I woke up on a gray floor with no idea how I got there with large rocks jabbing into my back. Slowly I rolled onto my side, only to have another set of rocks stab against my ribs. They seemed to be regularly placed, almost like a grid, and they all hard sharp edges. Wherever I had fallen was dark, with a bit of light streaming through a square window onto my face, so I got up to find a light switch. My body ached from sleeping on something so uncomfortable, and every move I made elicited a loud groan.
How had I even ended up here? The last thing I remembered was getting off a plane sometime in the middle of the day. This place only had one room as far as I could tell, and from the small bit of light it looked cartoonish, with walls mostly bright yellow with some blue mixed in. There was not so much as a stool for furniture, either. I searched around the door frame for a switch, and felt only smooth, hard plastic.
Hoping to get my bearings, I looked out the window and could not believe what I saw. The building was on a great gray expanse with hundreds of not thousands of the rocks arranged in a strict grid, though they appeared to be melded with the ground. There was another house with similar dimensions to this one across from me, also built from bright plastic blocks. Beyond that was where things came together. It looked like a bed, though the frame’s post was several feet thick and the covers were pulled tight over a mattress several hundred feet long. Comparing them, the houses would have easily fit under the bed, and it was possible the whole platform could slide beneath it.
The truth was obvious, but difficult to accept; I was in a house made of Lego bricks, in a Lego town, built on a Lego base. I looked down at my hands, and saw they were still flesh and blood instead of little yellow hooks. To make sure, I stretched my arms as far to the side as I could, confirming I still had the full range of motion. While I was not a Lego person, I had been shrunk to the size of one and placed in a house built for me. It was difficult to imagine how my situation could be worse, but at least I had time to figure out what to do.
As if on cue, the ground quaked hard enough to make the plastic walls shake, followed by a significant aftershock. A moment later something heavy crashed onto the roof and extended in front of the house like an immense awning. It was solid and just a little wider than the house, with a layer of white cotton pulled tight around it, making the long, smooth curves obvious from beneath. Horrified, I realized it was a foot blown up to gigantic proportions by my perspective, meaning there was an equally gigantic person standing on the house.
The plastic roof creaked under its load, and a column of bricks along the back wall shifted forward. Expecting the whole thing to come crashing down at any second I dashed for the door, blowing it off its hinges when my shoulder slammed into it. I continued running once I made it outside of the house, my feet slipping between the ankle-high pips as I tried to get out from beneath the enormous foot. With a bang the wall collapsed, making the floor shake when the heel slammed into the ground, though the front wall held it up. It did not last long, however, and the foot swung down, its impact staggering me while plastic banged together.
I ran to the side, away from the foot, and looked up in hopes of getting a good view of the person who had almost smashed me. It was a woman, that much was clear, with long, dark blond hair that went past her shoulders and a form-fitting pink T-shirt. Her huge feet had only ankle socks on them, and her toned, tanned legs were like sandstone pillars supporting a great structure. She had on black booty shorts with white trim and the aforementioned pink T-shirt sported a design I could not decipher from my vantage point on the floor. Blue eyes were turned toward the destruction she had just caused, and her lips curled up in a smile. With a quick glance to the foot beside me I saw her big toe was a bit taller than me, and were I normal-sized, she would be almost five hundred feet tall.
There was no way I could outrun her, but if she was looking down I might be able to get her attention. I braced my feet against the pips, bringing myself to a sudden stop, and turned toward her. Hoping this was just a big misunderstanding, I frantically waved my arms and shouted, “Hey, watch your step! Someone’s down here and you might crush them!”
Her eyes tracked over to me, and if anything her smile grew wider. She pushed out her sharp chin, managing to look even more smug as she taunted me. “Stupid shrunkie,” she boomed, her voice a horrific low rumble. It sounded like someone had slowed her voice down, though it was playing at full speed. “Probably trying to reason with me like I can hear him.” She lifted her foot out of the plastic rubble and began moving it toward me. I started to run, but its shadow still quickly engulfed me.
She brought her foot down, shoving me to the ground when it hit my head, then it landed on me. I struggled underneath her sole but could do little more than squirm, the terrific weight of her foot pinning me. Even the soft cotton did not reduce friction enough for me to crawl out from beneath it. No matter how hard I tried, all I could do was squirm and hope she was ticklish. All she had to do was press down a little harder and that would be it.
Instead she lifted her sole, using her heel as a pivot, giving me a respite from the fear of death. In the short time it was atop me I had become stuck to her sock, and it brought me into the air with it. The bond was not strong enough to keep me there very long, however, and I dropped back on to the rough plastic surface. She rotated her foot to the side so she could see me before bringing it back down, softly enough that its impact barely jostled me.
“Do you know how much bigger I am than you?” she bellowed. It looked like she found the whole thing amusing, including the raw amount of power she had over me. “You can’t run from me, my feet will catch you no matter where you go. Better hide, shrunkie.” There was that word again, and it got me thinking. If she did this enough to have a special word for people like me, I should have seen some other people my size by now. The lack of them did not bode well for me.
While I did not want to play her demented game, I also did not want to simply give up. I rolled onto my side again, wincing as the pips pressed against my ribs, and got back to my feet. Tearing my eyes away from the horrific beauty above me, I looked around for somewhere to take cover from her. The only thing available to me was more Lego houses so I dashed for the nearest one, coincidentally built just in front of where her other foot was.
I grabbed the door’s handle and yanked it open, then darted inside. The back wall was made entirely out of wall-height windows, and I could see her toes twitching eagerly inside the sock, making the cotton undulate with their movements. Through the windows, the highest thing I could see was her ankle, though it was still significantly higher than the building’s roof. Not expecting to be here long, I stayed just inside the bright red threshold, ready to run for my life at any moment.
Sure enough, her foot lifted off the ground after just a few seconds, casting the area around the tiny house in shadow. It crashed against the roof, and as the two plastic slabs bowed inward I saw white cotton fibers poking through. I dashed back out the door, the vast cotton sock providing shade as I escaped. Behind me, the whole structure creaked and collapsed, the whole structure falling outward when her heel filled the small space I had been in. After barely escaping the tumbling walls I juked to the side, and just evaded her foot landing again.
The next house was some distance away, and I hoped she would at least be sporting about the game she created. I sprinted as hard as I could, though my legs were already burning from the effort, and my body had not yet recovered from sleeping on hard plastic with jagged edges jutting into my back. Even though I was running for my life, it was difficult to maintain speed as I ran for the nearest remaining Lego house.
A tremendous socked foot slammed down in my path, making me stumble as its shockwaves passed beneath my feet. By the time I reached the white cotton wall I had recovered, however, and I jumped as high as I could. I was just able to reach the top, and pulled myself onto the gargantuan foot in front of me. Once I got my feet back under me I started sprinting again, though the close weave of the soft fabric made it difficult to maintain my footing without stumbling.
It turned out I had literally played right into her hands. She suddenly lifted her leg, and it felt like my stomach dropped to the floor, though it caught up when she brought her foot to an abrupt stop. Momentum kept me moving upward, and I was flung into the air from her foot. I tumbled end over end, doing cartwheels in the air, reaching my apex around her waist. My ascent stalled, and I looked at the ground hundreds of feet below, sure to splatter when I landed on the plastic again.
She swiped at me, and my body jolted when her hand slapped my entire body at once. While her hand forced me sideways she closed her fingers, pinning me against her palm. Once it stopped, she began pulling me back toward her center. My body had recovered from the series of sudden jolts, but somehow the slow, inextricable movement was worse. There was nothing I could do to escape it, and the only feedback I had from the outside was the small pinpricks of light coming through the edges of her hand.
Her hand slowed and came to a halt, then rotated so I laid on my back. She opened her fingers in a flourish, and I was greeted with a gargantuan pink wall in front of me. My eyes followed it up to her face, gleefully gazing down at me with a smug expression. Somehow she looked even more titanic from here, where her body filled the entirety of my field of view. Before I could do anything, her other hand reached into her open one, and she pinched the thumb and forefinger around my leg. It felt like she was going to yank my leg out of its socket as she dragged me across the smooth skin, then lifted me into the air.
I stopped between her clear blue eyes, dangling helplessly from her fingers. She squinted at me, emphasizing how small I was to her, then batted me with a finger. While I swung, my leg screaming from the pain of being held like this, she giggled. It was a horrific sound, more like a low rumble than the playful sound I would normally associate with it, and it made my insides tremble as the sound hit me.
“You know, you’re pretty cute for a shrunkie,” she boomed as my uncontrolled swaying slowed. “In fact, you look good enough I could just eat you up.” She began tilting her head back and moving her hand along with it, dragging me so I was above her mouth the whole time. When it finally came to a stop, her mouth was pointing straight up and she parted her lips.
“No, don’t do this!” I begged as I stared into the cavernous maw. Long strands of saliva broke as she opened her jaw, and I saw the massive pink tentacle waiting for me behind the rows of white teeth. “I’ll play your game however you want, just please don’t eat me!” She was undeterred by my pleas and continued steadily lowering me toward her mouth.
Her fingers guided me into the dark cavern and placed me on her tongue, instantly coating me in a layer of saliva. She closed her lips behind me, casting me into absolute darkness, then released her hold on my legs. There was a loud sucking sound when her fingers slipped out, then I felt myself falling along her tongue. It suddenly bucked upward, throwing me back into the air to land on the tip.
I did not have long to rest before she folded her tongue inwards, creating a makeshift waterslide of flesh for me to slide down. As I fell toward the back of her tongue I was met by hot air accompanied by a tremendous rumble that echoed inside the vast chamber. She was chuckling at my predicament, seeming to take great joy that she was about to devour another person. In protest I slammed my fists against her tongue, sinking them into the soft tissue around me. It had no effect, and I continued my descent toward her throat.
There was a brief moment of freedom once I reached the end of the partial tube, but I landed right on the tensed muscles of her gullet. I tried to climb back up, hoping to delay the inevitable a while longer, but her head was tilted so far back it was a vertical climb and her slimy tongue did not give my fingers any grip. When I dropped back onto her gullet, it opened with a sickening schlorp, and I fell into the hole along with vast rivers of saliva. Her throat muscles contracted around me, compelling me down to her stomach as I desperately but vainly fought to be free. There was no way I could get out unless she wanted me to.
Her throat spit me out into her stomach, and I landed in a shallow pool of acid. Fighting the pain, I got up and ran toward what I thought was her front to pound on the lining of her stomach, hoping she would take pity on me. There was very little air inside the chamber, and after just two blows I began to feel light-headed. I took a seat in a fold along her stomach to take a break, and soon after passed out.
She placed a hand against her tummy, feeling the struggles of the shrunkie she had just swallowed whole. He had more fight in him than the others, she thought, but he still ended up like the rest of them. Smirking, she stepped over the remaining Lego house and laid on her bed. That was supposed to help with digestion, and she wanted to be relaxed while he passed through her system.