Martin shifted the box of creamy-cakey sweetness in his hands as he stepped across the threshold, closing the door with his hip. A dollop of icing had had fallen on his tie, and he cursed. One more thing to worry about.

The door shut, locked. They were in. Martin’s heartbeat quickened, already feeling the primal rush of wrongdoing. The shoe rack was sectioned neatly into the corner, though mysteriously it was devoid of footwear at all. Martin mentally noted it must be solely for guest-use. He rubbed his black Oxford dress shoes on the welcome mat which read “Merry Christmas” despite it currently being April; recent sets of footsteps seemed to have eschewed this suggestion, tracking light trails of similar footprints further elsewhere into the abode. His friends must’ve gone further inside, Martin thought, and then he took another look around the apartment.

It was a lightly-but-chicly furnished living space. The entryway was tile, leading to the hard wood of the rest of the living room area, softened with a massive Persian rug. The couch was a clean gray-black with a floral-print throw atop it, and it faced a coffee table and an old school CRT television box with a pair of bunny-eared antennae sticking from the top. A flowerpot sat in the corner, its petals and leaves reaching diligently to grab the vestiges of afternoon light that peaked through the ajar window blinds.

Martin took a few steps further in, now noticing the serving hatch that led into the kitchen, equally clean and tidy. In front of this hatch was Courtney, seated at a bar stool with a casual fervor; she turned to Martin and smiled. Martin replied with a nervous smile of his own and said out loud with an uncharacteristically strong voice, “I’m still not completely sold on this idea.”

“What’s not to be sold about?” Courtney replied, weighing a couple of jars of preserves in her hands before putting them down on the counter with a clink. “It’s just a little going away present.”

“Breaking and entering, though? Couldn’t we have just, like, waited for her to come home? Maybe give this to Yu-mi, just, normally?”

This next reply came from elsewhere, muffled. “Her fault for being such a hardass.”

A toilet flushed. Water rushed through pipes. From deeper within, a door opened, and Johnny walked out, wiping his hands on his slacks. “And for stashing her key on top of the door frame. But dude, c’mon. It’s just a harmless little prank to lighten her up a little.”

Hands dried, Johnny plopped onto the couch, reaching for the remote to turn it on. “We find a good hiding place, pop out, say ‘Hey, thanks for being such a cool supervisor’, we eat cake, we leave. What’s so bad about that?”

Martin started to open his mouth, when two feminine voices screeched out from the depths of the hallway, “Guys?!”

Martin, his danger sensors going off like a fire alarm, prepared to charge further into the apartment but remembered he was still carrying the cake. Soon, out of the hallway came two professionally dressed young women with unprofessional but decidedly not mortal expressions. The taller of them, Suzanne, exclaimed, “Have you seen how fluffy Yu-mi’s bed is?”

Martin, Johnny, and Courtney simply stared at the pair.

“It’s like sleeping in a clouuuuud!” The other woman, Tina, breathed out with delight. “I never want to leave! You all must try this before she comes home!” And Tina grabbed Suzanne’s hand, dragging her through the hallway again before Martin could even call to the pair to tell them not to rummage through Yu-mi’s stuff.

Martin sighed.

Courtney clocked her friend’s expression and turned around in the stool to face Martin. “Martin, it’s okay. We can do the surprise on our own. You don’t have to--”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Martin said, finally walking around the counter and entering the kitchen proper, placing the box of cake on top of an empty cutting board. “I’ll stay. It’s just… I don’t know, I feel like… like something awful is going to happen.”

“That’s why Yu-mi loves you so much, dude,” Johnny called over a re-run of All In the Family. “Neither of you know how to chill.”

Martin stood there, evaluating Johnny’s words as a wry smile curled at his lips. “Yeah, I guess so.”

Martin sighed, finally allowing relaxation and joy to enter his heart. He liked Ms. Park. And deep down, a part of him knew that she would continue liking him even if she disliked his involvement in this well-intentioned, probably stupid, but potentially hilarious practical joke. The interns had been planning it ever since they heard that Ms. Park’s ten-year employment anniversary gift from upper management was a $10 Applebee's gift card. Of course, Ms. Park was never one to complain, but for someone so hard-working, diligent, firm, but kindhearted, the interns took this as a perversion of justice. And so, with their own hard-earned dollars, they embarked to the local Walmart with a plan to make things right.

Martin chuckled. Perhaps it was true he worried too much.

Then…

Rerererererereeerererereererereeeererereeeee…

“Hey…” Martin put a hand against his temple. “Are anyone else’s ears ringing?

Courtney, cheek lain in her palm, perked up. Her eyes were twisted in agitation. “Yeah… I think I hear it too…”

As Courtney became aware of this ringing, it grew louder and louder, and more ear-splitting.

“Ach, dammit, what the hell is that?” Johnny shouted. He slammed the TV off. “Is it this?” The television switched to black, yet the screeching remained.

“I don’t have a clue!” Martin yelled. He wanted to get up, but it felt like static electricity was magnetizing him to his seat.

“I… I-I-I can’t move!” Courtney had her hand on the counter, trying to push it away, so she could achieve some semblance of locomotion. But her arms felt more like logs, and she could not hold them against the surface for long before tiring out.

Slam!

Courtney passed out, forehead cracking as she slumped against the counter.

Martin saw this, eyes wide in horror, as the static that had so possessed his ears now went on to conquer his vision, lowering a snowy gray veil over his inner eyelids as he was ripped forcefully from the waking world and into a slumber.

***

There stairwell felt uncharacteristically long and drudgerous as Yu-Mi Park ascended. She was carrying three bags – a briefcase in one hand, and a purse and hefty satchel in the other, each one carrying something critical to her sane functioning in a business environment. She huffed; the day had been uncharacteristically draining to her, and she sought nothing more than the comfort of her apartment unit.

Yu-Mi reached the second floor.

Stopping for a moment, she glanced to the side. Her door was first on the right, closed as always. But instead of turning to it, sticking her key in the door, unlocking, entering… she turned to the adjacent wall. She took a few steps to it, leaning her forehead against the rough painted surface.

Sniffffff…!

The hallway was always empty this time of day; few worked as far from this apartment as Yu-Mi did, so their return times seldom intersected. Still though, there was something oddly cathartic about expressing her herself in a nominally public area. Yu-Mi had made this observation many times in her years living here, and now, as her own emotions threatened to overwhelm her and make her explode… she couldn’t help herself.

Yu-Mi wiped her sleeve across her nose. She was always careful to keep this suit blazer clean and free of blemishes… She’d need to attend to that when she got inside.

Ten years…

Ten years. An entire decade; by all rights, anywhere between a 7th and a 9th of her entire life, a life that she’d already spent 35 years living by the time she got this job. Ten years of barely moving up the corporate ladder, ten years of draining, emotionally-exhausting, mentally-taxing, soul crushing data analysis. Ten years of devoting herself to the company in the hopes… the hopes they would recognize the value she added to the corporation.

Yu-Mi rubbed her eyes, and she reached into the faulds of her blazer to pull out a small plastic rectangle.

At least she wouldn’t have to cook dinner tonight.

Yu-Mi stayed there for a few minutes... but time was ticking. Eventually someone would either come in or come out, and that would open a whole new awkward can of worms, best to be avoided. Yu-Mi planted her key into the slot, twisting it to open the door. She pushed through, closing it behind her, and leaned back against the rough-hewn wood. She sighed. Somehow, even after so many years, she was reluctant to refer to this place as a home.

Yu-Mi locked the door, then reached down, pulling one shoe off and tossing it aside, followed immediately by the stocking. Now confined to the tightness of the apartment unit, the true results of Yu-Mi’s day of work were laid bare. It was hotter than it typically was this time of year, and additionally, her stockings were tight. She hadn’t purchased new shoes in quite a while, and these flats had seen their fair share of use. This meant that as her toes splayed across the Merry Christmas mat, they emanated the scent of a woman at work, a scent that was only truly appreciated by someone already familiar with it, as it was impossible to replicate otherwise. Drips of sweat were still running down her thighs, beneath her black skirt, further coating her in this unique yet alluring odor.

Sniff, sniff. When it hit Yu-Mi, all she could say was: “I could use a shower…”

***

Courtney was the first to come to.

“What… ow…!” The moment she became conscious, she became aware of the lightning bolt of sensation that was still coursing from her head down to all her nerve endings as she tried get her bearings.

“What… what in the hell?” Courtney was on the floor. Or a floor. Of some kind. It was relatively smooth and composed of a mottled pattern of neutral colors.

As Courtney stood up, her gaze went to the horizon, a view that only gave her even more questions. As far as she could see, it was only a collection of blurry, indistinct shapes, fading out into the aether from their distance.

“… oh shit…” Courtney’s heart began to pump. She didn’t know where she was. That was bad. And yet, still… it looked… familiar.

“HEYYYYYYYY!!!”

Courtney heard it. A sound. A sign of familiarity -- Martin. It was coming from just up ahead, just down the way from… wherever she was.

“I’m coming!” she yelled back, at first running to the source, only to realize that her heels were going to be a hinderance on this flat surface. She swore, stopping in her trot to take them off. Grabbing them both, she continued her jog in her stockinged feet until --

“W-WHOA!!” Courtney stumbled, dropping her shoes from sheer fear.

They fell downward, hundreds of feet, off a cliff that she didn’t even know was there.

“H-huh?!” Courtney looked left and then right. The cliff was like no cliff she’d ever seen; it simply continued straight for what felt like miles in either direction. No rocky crags or indentations. As though it had been delicately carved by a master craftsman.

“HEYYYYYY, COURTNEY!!!!”

“MARTIN?!” Courtney yelled back, scanning her surroundings for the source of the sound until:

There.

Across the cliff. Unreachable. There was a golden platform, seemingly suspended on four towering legs. And there, a minute speck in the distance on the platform… was Martin.

“Oh… oh no…” Courtney could not fathom it. It was impossible to understand. It couldn’t be.

But somehow…

Creaaaaaaaaak…

SLAMMM!

“I could use a shower…”

Those simple words were delivered with what felt like uncharacteristic mundanity from the group’s supervisor considering her typical sternness. But Courtney was far more taken aback by the fact that those words had been delivered with the force of that of a God more so than a man, an utterance that shook her to her very bones. It came from a being whose walks dug at something deep in Courtney’s core, and it was coming closer…

Closer.

Closer…

Closer…

Until she finally came into view.

Ms. Park was standing right in front of Courtney, at what was certain to be many thousands of times her own size.

Somehow… Courtney had shrunk. Martin had shrunk. God knows who else had shrunk.

Courtney was not on a nondescript cliff; she was on Ms. Park’s counter. And Martin was nestled smack dab in the middle of the seat of Ms. Park’s bar stool.

Courtney felt the bile rise as she saw Ms. Park awe-inspiring form walk across the floor, each step a thundering quake. Martin too was transfixed, for a moment at least, until he came up with the idea to again scream for help.

“MISS PAAAAAARK!!! HEEEEELLLLLPPPPPP!!!”

Courtney saw this, and realized he had the right plan. They had no clue if Ms. Park could even hear the two… but they had to try.

So, Courtney joined in the chorus of Martin, hundreds of feet away, screaming for dear life, hoping that Ms. Park would notice them.

***

“Hmm…”

Yu-Mi noticed the box on the far counter first, next to the fridge. It was an odd sight; how’d it get in here?

Yu-Mi walked toward it, each step on the dusty dry floor saturated with a single print of her saturated stockings. She reached the box, opening it a bit tentatively until the smell of chilled frosted icing wafted into her nose.

“A cake!” she exclaimed, her heart already leaping. Yu-Mi wasn’t known for it, but she loved sweets. And what’s more, this one had a letter attached to the inner underside of the lid.

To Miss Yu-Mi Park.

Our time at Icarus Chemical Solutions was short and had a few ups and downs. But none of us would have become better workers had it not been for your guidance, patience, and support. So as our internships come to a close, we thought to give you this gift, for everything you mean to us.

Signed

Martin, Courtney, Jonathan, Suzanne, Tina

Yu-Mi’s heart could only melt the more she read the letter, any remembrances of the pain of earlier in the day forgotten. She carefully folded it up and put it aside, then grabbed a plate from a nearby cabinet, carving out a piece of the white-blanketed chocolate confection and placing it on the platter. She wanted to eat this now!

Once the cake was plated, she took her newfound evening snack to the bar counter, hopping up on the stool and sighing rapturously as her tired muscles relaxed in its seat, digging her fork into the meal and coating her mouth in its chocolate, licking her lips as she swallowed greedily.

***

Martin watched Yu-Mi walk back, a thundering quake with each step, punctuated by the wet slap-slap-slapping every footfall took. She was getting closer and closer.

Martin’s heart raced. Closeness meant that she’d be able to see them. Renewing his breath, he doubled down and screamed again.

She was getting closer. Even at this size, as Martin stopped to catch his breath, he couldn’t help but admire Yu-Mi’s beauty. It was unbelievable how a creature as big as Martin now comprehended her could move with such grace, especially without a knowing audience to flaunt toward. Her hair, straight jet-black, shoulder-length, silvery midnight, was like a silky curtain guarding the precious pale treasure of her face’s beauty. Her body was slender but toned, fit. Yu-Mi had often confided in the group her use of public transportation when chastising them for being late, as well as her frequent walks and jogs on her days off, which added to this veneer of athleticism. But more than anything, Martin respected Yu-Mi. She had been a brilliant supervisor, a capable data-analyst, a skilled computer technician, and a firm-but-fair mentor to both Martin and the entire group of interns. He genuinely liked her and could only hope she enjoyed his company as well. In any other situation, Martin would consider the opportunity to witness Yu-Mi Park, candid, in this most intimate of spaces, to be a wondrous and cherished memory.

Yu-Mi didn’t hear Martin at all.

It was only as the shadow of Yu-Mi’s shrouded ass fell atop Martin that he realized what was about to happen to him.

He cast a quick glance to Courtney, but realized he lost her location while trying to get Yu-Mi’s attention. Of course he did, she was a speck. They were both specks, practically dust-motes in the presence of this phenomenal creature. It was a miracle the two of them had even found each other in the first place.

And as Martin looked back up at the eclipsed sky, heart pounding with a ferocious fear, a will, a need to get away, he looked across the expansive plain of the seat, searching for an out, for a way to escape this terrifying, inconceivable situation. Even now he didn’t want to believe it. To believe that somehow the two of them shrank, reduced to barely a millimeter in height. And that his boss and mentor was about to snuff him out without even knowing he was ever there.

Martin put his hands up in a futile plea, his screams becoming less screams for attention and more simply fear-addled yelps and screeches as the fabric of Yu-Mi’s dark-colored panties stretched across the back of her buttocks, her rubbery gelatinous orbs jiggling and undulating with their massive, floppy weight until –

CRASHOOOOOOM!!!

It was over in an instant.

In that instant, Martin was bombarded. In the spare moment between being utterly smothered by Yu-Mi’s ass and her weight relaxing into the seat, Martin’s thoughts went into overdrive. His mind went everywhere, if only to prevent his last conscious thought to be pain. He thought of his family, once so sure and confident of Martin’s future business success, unaware that he was about to be reduced to a splatter. He thought of his friends, fearing for them, wondering if this same eldritch fate would befall Johnny, Tina, Suzanne… He thought of Courtney. He hoped, prayed that she would be able to get out of this. To escape, to get Yu-Mi’s attention somehow, as unlikely as that may have been.

The cacophony of horrendous crackles and pops raced through Martins body, compressing from his feet up to his waist, with more to come. Martin squirmed relentlessly, painfully and he took in what breath he could, a foolhardy move as his inflated lungs were mercilessly squeezed, sending out the last oxygen inside the young man up through his mouth in a choked gasp. His heart hadn’t even the time to beat, but his mind still had just enough time to think. To reason. To hope that something would save him. Save everyone. In that split-millisecond as his skin ruptured, his lungs burst, his brain broke… yet he could not stop fighting.

Martin choked on blood as his skull cracked, his mind completely addled and broken in more ways than one. The horror of this predicament was not lost on him, even in his final moments. The heartbreaking, incomprehensible question of what did he do wrong? What did they do to deserve this? Why was he being punished?! How could Yu-Mi so thoughtlessly take the lives of these youths she worked so hard to cultivate?! Why was he --

SPLA-CRACK!

A minuscule spurt of super-sonic blood spritzed from beneath Yu-Mi’s leggings like a grape. The tougher materials, bones, sinews, were ground down into dust only moments later.

Martin’s final delirious shrieks were eaten by the expansive mass of Yu-Mi’s voluptuous derriere, but Courtney could just barely make out the miniscule crunch that curled upward into her ears, sending bile into her mouth.

“M-Martin…?” She knew her voice would be unable to carry what felt like hundreds of feet downwind. In a way, she was counting on it. She feared what Yu-Mi might do to her, unknowingly, a goddess whose whims could determine her life or death in an instant. But still, Courtney had to put her feelings to voice. She tried to ball her hands into fists, but their trembling prevented any cohesion amongst her fingers. That the object of her affection had died, so unceremoniously, suddenly… randomly. What had happened? Why had this occurred? Courtney had no end to the questions she demanded answers for, but currently there was only one other entity in the room she could ask, a creature that loomed up with bounteous, endless girth and size, one that cast an expansive shadow across Courtney’s world.

Yu-Mi was already digging into her cake. Brown frosting speckled the outside of her mouth, quickly lapped up by her probing tongue before being replaced by the leftovers from Yu-Mi’s next forkful. The sweetness was decadent, so much so that Yu-Mi had to moan in delight as she shoved another helping of delicious chocolatey cake into her cheeks. The massive slice was already half-way done; Courtney had to wonder whether she’d been staring so long at the display, transfixed by Yu-Mi’s impossible size, that time seemed to have sped up for her. It didn’t feel real that a cake with so much apparent mass could disappear so utterly and completely.

“Hm…” Yu-Mi scanned the counter, and Courtney froze. She looked up as Yu-Mi looked down, stern, and lifted her hand up above the platform. Five perfect, beautiful, heavenly fingers descended, locking Courtney in place as she could only observe their enigmatic umbra.

Yu-Mi scratched at a piece of crusted pancake batter on the counter, breaking it into dust.

A few centimeters away, Courtney wanted to throw up. For a number of reasons, chief being the speed at which she had darted behind a mason jar filled with peach preserves. By sidling her profile against it, she managed to avoid the attention of Yu-Mi’s gaze. As much as Courtney wanted to get Yu-Mi’s attention, she wanted it to be before she was forced to contend with her fingers, each one the size of a redwood to her, and a proportional thickness exceeding even that.

For now, Courtney could only watch. Watch, and stew in the despair of having lost Martin. But… there was no time for that now. She had to look after herself first.

Yu-Mi finished her cake, scraping the extra icing and crumbs with the side of her fork, forming a thin ridge of flavor on its edge. Yu-Mi licked it up, content. Then, she set her fork down and got up from her stool, back on the floor. She walked into the rear room.

Courtney let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding, and she inched out of her hiding place. The fork was no longer a fork to her – it was a colossal, giant, huge bridge of metal, terminating in four equally-spaced, terrifying points. Each one was sharp at normal size, yet Courtney knew if she were to be skewered by one of them… well, she wouldn’t be. She would sooner be crushed beneath their blunt ends. The reality she was only barely larger than a grain of salt was deeply, deeply unsettling to Courtney.

Courtney looked across the endless chasm and into the rectangular portal through which Yu-Mi disappeared. She was like a thunderstorm. Dangerous, yet beautiful, impossible to look away from. Still, not something you wanted to be caught in the middle of. And Courtney thought of the rest of her friends, hoping, praying that they were able to make it out of this okay.

 Tina was not going to be able to make it out of this okay.

One moment, Tina was sitting on the side of the bed with one leg propped on her knee checking her phone. Suzanne was in the bathroom washing her hands. Both were giddy and excited at the impending prospect of being able to share cake.

But one ominous fit of ear-ringing later, and now Tina had no idea where she was. The landscape was vast and ethereal, filled with such imposing cliff-faces and structures as to be unthinkable to Tina’s eyes. Even the floor upon which she stood, flat and smooth, went on for apparently hundreds of miles in three out of the four directions.

“S… S-S-Suzy?” Tina was already a soft-spoken woman, far more content to let her friends do the speaking for her. But even in this netherscape of inexplicable geography, she found her voice to be absolutely, inexplicably small. "S-Suzy... w-w-where did you go? Suz…”

A thump.

Another one, louder.

Tina wanted to jump with each tremor. She looked around but saw no outward indication of the source. At least, not until a massive wall, blurred by the distance, rectangular in shape, unthinkable in scale, began to move. A door. It practically destroyed all of Tina’s sense of reality to accept that fact, but there was no other object it could be. And that door was fast opening, allowing the creature who made those noises to enter her bedroom.

“Ms.… Ms. Park? Ms. Park?!”

Ms. Park it was. She turned on the lights, nearly blinding Tina with a shocking sensory overload. Tina was forced to rub her eyes, but as she did she was unable to erase the vision of Ms. Park, magnified into a creature so much larger than Tina that it would’ve been a disservice to Yu-Mi’s might to even attempt to describe it. But even if she could, as she opened her blurry eyes again, Tina felt yet another thump, a tremor. Ms. Park’s voluminous frame was approaching, fast. And if Tina could not escape, she would be right in the line of fire.

“Oh God, shit, God, SUZY?!” Tina didn’t waste time listening for a reply; she turned tail and ran. Every footstep Yu-Mi made was another jolt, a shock to Tina’s system, resulting in missteps, trips, accidents. Yet despite this, it felt as though Yu-Mi was arriving in slow motion. The shadow of her tepid foot would just almost encroach her. Until… another step. Tina had barely gotten managed to outrun them. But with each repetition of this cycle, the gap diminished.

“Oh God… oh God oh God…” Tina knew muttering was wasting precious breath, but she couldn’t help it. Speaking was the only ability she possessed to process the situation. Even now, she could smell Yu-Mi’s fragrant after-work musk, a powerful scent that invaded Tina’s nostrils and made her crinkle her nose at the sourness. “Please, please, please…”

Tina made the mistake of looking behind her.

Yu-Mi’s towering frame was no longer there. Tina had gotten so used to the varying steps of Yu-Mi’s arrival – she had to, lest she be utterly transfixed, unable to even walk. But in ignoring that, she had failed to realize that Yu-Mi had more than gained on her. She was right on top of her.

STOMP!

Tina jumped, and she screamed. She looked to her side. Yu-Mi’s foot landed, delivering sweaty wet spots to the chilled floor.

“I… I-I-I…” Tina quivered, then stopped as the lights went out for her. Knowing that what she was about to see would destroy her – physically and mentally – and she looked up.

The shadow cast by Yu-Mi’s dewy foot was apocalyptic. The smoothly carved ridges beneath the sole drew traces of Yu-Mi’s past. The history of everything she’d done, everywhere she went, the tunes she danced to, the sports she’d played. That entire history was written there on those soles. Tina stumbled, taken aback, when something wet fell on her shoulder.

“H-huh?!” Tina touched her finger to the droplet. It smelled salty.

Then the foot came down.

“N-no, no!” Tina tried to get back up, but tripped. She felt a sharp stab of pain and attempted to crawl out of the way. “Suzy?! SUZY –”

Squelch…!

Yu-Mi’s walk continued unimpeded. She would never know that as she proceeded to the bathroom, she would trample her former subordinate beneath her slippery smooth left foot, squeezing her under unbelievable pressure that shattered spines, grinded out bones, popped blood vessels, and ultimately exploded her into a corpse, then a stain, then a mere stamp, a stamp that would continue to paste fake Tina’s across the floor for almost an entire three more steps until the girl was truly reduced to nothing.

***

Suzanne watched, horrified, mystified, through the slit of an ajar bathroom door. She had been forced to come to terms with the reality of her size quickly – the cool ceramic material of the bathroom was instantly recognizable even from these germ-like scales. Nevertheless, this didn’t make it easy. Every noise that Suzanne heard was another potential danger: the drip, drip dripping of the faucet produced droplets that could drown her if she wasn’t careful. The aromatic scents of cleaning products and bath soaps were comfortably fragrant as a human. As a bug, they were nearly toxic, caustic poisons, ones that made Suzanne cough and hack before she grew adjusted to them.

Worst and most inconvenient, however, was the precise location of Suzanne’s shrinkage. Rather than be reduced in any area that would allot her the privilege of movement, escape, freedom of any sort… she had gotten the short end of the stick. Trapped within the fibers of a hand towel, carefully folded and placed lengthwise over the edge of the inverted crystalline dome that made up Yu-Mi’s bathroom sink. This wouldn’t be so bad on its own, but in Suzanne’s crazed squirmings upon coming to, she had inadvertently entangled her own legs within the mess of fibers that made up the white half-garment, a mistake she was trying her hardest to remedy.

Suzanne had to breathe, and she had to breathe slowly. She glanced up again at the faint sliver of Yu-Mi… Yu-Mi. She was as inevitable as the dawn. Suzanne didn’t know if she was coming inside the bathroom… but that wouldn’t change anything. Either way, if Suzanne didn’t finish what she was doing and finish it quickly, she would be in a lot of danger. Yu-Mi, thankfully, seemed to be focused on something on the floor. By the scant indications of her demeanor that Suzanne could glean, she could tell Yu-Mi was uncomfortable, a face of disgust. Had she stepped on something? Could it have been…

Suzanne shook her head, though her heart fell. Now was not the time for her mind to go to such dark places. She untangled another rope-like knot, and suddenly, her left leg was free.

“Yes… yes!” Now for the other one, she thought.

A gentle, grating, omnipotent creaking sound, brass rubbing against brass, and a rush of air that would’ve blown Suzanne backwards hundreds of feet had her one leg not still been encased in a barrage of knots. Suzanne’s eyes watered from the intense breeze, and through their misty frames the enigmatic colossus of Yu-Mi Park unbuttoning her shirt and sliding down her skirt was becoming more and more distinct.

Accompanying Yu-Mi’s arrival was also the arrival of her scent. Suzanne’s nose now began to sting, feeling the potent, fragrant miasma of Yu-Mi’s musk fill the confined bath area. It wasn’t especially extreme, given the circumstances. At normal size, its hardy, earthy undertones might’ve even been pleasant, to the right man or woman. But Yu-Mi’s size was a force magnifier, one that multiplied everything she did… everything she was… by thousands, if not millions of times. It caused Suzanne’s hands to jitter and shake, and this made her dexterity take a severe dip.

“No… c’mon!” Suzanne grit her teeth, steeling herself and trying to do the same to her arms. She curled her fingers around the threads of the cloth, but every reversal of a tie seemed to come with several more accidental knots, a consequence of her growing fear under the shadow of Yu-Mi.

All changed when Yu-Mi grabbed the cloth.

“W-what?! No, no! Ms. Park! YU-MI!” Her leg remained entangled, and now Suzanne was dangling upside down against the curtainous mass of threads and knitted fibers. From this view, Yu-Mi looked even more alien and incomprehensible, a face made of impossible-to-navigate peaks and valleys, divots and crevices, craters and hills. The hair that fell down her face was made of blacks so deep they seemed like a gift from Night herself. Her torso was bare of her blouse or office wear; all that adorned the beautiful woman were a bra and a pair of panties. Each one could’ve housed thousands of Suzannes on their own.

“Yu-Mi! Wait, wait!” Suzanne continued to scream for Yu-Mi’s attention, all falling on deaf ears. Yu-Mi gripped the cloth and held it inside the cistern before she turned on the faucet, the piercing sound of water rushing through pipes sending a shrieking migraine through the upturned Suzanne. This was naught but the prologue; a typhoon swirled through the faucet, raining down on the hand towel with Olympic swimming pools’ worth of water with each passing moment, coming inches from drowning the poor girl in a battering ram of nothing but liquid, liquid, and more liquid. It couldn’t have been longer than a few seconds before Yu-Mi turned the faucet off, but to the saturated girl who dangled lifelessly from the rag, it felt like several lifetimes.

As the rag swished through the air, Suzanne sputtered to life, choking at first as she tried to breathe in air, having forgotten the water still caught in her throat. She coughed it out in a hack and tried to blink her eyes open again, only to be greeted by an even more dire sight – Yu-Mi’s armpit.

The ever-chic Yu-Mi always made sure to apply a healthy helping of deodorant in the morning after showering to ensure she smelled fresh and clean for the rest of the day. Suzanne now saw the results of this dictum, a crusted casing of white powdery flecks spiderwebbing across Yu-Mi’s shaved pits. And she was heading straight for it.

Suzanne didn’t even have the energy to scream out in terror this time, but once she was smothered against Yu-Mi’s armpit, she wouldn’t have been able to let out anything worthwhile against the flesh of her giant, unaware captor anyway. Yu-Mi slid dragged the rag across her armpit, digging deep into the trapped and crusted over deodorant, mixing it with water, creating a precipitant that was easy to scrub off and wipe away. And all through the motion, Suzanne was caught in the middle, kissing against Yu-Mi’s moist armpit, feeling nothing but horror, nausea, disgust, fear, pain, discomfort… an entire gamut of negative emotions and sensations as she was reduced to nothing but a sweat rag.

Yu-Mi finished the first pit, and Suzanne was granted a reprieve. Only for Yu-Mi to just as quickly return to grooming her opposite pit, sending Suzanne into a spiral of despairing just as she was beginning to feel the knots on her leg loosen.

No, though Suzanne. Of all the times… why now?! As she was being grinded against Yu-Mi’s increasingly pristine armpit, the knots of the rag were coming undone, having been loosened by the prior waterfall and use of the rag were coming apart. Suzanne was slipping.

Suzanne flailed her arms and summoned her strength. Even upside down, hanging from a toiletry item, she had to try. Yu-Mi was a wild card, but Suzanne knew the unbearable desolation of the bathroom floor would’ve been a truly demoralizing affair, assuming she even survived the fall. Suzanne angled her back and tried to grab onto the rag with her fingers, hoping to hug it in case her leg was freed too soon, but an aggressive rub sent Suzanne rolling along Yu-Mi’s rubbery armpit skin and losing her orientation.

Moments later, Yu-Mi removed the rag. Suzanne was not on it.

The mixture of water, sweat, and deodorant had calcified into a crystalline sheen. And there, embedded in this layer… was Suzanne. She was attached to the skin of Yu-Mi’s upright armpit spread-eagle style, and likely had mere moments to even try to breathe a semblance of fresh air until her arm came down, squishing her into oblivion.

Suzanne tried to blink. She couldn’t. Suzanne tried to open her mouth to scream, and when that didn’t work, she whimpered. She strained her arms against this entrapment in vain. But she had to keep going. She had to keep moving. She had to… that is, until she realized Yu-Mi was holding her arm up for far longer than Suzanne’s defeated mind had anticipated.

The only muscles on Suzanne’s body that worked unimpeded were her eyes. So, she turned them as far as she could to the left.

There, in the corner of her gaze, something was fast approaching. Yu-Mi’s hand was coming in hot, and it was wielding a plastic capsule of roll-on deodorant. A glistening orb of sweet-smelling glaze, itself hundreds of times the size of the beleaguered Suzanne.

“Yu…Mi…” mouthed Suzanne as the deodorant was planted on Yu-Mi’s skin, only paces away. Wet sounds were filtered out from the lubricated device. “I… I thought…” Suzanne’s mind broke, at last. There was nothing she could do. Nothing any creature her size could do. She wasn’t meant for this. She wasn’t built for this. She could do nothing, be nothing. She had nothing. And as the embiggened roll of deodorant crushed Suzanne out of existence once and for all, imbedding her reddish stain in a new sheen of hygiene and cleanliness, Suzanne’s final thoughts to this earthly realm were a lonely plea to her captor.

“I… I thought we were friends…”

Yu-Mi smiled at herself in the mirror before switching arms and applying another coat. Grabbing the rag again, she reached down and swiped the moist cloth along the bottom of her foot. She had felt something slight sticky on her sole. Once that was remedied, it was time for some relaxation. Yu-Mi had been planning to sleep the day away at first, but that cake had energized her. A bit of television wouldn’t be so bad.

***

Johnny was trudging, shamefully, across the couch. He hadn’t wanted to accept the fact that this gray platform of endless rolling fabric and cotton was the futon’s throw blanket, but the television box across the canyon meant this could only be the couch. Johnny hadn’t wanted to accept that he’d been shrunken, reduced to the size of a mere mite by forces he didn’t understand or even want to understand. But with each passing step, he made a bit of progress to the edge, the lip of the canyon. Progress that would lead to him finding his friends, him finding help, him getting out of this hellscape. It’s a common piece of advice that when approached with a seemingly impossible challenge, one must begin with the smallest possible task that will help in achieving the overall goal. For Johnny, that was taking every subsequent step, no matter how wobbly the surface he was walking on, or how shaky the tremors made him feel. How fast his heart pounded. How much his head ached from the fear, confusion, terror.

But when the tremors began again, getting louder and louder… when the vision of Yu-Mi’s massive, monolithic, bathrobe-wreathed legs entered his range of view… when they slowed to a stop just before his spot on the couch, ascending into the canopy of her barely-visible pert derriere, threatening to break from the tightly-wound belt… and when she began to lower her legs with a yoga-like slowness and steady pace, dual moons of pure pinkish-white edging closer and closer to Johnny… then Johnny had to wonder… what point was there in proceeding henceforth? In carrying his legs just fractions of a centimeter with each passing second further than he once was? He didn’t understand why he had shrunk just barely beyond the height of an amoeba. But now that he was… would he be forced to accept that this world was no longer his to own?

Yu-Mi’s ass was coming down even faster, and Johnny wanted to hop away, each foot sinking ever deeper into the swampy fabric. He had to move, he had to run, pump his arms, escape, no matter how hopeless it seemed. But in the corner of his mind, the reality that he was about to die set in. Not only that, but he was about to die beneath the ass of his friend and coworker, his superior no less. His superior’s ass.

This superior ass.

“WAI–”

Johnny leapt forth. He uttered a final, urgent request that, like him, was steamrolled and evaporated beneath the enormity of Yu-Mi Park’s derriere. For yet a moment, he remained alive underneath the heated globular posterior. Injured and defeated, beaten and broke, smothered and suffocated… but alive, at least in a sense. But as Yu-Mi shifted and kicked her feet up on the coffee table, burrowing her rear end deeper into the couch, making it give against her awesome, expansive weight…the pressure became too much. Johnny grit his teeth, biting his tongue as his frame crackled. He tried to scream out one last message to the world that was about to so cruelly do away with him, but he failed to earn even that privilege, He popped, splattering, equal parts sinking into the carpet and speckling the bottom of Yu-Mi’s starboard ass cheek.

Yu-Mi felt the tiny sticky spritz of something underneath her, and her brow furrowed. She angled her thigh to the side and glanced down beneath her levitating ass. “What…?” She dragged her hand along the throw blanket, ornate fingernails probing the surface, her tips catching onto something odd and sticky. She felt up her own rear, dragging her hand along the sweaty surface until it caught on another such odd spot of adhesion.

“What is going on today?” Yu-Mi scoffed. A lot more bugs in the house than before. A lot braver too. She scooted off the couch and stood to full height, trotting over to the counter of the serving hatch.

Courtney was there, next to the plate, crouched, clutching her head, moaning out partial words and phrases, hoping this was all a dream. She was beneath the awning formed by the saucer that flared out above her. Yu-Mi had come back… she hadn’t even mentioned anything about noticing Courtney’s friends, Yu-Mi’s former interns. Had she not seen them? Felt them at all? Were they that insignificant? There were five of them in total, five shrunken friends, five potential chances to be noticed… on the other hand, there were a thousand and one ways to be stepped on, crushed, eaten, or to meet some other unsavory demise. Courtney didn’t want to believe the thought that many, if not most, of her best friends had been reduced to bloodstains… but the fact remains that they were small. Too small. Impossibly small. There was no way they could get her attention alone…

But Courtney was still here. She sniffed and she rubbed her face clean of its tears, as well as the slight traces of blood from where she had aggressively started ripping her hair out. She straightened her back, and she couldn’t give up. She could not sacrifice the one thing that made her alive – her willingness to maintain this life. It was a difficult prospect, but Courtney summoned the last vestige of confidence she had, even in this alien, eldritch world. The confidence Martin would’ve wanted her to have, so she could continue on living. She had been pondering several plans while here on this counter, and though few showed promise, at least one had a bit of potential: trying to get Yu-Mi’s attention directly. If Courtney could somehow climb atop her body and scale her, she could get to her hand, or nose, or cheek… somewhere that Yu-Mi could observe and discover that she hadn’t been alone at all. From then, Courtney had no clue. But it was an idea, and at this point, it was her only motivating force. Courtney crouched and adopted a start position, as though an Olympic runner preparing for the 100 meter dash. Yu-Mi was standing up now, looking down at the couch with a curious expression. What was she doing?

She was coming over. Now, now was Courtney’s chance. If she could make it, she might be able to leap from the counter onto Yu-Mi’s bathrobe.

She was off. Courtney ran harder than she ever had in her life. She slid on the smoothed granite but maintained her footing. The drop-off was approaching. Courtney focused in on it, thinking of nothing but reaching that point, being ready for hopping over this bottomless chasm. Getting to Yu-Mi, telling her what was going on.

Yu-Mi arrived, her immense body casting Courtney in shadow. But this was fine, thought Courtney. She was likely going to sit here for a few moments more. Just enough time to make it, make the jump, and begin the climb. It was a long shot, to be sure. And Courtney still hadn’t settled on how she intended to get Yu-Mi’s attention. But in her heart, she…

She stopped.

Yu-Mi’s face was parked just above Courtney. She was looking down intently.

Courtney slowed down, barely twenty meters from the edge. She crumpled to her knees, reaching high to the heavens as Yu-Mi glared down, her expression twisted into something inscrutable. Curiosity? Confusion? Identification? Had it happened? Had she been saved?

Courtney sobbed, and shouted out, “Can you see –”

SPLA-SQUELCH!!

Yu-Mi’s face was a cocktail of disgust and annoyance. She dug the pad of her thumb atop the bug like a hydraulic press, twisting it into a stain. From beneath, she could hear the cracks of its frame, and she felt the outpouring of fluid, flattened and rubbed deep into the countertop. The viscera lost definition as Courtney became a corpse, then a splotch, then a memory.

Yu-Mi picked up her thumb. There was no sign at all of Courtney on the dark wood. When she looked at her thumbprint, she could tell much of the rancid little creature’s red bits had burried themselves between the grooves. “Disgusting…” thought Yu-Mi. Disgusting these bugs thought they could invade her house and try to eat the cake she had been so lovingly given by her wonderful interns.

Yu-Mi was grossed out at having to deal with them, but the satisfaction that came with killing this one gave her an intense euphoria. She didn’t know if there were more, but she did know that the next one she saw was already dead.

***

“You wanted to see me?” Yu-Mi Park poked her head in the office of her manager, Jeremiah Moore.

“Oh? Yeah, come in, come in.” The gruff, dark-skinned, bearded man waved her inside. Yu-Mi stepped within and straightened her skirt. “Have a seat,” he continued. Yu-Mi did so.

“So, Ms. Park. I hear last week was your ten-year anniversary working here. Congratulations!” Mr. Moore offered his hand to Yu-Mi, who took it somewhat tentatively. “That’s longer than I’ve been here. I take it you enjoy working with Icarus?”

“Thank you, Mr. Moore. I’ve liked it here, though to tell you the truth… I have been considering alternative options. Nothing in stone yet… but…” Yu-Mi trailed off.

Mr. Moore looked at Yu-Mi with worry. “That’s upsetting to hear. Well, if that’s truly how you feel, then we can discuss a severance package. However, before you make any rash decisions..." Mr. Moore pulled out his desk drawer and dug through a few the files for a sheet of paper. “You might want to take a look at this,” he said with a sly smile.

“Hm?” Yu-Mi took the slip. She scanned it, and her eyes widened. Her heart leapt out of her chest, and it only went higher when she saw that it was signed by the CEO himself. “Chief Data Analyst?”

“And all the perks, responsibilities, and pay that position entails.” Mr. Moore smiled. “From the look on your face, I have a feeling you’re rethinking your change in employment.”

“I, I mean,” Yu-Mi stumbled on her words. “I don’t know what to say! I, I just –”

“Well, I do.” Mr. Moore suddenly became solemn. “I’m sorry, Yu-Mi. This promotion has been overdue for years. You’ve consistently proven yourself, and it’s shameful management has taken this long to realize your potential.”

Yu-Mi’s eyes teared up. She set the letter down on the desk and rubbed her face from top to bottom, trying to relax the muscles within.

Mr. Moore noticed this, and with a light-hearted exhale, he said, “If there’s anything else you need… anything at all… just say the word. I’ll try to make this transition as smooth as possible.”

Yu-Mi put her finger on her lip. “Well, I was curious…” Yu-Mi rattled off the names of her interns, and she asked where they might’ve been. “I understand their tenure has been served, but if you were aware of any job opportunities they’ve received, I would be pleased to know where they are. I want to… thank them.”

“Oh? Those kids? They’re swimming in opportunities! Chances are half of them are out of state right now working with big tech!” Mr. Moore said it with a smile, but when he saw Yu-Mi’s face become downcast, he tried to remedy this. “But I will let you know what I’m able to dig up.”

Yu-Mi stood up and held her hand out to Mr. Moore. “I’m appreciative.”

“Think nothing of it.” He took it with aplomb.

Yu-Mi turned to leave, when suddenly Mr. Moore called out, “Oh, and one more thing.”

“Hm?”

“You live in… Rowan Lane, correct? Near one of our tertiary manufacturing plants?”

Yu-Mi nodded her head slowly.

“You haven’t heard any… ringing in your ears lately, have you? Any sort of discomfort, lethargy, stuff like that?”

Yu-Mi thought long and hard before she answered, “No, can’t say I have.”

Mr. Moore breathed a rather intense sigh of relief. “That’s good, that’s good. Alright, have a good rest of your day, Ms. Park.”

Yu-Mi nodded and grinned, closing the door quietly behind her as she returned to her cubicle. The thought that soon her tiny little cubicle was going to be a real office made her feel giddy. And somehow… she couldn’t help but feel none of this would’ve been possible without the two-sided support of her most recent crop of interns, who gave her the energy to proceed when she couldn’t do so on her own. It had scarcely been a few days and Yu-Mi already missed them. But in her heart, she knew even if she never saw them again, they had already proven to be closer, kinder, and more caring young people than anyone could’ve ever realized.