Ms. Wraith woke up in the library. A piercing headache felt like it split her skull open, and for some reason she was laying on the floor.

Ms. Wraith groaned, dusting herself off as she grabbed the nearby desk to pull herself up to height. Her vision was blurry, but she could recognize several people laying on the ground, each similarly appearing to awaken from their own naps, a group that included every student in the library, Micah and Sharon Kingsley, as well as… another woman Ms. Wraith had not seen before. She was dressed in casual attire, and looked like a parent, but appeared more haggard than the rest.

“I… what happened?” groaned Iasmin.

“The last thing I remember is… we were all here to find Micah… and then this… blue light?” said Ryan stuttered out. 

While one could argue that is what just occurred, Ms. Wraith knew this omitted several important details. Details that any sane person would never forget. But as the rest of the students compared notes, Ms. Wraith’s eyes widened as she inched closer and closer to the realization: none of them could remember what happened.

A group that included Micah.

The only one who did not speak was the other woman. She was silent, stress-induced bags beneath her eyes lending the notion that all was not as it seems.

“Did… did it work?” Aiden came to in the corner of the room, looking around for his best friend, Micah. 

Micah was rubbing his head, and responded to his friend, both oblivious to what happened, “I… can’t remember. Must’ve been, like… a chemical leak? I think that could’ve screwed with the machine-- hey!” Ms. Wraith grabbed Micah’s arm, escorting him out of the room while carrying the machine in her other hand. Sharon, who had been getting her own bearings, followed the pair outside the library, crying, “Wait, Micah! Ms. Wraith?”

They exited the library as a few confused teachers exited their own rooms. Ms. Wraith began her interrogation, saying, “Do you remember anything that happened over the past several hours?”

Micah, not expecting this sudden grilling, was quite perturbed by the urgency in Ms. Wraith’s voice: “N-no? What happened?”

Sharon was catching up with them, and without waiting for the interrogation to end she collected Micah up in her arms, crying, “Oh, Micah! I’m so glad you’re okay, my baby!”

Micah, never one to deny a hug from his mother, accepted the embrace but remained confused, saying, “Thank you, mom, but, uh, what did I do? What’s wrong? Did something happen? I just activated the machine, and it didn’t seem to… do anything?”

Now it was Sharon’s turn to be confused. “B-but you were… you were small! Tiny! Rice-sized!”

“I… I was?”

“You were,” confirmed Ms. Wraith, obtaining a look of appreciation from Sharon for corroborating the story. “We all were. We sent you to get help from your mom, and you…” Ms. Wraith faltered at mentioning the deaths and accidental murders. 

Then it hit her.

Ms. Wraith did not die. She did not die. And she remembered what happened.

Sharon did not die. And she remembered what happened.

Micah died.

Ryan died. 

Iasmin died.

Everyone else died. And they could not remember.

It was a twisted bit of moral calculus, and Ms. Wraith intoned out loud, “Dear God,” as she collapsed and tried to lean against the wall. “Dear God…”

“Ms. Wraith? Are you okay?” Micah trotted to his teacher’s side, attempting to help her back up. “Do you need some water?”

Ms. Wraith looked in the eyes of her student and reckoned an honest concern for her well-being. It was so sickeningly genuine that it caused her stomach to churn. And tumble. Far more than it had when she witnessed any number of her pupils get eviscerated under the foot of the woman who currently clutched her heart as she witnessed this genuine act of kindness her son expressed toward his teacher. 

Micah could not remember making the decision to have his mother crush all these people. He was exactly as he appeared to be: a scared, smart kid who was confused.

Ms. Wraith gulped. What was there to gain, really, in telling this child that his mom had utterly obliterated every one of his peers under her foot? Nobody remembered, not even the woman who did the crushing.

“Micah… I need to have a conference with your mother, in private.”

“Oh… okay,” said Sharon, and the pair walked down the hall a bit. Ms. Wraith swung into a room that Mr. Jean was limping out of, looking dazed and confused, and closed the door.

Once in the room, Ms. Wraith shut and locked the door, placing the box on the table. 

“Sharon… you do remember the events of the past several hours?”

“Y-yes. I don’t know every detail, but I just know that, I saw my son, and he was really small, on the face of the desk. I grabbed him, and walked to the box, and then I…”

“I think I understand,” said Ms. Wraith, raising her hand. “Now, Sharon, what I’m about to tell you is going to sound just as crazy…”

And Ms. Wraith explained her hypothesis that only those who died while shrunken didn’t remember the events of what happened after the machine went haywire.

“But Micah doesn’t…” Sharon became white, and Ms. Wraith became solemn, nodding her head.

“You can’t tell anyone about this.”

“I… I won’t,” Sharon agreed. A cold sweat broke out on her temple. “Now, uh... there’s the question of what to do with…” Both women’s eyes traveled to the box.

---

“Micah, you’re a terrific student, but the library is not the place for your engineering experiments. You could’ve burned the school down! Imagine if it did more than just knocked us out for a few hours!” lectured Ms. Wraith.

“B-b-but--”

“No buts! I’ll be confiscating this until further notice,” said Ms. Wraith, brandishing the black box while tossing a glance at Sharon behind her son, who nodded in response.

“My research!”

“I might be more inclined to give it back had you not endangered our lives. You’re lucky your permanent record is still intact, young man.” Micah sighed, resigned in response, and returned to his mother’s side.

By now the remaining students were milling out of the library, now more or less cogent. Iasmin replied to nobody in particular, “Y’all better not have done anything weird while I was asleep.”

“Mom!” came a cry from down the hall. A female student, blond, peeked out of an empty classroom, waving her hand. “Where’d you go?” she asked.

The haggard woman who awoke in the library saw her and pursed her lips in consternation. She went to meet her daughter, blinking back tears as she exclaimed, “Jessica?! Y-you’re okay?!”

They embraced, and Jessica replied, “Yeah? I woke up and you were gone. Where’d you go?”

Flashes. They flashed through the mother’s mind. Images. Her daughter, hand reaching out helplessly. The only part of her body that had not been flattened under the colossal, unaware derriere of the titaness. Her daughter died before her eyes. And now, like a miracle from god, she was in front of her again.

She tightened her hug around her daughter, who was surprised, yet nevertheless warmly accepted it.

“We… we can work something out about your grades… we can work something else.”

As Micah and Sharon slowly walked down the hall, the mother caught a glimpse of the pair as they exited. She saw her as the pair paused in the hall and put the pair of shoes back on.

Those shoes.

Feet.

Her home.

That flat had been her home for the past several hours. Being inside it. Smelling it. Tasting it. Becoming it. 

Her heart sped up as she watched Sharon affix the shoes to her foot and start walking back out.

She needed them. That shoe. Those feet. 

Disconnected from her daughter, she tried to shake her head, get rid of those thoughts.

“C’mon, Jess. Let’s go. We can talk about your grades later.” She grabbed Jessica’s hand and pulled the confused girl down the hall. Staring at those confined shoes of the parent in front of their path all the while.

-----

“That oughta be a safe enough place for now,” Ms. Wraith said, descending from the step ladder. The black box was now on her closet’s top shelf. 

Clapping her hands together, Ms. Wraith felt herself relax for the first time all day. The box was shut off, and now, maybe, just maybe, they could put this entire hellish incident behind them all.

The memories of her students getting gored in increasingly creative ways was still fresh.

“I… don’t think I’m going to be getting much sleep tonight.”

Ms. Wraith closed the closet door and washed up for bed.