John raised his head, to meet the eyes of his Master. He had long been a prisoner of his former friend, just like many before him. He didn't know exactly how many people fell into the death trap that was this woman. And maybe he didn't want to know.

John was wearing the same school uniform that he used the day he was shrinked down, only they were nothing but a rag at this point. His whole body was a rag, his skin and hair deteriorates because of the work he had been put through, and the lack of mobility drained his muscle mass.

Still trembling, John first encountered the feet of his Master, she was wearing a pair of black boots, dirty, as she had been walking outside, up above John found a matching black jacket, worn for days, impregnated with the perfume of its owner, and finally, the eyes of Valerie.

The stare of those eyes was enough to pierce a wall of steel. Her blue irises sent a chilling blow to the approximately two inches tall eighteen year old boy down in the floor, they froze him in place.

They both stared at each other for what it felt like an eternity, John sweated, trembled and nausea, dizziness and panic were starting to overcome his mind. Valerie, on the other hand, seemed broken inside, betrayed, yet sad, not wrathful.

The girl broke the silence "John... tell me... why are you outside your room?" She said to the terrified young man on the floor of her room.

John turned his eyes to his back, to tiny hamster cage under Valerie's bed that she had insisted on calling 'room' for almost two months now, the bars that once locked John from the outside world seemed as the only safe space he could have now, maybe if he just returned now Valerie would not get mad, granted she would punish him anyway.

"I... well I... p-please... I j-just..." mumbled John, unable to properly pronounce the words that were his only means of salvation from the terrible wrath of the giant teenager in front of him.

"No, don't exhaust yourself, I understand..." Said Valerie, calm and almost gently. She lowered herself to the floor, her aquamarine dyed hair spreading across the wooden surface like a field of grass. John backed but found that everything was pretty much useless by now.

Valerie reached for him, her long fingers encasing John like the tentacles of a kraken. The boy didn't attempt to resist.

Silently, she turned her back to the floor and lay there, John trapped in her right fist, silent as stone, watching her stare at the celling.

"You were my favourite you know... I thought you wouldn't run away like the others tried to do..." She said, while a crystalline tear droped from one of her eyes.

"I... w-wasn't..." Tried to say John, but he couldn't finish the sentence, as he felt the pain of five fingers squeezing his life out. He tried fighting Valerie's grip, he punched and squirmed and screamed and cried.

"You fucking liar" Said the girl, her voice clearly poisoned by some newfound hate for her once favourite slave.

Swiftly as a tiger, Valerie shoved the tiny young man inside of her mouth. John found little time to fight, he just streached his right arm upwards, trying to grab something outside the humid cage he suddenly found himself in. Valerie replied to this by closing her mouth shut, her teeth severing John's arm in the process. The boy made a final scream as Valerie swallowed him. And she and nobody else would hear John's screams again.

Valerie turned again, face on the floor again, and started crying, the little arm that was all that John left for her in the outside world fell in front of her. Still leaking blood that met her tears on the wood. The girl stopped herself to give the arm one final look, before picking it up and gently drop it at her tounge.

She tasted it for a moment before swallowing it as she had done with the owner of said arm just some minutes ago, she sucked the arm dry. And made it disappear into the dark abyss of her throat.

With that little movement of the muscles of her mouth, she had effectively erased John from existence.

Why did all her pet's betrayed her in the end? That was the question Valerie asked herself over and over again as she laid on the floor, staring at the celling of her room. The tears had already dried out and whatever was left of John had stopped resisting from the inside of her. If he had given up or just died already was of no concern to Valerie at this point. He deserved it.

She sighed, she needed something to comfort her on this time of sadness and emptiness. Normally she would have reached for her pet, she would have played with them or give them care and comfort, that always made her happy, but clearly that was out of the question this time. That fact only made her feelings worse.

Valerie stood up, staying on the floor wouldn't make her feel better after all. She needed something to relax, even a glass of water would suffice.

She walked outside of her room. Her boots sent loud echoes in each direction with each step, echoing in the lonely room. The blue walls, the bed and the desk where all the only witnesses of what she had just done.

Valerie stepped into the hallway of her house. The house was relatively small, two floors and two bedrooms, one for Valerie and one for her Mother. The walls of the hallway where all painted in a warm yellow, and where adorned with small wooden furniture. The bathroom was just in front of Valerie's room.

Her Mother wasn't at home at the time, it didn't matter whether she was working or hanging out with friends or something, all that mattered was that she would not see Valerie's misery.

The bathroom was as small as it could get, there was barely enough room to walk, the toilet, the tub and the sink occupied eighty percent of the space there. Valerie positioned herself in front of the sink as she served herself a glass of tap water, and looked deep in her reflection.

Was she becoming a serial killer or a monster of sorts? Those where the kind of thought that plagues the back of her mind.

She had killed four of her pets by now, four shrunken people she had adopted.

Valerie looked at her face, at her sharp features, her blue eyes and her dyed hair and small mouth, the mouth she used to kill John. And Sophie, and Thomas and Martin.

"Sophie, Thomas, Martin, John..." She whispered those names to herself. Only she knew what happened to them.

She had loved them, and they repayed with betrayal. But even after all what they had done to her, she still loved them.

Her four pets evoked very meaningful memories for her. They were special to her. One of them felt particularly strong, it was the first time she had taken someone as a pet.

Valerie was only thirteen at the time. It happened shortly after she had discovered her powers.

Her first pet, her once best friend forever, Sophie.

Valerie served herself some water as she painted a picture of Sophie inside her head. Her round asian features, and short black hair. How they used to hang out, and how she revealed her powers to her. She remembered specially the time when Sophie specifically asked her to shrink her.

But Sophie had grown increasingly more uncomfortable with her, she became uneasy and angry at her. Their friendship ended when she tried to run away.

Valerie returned to her small room and sat on her desk. She kept some photos there, of landscapes and family. One stood out, one where she appeared happily hugging a normal sized Sophie.

She hated having a constant reminder of Sophie in her personal space at all times, but she had to keep appearances. For all other people knew was that Valerie mourned the loss of Sophie for months.

The hardest part was to keep a straight face at her simbolic funeral, all while little Sophie was comfortably hiding in her purse at the time.

Valerie picked up the photograph, and didn't know whether to smile or to feel angry or to cry. She just remembered how she shrunk Sophie, how she kept her close at all times and how she ended her life. And perhaps, remembering the good times would make her forget all the thoughts about becoming a monster.

It all had begun four years ago, on a warm day of summer vacations.

"Whoa!" Exclaimed Sophie at the sights of what her friend had to show her.

"I know right? Isn't it awsome!?" Said an enthusiastic Valerie, holding a little crystal jar on her hands. Inside this jar was a minuscule animal, you could barely see it, but it was a shrinked squirrel. So tiny that it looked more like a little very fluffy insect.

Both girls were sitting at the little backyard of Valerie's house, it was humble, with just grass and plants and a table accompanied with four chairs. The girls however, were sitting, legs crossed, at the grass.

Valerie was a different girl four years ago, she was energetic and healthy so to speak. She was also just a fourteen year old very normal girl. She didn't even dyed her hair at this point in life. So on the top of her head was an clear brown long mane that reached her shoulders. She also didn't dress all black, instead, she favoured brown and green. Right now she was using a green jacket and some tight jeans.

Sophie had her eyes wide open, they almost sparkled with curiosity. She used a simple white sweater and black pants. And her short hair barely reached her neck.

"But how is this even possible?" Asked Sophie "Did you breed it from other tiny squirrel or something?"

"Nope, I shrinked it!" Replied Valerie.

"Bullshit, you can't just shrink something like that!" Said Sophie, annoyed that her friend would think that she was dumb enough to believe that thing.

Valerie didn't bother explaining, she opened the jar and very gently dropped the squirrel into her hand, once she made sure that the squirrel was safe and in place, she gave it a gentle touch with her index finger.

"Boop!" She said as her finger touched the squirrel. And the squirrel quickly grew into normal size.

Sophie was speechless. What sheet just saw didn't make any sense, it was impossible for a human to do such a thing. Yet Valerie was standing there, smiling face and all, just casually growing what supposedly was a squirrel she herself had shrinked down to miniature size.

"I found out last month" Said Valerie "Cool huh?"

"I... Don't know what to say... this..." Said the still confused Sophie.

Valerie's smiled vanished from her face, did her best friend thought of her as a freak?

"This is awesome!" Said Sophie breaking from the trance, she realised she had a friend that could literally shrink things and people at will, what could be more awsome than that?

Valerie smiled again, relieved, her friend didn't hate her after all, that was good to know.

"Well you see I would like you to not tell anyone about this because..." She didn't finish that sentence, Sophie jumped to her lap and looked up with her eyes opened big as two round plates.

"Shrink me!" She exclaimed.

"W-what!? Are you crazy!?" Replied Valerie backing off, she never tried her gift on people before, and never wanted to.

"Oh come on! It'll be fine! Think of all the fun things we could do!" Said Sophie, trying to convince her friend to retract.

"B-but you could get hurt, and..." Tried to say Valerie before she was interrupted again.

"I'm a responsible woman thank you very much, I can take care of myself, besides I'll always have you around!"

Valerie thought of it, she made sense, of course she could take care of herself. Sophie wasn't dumb. And the idea to have a tiny friend around was... amusing.

Valerie sighed and gently touched Sophie's forehead "Close your eyes and stand still alright?"

Sophie noded and obeyed.

Valerie focused on Sophie's image, in all around her and began to mentally shrink that image. She imagined Sophie as a little two inches tall young girl standing at the grass. Valerie felt energy being channeled from within her and flowing through her arm, and being projected to Sophie.

And she was shrunk almost instantly to mearly two inches.

Sophie opened her eyes, she felt something weird, like being drunk for half a second. She looked in front of her, just to find Valerie's crossed legs and her torso leaning towards her. She looked up and saw her, tall as an office building, eyes closed and with her arm still hovering in the air, as if she thought Sophie was still there.

Valerie's heart skipped a beat, for one second she thought that her powers had shrinked Sophie out of existence, however, she calmed herself, once she looked down and found her tiny friend jumping in excitement.

"YOU DID IT!" Screamed Sophie so that her voice could be heard. She was astonished, everything was incredibly huge, most importantly, her friend had just turned from a girl into a titan.

Valerie lowered herself to the floor to have a closer look. Everything about her friend was on place, she hadn't lose an arm, all her body parts where shrinked down proportionately, and her brain seemed fine, she supposed.

She gently reached for her with her right hand, her friend staring in awe as some fingers that were even bigger than her whole body approached, like a giant squid slowly coming for his prey.

But Valerie's hand was not a giant predator, she simply poked her friend in the face, causing her to fall backwards, which in turn caused both girls to giggle to themselves.

"Hey! Be more careful next time you big dumb woman!" Said Sophie, jokingly as she stood up, at her size even the grass was an obstacle to her.

"Jeez sorry for being so collosal" responded Valerie "Now come on, you shouldn't be outside where everything could kill you, unless you want to go full Borrower adventure of course"

"What happened the whole 'I'm not so sure about this' Valerie?" Said Sophie while she wiped dirt and dust out of her shrunken clothes "You look so confident now it almost seems like someone flipped a switch inside your brain"

"Well..." Began the gargantuan friend "I was afraid that you would explode into a stain of blood... or something..." Valerie scratched her head, trying to distract Sophie from the thought that she could have accidentally killed her.

"Aw come on girl, I know you well, you couldn't hurt me even if your life depended on it" said Sophie, with a sweet, wholesome smile on her face.

Valerie smiled back, and extended her right hand with an open palm to her tiny friend. "Now come on Arrietty, I'm sure you would rather be on the comfortable and warn walls of my room than out here with all this dirt"

Sophie laughed, and stepped into her friends open palm.