2 weeks later, the pledges received a text from Emily around 1:30 in the morning, telling them to get dressed and meet her in the lobby of the dorm. As she made her way downstairs, Allison couldn't help but tremble a bit with excitement, tinged with fear. The last couple of weeks had been a whirlwind. After that incident with Kylie and the bottom of Amanda's foot, the pledges had been on their very best behavior. As far as Allison knew, no one else had yet failed to live up to standards, and while this made her happy, there was a part of her that felt a bit... regretful about it. There had been something intoxicating about watching Amanda wield such power, and Allison was glad she'd saved the video to her phone. Too often lately she'd found herself watching it, admiring the sight of Amanda's creamy sole, toes wiggling, a tiny red splotch that had been a fellow pledge decorating the bottom. She wanted that power, but whenever she asked one of the sisters about it, she was met with puzzlement. None of them seemed to want to talk about it.
Entering the lobby, Emily greeted them with a bright smile. “All right ladies, hope you got enough sleep already, because we've got a lot to do tonight! Follow me.”. With that, Emily turned and made her way out the door. Allison followed close behind, looking down at Emily's feet with their purple painted toes, trying to see if there were any red splotches on her sole as she walked. She wasn't alone. Ever since that brush with Amanda, most of the pledges had watched the ground, and the feet of their superior sisters, trying to catch a glimpse of a tiny person, or their remains. At this point, some of them were even beginning to doubt that the punishment had ever happened! A common theory went that it was some combination of optical illusion and video manipulation, but Allison didn't buy it. She knew what she had seen.
The girls were following Emily up the porch stairs of the sorority house, when she suddenly stopped, and turned around. Allison quickly glanced up attentively, and realizing that Emily had caught her looking, turned a bit red. “In case you're curious, I get my nails done at the place on Broadway”, Emily said with a small grin. “Ok everyone! Listen up. I'm going to be passing out blindfolds, and you're going to follow me, silently.” Everyone put on the blindfolds, and holding onto the person in front of them, followed Emily into the house, silently, the only sound audible the slaps of Emily's soles. “Ok, now, everyone strip! Except the blindfolds!” After a mild susurration, she said, louder “NOW!”. Allison removed her clothes, blushing despite knowing that everyone else was just as naked as she was. Then, standing naked in the darkness, and blindfolded, she saw a flash right before she passed out.
And now, a few minutes later, Allison stood, shivering a bit, in complete darkness. After waiting silently for a few minutes, the girls had removed their blindfolds, and it hadn't made it one bit easier to see. “Hey, who is that? It's Allison” she murmured quietly to the girl who had just bumped into her. “It's Emily. What the heck is going on?” she heard the girl murmur in response. Emily was a physics major who Allison had become increasingly friendly with over the last couple of weeks. The tall blonde geek had a lot of spunk, and was almost as committed to the sorority as Allison was, though she was one of the ones who was skeptical about the shrinking. “What are we standing on? Why does the ground... give a bit? Feels almost like leather...” A deafening giggle filled the air, and the tiny pledges screamed and covered their ears.
“I see you're all awake!” thundered a feminine voice. “Now, you're probably all wondering where you are... let's shed a little light on the situation.” With that, an enormous flame, like a small sun, burst into light, momentarily blinding the girls. As their vision returned, Allison looked around, even more puzzled at the giant flame, and still entirely clueless as to where she was. The plush ground was a cream color. “It shouldn't be possible. Can't be...” Emily muttered alongside her, gazing up at the sky. Allison followed her gaze, and her mouth slowly opened. On the other side of the large group, someone let out a short shriek.
She probably wouldn't have recognized it, if it wasn't for what had happened a few weeks ago, but the sky was unmistakably someone's sole. Well, a small part of the sole. “You're about half a millimeter tall, if you're wondering” the voice boomed again. “Oh, wait! Your phones are somewhere nearby, should be in a backpack or something. Find those first. Someone text me when they're all passed out.” One of the girls shouted that she'd found a bag, and quickly handed out the phones. A Snapchat awaited everyone. From Emily.
“Awwwwww so cute! #firstculling” read the caption on the series of photos. First, a picture of the naked pledges, standing in a darkened living room. Then, a picture of Julie, the girly redhead beaming into the camera as she stood next to Amanda. Next, a picture of some cute closed-toe, backless slip-ons, bare arch and heel of the girl wearing them visible, slightly raised. Last, a photo, zoomed way in, of the insole, some tiny specks visible in the middle of the shoe, under the arch. Those must be us, Allison realized along with the other girls. “But why? Why make us small?” one of the other pledges cried out, as another began to sob. Allison remembered that Emily had instructed them to text her, and dashed off a brief “we found them”.
“Everyone can thank Allison for responding!” came Emily's voice again, followed by a thundering giggle, and a different voice. “If you dumb pledges haven't figured it out yet, you're in a shoe. My shoe. And a challenge awaits you! Your task is simple. Make your way to my toes, take a selfie of you kissing them, preferably the big toe, and then make your way to the heel and text us, and we'll make you big again. Simple, right?” It was now that Allison noticed a sweaty smell, presumably from the titanic foot above her. “You have one hour! Don't take too long though, or...” Julie's thundering voice trailed off. The ground suddenly tipped under them, and the girls fell to the leather insole as it tipped beneath them. They continued screaming as the godlike sole above them wrinkled even more and got a bit closer, as the girls scrambled for purchase, sliding down towards the darkness where the toes waited. “...you get to move into my shoe! I wouldn't if I were you, my toes aren't very good roommates.” A series of deafening giggles and conversation followed, from many different voices. The tiny pledges started running, as above them their gigantic goddesses resumed watching Netflix and chatting.
“Can you feel them Julie?” Marissa asked, gazing down at her friend's right heel. “Not yet” the redhead responded, “it's only been 15 minutes”. “Maybe they don't know where to go” giggled Amanda, “give them a hint Emily”. The pledgemaster smiled as she slipped her foot out of her flip flop, and inserted her toes under Julie's heel, resting them lightly on the insole. “Just in case you forgot, these are what toes look like, idiots. Now hurry up!”. Withdrawing her foot, she brought it up to her lap, examining the bottom to see if she caught any stragglers. She smiled at three infinitesimal red dots that could have been the pledges. “Don't worry, we'll just count em when we're done” said Katherine, as Emily wiggled her toes. “Hopefully most of them make it.”
Allison had been running for 5 minutes, the pink sky getting lower as continued along the insole to the toes, shrouded in darkness. She'd just passed the wall of the slip-on, meaning she was at least 75% of the way there, when the ground rumbled again, and she lost her footing.
Emily had tried to convince the girls that they needed to band together, that surely they wouldn't actually been crushed, when suddenly Allison had turned to run, and nearly everyone else followed. Suddenly, Emily remembered: “wait, we have our phones! Quick, call someone” Getting only a busy signal, a text message suddenly appeared on the scene, from Marissa, her Big. “get moving” was all it said, followed by a flip flop emoji and a dead eyed smiley. “All right, let's go” she said to the other two that had stayed behind, and the trio took off after the rest of the group. About a 1000 feet away, they came across a couple more pledges, Brittany and Amy, panting with their hands on their knees. “Go ahead, I'll take care of them” the blonde physicist told her companions, and they resumed their run down the insole as she knelt to help the other two.
“Don't you guys ever run? Come on, let's just start jogging” Emily said to Amy and Brittany. She wasn't terribly surprised. The pair were girly girls to the max, and while they were both thin and pretty, it wasn't a result of physical activity. “I just... can't... do this” Amy panted. “Yeah, we're never going to make it, this is going to take forever” said Brittany, with a tremor in her voice. As Emily opened her mouth to reassure them and get them moving, but it was no use. Giving them a few minutes to catch their breath, she opened her mouth again when the ground rumbled, and she lost her footing. The light became a bit darker, and Amy, facing the side of the shoe so she wouldn't have to imagine the cruise ship sized toes, screamed. She could just make out the chipped purple polish on the thousand foot high toes as they crested the edge of the shoe, and moved over her. All three mite sized women open their mouth to scream as pink flesh enveloped them, their last sensation extreme pain as the life was crushed out of them.
Allison panted with terror as she recognized the enormous fleshy monolith that had rested itself on the insole behind the girls. “Just in case you forgot, these are what toes look like, idiots. Now hurry up!” thundered Emily's voice, and the titanic foot withdrew with a sliding noise. “Amy! Brittany!” cried out one of the tiny pledges, who had left the panting girls behind. Allison remembered that Emily had remained behind too, and winced. Without saying anything, she resumed her sprint into the darkness, and the rest of the group followed. The air was now filled with more than a few terrified sobs.
“My leg! My leg!” shrieked a voice she didn't recognize. Allison knew she'd reached the toes when the ceiling started to angle up sharply, the light almost gone. The sweaty smell and humidity had increased drastically, and the girls were now soaked with sweat. No their own though. Only moments ago, a drop of Julie's sweat fell from her toes and impacted the insole, catching a group of the tiny pledges beneath it, and drenching the rest with the splash. The drop, hundreds of gallons of hot, sticky water, had crushed the pledges directly beneath it, and one hadn't escaped unscathed. “Leave me. Just go” sobbed the tiny brunette, who Allison now recognized as Heather, obviously not wearing the thin glasses that normally framed her petite face. “I'll stay with you” one of the other girls responded. Allison and the rest turned to face the darkness again. Their eyes were adjusting, and just a couple of hundred feet away she finally saw them. The toes. Well, the bottoms at least, resting lightly against the insole.
Allison watched as Erika broke away from the group, sprinting towards the bottom of the second toe to get her selfie. It was the most obvious choice, arched a little bit more than the others, and the closest after the intimidating big toe. The little Asian gossip was one of those who had kept her head during the entire trek, and was clearly focused on completing the task and getting out. Allison glanced at her phone, and with the grim realization that they only had 35 minutes to take the selfie, and make their way back to the heel, followed a few hundred feet behind. The rest of the group followed, and Allison watched as Erika reached the bottom of the toe, sliding down the imprint the toe had worn into the leather insole. The pledge turned, held up her phone, and took a picture as her mouth contacted the toe pad with a grimace. Looking up at her friends waiting on the lip of the imprint. Then, unexpectedly, the toe twitched, and Allison watched in horror as Erika disappeared from view, with a shriek. Her horror only deepened when she became visible again.
Erika felt pain in her legs. Her vision cloudy, she could still make out the shapes of the rest of the pledges. “Help me” she cried weakly, unable to move, her back and legs held in place as she wiggled her torso and arms ineffectively.
Allison winced as the thin strip of sinew that connected Erika's legs, crushed into the leather, with the smashed torso of Erika, adhered to the bottom of the toe, finally gave way with a snap. “Help me” the squished pledge kept repeating, arms reaching out towards her sisters, when the toe twitched again, settling into the depression, and cut off her pained whimpers with an audible squelch. It didn't rise again. Their phones buzzed, with a notification. A Snapchat. The image was Emily's pale right foot, with an arrow drawn pointing at the big toe. The caption read “what part of 'preferably the big toe' didn't you understand you specks”.
The titanic sorority girls giggled as notification after notification popped up on their phones. The fear in the eyes of the tiny pledges as they laid kiss after kiss on the side of Julie's big toe was absolutely hilarious. “So, were you able to feel her?” Katherine asked Julie. “Nah” the redhead responded “too little. But maybe someone took a picture.”
After finishing the selfies, the girls had turned around and headed back the way they came. Miles away, the back edge of the shoe beckoned, with the gigantic heel hanging over like a mountain suspended in the sky. Heather and the other pledge who had stayed behind were nowhere to be found. About halfway back down the sole of the shoe, the girls had suddenly fell silent when they came upon three reddish stains in the leather. Picking up the pace a bit, they continued, increasingly exhausted, as some of the girls started collapsing in a sweaty heap. While most of them finally clambered their way up the other side of the miles wide impression made by the heel, 4 others had collapsed into the insole on the way up, exhausted. Allison opened Snapchat again on her phone, and took a selfie.
“Oh man, looks like they made it. And with only a couple minutes to spare!” Julie grinned down at the image of one of the tiny pledges (Amanda or Anna or something, it was so hard to keep track of who's who). Her own fleshy heel loomed like the sky in the background, edges not even visible. “Katherine, your turn. Fetch the pledges.” The blonde smiled as she brought her black flip-flop clad foot to the heel of the shoe, and rested the flip-flop against the heel. They were the same height.
The set of titanic green painted toes that had just appeared wiggled excitedly. “Well, climb on” thundered down Katherine's titanic voice. As Allison crossed the threshold of the slip on onto the spongy foam of the flip flop, she gazed up at gigantic toes looming in front of her. “You all made it, and as promised, we're going to make you big again, even though we almost lost all of you cause you're slow as fuck. But first, we need to introduce everyone who didn't make it to their new roommates!” Suddenly, the slip on that they had just been standing on rose into the air, and with a deafening smack, impacted the heel.
2 of those still trapped inside the shoe were obliterated instantly, as the heel smacked into the insole. The others tumbled down the insole, shrieking, towards their new “roommates”. Madeline was one of these tiny girls, and felt pain as she slammed into something, wedged between two damp, sweaty surfaces. Opening her mouth to scream, she found herself unable to breathe as she was enveloped by the surface on all sides, and felt pain as her bones cracked and her organs burst, finally succumbing to merciful blackness.
Katherine removed her flip flop and handed it to Emily, who disappeared into the other room with her tiny cargo to re-enlarge them. She watched as Julie smacked her foot against her heel yet again, the scrunching of her toes visible beneath the black leather as the redhead introduced her tiny captives to their new friends. Then, suddenly, she jumped backwards, as two naked girls appeared, unconscious on the floor, knocking the table out of the way. It was her Little, Heather! “How the fuck?” Julie breathed, picking herself off the floor, having been knocked down. Heather opened her eyes, and as the brunette recognized Katherine, began to plead, the other pledge still unconscious. “Please Katherine, help me, we we caught under a sweat drop, and-”
Katherine burst out laughing. “A sweat drop? That's amazing! We don't have room for cripples though. Especially ones who are a failure. Emily, can you come back here?” Irritated, the brunette poked her head around the corner, and espied the two sweat covered pledges. “Cheaters, eh? Hold on a sec.” Pointing a device at the two girls, they once again disappeared with a flash. “Your pledge period is ended, Heather. I hate having a Little anyway.” she said down towards the specks. She hovered her green painted big toe over them for a moment, bringing it down slowly, until her flesh spread into the floor, twisting it into the ground. Overkill, she knew, but the little bitch couldn't even follow simple directions.
On the ground, tiny once again, Heather watched silently, tears streaming down her face, as the pad of her titanic Big Sister's toe filled the sky. Her companion still unconscious. As the massive pink toe descended, whorled flesh growing ever larger, she raised her tiny hands up as a scream formed in her throat. A wind rushed around her as the toe descended, and overwhelmed with despair the tiny brunette's life ended with a sweaty crunch
Allison awoke in the living room of the sorority house, her fellow pledges piled around her in a sweaty heap. Pushing her matted, sweat filled hair out of her eyes, she realized she had another Snapchat. This time is was from Julie. “14! A new record #firstculling” read the caption on the video, which consisted of 30 seconds Julie's upturned sole, toes wiggling and sole flexing, with 13 red dots still visible on it. “She loves her new friends! #stillwiggling” read the next caption, a grainy, zoomed in image of the third and fourth toes, with what could have been a tiny body between them. Emily appeared in the doorway. “Hope you guys had fun tonight, and congrats on still meeting standards!” With a mischievous grin, Emily withdrew her foot from her flip flop, and scrunched her sole at the pledges. “Get dressed, and get out of here. Don't tell anyone about tonight, or, well... my toes could always use some new friends, too”.