I woke up, the horrible feeling of waking up when you're sick was the first thing I realised; the sore throat, the blocked nose, the weak knees. God, what time is it? Leaning over the edge of the couch I saw the long rectangle of orange light cast on the laminated wooden floor, an indicator it was still morning. I had never been this sick before, I could barely breath, I was sweating, an awful fever, everything. Mom was probably already at work, knowing Jie and my sister they were still asleep. I needed water, I summoned all the strength in body to push the heavy blankets off me, I summoned even more to stand up. The only thing I was wearing were my tighty-whities. I hobbled over to the kitchen, probably looking like some weary traveller. As I entered the kitchen my head began to swim, I couldn't breath, what's wrong with me? I need help, please, anyone. I collapsed onto the floor, the spinning ceiling fan was the last thing I saw.
Boom, boom, boom, boom
I awoke again, a strange deep rumble filling my ears, but the ceiling fan was still high above, making me remember, almost traumatically, the events that just unfolded. Now with the added benefit of me being perfectly fine.
Boom, boom, boom, boom
What was that? I should probably get up, luckily I was feeling spry, so I leaped up as fast as I could. My heart sank to my ankles, I was expecting to the fridge in front of me, and I did, except that it was so massive I could see into the crack underneath it. I had shrunk, the dreaded shrinking virus, surprisingly common, but only affecting people with a rare blood type. This was the kind of thing that happened to *other* people, not me. I heard to horror stories of people being stepped on or thrown in the trash accidentally, I needed help.
BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM
Connecting the glaringly obvious dots, I realised that was someone plodding around, and it sounded clo-
BOOM, BOOM, BOOM
Jie just stepped into the kitchen. She was like a skyscraper, her socked feet connecting to her monstrous pale white legs, leading up to a pair of excessively short shorts.
"Hello? Tom" her cute Chinese accent replaced with a monstrous thunderstorm of a voice, I couldn't help but to gape and her size. "Aiiah, he left his underpants on the ground." I just realised that I was completely naked, my oversized briefs directly behind me. Jie started to approach, her colossal thigh muscles lifting her legs up and forward. Each time her socked foot hit the ground, I could see the fibres absorbing the impact, creating a giant muffled shock wave. I was frozen in fear, as she came closer I needed to crane my neck more and more to see her face, the booming growing louder. Should I shout? Get her attention? She might crush me? I was drawn out of my thought by the impact of her left socked foot metres away from me. I could see the dirt caught in the fibres under her toes, just shorter than me, and the gentle green slope above them, it looked like some giant hill. As I stared up, I saw her gentle face come closer as she bent down, her giant brown eyes and deep red lipstick focused on my giant underpants, her colossal talon sweeping from the heavens to pick it up when the eyes locked onto me.
"Tom! I didn't know you were a shrinky person!" Jie held me mere inches from her face, but at my scale it was still quite a distance. As the words came out of her deep red mouth, the warm air pushed into me like a heavy wind causing legs to sway, my upper body too firmly locked in by the soft pads of her fingers, the prints pushing into my tender skin.
"This is so cool! My friends will be jealous!" she ended with a giggle.
"J-jealous?" I blurted out.
"What was that Tom? Your cute little mouth is too quiet." her breath washing over me again.
"Why would they be jealous?" I shouted out, surprisingly confidently.
"Because I have my own white American slave!"
"What!? I'm a person, this is illegal!"
"Oh you silly Americans, in China we know shrinkies aren't really human anymore. It was a punishment from the gods, this is your role in life. It is okay, you can spend time with my feet, you might like it eventually." Jie was giggling this whole time. Her eyes lighting up with cheeky glee. I couldn't believe this, a slave? To her feet? This was sick, what was she going to do. Suddenly she gripped me in her hand, softly, her humid skin acting like an oven for me. If this was her hand, what would her feet be like? She ran up stairs, into my room, and shut the door behind her.
"Okay, as my slave, I need to give you a slave name. How about, hmm... Mayi!"
I was standing on my oversized desk, her socked feet towering high above me. This was humiliating. Would she really take me back to China and show me off to all her friends?
"So, Mayi, as your first test you need to kiss my toe, very easy."
Looking up at the socked feet, towering above me like buildings, I had a sense of fear, she could annihilate me so easily, with a single step, or press, or whatever. She reached out to her foot and pinched the top of the sock, peeling it off her foot, leaving behind green lint on her soles, she wiggled her toes, showing off her black nail polish a little bit. She angled her foot towards me, just letting her toes hang off the side of the desk, wiggling them right in front of me.
"Go, kiss, kiss!" She smiled at me, was this a joke?
I stepped forward, only to be hit in the face by the smell, the smell of feet, a thousand time stronger than I had ever smelled it. I recoiled back.
"Your feet are gross!" I shouted back in protest.
"Oh, very rude. This is your first day, so I will be lenient. Perhaps you need training, not like cheap Chinese toy from drug store." Her face went back to deep thought. "Okay, I have idea." She reached over to me, picking me up in her predatory talons. She crouched down with me in her hand, down by her bed.
"You get used to smell in here, I come back tomorrow morning, if hungry eat sole." she was putting me inside her shoe. I tried to fight, but I don't think she noticed. Putting me deep in her shoe, the humid environment as smelly as her stinking toes. "See you tomorrow Mayi!" she said as her parting words, stuffing the green sock into the shoe, increasing the smell even more, cutting out the light.
I sat down, the toxic environment choking me. I began to cry, how could she be so cruel? I lay down and tried to sleep. Maybe I would get used to the smell.