Juniper was backed-up to her bedroom door, leaned against it with all her weight to form one final layer of protection between her and the world she thought she understood. Thoughts raced through her mind in wild attempts to explain the situation to herself. Across from her, in the opposite corner of the room, was her object of interest: an upside-down glass atop the windowsill, and the tiny woman trapped underneath it.

A quiet beat pinged from the glass. It was Nicky, wailing on the glass wall that surrounded her, using both fists to pound away and make some noise. “Let me go! Let me out of here!” she begged, rocking her body hard against the glass while ignoring the leftover residue and faint scent of alcohol tied to the barrier. “I’m a person! You have to fucking help me, please, god!”

Juniper heard these sounds, but refused to process them. She heard the voice, unmistakably the angry cries of a woman stripped of her freedom. But the concept of a tiny person struck her as unreal, even nightmarish, so much so that she was terrified to let the woman out of her sight. She thought back to only a while earlier, when she had first spotted Nicky crawling on the couch -- more precisely, she discovered her earlier, when she felt something squirming and struggling under her seat. She had already been expecting a shocking find, but she hadn’t at all predicted it would be a whole person, a nude woman certainly no older than herself.

This… is a fairy, Juniper thought. Yep. A fairy. Which doesn’t exist, Juniper. Fairies don’t fucking exist. They didn’t, until now, Juniper supposed. She wished the reality of it could be sealed away as easily as the tiny person; scooped into the glass and then held inside by an underused drink coaster, not unlike how a delicate person would dispose of a spider. That, itself, was a fact that solidified this insanity as not just a mere cannabis-induced illusion -- she would have just crushed any ordinary bug if that were the case.

Nicky was still recovering from her ordeal, a rollercoaster of emotions that had made her restless. Her safety hadn’t at all been guaranteed, but there was inherent promise with having been noticed; at the very least, she was off the cold floor, but she knew that didn’t make her more secure. This woman, a living monument, had the potential to do anything to her, the same power Melanie cherished far too much -- even accidentally, like it had been proven just earlier, could Juniper completely smother her. The thought degraded her, cruely reminded that she had been suffocating under this woman’s ass only a short time ago.

Compared to Nicky’s fluster and worry, Juniper seemed collected, even though that was not the truth. Still, she had sensed that she had the coolest head of the two, mostly because she had the least at stake. Juniper cracked a smile, slightly sympathetic to how immeasurably huge everything must seem to Nicky. Yet, absentminded in this regard, she didn’t ponder much on how big she herself appeared, even as she neared closer to Nicky and eventually took a seat on her knees right before her. At that height, their faces were almost level, but the power imbalance hadn’t shifted at all.

There was silence where Juniper expected Nicky to speak, but Nicky feared too much for her life to babble anything coherent. Getting Juniper to approach was a start to things, but now, Nicky didn’t know where to begin to explain. What little her voice was managing to say, it was blown apart by Juniper’s speech. “What are you?” she asked, so blunt and unknowingly loud. “And why are you in my apartment?”

Nicky flinched at Juniper’s volume. It boomed like a speaker muffled by the glass, a trait she was unfamiliar with. All of her cruelty aside, Melanie at least had the foresight to always keep her noise down a notch for the sake of her victims. “I-I’m h-human!” Nicky replied, having to convince herself slightly of that truth. “A g-girl named Melanie shrunk me! I know, i-it probably sounds batshit crazy, it totally does, but I-- y-you have got to believe me! I swear, I’m telling the truth, I-I’m not making it up!”

Juniper swallowed. “It’s hard to believe you could be making this up,” she muttered honestly. She looked up and down the little body, still struggling to comprehend how anybody could end up so small.

Such was a question Nicky could tell weighed heavy on her mind. “It’s-- I know this will s-sound really stupid, but it’s… magic! I guess it’s actual magic! Th-That cult shit! Or whatever they’re called!”

“Oh, uh,” Juniper blinked, “you mean… the Illuminati?”

“Yeah, yeah! That’s it!” Nicky assumed this was right in a hurry, since she was none the wiser. “But, like, whatever! Sh-She had this spellbook thing and she can use it to shrink people, seriously! And she did that to me, and these other women, a-and she’s been…! She’s been fucking with us! Fucking us! She’s done so much fucked up shit to us! She’s nearly killed us-- fuck, she has killed some of us…! Sh-She--!”

“Whoa, hey,” Juniper raised her hands softly, her intent being to calm the panic swelling up within Nicky, but just as effectively, the motion instead spooked her into silence. Juniper grimaced at the reaction, but continued, “you mean… my roommate? Th-That’s the only Melanie I know.”

“Yes!” Nicky nodded. “That’s her! Your roommate! Y-You must… be Juniper.”

“Y-Yep…” Juniper swallowed. She had been thinking of how to introduce herself, but that moment was stolen from her. It pierced her that this was even more real than she had expected it to be, considering this complete stranger knew of her name. It became even harder to distrust her better judgement, to call this off as a bout of insanity. “I guess Melanie told you that…?”

“I-It doesn’t matter. She’s a total maniac, she’s damn crazy! A-And she’s shrinking people! She shrinks them and then kidnaps them! Th-That’s how I’m here, o-or how I ended up out there… From her room, all the way t-to the living room, I-I escaped, a-and she’s… the others…!”

“Okay, th-this is sounding wild as hell,” Juniper said, absorbing each detail as it was revealed. An itch clawed at her back, the foreboding suspicion that she was being watched. All of a sudden, the roommate she thought she could trust enough to at least pay rent on time was now a sizeshifting kidnapper working for the Illuminati. Every fiber of her wanted to disbelieve it, figuring she should know better as a personal acquaintance to Melanie, yet the naked three-inch woman in front of her was difficult evidence to refute.

“If it doesn’t make sense to you, imagine how I feel,” Nicky chuckled, but the unrest in her voice hadn’t eased at all. “I barely managed to escape, man. I… barely did. You don’t understand. God, and then, when I made it all that way, and I finally get to my phone, y-you…! Ugh,” her hands clawed through her hair, “I thought I was going to die…!”

Juniper blushed, her face warm but her skin running cold. An idle left hand gently massaged her rear, remembering that tickling, squirming feeling from beneath her that resulted in this. By just sitting down, she had nearly crushed an entire person under her. Embarrassment ravaged her until she offered a guilty look down at Nicky.

“Th-That’s right, my phone!” Nicky jumped. “G-Get me my phone! Wait,” she shook her head, “I don’t need it! I-I’ve got you!”

“Huh? Y-You need to make a call?” Juniper felt her pocket for her phone as it became relevant.

“9-1-1! Call 9-1-1!” Nicky pointed eagerly at the smartphone as it was lifted into view. Giddiness totally took over, reacting to the device much like a stranded survivor would awe at a rescue helicopter. “Get the police! An ambulance! T-Tell the FBI, I don’t know! S-Somebody!”

“Wha-- n-no?” Juniper shook her head, and just like that, Nicky’s energy was wiped clean. “No, I-I mean, I… I can’t call the cops.”

“Y-You can’t…? You have to!”

“I’m not! I-I can’t do that!”

“You have to!”

“No! I don’t!” Juniper laughed, and she stood up to her full height. No longer in a kneeled position, she had unknowingly flexed her superiority by this general motion, her shadow cast over the tiny woman. “And I won’t! Dude, I don’t do cops. I don’t gel with them.”

“That’s--! No, n-no, that’s absurd!” Nicky scoffed, her voice quivering beneath the giantess, but Juniper didn’t reply. “That’s ridiculous, you know it! I-I’m, I mean, look at me!” She twitched after having followed her own advice. The view of herself in the slight reflection off the glass humiliated her. “You can save me, j-just take me to the police!”

“Look.” Juniper shook her head. She reached over to a set of nearby cabinets, from which she dug out a small grinder. The top half twisted off, revealing pinches of green herb, shredded to a fine grain. “You know what this is?” She angled the grinder down for Nicky, who gazed into the material with envious fascination. Almost drooling, Nicky was captivated; from her perspective, an entire barrel of weed, only an arm’s reach away if it weren’t for the glass.

“I know what that is,” Nicky said. Then, it dawned on her what this meant. “B-But--”

“I’m not getting the police involved with my life,” Juniper asserted. She set the weed just beside the glass, even closer and more tempting to Nicky. “Shit’s complicated enough as it is, I can’t afford a bunch of cops snooping around here. That one detective scared the hell out of me enough.”

“Isn’t this more important than a fucking weed bust?!” Nicky slapped the wall. “Juniper, please--”

“Hey, I didn’t ask for this! My bad, but my help comes at my convenience.”

“For fucking god’s sake…!” Nicky growled. “Fine! Don’t call the cops! Let the kidnapper get away with all this! You’re okay with that?!”

“No! But I’m not throwing my scholarship away just on a dime like this!” Juniper threw up her arms. “And you’re telling me this is magic? Melanie knows magic? Magic to shrink people?”

“Y-Yeah!”

“So she could shrink me, right?”

“Sh-She… could.” Nicky held her temple. “I guess she could…”

Juniper gestured harshly at Nicky’s reply. “Exactly!”

“... But that’s bullshit!” Nicky slapped the glass again. “Bullshit!”

“I’m not putting my neck out there like that.” Juniper shrugged in search of something better to say, or a softer way to phrase it. “Shit, what would happen if I got shrunk, too?! I-I don’t know how this magic stuff works!”

Nicky gritted her teeth, bearing the pain of the sticky situation. Truly, she did fear that possibility that Juniper worried about. It was very much possible that, in an act against Melanie, Juniper would become a target and end up suffering the same fate as her and the others. She felt it slipping away, right from the tips of her stretched fingers, the chance to escape.

Juniper held her sweating head. “Dude, I’m sorry, but I didn’t ask for this! I’m not gonna go and try to, fucking, fight my magic-powered roommate! I’m not getting on her bad side, and I’m sure as hell not calling the cops to come bust me up! Shit,” Juniper shook her head, “what do you expect to me to go do?”

“You’re going to help me!” Nicky rammed into the glass, thrashing her anger into the barrier. She heathed, then threw herself against it again, then again, all while she spoke, “I did not make it this far! Just so a spoiled bitch! Can pussy out of helping innocent! Fucking! Kidnapped! People--”

One more push, and the wall in front of her began drifting away. In her roused fury, Nicky didn’t understand why the glass was moving away from her -- she felt dizzy from yelling and slamming -- but the realization was explosive, the last second understanding that she had been edging the glass closer and closer to the window sill’s limits. That last push was what teetered it off the edge, and from behind her, the other half of the glass threatened to knock her straight in the head.

A yelp, and Nicky ducked and tumbled forward, chasing after the direction the glass was falling. The rim whipped right over her head, a whirlwind that grabbed at her and threw off the ledge along with it. The huge world of Juniper’s bedroom twisted upside-down, and Nicky gasped in fright, too shocked to bark anything amidst her descent.

Only half a flip could be achieved before she landed onto a soft platform. This spooked her into another gasp, responding quickly to grasp what caught her. Beneath her knees and her hands was an unfamiliar palm, slightly wider and longer than that of Melanie’s. Past that, seen through the gap between two log-like fingers, was the glass and its landing spot down on the floor below. Nicky turned, looking up at the giantess that now claimed her, and the terrified grimace electrified on her face.

“Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew,” Juniper stammered with individual breaths. Each remark was blunt and hard, a very honest response of disgust. “Oh my god. Oh, my god! This is so gross!”

“G-Gross?! Man, fuck you,” Nicky spat with a disappointed shake of her head. She had meant to give a genuine thanks for being caught, but Juniper’s reaction had changed her mind. “It’s just, like, me. I’m not an animal or something!”

“Uh, girl, you are n-naked!” Juniper’s teeth clattered. “A-And all up in my hand!”

“Err…” Nicky flushed with red, more aware now of her nudity. After all this time, and with all the torment happening, being without clothes was the bottom of Nicky’s worries. She tried to stand, stretching out her arms and legs for balance, but the movement made Juniper trill and shake. To her, it was like holding a spider, the skin of her hand tickled by the four points that were Nicky’s limbs. Eventually, Nicky decided to sit back down, one arm hugged around her chest to preserve some modesty if only for Juniper’s sake.

“Ohh my god,” Juniper huffed. In her hands, Nicky was objectively as light as a bundle of tissues, yet Juniper’s knees buckled to the ground as though she were much heavier. “Of course Melanie c-could do this. Holding a person. She’s weird enough to not be… ugh’d out like this…”

“Yeah, that’s… putting it gently,” Nicky said. “She’s horrible, Juniper. She’s… a monster, I mean it. And…” She bit her lip, struck with a pain to her mind. “A-And there’s two others. Two more women are in her desk, a-at least, they were when I was last there.”

“Yeah, you mentioned that…” Juniper swallowed, and against her hesitations, brought up her other hand to help support the naked woman she held.

“Please, I swear,” Nicky clasped her hands together, “just help us, at least get us away from Melanie! And I promise, we’ll never, ever bug you about this. You can do anything, I-I don’t care,” she swallowed regretfully, “but the others need help, too. They’re waiting for me. I need to break them out.”

Juniper closed her eyes. Each time her breathing was coming to a calm, it would be riled again, worked up over the anxieties stressing her out. A deep contemplation was had, but she knew how wrong it was to act entirely selfish here. She opened just one eye to admire Nicky, the poor woman that was bruised and beaten, having survived so much just to end up here.

“You think they’re still in Melanie’s room?” Juniper asked, only keeping that one eye open. “If it’s… just that, then maybe. Maybe.”

“Just that! I swear, j-just going in, grabbing them, and getting out! Three steps, three fucking steps!” Nicky nodded, becoming a fountain of emotions now that Juniper was on her side. “D-Didn’t Melanie just leave a little bit ago?! Can we do this now?! She usually doesn’t take us all with her to school, there might be someone we can save!”

“Okay, okay, j-just chill for a second…” Juniper gathered her thoughts with a long inhale. She looked to her door, and although it was closed, she saw past it and all the way to Melanie’s bedroom. Snooping wasn’t something she usually did, but with the pressure of real, human lives on the line, she knew it would be wrong to be stopped by such a lazy limitation. “We’ll take a quick look,” she said, “but c-can we, uh, get you dressed into something first? Yeah, I like that idea. At least get you into a, err, sock or something.”

Nicky winced, her unspoken wish being that it could be anything else besides another sock.

Adrian’s attention was directed completely forward. She didn’t turn her head or ever try to close her ears. The display in front of her was a spectacle that she decided. Fate could have woven their lives into a different future had she restrained herself, or picked a different target. That burden wouldn’t make her blink, however. What she saw, the entire scene, was her responsibility to live with.

Adrian was perched on the upper-most shelf of a bookcase found within the heart of Anders Library. A space in the shelf had been molded for her and the other shrunken women, with a large row of books either stripped out or pushed to the ends to make an opening. Like a perfectly rectangular cave, they were able to look over the table Melanie had decided to use. Light entered the library from curtained windows, leaving a center of darkness that itself was pierced through by the light of a laptop situated on the desk. Equally so was the dusty library silent, all but for a series of squeaks picked out from that same center. Horrific screams, shrunken to bothersome whining.

“Stop it!! Stop it now!! No!!” The one victim not placed with the others was Professor Bradz, the latest addition to Melanie’s collection. Her screaming had been a chant, changing very little from one iteration to the next, but her desperation never reaching her captor enough to evoke mercy.

Melanie had no plans for that -- or seemingly any plan. Since arriving at the library, which came after a quick detour to the chemistry labs, Melanie had remained speechless. Aside from a few giggles, she hadn’t said a word to Adrian nor any of the others, not even the woman she held currently. She had Bradz pinched by just one leg, letting the rest of the body limply sway and twist with each one of her kicks. The sight amused her -- the blood rushing to the woman’s head, the ankle being slowly pressed in her casual grip, and her unanswered cries for help; all were met with the same smile, but nothing to say.

Bradz was then set roughly onto the desk, dropped on her stomach. She gasped, then immediately scrambled to get away. She struggled to move, but even if she had the energy to sprint as fast as she could, it wouldn’t be enough to get away. When she did try to dash off, aimlessly hoping to escape from Melanie, she was pinned right back down to the desk. She groaned under the weight of a pressing finger, her bones promising to crack if the force against them got any harder.

“W-Why?!?” Bradz coughed. “Y-You can’t! You can’t get away with this…!”

Melanie rolled her over onto her back, flipping her around while keeping her held. The twist was uncomfortable for Bradz, but that was the lesser of her worries as Melanie’s giant face took up the sky. She yelled, mixed with rage and disgust, when Melanie’s lips pointed down at her. From them leaked a droplet of saliva which stretched into an extensive strand. The thread snapped, and a bomb of spit descended upon the woman below. Unable to escape, she had to endure the hard splash of the warm liquid, the scent of which humiliated her with the stern reminder that she was covered from head to toe in a student’s saliva.

Bradz gagged, but even that freedom was too much. Melanie adjusted the professor so that her head would be sunken into the pool of saliva that slowly melted around her. Instead of coughing, Bradz dove straight into choking. She spasmed and shook, each thrashing motion more violent than the one before it, desperate claws begging to be let go. Terror flooded her just as much as Melanie’s spit; for the sake of amusing a twisted girl, it was frighteningly likely that she would have to drown in such a pathetic fashion.

“Like an unlucky bug,” Melanie teased in a whispered voice, “that happened to walk right into a ball of spit. Gross…”

Bradz spasmed more and more, hugging and kicking at the tip of Melanie’s finger. It was only when Bradz began to weaken, when her thrown arms lost their natural aim, her legs twitching more than they were kicking, that Melanie figured that the limit had been reached. She released her finger from off of Bradz, not wanting to see her dead. The professor rose up instantly, only to tumble onto her stomach and cough up the excess saliva that had infiltrated her. Out of breath and hungry for more, Bradz was pained just to drag her body forward, leaving behind a trail of ooze that attached her to the drop zone of spit.

Melanie then dropped her finger hard on Bradz’s legs. The woman howled, a burst of agony stabbing through her. She imagined the worst, but Melanie was careful in her cruelty, extending everything out and ensuring nothing ended too quickly. From there, she lifted Bradz’s legs, tickled by the weak fidgeting that was the professor attempting to stomp the hand away. Obviously unable to do that, Bradz was helpless at Melanie’s hand; her lower body was lifted off the ground, and crunched up towards her head.

“Stop stop stop! STOP!!” Bradz degraded into a chaotic yell of different sounds and aches. Her whole body was being rolled up and pressed down, her legs pathetically flung over her head yet being pressured to keep closing down on her upper body. At the point where her shoulder blades met the middle of her back, she was threatened to be snapped in half, at the whim of a girl’s finger. She could see nothing, only adding to her distress, her vision blocked by her own waist above her, and broadly becoming faint as the air was being squeezed out of her system. Her screaming became coughing, dry and yet still begging, her literal only hope to surviving being that this wicked student simply cease playing with her like a disposable toy.

Suffocation was a real danger, and Melanie drove all the way to that point only to slam on the brakes just shy of it. She released her finger from Bradz, allowing her body to unfold and topple over into a sad slump. Tears that had been swelling up at Bradz’s eyes now poured out over her strikingly red face. Between breaths of mad relief was panting and coughing, subtle wishes that she had just been given a fast, pointed death rather than be allowed to live through the afterpains that electrified all around her neck.

Living was part of Melanie’s plan, however. Regardless of how barbaric her torment was, Melanie never intended to murder Bradz. The state she was in now, so defeated and lifeless, wailing as she recovered, was exactly how Melanie wanted her. She stood up, risen tall and far above the little wet spot Bradz took up on the desk. If she had any confidence to try and hide, it had been completely wiped out under the all-seeing shadow of Melanie’s that was cast over her flat surroundings.

“Good morning, Professor.” Melanie’s voice began sarcastically sweet, reminiscent of the sing-song tone Bradz was remembered to have. It’s impact missed, as Bradz could no longer comprehend Melanie and her relationship with her to be anything related to school. “Could you help me with something? It’s important. It’s school related!”

Bradz choked on a reply, having been coughing through Melanie’s demeaning tone. She barely comprehended the giantess, even hoping she could simply ignore the question, but that wouldn’t be tolerated. A hard poke to her side, a jab into her ribs, made her coil into a weak ball, nodding frantically in submission.

Melanie then laid out Bradz’s own laptop onto the desk, dropping it onto the table so that its weight would rattle the woman just a little more. The computer was opened up and immediately the display flicked on; Bradz was blinded initially, like an entire stage for a pop concert had just been airdropped in front of her. She gawked at it for several moments, comprehending how this was her own laptop, a school-issued piece of tech that had been stolen from her. The emotion this spurred inside Bradz was thorny, unnerving, for she had never been thieved from and then had it gloated about there before her.

A familiar log-in screen awaited both of them, and Melanie’s silence posed the question. When Bradz hesitated, Melanie made it abundantly clear. “Tell me the password, Bradz.”

“Oh, god,” Bradz groaned. She felt sick, and then vomited her honest reply in a rush; “Kitten… 72… Kisses…”

Melanie punched the table from underneath, directly where Bradz lay. This forced a scream out of the woman, a painful quake that pumped her whole body into the air. “Capital letters? All one word?”

“C-Capital K’s! Capital K’s!” Bradz cried, “Yes, yes, i-it’s a-all one word! I swear!”

“Kitten72Kisses. Wow. That’s an old person password if I’ve ever heard one.” Her mocking was simultaneous with her typing the phrase in, each keystroke accompanied by a gunshot-like sound that clapped Bradz’s ears. Without a hitch, the password had worked. The log-in screen faded and in its place was the exact screen Bradz had left it on. It harked to her as a dark reminder of how fast this change in her life had come, how swiftly destiny changed its course for her just to suffer. She closed her eyes and looked away from the computer in shame, a feeling that was stacking up high as the potential for Melanie’s chaos dawned on her further.

Using the touchpad, Melanie navigated casually across a few of the windows Bradz had left opened. It didn’t take long to unearth the treasure Melanie was in pursuit of. One of the windows opened had a long list of grades being added on a list, but more important was the web application itself. It was the college’s official system for its staff, a totally private sector of the school’s functionality. While Melanie’s expression widened with eagerness, Bradz’s only slumped more into despair.

“Ah, I have to log back in.” Melanie looked disappointedly at the screen, where a pop-up notification had alerted her to an automatic log-out of the college’s system. Her dissatisfaction twisted down onto Bradz, and she held a boulder-sized fist high above the woman. “What’s the password for this one?” Her voice was too casual, edging on being polite.

Craning her neck back, Bradz shivered under the sight of the huge hand hanging overhead. In less than a second, she could be crushed flat into the puddle of saliva she was still draped in. Melanie had chosen not to coerce the information out of her, but establish right away that she was in command, a god that shouldn’t be questioned. It wasn’t Bradz that squirmed with those thoughts, but the other women, the onlookers from atop the bookshelf. They watched as one terrified audience, horrified at how quick Melanie was to brutalize the will out of an adult woman. There would be no second guesses or tricks here, now that Bradz had been given such a heartless greeting into her now-worthless life.

“This is all wrong…” Chloe shook her head, chirping up for the first time in so long. She pulled no attention to her, other than a side-glance from Kimberly. None of them had gravitated far from each other, the coldness of a dark new setting binding them to stick close together, despite the relatively wide and open space they had been permitted. Regardless of how much they could roam, there was only so much the bookshelf could offer, even with both sides accessible and open to peer from. One side overlooked an empty path between bookcases, and the other was the event with Melanie, proceeding without interruption. Just as Chloe had said, none of this felt right, but none of them could look away.

But hooked onto the action more than anyone else was Adrian. Even when dryness touched her eyes, she wouldn’t blink, not once looking away from Bradz as she was whipped about, punished, pushed to her limit, all just to squeeze out some personal info. Her fascination was deep, as if nothing else existed around her; she felt that way, up until the pressure of Kimberly’s gaze weighed too much on her, causing her to shake underneath it.

“Adrian…” Kimberly started with only her name, said with the taste of disbelief. Her volume was low, not wanting to attract Melanie’s attention -- she spoke now, when Melanie was dug into the computer. She shook her head, “I told you. I warned you.”

Adrian’s eyes narrowed, but she still wouldn’t look away. Melanie had left Bradz at the corner of the table, specifically making mention of how she could brush the woman off and into a fatal fall if she wanted. Rather than listen to Kimberly, she dwelled on that, deciding it a better use of her attention.

Ignored, Kimberly stepped closer to Adrian, standing over the seated observer. Without having received much of a reaction, she pushed harder. “What’s happening to her is your fault,” she coldly stated, pointing down at the writhing professor. “You decided this. Look at what’s happening. This is exactly what was going to happen from the start. This is what Meanie wanted--”

“Leave me alone,” Adrian sighed.

Kimberly scoffed at the attitude. “You’re heartless. All you can think about is yourself, at a time like this.” She shook her head. “I thought you were different from Scarlet! I thought you learned something from Nicky!” She quieted herself, letting too much emotion seep into her tone. “Even if we can grow back to normal, to put that woman through all this…”

“No one will care,” Adrian argued half-heartedly. “She’s… expendable. She--”

“Excuse me? Expendable? No, there isn’t anyone alive like that.” Kimberly shook her head again, more outraged than before. She knew where this stemmed. “She didn’t deserve this for what she said, Adrian. She didn’t know any better. What she said was fucked up but it doesn’t warrant sentencing her to death like this.”

“Then she shouldn’t have said anything.”

“That’s all you can say? You’re going to live with that while you’re watching that very woman get tortured?!”

“I needed to choose someone, Kimberly. After what she said, how can you…?” Adrian dismissed it, putting up a palm to stop herself. “What do you even want from me? Does scolding people make you feel better? Did yelling at Scarlet finally get old?”

“I’m trying to talk some sense into you,” Kimberly said. “Trying. You’re making awful decisions, Adrian, and it’s going to get more people hurt, or killed. Three more, specifically, for that ‘cure’ you’re convinced exists.”

Adrian didn’t reply. She had breathed in, expecting to lash back, but it dawned on her that she didn’t need to. She giggled, in fact, a crack in her otherwise silent demeanor. She turned her head back, knees hugged to her chest, and looked up at Kimberly. The two stared at each other, eye to eye, but Kimberly was boiled by Adrian’s expression. It was empty and hollow, yet it verged on wanting to grin, or maybe Kimberly just wanted to see that snarky smile, she wanted to see Adrian brag, brag about the reality that protected her. Ultimately, it really didn’t matter what Kimberly’s morals were or how much she disagreed with Adrian.

“You’ll regret this.” Kimberly huffed and backed away. “I’m sure you already do.” Finished with trying to get through to Adrian, Kimberly walked to the middle of the shelf. She had noticed Scarlet on the opposite ledge, having wandered off while the others were still captivated with Bradz and her suffering. “What are you doing?” she asked accusingly.

“Just… looking,” Scarlet said. She waved aimlessly at the nothing in front of them. There were no escape routes, much to her dismay. It pained her to finally be free from that obnoxious bedroom, but the prison entrapping her had only shifted into this musty, dank library. Worse yet were the chills that plagued her when she looked out, far ahead towards a specific table and a specific chair. Once before, she was meant to clean up this very library, in preparation for a party that never happened. At least, by the looks of things, no party occurred -- the place appeared as abandoned as it did those weeks ago.

“Do you know this place?” Kimberly asked. “This is the library she’s talked about, isn’t it? We’re on the campus right now.”

“So?” Scarlet shook her head. “If you’re expecting me to know a secret exit, well, I wish I had one to tell ya’ about. Even if there was one, it probably wasn’t made with tiny people in mind.”

Defeat had to be admitted. At the very end of Kimberly’s thread of hope, their surroundings dimmed just a little more. Despite the change in scenery, they were still held hostage to Melanie’s whims. “It sort of makes me miss the bedroom.”

“Yeah,” Scarlet groaned, fanning her exposed collarbone, “at least there was air conditioning…”

The idle chatter ended there as the sound of keystrokes occupied the silence. To Bradz’s relief, Melanie was happily scrolling through and experimenting with the college staff database. An array of schedules, students, rooms, projects, and more would load up in front of her, each providing her new ideas. She had fallen quiet during this time, drawn into her exploration, though a threatening hand always hovered nearby, reminding Bradz that she could squash her instantly if she tried to run.

“Adrian, isn’t this great?” Melanie giggled, glued to the screen. She assumed that her obsession could just read over her shoulder from the height she was at. “All these students… and their schedules. Where they live, their email addresses, clubs… We can use this! I-It’ll make the hunt for the last three a lot easier.” She spoke as if discussing platters of food, deliciously waiting to be devoured.

However, Adrian was as lifeless as she had been. She listened, but without being watched, she didn’t act out her feelings at all. “That’s helpful,” she remarked vaguely. In the back of her head, she could feel Kimberly cringe. She still didn’t care; in truth, she couldn’t even think of how to use the database to her advantage, since it was still effectively targeting random people.

Melanie was amused enough for the both of them, and her devilish humor soon pointed to Bradz with a smug sneer. “While I’m here~” she snickered, speaking up to get Bradz’s attention. The professor was lured as planned to stare up at the theater-sized screen where a list of names filled the bright page. It was her morning period class, every student in alphabetical order, the same audience of people that she had just been lecturing not long prior. Bradz’s breathing was unstable, but not any more than it had been, haggard after so much abuse. This ploy was what she had feared, a conclusion she knew was coming, but ultimately it felt worthless to even dwell on that particular problem, an afterthought to everything else.

“Hehe… This is pretty exciting. I feel like a spy.” Melanie’s smile lost much of its cutting edge, tamed to a genuine giddiness about her ability to control so much. “Some of these grades look pretty bad. It’s a miracle anyone is keeping up in your class. Oof,” she laughed, “looks like I wasn’t the only one to forget about that essay. It’s almost as if everyone hates your fucking class, Professor Bradz. I wonder how excited these students would get to see you like this.” Bradz winced, seeing that sharp flicker return to Melanie’s expression. “But for now, how about we correct this little error. We can just say I turned it in, and we can just say it was flawless. What do you think, Bradz?”

The professor swallowed, the taste of Melanie’s saliva insultingly present. She struggled to speak aloud, and as a result, a shadow of a hand blanketed her. She panicked and coughed up a response, “Y-Yes, yes, w-whatever you want! J-Just click on your name a-and you can edit the grade…!”

Melanie hummed delightfully, scrolling past name after name in search of her own. “Sounds simple enough. Ah, there I am--” As the name came into view as a clickable link, from outside the usual boxes that organized her information, she had noticed a marker adjacent to it. A tiny red triangle with an exclamation mark, a graphic seemingly unused for anyone else on the list. It took her by surprise, more so than the abysmal grade she only then realized she had in the class.

The mouse pointed at the link, but hesitated to follow through. Melanie broke away from the computer and glanced at Bradz, still crumpled up at the corner. Her fist coiled in preparation for another threat, but she didn’t hoist it over Bradz this time. “What does this mean?” she asked.

Bradz shivered when talked to. She rose up to her knees slowly, peering up at the screen. She shielded her eyes from the brightness, unsure what Meleanie meant, until her monstrous student grappled her into a wrap of fingers and lifted her directly in front of the mark. Bradz glared at the screen, begging to be let go in a hushed mantra; she tried to read what was in front of her, but she didn’t relay anything.

“What is it?!” Melanie shook her.

“I-I don’t know!” Bradz cried. “I-I’ve never seen it! I don’t know!”

“Tell me!”

“I don’t know!” She screeched -- terrified that her life was going to end like this.

Melanie bit her lip and growled. Skeptical that this caution could just be an incidental notification, she had to accept that Bradz genuinely didn’t know better. In need of information before continuing, Melanie boldly clicked on her name, edging along her seat as the next screen loaded in an outdated fashion.

What appeared next was a student profile that tracked all of Melanie’s information. From her schedule to her student ID number, from her address to her campus photo. Information that even Melanie wouldn’t have access to was listed, but at the very top in a yellow banner was a special message, something Melanie was certain was not ordinary. The banner teased her to click on it whereupon a small log of text was revealed:

This student is currently wanted by the local authorities under suspicion of kidnapping and interfering with an investigation. If this student is present in your classes, report to the police immediately, then inform campus security.

Alone with this knowledge, Melanie felt the world’s spinning come to a stop. She moved, but it felt jarring to do so when everything felt still and timeless. She expected to be more shocked, but deep down, this had been a thought plaguing her since she returned to school earlier that day. Everything was clearly written in front of her, so accurate to how she predicted it would turn out that she almost laughed at the dream she was having. But no mere nightmare was this notification, it was as real as the shrunken professor held in hand, squirming between pinched fingers instead of reading what was on screen.

In her distress, Melanie looked to Adrian. The sight of her was pleasant, but hardly relief before the crisis she found herself in. She wanted to explain it to her, but her lips fumbled over every word before she could speak up. The police were actively hunting for her, and foolishly she had wandered into class, having only squeaked past authorities because of her lowered head and shady features. Had Bradz or her assistant been paying attention, or if perhaps this alert had been more noticeable, Melanie wondered if she’d even be sitting there in the library and not in the back of a police car, sweating as she had to explain curses, shrinking magic, kidnappings, a murder--

Her stomach churned, and Bradz was shoved close to her mouth along with both hands. Melanie barely held down an electric shock of vomit, a harsh reality check that she couldn’t dawdle. Even though she didn’t know where to start, she had to get moving, started on defending herself. Bunkering into the library was her best plan, well aware that her apartment was going to be hounded. Yet, precious items had been left behind at her home, things she would need there at Anders Library if she wanted to correctly perform the ritual. Namely, the pages of the spellbook that she had ripped apart during a tantrum, text that she knew would have the details necessary to conduct the ritual to grow Adrian back to normal.

The laptop was closed, allowing darkness to reign in the library again except for where the daylight outside leaked in. Melanie stood, contemplating how to respond. In her anger, she so badly wanted to destroy Bradz, a symbol of the school that troubled her. Like a finished cigarette, she wanted to grind the wailing woman into the bookshelf until she was just a rubbed-out stain of a person, but venting would do nothing but waste her time and make a mess.

That having been thought of, Melanie did come into her first hurdle. She had approached the other shrunken women, expecting to sweep them into hand and hide them into her bag. It would be like normal, but the worst scenario was too real of a risk for her. She imagined it all too easily, one scene after the other; on the street, she’s identified by an officer and pulled aside. All it would take would be one look into the messenger bag to find her collection of cute girls, incriminating her on the spot. There’d be no bounce back from that possibility, no recovering from that one minor misstep.

All five women would be impossible to hide safely, assuming she was stopped. Of course, getting noticed at all would spell disaster, but if she was empty handed at the time, there was a better chance of her skipping away. Managing her whole collection was out of the question, but leaving them all behind sounded nearly as much of a risk. What if they ran away? What if someone found them? What if the police close the library down again?

“What the fuck am I supposed to do?!” Melanie hissed at herself, but her frustration was on total display for the other women. She didn’t care, but they were all getting a peek into the situation Melanie wasn’t describing. Adrian and the others knew enough from the context that something hadn’t gone according to plan, and that inspired only as much hope as it did tasteless uncertainty.

In the span of a few minutes, Melanie had made the arrangements she needed. Her plan was straightforward: run back to the apartment, grab the pages and anything else she would need, and camp it out in the library until further notice. If Adrian could select the next victims soon, then it was likely that the ritual to reverse the curse would have to be done there. It wasn’t how Melanie had envisioned it, but it was the only course she had.

Melanie arranged for her departure in a hurry, deciding not to take much with her on the trip. Within her messenger bag was the spellbook and some minor items, but there was little else she packed. The laptop would eat up most of the space in her bag, so it would be left behind. Likewise, the potion wouldn’t be useful on her rush between locations, what with there being no plans on shrinking anyone along the way. If she was to be stopped, she likely wouldn’t have the chance to use a spray bottle as a weapon. It was safer, and less incriminating, if left at the library.

Then there were the women, her collection. It troubled her the most to leave them, but with time ticking, there wasn’t a chance to regret her decision and change her mind.

“Don’t cause trouble.” Melanie warned the four being left behind with a stern look. She was going to abandon them for the time being, but she felt secure leaving them where they were at. Atop the highest shelf, the women were nearly six feet off the ground. Not only did this make them difficult to see in the gloomy lighting, but it would be perilous to risk an escape. The possibility of scaling down seemed bleak, with the consequence being a sure death if there was any error.

Melanie reached up and scooped Adrian into her hand. She couldn’t afford to wait for her to walk into her palm easily, but having her there immediately restored a shard of inner peace. Still, Melanie found herself hesitating just as she pulled away from the bookcase, looking to the other women she’d be leaving behind. Their confused, pitiful expressions gazed up at her, almost like dogs wishing their master wouldn’t leave them; of course, those weren’t the thoughts they genuinely had, but Melanie’s heart ached as if that were the case. Leaving them behind in the safety of her desk was one matter, but in the openness of the library, anything could happen. She shook her head; defenses were prepared, and she wouldn’t be gone for long.

“I’ll… I’ll be back soon.” Melanie frowned at Adrian, unable to look at the others. “I’ll bring food, so, y-you all can look forward to that.”

A stumbled farewell given, Melanie gave one last look around the library to ensure everything was in place. She stowed Adrian away into the messenger bag, then opened up a window to the outside. One arm clutched her bag as an extra precaution as she climbed out of Anders Library. The window was an unconventional exit, but it was how she was going to have to enter and leave from henceforth. There was a small hop involved to slip between the decorative bushes lining that outer wall, and once out into the yard, one more climb over the black fence was between her and the city. She was going to have to balance moving quickly and inconspicuously; although daylight was thinning, the night was unlikely to be much safer.

Go to the apartment. Grab the things. Go back to the library. She nodded, eyes aimed ahead and never getting distracted. Really quick, really simple…

Another heart was racing, just as rapidly as Melanie’s had been. It thumped like a drum starting from when the window opened and, only five feet away from her, had the mysterious woman she had been trailing hopped into view. From the cloak of shrubbery, Paige watched Melanie exit Anders Library, both hands clapped over her mouth.

She had been watching all that time, observing Melanie, from as far back as when she first left Professor Bradz’s office. The assistant of that very teacher had witnessed something impossible, unlike anything she had seen, and she had abandoned her day just to pursue some answers. The entire time, creeping just a couple corners down from whatever hall or road Melanie was on, Paige recalled the scene that played before her. From the window looking into the office, it was unquestionable that Melanie had, somehow, shrunken the professor to the size of a toy. The thought horrified her, but her curiosity kept her interested, impressed enough that she was willing to camp outside the library and peer within, even if the darkness concealed most of what the student was up to.

An opportunity had finally appeared for Paige, however. She witnessed Melanie exit the library from the window and hop the fence out. Only after she was completely out of sight did Paige rise from the bushes and move discreetly towards the same window, which had been left open just a crack.

The doors aren’t good, for some reason, Paige deducted, fingers slipping under the window and then lifting it up. How prepared is she? Anders Library has been abandoned for a long time. Has she taken it over with no one to watch it?

Paige’s nose was insulted the by the scent as she crept into the dark library, one leg hurled through the window, followed by the rest of her. She fixed her braids and adjusted her glasses before sliding along the lit edges of the library. What few windows weren’t shuttered off offered the best source of light for navigating around the corners, and although the library stretched far from one side to the next, there were only a few key things Paige looked out for. Namely, she was on the hunt for the laptop, an item Melanie was seen without when leaving.

First, Paige had to answer her earlier question. Moving along the walls brought her to the front of the building where a set of double-doors, the main entrance, could be seen with a crack of light between them. A pebble kept them from closing entirely; Paige sensed something was wrong, and was more grateful than ever that she didn’t use the doors.

She eventually spotted the trap, which left her perplexed. Atop the double-doors was a mug, a mundane item likely looted from the staff areas. Propped up the way it was, it was simple to conclude what kind of trap Melanie had made -- A prank, more like it, Paige thought. Indeed, it was nothing more than the kind of ploy a cartoon character would arrange, to have a bucket of water or something else spill on top of an unwitting visitor.

“Weird,” Paige muttered. Despite the dull simplicity of it, something eerie certainly resonated from the contraption. She wouldn’t tamper with it, fearful that she was being outsmarted. She would confirm, however, that it wasn’t just the front doors trapped like this. Every standard exit, she discovered, was the same. Melanie did not want visitors.

It was after passing by the third door, a back exit, that she had noticed the yellow-green blip of an active machine. Paige peered around the corner, still unsure that she was entirely alone, but what she searched for was there in the open. The laptop, closed but slumbering, was by itself on one of the many wooden tables.

As Paige neared it, she had trouble making sense of Melanie even more. “She’s coming back,” she halfheartedly figured out. A finger graced the laptop’s slick shell, but she wouldn’t open it. She could confirm it well enough that this was Professor Bradz’s school-issued laptop.

Her eyes fell from the laptop to the floor. She looked to see if it was plugged in, but what she noticed instead was a bottle left on the ground, stood up just beside a leg to the table. Had she been more careless, it was feasible she could have kicked it over by accident. The item was strikingly out of place; a cleaning chemical, so it seemed, just waiting to be used to wipe up the dirty library.

Paige grinned playfully when she plucked it up by the nozzle. M-Maybe I’ve been wrong, she thought amusedly, and this is just a big misunderstanding about Melanie trying to clean up Anders. Ha…

From the spray bottle to the bookshelf right in front of her, Paige was chained from one point of interest to the next. Unlike the laptop and the chemical, however, what she saw startled her. One of the many loose books still occupying the bookcase was being opened from where it stood, as if moving by itself -- or by a ghost.

Paige gasped from how unsettled she was. She stepped back in a hurry, bumping into the table and nearly collapsing backwards onto the laptop. Out of instinct, she threw up her arm and had the spray bottle aimed forward, a finger shaking over the trigger. She knew she looked ridiculous, even in the tail end of the moment, but without an explanation, she feared the worst. Only earlier, after all, did she see someone shrink to the size of a mouse.

There was no one in front of her, but she heard something, a noise in response to her spray bottle. It was quiet, a tone she had to listen out for, but it had the impact of a shriek. Unnerved even more, but confident there wasn’t a tangible threat, she lowered the spray bottle and carefully approached the bookshelf, where that same book remained open.

“H-Hello…?” Paige stuttered, expecting someone on the other side of the bookcase to respond. Instead, the reply she got sounded nearer than that. Another tone like the one before, a squeak that was hauntingly taking the form of human words. It was a mystery, until she undoubtedly heard a phrase--

“I’m right here, Paige!!” Her name had been said, and in an instant, she became aware of the world she was occupying. The tiny voice belonged to an equally tiny person, no one else but Professor Bradz, just as little as Paige witnessed her become. No forethought could have prepared her for her first interaction with a shrunken woman, and so she gasped again, verging on a yell.

“Fuck me!” Paige said, spooked so much that a hand clapped against her drumming chest. Even if it was Bradz, a person she was familiar with, the revelation was bizarre and horrific. So badly did her mind want to accept a different reality, but it was, without a doubt, the very same Professor Bradz she interned under as an assistant. She was three inches tall, calling out her name, and using the cover of a fallen novel to flag her attention.

“Oh, god, she found us! She found us!” Bradz cheered with an energy she had previously been sure had been beaten out of her. She called out to the others, the rest of the victims, who dotted the vacant space of the bookshelf. “Paige, Paige, please! Get us out of here, you have to save us!”

“W-What the…?” Paige was baffled. Her round glasses surveyed the shelf and its tiny occupants, a whole group of women all shrunken to the same size. Along with Bradz were two adults and one that looked like a student. Two of the bunch had their nudity reflected off the huge glasses, but although the sight made Paige blush, modesty was the least of their concerns. Much like Bradz, they were ecstatic to see this giantess. Scarlet hopped up and down right at the edge of the bookshelf, Kimberly was hesitant but pleading nonetheless, and Chloe had collapsed into full-force begging mixed with the terror she felt staring up at such a colossal being. None of this, however, did Paige’s mental state any favors.

“This is absolutely unreal,” Paige commented. Her gaze returned to Bradz, the only one she recognized. “What the hell happened?! I-I saw you… I saw you shrink! I saw--”

“Melanie! It was that bitch, Melanie!” Bradz shouted. Never before had Paige heard such a visceral tone from the professor, but by the sights of her, the anger was appropriate. Bruises littered Bradz’s body and her face was still an agonizing red from being nearly crushed. Her hair and clothes, both of which had been orderly for that day’s classes, were matted from a thick wetness, disgracing her presentation. Paige flinched when noticing her legs, crooked and sprained, to assume the best. “She did this! She did this to us, all of us!”

Paige backed away slowly, spurring Bradz and Chloe both to reach outward in desperation, as if to pull her back in. She would ignore them, delving into her own thoughts and adjusting her glasses. She didn’t doubt them; Melanie was the mastermind of this kidnapping operation, that had to be true, and these were her victims. The question bothering her was the method, the how. And so, her eyes turned to the spray bottle in her hand. For the first time, she analyzed the liquid within, giving the bottle a shake and watching the specks inside swirl.

“W-Was it this that did it?” she asked, raising the bottle.

“Yes! I-It’s a curse!” Scarlet answered her frantically. “Or, something! Some occult bullshit! But whatever the fuck it is, th-that’s how she shrinks people…! That’s how she shrunk us!”

“She just… squirts it?” Without thinking, she had pointed the bottle at the women--

“Yes!!” Kimberly collapsed back, arms raised over her head. The others responded about the same, a convincing reaction for getting Paige to aim away from them. Kimberly peeked over her arms, relieved to not have been shrunken even more, but still on edge all the same. “Yes,” she continued between pants, “that’s how she does it...”

“Okay…” Paige nodded, once again studying the way the liquid shifted. “Interesting. Interesting.”

“Paige… Listen to me.” Bradz had crawled forward a pace, her most adult and professional voice picked out for the occasion a stark contrast to her posture. “Listen to me closely. That student is a beast. A freak. You need to get us out of here, and find the p-police or something, and tell the dean! Warn someone, anyone!”

“Whoa, you have no idea what you’re talking about,” Scarlet interjected. Bradz acted surprised that she’d be questioned, seemingly insulted even. “You just got here and don’t know jack shit about the situation. Lady,” she turned to Paige, “you can’t just send some fucking cops after her. She has this book that she created the curse from or some shit, and that book has a cure for us! If you freak her out, she’s gonna do something wild, like tear the book apart, or burn it!”

“A cure…?” Paige wondered aloud. Not until then had she considered a way to reverse the shrinking.

“Yeah, a fucking cure, and we fucking need it.” Scarlet shivered, her emotions building up. A fraction of her expected Kimberly to be contrary about the cure, but no such argument was had. “J-Just… tell the police that, at least! We need that book!”

“Yeah, we do…” Paige nodded, her mind hard at work drafting up a scheme. Her eyes drifted from the tiny women, a sign that worried them. “Are there… more…?” She pointed at them with her free hand. “I-I haven’t kept up with how many have been, err, kidnapped.”

“This is… almost, almost all of us,” Kimberly explained. Newcomers Chloe and Bradz were curious to hear some elaboration. After a pause to ponder it, Kimberly continued, “There were… two more. She… killed them. A-And then, there’s also Adrian. She’s--”

“That’s Melanie’s fucking favorite,” Scarlet bitterly took over. A glare was given to her by Kimberly, but she shrugged it off. “She adores Adrian, she’s not even one of us. Even right now, Melanie took her with her, sh-she’s like…! I-I don’t know, but she’s not treated like us! So, shit, just forget about her.”

“Sh-She…” Chloe swallowed, hesitant to speak up as if she understood anything, “she didn’t ask for this, though… did she?”

“Forget her!” Scarlet repeated in a snap. “It’s not like she’s in bad hands, ya’ know! Melanie will take care of her, like fucking always.”

“B-But she wanted to be normal! That’s why she chose this person to shrink!”

“What?!” Bradz gasped. “Wh-What does that mean? What did you mean by that?”

“Hah,” Scarlet chuckled, “guess we never mentioned that, but Adrian picked you out special, Professor. She heard you running your mouth off about students pretending to get kidnapped. Karma’s always a bitch.”

Bradz seethed. “Don’t you talk to me like that, young--”

“Fuck off, bitch,” Scarlet grinned, “we’ve all gotten screwed but you actually deserve this! I was minding my own fucking business here, in this goddamn library, when that goth creep came up and shrank me! I wasn’t doing shit to her! At least Adrian had the fucking sense to shrink a real asshole!”

“I’ll kill you! How dare you!”

“Don’t get pissy with me, it was Adrian that decided it.” Scarlet shook her head. “Just sayin’, some of us have priority here for getting out of here, and that list sure as fuck doesn’t have you at the top.”

“Paige!” Bradz called up, her eyes beaming straight at Scarlet. “Get me out of here! Pick me up and leave these freaks here!”

“Don’t listen to her!” Kimberly stepped up quickly, both hands raised to try and disiss both Bradz and Scarlet on either side of her. She looked demandingly up at the giant circular lenses belonging to Paige. “We’ve hit our limit, please, just free us! We’re begging!”

Paige’s reaction was delayed, too gathered up into her own thoughts while the tiny women on the shelf bickered at one another. When she snapped to, the surrealness of seeing these women move about, acting so panicked, had hit her even harder than before. They all truly were desperate, willing to do anything to finally escape whatever hell Melanie had been submitting them to. In her eyes, she saw the essence of perfect luck.

Two fingers hovered over Bradz before pinching her body by the waist between them. The professor was lifted and immediately responded with resistance, but all of her squirming and kicking could do nothing to the massive hand, even less so when it shifted into a fist that contained Bradz and sealed away her cries for help. Paige wasn’t intentionally rough in her handling, this was merely her first time holding a shrunken woman, and the feeling was bewildering. Part of her wanted to laugh, another part wanted to gasp, but she held Bradz firmly and observed her with as much curiosity.

“I think I’ll take just Bradz with me,” Paige said. Her words were a total surprise to the other women, all three of which fell pale at what she said. “And this, too,” she raised the red bottle that slushed the potion about. “There’s something I need to do, and with everything here… just, perfectly in place…”

“Paige!! What are you thinking?!” Bradz worriedly asked, her head only barely poking out from the hand encircling her. “C-Call the cops!”

“You cannot leave us like this…!” Kimberly also yelled, on behalf of all three women being left behind. “We’ll die out here! Melanie will come back--”

“She will! That’s exactly it!” Paige smiled, no longer able to hold back her joy in all this. “None of you have to worry. I’ll come back. I promise, after I’m done with a small… errand, I’ll get you guys to the police. But…” She watched their reactions carefully, how their fears subsided only slightly upon her explanation, but had left them anxious to learn more. Her smile persisted, “I’ll need your help doing something. You help me, I’ll help you.”

Minutes later, Paige was exiting Anders Library through the same window she entered. She made especially certain that the makeshift entrance looked exactly like how she had come across it, leaving no track behind that she had been there while Melanie was away. The sun was descending, dragging with it towards the horizon a gray sheet of clouds. Her window of opportunity wasn’t wide, but she didn’t have far to travel. Much of the campus had already been emptied for the coming evening, but she knew that the person she wanted to see was still lingering on campus.

Paige dug into an inner pocket located within her sweater vest. Within it, she could peer in and see Bradz’s face, as little as it was, staring back up at her. Although the professor’s expression was dark and horrified, her assistant’s was bright and optimistic. “Don’t worry, ma’am,” Paige giggled, then closed her vest to hide the professor away. “We’re visiting the dean right now, just like you wanted.”