The blue-eyed giantess stared at me through the bars, grinning maniacally.  “Now you be good while I’m gone!” she boomed, standing to her full height.  She clicked the padlock into the gate then slapped the top of the cage, making me cringe while metal rattled.  “I look forward to telling you all about the big, scary world out there when I get back!”  After flicking the cage to set off another cacophony she turned, her Converse slapping the floor with the shake of her hips.

When the door shut behind her, I let out a sigh of relief.  Alyssa had been keeping me in a hamster cage for weeks, and she spent any time at home with me.  She never abused me, and barely even touched me: instead, she spent hours recounting every minute detail of her day, including her dreams.  After five non-stop hours of her voice I wished she would just reach in and squeeze the life out of me.

It hadn’t always been this way.  A month ago I had been full-sized, maybe a little on the short side, but a half-marathon changed that.  I and several other participants had been greatly reduced in size a day after the run, and investigators traced it back to spiked water stations along the route.  I was more fortunate than most, since I shrank at home – many other runners were in public when it hit and weren’t found until they were stains.  When Alyssa found me just before sitting on the couch, she promised to keep me safe until my girlfriend got back from a trip.  When I agreed I had no idea it would last so long.  Paula was supposed to be back two weeks ago, and taking a chance with freedom sounded better than another meandering story about some remark a coworker made.

Alyssa’s engine started, and I was finally free of her ranting for a few hours.  I plopped onto an old hacky sack she set in the corner and closed my eyes.  Without the incessant sound of her voice, I was finally free to meditate over my situation.  A multitude of things had fallen into place to make this happen, and I had begun to question her version of events.  From the way she treated me it was like I emotionally filled the role of her boyfriend, but she knew I was with her roommate.  I thought it strange that Paula hadn’t so much as said hi to me all this time when she normally didn’t go a whole day without texting me.

Two soft knocks came from the door, and I opened my weary eyes.  A figure in a black silk robe rushed through the door, brown hair whirling with the movement.  She eased the door shut behind her, then crept across the room toward the cage.  Her eyes darted back and forth before looking into the cage to focus on me.  They went wide and a small gasp escaped her lips.

“You’re here!” Paula exclaimed as her light brown eyes looked me over.  “You’re really here!  For two weeks Alyssa’s been telling me that you’re away on business, but that…”

“Didn’t add up?” I finished for her.  “She’s been telling me the same thing about you.  It’s like she’s trying to keep us apart for some reason.”

Paula smirked and said, “Sorry, but you sound funny.  Like you’ve been sucking helium for a bit.”  She bit her bottom lip and took a second to regain her composure.  “Okay, though, this is serious.  She’s gone too far with this, and I need to get you away from her now.”

“Do you know how to grow me back?” I asked eagerly, approaching the bars.

“No.”  She slid a hairpin out while she continued, “There are people working on it, but there are about twenty of you left alive.”  Paula grabbed the lock and slid a hand toward it.  “I’m sure this hurts to hear, but you’re not exactly a priority in a world of billions of people.”  Her brow furrowed while she worked on the lock.  “At least I can bring you back to my room.”

The lock clicked when she slid the tumblers into place then she yanked it open, shaking the cage.  Paula carefully slid the bar out of the loop while asking, “If you want to, that is.”  When the lock was clear she set it down on the table with a clatter and the door swung slightly ajar.  She set a hand over it and stared down at me, then said, “That is, if you haven’t left me for her in the meantime.”

“Of course not!” I responded.  “She’s been keeping me prisoner here since this happened, telling me that you were away on business… in addition to many, many other things.  If I have to hear another story about what she wished she had said to Rebecca I might just slip out of this cage and underneath her shoe.”

“Sounds like I got here just in time.”  Paula swung the door open with a thumb and I turned to face it.  She slid her hand toward me, fingers spread wide.  Her palm touched my chest and fingers clamped around me like a series of snakes, lifting me off the ground.  “Just a few more minutes and you’ll never have to endure one of her stories again.”

Paula pulled me out of the cage, giving me a sudden hit of vertigo when she clutched me to her chest.  She stood, still pressing me into her ample bosom, and ran a finger over my hair.  “You know, you might be even cuter like this,” she declared.  Her eyes stayed on me while she walked toward the door.  “Of course, I’ll do whatever I can to grow you back, I just thought you should know.”  The grin was still plastered on her face when she turned the doorknob, then it suddenly disappeared.

Alyssa stood in our path, and though she was not particularly large she was still tall enough to bear down on my savior.  “Hey Paula!” she said, stepping into the room.  “You know you’re in the wrong room, right?  Yours is on the other side of the hallway.”

“Oh, yeah, of course,” Paula stammered.  “It’s just that I thought you were at work today, and I wanted to see if I could borrow a pair of your shorts.”

“Well, you could’ve just asked me!” Alyssa replied, stepping into her room.  “I don’t go into your room looking for things, after all.”  Her eyes shifted down until she spotted me clutched in Paula’s hand.  “Weird looking pair of shorts you’ve got there.  Just one short, really.”

Paula took a defensive step back and said, “Hey, listen, he’s my boyfriend, and I figured this would be the easiest way to get him back without a fight.  You’ve been hiding him in that cage against his will.  What are you doing home from work so early, anyway?”

“Work?” Alyssa echoed.  “I was just out picking up a package, I’m off today.  Say, how much water have you drank out of that bottle of yours in the past few days?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t see how –“

“How much water?” Alyssa repeated.

“Like, a gallon or so?  I haven’t really been keeping track.”

“You might want to set him down then, it should be kicking in just about now.” 

“What are you talking about?” Paula asked, though it soon became obvious.  The world rose around us, and looking between the two gave the impression I was falling very slowly.  Paula quietly gasped and opened her hand enough for me to slide through her fingers.  I landed on the carpet, just reaching Paula’s ankles but not even cresting the toe of Alyssa’s Converse.

Silence reigned while Paula dwindled, and I watched her shrink until she got lost folds of silk.  Alyssa must have thought her roommate getting lost in her own robe was funny since she giggled at each futile push she made against the fabric.  I wanted to help her, but from so far away there was nothing I could do.  Besides, we were in the same boat now.

Alyssa knelt and slid a hand under the black circus tent that had been draped over my girlfriend, probing for her tiny body.  Alyssa’s fingers overwhelmed her, then withdrew a clenched fist.  Curly, light brown locks blew with the hand’s movement, the only sign of Paula trapped within.

Her steely gaze turned to me and I was petrified beneath it.  Alyssa reached her free hand toward me, and I looked on while it overwhelmed me.  Long, slender fingers stretched over my head, then suddenly snapped shut.  The tip of her middle finger struck me in the back and pushed me into the palm of her hand where her enormous fingers secured me.  Darkness overwhelmed my surroundings as I felt the floor drop, followed by a single great thud from her footstep.

My body was assaulted by g-forces while Alyssa’s hand moved, and its sudden halt caused the blood to rush back to my head.  She opened her fingers, dumping me onto the bars below before withdrawing her hand.  By the time I stood Alyssa’s other hand was inside the cage, bottom flush with the floor.  Her fingers swung open, staggering me back when one struck me, then compressed as narrow as possible so she could pull her hand out.

I rushed to help Paula up, but found she was still much more immense than me.  All I could lift was her shoulder, and even that required a lot of effort.  She came to her senses quickly and sat up, letting me feel like I did something, before standing all the way.  Even in her shrunken state I did not quite reach her knees.

The lock’s click bounced off the cage’s bars, reminding me of the much bigger issue outside.  Alyssa’s face filled that whole side of the cage while her gray eyes danced mirthfully between the two of us.  “You two are so cute!” she declared, loud enough to make my teeth chatter.  “I knew it was a good idea to encourage you two to get together.”

“Dammit Alyssa, this isn’t cool!” Paula shouted.  “You have no right to do this to either of us!”

“It’s a little unfortunate you ended up so much bigger than him,” Alyssa declared, not heeding Paula’s words at all.  “It’s really risky to keep adjusting your size though, so do you think you could get used to it?”

“This isn’t funny!” Paula protested.  It seemed neither of them wanted to listen to the other.

“No, it’s not,” Alyssa boomed.  “Getting a custom-made silk robe in your size is going to set me back a bit, but I can’t have you hanging out in my cage buck naked, now can I?”  I did not see what the problem was, though I supposed she’d get tired of her tits flopping with teach step.

“I have a life to get back to, and so does he!” Paula screamed.  “Grow us back now!”

Alyssa’s throat rumbled for a bit like she was thinking it over.  “No, I think I could use your perspective here, too.  The little guy’s a great listener, but he’s real quiet, and you’ve always been so supportive of me.”

“So, before I left I was telling you what Brian said to me this morning.”  Paula could have been speaking a foreign language for all the good it did.  “Maybe I should tell you about the time I switched out the electrolyte powder at a half-marathon for some shrinking powder I bought off the darkweb instead, though?  It’ll be a real hoot when I get to what I did with what I had left after dumping it in.”

“You’re the one who did this?” Paula cried out.  “Just so you could shrink my boyfriend?  People died because of you!”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Alyssa said, stroking her chin.  “I’ll save that story for later.  Now!  Back to Brian.  Needless to say he’s a dick, but it seems unfair not to go back to the beginning for Paula.  So, two months ago Brian comes up to me and says…”