David’s life was hell. An inescapable, grueling, unyielding hell. Darkness overwhelmed all his senses. The pitch black void was all he could see; even though he logically understood full well where he was. Where he had been for several hours now. His body was crushed under intense pressure, only letting up briefly every few moments before forcefully crushing him once again. Air was limited, tainted by the thick odor that made even simply breathing a chore.

As surreal as it was to imagine, he was in a shoe. His friend’s shoe in fact. A shoe she was currently wearing. Hence, the being constantly crushed and the lack of vision. Although, if he had to be technical it may have been more accurate to say David was under her foot mores o than inside her shoe. The shoe was just an incidental facet of the grander curse of being permanently trapped under the woman’s foot.

The woman was his best friend Nina, an attractive brunette with a penchant for the punk and gothic aesthetic. With every step her mighty, nylon-clad foot squished against David, crushing him enough to illicit pain but never enough to deal the killing blow. Not that David was sure he even could die in his current state. Nina was always such a lovely woman. A bit teasing sure, but never outright cruel or the like. It was a tough pill to swallow that she was now the one so effortlessly tormenting her tiny best friend, not even aware she was doing it either.

It all started…Well, David wasn’t even quite sure himself. It wasn’t long enough that David was just a regular person. He had a job, a family, and a good number of close friends. Of course Nina was always among his closest. Perhaps that was why her girlfriend didn’t take too kindly to him. Jealousy was a cruel mistress, even crueler than Nina’s foot. He’d only heard of the details secondhand, but apparently Nina and her girlfriend Kim got into a fight about him. Kim was jealous and wanted Nina to stay away from him, and Nina, rightfully so, refused. Disagreements turned to arguments, and arguments soon turned into a break-up. A shame too. Attractive as Nina was, David would never have pursued a relationship with her. He respected her far too much to try and compromise her sexuality and relationship like that.

Were Kim any other person the story would’ve just ended there. A lovely couple broken up over petty grievances. Not the first and far from the last. Unfortunately, there was one thing about Kim nobody seemed to know. Silly as it sounded, she was a witch. A rather powerful one at that. The last memory David had of his regular stature was a surprise visit from the rather butch lesbian. Fury in her eyes, she raised her hands and a bright light shined forth. From there…nothing. He was unconscious, only barely hearing Kim’s booming words echo in his head.

“This curse will teach you for getting between me and her.” The rumbling voice echoed with spite.

David awoke to a sudden burst of pain, and then another. Where was he? Every few moments light filled his entire world and was promptly snuffed out. His body was crushed against something soft and grimy. A familiar scent flooded his nostrils as another ground-shaking voice began to speak. That was when he’d realized he’d been placed beneath Nina’s foot.

The ‘curse’ as Kim called it was really rather simple. David had been shrunken down and magically placed beneath his best friend’s foot. Any attempts to free himself failed. His body was forcefully adhered to Nina’s unrelenting sole; and even if he could move he never had more than a moment before the foot crushed him once again. Escape was nigh impossible. Such was the point. Ironic how David, a man with an admitted foot fetish, now found his life being squandered away being the sole of his dear friend.

This all had happened days ago, with the only break David ever got was when Nina was asleep. Any other time the woman was constantly on the move and he took the full brunt of her every step. It was difficult to even find the energy to weep anymore. The man was so thoroughly crushed and pulverized he’d been reduced to a shell of his former self. The outside world was just that: a world outside of his reach. Even if it was literally inches away he couldn’t hope to rejoin it. Once he’d had that realization he cried until Nina’s foot stomped down on him once again.

Maybe the worst part of all of this; she didn’t even know. Nina’s foot had taken everything away from her best friend. His life, his dignity, his hopes, all of it; and she wasn’t even aware she was doing it. His body has long since been crushed into the ball of her foot, barely an inch-tall by human standards. The pain each step brought was insurmountable, more than David had ever felt in his life. Every waking moment felt like his body would just explode into a thick pile of blood and gore, but it never did. He was forced to endure as someone with the weight of a mountain casually went about her day.

The inside of Nina’s shoe was a sauna, ripe with the woman’s body heat and sweat earned throughout the day. Maybe even worse within her nylon. David was lost in what seemed like an endless stream of foot sweat. The sticky, salty liquid ran all along his body and down Nina’s instep. There was nothing odd about it, but at David’s scale it bordered on waterboarding. He gasped for the already limited air as large streams trickled against him, only earning a modest mouthful of the foul sweat. He swallowed to try and satiate the thirst that had been plaguing him for what felt like forever. Being cursed hadn’t removed his need to eat or drink, and given his current situation…Suffice to say it wasn’t long before desperation had him licking and eating whatever he could to get by. Time hadn’t made it any easier sadly. He liked feet well enough but this was far behind even what he could tolerate.

He wondered how he must have looked now. Sure, he was never a model or anything but David had some reasonably good looks. But now he had to wonder. His body was probably mangled in some way, deformed and misshapen from the endless hours of being crushed. His clothes had been reduced to sweaty tatters that barely clung to his skin. To say nothing of whatever gallons of foot sweat did to his body and hair. He had to have looked abysmal. Like an actual bug stuck to the bottom of Nina’s foot.

Another painful stomp hit, followed by yet another. In an odd way the pain was refreshing. It showed that David still had feeling left in his body even after everything he’d endured. He winced each time, the bones in his body feeling as though they were rattling. It had already been hours since Nina had left for what David assumed was work. The voices outside were too muffled for his crushed ears to grasp to be certain.

Hours of this grueling punishment continued. Until finally, after an eternity, David felt the brisk cool air of the outside world along his body.

Nina drew in a sharp breath as she pulled her foot from her shoe. “David!”

David’s heart sank. Nina had her shoe off. That meant it was time for this mocking scene to play out again.

“You say something?” He recognized that voice as Mary, his blonde friend.

“David!” Nina repeated as if that explained anything. “H-He’s stuck to my foot!”

“Good.” A third voice…was that Cait? His short-haired female friend? She scoffed from wherever she was in the outside world. “Keep that little runt where he belongs. Little foot freak.”

“How can you say that?!” Nina trod towards her, her foot doing unyielding harm to the man stuck in her nylon. “Ah, sorry David. Here, let me…help…?” She reached down to remove her nylon, but as if by magic her hands suddenly went numb. They couldn’t move. In fact, her foot sweat seemed to have intensified for her efforts, nearly drowning the shrunken man.

“Huh?” She frowned and tried again to the same end.

The group didn’t remember it, but this very scene had played out almost half a dozen times now. Once Nina had discovered him David was certain his hell was finally over. Alas, it seemed Kim was always one step ahead. Any attempts to free him from his fate always ended in failure for one reason or another. Be it the ridicule of his large, suddenly cruel friends. Or magic preventing Nina from doing it herself. All it was was freedom being dangled just out of reach. Even worse, the second Nina put her shoes back on she would forget he was ever there and the whole scene would play out again like clockwork.

“Help me get him out of there!” Nina pleaded to her two friends.

“As if.” Mary snorted. “What’s the big deal? Didn’t he like feet anyway?”

“I think I caught him staring at mine once the little perv.” Cait said as a serious of booms trembled along the ground.

“Hey, what’re you-“

BOOOOOM

Like thunder, Cait’s foot stomped Nina’s. Not enough to hurt the young gothic woman, but plenty to double David’s hell. “How do you like my feet now?” She chuckled as she looked down at their feet. “I bet he’s down there licking your foot now the little bastard.”

“Cait!” Nina hopped back with a livid tone. “How could you? You’re his friend! And you too Mary!”

They both just shrugged.

“I can’t believe you two!” Nina lifted her foot and glanced at the meek, helpless little David. “It’s okay David. I’ll figure something out. Kim did this, right?”

David weakly nodded. He already knew how this scene was gonna play out. The exact same way it always had. All he could do was just play his part to keep things moving along. It didn’t matter anyway.

Nina huffed and carefully approached the door, essentially hopping on one leg as she neared her shoes. A thought crossed her mind and she grimaced. “Just hang on man, I’ll get Kim to undo this. But I’ll need my shoes. Just…try to hold on okay?”

Thus, his friend very gingerly slipped her foot into her shoes. From there the curse did its magic to undo the whole scene. Nina blinked. “Huh? What was I…?” She looked around, perplexed to see her two friends casually seated together. “You guys?”

“You joining us or what?” Mary asked, her own memory of the affair already altered as well.

“I…” Nina paused. “I…guess so…”

Within her shoes David could feel a deep weight within his chest. There was no escape from his fate. He was doomed to spend the rest of his life beneath Nina’s foot. Before long even she likely won’t care about or remember him. He’d just be an insect beneath her foot, desperately clinging to life with the dirt decorating her soles and her sweat. As he realized that David wept, and braced himself for another long night beneath his best friend.