I stood on the last page of the pamphlet, holding the other end up to keep it from folding over onto me. It had been a tremendously boring read, and having to move with the words like it was some kind of captioned sing-along only made it worse. Still, a page or two about setting up a wi-fi router was more stimulating than looking around the living room of her sparsely-decorated condo for the tenth time, and since I was restricted to the table top I would not be able to explore anywhere else. Checking out her shoes might be an interesting trip down memory lane, I thought, or I could try and turn on the TV.
What could be taking Fulda so long? She had said that she was going out, and there would be a surprise for me later, but was frustratingly vague on the details. The way she was dressed it could have been anything from an office party to an evening at an upscale club. I should have asked if I could go with her to avoid having to spend all night by myself. There was enough room in her clutch for me, and if there was a lull in the conversation she could show me off as a kind of curiosity.
There was a loud thud on the door, and my attention snapped to it. “Oh yeah, I locked it,” Fulda said, giggling. Another voice joined her laughter while keys jingled, then the rapid clicks of tumblers while a key slid into the lock. She jimmied it for a moment, then turned it with a loud click. The handle turned and I hopped off the sheet of paper, eager to see what surprise Fulda had brought home – and wanting to be sure I would be easily seen.
Fulda strode through the door, a smile plastered on her face and her gait unsteady while she crossed the threshold. A much shorter woman leaned against her, slotting nicely under the arm Fulda had draped over her for mutual support. She had short but voluminous brown hair and wide-rimmed glasses that magnified her light brown eyes, and a pretty face with small, sharp features. Her slight build was accentuated by the tight, short-sleeved shirt she wore, and her pale skin was contrasted by its dark color. The shirt was tucked in to a pair of tiny black shorts, with the rest of her legs covered by black stockings. Physically she was the polar opposite of Fulda, but their sense of style lined up perfectly.
They walked toward the table, still leaning on each other for support while the ground shook beneath them. Fulda set her black clutch on the table beside me so that the golden clasp was aligned with me as though delineating a border, and her friend tossed her handbag down beside it with a crash. A powerful tremor went through the table, causing me to lean on the bar of Fulda’s clutch for support, and the new woman slid from beneath Fulda’s arm. She walked toward the kitchen area while Fulda stood by the table, leaning on it slightly for support and looming over me with her gigantic body.
“When you said you lived a few blocks from the club I thought you were bullshitting,” she said. Her voice was a little nasal and probably high-pitched to other people, but it still sounded like a low, powerful roar to me. “If I had known it was a five-minute walk I would’ve worn heels!”
“Good thing you didn’t,” Fulda said, “I don’t think I could bear having to look up at you all night, Mia.” She had never mentioned anyone named Mia before, so I doubted this was one of her friends from college.
“I think I’d like looking down at you, though,” Mia replied. “You’re so damn tall it’d be nice to take you down a peg. Do you have any liquor?”
“Yeah, it’s in the bottom cabinet besides the fridge,” she told her. “Go ahead and mix us up a couple vodka tonics, there’s some tonic water in the fridge door.” The sound of cabinets opening and closing filled the silence for a moment. “Do you ever wonder how your life would be different if you were taller?”
“Not really,” Mia answered while unscrewing the vodka bottle. “It’s not something I can change, so I don’t bother. How strong do you want your drink?”
“Stronger than I am,” Fulda responded with a grin. “Okay, what if you were taller than me?”
“Sounds like you just want straight vodka,” Mia joked. “I’d probably get more attention from guys in clubs for one.” She poured out the liquor, making one noticeably more full. “Are you talking like you’re five feet tall or something, or am I seven feet?”
“I better get some tonic!” Fulda insisted. “I like the bubbles. Let’s go with me being five feet, though I’m curious about the other one, too.”
Mia opened a bottle of tonic water with a hiss and began pouring it into her glass. “I think…” she trailed off, probably trying to focus on her drink while thinking of an answer. “If you five-foot-nothing, I’d make fun of you. A lot. And I’d probably bully you by holding stuff you want over your head, because I’ve never gotten to do that to anyone.” She paused while pouring a splash into Fulda’s glass. “And if I were super-tall like you I’d call you my little friend a lot, and probably be a lot better at sports.”
“Very interesting,” Fulda replied. “What if… you were gigantic compared to me?”
There was a clatter while Mia put away the bottle and shut the refrigerator door. “That depends. Are you tiny, or am I, like, a giantess or something?”
“For the sake of this, we’ll say I’m tiny and you’re your normal size.”
“How tiny we talking?” Mia asked. Metal clinked against glass while she stirred the drinks, followed by a loud rattle when she set the mixer down in the sink.
“About an inch,” Fulda replied, raising a hand and holding her fingers close to demonstrate what size she was talking about.
“Let’s see,” Mia began, picking up a glass with each hand. She began walking back toward us, taking extra care to not spill a drop. “If you were an inch tall, I would…” Mia handed the drink that was mostly vodka to Fulda and took a sip out of hers before answering. “Step on you!” she exclaimed, stomping her foot for emphasis. I looked at her in surprise, and Fulda looked uncomfortable. That was not the answer she wanted to hear. “You’re just so insanely hot, I can only imagine you’d be too adorable for me to bear at that size.” She took another sip of her drink while we stared at her, and I prepared to duck inside Fulda’s clutch if she noticed me. “Nah, for real though, I’d probably keep you in a jar on my desk. Then you could give me all your great ideas at work and I could take all the credit, and we’d split the bonus down the middle!” Fulda untensed, and I relaxed. A less murder-focused answer was much more what she expected. “What’s with all these weird questions?”
Fulda took a long draught from her drink and reached down, pushing her clutch out of the way. She kept her arm down and extended her fingers toward me like she was presenting the prize on a game show. “Mia, I’d like you to meet my roommate.” I waved up at her and smiled, glad to finally be part of the conversation.
She stared at me in shock, unable to believe what she was seeing. “No way.”
“Way.”
Mia continued staring at me in disbelief. She took a step closer and leaned in closer to me. “Fulda, that’s an inch-tall man,” she said like she was trying to explain it to herself.
“Sure is,” Fulda replied with a cocky smile. She must have been building up to this all night, if not longer, and I just got the tail end of it.
“How did you even meet someone so small?” Mia continued advancing toward me, and was now close enough that her face loomed over me. Fulda seemed to pick her friends by how pretty they were, since Mia was gorgeous. Now that I was looking at her enormous face up-close I noticed that it had near-perfect symmetry, and the small features were a perfect fit for her, with the glasses drawing attention to her face. “Did he crawl into your shoe or climb up on your lap or something? How did you not swat him like a bug?”
“We used to date,” Fulda stated, and Mia stopped and looked at her in astonishment. “I know, right?” she added with a chuckle. “Can you imagine me with a pipsqueak like that?”
Mia turned back to me, her mouth wide open. Seeing her open maw so close it was difficult not to imagine her popping me into it, and I gave a quick shudder. “Yeah, that is pretty funny,” she agreed. “I’m not even sure how… I mean, you’re gigantic to me, and I’m probably gigantic to him, so you must be uh, double-gigantic to him. Does he think I’m gigantic?”
“Dunno, why don’t you try asking him?”
Mia’s mouth dropped again in astonishment. “He can talk?” she exclaimed.
“Yeah, of course he can!” Fulda responded. “He’s tiny, not mute. He’s pretty smart, too, and really fun to talk to!”
Mia gave me a wide-eyed stare and a huge grin, as though learning I could talk was like learning the lottery. She leaned in real close, until her mouth was only an inch or so from me, and bellowed, “Excuse me, Fulda’s tiny roommate, but am I gigantic to you?” The sheer power from her voice blew my hair back and left my ears ringing from its volume.
Fulda cringed and touched her shoulder. “Please don’t yell at my tiny roommate,” she said gently. “He can hear you just fine… or at least, he could. Our voices are a lot louder to him on account of his size.”
Mia covered up her mouth in embarrassment, and her raw excitement gave way to concern. “Oh shit, I’m sorry little guy!” she apologized in a whisper. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?” I slowly shook my head, making the movements as exaggerated as possible. My ears were ringing, but it was nothing I had not dealt with from Gina. “Okay, good! So, am I gigantic to you?” A smile crept across her face while she waited for me to answer.
“Yeah, you’re enormous!” I told her. “I’m absolutely certain you could step on me like you’d step on Fulda, though I’d rather you didn’t.”
Her eyes lit up, and she was positively beaming. “Cool!” she exclaimed. “I’ve never been able to step on anyone before! Or gigantic to anyone, for that matter.” She took another sip of her drink and slowly slid a hand along the table to ward me, finger extended. Fulda let her keep going and I stayed in her path, so she gave me a light poke before quickly pulling her hand back. Mia mouthed “Wow!” then turned back to Fulda. “You didn’t tell me how you met him, though. C’mon, I bet it’s a great story! I bet you were in a club and he was trying to dance with you, and he was dodging your feet and going ‘Oh no, please don’t step on me!’ and you were all ‘Oh shit, a tiny man!’”
“Not quite,” Fulda replied coyly. “I actually met him in school, and he was a lot bigger then.”
“So he… shrank?”
“Yep.”
Mia slowly turned back to me, her eyes bulging behind her huge glasses. “Whoa,” she uttered. “So, uh, how’d you shrink, if you don’t mind me asking? Is it some genetic condition? Did you get some kind of disease, and Fulda, the kind, beautiful woman that she is took care of you?”
“Fulda shrank me at our senior prom,” I said, matter-of-factly. “But it was while we were dancing, and she did almost step on me a few times.”
Mia was having a difficult time with having her mind blown so constantly, and her inebriated state did not help. “Shit Fulda, you can shrink people?” she exclaimed. “That’s amazing! That’s huge!”
“I don’t like the advertise the fact, but yes, I can,” she answered, as though she was talking about playing the piano.
“Could you shrink me?” Mia asked, then took another sip of her drink.
“I think you’re small enough as it is,” Fulda replied, giving her a playful look. “But I could, if you wanted to know what it’s like to be even smaller. Then I could grow you back when you got tired of it.”
“You can grow people too?” Mia was beside herself with excitement with each new fact she learned, not even thinking to question it. “I want to be as big as you! No, bigger! Wait, why haven’t you grown him back yet?”
Fulda took a quick swig from her drink to cover her hesitation. “I don’t want to,” she hurriedly lied. “I think he’s really cute that size. He doesn’t want me to either, actually. We’re both satisfied with him being tiny like this.”
“Well, he is really cute,” Mia said, turning back to me. “If I weren’t dating Jesse I’d snatch him up in an instant. It’d be so nice to be taller than a boyfriend for once, and I think it’d be cool if he thought I was gigantic like this guy does.” Her hand crept forward again and she gave me a firm poke with her finger, then smiled broadly. This time she did not pull her hand away as though I would shatter like glass, and seemed to be getting comfortable with me.
“I’ll see if I can help you out with Jesse, then,” Fulda suggested, then took another drink. “I mean, if you’re serious, bring him out with you sometime and give the word. He’ll be in the palm of your hand in no time.”
“Awesome,” Mia whispered, not taking her eyes off me. “Hey, do you mind if I pick him up?”
“I don’t mind,” Fulda answered, “but it’s not up to me, is it? You should really ask him.”
“Excuse me, Fulda’s tiny roommate, do you-“
“Sure, go ahead,” I said before she could finish. “But be careful, I don’t want Fulda to have to explain to a doctor how I got a broken arm, or why I’m only an inch tall. Also, you don’t have to refer to me as ‘Fulda’s tiny roommate’ every time you talk to me.”
“Okay, I’ll keep that in mind!” Mia responded, raising her fingers toward me. Her hand inched toward me then she suddenly lunged, engulfing me with her hand. Mia’s fingers snapped shut, trapping me in a loose fist. The temperature spiked from her body heat, and my stomach churned as her hand came to a stop. “This is so cool,” she said, lifting me away from the table. “I have a real, live person inside my hand!”
“Yeah, it is neat,” Fulda replied. “But, for the record, tiny people don’t like being picked up like that. It makes them uncomfortable.” She was speaking from experience. Fulda had picked me up like that before when she wanted to mess with me, and I had no doubt she had done that to many of her unfortunate victims in college.
“Oops, sorry little guy,” Mia whispered, just loud enough to make it through her fingers. She opened her fist, and I found myself close enough to touch the lens of her glasses. I yelped and darted back out of surprise, then quickly calmed down when I realized what had happened. For her part Mia did not notice, and only let out an astonished “Wow.” “He’s even smaller up close!”
Fulda smiled. “Yeah, he’s pretty small no matter how you look at him.” Either Mia’s constant exuberance was wearing thin on her, or she simply had nothing to add to it. She always had trouble staying interested when the conversation was not explicitly about her. “You should try talking to him, though.”
“Excuse me, Ful- uh, hey, little dude,” Mia corrected herself. “So, what’s it like being so small?” She swore under her breath, and quickly thought of a better question. “I mean, what’s it like to be held in someone’s hand? I think it’s really cool, but is it scary for you?”
“It can be at first,” I answered. She was probably using this to decide whether she wanted Fulda to shrink her boyfriend, and I was going to be as transparent as possible. For all I knew, he would enjoy it. “Once you get used to it, though, it’s kind of a neat feeling, and if I want to get anywhere fast someone has to carry me.”
“Good to know.” Mia’s hand was shaking, causing me to wobble back and forth in her palm. “And, uh, what about having an enormous face this close to you? I guess that might be scary too, right?”
“It depends on the person,” I replied. “I’ve never been held by an ugly person, but I probably wouldn’t like that. Everyone who’s ever put their face this close to me has been gorgeous, present company included.” Though it killed me to admit it, Gina’s poison soul was hidden behind an incredibly beautiful face that I would have enjoyed a lot more if she had not been constantly trying to stuff me between her lips.
“Aw, thanks! You’re so sweet! I hope Jesse’s this sweet when he’s your size.” It sounded like she had made up her mind, or was at least leaning heavily toward going through with it.
I made sure she was finished before continuing. “If I thought you were going to eat me though, like if you had me down by your mouth or you kept licking your lips or something, I’d probably be terrified. And this probably varies by tiny person, but I, personally, don’t like being this close. I prefer being about six inches to a foot away from someone’s face.”
“Oh, sorry!” Mia apologized. “Let me fix that right now.” Her hand quickly pulled me away from her face, but with how unsteady it was I started rolling across her palm. Before she could stop me I careened off the edge and plunged out of her hand. I rapidly fell the length of her relatively gargantuan body until landing on her foot, which fortunately broke my fall. Before I could get back up, however, I rolled toward the side of her foot and dropped to the floor, where I landed with a thud.
“Oh fuck I killed him,” Mia said, deadpan. “Fulda, I am so, so sorry about that, please don’t shrink Jesse, I’m clearly not ready for a tiny person.” I moved to get my arms under me and pushed, slowly getting up. The breath had been knocked out of me by the fall, but other than that I felt fine. “Should I step on him to make it look like an accident?” She lifted her foot, then set it back down with a dull thump. “No, that’ll just look worse, like I meant to kill him. I’ll eat him to get rid of the evidence. I killed him, so I should do it.”
“Mia!” Fulda hissed, finally getting through to her. She had been trying to stop her panicked rant since it began, but once she started it was hard to derail. “Look down, dammit!”
Reluctantly she looked down, then let out a heavy sigh of relief. “Oh, thank fuck, he’s alive,” she exclaimed. “Sorry about that, little guy.”
“Yeah, he’s pretty tenacious,” Fulda offered. “Most tiny people have a fatal accident within six hours, but this guy’s a survivor.” I thought it was incredibly morbid that she referred to shrinking and murdering people as them having “fatal accidents,” but if that was how she justified it so she could sleep at night she was not going to listen to my admonishments. “He’s been through some rough shit in his six shrunken years and somehow came out of it stronger than when he started. I’m pretty sure that unless you stomp on him or eat him or something he’ll be banged up, but he’ll live.”
“Sweet,” Mia remarked, still in shock from her near brush with being a murderer. “So, should we pick him back up or something?”
“Well, you shouldn’t,” Fulda replied, “not after all that talk about eating him. Besides, he likes being on the floor.”
“Really?” Mia asked, as though she had just learned the sky was blue.
“Yeah!” Fulda’s excitement was coming back now that she got to talk about something related to herself. “You see, he’s remarkable for more than being hard to kill. He likes being this small.”
“Get out, no he doesn’t,” Mia interjected.
“He does!” Fulda insisted. “When he first asked me out he was shorter than you! He loves gigantic women and feeling small, at being at our feet makes him feel super small!”
“But I’m not gigantic,” Mia protested.
“I think you need a second opinion,” Fulda suggested. “Try asking him.”
“Hey little guy!” Mia boomed. “Am I gigantic to you?”
“You’re colossal!” I shouted back, reassuring her.
She grinned like I had just given her a diamond the size of her fist. “And do I make you feel small?” she asked smugly, drawing out the last syllable.
I looked up at Mia, really taking in the image of her as a giantess. Her black, leather ballet flats were over twice my height, and I would have to take a running jump to even have a chance of reaching where they opened up and gave way to thick, coal black nylon. Though her legs were a little stocky the stockings gave the illusion that they were long and slender, an impression helped by her high-waisted, rolled-up black shorts at the top of the towering spires. Mia’s breasts were a little large for someone so small and slim, and she leaned forward a little so I could see her face. From the floor any imperfections and blemishes were invisible, and it felt like her brown eyes were boring into me from behind her glasses. What sold it though was her cocky attitude, like she was bathing in the attention from me. “You make me feel puny, Mia!” I answered, stroking her ego.
“Ooh, I like him,” Mia responded, biting her lip. “I hope Jesse’s as into it as he is.”
“There’s just one more thing,” Fulda said. “You have to act like a giantess for him.”
“But how do I…”
“Just watch,” Fulda interrupted. She gulped down the rest of her drink and slammed the empty glass onto the table, then stepped forward. Fulda adjusted her stance so that she was standing astride me, with the toes of her high heels equally distant from me. Her hands rested on her hips, just at the base of her fantastically short skirt, and she glared at me from what seemed like a thousand feet up with her cold blue eyes. As I gazed up her in astonishment my eyes kept being drawn back to her humongous high heel shoes, buttressing her towering body like structures on their own. It felt like she was becoming more immense by the second, and when I looked at her shoes I was confident she could easily squash Mia beneath one.
“Is that a tiny man, or a bug?” she asked, her voice a low growl. “Fuck it, not like there’s a difference.” Fulda raised her right foot, coiling it up so far that her thigh touched her chest. After a long wind-up she wobbled, unsteady on one leg, and brought it racing down to the floor with a cataclysmic crack when her shoe slammed against the wood. A bone-rattling tremor spread through the wood, turning my knees to jelly and causing me to stumble forward onto the suede toe of her shoe. While I struggled to recover Fulda lifted her heel and began grinding her foot back and forth along the ball, shoving me off to sprawl onto the floor. She maintained firm eye contact with me while she pressed her foot harder against the floor, making audible grinding sounds as she dug into it.
Suddenly she stopped, pulled her foot back beneath her, and fell back into a casual stance. “And that’s how it’s done!” she said cheerfully. “Now you try.”
“Fulda, he’s terrified!” Mia protested. “There’s no way he likes that!”
“He does, though!” Fulda insisted. “There’s no better way to make someone feel small than to make yourself as imposing as possible and then nearly stomp them flat.”
“Little guy, did you like that?” Mia asked.
“Hell yeah!” I responded excitedly. “There’s really no feeling like it. She made me feel like I was just a puny bug that she was going to squash, it was exhilarating!” What the hell was I saying? Had all that nonsense she spouted finally sunk into my head and become true? Did I actually enjoy being tiny, and bug-sized in comparison to her?
“See? He likes it!” Fulda reiterated, backing me up. “So give it a shot.”
“Okay,” Mia replied, “but I don’t really feel comfortable. And little guy, if I don’t make you feel smaller than I already do, please understand that it’s my first time, all right?”
“Got it, but I’m sure you’ll do fine!” I shouted back up at her. Fulda stepped back, clearing the way for Mia to come closer, and I eagerly turned to face the shorter giantess.
Mia closed her eyes, and when she opened them again it was like night and day. No longer was she timid and apologetic, but she had a hardened, steel gaze which immediately fell upon me. She stepped forward, making her stride slow and deliberate as her heel crashed into the floor, followed by the rest of her sole slapping against the wood. Before I could recover from the first shockwave she brought her other foot forward in the same way, sending out another quake that made me concerned a tectonic plate had actually buckled nearby. When she stopped she was practically on top of me, her heinously long legs standing astride me while she mimicked Fulda’s stance.
I gazed up at her, jaw wide, unable to believe what I was seeing. Mia seemed to be growing a hundred feet a second and showed no sign of stopping. In no time I felt like a speck of dust before her, then started to get concern I was going to slip into the wood grain below me. After a quick glance to my left I was speechless: her ballet flat appeared to be gargantuan, easily several times the size of the building we were in. My mind recalled the image of Fulda from a minute ago and even she seemed puny compared to Mia now, like she would barely even soil her shoes. This whole “feeling small” thing was getting to my head, and they were both amazing at it.
“Shit, you’ve got ants, Fulda,” Mia said stoically. Her voice was intelligible, so I knew that Fulda was not pulling a fast one by shrinking me during this, and she only seemed to be monolithic. “Or tiny people. Whatever, they both go squish just as easily.” She raised her foot and brought it forward like she was taking a regular step, setting her heel down just to the side of me. Slowly she brought her toes down, practically rolling them onto the wood until her entire foot was flat against it. Just as slowly as it had set down she raised her heel, and when it was vertical she began to very meticulously grind the ball of her foot, as though she were pulverizing a whole colony of ants.
“Damn, missed one,” she said, bringing her heel back down with a tremendous rumble. Mia raised her sole back up and rotated it on her heel so that it was towering over me. I felt the size of a bacterium beneath her shoe, and as it descended I could not even feel that big. Compared to her I was literally nothing, and while the mammoth sole gradually lowered toward me I could not tear my eyes off the deep canyon of a design etched into it. She stopped when it was millimeters above my head, threatening to knock me over. With one wrong move she could snuff me out, and this would no longer be a fun game.
The tremendous shoe above me began to wobble, and I snapped out of the illusion. Mia let out little whimpers as she struggled to maintain her balance, her shoe weaving side to side, up and down over me. It pitched forward, and I hear her yell “Shit!” I wanted to squeeze my eyes shut but could not force myself. If I was finally going to meet the reaper after so many close calls, I wanted to greet him head-on.
There was a flash of movement and the shoe stopped, then I heard a loud grunt come from Fulda. Mia went stumbling backward and I looked up to see Fulda standing over me, one leg fully extended into the air. She carefully set it down, making sure to not generate any more erroneous seismic activity, though the boom and quake from Mia toppling over more than made up for it.
“You’ve had too much to drink, Mia,” Fulda declared, moving to stand between me and her. “It was all fun and games until you put your foot on top of him and nearly smashed him because you lost your balance. If you want to do that shit you can do it with Jesse, okay? Not my fucking roommate.”
“Sorry,” Mia replied, trying to get back up. Her feet scrabbled for traction on the wooden floor, and she struggled to pull herself up by gripping the counter. She made a furious pounding and continuous series of aftershocks while she tried to get her footing. Finally she seemed stable enough to not fall on her face, and Fulda bent over to scoop me up with a pair of fingers.
“You can sleep on the couch, there’s a blanket already laid over it,” she called over her shoulder while walking away. Fulda snuggled me to her chest, making sure I was okay. “You’re not hurt, are you?” she whispered to me. “I was really worried she was going to do something stupid and get you killed.”
“No, I’m fine,” I replied. “Were you messing with my size during that, though?”
“Dude, I haven’t fucked with your size since graduation,” she answered. “Why?”
“She made me feel like I was actually nothing,” I responded. “Mia was gargantuan to me until she started falling over. I’ve never felt so small before.”
“Huh, guess she’s a natural,” Fulda said, kneeling slowly. With her free hand she reached out and grabbed the roof off a tiny building, sliding it off in her palm. “Probably for the best she’s trapped in such a small body, then. Jesse’s either the luckiest or most cursed guy in the world.” She lowered me into the building and gently set me down on the floor, then opened her fingers to release me. “I’ll come get you in the morning. If someone tries to get you before I normally wake up, start screaming your head off and I’ll come running, okay?”
“Sure thing,” I said, walking over to my tiny bed.
Fulda gave me a small smile. “Good night,” she said, sliding the roof back onto the building. She stood, and I watched her great, stockinged legs walk off into her room. Once she was inside she bent over and undid the buckles of her shoes, slid her feet out of them, and carefully set them beside the bed.
“Hey Fulda?” Mia shouted from the living room. “I’m not sure that little guy should just be your roommate, you two have something special.”
“Good night, Mia,” Fulda answered, then sighed deeply. She knew I heard it, but neither of us wanted to think about it. I chalked it up to the ravings of a drunk and slid under my covers. A soft, rhythmic pounding came from Fulda’s room, then the light went off with a loud click. The pounding resumed for a few seconds then stopped entirely.