An ear-piercing klaxon forced me out of the most restful sleep of my life, and the ground shifted violently before it ceased. The sheet over me was thrown clear, revealing bright sunlight pouring through a pair of humongous windows. Beneath me the ground rotated until it was sideways, dumping me off so that I bounced against the mattress. A flurry of movement ensued, with the massive form of the person I had been resting on creating a deep crater that I began rolling into, then launched itself up, tossing me into the air so that I came back down and bobbed on the mattress.
Awareness flooded back into my head as I watched my titanic girlfriend walk into the bathroom, and I remembered what happened last night. Fulda had shrunk me until I was about an inch in height, and narrowly saved my life from her friends. She’d had rather a lot of fun with my new size, entirely at my expense, and didn’t seem keen on letting me go. It wasn’t even clear if she remembered I had slept on her, or that I was still in her bed.
The shower turned on with a squeak, and I pressed my eyelids back together to try to get back to sleep. I had desperately hoped that everything from prom onward last night had been a weird dream brought on by Fulda, her friends, and her sisters always teasing me about my height. After all, people couldn’t actually shrink, right? It had to have been my overactive imagination coupled with all those people messing with me.
While I listened to the powerful shower jets spraying water I racked my brain to think of what could cause this delusion, and concluded that it must be Gina. When I first came over to Fulda’s house six months ago I had met her for the first time, and saw that we were at eye level to each other. She immediately began teasing me for being so short, and when I pointed out that we were the same height she reminded me that she was barely a teenager. Then she said something I’d never forget. “One day I’m going to tower over you. You’re going to be so small compared to me that I’ll be able to step on you, and I just might.”
Over the next few months it definitely seemed like that was happening. Every time I went over to Fulda’s house, she and Jessica would come running to greet me, and I didn’t get the feeling it was out of joy. They always stood an inch or two away from me and looked down, looming over me, and each time Gina was taller, sometimes by several inches. “Looks like I grew some more,” she would say, “or you’re that much smaller.” Her teasing last night must have finally gotten under my skin, and after Anni trapped me between herself and Fulda it became full-on delirium. There was no way I had shrunk: it was all in my head.
The door swung open and Fulda’s footsteps thundered throughout the room, making it so I could no longer even pretend I was getting back to sleep. She stopped at the foot of her bed and I opened my eyes so I could look at her gigantic frame looming over me. It looked like she was going to the gym, with a tight t-shirt sporting her volleyball team’s logo clinging to her chest and a pair of very small spandex shorts around her waist. I fell squarely within her shadow, and she looked down at me exposed on the wide open plain of her bed. No, this was all too real.
Fulda bent over and extended a hand down to me, fingers spread wide like the roots of a mighty tree. When it seemed like her palm was about to engulf me her thumb and forefinger moved inward, pinching me at the waist. She plucked me from atop her mattress and held me at eye level, looking at me apologetically. “I am so sorry,” she began, “I forgot that I have volleyball practice today and I absolutely have to go. Don’t worry, I’ll drop you off at your house before I go.”
Buoyed between her fingers I looked in her enormous eyes and spotted what I thought was regret. “Oh, fine,” I said, exaggerating my disappointment. “If you want though you can grow me back now and I’ll call for a ride, it’s no big deal.”
Fulda cocked her head to the side and looked at me as though I had just told her I was the average height for an adult man. “Huh? Oh, no, that’s not what’s happening here,” she finally said when her mind caught up. “I was serious last night, you’re going to be tiny for a long time. That’s your house.” She pointed at a dollhouse she kept by her desk and crossed the room to it, lowering me down to her waist as she went.
I had always wondered why she had a dollhouse in her room, and such a nice one, despite having outgrown them years ago. She knelt in front of the miniature house and pressed me into her palm with her index finger, then reached out and seized the roof. With one swift movement she yanked the roof off, revealing that top floor of her toy house. Slowly she lowered me into the open house then took her finger off me, dropping me into what appeared to be the bedroom.
After a brief fall I landed in a crouch, then stood and turned back to Fulda. It seemed to me as though a giantess had torn the roof off my house and was now surveying the contents, trying to pick out a tiny inhabitant to grab or simply basking in her power before moving on to more destruction. I had to admit that the look suited her well, though I would never tell her that out of fear of encouraging her.
“This is your home for now,” Fulda declared, her rumbling voice breaking my train of thought. “Look around, make yourself at home. I’m sure you’ll find it much more comfortable than you expect. I even put some tiny books in there for you to read. I’ll be back in a few hours, we’ll play some more then, all right?” She moved to place the roof back and I called out to stop her.
“Wait!” I shouted. “I’m pretty sure your sisters know I’m here, and I’m worried they’ll come looking for me. Could you please take me with you, or at least grow me a little so they can’t hurt me too much?”
Fulda grinned. “Don’t worry about them,” she said. “They know that if they come into my room there’ll be hell to pay, doubly so if they mess with something. Just stay in your house and you’ll be fine, I promise.” Before I could say anything else she slid the roof back into place, casting me back into almost total darkness, and jammed something against the front door. I took a step forward to look out the window and saw that she had barred the door close with one of her monumental Converse. She stood and walked away, her footsteps shaking the frame of my house, and I watched through the window as she shook her butt back and forth, the compression fabric around it exaggerating each small movement or jiggle.
She closed the door behind her, and I began to survey my new house in the dim light provided by the window. Everything looked sized perfectly for me, from the unmade bed to the full bookcase and even the surprisingly detailed doorways. Sets of clothes roughly my size littered the floor, but beyond that the place was mostly clean. I got the distinct impression that this place had been used lately, almost lived in, and Fulda was certainly too old to be playing with dolls anymore. That’s when it dawned on me: I wasn’t the first person Fulda had shrunk, and I wouldn’t be the last.
My knees went weak, and I sank into a surprisingly comfortable chair that had been put in the corner, complete with miniature upholstery. How many had been before me, I wondered? At least however many sets of clothes there were, and I easily picked out a dozen distinct ones in this room alone. There were other rooms too, no telling how many, possibly stuffed to bursting with tiny clothes. Or bodies, I thought, but quickly shook the thought from my head.
I needed to clear my head and get a better look around, this had to have looked much worse than it was. There’s no way my girlfriend was a mass-murdering psychopath. With effort I forced myself out of the chair and leaned against the wall until I made it to the surprisingly wide hallway, a stairwell going down at the far end.
Before I could start walking the door opened again. I turned and looked out the window, expecting to see that Fulda had come back, either to grab something she had forgotten or take me with her after a change of heart. Instead of her bronze-colored legs however a pair of alabaster white ones came around the door, their feet clad only in stark white ankle socks. I stood entranced as they drew closer, each step shaking the house with the giantess’s approach, until an almost painfully white shin filled the window. The leg drew back and the features of a huge body scrolled past the window until it was filled again with a bright blue eye, the iris similar to Fulda’s but… different. Her pupil immediately found me, then a light blond braid swung between us. Shit. One of her sisters.
The eye disappeared, replaced with a white shirt pulled tight over her stomach, and I stood still in shock. Violently the roof was torn off its hinges, and leaning over the opening where the roof had been was Jessica, looking intoxicated with her power. I wanted to run but couldn’t, my feet nailed to the ground with fear and my mouth agape at the majesty of a giantess at the start of her rampage. She looked to be enjoying the situation too, then she opened her mouth and bellowed, “Gina! He’s in here!”
Jessica’s sonic assault blasted my ears and ripped me out of my trance, and I dashed for the nearby stairs. Jessica anticipated my move and swung her hand down into the hallway, clipping my shoulder with the edge of her fingertip. She hit me with such force that I was lifted off the floor and thrown into the wall next to me, cracking it from floor to ceiling. I slid down the wall and hit the floor hard, every single part of me aching. The concussive force left me dazed and unable to do more than twitch my digits and moan in pain.
Fulda’s sister reached in and grabbed me by the shoulders, and I could do nothing but hang limply in her iron grip. She lifted me over the wall and turned to face the rest of the room, opening her fingers during the spin so that I tumbled down to the carpet. I hit hard and rolled, having been dropped from knee level, but thanks to the soft carpeting I was able to avoid any broken bones. For the moment I laid still, feeling my consciousness slipping away, and wondered what I had done to deserve this.
“Get up.” A stern, booming voice stopped me from passing out, and I looked up blearily to see the white fibers of a sock pulled tight over a foot. Unsure if I could even comply I ignored the command. “I said get up,” came the voice again, and I felt a shadow drop over me. I looked up again and saw the socked foot stretched over me, about an inch above my head, giving me a very obvious threat. “Do it, or I’ll grind you into the carpet,” she said, needlessly giving voice to the threat.
My joints burned as I pushed myself off the carpet, and my body roared in pain when I stood on my own two legs. Fighting the urge to scream I reached up and grabbed onto one of the sock’s loose fibers to help remain standing. The foot remained poised above me, and I worried that she was going to bring it down atop me. “He’s up,” came a voice behind me. “Time for fun.”
I let go of the sky-darkening sock before it withdrew, and it set down in front of me, close enough to tickle my nose. My legs and back roared in agony and I fell forward, leaning against the big toe of the gigantic foot. The soft cotton accommodated me, and I looked up to see which of Fulda’s sisters almost crushed me with such zeal. Slowly my gaze followed the towering white legs up to her meager coverings, then up to her face. She was looking back down at me leaning on her toe for support with a grin, and my blood chilled. Gina. It didn’t take a genius to know that Jessica was behind me.
“Hey Jess, you notice something different about him?” Gina asked, her booming voice still finding a way to be annoying. She grinned at their pre-arranged mockery.
Jess paused for a moment as though considering it before answering. “Can’t say I do. Why, do you?”
“Hm. No, not really. He looks just as small as ever.” Gina’s booming taunts were doing a good job of amusing herself and nothing else. “Maybe we finally hit those growth spurts?”
“Maybe. I do feel absolutely gigantic next to him, but that’s not really new. You should ask him about it.”
“Good idea! Hey little guy! Are you smallllllll, or are we huuuuuuge?” Oh great, this again. I didn’t even bother answering her stupid question, since it would only feed into more of her teasing.
Gina’s foot shot forward, striking me in the head with her big toe and continuing forward. She set the foot down on top of me, holding me under the softest part of her instep. Luckily the immaculately clean sock filtered out the smell, and the plush carpet didn’t push back too hard. After a few seconds though I began to panic and thrashed, trying to escape from under her foot. I pushed on it and unsurprisingly found it impossible to move, then tried to crawl out from under it. Nothing I did was any use though, and she held me firmly in place beneath her sole. “I can feel him squirming!” she declared, twitching her toes so that her food arched. “This is so cool! Jess, you have to try it!”
After some more struggling she pulled her foot off me, letting me breathe freely once more. “Get up,” Gina demanded again, and though everything in my body told me to stay down I knew it would only get worse. I clenched my teeth and forced myself up, grabbing onto her socks to help stand back up. Once the struggle was over I leaned against her toe again, desperately hoping I didn’t fall back down. “When we ask you something you answer it, pipsqueak. Now: are you small, like a bug, or are we huge giantesses?”
“Maybe the problem is the question,” Jess offered. “The way you’re asking it is an either-or, where either he’s tiny or we’re gigantic, but it’s entirely possible that he’s tiny and we’re gigantic. You know, like usual.”
“Oh yeah, good point.” Gina bared her teeth before she resumed her questioning. “Are you an itty-bitty pest down there by our feet, little guy?”
“Hey, no fair, that’s a different question.”
“Shut up, I can’t hear the pest’s answer. And he’s going to answer, since he knows we can do much worse than that.” She had a point. Though I was beaten and bruised nothing was broken, and they could crush me quite easily.
“Yes, I’m very small,” I shouted up to Gina, hoping that my tiny voice could reach her ears. A beat passed and her eyes lit up, accompanied by a very broad smile.
“He answered! I knew it, he’s incredibly tiny!” Gina seemed way too excited that I answered her leading question. “Now answer my other question: are we incredibly tall giantesses who tower over you and could snuff your life out with a single step?”
“Again, you’re asking him a different question,” Jess broke in. “Of course we are, he’s tiny, that doesn’t tell us whether we’re actually enormous.”
“Let him answer!” Gina shouted back, fury tinging her voice. “You have five seconds, little guy.”
“Um, well.” The time limit shouldn’t have complicated things, but it made me incredibly nervous as the seconds ticked down. Gina held up her fingers and curled one inward for each second that passed. “While those things are true, you aren’t towering giantesses. You’re just a lot taller than average. Hell, neither of you are even taller than Fulda.”
“Wrong answer, twerp!” Gina bellowed, lifting her foot high into the air. Her toe nudged me during its ascent, knocking me on my back so that I could see it stop right above me. Just as quickly as it raised she brought it down, moving fast enough there was no way I could avoid her stomp. Jess’s hand shot forward, hitting Gina in the ankle and knocking her foot off course. Her stomp landed just next to me, close enough that if Jess had waited a millisecond longer I would have been beneath it. The force from her stomp dissipated through the floor and engulfed me, rattling my insides and making my teeth chatter. Gina was not kidding around.
“He’s not here to massage your ego,” Jessica broke in. “He just said we’re not gigantic, but admitted that we are to him. That makes perfect sense after he admitted he’s a teensy-weensy little insect scurrying about our feet. It just means that we’re right, nothing’s different.”
Gina appeared placated by Jess’s explanation, and looked at me lying on the ground. Instead of demanding I stand yet again she said, “Yeah, I guess you’re right. That means we still have our growth spurts coming, and you know what that means? We’re going to be even more gigantic soon! You’re going to be, like, a speck of dust compared to us or something! Isn’t that exciting?”
“Actually, I am a lot smaller than normal, you see last night-“
Gina raised up her foot and slammed it into the ground beside me again, cutting me off with the tremendous shockwave from her stomp. “You’ll speak when spoken to, pipsqueak!” she screamed. “Now.” She took a second to compose herself before continuing in her usual annoying tone. “Why are you so smalllllll?”
I absolutely despised this question. Gina had been asking it to me every single time I saw her for the past six months. It wasn’t just whenever I came to their house, it was school events, Fulda’s cheerleading competitions and volleyball games, any time we rode in the car together. One time she even cornered me in the store and pressed me against a shelf full of soda until I ducked under her arms and ran. Never before had I answered it, but Gina wasn’t going to let me blow it off now. This time though I had an answer. “Well, like I was saying, last night Fulda shrank me to this size. That’s why I’m down at your feet rather than your shoulders.”
“Did you just blame our sister for you being this tiny?” Jessica broke in with a haughty tone. “You better hope she never hears that. I’ll go ahead and drill some respect into you so that she never does.” Her foot shot forward and set down atop me, sandwiching me between her big toe and the ball of her foot. The fresh sock scrunched up when she flexed her toe, then she backed it over me. I rolled along the carpet while her toe pressed into me, then came to a stop with it pressing me into the soft carpet. She extended her toe again, rolling me with it, until she could no longer move it any further. This happened several more times, her clean sock pulled tight around her foot keeping me from getting too battered, before she relented and moved her foot off me.
“Let’s try that again,” Gina began. She knelt, digging her knee into the carpet next to my feet, then set her hands down on either side of me. Slowly she moved her legs back and lowered herself until her face loomed over me. Her girlish features were lost on me when her face blotted out everything else, and she looked venomous rather than innocent. “Why. Are. You. So. Small?” She practically spat each word, her mouth coming closer and threatening to engulf me with each syllable.
I sputtered for an answer, absolutely terrified of her being this close. Gina’s eyebrows drew inward and she raised her hand, threatening to bring it down atop me. No matter how hard I tried though nothing came. All I could focus on was the enormous hand cocked and ready to strike.
“Gina, wait,” Jess said, squatting over me. Gina looked up at her sister, showing me the familiar view of underneath her chin, and lowered her hand. “We don’t want Fulda to catch us in here if we get carried away, do we?” The younger giantess shook her head, and Jessica continued. “Let’s take him back to my room so we can really have some fun.” She excitedly nodded and stood, just missing me with her enormous feet again. Jessica smirked and her pale blue eyes danced, then she lowered a hand toward me. Her fingers clamped me around the waist and she picked me up out of the carpet, stood to her impressive height, and strode out the door.