Murphy’s Law states that “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong”. I never really believed in it. After all, so many things could have happened to cause humanity’s extinction but none occurred. Diseases break out and wars are declared but none of this destroyed our race. We consistently stand against anything that threaten us. And when the threat is major, we stand united, no matter our religion, or the color of our skin. Based on that, I never thought we could get ourselves in the current situation. Nature finally found a breach in our system. If Ebola or Zika couldn’t eradicate us, then it should find an alternative. One that divides us to win.  This story is mine, and how I lived the breakout of SH-02, the shrinking virus.

No one thought SH-01 was serious at first. Indeed, this version of the virus touched insects and animals in only rare occasions. For most people, it was only a myth. Some were seeing it as a bedtime story for crazy scientists. Others thought it was a military designed virus that escaped while tested. Nobody cared and medias only talked about it when a gorilla lost 9 inches at the San Diego Zoo. Talk shows laughed about it calling the monkey: “the shrinking gorilla”. How original of them.

I was only a freshman in college at that time, studying business in the Netherlands. Whatever it was, I was agreeing it was unimportant and far away from me. The only thing that was stressing me was my first trimester exams at the time. However, I remember perfectly the first time the phenomena started to scare me a bit. It was during the holiday season. I was back home, in France with my family. I turned on the news on a cold winter morning to see that two other monkeys had found themselves shrunk. This time their sizes had been reduced to a few inches high. I really started wondering what in the world could have shrunk a living being like that. I remembered my courses on viruses’ outbreak and their effect on economy: how Ebola evolved from touching bats, to monkeys, to humans. I wasn’t truly afraid, just stressed out. At the time, I thought that a virus that could shrink humans was rather funny, like everyone else.

In the following weeks, it became rather redundant to hear about chimpanzees shrinking. Their sizes were variable. Some only shrunk a few inches while other were measuring a 3 inches in the end. All around the world cases appeared. In the wild and in zoos. In Asia and Africa, more than 250 cases of shrinking animals were found. The populations were started to become curious about it. WHO was often communicating about it, always repeating that the virus was unable to affect human beings. However, it finally happened. At the beginning of Spring, the patient zero was found in South Korea. He had lost 3 feet in two days. But it wasn’t his size that was the scariest; it was how he got the disease. He wasn’t bitten or anything like that. A little monkey in a Zoo had only touched him while he visited Dubai. That’s it. This man had traveled to come back home and who knew how many people were already transporting the virus. This thing was already out there and human could be affected simply by being touched. This is when people got scared. When I got scared. When it was too late. When SH-01 became SH-02.

It was everywhere in the news. SH-02 was real and could affect us all. We all turned our heads towards the WHO. Was there a vaccine? If not when would it be available? No one wanted to shrink. It became scary for many as they realized what it meant.  People realized that size was important. That it was bringing balance to society and allowed everyone, naturally, to be almost equal to everyone else. Experts were invited on TV channels to talk about “the Shrinking Virus” even though they didn’t really know anything. 24/7 News Channels were playing with our fears to increase their audiences. Nobody knew anything but everybody acted like they did.

After watching CNN for hours, I became fed up with it. I couldn’t bear it anymore. The news loop with the same interviews and the same information all the time was annoying me. I stopped listening and went in my room. There I thought about what it would mean to be tiny. I immediately imagined myself 3 foot tall. But then I realized that this Korean guy lost 3ft. If I got the disease, I wouldn’t be 3 foot tall. I would be more like 3 inches tall. I felt afraid. I took a ruler and measured three inches with it. It felt minuscule. People would become so powerless against everything. They could be crushed like bugs, eaten by cats. If I knew what I know today, these thoughts would be very naïve and innocent.

I wanted to know what people thought about that. I didn’t contact any of my friends since the news spread. I went on Facebook and Twitter. There I could see what my friends and strangers thought about SH-02. My Timeline was all about that. The Hashtag #SH02 was the most trending topic in the world. Some persons were scared, other laughed saying it was only a short buzz, and others were pretty excited about what was about to come. Men and Women from the entire world were debating about the future. A tweet from a certain “Brittany Sharzman”, a blonde girl in my university, was saying:” I’ll finally be able to crush you Josh #Blessed #Farewell”. Another one from the Dr. Maxwell was trying to reassure: “For the moment, we don’t know a thing about #SH02. You should keep calm. This has a great chance of disappearing fast.” How wrong he was when I think about it now.

I received a message from my good friend Emilie. She was studying with me in The Netherlands:

“Did you hear about SH02? It seems pretty serious now. When I think we laughed about it only two days ago. Damn I kind of regret now. It happened in Korea, with some chance it won’t arrive in The Netherlands.”

Emilie was a petite cute girl. She was French like me and seemed a bit scared. I didn’t really know what to answer. After searching for a bit I came up with a bit of humor to lighten the mood:

“Well now you get a chance to be bigger than me.”

I thought about adding “if you don’t contract it before me” but I preferred to stop my sentence where it was. She could have not liked it. I waited for her to answer. She had seen my message and was typing back. Meanwhile I continued to search the web to know more about the virus. Breaking News were constantly updated on Facebook. As I was just beginning to read the last one, Emilie finally replied:

“If I don’t get it before you”.

It made me laugh. That’s why I liked this girl. She was honest and franc. No middle grounds with her friends. I closed the message window to continue reading. My heart sunk. They had found two new cases: Another one in Seoul and one in Berlin. That wasn’t good news at all. Berlin was close. I knew it was everywhere now. I sat back for a second to evaluate what was happening. How the fuck did we get from a mini monkey to a two inches tall German girl. That was truly insane. I reopened the message window:

“Something tells me you’re gonna be a tall girl, at least for some time and some people.” Seen.

I didn’t want to go to bed that night. I didn’t even felt tired. The adrenaline for the day I spent was enough to keep me up. Listening to journalists saying where shrinking cases had been found was addictive and scary and the same time. It felt like I was maintained by a creepy desire to know more. At 11pm GMT, 119 shrinking persons had been found all over the world. That thing traveled fast. SH-02 was not yet an epidemic but the nature of the virus and its spreading speed was worrying everybody; The WHO in the first place. They kept repeating that for the moment, SH-02 was far from being an important threat. They should have told that to the persons that shrunk just to see how they reacted. At that time, SH-02 was only words. We hadn’t even seen a tiny person. I remember thinking that it was maybe just a hoax. However, I quickly remembered the tiny gorillas. That thing was real and felt oppressing.

My parents called me that night. They wanted to know if I was fine and if I heard the news. They tried to reassure me, but even they, were afraid of that virus. I could hear it in their voices.

It’s funny, that feeling we all have in common when a sign of outbreak happens to make the news. Even if it’s nothing, we are scared. I always believed it was coming from the time of the Great Plague when a third of Europe died. It ‘s kind of written in our genes since then. Diseases are not something to laugh about. Now that we had laughed of SH-01, its mutated little brother was coming to haunt us. I was worrying and I had many reasons to. I finally felt asleep, not even imagining what tomorrow would bring.

When I emerged the next day, it was already 10am on my watch. For a minute everything felt normal, like nothing happened yesterday. I got out of my bed and suddenly remembered: SH-02 exists. Fuck. I rushed in my living room and turned on the television to know how things evolved during the night. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Written in a red box underneath the two journalists speaking to the camera, there was the Breaking News:

“11061 cases of SH-02 have now been confirmed by the WHO. 92 countries are now touched by the disease.”

It had exploded. I had never seen in my life something spread this fast. Reporters were speaking of the paranoia that was beginning to emerge. People interviewed were scared of touching others. Above all else, we finally had videos of tiny people. I watched during an hour without even thinking of moving. The people affected were completely normal except for their sizes. The smallest I’ve seen was measuring a centimeter maximum. The biggest, a young Canadian, was 3 inches tall. They looked powerless in the hand of nurses that were trying to protect them from the cameras. Journalists were trying to get the first interview with a patient without success. By 12pm, the second victim of SH-02, a German girl I read about the day before, talked for the time to journalists. She was 1 inch tall. She seemed terrified. It was sad to see. The end of the microphone she had to speak into was twice as tall as she was. She must have felt so vulnerable at that moment. She didn’t even have the force to speak one sentence. She broke into tears, only capable of saying:

“Why me? What did I do to get myself into this?”

She was broken. Being around people 80 times her size was too much for her. She couldn’t adapt to this new reality. She wasn’t ready. Everything around her was a danger and it could be seen on her face. Everything was well for her, and in a minute her life was broken. The worst thing was to see that none of the journalist reacted to the state she was in. They just continued to scream questions at her. I thought this was terrible they weren’t caring about her.

The reactions to this “interview” came quickly and from everywhere. Televisions were showing it all the time. People were commentating it on Twitter and Facebook. Youtubers were talking about it. It was mayhem. I decided to listen to some News Channels. I couldn’t believe what I had just seen. How people could have this attitude towards this poor girl? Sadly, the journalists on Television weren’t caring either. They were only analyzing her physical state, forgetting about the sad words she had just pronounced. After 10 minutes, as I was about to stop watching, a beautiful woman with hazelnut hair came on the show. She was considered, like many others, an expert. She was in her forties and it could be seen on her nice face that she had seen a lot of things in her life.

“We are honored to receive Jade Hannen, war reporter, activist for women rights and now leader of the UN program for Men and Women equality. Jade welcome. First of all, you have seen the footage of Lisa, the German shrunken girl. Is this scaring you? After everything you have seen?”

“Well thank you for having me here. I am not scared by Lisa’s situation. It is a virus that we have to face and it’s not the first time in our history..” Jade was cut.

“Do you think we can stop it?” said the journalist.

“Don’t interrupt me Edward I was not finished.” she replied strongly.

The journalist almost turned red while Jade Hannen was replying to him while looking straight in his eyes. She continued:

“As I was saying, I am not scared of SH-02. We faced many other diseases and beat them. However, I am shocked by what I have seen. Not because of Lisa, but because of your news team harassing the poor girl who is clearly in shock. This attitude has nothing to do with professional journalism. What would have happened if I had treated refugees who lost their houses, their families and everything else that way? People would have rose and told me I was wrong. So I tell you now. You are wrong. You should have shown compassion for the poor girl. Imagine what life is for her now. She can’t do anything by herself. Some normal sized person that doesn’t care can kill her at any moment. Would you react another way in her situation? Well, let me tell you something, if you continue to set this kind of example one thing is sure. People will react this way if you shrink.”

I thought for a moment about what she had just said. Setting the example was important at the beginning of a crisis like this one. It allowed people to get good reflexes from the beginning. If people followed the current example, they would not care about shrinking persons. They would see them as less than they are. This thought made me shiver. Human nature can be cruel; you just have to see how we consider bugs. I turned on Twitter and what I thought about was confirmed. Another tweet from Brittany Sharzman:

“It could be cool to have a little doll like her @Aminakyle. #Shrink #SH02 #Lisa”

The wrong way of thinking was already in people’s mind.

During a crisis of any type, the main enemy is fear. If it’s a short term problem that’s faced, panic begin to spread at light speed. However, on long term issues, panic is replaced by paranoia. As the days passed, it could be seen that people limited the amount of time they spent outside. However, life had to go on and people were finally forced to go out. The shrinking virus was on everyone’s minds. I knew that because I was scared too. Too tell you the truth I was scared shitless. I’ve no shame saying it. The situation we were facing was unprecedented. We didn’t know how to react to it. Should we try to cure the virus? Try to protect the shrunken victims? Try to find a vaccine to prevent the shrinking from happening? The truth was that we couldn’t do any of these three propositions. Simply because we had no clue how to make any of these.

The journalists were keeping their audiences thanks to headlines filling our heads with fear and anxiety. I know I didn’t want to watch them but at the same time I wanted to know what was happening. One night, as I was laying in my bed trying to sleep, I thought about what Jade Hannen said. About the importance of adopting good reflexes towards the shrunken people early. I was also thinking about all the things I was reading on Facebook and Twitter. All these people who already considered shrunken people like non humans. The misinformation and the humans’ lack of intelligence in crisis situation didn’t help. Everywhere I could read:

“There’s no way I’m touching one of these tiny fucks. What if I shrink too because of them? #shrinkies #sh02”

This kind of tweet was common these days. It was mind blowing how fast people were changing their minds about persons that were their equals only days ago. It made me angry to think about it. I couldn’t fucking sleep. I got up and sat down at my desk where I opened my laptop. I went to CNN, the BBC, SkyNews, BFM. All were saying the same: “The shrinking virus, where will it stop?”. Freaking originals guys... After 15 minutes of complete passiveness, a special flash appeared almost at the same time on four channels.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, good evening. I’m Jack Dempsey and you’re watching our breaking news. We just received a video that could hurt the sensibility of our youngest audience. Please, viewer discretion is advised. The images you’re about to see I’ve been filmed in Berlin this afternoon.”

Following a Breaking News jingle, I watched my screen with interest. I wanted to know what the fuck this video was about. What I saw punched me right in the face. At the terrace of a café in Downtown Berlin, a business woman, eating her lunch, was sat. At first I didn’t get what was happening but only a few seconds later it hit me. Down on the ground, next to the high heels she took off during her break, was a very small woman. She couldn’t be more than 2 inches. She was naked and visibly scared. We could clearly see she was trying to get the woman’s attention by jumping and what seemed like screaming. Finally, the tiny woman decided to go hit the giant woman nylon clad toes. After 4 or 5 hits, the German finally looked down. I swear I genuinely believed things would go right. However, the rest of my body was telling me otherwise. The giant woman, smiled, pushed the tiny woman with her toes and sent her fly under the table. She giggled and simply put her foot down on the tiny girl. And just like that she killed a human being. With a fucking giggle! Blood was flowing under her foot and the video stopped. I couldn’t take it. I threw up. Right fucking there. As if what I saw made everything in my body sick. That poor tiny girl just wanted help and she died simply because this giant bitch put her foot on her. Just because she wanted to. It was fucked. At least I knew it would be a wakeup call for the world. People would realize that the victims of the virus were human beings. I went downstairs get rags to clean up the mess I made. By the time I came back 45 new tweets appeared in my feed. I read the first one:

“So fucking badass #BerlinCrush #GirlPower #Savage #Shrinkies #GetTheFuckOff”

I was gonna be sick again.  

It was already hard to sleep before, now it was impossible. I felt bad, full of shame, and even scared. I just witnessed the murder of a fellow human being in the coldest way. To see a member of my own species do that was a very peculiar feeling to deal with. It was a pure hunter/hunted situation except here the hunter and the hunted only had a size difference. Were people really seeing shrunken victims of the virus as insects they could crush with a giggle? Was that how stupid human beings were? The craziest thing is that this happened only days after the first shrinking accident. Days! It’s not like we were living in a society used to the size difference that made it okay to fucking crush other people. No, only days ago this situation was impossible to imagine. That’s how fast people found it normal! Fucking days!

I decided to get up and go downstairs for a cup of coffee. It’s not like I could sleep anyway. On my way to the kitchen I looked at myself in the mirror. I almost scared myself. I was pale and looked more than tired. Almost like a zombie slowly walking in my house. With the stress and the horror I felt these past few days, it was no surprise when I thought about it. The shrinking virus was a terrible thing to accept. It made no sense, couldn’t be cured, and could hit anyone at any time. What a fucking nightmare.

You know how we love to watch “forbidden” things? Things that are supposed to be horrific and terrible? Like terrorist attacks, murders, fucked up things in general. It’s clearly a sign of how fucked up the human mind is. While we mourn victims of terrible events on social medias, we often look for graphical content of these same events in Google. That was how my mind was working at that moment. I felt disgusted by what I just saw but I had to watch it again. My morbid curiosity was running full speed. I typed “shrunken girl crushed” in the search bar and the same video appeared on hundreds of pages. I clicked on the first one. It wasn’t the original one. The man or woman who filmed the beginning of the end wouldn’t even enjoy nice ad revenues.

After 15 minutes, I had watched the video 32 times. It was far too much and I knew it, but I couldn’t resist hitting the replay button. Again and again. This tiny girl died under the feet of this cruel woman 32 times with my eyes fixed on it. Every time I watched it, I was discovering new details. The small organs being expulsed from under the giantess’ foot, the amount of blood getting out of the tiny woman, the restless attitude of the murderer. All of these details appeared to me making the scene more terrible every time I hit replay. A SMS got me out of this trance. It was Emilie.

“That shit is just crazy. Seen it?”

The message was completed with a Facebook link. I knew what it was. No need to click on it. At 8am I collapsed. I literally passed out on the sofa in front of the TV still playing the news where they only showed that fucking video again. Sleeping brought me serenity. At least when I wake up things couldn’t be worse than that.

How fucking wrong! I woke up at 2pm, the News still playing in front of my eyes. It was muted but I could read the titles: “Anna Einhardt won’t be arrested.”

What the fuck? I immediately changed the channel and went to another news broadcaster. The exact same shit. I turned the volume up and listened to what the journalists said:

“Less than 24h after the murder of the still unidentified shrunken woman, we learn than Anna Einhardt, who’s responsible for the killing, won’t be arrested or face charges. It is the chief of the Berlin Police who announced it this morning. The reasons put forward are the following. The fact that nobody was found make it impossible to declare a murder. In addition, the fact that the video quality isn’t optimal make it impossible for the police to make sure this isn’t a simple montage.”

A montage? A fucking montage? I watched that video 32 times and I’ve seen the freaking heart of this girl pop out of under that bitch’s foot! Who the hell is that accurate when making video montages? The quality isn’t bad either. It’s 720p! How the fuck are they not investigating further? That bitch is gonna walk out free? I changed the channel and faced the woman’s face once again as the camera was walking behind her in a Berlin’s street.

“Mrs Einhardt, please a comment on what happened yesterday! Mrs Einhardt!? Why did you crush that shrunken woman? What happened yesterday?”

She suddenly stopped walking and looked at the camera.

“Let me tell you something. I crushed a fucking bug yesterday. When something is smaller than my heel I don’t give a fuck what it is, I crush it. Simple as that. It was a woman? Big fucking deal. That wasn’t a woman, it was a bug. And if you want to know if I’m afraid of saying this? No. Because no one is gonna look into a bug’s death. Better get used to that.”

I felt a chill on my skin. As sad as it was, she was right. And she wasn’t the only one to know it.

“@AnnaEinhardt is so cool. Next time I see one of these tiny fucks I’m gonna fuck them up! #crush #tinyfucks #giantrules #makeway”

Things had to go back to a regular rhythm. I couldn’t just wait at home and do nothing till this disease disappeared or I died or boredom. Not that I was completely bored, but after that much time stuck in my apartment doing nothing more than watching scary news channels, I was beginning to be afraid of actually dying in my own piss. I knew it couldn’t go on and that if I continued my situation would be more morbid than the shrinking virus itself. I had to go back to lectures and do something of my life. Every day I was seeing people casually walking outside. They weren’t shrinking or anything. It seemed pretty safe. Therefore, on that Sunday evening, when I went to bed, I put my alarm at 6.30am and decided that I would go to the university on Monday. What’s the worst thing that could happen?

Waking up was incredibly hard. My sleeping schedule was messed up and after having difficulties to find sleep, I was now having difficulties to leave my bed. That morning I didn’t turned on the TV and opened news apps while I was preparing for my day. I casually watched some Youtube videos that genuinely made me laugh for the first time in days. It felt good. So good that for a moment I totally forgot about that fucking virus that was ruining everyone’s life. I wasn’t going to be the classiest man alive today. A tee-shirt and a pair of jeans would do. I wasn’t brave enough for putting a suit on.

It’s funny to realize that even though I wasn’t sick, I felt tired. The knowledge of the virus and what it did to people stressed me so much that I was feeling weak this morning.  It wasn’t unbearable but it definitely made things harder. Facing the door of my apartment I hesitated for a second. Did I really want to go out there? Risk to catch that fucking disease and shrink? Just to be crushed by the first Twitter brat that would find me? From that perspective it made the risks hella high! However, I soon realized that this point of view was kind of dramatic. People like Anna Einhardt always existed. Bitches be bitches. I also knew that I didn’t know anyone like this psycho. So even if I was to shrink, I’d be pretty safe. Imagining myself next to a giant Emilie made me laugh a bit. As short as she is in real life, it was pretty funny to imagine.

I turned the handle, exited my place, put the key in the keyhole, turned it and there I was. Outside. For the first time in days I was out there. That dangerous place called the world. For my defense the world was actually pretty fucked up. I felt a bit stressed at first but as soon as I felt the fresh air in the street, everything was better. It suddenly felt like I was alive again. Freed from the stress and the anxiousness I felt trapped home. I put my headphones on and played some music. Random. Ben Howard. Fuck I thought. Ben’s pretty cool but at that moment I needed to keep my newly found cheerfulness active. Scrolling through my songs, I slowed down at the letter S. Shake it Off. Fuck it, it will do the job. I finally began my 20 minutes’ walk to Uni. I was surprised by how normal things were around me. Not shrunken people roaming on the pavement looking for help. No crazy psycho bitches crushing them. Nothing. I almost felt disappointed before suddenly remembering that it was a good thing. That bullshit virus wasn’t so terrible after all.

I finally arrived at the university 10 minutes before the beginning of my lecture. Finance and Accounting was a terrible subject but today it would be alright. I was glad that things were normal, like before all that drama. I began to soften the recent events in my mind. After all, I had only seen one person get crushed. Thousands of people die every day and considering the size of that poor shrunken girl, these kind of things were to happen at some point. Relativity was a bless. I arrived in the amphitheater and decided to sit at the top. I didn’t want to work too much today. Just relax and enjoy. It was almost empty. Not really a big deal considering I was early. I waited and 5 minutes passed. Only 10 people, myself included, were there. I thought that people were late or just chilling at home not wanting to take the class. But as my watch showed 9.30am, we were no more than 15 in the huge 500 seats room. The professor wasn’t there yet. I decided to move next to a friend. Her name was Amina and she was Italian. Beautiful brunette with a character.

“Hey what’s up? How are you doing, I haven’t seen you in days.”

“Well it’s not like there is a shrinking virus going around and crazy people crushing other people. I’m good, I only spent the last few days in my apartment. I was kind of scared to be honest. Why isn’t there more people?”

“Dude you seriously asking that question? People are actually shrinking. More than half of our class has either disappeared or been found shrunk. Remember Alexia?”

“The Greek girl? Always creating drama all over the place?”

“Yeah that one. Well let’s say she won’t be screaming and crying all over the place anymore. I accidently stepped on her on the way here. It wasn’t on purpose I swear. I just had the time to hear a shriek and feel a crunch under my boot. Things are fucked up around here.”

It hit me. What the fuck had happened to the world? Things weren’t okay. They weren’t calm or nice. People weren’t outside or having a casual life. Things were crazy. I felt a huge chill go through me. As I realized how fucked up things were Amina was looking at me wondering what had happen to me.

“Hey are you alright? You look like you’re trippin’.”

I wasn’t alright. I was feeling like Robin Williams coming back from Jumanji. What fucking year was that? Have I hibernated? Things were fucked pretty bad. Amina was a genuine nice girl but the fact that she was casually speaking about crushing a girl she knew showed me how common it had become. I knew she didn’t do it on purpose, but it didn’t panic her either. The way she said it, I even suspected that it was making her a bit happy to be the one shutting up Alexia once and for all.

“Hum yeah I’m alright.” I didn’t want to look like a pussy and start crying about Alexia. Even more when Amina talked about it like she just crushed a fly.

“You look surprise. You’re pale. You sure you don’t want to go get a coffee or something”.

“No I’m alright, the lecture will begin soon.”

As I said that, Ms. Petterson, our Finance professor’s assistant, came in the lecture room.

“Guys I’m sorry but the lecture is cancelled, Mr. Jones had a problem and he won’t make it”.

She was holding a red tissue. Finally that coffee would do wonders.

I wanted to play it cool in front of Amina. I didn’t want her to see how astonished I was by all this. I wondered myself how the hell she could be so calm about the situation. She just killed a girl 30 minutes ago after all! While we walked to the Starbucks I tried to keep composure and play it cool. Amina kept asking me what was wrong. She was seeing right through my fake calmness. The Starbucks was full. For fuck’s sake the world is literally shrinking and people still love to pay for their overpriced coffee. If it wasn’t sure already, it confirmed how damaged our survival instincts were. One long wait and a 6 bucks’ coffee later, we sat down. I stayed silent for a moment. I didn’t want to open the conversation. I wasn’t feeling so good. The mix between the sad emotions I was feeling on the inside and the good ones I was showing to Amina wasn’t working out well for me. She finally opened the discussion hitting the perfect point:

“You didn’t know right?”

“What’s that?” I said, completely taken by surprise by the question.

“You didn’t know about what was really happening? I wasn’t either before a few days ago. I hit me in the face when I went back outside. When the fear dissipated.”

She looked sad. Like if the Amina I knew faded away in front of my eyes and had been replaced by another person. Still beautiful but without the attitude. I felt like I didn’t need to play it cool anymore in front of all that honesty. What she had just said was sincere and honest. She didn’t hide her emotions. It was like no one was around.

“I spent the last 12 days trapped in my apartment, scared of going out. Honestly, now that I’m here, I even wonder what made me go out. I was watching the news and after the fucked up affair with Anna Einhardt calmed down, I thought things were going back to normal. The news channels weren’t speaking of shrunken people getting crushed anymore. For me it was like this whole situation disappeared. You know like the Ebola crisis. They spoke about it for days and just like that it disappeared and things went back to normal.”

“Well it’s basically the same thing here. Except..”

“Except the normal we knew had changed.”

“Exactly. Journalists stopped screaming breaking news everytime someone was crushed because to this point it wasn’t news anymore. Honestly I don’t even know how it came to this. People told me that after the story of the crushed girl in Berlin, others started to do the same to the shrunken people they were finding. And as the Berlin Police didn’t prosecuted Einhardt, it became quite “normal”.”

“Isn’t there anyone complaining? Saying how barbaric the situation is?”

“There are a few organizations that have been created here and there but nothing that can really change the situation. Don’t forget that it’s almost impossible to track the shrunken victims. I’ve seen many people shrink in front of my eyes. It’s fast. One moment they are in front of you and the next they are smaller than your toes. You can’t do anything about it. They are no cure. And it’s not like you can bring them to the hospital for help. There are many stories about doctors and nurses keeping the shrinkies for themselves.”

“For themselves? What do you mean?”

“Oh I keep forgetting you don’t know a lot.  Well there have been a lot of trafficking recently. People realized they could do basically anything to tinies. It’s not like they can defend themselves or say no. There is a market for shrunken people. The other day, a girl stopped me on campus and asked me if I was interested in buying a tiny. For only 50 bucks I could buy someone.”

“Why would you buy someone?”

“Well some keep tinies as slave and make them do anything they want. Others just want the rush of adrenaline that comes with crushing them. Others just keep them as pets and are proud to show them around. In either scenario it’s very humiliating. But as I said, no one will raise their voices against the problem. Basically because it’s not considered one.”

“You know a lot of people who shrunk?”

“Well yeah. There’s like 30% of the class who disappeared out of thin air. There are either kidnapped, crushed or scavenging to survive at the mercy of everything surrounding them. I’m sure Alexia had just shrunk when I crushed her. She was probably calling for help if she was this close to my feet. But I really couldn’t hear her. Or at least not in time.”

“Amina you don’t look that sad about having crushed Alexia. She was annoying but she didn’t deserve to die.”

“Well big deal! That’s gonna change things then. You do realize that crying or shaming myself about it won’t change what happened? It’s not like she’ll be back, big and strong, if I feel regret. It was an accident. She was the size of a bug. I couldn’t avoid it. It may be sad but I won’t cry over it, that’s for sure. And it’s not like it’s the first time. Tiny people try to get help all the time and get crushed as a result when they are not seen. It wasn’t the first time I crushed someone. It’s not a good thing but if they just throw themselves under my shoes I can’t help them.”

While Amina answered my last question I felt something cold in her voice. She felt beat by the situation. She knew she couldn’t help the situation so she accepted it.

“I’m not telling myself I crushed Alexia, I’m just telling myself she killed herself by getting under my sole. It helps you know. With around 30% of the population being an inch tall, you have to find yourself excuses to continue living. Either that or you spend your days crying because of the guilt you feel.”

I thanked her for taking the time to tell me all this. It wasn’t pleasant but I least I knew what was happening in the world. We parted and I decided to go back home. This morning was enough for today. I was beat too by what I just learned. I was walking on campus when I saw a girl from a Master program talking to her feet. Talking to her feet? No in fact she was talking to a tiny woman down at her feet:

“You better kiss these flats now bitch or I’ll crush you quicker than you need to say “shit”. Is it understood?”

The tiny form down on the floor was cowering at the giant feet and kissed as much as she could. It was a terrible sight.

“Feeling good Emilie! To have your bitchy mouth at its place.”

Emilie? Was that my friend? I felt anger suddenly rising inside me. Enough was enough. This situation couldn’t be normal. It was just too bad and barbaric. My friend Emilie was not going to kiss that brat’s feet while fearing to be crushed. I rushed to the giant blonde torturing my friend and pushed her:

“The fuck you think you’re doing bitch?”

The blonde girl stepped back 3 steps almost falling down on the ground.

“What the fuck dude, are you fucking mental? Get the fuck out of here you pussy.”

“That’s my friend so fuck off and go see if you’re dumbass friends shrunk down while you were away.”

“Oh poor Emilie is tortured so you are defending her as a white knight protecting the poor shrunken people? Fuck you man”.

I didn’t have time to react. Mostly because I couldn’t believe what she had done was possible. As I was kneeling to take Emilie with me, that piece of shit of a girl did the most horrible thing I had ever seen. Emilie was looking up to me, a relieved expression on her face and suddenly this sight was replaced by a foot in a black flat with blood splashing all around it. The sounds and the sight were unbearable as she grinded my friend under her sole. A mix a bones cracking and blood squirting. I didn’t react. I heard her laugh and call me a little bitch. She lifted her foot and left. There was nothing left of my friend Emilie but a red stain made of blood, organs and bones. She never saw it coming. I didn’t either. I felt broken. I was broken.