What an unfortunate date that turned out to be. If one could even call it that. Lygia had high hopes for this one, but as she’d found out the hard way, sometimes even she could be wrong. After arriving a good few minutes early she’d found herself waiting for well over an hour before finally accepting the sad fact that she’d been stood up.
“I love that restaurant too.” The beautiful woman grumbled as she slid her sandals off near the wall and began to close the door behind her.
Maybe he’d just mixed up the dates or something, but given the lack of replies to her texts Lygia doubted it. Frowning, she reached back into her pocket to check one last time. Nothing. No new messages. No missed calls. Not even an apology.
“Bastard.” She whispered under her breath, fingering through her phone contacts before starting to enter her home proper.
-------------------
Mark had never been this scared in his life. Nothing could have possibly compared to the fact that a towering woman had returned to the very house he was currently trying to rob. His blood turned to ice and his limbs began to tremble uncontrollably. He had to move, he knew as much, but fear rooted him to the floor in petrified terror.
Never in the year he’d spent doing this had this ever happened. He’d always taken such care to never let it happen. It didn’t take a genius to realize the one critical flaw to shrinking yourself to steal things was other people. That was why he was always careful. So why?
Whatever the reason was, this was the reality now. With a single footstep Lygia made the world around her rumble with her presence. The soft words she was mumbling under her breath rattled Mark’s eardrums more than he could’ve imagined and she was still in a completely different room. As much as his body screamed to move he simply couldn’t. His eyes were rooted to the doorway that Lygia was approaching, morbid curiosity forcing him to lock eyes with the woman who would be able to crush him like an insect.
Fittingly, what first came into view was one of her feet. Bare with well-kept, unpainted toes, it fell idly after crossing a distance that took Mark minutes in a single second. Perfectly plush, shapely toes pressed into the floorboards and splayed until they turned red from the pressure; with its companion already swinging into view behind it. In its own way it was more terrifying than anything Mark could’ve expected. The middle-aged man felt a primal fear take hold of him. It may have been nothing more than a simple foot, but he was very much looking at his natural predator.
There was something majestic about seeing something as large as Lygia move. It was almost otherworldly to see her make smooth, consistent movements. Like the furniture it baffled the mind on an instinctual level and left a horde of mixed feelings welling within. Then Lygia stepped into view completely.
He’d never actually seen the woman himself, Mark had left that strictly to Duncan, so perhaps what struck him as most surprising was how beautiful of a woman Lygia truly was. Perhaps because of her size he expected something repulsive, something more akin to a monster. What he got instead was a woman that made his jaw drop.
At a guess he’d have played her in her early 40’s. There was a definite air of maturity to her, but also a surprising youthfulness to her visage. Perhaps it was a trick with makeup or the way the light struck her, but she lacked much in the way of wrinkles or crow’s feet. Short, dark hair wrapped around her delicate features in a perfectly kept bob with curly bangs to accommodate. Her clothing was as basic as Mark’s was, merely some jeans and a red t-shirt that was admittedly a bit low cut but nothing too extravagant.
It was likely the size inspiring the sheer awe he felt moreso than her actual beauty, but still, for a moment he was captivated. Then reality crept back in and he realized everything else. He realized the downward curl of her plush lips. The furrowed brows indicating frustration. The indignant stare she was levying to the phone in her hand as she pressed at the screen. Most of all though, Mark remembered he was a mere inch-tall in the middle of the floor and finally found the resolve to move.
Before he even realized it, he was already running, booking it as hard as he could across the wooden floors. The nearest shelter was the couch. If he could just make it there he could hide until she left again and go back out the door. It was a plan with slim chances, but it was all he had. Still, his morbid curiosity made him look back over his shoulder.
Lygia still paid no mind to anything aside from her phone, calmly walking as she tapped away at it. Unfortunately, she was walking right towards Mark.
“No!” The man screamed aloud as he turned back to focus on ahead. He didn’t need to look back to know Lygia was gaining on him. Each soft thud of her smooth soles rumbled right behind him at every second, each one feeling dangerously closer than the last. No matter how fast or in what direction he ran, Mark couldn’t seem to escape their wake. In a mere couple seconds her shadow was cast over him and he felt her toes graze his lowly body.
That in itself wasn’t bad, but the sudden touch knocked the man off balance, much like if he’d been shoved by someone strong like Duncan. His impressive sprint had been interrupted and he stumbled a couple steps. All Lygia needed to get him. Mark turned his head one last time in the final moments and saw every detail of Lygia’s foot mere inches away from him. Every crevice. Every wrinkle. Every single solitary inch of the doughy skin as it constantly shifted weight and color to accommodate Lygia. It was all emblazoned into Mark’s mind.
Useless as it was, he lifted his arms to try and stave it off but of course Lygia’s foot easily overpowered him. Her sole forced him back, ultimately smashing him into the floor with relentless force.
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“Aaaaand…deleted.” Lygia huffed as she felt some small comfort in deleting the shallow man from her contacts list. Sadly, it was far from the first time a match-up hadn’t gone well. Was it really so hard to find a good man who wasn’t a complete asshole? Apparently. Still, Lygia pushed aside the negativity as best she could as she sauntered over to take a seat on the couch. “Stand me up?” She grumbled one last time while tossing her phone onto the cushions. Sometimes she really did wish there was some way she could make jerks like that pay, but really that was beneath her.
For now, the mature woman reached over for the TV remote and casually turned the machine on, leaning back to prop her feet atop her table. “Guess it’s a good thing I didn’t go all out. Would’ve hated to be stuck in heels during all that.” She remised while idly rubbing one foot against the other.
Television didn’t seem to quite offer the comforts she’d been seeking though. Almost immediately Lygia found herself greeted by some sort of reality show featuring idiotic people arguing over nothing. “No thanks.” She changed the channel to more of the same and changed it again just as fast.
Oh hey, the news. She noted with vague interest. It appeared the newscaster, an elderly man, was just wrapping up one story and moving onto the next.
“In other news…” He began with a notable pause for dramatic timing, “Police are still searching for suspects in the Myer’s Robbery Case. Just last week the residents, a couple who had been out on vacation, came home to find their house cleaned out of jewelry and other small valuables. It appeared the thieves only stole pocketable items and thankfully nobody was hurt. However, police are still searching and the culprits are still at large. It is believed that this is the latest in a string of similar robberies beginning late last year...”
“Robberies…” Lygia repeated with a weary sigh. Just what was this world coming to if the police couldn’t even catch some simple criminals? A part of her wanted to believe the crooks weren’t bad people, but still, she hoped they got exactly what they deserved.
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Mark wasn’t sure if there was a Hell, but if there was he might’ve found it.
Despite everything his instincts said, Lygia’s step did not kill him. Logically he expected as much and shouldn’t have been surprised but the overwhelming fear the titaness inspired was a potent thing. Unfortunately, perhaps he would’ve been better off had he simply been crushed.
It had only lasted a moment, yet it was without a doubt the most excruciatingly painful moment of Mark’s adult life. His entire body sank in on itself, compressed by the might of Lygia’s sheer weight as her sole conformed around him. The crushing weight punished but never killed, instead offering an incredible pain that felt much like a truck had fallen over him. It was an unbearable torment that his body somehow endured. The plush, soft skin completely enveloped and overpowered his senses. Each breath was Lygia’s scent. Everything he felt was her foot. For a single moment her foot was his world and nothing he did could free himself of that.
As the foot lifted back up he dared to hope that he would be left behind, crushed but otherwise fine. While it rose back up though it became painfully clear that was not the case. Where Lygia’s foot went so too did Mark, adhered firmly into her doughy sole like dirt. So it was that she took another step and he got to experience all the torment of the last one anew.
If there was a silver lining it was that Lygia still hadn’t seemed to have noticed him, much too engrossed in her phone; and then, in her TV.
Lygia propping her feet atop the table was a momentary reprieve Mark was immediately thankful for. He was still deeply embedded in her heel but at least he wasn’t being stepped on. That in itself was a blessing. He tried to move but even that proved impossible while his limbs were buried in foot flesh and forcing them free was quickly shown to be more difficult than he might’ve expected.
Were that all it would’ve been fine. Difficult, but doable. Terrifying, but something he could deal with. However, it seemed Lygia had other plans in store for Mark; as her foot pressed in on its peer and he found himself forced right back into the thickness of her sole.
“Guh!” The surprising pressure elicited a gasp that he immediately regretted as his mouth was suddenly filled with the taste of bare skin. A slight sting of salt graced his tongue that he regrettably recognized as sweat and fought the urge to retch. At least the pressure this time around wasn’t as painful, but it did assure Mark was going nowhere.
Perhaps the cruelest part of all of it was the fact Lygia wasn’t even trying to torment him. She just was. She was a woman simply watching TV, playing with her feet like anyone would. It was Mark, being the small helpless one, who simply couldn’t fight back against such a mundane thing. Nothing the man did seemed to make himself budge an inch whereas Lygia’s movements constantly toyed with him. If it wasn’t her feet pressing against one another it was the way her muscles flexed and contorted around him, ensnaring him in some sort of vice grip and idly squeezing his little body.
Please…Stop… The fully grown adult man who’d turned to a life of crime felt his eyes begin to water. This degrading pain was simply too much and he just wanted it to end. If this was what shrinking himself could do to him, then he swore he’d never shrink down again.
-------------------
“Police are also still on the lookout for Mark Sanders.” The TV proceeded neatly into the next news story as Lygia watched with only mild interest. The screen shifted to a picture of a middle-aged bald man standing amidst a group in some sort of facility.
“Sanders was formerly a security guard at Andromeda Labs and is currently the main suspect of a theft regarding experimental technology. Thus far the police have refused to comment on just what this technology is, but if you have any information please call the number below.”
Lygia briefly noted the number with disinterest and sighed. “Can’t the news be about something good for once?” She bemoaned before turning her eyes down to the table and away from the depressing newscast.
Something’s stuck to my foot. It took a moment but she most certainly felt it now. A pebble it felt like, but weirdly more malleable. Whatever it was, she lazily leaned back and brought her toes in towards one of her soles to remedy it. In the mean time she reached for the remote and began cycling through channels again.
-------------------
Needless to say, despite all his moans and pleas for Lygia to stop she did no such thing. After all, she had no idea Mark even existed so why should she? As seemed to be the case since the mountainous giant had appeared, things only got worse.
It started with a momentary increase in pressure, almost like Lygia was actively trying to crush him all of a sudden. Mark let out a gasp of all his remaining air as he was pounded by the heel of Lygia’s other foot. Both of her mature soles met haphazardly with him caught between, trapped while creamy skin assaulted his body from all directions. Although muffled, Mark continued to cry out from the sheer agony the giant was causing; begging for her to stop for all the good it did.
With his face deeply embedded in foot he had no way of knowing, but Lygia’s foot pulled away from its peer to make way for her toes. The biggest of them drew near Mark and without warning tore into him. Until this point it had all been circumstantial, but there was no doubt that now the woman was actively going after him. The pad of her big toe pressed him even deeper into her sole before shifting and grinding roughly against his body, trying to dig him out of the thick swathe of skin that entrapped him.
“N-Ngnh!” The shrunken man winced in pain and dug his fingers into the skin, unconsciously holding on to the very sole he was yearning to escape from. The toe lowered into it was pointed right at him, its immaculate nail glistening in the soft light of the room before digging into Mark’s side. With its feminine length and sharp edge it felt much like a blade and cut through his clothing with relative ease. Somehow though it didn’t cut the man himself; instead it reached in and hooked him from the other side, effectively snagging his arm before yanking back.
Mark screamed shamelessly into Lygia’s foot at that moment. His shoulder let out a worrisome crack with Lygia’s latest maneuver, but his hands felt the open air at last. Lygia’s toenail had succeeded in digging out a limb. Albeit, it felt like it came at the expense of the man’s shoulder.
Was this how bugs felt? Mark wondered in a moment of eerie lucidity. He was only trapped against a woman’s foot. It couldn’t have been more than a few millimeters deep and yet it felt like he’d been trapped so thoroughly. Despite all his efforts, escape was just impossible and Lygia had unconsciously imprisoned and tormented him. Never in all of his life had he felt so thoroughly helpless. He was a fully-grown man but against a giant he truly was no different from an insect. Even now with an arm freed it wasn’t because he did anything. It was because Lygia had.
Before he could seize the moment though the nail came right back, digging deeper and grasping more of his body. Pain shot through Mark’s shoulder again as his entire right side was lost in the underside of Lygia’s toenail, the tip digging right into his torso before there was another forceful shove of his lowly body.
This one was the final straw needed to fully remove his body at last it seemed. Everything moved suddenly and quickly but he realized he was in the open air again, falling the ten or so feet it took to reach the table below.
“Ugh…” Every part of his body felt numb and pulsated with minor pain. When all was said and done he couldn’t have been stuck to Lygia’s foot for more than a few minutes. The aches and pains were such that Mark knew he’d be feeling it for days though. Still, he was free and took solace in that. Finally, it was done. Alas, the reprieve was short-lived when he became aware of the booming sounds of a gasp from far above. There was a notable suction like a vacuum coming from the sky that drew Mark’s eyes…right into Lygia’s.
The woman’s eyes were wide with surprise at what she was looking at. A split second later her bare sole blocked off the view once again before slamming into the man once again.
-------------------
What the…?
Lygia’s foot had moved before she even processed what she had seen. Instinct took over and stamped down on the tiny creature she’d dug out of her foot but it was only now that she had already done so that her mind processed it all.
The size had to have been a bug and yet it was unlike any bug the woman had ever seen before. The colors were too bright and its shape and size were large enough that it…actually seemed like she was looking at a little person. But that couldn’t be right. It was impossible….right?
She looked down to her foot. Whatever was down there was still down there squirming. No doubt about it. Thus, her foot began to lift as she gave it a cautious look. There was no way she saw that right but sure enough. Laying there dazed and groaning atop her living room table was a tiny man.
Surprise fluttered in her chest as she shifted her feet back to lean forward. “Ah, are you okay?” It felt weird to ask such a thing of a person she just tried to crush but she couldn’t just leave him either. This was a person after all. Given the oddity of the situation it was all she could do to even manage that small formality.
For a moment, he seemed to lay still, allowing Lygia a better look at him as he ever so slowly began to stir. An older man it seemed, he had a shaved head bordering on palm and simple, surprisingly normal clothes on. A few notable holes in his clothing drew Lygia’s eye too, the size and shape making her look back over to her toes worriedly. This was all too weird to take all at once, but weirder still was how familiar the small person looked to her.
He began to stir after a few more moments and sat upright, groaning audibly as he held his shoulder. Not too surprising considering the pounding Lygia had just given him. A twang of guilt struck her while she watched. Slowly, the man turned to look at her, fear apparent on his face. “P-Please don’t crush me!” His minuscule voice screamed, sounding surprisingly high-pitched courtesy of his size. With no immediate response from her, he began to shuffle back along the table, further and further from Lygia while never looking away. She could only watch in stunned curiosity as he did so.
“Relax, I’m not going to hurt you.” Lygia held her hands up to try and ease the terrified man. She couldn’t blame him after she tried to crush him like she had, but she was no monster. Despite her undoubtedly imposing figure looming over him. She tried to crouch lower, bringing her large face closer still to bring some semblance of assurance. Her face was mere inches from both the table and the man, a soft smile gracing it. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to step on you like that.”
The man stared blankly at her in disbelief, silent. As did Lygia herself. After all, what does a woman say to an inch-tall man? What does a shrunken man say to a towering giant woman? Neither seemed to know and so there was a moment of silence. One that seemed to go on forever before the man awkwardly shook his head.
“I-It’s okay…”
Well at the very least he seemed like he wasn’t too injured, so that was good. “What are you doing here? What…are you? Are you a person?” Lygia had a lot of questions and they just sort of started escaping her lips one after another.
“O-Of course I’m a person!” The man fired back before looking away. “I…I…” It didn’t take a genius to see the unease and guilt the questions imposed on him. He looked everywhere but at Lygia, seemingly searching for the answers himself. “I’m here because…uh…Well…”
The obviously shady behavior dimmed the older woman’s smile somewhat, her own mind running rampant with ideas. “Do you have a name?” She asked softly.
“Mark…” The man replied before jumping, his own eyes widening like he’d slipped up.
“Mark huh? Well-“ Lygia suddenly stopped as it clicked. She’d seen this man not even five minutes ago on the television. “You’re the one the police are looking for!” She exclaimed and pulled back, a very prominent frown now on her lovely face. “The one who stole from that Lab! Wait…were you trying to steal from me?” Her arms crossed as she narrowed her gaze at the little man. Suddenly a lot more things were starting to make sense.
“N-No!”
“Then why are you here?”
“B-Because! I….We…No I mean…You….” Mark stuttered the beginning of several sentences without managing to continue even a single one of them. The terrifying form of Lygia glaring down at him had thoroughly crushed any hopes he’d had of talking his way out of this, leaving him jabbering in place until the woman’s fist slammed down into the table.
“You were trying to rob me!” Lygia shouted. “Is that why you’re small? So you can sneak in here and steal without getting caught?!” When she thought about it like that a lot more things began to make sense. The experimental technology. The string of robberies. The fact a shrunken person was in her home. It was all still very bizarre but for now this transgression against her took priority.
Beneath Lygia’s ireful gaze Mark shirked back to the edge of the table, unable to say or do anything to defend himself. Then, in a panic he began to press away feverishly at something along his wrist.
“I’m talking to you!” Lygia’s fist slammed into the table again, closer this time. Close enough the man jumped back and looked about ready to piss his pants. Lygia huffed and shifted forward, eyes narrowing. “Are there others here too?” She asked with no small amount of venom.
Mark looked away trembling and holding himself nervously. “N-No…” He didn’t even sound like he was convinced. One more slam of Lygia’s hand however and that changed completely. “Y-Yes! Yes!”
“How many?” Lygia’s fingers reached for the man, wasting little time in plucking him up before her infuriated visage.
“T-Two more!”
“Are you sure about that?” The woman inquired with a look that could freeze oceans.
Mark, shirking away in sheer terror as this woman held him between her fingers, nodded. “Y-Yes…I swear…”
Lygia let out an annoyed sigh. “We’ll finish this later. First I need to find them before they take something or run away.” The woman stood, treating Mark to the sudden pain of his ears popping while the titaness was on the move. She barely gave him a momentary glance before swinging her hand back. “Stay where you won’t cause any trouble.” Was all she said before her thumb pulled one of her back pockets and dropped the man inside, snapping it shut behind him.
“Well at least I’ve got one already.” The irritated woman grumbled as she took her first steps towards finding her shrunken intruders.