“Hey, are you alright?”

Natalie’s soft voice snapped Noah out of his trance. His eyes tarted up from their position staring at the floor.

Crawling along the acid-stained concrete that ran throughout the French bistro, a small bug had been crawling around the crumbs falling off of Natalie’s croissant as she ate.

She had been a lovely first date. The two had matched a week ago and finally got the chance to meet up for a quick Sunday brunch after texting back and forth endlessly on various topics.

She was cute in a bookish sort of way—she had arrived at their date with lightly curved, brunette hair which just grazed at her shoulders if she ever raised them. Thin-framed circular glasses framed her fair skin and freckles beautifully. She wore a cropped white top and a flowy plaid skirt. On her feet were well-worn combat boots, which white socks just peering out from their tops.

Their conversation had been going swimmingly, and their second date was already on the books. She was just finishing up a quick phone call from her mom she deemed an ‘emergency,’ and so Noah had let his mind and eyes wander a bit.

The bug on the floor had been enjoying Natalie’s scraps—oblivious to the imminent danger those cute combat boots posed to its life. He had been watching the poor thing mindlessly wander around her shifting feet. On more than one occasion, the bug would walk forward, only for the space immediately behind it to be filled with a thumping, massive boot.

“Sorry, yeah,” Noah said, his eyes raising from the floor to Natalie’s glasses. “I zoned out for a second. All good.”

“I really hate taking calls on dates,” she started, as her own eyes followed Noah’s prior path down to the floor. Her gaze locked onto the little bug at her feet as she continued to talk. “Sometimes mom can be a pest.”

As the word ‘pest’ left her lips, she lifted her right boot slowly, methodically, over the bug. From Noah’s angle, he could see a brief moment of panic in the bug’s movements as the overhead lighting was blotted out by Natalie’s sole.

Natalie brought down her boot calmly over the bug as it disappeared from Noah’s view. The small crunch it gave as the life was crushed out of it sent a shiver up Noah’s spine.

“Some pests are easier to take care of than others,” she said. Her voice was gentle and soft as she twisted her boot on top of the little bug, back and forth, back and forth. The boot lifted to reveal a small wet spot on the concrete. Noah could just make out the mangled corpse of the bug, smashed in between the treads of Natalie’s boots.

Her casual cruelty turned him on in a way he struggled to understand. He had always been a bit of a macrophile—but it wasn’t anything that came up in his daily life outside of a porn search.

He tried to think of other things. Now wasn’t the time to blow things when they were going so well.

“Anyways, I need to pick up a few things at the shops around here, so…I’ll see you Saturday, right?”

“Saturday,” Noah repeated eagerly.

The two stood up and hugged, and as he returned his arms to his sides, Natalie’s fingers held onto his for just a moment longer.

“See you soon, Noah,” She almost cooed into his ear. She turned on her heel and made for the door.

As she walked, Noah couldn’t help but look down at her boots. With every over step she took, he could just make out the smushed bug still ingrained into her tread—with smashed pieces of croissant dotting the black sole.

**

A few minutes later, after paying the bill, Noah stepped out of the French Bistro and into the open air of The Shoppes at Johnson’s Brook.

Out here in sprawling suburbia, open air spaces like this were essentially the only place a twenty-year-old like Noah could take a date. It was a sterile, safe environment. Rent-a-cops littered the edges to keep out the nonexistent ‘riff-raff,’ and high schoolers loitered outside of the movie theater until they were chased off-property.

In a few months, he’d be twenty-one, and he could finally trade in The Shoppes for the bars, and he couldn’t wait.

Noah lived a pretty boring, safe life. He still lived with his parents to save money, he worked a part-time jobs, and he took night classes at the local community college. Beautiful, bookish women like Natalie were right up his alley.

Sure it wasn’t very exciting, but he had simple dreams. A beautiful wife, maybe a few kids, a good job. His friends scoffed at the simplicity, but hey—at least it meant his dreams were pretty attainable.

That’s why his macrophilia wasn’t something he was interested in thinking about. Sex was always a shameful topic at his place growing up, and he had no doubt some of that had bled onto him over the years.

Images of giant women crushing city streets with ease were something he viewed in its right place—in the dark, on his computer screen, so he could quickly jerk off and go to bed.

Women like Natalie wanted nothing to do with anything like that, right? Telling his girlfriends he wished they could be a thousand feet tall didn’t seem like a good idea. In fact, his former high school sweetheart and him dated for three years. Not once did he ever tell her what he was really into.

He shoved the thought aside and started towards the parking garage on the other end of The Shoppes. If he hurried, he would still have time to make his virtual study group session.

He walked briskly across the nearly one-mile long outdoor shopping mall. He thought briefly about whether or not he should avoid Natalie should he see her, but the was out shopping and he was simply heading to his car. There wasn’t much of a chance he would see her in all of the people out today.

He had just passed the Sunglass Hut and was about to pass in front of the Sephora when he suddenly, and quickly, lost consciousness.

One moment, he was sliding past some slow-walking women, and the next, everything went black…

**

Noah’s eyes opened, then shut quickly as the sun beat down on him.

His head hurt like hell, and his arms and sides felt bruised from some sort of fall.

He rolled onto his stomach and started to push himself off of the ground.

‘God, it’s so fucking bright,’ he thought to himself. His eyes lowly began to adjust, and the more his vision cleared, the more he wished he couldn’t see what was happening.

Above him, the Sephona sign stood impossibly high above him in the far distance—seemingly thousands of feet away. Beyond that, the two or three levels of apartments on top of the shops seemed to stretch out into white oblivion.

He quickly spun around and looked out to his left, where the road was.

The earth itself seemed to shake as a mid-sized SUV drove past. What was once a car rolling past him a few feet away now seemed to be a mountain roaming across the earth.

His heart was really beating now. He looked down next, and saw the individual brick he stood on. It stretched out in all directions.

Everything started to click together now.

Noah was tiny—likely no bigger than an inch tall, if that. In the exact spot he was walking in, he had suddenly become very, very small.

Any excitement about the situation was gone from his mind, and in its place, sheer terror.

“Help! Help!”

He started to shout, then scream as hard as he could. Across the street he could see shoppers on the opposite sidewalk lining the storefronts. They were distant giants, and they must have been miles away, relatively speaking.

“Somebody help me! Please!”

All of a sudden, the floor began to shake again. But this time, it wasn’t the low rumble of the car as it soared past him.

No, this time it was methodical. Boom. Boom. Boom. Moving ever closer to him.

Noah was able to turn to the source of the noise just in time to see the top of a woman’s head blot out the sun as she approached.

She was sharply dressed, even in the sun. Her dyed blond hair flowed down on either side of her face—which was almost entirely consumed by her massive sunglasses, even at a normal scale.

A brown jacket came next, over a black top. Noah’s eyes moved down past her black pants to find a pair of black, chunky-heeled booties.

She was hundreds of feet tall, and he was in her way.

For a brief moment, the awesome sight of this woman—a goddess at her size—froze Noah in place. But his blood ran cold as he saw her look past the cell phone in her hand, her sunglasses angled at him.

She was looking directly at him.

“What is…” she muttered to herself. Her words echoed out as if they had been blasted through a baseball stadium. Her right hand lowered her sunglasses enough to show her hazel eyes to Noah.

Her expression went from flat, to one of vague annoyance.

“Ew.”

Noah felt terror, shock, and pure arousal all at once. His member throbbed in his pants and instinctually, he lowered his right hand towards it.

The reality of what was about to happen didn’t sink in until her hazel eyes were blotted out by the monolithic sole of her right boot.

The woman had blotted out the sun with her arrival, but as soon as her boot sole raised over Noah, it was as if the earth itself turned down 20 degrees.

All time seemed to stand still, as Noah watched the boot sole rise, higher and higher, angling itself just above him. His neck craned to see it.

Aside from a few horizontal lines, the woman’s boot sole was perfectly flat both on its sole and heel.

Dirt and debris from the street had made its way onto her boot sole. Impossibly high above him, he could also see a faint pinkish, blackish form. Some gum that had been stepped on so long ago it was a part of the boot itself.

It was only once the boot stopped rising did reality hit Noah like a tidal wave.

He was about to be crushed.a279;

All sound faded into oblivion as Noah sprinted. The awesome scale of the woman above him had been replaced by the terror and fear of what it really meant to be this size.

He wasn’t just small; he was in another world entirely. Far too small to be recognized as human for anyone unwilling to take a close look, it was clear that he would be mistaken for the other pests that crawled along the floor, subsisting on scraps that fall from above.

And as a pest, he would immediately be sentenced to death by the first stranger to lay eyes on him.

He sprinted towards the edge of the endless shadow cast by the boot raised high above him. He didn’t bother to look up, but as he sprinted, he could feel crushing air coming down as she no down lowered her boot to snuff out the unfortunate bug that crossed her path.

The air came down, harder and harder, crushing out the ambient sounds of the environment around him. It felt like what running beneath a lowering helicopter must feel like.

In his deepest fantasies, Noah had always known the reality of being crushed by a giant woman would no doubt be frightening, but this was on a whole other scale. And it was absolutely terrifying.

The sky darked as he sprinted. It had only been a second or two or running, but the boot sole was nearly upon him. He had been running towards her, sprinting towards her heel. It wasn’t a conscious choice, but rather a primal fear to run on any possible direction.

Finally the past ahead of him was obliterated by the crushing force of her chunky heel. Was he out from beneath her boot sole?

There was no time to think. Noah dove forward, handing hard on his back. He slammed his eyes shut and waited to see.

The impact of her sole on the brick sidewalk sent a shockwave deep into Noah’s chest. The air seemed to rip past him, and all was still for just a moment. He dared to open his eyes.

Looking down at his feet, he could see that, relative to him, he had dodged her sole by inches. Above him, the shoe angles upwards, about twenty or thirty relative feet, before connecting to the base of her boot sole above.

If she hadn’t been wearing heels, he would have been dead.

Noah let out a strange sound of relief, but before he could crawl out from beneath her boot, the massive structure rose again.

Air whoosed past him now, filling the space where her foot had landed. The benefit of slowed time seemed to fade, as the boot lifted and moved sideways to reveal his would-be murderer.

She looked down to him, silhouetted by the sun, and paused.

Was she waiting to see if she had crushed him?

Noah stood still as a statue, but from this scale, he know he could move his head slightly without detection from the goddess above. About thirty feet to his right, the brick he stood on ended—and the mortar binding the brick to the others devoted into the earth just enough.

If he could make it inside that crack, she could stomp all she wanted.

A moment of decision was all he needed. He made a break for it.

This time, he didn’t bother to look up to see her reaction. He could hear her almost grunt in disgust, and he hadn’t gone ten feet before the shadow of her boot positioned above him, following him, anticipating his movements.

The crushing air started again, but this time, Noah was ready. He lept forward and dove into the mortar’s divot.

The rough surface bit into him as he rolled, and he felt the sting of friction burns all upon him, but it didn’t matter now. He rolled onto his back and looked up just in time to see the rushing black sole blot out everything.

The slamming force of her boot sole nearly shattered his eardrums, and he screamed in shock. His head lifted without thinking, and he struck the sole of her boot with his forehead.

The divot caused by the mortar was enough to safe him from being crushed, but only by relative inches.

His eyes burned from the dust flowing though the narrow channel of the mortar, stirred up by the woman’s footfall. His nose burned with the overwhelming smell of rubber and a faint stench of cigarettes.

But the stillness above didn’t last long. Suddenly, a terrible scraping sound rang out from all around him. Far above him, the woman had had enough of the bug in her way. Her boot heel raised from the sidewalk and her weight shifted onto her right foot. She began to twist her boot back and forth to obliterate the aggravating pest.

For Noah, the ground shook all around him as the sole above ground at the brick holding it just far enough away to save him. He knew the brick would hold, but it didn’t stop him from screaming. Tears filled in his eyes.

Just a few minutes ago, he had been walking probably a few feet ahead of this woman. Now, she was doing everything in her power to kill him.

Eventually, the grinding stopped, and for a moment, all was still.

Until her boot lifted again.

This time—entrapped by the channel created by the mortar which had saved him, air rushed in from either side as her shoe lifted. The end result?

Noah was swept up in the powerful air, which forced him into the air and sent the world spinning.

He didn’t know how long he was in the air or how many times he spun, but what felt like minutes of swirling in the air finally came to an end as he landed on something with enough give to not break his bones on impact.

The wind was forced out of him as he landed, and his eyes opened just quick enough to see the now-familiar back bootie crash next to him. But this time, it was only walking.

He had landed on the welcome mat of the Sephora the woman had been heading into. Content enough with her grinding, the woman hadn’t bothered to even check if she had killed the creature this time. The amount of effort it took to crush a bug just wasn’t worth the inconvenience, and the woman had turned to enter the Sephora.

It just so opened that her wake had taken Noah along with her.

He watched, prone on his stomach and catching her breath, as the woman moved past the sliding glass doors. The slid shut quickly, and everything was still.

His eyes darted to the sidewalk, glancing both ways. A few people were milling about several shops down in either direction, but as for the immediate future, he was safe.

Well, as safe as any other bug resting on a door mat.

Sephora didn’t seem like a safe enough place to be, but outside, there were more than women to be scared of. The hot sun backed the bricks like a desert. The exposure would kill him if the foot traffic didn’t.

‘No,’ Noah thought to himself, ‘I need to get someone’s attention.’

But how could he? At this scale, roaming the floors was an easy way to be noticed—and squished.

He would need to get on a countertop, a chair—something, anything to be noticed.

So he turned and ran towards the Sephora.

He crossed the gap between the doormat and the sliding glass doors somewhat easily. As is turned out, he could get some considerable distance in if when he wasn’t being actively targeted and stomped on. Those years in cross country were certainly doing him good now.

Once he reached the massive glass doors, however, his second problem arose.

He would have no way in or out without the help of someone else.

Thinking quickly, he walked to the edge of the sliding glass door—out of the main path of the giantesses, but still where the door would open just enough to let him past.

Soon enough, the thudding in the earth began. Looking through the glass, Noah could see an older woman—about mid 50s—carrying a shopping bag towards the exit of the store. The doors thundered across their tracks and slid in front of Noah as she approached.

Her footfalls were about a hundred relative feet from him, but the clack clack of her strappy heels were still enough to send shivers down Noah’s spine.

None of this was going to be easy.

The door slid all the way open, giving Noah the chance to enter inside. He had just crossed the threshold and watched as the doors shut behind him.

No turning back now.

Now inside, he moved quickly to the walls edge on the right-hand side. He moved slowly and continued forward.

On the edge of the room, someone would have to actively notice Noah now to try and kill him. But inside, with the darkened lighting and myriad of products to check out, the odds of wondering eyes spotting something small crawling along the wall was low. Not zero, but low enough.

As he walked, he yanked his phone out from his pocket. To his surprise, the phone could still power on—but there was no signal or wi-fi to be had.

“Probably too small to detect anything,” Noah said aloud, softly.  

No, there wasn’t going to be any way to call his way out of this. He would need to get someone’s attention, no matter what.

Several minutes past as he moved against the wall of the Sephora, entering deeper and deeper into the store. Here, the glass walls of the store gave passers-by a glimpse towards the outermost aisle of the store, where foundation was sold.

As he moved, several women should enter the aisle, peruse the selections, and either pick something up or move on.

Noah was surprised at how quickly he got used to the sounds and shaking of the women stomping around so close to him. It felt like walking alongside a massive highway where all of the cars were going hundreds of miles an hour. Sometimes a women would step closer to him, and the air would nearly knock him down, before she continued on her way.

After about a half hour of walking, Noah collapsed down to the floor, putting his back against the wall.

He looked into the store and craned his head up at the current goddesses on the aisle.

It looked to be two friends, by the sounds of their voices. The taller one (or rather, the one taller than the other; they were both truly massive) had a coffee in one hand and used the other to pick out foundations for the shorter friend.

His gaze lowered down to what lay straight ahead of him.

The taller one was wearing Fila Disruptors. The all-white shoe turned a grayish-brown just before meeting the ground—no doubt the consequence of the miles they walked and things they stepped in.

The other wore simple, all-black converse. These blended into the black floor of the Sephora, and let out a terrible squeaking sound as they ground across the perfectly polished floor.

‘Could I survive under there?’ he thought to himself. It was a terrible thought to have, but one he would now have to consider. Here, the polished black floor offered no mercy if a woman chose to snuff him out. His only hope were the treads of the shoes and heels they wore.

So quickly did this feel like life now. The only things running through Noah’s mind were getting discovered and surviving.

But things quickly felt hopeless. Moving about a world this much larger than his own was next to impossible. It took him thirty minutes to walk what took these women five seconds. How could he possibly get up to a height they could see?

For now, all he could do was wait.

Maybe he would stay leaned against this wall, dodging footfalls until nighttime. Then, he could cross the store in peace—maybe find something to climb and get on a desk or product by morning. Maybe then they could see him as more than a bug to be crushed.

It was a pleasant thought, actually—because it offered hope. And right now, he really needed that.

‘Okay,’ Noah thought to himself. ‘I wait till nightfall. I get on top of something, I get help.’

The thought calmed his nerves, and he closed his eyes. He breathed slower now, in and out, in and out.

He had a chance.

“Oh, shit!” a voice cried from above.

Noah’s eyes slammed open. His moment of respite had come to an end.

Far above him, the taller giantess had lost her grip on her coffee. Noah watched as it free fell from the sky above him.

The air begin wooshing around him yet again as the massive cup fell closer and closer to his position. He froze.

There was no getting around what was about to happened.

The cup smashed into the ground sideway—with its lid facing almost directly at Noah. The lid ripped off from the cup with the terrible weight of thousands of gallons of coffee directly behind it.

A tidal wave of light-brown liquid flowed directly at him.

He stood up, took a wide stance, and braced. He sucked in a big breath and closed his eyes.

This was going to hurt.

Noah had almost no time to brace as the deluge of light brown liquid slammed into him.

At his size, spilled coffee constituted a tidal wave almost twenty feet tall.

He found himself slammed into the polished black floor, and for a moment, there was no way to know which way was up.

His eyes burned at the coffee enveloping him. His skin felt like it was on fire. He felt himself roll around across the ground, over and over and over again. Just when his lungs felt like they couldn’t take it any longer, the spinning stopped, and Noah found himself laying face first in the scalding liquid which had spilled out in hundreds of miles in every direction.

“Do you have any in your purse?” He heard the blaring sound of the giantesses above him.

“Yeah, I have a few. Let’s clean this up.”

Exhausted, Noah rolled from his stomach to his back, and wiped the residual coffee from his eyes. Every inch of him burned, but thankfully, at least he could breathe.

As he opened his eyes, he could see the two colossal women towering above him—looking directly at him.

“Help…” he croaked. His lungs had coffee leaking within them, and he couldn’t help but cough and sputter. Even at his scale, his voice came out like a weakened, soft moan.

Above him, the women seemed to be digging into the taller woman’s purse. Her autumn hair obscured her face from him, but from this distance she may as well have been buried in a fog.

Noah lifted himself to his feet, ankle deep in the coffee. Thankfully, the cool polished ground had cooled the fluid to a more tolerable level, but Noah’s arms still burned crimson red. Gathering his energy, he looked back up at the women.

“Please!!” He shouted—ever stronger now. “Down here, please!!”

Of course, it was useless and he knew it, but he had to try regardless.

Meanwhile, up above, the women had found what they were looking for—a pile of thin, brown napkins.

The taller woman—a thousand feet tall for him but five foot nine for everyone else—began to pull a single napkin from the stack, and began to squat.

Noah felt fear shoot up his back as the taller woman lowered herself down. In her hand, a massive brown napkin the size of a football field was beginning to lower.

“Shit, shit!” Noah screamed. He began to trudge through the coffee, looking for any way out of the puddle, but the deepness off the coffee made it difficult to move any faster than a walk.

Behind him, the first napkin hit the coffee—quickly soaking up the spilled drink. Noah could feel the coffee beneath him be pulled towards the saturated napkin, knocking him onto his feet.

The current was too much, and even at ankle deep, knocked Noah to the floor. He was able to turn to his back just in time to see the giantess’ uncaring glare as she lowered the second napkin right on top of him.

Her face disappeared behind the brown paper, and before he knew it, he was covered.

Almost instantly, he felt his body conform to the brown napkin as if it were a wet blanket. He struggled to breathe under the immense and damp crushing force. He coughed up the coffee as much as he could and tried his best to keep breathing.

If he could just stay alive for a few more moments, he thought to himself. Then, the woman would pick the napkin up and he could breathe again.

Just as his hopes were beginning to rise, a voice above let out a disgruntled moan.

“Ugh!” Came one of the giantesses, “it’s not soaking up.”

“Just press it in,” came another voice. “Hurry up.”

“What?” Noah wondered aloud. But he wouldn’t have to wonder long.

Above him, he could just barely see the women through the semi-translucent brown paper. And up above, he could see the jagged, angular sole of a Fila Disruptor fill his vision.

“Please, god, no!” He shouted up. But even still, the sole descended on a spot covered in napkins a few feet away.

The napkin crumbled and pressed flat against the ground, forcing even more liquid to soak into the napkin. The woman pressed gently with only the toe of her shoe, but for Noah, it may as well have been the crushing force of a thousand buildings.

The shoe lifted, and Noah watched helplessly as the sole of the shoe lifted above and over him, only to descend upon a spot just above his head.

He screamed as he watched the heel section of the Disruptor descend closer and closer to him only to stop just a few feet above his head.

Over and over again, the woman pressed her shoe into the napkins to help the coffee soak into them. It was a miracle that Noah did not find himself underneath that impossible weight.

Afterward, he watched helplessly as her perfectly manicured fingered lowered down and began lifting the napkins from the ground. He felt himself sucked up from the ground, stick to the underside of the napkin, and crumbled into a loose, wet ball of paper.

Everything spin and shook, and Noah found himself vomiting against the paper as he moved.

Still, surrounding him, he could hear the voice of his captor:

“I’m sorry, do you have a trash can back there?”

“Sure!” Came another voice.

Noah felt himself tossed into the air, only to feel his wet prison crash down again.

The force shook the wet ball of napkins so aggressively, Noah felt himself dislodge from his position and freefall for just a moment, before landing on a stack of loose papers.

Catching his breath and looking up, he could see what had happened.

All around him were smooth, black, plastic wall rising hundreds of feet above him. Above that, he could see the face of another woman—this one a bit younger than him and still coated in a later of acne—disappear as it moved away.

He had been tossed into the trash.

After all of the chaos of the past few minutes, Noah found himself surprisingly relieved in his current position.

Around him, papers and receipts lined the ground of the trash can. Things here were quiet, and aside from the booming sounds of the shopper in the distance, Noah had a chance to catch his breath.

Immediately, he reached for his phone—frantically seeing if he could get a signal again.

But as he tried to turn the phone on, he could tell it would be no use—the device had been fried by the tidal wave of coffee.

“Alright,” Noah said to himself. “No phone. That’s fine.” He began to look around. “What else, what else…”

***

For the next hour, Noah crawled all across the surface of the trash in this trash can for anything that could help him scale the walls. Despite all of his searching, all he could find were papers, discarded gobs of gum, and dirt.

With no immediate sign of escape available, Noah began tearing strips of receipt paper and tying them across his burned arms. He grit his teeth and screamed at the pain, but he knew he would need to at the very least wrap up his more vulnerable parts before continuing on.

“You need to spit that out,” he heard above. As soon as he heard the voice—closer than any voices over the past hour—he knew he was in trouble.

And he was right. Above him, he could see the acne-ridden counter girl come back into view—this time, accompanied by another worker.

However, this one, he recognized.

“Madeline?” he said aloud.

Above him, he could distinctly make out one of his closest friends.

Madeline was one of his best friends throughout high school—they had even dating a bit in sophomore year, but even after breaking up, the two were the best of friends.

Madeline was a bit of an overgrown emo girl—constantly chewing gum, listening to punk rock, and dying her hair a myriad of colors. The hadn’t spoken much since graduation, but he remembered her telling him she had gotten a retail job.

However, he didn’t know it was this retail job.

“Fine, I’ll chuck it.” Her voice came. Her eyes lowered down into the trash can, and directly at Noah.

“Maddie! Hey!” He called out. “Please, down here!”

Her eyes stayed flat as her pink lips began to open, and a bright white gob began to poke out.

“Wait…”

Noah watched helplessly as the gob of gum left Madeline’s mouth and entered freefall directly towards him. The shock of the experience kept his legs locked in place. Within moments, the gum crashed on top of him, and everything went black.

The first thing Noah noticed when he came to was the stickiness.

He opened his eyes to find himself staring directly at the back of a receipt—his face mashed up against the paper. Spittle from Madeline’s gum ran down the sides of his face and burned into his eyes.

His body felt contorted in directions they never should have gone. Embedded within the gummy prison he found himself in, he felt that both his arms were jutted out just enough from the gum wad to feel the paper around him. His legs, however, felt bent behind him, scorpion-style, and he was faintly sure something felt like he was bleeding.

How could a piece of gum be so deadly?

With only one ear outside of the thick gum, Noah listened intently with the other to see what he could hear. How much time had passed? Was the store closed? Would someone be taking out the trash or was he damned to be trapped here until he starved?

As soon as he thought about food, the overwhelming dehydration of the past few hours swept across him. He had been sprinting, running, fighting for his life without a moment of rest ever since he found himself shrunken down to this size. As he felt Madeline’s spit continue to run past his face and soak the receipt below him, he grew nauseous in anticipation of what he knew he needed to do.

He waited anxiously for the pool of spit to spill his way, and slowly, it did—covering both his nose and mouth in the thick fluid.

It was either drink or drown, so he drank.

At this size, drinking Madeline’s spit pulled the water tension down and cleared his face. He drank deeply, trying not to gag at the minty taste, until his nose cleared just enough to breathe. He gasped for air, taking in as much as he could before the spit would flow back towards him, and he would need to drink again.

This fetid process repeated itself three or four times, until Noah’s stomach felt so full, it was about to burst. Mercifully, however, he had drank enough, and the gum seemed dry enough not to drown him in its fluid.

“Gross,” he heard a familiar voice say above him. Madeline!

He heard a faint thud. It sounded as is someone had stomped on the floor. In fact, he was sure of it—at this size, the sound becomes unmistakable.

“What was it?” Came another voice.

“Just a bug,” came Madeline’s response. A pause, then: “Gross, hold on, I gotta scrape this off.”

“Can you take the trash out while you’re over there? I’ve got like eight boxes of plastic to throw out.”

A wave of panic fled through Noah’s mind. The dumpster? Could I survive in there? I can’t get out of this fucking gum, I don’t think I’d last a minute in there.

But as he considered the seemingly inevitable, the plans above him changed.

“Come on, it’ll take me ten minutes to get to the dumpster,” Madeline complained.

“Then crush it down and make room,” came a flat response.

A whole new level of fear rushed through Noah, but there was no time to even contemplate it.

His trash can was suddenly jolted to one side. The receipts around him scraped against each other and he felt his gum roll—and his body with it.

He found himself suddenly facing up towards the top of the trash can. Hundreds of feet of plastic walls stopped, and in the hazy distance, he could see the ceiling of the store. The overhead lighting bore down harshly into the trash can. Noah squinted his eyes and tried to move his right hand to cover them, but it was no use. His arms could barely move. Unless it was directly to his left or right, he couldn’t grab a thing.

Then, like an eclipse, Madeline’s bright red hair soared over the lip of the trash can. Her head looked straight down into it with dispassionate normalcy.

Tears welled up in Noah’s eyes. “Madeline, please, God, help me!!” He screamed—his voice cracking.

Of course, it was no use. From her vantage point, even her white gum blended into the white receipts that surrounded it. Perhaps, if she could see that gum, she would have hesitated to do what she did next.

Noah watched as a thick, lug-soled Chelsea boot began to move in place of where Madeline’s face was. She was lifting her foot above and over the trash can.

Her co-worker had asked her to crush the trash down, and she was going to get it done.

As her boot lowered, Noah once again felt the air down in the trash rush around in all directions as it was displaced by her massive boot and leg. The roaring sound drown out all of the other sounds in the store.

As Noah watched the boot descend upon him, he could see what looked to be a common roach embedded in between two lugs of her boot sole. It’s body was smashed underneath where the ball of Madeline’s foot fell within her boot. Surrounding the body, a shiny wet spot spread out.

That’s what I’ll be, Noah thought to himself. A smear on Maddie’s shoe.

He closed his eyes as the smashed bug crashed down into him. And braced for death.

…

But death didn’t come.

Instead, Noah felt himself shoved deeper and deeper into the bug and the sole of Madeline’s boot. His body pushed through the roach’s exoskeleton and he felt himself soaked in its inside. He gagged at the feeling, but as the crushing force lowered even as he felt himself pushed deeper and deeper into the trash can, he realized that as terrible as this was, it was his absolution.

Embedded underneath her boot sole, between the gum, the roach, and in between lugs, he couldn’t be crushed. He could still, however, feel the terrible dropping feeling in his gut as Madeline ripped her boot out of the trash can. He felt himself go weightless, for just a moment, before the boot stomped down again.

As this continued over and over again, Noah couldn’t help to begin to laugh. At first chuckling, then all at once, bursting into hysteria as Madeline stomped away.

It was the world’s most fucked-up roller coaster, and the adrenaline of survival was turning this feeling into a sadistic thrill ride. As she stomped, over and over, Noah pushed against the two lugs to either side of him. He blinked bug guts out of his eyes and pulled to push himself deeper into the bug, and further from the gum which held him prisoner. He tried to maximize Madeline’s stomping by only pulling when her foot as lowering. The effort was just enough, and he pulled nearly all of himself out of the gum. Only his ankle remained.

He only needed one more good stomp, and he would be free. But instead of stomping, Madeline lifted her shoe, and everything stopped.

“Fuck,” he heard her say. Her voice reverberated down her body and into her shoe—vibrating the lugs which held him prisoner. It was as if she was speaking all around him. “I stepped on my own gum.”

His world tipped as he felt himself turned sideways.

***

Far above him, Madeline had taken one look at her boot sole before shaking her head in disgust. She ripped the boot off and held it out in her right hand like it was going to bite her.

It had already been a pretty shitty day for her. First, she had to open and work a double because Gale had called out sick last-minute. On top of that, they had been slammed, and she didn’t even get a chance to take her lunch break. Now, her favorite shoes had bug guts and gum splattered all over them.

“Look, Bridget” she said to her supervisor—which was already an embarrassment, as she was five years younger than her. “I’m going to scrape this off in the back and I’m going on break.”

Bridget looked around the store and let out an exasperated sigh. “Fine, it’s like three anyways, the rush won’t start up again until five.”

Satisfied, Madeline marched to the back of office half-barefoot. She plopped down on the seat of the break table bench and set her boot down next to her purse. She fiddled around with its contents before pulling out the pocket knife her Dad lent her for safety.

“Thanks, pops” she muttered to herself as she flicked the knife open and dug it deep into the gum.

***

Back underneath the boot, Noah felt himself suddenly face-to-face with a massive silver blade. However, Madeline had taken just long enough to get into the back office for Noah to wiggle himself free of the gum. He quickly moved to the side and let the blade raise—taking the gum along with it.

With the boot now on its side, Noah stood on the boot’s sole and looked down.

It was thankfully only a ten-foot drop, and at this point, he was willing to risk it.

Before the blade returned to scrape off what remained of the roach, he jumped.

It felt like minutes of freefall before he slammed onto the hard particle wood of the work bench. His right ankle twisted terribly under him and he collapsed onto the table. Survival still at the top of his mind, he spin around and looked to Madeline.

Above him, she seemed more interested in her shoe than anything crawling on the table. Her massive gray purse was placed only a few hundred relative feet away from him, and so he ran.

“Fuck, fuck, damn it!” He screamed every profane word he knew as he put his twisted ankle to work and broke into a full-on sprint. He was able to just cross the gap before he heard Madeline lower her boot back to the floor. He would only have seconds to climb inside.

The overturned purse had been left unzipped, and without stopping, he lept forward—diving in between the teeth of the zipper.

It wasn’t a moment too soon, as himself and the purse’s contents bounced around as Madeline lifted the purse and placed it on her shoulder.

At his size, Noah tumbled down, down into the depth of the purse. He landed with a heap on top of a wrapped tampon and a massive credit card.

Above him, he could see through the open zipper as the artificial lighting gave way to blue skies. She had stepped outside and was heading to lunch.

For the first time so far this day, the nightmare seemed far less terrible. At least Madeline knew him. Perhaps, he could find a way to get in touch with her. Maybe write messages or leave notes in the purse.

He couldn’t give up hope. Not now. He wasn’t dead.

Not yet.

While working in retail was its own special kind of hell, Maddie was thankful that—at the very least—she could live so close by.

In fact, she lived in the same building.

After they had built the The Shoppes, her parents wanted to set her up in her own place there.  Something about “the independence of adulthood in a safer setting than some random apartment complex.”

Her parents had always been this way. Fabulously wealthy enough to get her a shared, furnished apartment in The Shoppes, above the retail stores, but insistent that she work part time to compensate. They probably thought they were teaching her life lessons, but really, Madeline would have preferred the shitty apartment on the edge of town if it meant getting out from under their thumb.

Still, it wasn’t a bad setup. After walking past two or three stores, the apartment entrance was easy enough to access. She shoved a hand in her purse and fiddled around for the card to scan. After brushing past what felt like some dirt (she’d need to clean it out later, certainly), she pulled out the card and scanned into the building.

After a quick ride in the elevator, she was able to swipe the card again at her door and slip inside—slotting the card back into her wallet as she did so.

Thirty minutes, she thought to herself. At least I have a half hour to relax.

She stomped her way over to the kitchen and pulled open a few cabinets before finding her favorite chips. Without further thought, she dumped them into a nearby bowl and moved into the living room.

She landed on the couch with a plop and kicked off her boots. Her two bare feet crossed at the ankles and landed on her end table. She pulled the bowl into her lap, set her purse on the table by her feet, and grabbed the remote.

She had just enough time to squeeze in another episode of her favorite show before heading back down, and she intended to enjoy herself in the meantime.

***

Inside the purse, the world was chaos for Noah.

The constant jostling of the purse back and forth made it absolutely impossible to stand, so instead, Noah laid down on the bottom of the purse and tried to ride out the waves.

All around him, coins jingled, cards bumped into each other, and nothing seemed to sit still.

Despite it all, Noah was on cloud nine.

For the past few hours, he had been nothing more than a bug to be smooshed into the floor. Some stain to wipe off the floor. Trash to be crushed.

At least now, in this purse, things could stay stagnant. If only for a bit.

Noah closed his eyes for a moment, thinking.

She’ll put her purse down, and I’ll climb out. She’ll go back to work, and I’ll have the apartment to myself. At least, I hope so. Does she live with someone?

He tried to think on it further, but the massive hand plunging into the purse shook him from his trance.

Madeline’s perfectly manicured hand was no less than a wrecking ball from his perspective. Far above him, he had to crane his neck to see as it pushed around cards, flicked away coins, and pressed into things—feeling around for something, anything.

It kept moving deeper, deeper into the purse, before finally, her fingertips were right on top of him.

Noah was helpless as they crashed into the bottom of the purse on either side of him. Fingertips the size of cars brushed all around him.

Her middle finger pressed against him first—sliding him against the floor of the purse before finally pressing him against a wide, white card.

Noah screamed as the Madeline’s soft skin enveloped him, as her finger flattened and pressed the card—with him in between. He could feel his ribs bending and cracking under the pressure.

Just as he felt as if he was going to pop, the finger slid sideways—still pressing against his form. He was rolled against the card and all sense of direction faded as he was flattened, chest over back over chest against the card. Finally, the fingertip had rolled him past it’s edge, and he collapsed to the floor of the purse in a heap.

The fingertips then wrapped around the card, raising it up and out of the purse.

He had been rubbed off of it like common dirt.

Exhausted, and broken, he faded out, and it all went black…

…

…when he awoke, all of the movement seemed to hold still.

His sore and broken body rose up from the bottom of the purse. His legs were inflamed and red—still covered in gum residue and smashed remains from the bottom of Maddie’s boot.

His arms were similarly bruised. He had a deep gash along his left shoulder that oozed.

His head was throbbing, and he felt bumps forming along his forehead and the back of his skull.

In his deepest fantasies, he had imagined being as small and as helpless as he was now. He envisioned Madeline staring down at his tiny form, before unceremoniously snuffing out his life underfoot.

It was a lovely fantasy.

In reality, surviving this small was proving to be anything but.

She’ll put her purse down, and I’ll climb out, he thought again. She’ll go back to work, and I’ll have the apartment to myself.

Noah repeated these thoughts in his head like a mantra as he began to scale the deep walls of the purse. He grimaced through the pain as he ascended an inner zipper like it was a ladder.

She’ll go back to work, and I’ll have the apartment to myself.

He climbed on top of a tampon, which led him to the top of a coin purse. Only a few more feet to go.

I’ll have the apartment to myself.

The top of the coin purse let to a comb. It’s thick teeth let him climb higher. He could almost taste the top of the purse.

I’ll have the apartment to myself.

I’ll have it to myself.

I’ll survive.

Whatever it takes.

With a final heave, Noah pulled himself out of the top zipper of the purse and flipped on top of it, onto his back, panting.

It was going to be a long road ahead, but goddamn it—he was going to try.

After catching his breath, Noah began to look around.

He was in a living room—with towering white walls and simple art pieces lining them. On one side of the room was a flat-screen television mounted atop an entertainment stand. To it’s left, two doors leading deeper into the apartment.

To its right, the bar of the kitchen nearby, and beyond it, the front door.  

Noah turned and almost jumped in shock at what was behind him.

Two massive, pink soles rose up from the end table, far above his small form on top of the purse. In the gap between the truly gigantic feet, he could see Madeline chomping away at a bowl of chips. Two windows stood on either side of the couch, letting in natural light.

Now face-to-face with these two large, pink soles, the pungent, somewhat sweet smell of her feet began to waft over to him. He felt his pants tighten at the sight of them.

In his fantasies, this view—this position—was always what he had imagined. Subservient. Beneath notice.

He was far too distant to be seen by Madeline—not that she was looking anyways. Her eyes were glued to the screen. She seemed frozen, engrossed in her television show.

Noah’s heart beat faster and faster. His face flushed red.

If this was going to be the end of him, this might be his only chance to do this.

He dropped his pants.

***

He collapsed in a sweaty heap on top of the purse—the overwhelming orgasm sending him to the floor. He came so hard, he could see his seed dripping down the arch of Madeline’s right foot.

Of course, she hadn’t so much as reacted.

At least I got to do that, he thought to himself.

With his libido satiated, his thoughts turned once again to survival. He needed off this purse, and fast, but from his height, he was over a hundred feet to the surface of the table. Jumping from this height would surely kill him.

But as fate would have it, he would not need to.

Suddenly, the feet that had obscured Madeline from Noah disappeared as she lowered her feet back to the floor. The sudden gust of wind blew past him and threatened to suck him off of the top of the purse. Madeline almost threw her half-eaten bowl of chips onto the table. Like watching a ship crash against the shores of a beach, Noah was helpless as the bowl crashed into the side of the purse, knocking him off, sending him tumbling down into the bowl.

He landed crudely on top of a tortilla chip—its surface cracking but not breaking under his weight.

He looked up to see the ceiling of the apartment slowly disappear behind the bottom of Madeline’s head and breasts. She had set her bowl down and was leaning over it—engrossed in her show.

Her beautiful hand once again came into view, plunging down towards him for more chips.

His sweet relief was over.  

Adrenaline rushed through Noah as he quickly took stock of where he was—perhaps a space more dangerous than even the store’s floor.

Far above him, he watched helplessly as Madeline’s hand plunged down towards the bowl. The chip he had fallen on was thankfully Madeline’s chip of choice. Her fingers crashed into the bowl—cracking and snapping chips left and right as they crudely began to wrap around their target.

The sheer impact of the hand into the bowl of chips felt like a car crash. The entire bowl shook and dipped slightly, and the force was enough to knock Noah off of his chip.

Everything disappeared into a haze of salt and vinegar, for just a moment, before Noah landed hard on his back onto a second chip just below the first. He reached out and tried to grasp the edges. However, as soon as he wrapped a hand around the edge of the chip, it cracked and gave way under pressure.

Shit! Noah’s mind raced. The only way to balance is to lay flat.

And so, he did just that. Rotating onto his back, Noah lay spread-eagle across the length of the chip—or rather, as much as he could given his diminutive stature.

The awful snapping and rumbling of nearby chips slowly stopped as Madeline’s hand presumably raised up and out of the bowl. His suspicions were confirmed when the terrible sound of her teeth crashing into the chip rang throughout the bowl.

Crunch!

He helplessly listened as sharp, dry crunches faded into a wet churning sound above as Madeline made quick work of her meal. Even from this far down, Noah felt a tinge of fear and arousal as he heard Madeline sent the remains of the chip down into her throat.

GULP.

The sound seemed to penetrate Noah into his very soul.

She’s going to eat me.

His thoughts turned to a terrible truth as he frantically tried to think of options.

With the shaking bowl, there wasn’t going to be any way out of here by climbing out. The sheer walls of the bowl were far too steep, and given all that had happened today, he doubted Madeline would be scanning her bowl for microscopic friends. In here, he was food. And food was meant to be eaten.

And the only way to avoid that was to get as deep as he could into the chips.

As soon Madeline’s hand sank into the bowl of chips a second time, Noah took the shaking and spinning of his world to his advantage. He rolled on his side off the edge of the chip—bouncing off of shards and broken pieces all the way down. It felt like agony—like using every ounce of your energy bouncing off tree limbs to avoid being killed by hitting the ground.

After several long, brutal seconds of pain, Noah finally came to a crashing halt on top of a bed of crumbs.

The impact knocked the wind out of him, but as soon as he was able to blink the flavor dust out of his eyes, he started to breathe just a little bit easier.

Down here, at least for now, he felt safe.

He lay prone on the bottom of the bowl, surrounded by crumbs, and could only helplessly listen as the terrible sounds from above repeated over and over again.

Crunch! Crunch!

Gulp.

His canopy of chips slowly grew thinner and thinner as Madeline worked her way to the bottom of the bowl. Soon enough, there were only three chips left.

Above him, the last of his cover had been blown. As far as he was concerned, he looked too much like a bug to risk being spotted. Not now.

Noah ripped his hands into the bed of dust, quickly digging up a small trench and burying himself in it like sand.

This should work, he thought to himself. She’ll finish the bowl and ditch it for work.

But what if she throws it away?

That’s okay, he told himself, then I’ll climb out. I’ll find a way out. I’ve been trashed once before.

Beside him, a chip was plucked from the bowl and placed into Madeline’s gaping maw.

She’ll be at work, and I’ll climb out. I’ll find a spot to hide for a while. Maybe even find a way for her to see me.

The penultimate chip was then pulled from the bowl. Noah’s heart raced but his mind never stopped. Whether this was to figure out a plan of attack, or simply calm his nerves, he wasn’t sure.

Madeline’s a nice girl. We got along really well. If I can just get her attention, she’ll take care of me. She’ll tell my parents I’m alright.

Finally, Madeline’s hand lowered again. Her perfect fingers wrapped around the final chip, which unceremoniously deposited it into her open mouth. Her teeth dropped down, and—

Crunch!

She chewed and swallowed the last chip.

Whatever was going to happen, was going to happen now.

Noah raised himself slightly from the pile of crumbs. Should I try to get her attention now? Is it worth it? If she looks down at the bowl one more time, I’ll—

His thoughts shut off suddenly as he felt her hand grab the edge of the bowl.

And this time, they were tipping it.

“No, no!!!” Noah cried out. He pieced together what was happening only just in time to see it.

Maddie was lifting the edge of the bowl to her mouth and dumping everything—Noah included—into it.

Noah tumbled, head over heels as the pile of chips slid across the floor of the bowl and up its side. He brushed away debris and helplessly watched as his view shifted from Madeline’s waiting stomach, to her perfect breasts, past her throat, and up to her mouth.

Her massive lips had already parted—opening the way for him and the rest of her food. Noah ripped himself out of the pile of crumbs and desperately tried to cling onto the bowl.

But there was nothing to grab. His hands slid across the smooth surface until the friction burns caused him to pull his hands back. Still he tumbled.

“Madeline!! Maddie, please! Look down! Look down!” He cried out everything he could think of, to no avail. Perhaps if the tv was turned down, or if she had paid close attention, she may have heard a faint squeaking sound coming from her bowl.

But why would she pay attention to it? In her bowl, was food. Its only use was to be dumped into her open mouth, chewed to bits, and sent down the hatch.

Food was food. And now, food included Noah.

Her hot, wet breath struck him moments before he felt the edge of the bowl drop out from beneath him. He looked up one final time to see, just past her nostrils, Madeline’s eyes.

They were locked on her show.

And then it everything went dark.

…

…

For what felt like a short infinity, nothing happened. Noah had landed on something soft, slimy, and wet—her tongue, no doubt. Her lips had sealed his fate moments ago, plunging him into complete blackness.

In here, it smelled overwhelmingly like vinegar and onions. The air was so wet with humidity it was almost unbreathable. In the silence, Noah could only wait until Madeline began to chew.

And so she did.

Her tongue tossed Noah and the rest of the crumbs upward and to the left. He felt his body leave the surface of her tongue and crash into the sharp, dense surface of her teeth. As soon as he had his wits about him, he dove off further left, away from the teeth. He struck the inside of her cheek and slid down unassumedly as the molars he had just left bore down on the rest of her food.

Crunch!

In here, the sound was wet and violent as Madeline masticated her food into a pulpy mess. A mess he was very nearly a part of.

“Please, god!” Noah shouted, his voice trembling. This was a fate worse than death. In here, all he could to was dodge and try to avoid the inevitable.

He was going to die inside of her.

Noah felt himself crash waist-deep into a puddle of spit in the space between her teeth and her tongue. The ground raised and dropped as her jaw worked everything into a pulp. But of course, it wasn’t going to be calm for long.

Noah felt a sudden pressure on his back, and found himself forced underneath the surface of the spit, as Madeline’s tongue worked him out of the space and forced him back towards her teeth.

She had felt him, no doubt, and was making sure every ounce of food went where it belonged.

Noah was pressed deep into what felt like a large wad of wet crumbs—turned into a cementitious slurry by all of the chewing. Madeline’s tongue pressed him deep into its surface, and he found himself well and truly embedded.

Then, without warning, the time came.

Noah and the ball of food tumbled down, towards the back of her Madeline’s throat.

Noah’s protests now came out as barely more than a sobbed whimper:

“Somebody help me… please.”

The ground dropped out beneath, Madeline’s tongue snapped back, and her powerful muscles sucked the food, Noah, and all of the spit down her throat in one terrible–

GULP.