, after which she flushed, sending the tissue and the young burglar down to a watery grave.

As she washed her hands at the sink with warm water and soap, she wondered if she had been too cruel with them after all. They were still young, and perhaps killing them may have been an extreme action. However, she reaffirmed herself that--weighing all other options--she did indeed made the right call.

If they had remained alive, they would have been unable to fend for themselves. They would have been confined to an enclosed living space, and their families would have to constantly monitor them and serve their every need. Basic necessities would also have had to be shrunken down for them as well, and even in a secure place, they could still be at the mercy of any pest--flying or crawling--that trekked into their enclosure. There was also the issue of their families possibly suing her and her company, especially as they were not informed of the nature of her security system as well as forcing such a burden onto them.

The other option would have been to take them all to the lab, where they would be imprisoned indefinitely and experimented on. While the lab technicians would have loved to experiment on humans as opposed to lab rats, she did not want to put those young men through such an arduous life, locked away in an underground facility for decades or longer.

No matter what, their lives would have been irreversibly changed, and not for the better.

It was a shame, but killing them all was the most humane thing to do for them. At the very least, she had given them all quick deaths that she hoped were also painless.

It was also a shame that such young men who still had their lives ahead of them had resorted to burglary. Had they have stayed on the straight and narrow, they would still be alive right now and perhaps on the road to becoming successful and reputable men, maybe even in the employ of her facility down the line.

After turning off the faucet, Janet removed her burgundy glasses and wiped down her face with both hands. She was not tearing up, but she was hit with a sense of regret. Regret, and disappointment, that those six young men had chosen the criminal life for themselves. Though she had lived for nearly six decades, the sheer foolishness of some boys would never cease to amaze her.

"Boys will be boys, I suppose," she said to herself in the mirror, her not-very-but-still-wrinkled face framed by the wavy strings of her untied hair on both sides. Grey streaks were clearly visible among the sandy-brown strands, and with each passing day, more grey would replace the brown. Though she was getting old--or rather, she was already old--there was a lot in her own life that she still wanted to accomplish before her ride came to an end; it was unfortunate that those young men would not live to have those same ambitions.

Deciding not to linger on what could have been any longer, Janet put her glasses back on her face, and walked out of her bathroom. While she had expected to relax at home, especially after yet another hard day at work--and one she was able to take off early from--there were things that needed to be done. Firstly, she had to get the back door's window fixed, and as soon as possible, ideally within the next few hours.

Once that was taken care of, she had to type up a report in her office.

A report on the successful operation of the Miniaturization Security System.



[THE END]