You’ve been working a pretty standard warehouse job for the past six months, an easy job to help you make ends meet while you study at the local community college. The only thing not standard about the job was the company that owned the warehouse.
ShipShrink was a third party logistics company that was quickly making waves in the industry. Their unorthodox method of using new shrinking tech to make their warehouses, trucks, and workers tiny, proved to be an effective cost-cutting strategy. Now an entire warehouse of goods could be shrunken down and placed on a table, tiny trucks were loaded before getting re-grown and sent out. The profit margins were enormous, saving them tons on property taxes alone. Now operating out of small office buildings around the nation, entire warehouses were stored on desks in small cubicles, each one managed by a full-sized employee.
Back to you. You were unfortunately not one of these full-sized managers. You took an entry position, picking orders to later be packaged and sent out. For the past six months you would come into work, get shrunken down, and spend the next few hours walking around, grabbing items onto your cart, and taking them to packing. Monotonous, but at least you got to listen to music. Most of the time you could easily forget you were roughly the size of a piece of sand. Today, however, you would become very intimate with that fact.
After six months it was normal for new employees to have a one-on-one with their manager. They went over their metrics, goals, all to make sure they were a good fit for the job and worth hanging on to. You weren’t sure when you’d be called for your one-on-one, but you were pretty sure it would be sometime today.
That time came sooner than you thought. After your first break you heard the loud clacking noise of the ceiling latch being removed. Like magic, you saw the tin roof lift away, being replaced by the unamused face of your warehouse manager, Willow.
You’d seen them at least several times a week, as inspections and meetings with other employees happened with some regularity. Every time they had almost that same bored look on their face, and with the warehouse as small as it was, it always felt like they were looking straight at you as they surveyed the entire place.
Now you knew it was you they were looking for.
With no ceremony, Willow reached inside the warehouse with a pair of company-approved tweezers (made specifically for grabbing speck-sized workers) and lifted you into the air. Your stomach dropped as you saw the warehouse below you seem smaller and smaller, seeing it now for what it was: a tiny cube on Willow’s desk, no larger than a pad of sticky notes.
You were dropped onto Willow’s tan wooden desk only a few (relative) inches from their keyboard. You heard the loud clacking of the gigantic keyboard as Willow pulled up your file.
“Let’s see… Six month follow-up…”
Click click click
“Your metrics are… Average… Supervisor recommendation… she gave you a six.”
Willow continued to click through your documents, their eyes lazily scanning the general information. You felt extremely self conscious just standing there on the wide expanse of desk. Willow wasn’t asking you anything or even getting your input, though to be fair it’s not like they could hear you. You were a speck.
“Ah,” Willow said, the corners of their lips forming a slight smile, “looks like our cameras noticed that someone seems to have a habit of being on their phone while working.”
You felt a chill running up your spine as Willow’s eyes fell on you.
“We can’t have that, now can we?”
“ShipShrink does believe in second chances, so we’re willing to keep you on if you agree to one week of probation under manager supervision. Sound good? Jump if you agree.”
Your heart was beating a little faster now as you felt the weight of Willow’s gaze, waiting for your answer. It’s not like there were a lot of other jobs in the area, and this one was easy enough. Awkwardly, you tried jumping as high as you could, hopefully enough for the giant manager to register.
“Good…” Willow said, a smile spreading across their face. They quickly made a few final entries into your file before you saw them grab the tweezers again.
“Your contract has been renewed, your week of manager supervision starts immediately.”
The soft grippers of the tweezers closed around you, lifting you up into the air up to Willow's massive face. You could barely see your own reflection in the ball of their septum piercing.
“Thank you for staying with ShipShrink,” Willow continued, giving what felt like a script as they shifted in their seat, grabbing something just out of your view.
“We look forward to your continued employment, and don’t forget, no matter how small you are…”
Willow brought their other hand up, now holding their left shoe, a (relatively) massive black size 9 wide pump with a one-inch heel. They held it up so you dangled just above the dark entrance. You could feel the heat radiating from the inside of the freshly worn footwear. Your eyes flash back up to Willow, suddenly breaking into a cold sweat as you look at their devious smile.
“...we’re all walking the same path.”
Suddenly the grips around you separated, too fast for you to grab onto them. You fell for what felt like hundreds of feet into the entrance of Willows shoe, landing on the soft insole without much pain.
You stand up, uneasily as you feel the world around you jostle and shake until the shoe is placed back on the ground.
Finally, you look back up to meet Willow’s smiling face, now miles away in the sky.
“Enjoy your probation, loser.”
Your view of them disappears, now replaced by the gigantic underside of their sock. You can see the dusty outline of toes reentering the shoe before you instinctually turn and try to run away. All light in the shoe fades before you feel something big and soft hit your back, forcing you down face-first into the insole of Willow’s shoe.
A massive weight falls onto your back, quickly building in pressure until you’re unable to move. You can feel yourself sinking deep into the insole as Willow’s sole slides fully into place. You can feel the heat rising, and a small amount of moistness all around you as Willow settles back into their desk.
Willow continued to smile as they clicked the small tin roof back onto the tiny warehouse.
Willow knew the other workers had heard everything. And they all knew exactly what ‘probation’ meant. Metrics for the rest of the day were sure to stay high, and after a week you would return to working as the model employee.
Willow looked back at their computer, gently wiggling their toes to try and feel you. Their eyes fell on the time.
Tsk. Not even close to lunch time.
It must have been hours, but that was impossible to tell. Your muscles ached in the darkness. Your head was swirling, you could barely breathe from all the pressure on your back, and what little air you could get was a hot, heavy musk.
You've been phasing in and out of consciousness, eventually being woken by strong, loud thudding all around you. The pressure of your back increased for a moment, pushing you deeper into the soft, moist surface beneath you. The next moment the pressure was lifted slightly, allowing you to take in a gasp of course humid air, before crushing it out of you a second later.
This cycle continued for what felt like a lifetime, sometimes changing pace, never letting you get used to the rhythm to draw in more air. Your clothing and face became drenched in the slightly salty liquid that seemed to be squeezed out with every impact.
Then, slowly, it all came back to you. You were inside your supervisor’s shoe.
Each step Willow took was pressing you deeper and deeper into their insole. The liquid now coating your body, Willow’s foot sweat. The hot musk you tried so hard to breathe through was the product of a hard day's work, as well as socks worn two days in a row.
Willow walked casually down the hallway of their apartment building, taking out their keys as they approached their door.
Entering and closing the door behind them, Willow breathed a nice sigh of relief. It always felt so nice getting home after a long day at work. Looking down at their shoe they were also reminded of another little benefit of coming home.
Willow walked very leisurely over to their couch, taking slow deliberate steps, and pausing for an extra second while standing on their left shoe. The anticipation of a new toy never got old.
Plopping down onto the soft cushions of their couch, Willow reached down and slipped off their shoes. They held the left one up, their eyes scanning their insole until they saw a tiny thing that looked like a piece of flattened lint.
“Hey loser,” Willow chuckled, reaching in with their free hand, “ready for some overtime?”
Willow pinched you up between their massive fingers. Compared to the work tweezers made specifically for picking up tiny employees, Willow's fingers were warm and crushing. You felt your ribs almost crack from the slightest pressure they exerted picking you up and setting you down. You gasp for air on the coffee table, cold, fresh air filling your lungs for the first time in hours.
You only had a moment's rest before you felt two large thuds alarmingly close to you. Looking to your right, you were faced with a massive pink wall. It stretched upwards for hundreds of feet, long fleshy wrinkles covering much of the surface, before ending in large dominating toes. You breathe in, a familiar musk filling your senses as you gaze upon Willow’s gigantic feet.
“Get to it,” Willow said, throwing their worn socks aside and resting their head in their hand, “I like a nice foot rub after work~.”
Guided by fear, you walk up to Willow’s heel. You see a distinct patch of dried red something, roughly your size, decorating Willow’s sole.
Oh god… is this…?
Forcing that thought aside, you reach forward, now feeling the soft and doughy flesh of Willow’s heel. They felt hot as you grabbed the handfuls of skin, pushing in large circles as hard as you could. You had no idea whether or not this giant could even feel you. But you knew something bad would happen if you didn’t listen to what they said…
Willow reclined further into the couch cushion. It was true, they could barely feel you at their heel, outside of some imagined sensation they thought they could feel. If they could, they would have also felt the other tiny employee (on their eighth day of probation) currently hanging on the ball of their foot. They had been placed in Willow’s sock two days ago and quickly forgotten, having to survive off lint and sweat.
Reaching into their shirt pocket, Willow did remember Jessica. Pinching them out of their shirt, Willow leaned forward and dropped the tiny woman next to their other heel, still not noticing the tiny hanging employee.
“You too, bitch,” Willow smirked.
Jessica was another worker from the warehouse, one that you only faintly remember. Word around the warehouse was that she had applied for Willow’s position, and her not showing up to work anymore meant she didn’t get it and went to find another job. But that was three months ago…
After getting up, you saw Jessica get up and obediently begin rubbing, even licking Willow’s other heel. She made it seem like the most natural thing in the world.
Willow leaned back for the last time, closing their eyes very satisfied that their two little pets were hard at work, and enjoying an extremely detailed massage.
Meanwhile, on the table just behind a candy wrapper, another tiny ex-warehouse employee was watching the scene unfold. He had also been given ‘one week probation’, of which they were on week 59. Eventually Willow had just forgotten about him amongst the others, letting him escape and live under the couch, scrounging for crumbs while Willow was away. Only today they seemed to be home early…
All of you shared one trait in common, you now lived under the shadow of Willow’s soles.
