“James!”

A monumental blast of sound.

A deep reverberation in the ground.

A moment of horrified silence as Adam watched Mrs. Brook’s shoe come down. His eyes were open, starring at her sole, at the flat edge where her slip on met the hard tile, looking for the blood, a hand, anything that would confirm what he hoped wouldn’t be true. “Come on,” he whispered to himself, trying to rationalize what he had just seen. Mrs. Brook’s would never have done something like that, she was too nice. Someone like James couldn’t have been crushed so randomly, so accidently, for no reason… he was a person.

But that wasn’t the world he was living in anymore. James wasn’t a person, he was a speck of dust on the ground. A piece of dirt to be wedged between a girl’s shoe treads, a glob of gum to stick on the underside of someone’s sole, a bug to be crushed. And Adam was no better off.

So as he looked on the scene with more than a hope that his friend was alive. Adam was in no better position, no less vulnerable to the whims of these gods. If James had died, if this was the end, his might not be far off.

“Please,” he repeated, watching as Mrs. Brooks moved, as she shifted her weight, as her toned leg flexed and pushed off the ground, as she finally took another step.

He couldn’t see blood. He couldn’t see guts, or a mangled corpse, or anything like that. All he saw was a cowering little bug with its hands over its head, shaking.

“James!” Adam shouted, the stranglehold on his stomach lessoning. “James! Yes!” He pushed himself up, running to the small form of the bug. When he finally reached him James had partially recovered, no longer in a fetal position, but no less shaken.

“I… I almost…”

“But you didn’t,” Adam was quick to say, extending his hand out to his friend. “But come on, we can’t stay here.”

“But… Adam, I was almost…”

“Don’t think about it,” the boy answered. “We just need to move.”

“Yeah…” James said, shaking, sweating despite the near frigid temperatures at their shrunken size, breathing fast and light. He grabbed Adam’s hand and let him pull him to his feet. “Let’s go.”

“Alright.” Adam started walking, making sure that his friend was keeping pace. But now his mind had switched to a different task. What were they going to do?

It had become disturbingly clear that this wasn’t going some fun romp through a tiny world. They needed to find a way to turn back to normal, or at least have someone notice them. Or else they would…

No, he couldn’t think about that.

He looked around the office, trying to find anything that would help, that would give them their lives back. It was only when his glance found the massive door to his boss’s office that he realized what they his only option.

Mrs. Brook’s shoes were still on the ground.

And they ran, and they ran, and they ran, not a word passing between the two tiny little boys as they sprinted towards the wall of the room and the relative safety it held, then towards the massive office. At some point James recovered enough from his near squishing to ask, “What are we doing?”

“Trying to get to Mrs. Brook’s office,” he answered, already panting and out of breath despite that they had only been running for a few minutes. When he got big again he was going to ask Mrs. Brooks if he could join her at the gym.

“Then what?” James shouted.

“Well…” he said back. His plan was half formed, at best. “I know her sneakers are still on the ground. If we can…” he paused to breath. “If we can get to those she might see us when she goes to put them away.”

“And if she doesn’t?”

“Then we aren’t any worse off than we are now.”

“What if she steps on us!?”

“Well let’s just hope she doesn't.”

James seemed less than reassured, but he kept pace. The little guy probably realized he didn’t have any better options. At least this way he had a buddy to work with. The last thing he wanted was to be caught alone in the hell.

They continued on, eventually coming to the doorway that lead to the office, the boy’s dropping to their bellies as they crawled under the narrow opening. Adam was the first out, pushing himself from under the door and squinting against the bright lights of his boss’s office.

“What do you see?” James asked as he came up behind.

“I see…” Adam started, his words taken from him as he caught sight of the Titaness herself, sitting behind her desk, not ten paces away She didn’t even look phased at the fact she had nearly killed them, didn’t look like she cared about anything other than the computer in front of her. Like the goddess she was.

And on the other side of the room, across a barren waist land of death and crushing fear, was the gym bag containing their only hope for survival. Their one chance at life. Their singular escape from this torture.

Across the ground lay Mrs. Brooks’ beautiful gym shoes.

“Hey Ashley,” Gregg said, walking into the girl’s room with the customary food tray. “Lunch time.”

“Ooo, what is it?” the girl said playfully, smiling at the nurse as he pulled out the table next to her bed, placing the tray down.

“Don’t get excited. It's just hospital food. Chicken soup, an apple, and…” he glanced around hesitantly before returning to her. “I managed to steel you a pudding cup.”

“Nice,” the girl smiled. “You’re way too nice to me.”

“I’m a nurse, it’s my job.”

Gregg had only met Ashley earlier that day, but he already found himself going out of his way for her. The girl was, in a word, beautiful. If angels came down from the heavens to present him with the perfect girl, this was it. Blond hair, the brightest blue eyes he had ever seen, a silly smile and upbeat attitude, she was definitely more fun than the cranky old woman two doors down.

The girl shifted in her hospital bed, twisting a bit as she tried to bring her good hand around the grasp the spoon. She had been admitted earlier that day after an accident on her bike left her left arm a bit messed up. Probably nothing serious, a hairline fracture from the X-rays, but the doctors thought there might be a complication with a pre-existing condition and wanted to keep her overnight, just in case.

She loosely gripped the spoon, picking up a small amount of soup before accidently dropping it into the bowl, warm brown sludge spilling over the lip. “Oh jeez,” she said. “This is annoying.”

“Here, let me help,” he said, taking the spoon and filling it.

“No way,” Ashly answered when he lifted it up. “I’ll let you steel a pudding cup, but you’re not going to spoon feed me.”

“You’re in a hospital,” he answered. “It’s my job.”

The girl rolled her eyes. “That is the worst excuse I’ve ever heard.”

“Well?”

She shook her head, defeated. “Fine. But don’t spill any. Wouldn’t want to ruin this cute gown.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” He brought the spoon up to her mouth, the patient delicately moving her mouth over it, her full lips wiping the spoon clean as he pulled it out.

He continued for a little while, feeding Ashely and talking to her a little bit between spoons. It was a slow day, so it wasn’t like he needed to be anywhere else. Except perhaps to give a sponge bath to the old lady two doors down, but that could wait.

It turned out they had a lot in common. Both were almost the same age, had grown up only a few towns away from each other, and apparently had an affinity towards doing stupid things that resulted in them being hurt. Ashely had asked how many times he had been in the hospital. He just said it was lucky he got a discount since he worked there. She asked if that was a real thing. He shrugged since he didn’t really know.

They had finished the soup and were about to move on to the dessert when his pager started to buzz. “Ah crap,” he said, placing the opened pudding back on the tray. “Yeah, they need me. Hey, listen, I got to go, but I’ll be back in a couple hours. Stay alive until then, alright?”

“Fine. But only because you said so.”

She leaned back against her pillows, letting her eyes wander to the television on the opposite corner of the room. Some stupid news thing. Apparently some super bug had been spreading across the country causing… she didn’t really care.

Gregg turned to leave, stopping himself before his first step, a sudden wave of pain shooting through his body. He stepped back, his vision blurred, the room spinning, the earth rotating about until he was falling, falling through the air, tumbling into an endless pit and screaming the whole way down until…

Splat

He landed in something thick and sticky, the sudden shock snapping him out of his daze. For a moment he didn’t know which way was up, only that he was surrounded by a goop that he couldn’t see through, let alone breath in. he struggled against the substance that held him, thicker than mud, until finally he was able to claw his way back to the surface and take steal a breath of air.

Panting, Gregg looked around, trying to understand what the hell just happened. He could see the sealing far away, the lights imbedded in it blaring. There were high walls surrounding him, but they looked thin and almost transparent. And what was he in? Mud? No, it felt like mud, almost, but it was white. What mud was white?

It almost looked like…

It couldn’t be…

Movement at the corner of his vision forced him to look upwards, the sight forcing his stomach down into his guts, ripping the breath out of him, flooding his body with a cold like he had never felt before.

Ashely was leaning over her pudding cup, a titanic spoon held loosely in her hand.