Kimberly could no longer see Chloe, her line of sight broken by Paige’s repositioning. She held her head tight, praying in whispers that the worst hadn’t happened. There was no way to confirm, and there was no reason to stand there to find out. Kimberly jumped from the book and down to another, then another. She would escape from here, regardless of what kind of jagged path she had to trek.

Night had fallen just after Melanie returned to the library, and its darkness swept over Kimberly and her fellow captives like a flood. There was a plan, at first, but that was long abandoned. Paige hadn’t expected this outcome, and neither did the tiny women that she coerced into aiding her. By now, Adrian was to be executed, a death triggered by Melanie’s refusal to cooperate. But Scarlet hesitated, for just a second too long, and Melanie had accomplished delaying Adrian’s demise. The bookcase they were housed in was toppled over, and now she and the others were scrambled across a wasteland of texts.

Melanie, the demon that she might be, was not the pressing hazard that Kimberly feared. It was the other giantess, the one they had all been convinced was going to be their hero. Paige’s callousness had been revealed; she cared not for the victims or their plights, but only for the power of the book. She wanted to get away with murder, no differently than Melanie, and she would trample over anyone in her way.

So Kimberly had rushed to the sides, out of the valley of books. It was dark and noisy, but in her head was a blinding scream, Escape!! Escape!! A chant that echoed with every sprinting step, an alarm that set her priorities clearly. Even if it meant venturing into the unknown, she wouldn’t waste herself here, at the literal feet of giant women that were half her age.

She thought there would be nothing to delay her, until she heard a familiar voice begging for help. It was unmistakable, yet Kimberly tried to ignore it, as much as she could. In a flinch, she whipped back to look at Paige’s legs, her knees grinding over library books like a machine. From there, a couple feet ahead of where Paige stopped to search for the spellbook, was a person, illuminated only by the passing light of Paige’s phone high overhead.

“Scarlet?!” Kimberly yelled out into the storm. She gnawed at her fingers nervously, knowing how her time was fragile here. “Scarlet?! Are you out there?!”

In response to her voice, one of the covers to a book began to flap; a signal. “Kimberly! Help!” the woman yelled back. It was absolutely Scarlet, trapped in the pages of a book, unable to break free.

“Hang on,” Kimberly called back, edging towards the end of the book she stood on, “hang--” She stopped, a quake from the ground commanding her to curl back. Paige was on the move again, if only one pace forward into the slew of books -- and one pace closer to crushing Scarlet.

Kimberly was frozen. Her body tugged forward, but her feet were solid and heavy, except for how they shivered away in fright. Scarlet wailed again in this time, knowing that Paige was only coming closer yet blind to how much longer she had. Yet even with Scarlet begging for a rescue, Kimberly couldn’t budge herself forward.

Go, go! Just go g-get her! Kimberly toiled in these thoughts, but she found herself turning away, regardless of the argument. Another quake, another desperate signal flashed at her from the book, but Kimberly closed her eyes to the distress.

“Kim! Please, Kim!”

Kimberly pushed herself, towards the clearing of books she had been trying to reach. Another quake behind her.

“Someone…! I don’t-- I don’t wanna die…!”

Kimberly jumped down behind a text and closed her eyes.

“Anyone! No--”

Paige’s leg crushed down into a book. With finality, Scarlet’s voice was no more. Silenced -- flattened, just as herself.

Kimberly ran. At a speed she had never reached before in her life, she ran away from Paige’s chaos, the horrid remains of where Scarlet once was, and where the others still struggled to survive. She saw nothing but the immediate path ahead of her, a road that lead straight into an empty darkness, but anything was more promising than lingering behind.

She leaped from one book to one last, a movement that attracted the glance of Paige. The giantess wasn’t interested in the figure rushing away, at least not until she caught a glimpse of the book the tiny woman had just abandoned. Behind her glasses, Paige lit up with excitement.

Kimberly looked behind her for just a second. She had sensed Paige reaching for her, but there was quite the distance between them by the time Paige had grabbed what she was really after. The tome, the very spellbook that had cursed Kimberly and the others, was now in Paige’s grasp. When the titan stood up, she brought with her the damaged bottle of potion, and turned in time to see her rival awaiting her.

Only imagining the battle that was bound to unfold, Kimberly was more inspired than before to evacuate. If the two giants were going to bicker and battle, then Kimberly would use this chance to run away from them both. She hoped to abandon everything; the toy-like treatment she had endured, the life of submitting to massive people, the entire world and its huge oppressiveness. If she could make it to anything past the fog of darkness, she dreamed it was a world completely reset, no matter what that entailed.

In truth, she knew that escaping the library was only the beginning, or quite possibly, a rushed ending. Certainty was absent.

Without breaking pace once, the entirety of the library’s main floor had been cleared. Kimberly, her nude body drenched in sweat, stopped only before the pair of humongous doors. They would be a challenge to overcome, had they not been parted open just a crack. Kimberly dwelled not a second long on why this was the case, unaware of the trap Melanie had laid out earlier that day. It couldn’t impede someone so tiny, so Kimberly went unhalted, charging out the path and into the crisp, cool air of the night.

A breath of fresh air took Kimberly’s heart. She stuttered while staring out into the distance; a lone walkway stretched from the doors to the gate, dividing an ocean of untidy grass kept corralled in by a black fence that surrounded the perimeter. Past that, Kimberly had only her assumptions to guide her. Certainly a road passed by the library, a road occupied by drivers in their massive, unstoppable machines. What of the rest of the city, and its inhabitants that all stood as tall as her previous tormentor? The world facing Kimberly was dangerous, and yet she still chose to keep running, fearing nothing more than falling back into Melanie’s or Paige’s hands.

This choice destined her to a long travel. After descending the stone steps that went down from Anders Library, each one as tall as she was, there was little reserved energy to keep up her pace. Adrenaline had gotten her this far, but the mysteries lurking in the darkness had forced her to an agonizing slow. The grass on either side of her was like wild woods waiting to unleash something upon her.

I’m just a bug out here, Kimberly told herself. I’ll get stepped on… I’ll get eaten… Oh my god, I could end up eaten…! And no one… would even hear me…!

She screamed, a loud gasp provoked by the arrival of a big, flapping creature. She cowered behind her arms, for it seemed like her nightmare had immediately come to life. In the green next to her, a crow had swooped down to sift through the grass without otherwise making a sound. Kimberly held her breath, telling herself to run again but only trembling before the threat of the beast.

As a black eye of the crow turned in her direction, Kimberly’s hesitation was dissolved, and without restraint, dashed away in a scream. Her arms hugged her chest as she ran at an angle away from the bird but forward still to the gate. She refused to look behind her, frightened even more when she heard the flapping of the bird’s wings once more; she didn’t realize it had flown away to the roof, startled by the unfamiliar noise Kimberly produced. She wouldn’t ever realize that as she ran for her life to the black fence, begging the world that she be left alone.

A painful trip was her debut to the world just outside the Anders property. Kimberly fell to the pavement on her knees, her legs giving out under a terrible soreness that only rest could relieve. But being flat on the ground only made her feel more helpless, more like Scarlet -- I can’t die like that, she kept reminding herself, I’ve made it this far, I can’t die here, not when I’ve made it this far, I-I can’t…

She crawled forward, discomforted by the night’s darkness with only a distant street light giving any illumination at all. Her body slid over crisp, fallen leaves that broke apart against her, scuttling off as the autumn wind brushed through them. One leaf smacked into Kimberly, its sharper edges scratching her skin as she wrestled it away with fumbling, frantic motions.

The world was dangerous and cruel, with or without Melanie’s supervision. Kimberly foresaw the dawning of that realization, and already she dreaded the regret that trickled into her thoughts. She worried, I was safer with her, wasn’t I? If I stayed-- She shook her head violently, then looked forward again to continue crawling, back onto her hands and knees. Those thoughts, if left to stew, would corrupt her. She wouldn’t survive with that outlook.

A structure of some kind was the only object of interest. In the dark, and to weary eyes and a desperate mind, the structure looked like a house or a building. It was quite tall, like most things were now to her, but also long, standing parallel to the road in front of it. A bench, it must have been, but made of a stone material. The space underneath it was closed off around the back, but Kimberly was grateful for what shelter she could find. Renewed by this find, Kimberly pushed herself onto her legs and hurriedly stumbled towards the seat.

Under the bench was a large gathering of dried leaves and sparse amounts of litter; a plastic cup, cigarette butts, and a faded pamphlet. The scenery was an unpleasant reminder to Kimberly that she was among the garbage of college students, huddled here because it was the only place that felt remotely safe -- at least, safe enough that she could pass out on the ground, the only thing she wanted.

Kimberly laid down, her muscles shaking from exhaustion and finding no easy way to stretch. Her breathing, which was dry and coarse after so much running, was only now starting to calm via deep exhales. Pain and relief battled it out inside her; she cringed all of a sudden when a car drove past the bench, zooming by like an impossibly huge train and gone just as fast, leaving behind only the passing echo of its travels and the rush of wind that followed it. Kimberly wailed into her arms, cowering deeper under the bench, her tears the last to be felt as she fell into a troublesome slumber.

The ground shook under Kimberly’s body. A quake, then another, and another -- it continued in the pattern of footsteps, the earth shivering under such massive footfalls until the impacts were too much to sleep through. Kimberly was jolted awake by the thunder of someone walking, but in the shadow under the bench, the fate above was unclear.

She gasped as something fell into view just in front of the bench. A black-and-pink tennis shoe stomped to the ground, soon followed by another. Two huge feet slowed to a halt, slapping the pavement with the weight of a skyscraper above them. Matching the tempo of these footsteps was Kimberly’s own body quivering in fear, flinching in place as every step was taken. Her eyes latched to the feet like studying a predator, wary of the tips of the shoes as though they could point at and discover her.

“Melanie…” The name slipped through her lips instinctively, pushed back into the furthest corner of the bench. She was afraid it was her, hunted down after all; at the same time, her tone pleaded to be taken back by her, to be rescued from the dangers surrounding her. But the shoes were not loafers, and the bare calves were rarely Melanie’s style. This had to be a different person, and Kimberly’s curiosity clashed with her paranoia. It was a struggle against herself just to crane her head up, peering through the wooden gaps of the bench’s seat as she trailed up the tall body.

Then, the structure quaked in its foundation. The giantess sat, just as Kimberly had taken note of the jean skirt which crashed down upon her shelter. A sky-blocking rear now weighed heavy overhead, with smaller quakes following as she settled into position. The entire time, Kimberly remained crouched with her hands over head, half-expecting the wood ceiling to collapse.

When she finally lifted her head, in front of her were those two tennis shoes, even closer than before now that the giantess had tucked them under the bench, one on top of the other’s heel. The black soles were dotted with blotch-shaped impressions, and pebbles the size of baseballs jammed in their ridges. One such pebble was loosened out, dropping to the sidewalk like leftover debris for Kimberly to watch.

As it claimed her entire vision, naturally did Kimberly stare only at the two feet, the symbol that represented this whole person. Kimberly had struggled with the thought all night, but now she was presented with that situation: could she trust anyone while shrunk? The world was dangerous, cruel, and unpredictable out in the wild. It made sense, then, to seek the aid of a huge person, to carry her to safety and perhaps even a cure. But humans, she had learned, were capable of much worse. That’s what she saw in those soles, the sheer destructive power this person wielded without even realizing it.

Is she nice? Will she kill me? Kimberly raced those questions in her head, again and again. She found herself crawling forward stealthily, but only a few paces. She wanted to reach out and beg this person, in truth. She wanted to be saved. Kimberly studied her again, She looks… normal… But that meant little. Melanie, dreary as she may have looked, was also an average seeming girl. Paige, too, was seemingly a star student. Kimberly inched backwards.

The feet began moving again, repositioning as the woman was heard giggling to herself, reacting to whatever was on her phone. While sitting idly on the bench, her feet played with each other out of habit, using one to pry off the shoe of the other. This revealed the white sock of that foot, exposed and allowed to air its thick scent -- something Kimberly noticed but refused to react to. Now free from its confinement, the foot was allowed to itch itself off the other, or swipe up the calf.

The dexterity of something so huge, of a woman’s foot no less, was a firm reminder to Kimberly. She glared ahead at the two beasts with disdain. She’s wicked, she thought. She’ll crush me… even if she doesn’t mean to. What was I thinking? She scoffed at herself under her breath.

Both feet separated back to a standard separation, with the left foot digging into the heel of its shoe to be donned once again. However, having been pried out meant that it was difficult to squeeze back in, as evident by the shoe’s heel being crushed in the several attempts the giantess made. Kimberly kept even more still, her fear on the rise with each time the foot lifted up to try again.

Until there was a long groan from up above, a voice that made Kimberly stare up in fright at the ceiling. “Why am I like this?” the woman complained, just before bending forward in a reach to retie her shoe.

Suddenly, a face fell into view, peeking under the seat and allowing ropes of hair to cascade close to the ground. A pair of upside-down eyes beamed down onto the shoe, a sight that scared Kimberly enough to have her scramble back against the wall of the bench. She was trapped, she had realized too late -- the closed-in structure of the bench meant the only way out was forward, and forward of her were a pair of two titanic tennis shoes, and the woman wearing them.

The hands tying the shoe stopped, like time had frozen all at once. Kimberly’s heartbeat suspended, she covered her mouth. A single second was stretched to its fullest until the sharp eyes of the giantess had confidently locked onto the miniature woman. Their gazes met, and so too did their astonishment quickly rise.

“What the hell is this weird thing?” the giantess muttered, and that was all Kimberly needed to hear. Just before the woman’s hands started to move towards her, Kimberly panicked and ran deeper into the corner she could hide in; when she slipped on dead leaves, she instantly bounced to her feet and kept running, pressed into a position where she had nowhere left to go.

Except ahead, which she dove towards. As the hand hesitantly neared, Kimberly made a dash just past it. It lunged away from her, spooked; Kimberly didn’t notice, tunneled in on trying to escape the trap that was the bench. She ran past the woman’s right foot, back into the early morning openness, then kept running, each step slapping against a pavement that stretched for miles onwards, nothing to stop her and nothing to help her.

So quickly was Kimberly out of breath, but it didn’t matter even if she had the vigor to go further. Her pace slowed just slightly, more than enough for the woman to have caught up by just stretching more from her seat. From behind, Kimberly found herself hugged by a pinch of three fingers. She shivered, her flight turned to fight and she punched and elbowed at the fingers as they plucked her from the ground, leaving her little feet swirling about in desperate kicks.

“No!! Nooo!!” Kimberly cried out -- it was starting again, all over again. In the same way the ground was being pulled away from her, so too was her one pathetic opportunity to be free from vile torture.

She was turned, forced to look at her new captor in the eyes -- big, striking eyes full of amazement. “Let go!! Let go of me, please!!” Kimberly begged, but her voice had been ignored. Instead of a reply, she had instead a huge phone aimed right at her. The black circular lens of its camera was pointed to her, and the sound clip of a camera shutter was played. She was photographed like an oddity, her tiny, naked, helpless form immortalized in media.

The phone veered away, once again having the giantess’s face in full view. The shock hadn’t faded, still present in the way her lips parted open and how wide her eyes had grown. Her teeth clattered, only in response to the tickling feeling of Kimberly’s resisting. The shrunken woman could feel her efforts working, if only in this vain regard -- even if it meant being dropped and falling to her demise, in the moment, that sounded better than being taken home and played with all over again.

Kimberly cried out again, but she was dismissed this time. She shouted in desperation as she was being moved suddenly. Below her, the maw of a purse had been opened, like a chasm waiting to swallow her, and she was fed directly into it. The hand had no other plans for her but to deposit Kimberly into a dark, clustered mess of items. By the time Kimberly had any semblance of balance, which was constantly put into question by the woman’s movements, she could only despairingly look above to see the morning light zipped away, her last sight being the woman’s expression of unsettled awe.

Kimberly whimpered, but above her own voice, she heard the woman’s; “What the fuck… Seriously, what the-- what the fuck…!” Then, they were moving, to a destination Kimberly had no way of predicting.

[If you're enjoying the story so far, consider supporting the writer~ That way I can write even more!

patreon.com/cursecrazy -- ko-fi.com/cursecrazy]

The wave-like motions of the purse had churned a sickness inside Kimberly. Bobbing up and down, at intervals she couldn’t expect, had convinced her that this could be forever. To some degree, she didn’t mind, a simple hope that she could avoid a fate more disastrous. But the trip did come to an end, announced by the unzipping of the purse which allowed in a streak of light. Kimberly protected her eyes, her heart stopping with a hard thump; everything was tilted and shaken as the bag was placed down onto its side, and before Kimberly was a plain of green, just outside the purse. It almost seemed like grass, but as her vision cleared, she realized it was fabric, like a comforter.

Kimberly remained where she was at the bottom of the bag, far from the exit. Enticingly, that exit was made wider by a pinch of fingers lifting up the top sag; the giantess’s hand, surely. Kimberly shook her head in rejection.

The light from the opening was blocked and replaced with a curious eye, so huge to Kimberly that it caused her to jump and shiver into the baggage. The giantess peered within, verifying that the tiny woman was still there and hadn’t somehow escaped.

“Y-You’re still in there…” It wasn’t too heavy of a voice, a whisper that still spoke with enough volume. The one eye barely gave much hint to the woman’s expression, and so Kimberly was unresponsive. “You can come out,” the giantess continued, “we’re in my dorm room. I-It’s okay. It’s just me here.”

Kimberly would have shaken her head again, but with being watched, she was more still than ever. Her stance was something like an animal, half-prone and cornered, somewhat prepared to savagely strike back if it came to it -- though she knew it’d mean nothing. She bunkered down more, all while the eye weighed harshly on her.

“You look so scared,” the giantess commented. Kimberly grimaced, cursed thoughts running through her head. “But… what are you?” The eye blinked and tilted its angle. “You look… I mean, y-you are human, right?”

Even to such a simple question, Kimberly refused to cooperate. There was a pause between them when nothing was said, both waiting for the other, until the eye finally gave in and was pulled away. There wasn’t any relief here for Kimberly, as it only meant that now she had no visual of her captor.

“Come on… You can’t stay there forever.” With that announcement, Kimberly’s facade of a shelter turned against her. The bottom of the bag was being lifted from underneath her, she could barely make out the hardness of fingers through the purse’s material. The opening forward was becoming a hole to descend into; she was being forced out of hiding. “Come on, it’s okay,” the giantess said again, making the tilt more severe and even jostling the bag lightly to shake Kimberly out of her position. Kimberly held firmly, even as other items were being filtered out onto the sheet below, until her grip was no longer enough. Her blood stopped when she finally dropped and slid down the smooth interior of the purse, her attempts to grab anything failing.

A short scream for help was ended with a bounce. Kimberly fell in a space amongst lip balm, pens and pencils, and spare change somewhere on that green plain. Before she could grasp her new environment, Kimberly first had to overcome the overwhelming sense of vulnerability. Stricken with fear now that she was exposed, she coiled into herself defensively, shakily looking to her sides only enough that she could determine where the titan was, and what to be prepared for.

Past the cliff that was the mattress was Kimberly’s fullest view of the giantess so far. She glanced quickly from one feature to the next; bare legs, a jean skirt, a black blouse, brown hair -- so normal looking, she had concluded, but not without acknowledging how meaningless that meant. The view was so much to absorb, she closed her eyes tight to escape it, and in her mind she saw how plain Melanie could look once upon a time.

The scene had been still for too long. The student made the first move, beginning to kneel to her bed so she that she didn’t tower over this fantastical find. Kimberly, in turn, scrambled backwards. She rolled her wrist painfully over the plastic shell of pink lip balm, squeezing out a small cry that had been building up inside her throat.

Upon seeing this, the giantess slowed her descent and maintained an easy smile. “Whoa, l-lady, it’s fine, it’s--” She choked, conflicted with her word choice. Was it really right to tell someone so helpless that things were fine? She staggered into her words again, “I-I promise I won’t-- I won’t hurt you. I just wanna… wanna talk.”

Kimberly’s heart was ablaze with doubt and fury. Her whole body started to burn as a result, her skin crawling at everything said to her. She looked to the left, to the right, to the items around her.

Briefly did the giantess frown -- this wasn’t going according to plan, whatever that plan was. “My name’s Mia. D-Do you have a name…?”

Do I have a name…?! Kimberly glared, having to swallow words that had so quickly formed to tongue but could so easily destroy her. A name, a name. Will she name me? Like Scarlet? She shivered, No… I’m Kim… I’m Kimberly. My name’s Kimberly! Don’t let her-- Don’t let her name you!

“I thought… I heard you speak,” Mia said. “B-Back when I picked you up… o-or was I going crazy? Yeah, hah… I’m asking the naked, tiny woman… if I’m going crazy--”

Kimberly gasped, a squeal of a noise -- suddenly she felt so violated, so raw in all the places Mia could see her bare and exposed. Carelessly, after all this time, she had forgotten about being naked, her brain truly numb to think that was the worst of her problems. She closed her legs and tucked them closer to her while both arms hugged her chest to cover her nipples.

Mia’s complexion warmed at the reaction she got. She felt not only rude, but confused ever more, and slightly enamored. “S-Sorry,” she giggled, turning her head down bashfully, “I didn’t know if that was normal or not. Th-This whole thing has me kinda… turned around.”

Kimberly heard Mia distantly. In her ears was a ringing, a mad sound that was driving her into a fit of fidgets. She only heard Mia’s giggle, a poor and unsympathetic reply in regards to such horror she had survived. A familiar sound, a haunting one. Kimberly rolled onto one side, feeling an icy cold form in her center. Her eye twitched, a tornado of emotions at total battle with one another.

Such a response did not fail to depress Mia. She looked upon the tiny woman with greater focus; this was hardly a laughing matter, something she realized a second too late. It was hard to swallow, and even harder to fully understand without awkwardly prying. A hand that wanted to be offered hesitated, and then returned.

From a cabinet just beside the head of the bed, Mia plucked a soft sheet of tissue. She hastily folded it along its own creases until it was thinned down to a width that matched Kimberly’s height. She slowly offered it to her then, but when the tiny woman refused to move, Mia instead left it there.

“I-If you-- In case you want to, err, cover up,” Mia fumbled, rubbing at her elbow and then at her neck.

Kimberly was slow to unfold from her cradled position, but she couldn’t deny that she desperately needed to be robed. In punches did it feel like those memories of Melanie reflect from her bare skin, so in an act that felt similar to rebellion, she whipped at the tissue and dragged it to her body. It was warm, and just her size. She wrapped it over her shoulders and tucked the excess under her arms, between her legs, anywhere that the air touched too freely.

And for a second, she could breathe. So relieved was she in that immediate moment, she almost felt fooled enough to thank the giant for such a humble offering. Instead, she wanted to spit.

While it eased Mia to see some success in communicating with her, there was still a notable space between the two. Clearer than ever was it that this was frighteningly real, as unexplainable as it seemed. This woman was burdened with a history, it rocked her to her very core. A dagger-like pain struck Mia in the chest; What am I doing to her? Just picking her off the street like that, and…

She bit her lip just as that thought formed. She gravitated towards the hole in her conscious, which existed in the direction of her phone like a void. Although she feared how awkward it would be, it was what must be done. She crawled over to her phone from that same bedside counter and swiftly flicked through its menus.

Kimberly watched her with immense distrust, conserving all her energy into her legs just for the possibility of needing to run for her life. She almost did when Mia aimed the intimidating screen at her to see, the motion alone spooking her, but the image presented held her in place. It was from Mia’s gallery, the most recent picture taken: Kimberly, her naked body hugged by Mia’s fingertips while she grappled them for safety.

Kimberly was ready to snap until Mia proceeded to delete the picture. The image grayed away while a loading screen signalled its removal, replacing the photo with a landscape shot of a morning sun. Mia placed the phone down, directing Kimberly’s attention towards her.

“I’m sorry,” Mia whispered. “That was… just, way wrong of me. I don’t know why I did that back there-- surprised, I-I guess, but that’s… that’s no excuse.”

Kimberly exhaled. Some emotions simmered, but something volatile remained in wait, relentlessly prepared for the worst. Yet, the gesture had undeniably impacted her. She hated that it did, she hated to think that this was a sign of genuine kindness.

“C-Can I just… seriously get one answer?” Mia spoke needingly, a feeling that seemed to reach Kimberly enough to lift her head. “Are you real? A real human? Because I’m… I’m actually scared, you know. I-I just need to know if this is actually happening.”

A shiver ran over Kimberly, urging her to hold the tissue even tighter around her. She didn’t want to reply, it ached to give in, but she nodded. When a verbal answer formed in her mouth, she swallowed it right back -- that would be too much.

The response, as small as it was, eased Mia’s mind. That was one question answered, assuming that, too, wasn’t just part of this hallucination. Regardless, many more questions awaited, with much having to wait. It was clear that pressing too boldly too soon was going to throw the woman into a panic, and so she buffered her next question with a decent pause.

“Do you-- um, what’s your name…?” Mia swallowed halfway through those few words. “I’m Mia-- I, err, I think I already said that…”

Kimberly felt a pain resonate from having that question proposed again. Like a rash, her skin felt irritated in a hot chill, but the tissue paper robe combated the symptom. She tried to look Mia in the eye, but the sight was too heavy. She spoke down in a quiet mutter, “Kim…”

“W-What was that?” Mia barely made her voice out at all, so she leaned in just slightly with her ear aimed at her. “Kim--?”

“Kimberly,” she interrupted.

“Kimberly. Okay. I’m bad with names usually,” Mia chuckled, “but I’ll remember yours. Definitely. This type of thing has never happened to me before. Which sort of reminds me…” She glanced away, hesitant to unload her next question right away. “So… what’s going on here? What happened to you to make you this small?”

Kimberly twitched, not because of the question -- logical and reasonable for Mia to ask about -- but because of the answer. She inhaled deep into her lungs, a long breath that swiftly retraced her steps from the past several weeks. She thought of the library, and how Melanie played her shrinking game with Adrian. The day before that, she remembered Erin and Candi. She thought of Nicky and how huge she first appeared, she thought of Adrian and how they met just after Melanie had claimed her obsession, and she thought of Scarlet and the horrible name she was given.

But before all that, when this twisted tale all began, she had to think of what it was like to be normal again. Her mouth opened, unsure of what words could describe what she was feeling, and in turn, she was lost on what the topic even was. Her eyes became blind to anything but those memories, the very last things she saw before a dizziness plagued her. Melanie was right there, waiting in the lobby outside the elevator like always, and it was her that ushered her back into her office as she nearly slipped into unconsciousness. So immersive were these thoughts that her muscles itched in reflex, following through the motions she had taken so long ago. Those final minutes were so fleeting; she had no idea what destiny had in store for her ahead of that point.

Yet, what struck her with such gut wrenching force was one small detail, something she had forgotten so quickly. Her lips slipped into speaking aloud, “It was… supposed to be… my v-vacation…”

Mia blinked. Her smile blissfully remained. “A vacation? D-Did I hear you right?”

“A vacation…”

“Enjoy the time off, Kim.” “You deserve it~ You’re always coming in early and staying late!” “Don’t accidentally come into work while you’re off now, that sounds like something you’d do.” “Remember to relax, Kim! The office will still be here when you get back.” “Have a really good time, Kim.”

“I…” Kimberly coughed; she was shaking more than she knew. “I was… just… going on vacation…”

Mia had little to make a conclusion. “A-And then…?”

“Then… She…” The stutter in her throat became too much to speak through. Kimberly lurched forward, anxiously tightening the tissue paper around her body. Waves of emotions ebbed and flowed in her mind, draining her spirit through the process of reliving so much horror, until she could no longer control herself. She fell forward, pushed up by one arm until that gave way, and she was left huddling into herself in a squirming, itching puddle. “She… She…!”

What few words Kimberly had ready to say were flattened into a whine, a whine that sharply rose to a roaring cry. Every barrier in her had been let down, and she now wailed openly. Every inch of her skin begged for her attention as her memories were brought back to the present. She felt every abuse against her all over again, every betrayal of trust and misuse of power and opportunity. For so long, she wanted to be the strong one among the other shrunken women, knowing she was the eldest of the group and thus a sort of responsibility befell her. After weeks of such brutal torment, however, that will had finally be worn to a dull point. Everyone was gone, and only miraculously had she been able to get this far -- this far, being the bed of a college girl’s dorm room, like nothing more than a bug being lured into captivity.

It would all happen again. Her mind was broken trying to process this, under the stress of confliction she felt. Mia, with her sweet voice and gentle gestures, was still a giant. Another species to Kimberly, a fickle and young creature that could easily destroy anything she still had. It would all happen again, she was certain, and it was only a matter of time before those true colors came to life.

A fragment of this reached Mia, significant enough that the depth of Kimberly’s cries were not amiss. The depressing reality that was hidden behind Kimberly’s scream was unmistakable, clearer than before. She tried to imagine this unreal scenario happening to herself; dwindling in size until she was no bigger than a doll, scrambling across the floor of a gigantic world, and so easy to manipulate, so easy to hurt. Mia swallowed; she had been bruised before in life, but nothing on the magnitude that Kimberly had almost surely survived.

“I won’t hurt you,” Mia promised. Her hands, careful in their speed, were placed around Kimberly like two shields. She didn’t hold her or make any contact, merely providing a shelter, or at least the sense of one. “You… You’ve been through a lot. It’s okay. You can tell me anything. I-I’m not gonna hurt you or try anything on you. I’ll ask before doing anything. I don’t know what all I can do, b-but I’ll be here, I’ll try to help any way that I can.”

Kimberly was still in shivers as she uncurled her head from her body, noticing the wall of fingers around her and Mia’s face hovering closer than it had. She could look into the woman’s eyes, if only because they were forced upon her -- big and striking blue eyes, a concerned bend in her brow, and pillowy cheeks on either side. It scared Kimberly to have this titan upon her, but the smooth way of her words had blanketed her pleasantly. Mia had already adapted her volume appropriately, speaking in a soft tone that was also warm with its generosity.

It was only enough, however, to keep Kimberly’s sanity preserved. The sheltering hands did not lose any of their potential to crush, nor did Mia’s height shrink to a less intimidating form. The situation was the same, Kimberly thought. The dangers she feared hadn’t been beaten.

But it was easier to breathe. Kimberly exhaled a moist breath into the green bedsheet, and with that air gone so too did much of the shakes no longer riddle her body. She moved to rise, only getting as far as sitting up with her legs stretched behind her. But despite having mostly overcome the physical ailments of her anxiety, she still had nothing to say, and a glare was hardened into her expression at Mia.

“Is there anything you want right now?” Mia asked, but there was no response. “S-Something to drink? Or, i-is there a way I can help you get back to normal…?”

Kimberly refused to answer, and Mia read the silence aptly. She sat back away from the bed and retrieved one hand away from Kimberly, leaving just one by her. At first, she had begun to grab Kimberly, her fingers aimed to pinch her body just like it had before. Having considered how inhumane and impolite that was, she instead opted to lowering her hand flat for Kimberly just a few feet in front of her. Kimberly still didn’t move, but she didn’t ignore the palm presented to her.

“Here… Just step on, I’ll take you to my desk,” Mia explained. “I can’t have you on my bed forever… a-and my roommate is gonna come back eventually, so I’ll need to hide you somewhere, if th-that’s okay. I don’t think she’d be, um…” Mia abandoned the sentence, realizing that she could possibly bring more worry to Kimberly than necessary.

Kimberly closed her eyes, inactive still. Mia sighed, but was diligent, reaffirming her hand’s position as it began to grow tired. “I can wait,” she lightly giggled, “I understand where you’re coming from. You don’t need to say anything. I’ll prove I’m not scary first, and then, maybe we can talk about… what to do from here.” She bit her lip. “If there’s anything we can do from here…”

It went against every instinct branded into her, but Kimberly’s arm twitched towards the platform of a hand. Like trusting a bear trap, she told herself, why would I walk into that? It was difficult to lift herself off her knees and onto her feet, just long enough so she could creep into Mia’s hand. Her first step onto her skin was hesitant, flinching back in defense, until she felt more comfortable stepping completely into Mia’s grasp.

Mia rolled her fingers inwards to form a short barrier to protect Kimberly as she started to rise slowly. Her breathing became especially controlled as she walked cautiously from her bed to the desk, like transporting a delicate piece of art. That was the comparison Mia herself made, until she realized how that didn’t quite capture just how serious the situation was. Afterall, it wasn’t an inanimate object she was holding, but a living person utterly defenseless against the huge world.

Kimberly was lowered to the desk when Mia sat down in her chair. She weakly looked at the flat surface, already predicting its cold touch while she surveyed the giant objects around it. The will to move just wasn’t there, and so she remained where she did, her chest hollow and her mind weary.

Mia didn’t voice her concern to the woman laying in her hand. Rather than push Kimberly to move, she instead kept her hand still, bringing her torso closer to the edge on which it rested upon. Her body provided a firm wall, an extra level of defense just behind Kimberly, without imposing it onto her.

“Take your time,” Mia whispered sweetly. “Rest a bit, if you need it.”

Kimberly chuckled without realizing it, only turning onto her side to wrap an arm around herself. Rest, she repeated to herself, like a humble wish. Even if this was a lie, a prelude to a still uncertain fate, she found this opportunity to repair her soul, if just a fraction of it. After so long of tending to others and watching over them, she nearly fell asleep under that same comfort, a precious moment where she finally felt acknowledged.

She looked at the hair one last time. The candles were lit and the wine was still. Melanie’s green eyes grew wide, flaring up in excitement as she unpinched her two fingers. Softly, just like a feather, the brown hair fell. It touched the surface of the wine, stood there, and then slowly sank into the red-black depth. It was gone.

“... Will it work?” Melanie spoke out of turn, burdened by this question. The next step in the ritual was to recite a chant from the tome, the very one that sat next to her on the bedroom floor. Underneath her hunched pose was a bowl of wine and a set of candles, all situated above a chalk-drawn sigil. This elaborate setup was for one express purpose, and that was to shrink another human being.

Do it, she told herself, avoiding the eyes reflected in the wine. Get it over with. Just… try it. Just try, Melanie.

Melanie brought both hands together. Her eyes slowly closed, her lip curled inwards. She hesitated, again asking herself if this could work. Then, a word whispered out of her lips. It became a string of some magical language, complicated yet eloquent. Her energy picked up, only halfway through the chant, and then it slowly died again. The grip of each finger overlapping the other began to weaken until they separated entirely, just at the end of Melanie’s prayer.

There were no chills, certainly no sweeping wind to billow around her like she predicted. Her heart was once fluttering, but now it was stone. The book was a well of gravity in the bedroom, and Melanie felt insults chiding her from its pages. Pathetic glances went between the bowl of wine and the book that told her all this could be real -- all this power, all this control.

Melanie was in bed, the scene and props of the ritual left out in the open. The light was still on, so Melanie hugged the sheets around herself into a coil. Upon her phone was a bright image of the young woman that inspired this. Adrian, her obsession, seen in a snapshot taken without her permission. Melanie could hear the words from Adrian’s mouth taunting her, her response if she knew Melanie was playing make-believe with books: “You’re a creep.”

“Just like she said,” Melanie whined as she sniffled to sleep. “Fuck her… F-Fuck that slut…!”

Scarlet sneezed. “Fuck all this dust,” she snarled, “shit.” Then, she continued to move a desk to one corner so a space could be cleared. There was still much work to be done to prepare Anders Library for the party scheduled tomorrow, but between the size of the mess and her low work ethic, Scarlet was making little progress. She knew this too, acknowledged with a roll of her eyes as she looked over the library and all its abandoned grime.

“They wanted to throw the party here so fucking bad, then why couldn’t they help?” Scarlet groaned. She had inspected the old building the other day to survey its ability as a party location. There was enough space and security was loose around the area, but the lack of air conditioning combined with all the dust gave Scarlet doubts, enough to warrant warning her sorority sisters. “It will be fine,” Scarlet quoted in a mocking voice. “Just sweep it up or something, make it work! Bullshit…”

Scarlet held her head, dabbing away beads of sweat. Her skull felt heavier and imbalanced, and her temperature seemed to drop. Scarlet leaned against a chair for support, her eyes drawn to a desk in a corner. The seat there was empty now, but just the other day, it had been occupied with a zombie -- so Scarlet had joked. A creepy girl who definitely lurked the library often; she had to be scared off, something Scarlet remembered with a light chuckle.

But that amusement vanished with a wince of pain. Her spine tingled, sensing something amiss with the air around her. Something sharp was splitting her skull, a migraine like no other. Still she tried to ignore it, even as it caused her to almost stumble onto a chair that she needed to move. It had to be the heat, she figured.

“Ugh… Fuck this library, man,” Scarlet complained. She had been hoisting the chair to carry it across the floor, but fatigue had her dragging it instead. “We need… s-some fans or something… Open a window, maybe…”

The sharp sensation in her head continued to plummet until even her stomach was turning. She blamed it now on something she ate, collapsing into the chair while both arms hugged her stomach. She scanned the library, seeing all the work she still had to get done, but her legs wouldn’t let her stand. I just need a moment, she thought.

A moment disappeared in the blink of an eye, so it felt like for Scarlet. She dozed off easily and awoke almost a minute later with a jitter. She wanted to stretch out of her discomfort and to also get back on her feet so she could return to her job. However, when she hopped off the chair, it became apparent immediately that this was beyond any normal sickness. The chair behind had grown, just as the desk had, and everything else as well.

Dizziness overcame Scarlet as she recognized that she was shrinking -- of all things, she was truly shrinking. Babbled noises escaped her in attempts to reason with reality, but there was no answer or clue as to why this was happening, or why it was still happening.

Only then did Scarlet’s panic swell enough to erupt; “What the fuck?!” The chair was pushed away and she backed into a leg of the desk behind her. She jumped in fright, panting, until she could stand no longer. She fell onto her rear roughly, watching as the dim ceiling became more distant.

“Th-This has to be a heatstroke,” Scarlet told herself. “I’m totally having a heatstroke right now. Holy shit. Holy shit! Wh-What do I…?! What do I do?!” Her hand rapidly fanned at her sweating temples, but the whole world continued to spiral away from her. Even the seat of her chair, which had just been level with her head a moment before, was now out of reach and only rising further away.

Scarlet closed her eyes and held her breath. If this was a dream, she’d force herself awake, but she was still in her unreal predicament when she opened them again. The library was now a vast land of mountainous shelves and mile-long aisles, a dusty desert that stretched out to impossibly high walls. Despite all this space, the sensation of being trapped couldn’t be shaken off.

And then, emptiness. Scarlet gazed at the expanded library until it no longer stretched away from her. She was hesitant to stand, and only made it as far as her knees. Only her breathing could be heard while everything else, immense as it was, remained still and purely silent.

“... Hello?” Scarlet spoke not very loud. “A-Anyone? Is anyone here?!” She grunted, “What the fuck! Is this a joke?! A-Am I sick or, or, or what?!” She yelled louder, “Hello?! Anyone! Hello?! I-I need help!”

No assistance arrived. She had come to the library by herself and that’s how it had been. She regretted it all now, promising Charlie to clean up Anders Library all alone. She just wanted a break from Omega Kappa, she wanted Charlie to have one less thing to complain about, but that decision was now punishing her. She smacked her hands into her face, frustrated; Why the hell did I tell that creep to leave?! she asked herself. At least if that other student had been around, she could have asked her for help, but there was no sight of her.

Quickly, she reached to her side, feeling all around her shorts. “Fucking dammit, fuck me,” Scarlet hissed. Her anger turned towards the desk above her, as tall as a building. She needed her phone, but it was still in her purse on top of the desk. It seemed impossible to reach at first, but she noticed then that on the opposite end of the table, the strap to her purse hung low off the edge. Perhaps, Scarlet calculated, she’d be able to climb up the strap and get to the table.

It was worth more than just an attempt, it was her only chance at this rate. Even the doors would be too huge to open -- she needed aid. Under the table she went, ignoring all other aches and ailments as they plagued her. A greater despair was settling in as she grew nearer, and that was the realization that the strap, as low as it might have been, was still beyond reach.

“No! Oh, come on!” Scarlet gritted her teeth, then jumped straight. Her arm shot high, the tip of her finger extended as far as it could -- nothing. She missed, swiping at air. “Ughhh,” she tried again, another hop with all her strength concentrated into it. Still not enough, the strap didn’t even sway at her attempts.

Scarlet stomped in a tantrum. She was out of breath, the darkness of the evening was approaching, and so painfully close were her attempts at grabbing the purse. She whined loudly, “What am I supposed to do?!”

“Hey, Scarlet? Where’re you at?” someone called out from the library’s entrance. “We got everything you asked for. You still cleaning up?”

Scarlet lifted her head, pulled out of her exhaustion immediately like a dog on the hunt. Someone had arrived, beckoning specifically for her. Despite how distant the voice was, Scarlet recognized it with great relief; it was Camille, a young newcomer to the sorority. Scarlet forgot all about her during her distress, but she was everything on her mind now.

“Camille?! Th-That’s you, right?!” Scarlet yelled, unaware of how far her voice could even reach. She heard the doors of the library creak open wide, and she began jumping with excitement. “Camille! I’m on the floor! Please!”

Scarlet anxiously awaited to see Camille. She had been hopeful for her arrival, as if her prayers were answered personally by an angel. Those feelings of rescue and security, however, were washed away the instant that Scarlet felt the first vibration of a footstep. The smile that had only just dawned on her had vanished, crumbled by the quake. Another footstep, a heavier vibration. Scarlet held herself, then bunkered against the leg of the desk before another footstep slammed to the ground.

From around a shelf of books, a giantess appeared. Camille unknowingly strolled into Scarlet’s view, her flip-flops smacking the floor to create a cracking sound akin to a whip. Scarlet raced to comprehend how this was a human, a normal person and that it was her that was weird in this world. She stared at the huge person, barely able to recognize her as a younger sister. It was still Camille, but her legs stretched higher than street lights, her skirt billowed in the air like a flag, and the duffel bag in her grasp was larger than a tugboat.

Camille had slowed to a stop, curiously looking around the dim room in search of Scarlet. She hummed idly as she did so, not in the same rush as Scarlet’s racing heart. It wasn’t long before she noticed the lone purse atop the desk, its bright colors contrasting the dry and dark atmosphere of the library. She recognized it as Scarlet’s right away and started to approach, but it didn’t answer her where Scarlet actually was.

Little did she realize how close Scarlet was, nor did she realize how Scarlet cowered and squeaked as a pair of feet barreled around the corner of the table. So much chaos filled the air when those feet were in motion, and all at once would it end once Camille stopped. Scarlet was awestruck with how close this giant was, gawking up the long legs to where they disappeared behind the skirt. Anything above that was out of sight behind the desk.

Snatching Scarlet out of her trance was the strap of her purse flying up to the air, lifted away as Camille took the purse into her hands. “This is her’s, so…” Camille whispered to herself, her mouth agape as she slowly put together a conclusion. “... Maybe she bought a new one?”

Scarlet felt the want to bicker with Camille’s thought process, but she didn’t dare speak as she faced off with two beasts. Camille’s feet had only stomped closer to the leg of the desk Scarlet clung to and their presence imposed upon her. It was an odd sight, akin to something from a theme park. Two bare feet bigger than a bus and their flip-flops, footwear that had clearly been impressed into over the time they’ve been worn by this mammoth person. Atop these terrifying toes, however, was something cute. A fake flower of orange pedals decorated the strap of the flip-flop, as though they had bloomed from between her toes. But the way those very toes curled and grinded against one another, Scarlet had no delusions that something could grow there.

And it struck her then, I’m supposed to contact this thing…? All the shivers came to a standstill across Scarlet’s skin. The fear wasn’t depleted from her at all, but rather so intense that it froze her where she stood. Even if it was still Camille, a decent-enough person that Scarlet knew, the fact remained that it was like contacting an elephant for help. All of her nerves would need to be gathered just to reach out to Camille, and before she ends up leaving.

Scarlet huffed and then dashed forward. As she did, Camille’s right foot flung back several yards, resting on its point idly. The motion, so casual for the giant, put a sudden halt into Scarlet’s speed. She stumbled over herself, tripping over her own feet and collapsing forward. It wasn’t the hard floor she would land on; what caught her instead was a couch of toes that curled away from her in surprise.

Scarlet yelped, “Camille!” As she pushed herself up to get back onto her feet, hurriedly doing so to avoid embarrassment, so too was Camille reacting to the same situation. The touch didn’t go unnoticed, of course, and so the left foot jumped in response. Scarlet was carried away with it, her lower-half dangling off the flip-flop while she grappled with the strap to avoid being kicked off -- a true challenge.

Camille’s grimace was not the expression Scarlet hoped to see. The foul expression accurately represented her surprise and disgust to something clawing at her exposed foot, though she didn’t register what it was that touched her. She imagined it had to be a cockroach and responded appropriately, a gasp followed up with a startled squeal. “Get off me!” she yelled, a noise so loud that it shook Scarlet when she was already quite shaken enough.

“C-Calm down, Camille, it’s me! It’s Scarlet!” Scarlet shouted, her screams a pale contest to the volume the giantess beckoned with. She wanted Camille to notice her as the person she was, but already her nightmare of being mistaken for a bug was coming true. Despite pleading with Camille to remain calm, she was eventually rocked off the foot, left to fall back down harshly onto the floor.

The air had been knocked out of her, but adrenaline pushed Scarlet to squirm and twist to show signs of life. A dry gasp to call out for Camille was overpowered not by sound, but by a visual. A shadow fell over her, cast from above where the flat sole of a sandal was suspended. Before it could do anything to her, the reality was already crushing her heart; she was going to be stomped like an insect.

“Camille, no, Camille!” Scarlet cried, completely ignoring the jolt in her ribs when she yelled. “It’s me, it’s me…!”

The foot remained where it was, only hovering higher in preparation for a speedier kill. Yet it wasn’t storming down; Camille hesitated, but her shivering form wanted to commit. She bit her lip and looked down again, until finally she muttered the name of her sorority sister, “Scarlet…?”

Indeed it was her, but in no comfortable condition. She trembled on the ground helplessly, holding one hand up into the air as though it could possibly slow the giant foot’s descent. Beyond that, more obviously, was that this was Scarlet. Coiled underneath her foot, Camille was unmistaken that it was Scarlet.

The foot was cast aside, drawn back so that Camille could kneel down. Scarlet still lived in terror that she was to be stepped on, only until she peeked an eye open to notice that Camille was overwhelmingly near her. Perhaps just slightly scarier than the foot hanging above her was Camille having crouched so close to her, the gravity of her weight surrounding Scarlet. But undeniably, this was better. She was noticed, at last, and her heart had a new reason to drum rapidly.

“C-Camille…? I-It’s me…” Scarlet swallowed, still relying on that mantra. It was all her mind, lost in such hecticness, could come up with.

“Oh my god,” Camille awed. “It is Scarlet… Uh, am I high?”

“No, no no,” Scarlet shook her head, her brown hair whipped over her cheeks. “Th-This is real, Cammy! I’m-- I dunno, but somehow I just… I got like this! I shrank, a-and-- and I don’t know!”

“Yeah… This sounds weird, yeah,” Camille agreed. Scarlet’s shock was clearly not matched by her sister, who spoke rather calmly with her usual slow pace. This was consistent for her, the type to go with the flow, always late to ask questions. In some regards, this is the kind of mindset Scarlet most wanted when it came to being found; in other regards, Camille was far from ideal.

But it was all Scarlet had, and she was grateful with her life all the same. She scrambled to stand, but her knees cowered in a bend. Despite being back on her feet, Camille certainly felt no less big. “Weird… d-doesn’t even begin,” she said. “This is unreal. I mean, for fucks sake, y-you almost stepped on me!”

Camille winced with a twinge of guilt. “I-I didn’t mean to,” she said meekly. She scoffed, “I-It’s not even my fault! I didn’t think it was you!”

“Ugh, open your eyes, Cammy!” Scarlet motioned over herself. “Or do I seriously look like a bug to you?!”

“No…” Camille giggled, and she leaned forward more. “You look more like a doll, actually.” Two curious fingers then reached forward and pinched at Scarlet’s left arm, thin like a toothpick between them. As light as they were, it was just as easy to move the arm up into the air, even with Scarlet trying to pull out of the grip.

“Stop! Stop, Cammy, th-this isn’t funny!” Scarlet whined, using the other arm in an attempt to tug it out. There was no competition as Camille went on to lift Scarlet by that arm, so captivated with the situation that she didn’t acknowledge how serious of a struggle Scarlet was putting up. “Camille!”

“Eheh, sorry,” Camille giggled, though she still didn’t let go. “You’re right, this is crazy. It feels so real…”

“It is real! I told you!” Scarlet squealed. “Please! My arm hurts!”

“Oh.” Finally did Camille unpinch her fingers, but only after raising Scarlet up higher into the air. Scarlet imagined a deep free-fall, but she immediately collapsed backwards into the palm of another hand. Discomfort affected her immediately; her whole body, she acknowledged, was being touched and held by a single hand.

Scarlet turned to protest, but what greeted her was a personal view of Camille’s chest. She was held inches away from the wide rack, belittled by their immenseness. Among Omega Kappa, it was normal to tease Camille for having such large breasts, a treatment that she always endured. She was an underclassman, the newest recruit to the sorority, and so the harassment always got shrugged aside as orientation. But such hierarchy only worked against Scarlet now. It humiliated her more to not only be tiny in front of a giant underclassman, but to be adjacent to her breasts, each one large enough to blanket over a car.

“... Scarlet?” Camille tilted her head. She adjusted her top so that her breasts bounced into a more comfortable position, an idle action that was a performance for Scarlet. It was, at least, enough to snap Scarlet out of her trance, though her eyes still would dart to the exposed cleavage tall enough to swallow her.

“Okay, n-now… without moving too quickly… take me back to Omega Kappa.” Scarlet spoke stern and seriously, but she couldn’t meet Camille’s eyes with her own. “Give me to Charlie, and she can take me to… a doctor, or maybe a therapist. I don’t know, but she can--”

“But what about… the party?” Camille stood back up -- not taking Scarlet’s advice -- and shrugged a gesture to the duffel bag over her shoulder. “That’s what we came here for…”

Scarlet was on her hands and knees, a better position for balance but not without the feeling of submission. Her patience wore thin, “Camille! I told you what to do! Just do it!” Scarlet huffed, “I’m your senior! You do what I say!”

“Hmmm…” Camille thought about the situation, which concerned Scarlet. The last thing she wanted was for Camille to realize how irrelevant the hierarchy of the sorority was. She shivered in suspense, until eventually Camille nodded. “You’re right,” she said, “but you’re the one to blame if Charlie gets pissed…”

“Whatever! She can be pissed all she wants!” Scarlet laughed, but it was truthfully a worry of hers. Charlie had a temper, something all of Omega Kappa had to look out for. “This is a little more important than some shitty Halloween party, righ-- Ack!!” Two fingers hugged Scarlet at her waist and lifted her from the platform of a hand. There was no time to say anything else before she was deposited into a mesh pocket at the duffel bag’s side, put away like a thing.

The Omega Kappa house was only minutes from Anders Library, but the walk back was plenty of time for the night to completely settle in. Camille returned home when the porch was already lit aglow by its patio light. There had been no distractions or delays, but Scarlet squirmed as though she had been trapped for ages. She could hardly wait another second, even as the door creaked open and the sounds of blaring pop music could be heard. They were familiar sounds, but Scarlet didn’t feel at home.

The entry corridor lead to the lounge, the source of the music. The room served its purpose as a place for the sorority to relax, perhaps too well. The interior was once established and proud, the semi-circular room centered around a fireplace and wide enough for a variety of leisurely activities. Over the years, that pristine had dulled, and the messy lifestyle of the girls had taken over. Leftover trash lined the staircase up to the second floor, abandoned clothes were vaguely tossed towards one corner, and an arrangement for beer pong had dominated the billiard’s table. The scent of this waste was browbeaten by air freshener and perfumes, creating a smell that truly captured the identity of Omega Kappa. More than ever before, Scarlet detested that stench.

An extra long couch pushed against the wall had most of its length occupied by one of the sisters laying on her stomach. Her legs kicked idly behind her, bringing attention to the long socks and lack of pants. An oversized sleep shirt blanketed the freckled body so that nothing unsavory was exposed, a lazy choice of attire that was in theme with the frazzled black hair. Her interest never went to the opening of the front door, for she was addicted to her phone, tapping away at a game while bobbing her head to the music.

She would only be drawn out of her phone when the coffee table was slammed upon. Camille stood over it, having laid down the duffel bag in the one space free of trash. “I’m sick of lugging this thing around,” Camille entered with a complaint. She was glad to rid herself of the bag’s strap from her shoulder. “Vivian, can you watch Scarlet for me?”

“Huh?” Vivian only glanced over her back to see Camille. It was with a groan that she realized she was being spoken to, and so she reached for the stereo’s remote from off the floor. All at once, the music booming from the sound system was muted, as though all had fallen deaf. “What about Scarlet?”

“Can you watch her?” Camille was already walking to the staircase, so she pointed to the duffel bag’s pocket. “I need to go get Charlie…”

“Watch her?” Vivian rose a brow. “... Watch her do what?” She sat up and turned towards the duffel bag, realizing that Camille wasn’t going to elaborate. Her hand moved to the coffee table to set down the stereo remote, but instead of being placed gently, it dropped from hands in a shiver. Vivian’s eyes widened -- Scarlet was there, a tiny version of herself strapped into a mesh pocket.

Scarlet’s heart sank into the swirling pool that was her stomach. The trip back had been simple enough for Camille, but the rocking and swinging of the duffel bag had been sickening for Scarlet’s shrunken self. She had begged for Camille to move more consciously, but it had fallen on deaf ears. Now she lay weak in the mesh pocket, barely enough strength to remain hanging over its edge. The disease that plagued her would have to take a backseat, however, to the huge person sitting in front of her, whose eyes were flaring up with wonder and excitement.

“Scarlet?” Vivian giggled the name, covering her mouth too late to hide it. “Is this a prank? You look ridiculous, dude!”

“Yeah fuck you too,” Scarlet grunted, forcefully swallowing down the sickness still aching her. She had to if she wanted to claw her way out of the web of string that was the pocket, a task she accomplished without much grace. “Seriously, cut it with the jokes. I’m not in the mood, th-this is… this is serious.”

“Seriously fucking funny,” Vivian laughed unabashedly. It annoyed Scarlet to know that her typical attitude wasn’t going to change, even under such dire and abnormal circumstances. “Look at you! You look so weird! Can I touch you?”

“No! You cannot!” Scarlet growled, but her reply didn’t weigh anything to Vivian. An interested finger neared the shrunken student all the same, which she rejected with a firm push. “Get. Off.” But Vivian persisted, and the finger escaped Scarlet’s grip to start ruffling her hair. “Fucking stop!” Scarlet swiped at the hand and pulled away from her, backing up until she stepped into a soda can. It pushed back against her with a slosh.

“You’re not even bigger than my drink, dude!” Vivian chuckled, her finger inflicting shame with how it pointed down at Scarlet. Before Scarlet could retaliate, Vivian had retrieved her beverage, taking away the support the tiny woman leaned on. With its sudden absence, Scarlet stumbled backwards and onto her rear. Vivian laughed so hard that she couldn’t even sip her drink. “Whoops~”

Scarlet couldn’t even growl, her anger beyond mere frustration. Her body turned red; how could she be humiliated like this so callously, and by one of the girls that vowed to watch over one another? Of course, with a mental spat, Scarlet remembered that this was Omega Kappa, where the standards for a sorority couldn’t get lower. She breathed in an attempt to calm herself, but the loud crunch of a can disrupted that meditation. The next second, what looked like a totalled car was dropped right next to her -- that same soda can, post-Vivian.

Scarlet ticked her head in Vivian’s direction, a snide smile under her glare. “Real classy, Vivian,” she said. Vivian only responded with a half-muffled burp and another laugh. Scarlet rolled her eyes and proceeded to stand up. “Don’t act too concerned or anything! Keep trashing the place up, as if I’m not right here! Kick your feet up, shoot the shit, who gives a fuck!”

The tantrum amused Vivian and she didn’t disguise it at all. When given the opportunity, her smugness inspired her to follow Scarlet’s advice. “Sure~!”

A beast of black fabric rose up from beneath the table, startling Scarlet with its surprise entrance. The heel slammed hard into the wood, a boom accompanied by an uneasy rattling of all other things on the table being shaken. It was Vivian’s foot, demanding so much attention with just its presence. Before Scarlet could recover from a severe flinch, the other foot was kicked up as well, the same as the other, but swung over the previous foot for a less surprising impact.

“Ew! Ugh!” Scarlet gagged, reacting too late to cover her mouth before the scent of the socks reached her. She twisted away, only keeping her head turned back so she could burn a gaze into Vivian. “No one wants to see your nasty feet, Vivian! People eat off this table, dipshit!”

“Just doing what you said,” Vivian shrugged. She went the entire nine-yards in posing herself as totally relaxed; arms behind her head, leaned back in her seat, and of course, curling and uncurling her toes in exaggerated stretches. The fabric of her socks strained under these gestures, a sight only Scarlet could observe from her unique perspective.

“You’re such a bitch,” Scarlet said, her nose plugged.

“It’s just feet, dude!” Vivian laughed out loud. “You’re really this mad over a couple feet!”

“Of course I’m mad! L-Look at me, I could get fucking stepped on! And between you, Camille, and the one brain cell you share, that’s a fucking real possibility! Just… ugh!” With just one arm to spare from covering her face, she shoved into Vivian’s sole, despite how imposing the wall was. She hoped to at least nudge the foot or get a tickle out of Vivian, but her palm only pressed into the fabric and into the foot to no avail. She was nearly bounced back, but it would be the foot repositioning into the air that would make her quiver away.

“Then maybe you shouldn’t try to piss me off,” Vivian said, her voice having a stark lack of its past playfulness without forfeiting its edge. Her feet hugged Scarlet, clapping around her before she had time to retreat any further. Scarlet squeaked in pain, her body thriving about in a panic. “A lot worse could happen to you then just being stepped on!”

“I-I’m sorry, okay?! I’m sorry!” Scarlet begged between coughs. She could no longer ignore the scent of feet now that it literally enwrapped her. “Let me go! Please!”

But Vivian only pulled her off the table and into the air, where her struggling could be more closely appreciated. “You can’t even tell Camille what to do anymore, let alone me! Let me tell ya’, I could get used to you being like this.”

“Well don’t! You fuckin-- mmff!” Before a counter could be completed, Scarlet found herself strangled by an oppressive toe. By itself was it able to muzzle her entirely, and no amount of squirming could break free. Even when she begged, Scarlet couldn’t be heard, not past the sock and certainly not past the laughter raining down on her.

“Where is she?! Scarlet!!” A voice shot from upstairs with a tone that couldn’t be questioned. A voice that ended the game Vivian was playing immediately, and thus did Scarlet find herself dropped from the undone trap. She fell to the floor, fortunately from a height that did little damage other than imbalancing her. She found herself in a canyon between the table and the sofa, and the legs above her recoiled away as footsteps hammered down the stairs.

Scarlet knew who to expect, and that sent a shiver coursing across her body. Charlie was making her entrance from the second floor down to the lounge, and each step hit the ground heavier than the last. Unlike the slaps of Camille’s flip-flops, these footfalls were accentuated with the girth of boots, a reflection of the no-nonsense attitude of the woman that wore them. It was merciful only to an extent that the carpet absorbed much of the shock of these giant steps, but hardly did that quench any of Scarlet’s fears as the pair of feet pointed towards the sofa.

“Well, Camille?” Charlie asked. “Where is she?”

“I told you, she was in the bag,” Camille replied, following Charlie downstairs. She pointed to the table, “Over there.”

“I told you to quit fucking with me,” Charlie sighed. “You said she shrunk, but what the hell does that even mean?”

Vivian snorted, and Charlie’s gaze snapped right to her. Despite this, Vivian couldn’t stop herself. “You don’t know what shrunk means, Charlie?”

“I know what it means, smartass, but what does Camille mean? Jesus Christ, is everyone just out to piss me off today?” Charlie pinched the arc of her nose as she stepped closer to the table, unaware that who she was searching for was there at her feet.

“Yo, look out,” Vivian warned. A hand gesture to stop Charlie’s approach turned into a point, down at the floor between them. “Your stompers might end up crushing her if you’re not watching your step.”

Charlie’s fury no longer rose when she was pointed down. If this was a dumb joke, it was worth humoring just so she could unleash on Vivian. But it was no trick, for standing pitifully from the carpet was a tiny woman, gawking up at her like an onlooker would a god -- a chilling feeling that seemed to cool Charlie’s head if only for a moment.

Just as much as Charlie looked down upon Scarlet did Scarlet awe at the bolt of lightning that was in front of her. Two boots capable of flattening garbage trucks stared her down, leading up to a pair of skinny jeans tucked into them. On and on did Charlie’s body continue, not only in height, but in intimidation. She wore an open red jacket which exposed a gray shirt, and framing it together were long locks of jet black hair, not a style to them other than being straightened and parted. Truly Charlie didn’t look like the average sorority type, nor did she try, considering one ear was decorated with steel piercings.

The two were at a standoff, leaving Camille and Vivian tense where they were. Charlie was frozen stiff until a smile thawed from her lips, and then to the rest of her body. The rough posture she exhibited began to relax to a slight slouch, but as comfortable as she was, Scarlet only felt worse.

“Ch-Charlie… S-Something happened, at the library,” Scarlet explained. She had to be the one to break the silence. “And yes, this is real.”

“No shit… Camille wasn’t kidding…” Charlie’s voice was much quieter now, almost out of respect for the tiny being beneath her. “You really did shrink.”

“Yeah. I noticed,” Scarlet grumbled, hoping her size would keep her sarcasm on the downlow. “I need help, Charlie, a-and I don’t know what to do! Do you know anything about this?!”

Charlie crouched so that she sat on her haunches. The pose this struck wasn’t graceful, definitely not so from Scarlet’s angle. The tiny woman could practically feel the weight of the giantess on top of her, and Charlie was already a heavy person. The boots, the jacket, the musculature; “Man, I’d hate to be you,” she chortled. True to what she said, Charlie despised ever feeling small or looked down upon, and inversely, she loved to feel large, powerful, respected.

“I-I hate being me, too,” Scarlet nervously laughed, hoping her tone could sway Charlie more positively. “Right now, anyway. I j-just want to get back to normal, and h-honestly? I’m kinda freaking out, because this is… legit terrifying.”

Charlie smirked brighter, leaning her head into a palm. She was enjoying just having a conversation like this. “Huh? You scared of me? Are you scared of your sisters?” She giggled. “Sorority is all about trust. Shouldn’t you feel safe with us?”

Hell no, Scarlet kept to herself. “That’s… not exactly why I’m scared,” she said. “I-I feel better with you guys! F-For sure! But, can’t you or someone just take me to the hospital?”

“Mmm… I don’t know,” Charlie said, her words drawn out at Scarlet’s expense. “I’m starting to doubt that you really trust Omega Kappa… How about you just prove to me that you’re not actually scared?”

Scarlet shivered, a series of curses spiking her tongue. Her arms dropped to her side in dismay and she swallowed, “What do you want me to do?”

Charlie snickered. “Climb on my boot.” She tapped the right toe, highlighting how sturdy the leather was. With that same finger, she made a trail up the laces, showing off how much taller her footwear was compared to Scarlet’s entire being. “That’s not hard, right?”

“... Why?” Scarlet whined. “Why do I have to do this?”

“Probably best you just do it, dude,” Vivian chipped in. Scarlet looked straight up where Vivian’s face hung with an anticipating grin. Her feet slid over the couch’s edge and sat onto the carpet across from Charlie’s, effectively surrounding Scarlet. “Personally, I could think of way worse things to have you do…”

“That’s true,” Charlie reclaimed Scarlet’s attention, “I could be more creative--”

“Fine! You win! I’ll get on it, that’s all I have to do? I’ll get fucking on it.” Scarlet vented both her stresses and her worries. Confidence took over in the absence of both, and she boldly approached the toe of the boot. She touched it with one hand, then the other, mentally remarking on just how cold the material was. It forced her to hesitate, She really could do anything she wanted to me…

“It won’t bite,” Charlie joked. “I thought you were going to get on?”

“I-I am! Shut up…” Scarlet inhaled to gather herself, but doing so meant huffing in that leather smell. It was too late to not move, so Scarlet hopped up and swung her leg over the toe of the boot. The surface was slick, but the laces proved easy to latch onto, helping her climb up. She only situated herself so far, ending in a position where she was mounted backwards on the toe.

When Scarlet looked up for approval, all she saw in front of her was Charlie’s crotch, a wall of jeans that was just past the pair of boots. Instead, she looked back down at the black leather. “I-I trust you. See? Happy now?”

Charlie stood up to her full height. That motion alone spooked Scarlet, but the movement of the toes within the boot unsettled her even more, feeling the bump of them stretching. “Hm, not quite,” Charlie replied. “Maybe this will make me happier, though.”

Scarlet felt the air above her push her tight against the boot. She was moving, upwards and fast, and in the blur of all this happening, it didn’t register to her that this was a footstep. After rising quickly, just as fast did she feel herself plummeting. She screamed, her grip almost lost from the boot until she scrambled her arms into the laces. The boot landed with a quake-causing thud, and Scarlet’s body was thrown into the toe, a ripple of the shockwave traveling quickly up her frame.

“Ugh! Ch-Charlie! Let me off!” Scarlet cried, but then she was up in the air again, screaming anew. She begged to be put down safely, but her wish came as brutally as it did before; another slam, the boot hitting the floor even faster than before. Scarlet collapsed over the boot, but it wouldn’t be more than a second before she was tense once again, launched up into the air for another step.

All Charlie was doing was pacing around the lounge, yet she was having the most fun she had ever had. She giggled the entire time that Scarlet struggled to hold on, always on the verge of being kicked away -- something Charlie could decide to do at any moment, if she chose. So too did Vivian watch from the couch, leaning off of it so she could peer over the coffee table and better observe the show. Camille stood more passively than the others, but without a doubt did she have some interest in Scarlet’s predicament.

“She’s freaking out so bad,” Charlie teased. “Better keep holding on, Scarlet. You wouldn’t want to end up under one of these.”

“It looks like she’s riding a mechanical bull!” Vivian laughed. “We should be recording this!”

Charlie hummed in tune to that suggestion, but the thought wouldn’t go far. Scarlet could manage no longer, and after one more step, her body rolled off the toe of the boot. Charlie noticed and came to a stop, watching how Scarlet twisted and groaned. Her little body was exhausted from just those few steps, one whole circle around the lounge. Her legs twitched but couldn’t move. Not only were they sore from gripping the boot, but her thighs had developed a horrible chafe from grinding against the leather. If there was any relief to being off of Charlie’s boot, it wasn’t able to be cherished fully.

But she could still speak, and she had much to gripe about. While Charlie and Vivian laughed at her submission, an anger boiled over the top inside Scarlet. “Why the fuck are you doing this?!” she shouted, her breaths plenty and heavy. “Stop laughing at me!”

“Aw, are you gonna cry now, Scarlet?” Charlie snickered, kneeling closer to the shrunken woman. “We’re just playing with you, bitch. Settle down.”

“Yeah, you’d do the same shit to us,” Vivian added. “Probably.”

“See, Scarlet,” Charlie began, “it all comes back to trust. You trusted me to have you on my boot, you got on my boot, and nothin’ happened to you. Yesterday, I trusted you to get Anders Library prepared for us, you procrastinated, and somethin’ happened to you.”

“Oh, oh fuck off,” Scarlet sighed. She grew weary, and a tired arm was flung across her head. “Th-That isn’t fair! None of this is fair!”

“You’re right, it isn’t fair that Camille and Vivian have to set up for the party alone,” Charlie replied. “And it isn’t fair that we have to babysit you, either. But that’s what a sorority is all about, taking care of your sisters.”

Charlie reached down slowly for Scarlet, well aware of how her claw of a hand must look to her. Her nails were long and colored black and red, and they caged around Scarlet without even a fight. She was lifting off again, this time in the palm of her sorority president. In her grasp, Scarlet felt even tinier than usual.

“Wait,” Vivian interrupted, “were you serious about that part with me and Camille…?”

“Yes, I was serious!” Charlie snapped. “The party’s tomorrow, and Omega Kappa is not going to disappoint like we normally do. We’re not going to cancel our plans just because Scarlet here… shrunk or whatever.”

“... Lame.” Vivian rolled back into the couch.

“You’re really… thinking about that stupid party…?” Scarlet shook her head. She had wrangled her arms through Charlie’s fingers, pulling herself up as best as she could on the unsteady platform. “Please, Charlie… Just take me to a hospital. I-I’m sick! I need help!”

“Easy, runt. I will, I will.” But Charlie’s grin told another story. “Later,” she admitted with a giggle, “but you could be useful like this. I’m sure you can stay like this for, you know…a day.”

Scarlet blinked. “A day?!”

“Well, after tomorrow night. I’d hate if you had to miss the party because of this, after all.”

“Melanie said she’d be gone for awhile,” Juniper explained, “so if any of those other women were in that room, she probably took them away. It kinda sounds like she’s not planning on coming back. So… what do we do now?”

Nicky shook her head, one hand swiping at her brow while the other kept the hem of the sock up at her chest. “I don’t know.”

Juniper nodded, looking aimlessly around the room for a silent few seconds. “Do you wanna try smoking?”

“Yes,” Nicky said, “yes please.”

Juniper’s grin flared, though she was bashful about her dumb expression. She stood up off the bed, this time more considerate of the tiny woman in a sock she sat alongside. Her weight was relieved from the mattress gradually, avoiding any unintentional bounces that could shoot Nicky into the air. After having heard her story with Melanie, the last thing Juniper wished for was to cause any more inconvenience or strife; hence why she was so eager to get Nicky to smoke.

The bong, always reliable, was chosen to be used. Juniper filled the bowl with ground weed and obtained a lighter, but froze as she stood over Nicky. She glanced back and forth between her and the bong, which was the height of a house compared to the shrunken woman. “Hm… I think there’s a problem…”

Nicky, who had grown excited for the hit, slumped in despair. Her posture whipped back up when the sock began to slip down her body. “Uhh, well… w-we can still try,” she said, holding firmly onto that shred of optimism that had remained after all this time. “Bring it down here, I’ll just… inhale. Really hard. Can you-- err, w-would you mind, uh, working the lighter for me…?”

Juniper nodded, pitying Nicky’s position. “Sure, but…” Her doubts went unelaborated, instead focusing on the attempt for now. She sat on her knees in front of the bedside Nicky was closest to, then aimed the mouthpiece of the bong at her with a slight angle. The opening was bigger than Nicky’s head, as wide as her shoulders even. “You ready?” she asked, flicking the fire of her lighter.

Before answering, Nicky gazed down the barrel of the bong’s mouthpiece. It would be like smoking from a playground slide, but all that mattered was getting a lungful. Putting her hands along the circular rim, she was amused by what she was about to do. “Yeah, let’s try,” she giggled, putting her head up to, and partially into, the opening.

Juniper then lowered the flame to the green powder, keeping the bong steady. The fire was angled into the bowl, and she heard Nicky breathe, her mouth opened wide for a long, heavy intake. But nothing filled the bong, nor did the water inside ever bubble. Nicky exhaled, having gasped only clean air, but tried again right away. Another huge inhale, which failed to bring up any smoke. Realizing that this would not work, Juniper lowered the bong, but Nicky held onto it insistently.

“L-Let me try again!” Nicky urged, though her strength was no match for Juniper’s. The bong’s mouthpiece was tugged out of her grasp, almost causing her to roll off the bed. Yet, she was more concerned about the bong than she was having nearly fallen. “Come on-- don’t do this to me, man! I-I’m sure I can get it to work…”

“J-Just hold on, for one second,” Juniper chuckled nervously, not having expected such a desperate response. “It’s just weed, no need to get upset...” It was a comment she didn’t think much of, like most of the comments Juniper made, but she comprehended its impact on Nicky. She noticed the life in her drain, as if bearing a major defeat. She grimaced, believing it to be an overreaction to not being able to smoke, but it slowly dawned how vital this simple comfort was to a woman that had, allegedly at least, endured through so much.

Juniper flicked the lighter to life again, this time using it for her own hit. Nicky watched with unabashed envy, crossing her arms in such a way that she hugged the sock’s hem to her chest. From beneath Juniper, she could only watch as bubbles popped rapidly within the glass bulb, gray smoke filling the chamber just as it should. Juniper inhaled, moved the bong away from her mouth, and then exhaled into the air above the bed.

“Is this seriously all I get?” Nicky whined quietly, twisting in her sock as she gazed up at the cloud overhead. By the time it was falling over her, the smoke had dissipated into a fog too thin to be worthwhile. She frowned harshly, finding this situation to be a cruel joke -- “I just want to smoke…”

“Well, go for it,” Juniper suggested, her voice raspy from the hit. Nicky turned back to the edge of the bed, where the mouthpiece was waiting for her. She hobbled closer and gazed at the smoke that had been left behind, a fair amount that hadn’t been inhaled, its warmth softly touching Nicky’s cheeks. The odor stung her nostrils, but that familiar scent was more alluring than foul. She grabbed the rim and leaned over the mouthpiece, seemingly tickling Juniper who felt the little bit of weight lean on her bong.

Overcoming her hesitations, Nicky inhaled. Her eyes immediately widened by the successful breath, tearing up at the corners as she lunged away. She exhaled directly into a cough, the smoke she had taken spewing from her mouth in bursts. Juniper leaned in quickly, but kept a safe distance between her and Nicky. The little woman tripped over her sock and fell forward, alerting Juniper even worse, but a tiny hand flailed at her, gesturing her away. Juniper raised a brow as Nicky gradually recovered, occasionally still slipping into a cough.

“I-I’m… fine, d-don’t worry,” Nicky said, not facing Juniper as she flailed an arm in her direction. “Ohh, jeez… That was… big… I couldn’t even take a full breath…”

Juniper’s worries whittled and her slouch forward relaxed. “So it worked?”

“I mean... “ Nicky sat there on her knees and one arm, the other making feeble attempts at grabbing the sock back up to her breasts. She shook her head, then rolled over onto her side like a lazy dog. “I mean, yeah, I think it did. My throat is one fire, though…”

“Sounds like it,” Juniper snickered. “Besides that, err, do you feel good? You know… um. High?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Nicky panted, “I’m… getting there. I’m definitely…” Her lips moved like saying words, but if anything had been said, Juniper didn’t hear it. Nicky curled into the sock like a sleeping bag, the arm she had used to wave at Juniper now tossed over her head aimlessly. A wide smile stretched across her face, bright enough that even Juniper could see.

“Seems like it’s working pretty good.” Juniper matched her smile, feeling the effects of the weed herself. She carefully rested an arm on the bed’s edge, leaning against it without disturbing Nicky. Finding the scene so surreal, she shook her head, “I can’t believe I’m not imagining this. I’m really toking it up with some little tiny person.”

Nicky winced. The relief and wonder that filled her system was combated by the dread and fatigue of so much trauma, rekindled by Juniper’s words. Emotions fumbled into one another while she stuttered up what was once an argument, then a plea, but ultimately became a question. She coughed, then spoke up, “Juniper… What are you gonna do? I-I don’t-- wh-what I mean is, with me… What are we going to…?”

“I… I don’t know that one, buddy,” Juniper replied, glancing elsewhere out of nervousness. She swallowed, remembering the history between Nicky and Melanie that had been explained to her. “I can take you anywhere, but, like, I dunno what would happen to you, you know? You know, you might get… I dunno. Hurt?”

“Yeah…” Nicky nodded, too weakly to even be noticed. “I’m aware…”

“So if you’d rather, like…If you wanna stay here with me, I wouldn’t mind. Like, until we find a way to… uh… cure? You?”

Nicky’s body chilled over, as though her nude body was not blanketed by the sock. She bit her lip and asked, “You wouldn’t let her find me? She’s your roommate…”

Juniper scoffed with a confident smile. “I wouldn’t let her hurt you, dude. I wouldn’t let anything hurt you! You’re so small, dude, I’d keep you safe all the time.” She nodded encouragingly, though it resulted in her head collapsing onto the mattress in a display of dizziness. “I’d keep you in my pocket and you’d always be close to me! Someone else would have to, like, get into my pockets. You know? And then find you. And I don’t let Melanie in my pants -- ugh,” she grimaced, but bubbled over with a laugh, “I wouldn’t ever let Melanie in my pants. Motherfucker looks like she crawled out of a TV.”

To that, Nicky whistled with a haggard laugh of her own. She rustled under the sock’s fabric, warm enough to move again with heavy motions. “Okay, but… I-I don’t know about being in a pocket… all the time…”

“Nah, not all the time, of course not,” Juniper hurried to explain, not wanting to leave any doubts. “I just mean, like, I can hide you easily. Like, anywhere.”

“Not in the back of your pants!” Nicky shuddered, remembering how she had been stashed there minutes ago. The view of Juniper’s ass rocking with every step was still a vivid and humiliating memory. But, after having spoken up for her comfort, she huddled back into the sock, reflexively worrying over the repercussions of talking back.

“I won’t, I won’t~ Not unless it’s an emergency like last time,” Juniper assured her. “Or, if you ask for it. Politely.”

“Please…” Nicky shook her head, giggling when she wanted to restrain herself. “I do not want to be all… up in your ass again…”

“You sound so disgusted. I’ve got an amazing butt, you know. You’re just, like, too tiny to appreciate it.”

Both laughed at each other’s sense of humor, only taming their amusement when their eyes met from their collapsed positions on the bed. A peaceful silence was prolonged until Nicky chirped with a request, “Can I… have another hit…?”

Police arrived that following morning. They combed Melanie’s room for evidence and questioned Juniper for any information about her whereabouts or activities. Through them, Juniper learned that Melanie had gone missing -- one of three women that disappeared in just one night, added to the ever-growing list of victims. From this, Juniper concluded that trouble had finally caught up to Melanie and her hexed schemes. Something had happened to her, or perhaps she had moved away; in any case, Juniper withheld what she knew. It was not so much to honor Melanie’s last request, as much as it was to keep herself uninvolved.

Thus began a major shift in Juniper’s life. Deciding it to be too dangerous between the police’s search for Melanie and, of course, Melanie herself, she packed up her few belongings and moved. Many students began dropping out or transferring to different schools after the dean’s abduction, and Juniper was one of them, riding that excuse to smoothly get away from the chaos. Her lease was successfully ended early, and by the end of the week, she was out of the apartment and onto a new, temporary home.

White fences and green lawns evenly spaced out the rows of pastel-colored homes. It was a suburb as bright as the unhindered sun overhead, every house a stunning example of middle-class luxury. It was a peaceful neighborhood where a group of children could happily play in the street, at least until a banged-up night-blue car drove up their road and urged them aside. The vehicle stood out and confused the kids, because no vehicle in such disrepair had ever rolled through their neighborhood.

Juniper turned into a cul-de-sac and parked along its curve, just outside a green-painted home. “Yep. This is definitely Marine’s crib,” she said, pointing up at the home. It looked exactly as she remembered from Marine’s engagement photo online, where she and her fiance smiled at the camera in front of a white-rose bush. “Ugh... Tacky, isn’t it?”

She spoke to Nicky, who sat atop the dashboard, wearing a doll’s shirt like a gown. A divet above the console allowed her a safe place to sit, just beside a hip-shaking hula dancer toy that was just slightly shorter than her. After parking, Nicky walked up to the glass of the window and leaned against it, awing at the home they would be staying in. Two storeys, a two-car garage, a patio with its own miniature garden, and a welcome wreath on the front door. “Is that a bird bath?” Nicky asked, pointing at one in the back corner of the yard. “Aw, this place is so… cozy!”

“You think so?” Juniper asked, taking the keys out of the ignition. “It looks empty. Like no one even lives here.”

“It’s cute~” Nicky laughed, glancing at Juniper’s reflection. “I’ll admit, it’s not really our style, huh. You said this was your cousin though, right?”

“Yeah~ my cousin,” Juniper chuckled. She pocketed a few items and then opened the door, instinctively surveying the area for any onlookers. “Sort of. My mom and her mom are best friends. They raised us together as far back as I can remember.”

“Oh. So you’re not cousins.”

“No but I thought we were til I was, like, eleven.” Juniper offered a hand for Nicky to climb into, smiling as she waited. “And she was fourteen and also didn’t know, so that’s like, way more embarrassing.”

“Weird relationship,” Nicky commented as she stepped into the palm and steadied herself. With her in hand, Juniper exited the vehicle and closed the door with a push from her waist. “But it does sound nice, having a childhood friend even up to now. It’s really kind of her to let us stay here.”

“Well… me, not us,” Juniper corrected. She marched up the patio steps and up to the front door, knocking on it with the blunt side of her fist. “She doesn’t know about my little buddy.”

“Uh… She will know if you keep me out like this.” Nicky gestured to herself, held out in the open between Juniper and the door. Realizing her error, Juniper frantically thought of how to hide her shrunken friend, and thus deposited Nicky into the wide pocket of her raggedy hoodie. Nicky squeaked from being tossed in so hastily, but Juniper couldn’t apologize before the front door was opening.

Nickly fumbled into the pocket’s middle, but froze still when she heard a greeting from what had to be Marine. “Juniper!” was cheered with a pleasant tone. What Nicky thought was a warm welcome was immediately followed up by a tight squeeze, the walls around her closing in without warning. Nicky gasped inaudibly from her muffled position, caught between two massive bodies that had collided in a hug.

“Marine~!” Juniper giggled, reciprocating the affection equally and without regards to the tiny woman. Only seconds into the hug did she remember Nicky and finally separate from Marine. “I-It’s been too long!”

“Oh, Juniper… You smell awful.”

“Wow. Like what?”

“Like weed…”

Nicky was relieved to be unpinned from the hug, but she was still bothered by her curiosity, unsatiated inside the pocket. She carefully crawled around the fabric tunnel, only wanting a glimpse of what Juniper’s “cousin” was like, and then she found a window for exactly that. A ray of light seeped in from a tiny rip, just big enough for Nicky to spy from. She gazed outside where a wall of clean white fabric immediately greeted her. It was a frill-ended blouse that she saw, a casual outfit alongside a sleek pair of jeans that popped with their maroon color. A healthy light surrounded Marine, emphasized by her straight black hair and neatly-fixed glasses. It wasn’t what Nicky expected, but the thrill of eavesdropping on anyone was enough to make her grin and shuffle eagerly.

Juniper walked into the house proper, invited in by Marine’s motion. She chuckled shortly to Marine’s accusation, “Yeah, do I? Sorry. My car sort of stinks.”

“Does it stink because you smoke weed in it?” Marine asked, propping her hands onto her hips as Juniper strolled inside. “That’s one reason it could smell like weed. You didn’t bring any of that with you, right? Because I said--”

“Marine!” Juniper laughed. “I literally have taken only three steps into your home. I know what you said! No drugs! It’s just a smell, it’s hard to get out.”

Marine rolled her eyes as she closed the front door with her back against it. Despite her concern, she still smiled brightly -- while grabbing a can of air freshener positioned nearby. “I know how you are… I have to make sure. There’s four cops that live in this neighborhood, you know.”

“I would have guessed more than that,” Juniper grumbled, a comment hidden under Marine’s spraying. She absorbed the interior of the home, already lost in the spectacle that was a well-decorated entry hall and dining area. “I’m looking to avoid trouble, ya’ know, not cause any more of it. Just show me my room and you won’t even know I’m here.”

Marine nodded as she approached and then led Juniper to a flight of stairs. “It’s crazy what’s going on down there,” she remarked at the first step. “I know you’ve been through a lot, so I don’t want you to feel like a stranger. It’s just a few simple rules to follow.” She glanced down at Juniper when she reached the turnpoint of the stairs, noticing an expression that was less than amused. “C’mon, Juniper. I’m not a dictator over here. We’re not kids anymore, we don’t get grounded for having narcotics, we get thrown in jail.”

“I get it, I get it,” Juniper sighed, digging her hands into her hoodie pocket. Nicky, having already been bounced up and down with each rising footstep, was ambushed by their arrival, finding herself cramped between them. Though she meant to lean away from them, the fingers came for her, searching for just a little contact, like pets wanting attention. “Like ya’ said, we’re not kids anymore. Don’t need to talk to me like one.”

“Sorry~” Marine muttered her apology upon reaching the second floor. Around a hall’s bend took the two to a shorter flight of stairs up to the loft. It was a wide space with a short ceiling that matched the angles of the roof. Spare furniture spruced the area up into being a fair guest bedroom, but there was still only a bed, a dresser, a body mirror, and a pyramid of boxes. Juniper was welcomed first into the room expected to be her’s, with Marine waiting at the door. “So… here it is! I know it’s not exactly the Cosmopolitan, but it’s better than my office or the living room sofa.”

Juniper took to the center of the room, looking to the featureless corners and then out the lone, circular window above the bed. She nodded lightly, “It looks comfortable. Thanks, Mari--”

By surprise, Marine pulled her friend into a hug from behind. Her fingers weaved together in front of Juniper, reeling her in by the stomach. Once again, Nicky was pushed around by Marine’s affection, this time strangled by her unknowing grip around Juniper’s waist. Nicky tried to pry herself free, but without wanting to risk detection, she had to endure the constriction until the embrace culminated in one last squeeze. Nicky gasped for air as Juniper turned with a warm expression.

“I was worried about you!” Marine said, half-laughing from her unsettled nerves. “I’d hate for you to get wrapped up into anything else. You should try to relax while you’re here.”

“I’m sure I’ll get enough relaxation,” Juniper giggled, trying to aim her bashfulness away. “Well… Thanks again for this. I knew you’d have my back.”

“I always do.” Marine stepped backwards out of the loft, pointing her thumb downstairs. “I’ll go grab your things from the car while you settle in. You said you brought everything you have?”

“Yeah, so,” Juniper scoffed as she fell into a seat at the bed’s edge, “two bags of stuff.”

“Oh.” Marine’s fingers rolled in taps along the door frame. “Uh, okay then. That’s less trips than I expected…”

Marine was away, closing the door behind her. Juniper listened to her footsteps drum quieter down the stairs until they could be heard no longer. A hefty sigh was unpacked then, and Juniper collapsed backwards onto the mattress with a notable bounce, her arms splayed out over her head. The impact was enough to toss Nicky up and over her own head, eventually tumbling into a crawl outside the pocket. She first poked her head out stealthily, then continued to creep out from hiding until she was situated on top of the pocket, facing a blanket-like plain that was Juniper’s belly.

“Juniper? You tired?” Nicky asked, waving up at the distant face as if gesturing to someone across a parking lot. She began a slow approach up the torso, taking in her surroundings. There wasn’t much to see, yet the scale of everything was guaranteed to impress Nicky on some level.

“Yep,” Juniper dismissed tersely, closing her eyes while her hands tucked under her head. “Long drive…”

“I dunno. I think it’s more than that.” Nicky climbed atop the mound that was Juniper’s chest underneath the hoodie. She sat on her knees, balanced there in the middle with a clear view of her friend’s face. “It’s about Marine, I guess? To be honest, you two seem… different.”

Juniper rolled her eyes. “Yeah… I forgot how much of a tight-ass she could be. I figured she would have grown out of that by now.” She huffed at the ceiling, as if that was where Nicky looked down at her from. “I thought college would make her a little less of a straight-edge, but all that did to her was give her some science degree.”

“Yeah~ I’m sort of surprised you, of all people, would be friends with someone like, uh, this.” Nicky scratched her head, not intending to sound rude about such a gracious host. “She said no weed… You didn’t tell me about that. I just kinda assumed anyone you moved in with would be--”

“Well not anyone,” Juniper groaned, sudden enough that Nicky nearly rolled backwards off her chest. She winced as an apology, a hand taken near to Nicky though it was not necessary. “Sorry, but like, she’s all I got. And I didn’t tell you ‘cuz… it won’t be a problem.”

Nicky glared at her after finding her balance again. “Will it not be?” she questioned, smirking playfully. “She already smelled your wake-and-bake from this morning. You think you can smoke in her attic?”

“Bro, I’ve got years of experience smoking where I’m not supposed to be smoking. Just ask Marine.” Juniper’s smile was a relief, her emotions uplifted if only marginally, thanks to Nicky’s presence. “Besides… I figured if I have to hide you all the time, I might as well hide an ounce from her, too.”

Nicky laughed and stretched out atop Juniper’s breasts, but the sound of footsteps rising up the stairs severed the mood. In a rush to cease their conversation and hide the tiny woman on top of her, Juniper flipped around hastily onto her stomach. Nicky argued in the brief window of time there was before she was covered by the giant body, squashed between the plush mattress and the heavy chest. Juniper ignored the kicking and squirming that tickled her, pretending nothing was amiss as she blankly stared out the window.

Marine was then at the door, peeking into the loft. “Keys?”

Without rising from her spot, Juniper dug into her pockets, retrieved the keys, and then chucked them towards the door. Marine was open to catch them, but they were instead thrown into the wall next to her. “Keys,” Juniper chimed a second after the clang. Marine nervously giggled as she plucked the keys from the floor and headed back downstairs. Only when her steps were faraway again did Juniper lift herself off of Nicky, staring down at her with an apologetic grimace. “I-I was in a hurry…”

Nicky whined, both her hair and doll’s dress tossed over her messily as she writhed in the wrinkles of the bed sheet. “I guess it’s good you brought that ounce,” she said, “because I’m gonna need it…”

Within the week, Juniper had nestled into her temporary home, grown accustomed to the schedule of Marine’s life. Her worry that she might get in her childhood friend’s way or disrupt her routine rarely turned into an issue, as Marine was a particularly busy woman. She would disappear for long hours working at labs, and even when she was home, it was rare to catch her outside of her home office or not wrapped up in some other chore. Whenever she was gone, the house belonged to Juniper; Marine’s fiance worked out of state, and their ever-nearing wedding was yet another plan that preoccupied her.

Of course, that loneliness was exactly what Juniper had wished for. She swiftly memorized Marine’s schedule, and to her fortune, there were plenty of opportunities where her and Nicky could smoke without worry. It was best when Marine was off at work, giving the pair a ten-hour shift’s worth of time to relax. Their sessions were not as carefree as they had been at the apartments, and several precautions had to be taken to ensure the scent did not attach itself to the loft. The window would be cracked open, all exhales would be done through a homemade filter, and air freshener would be abused to cover up the odor as much as possible. All in all, every effort seemed to work, as Marine hadn’t once made note of any suspicion.

However, even Marine’s generosity had its limits, and she made it clear that she could not fully fund a new mouth to feed. Juniper had to get a job to make up the difference, and she was able to quickly secure one at a local convenience store. It would be enough to get by, but it introduced a change Nicky had not been prepared for. For the first time since her escape from Melanie’s desk, she would have to face the gigantic world completely alone, lasting until Juniper returned from work.

Juniper had left in a hurry, gone without a word. Nicky was abandoned in the middle of the bed, naked -- she hid herself under a pulled-up tug of the sheet, but the cold brought mad shivers down her bare back. The room was pitch dark, as if hours past when Juniper should have been home. Maybe, Nicky worried, she wouldn’t come back, and so she was trapped in the open, staring at the door without the reach to do anything else.

And then, the door opened. Nicky jumped back, failing to pull the sheet any higher up her body, her gaze focused forward. “J-Juniper…” she whispered, expecting her to appear from the door’s crack, hoping she was actually there, praying it could not be anyone else. But the emerald eyes struck her like lightning, paralyzing her after one sudden jolt of shakes. Beyond the darkness was even darker hair, long and messy, and a cunning smile that sliced through the empty room. It was not an unfamiliar face, but that of Melanie, creeping into the loft.

“Nicky…~ You got away from me…~” Melanie sang as she entered, footsteps too light to even make creaks from the floorboard. “Did you think I wouldn’t find you? Are you really that dumb of a toy?”

Nicky was frozen but in how she shivered, naked in the blizzard that was Melanie’s presence. She shook her head, she knew she got away so long ago, she knew Melanie was gone -- every footfall said differently. Horrors of before flashed to mind between every subsequent footstep approaching her. She bit her lip hard, deciding then that she would refuse that fate, just like she did before. In a panic, Nicky scrambled to her feet and ran opposite of Melanie, stumbling over the wrinkles of the sheet but refusing to trip. In that same direction, she ran as fast as she could, feeling Melanie’s breath approach from behind, closer and closer.

Suddenly, the bed was no more, and it was the windowsill that she was at the edge of. Nicky gasped, blinking rapidly until the bed was no longer seen under her feet. Instead, what she stared down into was the long drop to the floor. It had been a nightmare, one she awoke from only after having dashed into a sprint from where she had laid on the windowsill up to its very edge.

Nicky wobbled from the sudden stop, still comprehending the dream she had been lost in. Her foot slipped, for she was standing atop a few dollar bills Juniper had set down that evening. When one dollar was kicked off the edge, the rest of the change followed, dragging Nicky down with them. She flipped around in a gasp, reaching for anything to grab and stop the fall, but the nothingness at her feet riled her into a scream.

The fall was brief, cut short by a safety net. Nicky clasped her beating heart, twisting and turning out of intense worry, but it dawned on her that she was safe. Juniper’s hand caught her, though her legs slipped through the fingers and her body curled into the palm in an unflattering way. At least she was still dressed in doll’s clothes, better than being naked and three-inches tall.

While catching her breath, Nicky was raised back up to the bedside. She clung to Juniper’s hand, whose groggy expression was in great contrast to the fluster she now held. “Hey, hey...” Juniper muttered, trying to calm Nicky down. “What happened? What’s gotten into you?”

“Me-Melanie…!” Nicky stuttered, swallowing twice before she could say the name. She immediately was washed with a wave mixed with relief and anxiety, glancing around the loft for any worrisome silhouettes. Unable to steady her breathing, she struggled to elaborate, “Sh-She walked into the loft after you-- you went to work, a-and she was-- I was alone, Juniper, sh-she was just… g-going to take me again!”

Juniper quietly hushed her, gesturing with a free finger to try and ease Nicky. “I-It’s all good, there’s nothing going on,” she assured her, reeling her in more closely. “You had a nightmare. Just a bad dream. L-Look, right?” She nodded to the rest of the room, illuminated enough by the window to reveal that no one was nearby.

Nicky agreed, seeing for herself that she was in no danger, certainly not by Melanie’s hand. Yet, her skin constantly itched as though that were the case. The image of that sinister woman was branded into her mind, but Juniper’s comforting strokes helped dispel those haunting memories.

“I’m… sorry, heh,” Nicky sighed, repositioning herself in Juniper’s hand. “I don’t know what came over me. I… I had to run…”

Juniper giggled, much of it muffled as it was aimed into the bed. She shifted so that she could return Nicky to the windowsill, where a washcloth had been folded into a bed. Just beside it was Juniper’s pipe, their go-to tool for convenient smoking in Marine’s house. Juniper looked to it and the view outside, greeted by a calm and motionless night. “Maybe a hit would calm you down,” she suggested, already reaching for the pipe. “Help you sleep.”

Nicky crawled into her makeshift bed, but was perked up by the offer to smoke. She weighed it over in her head, then giggled, “Mmmmaybe that would help…”

Warm beams of light stirred Nicky awake, luring her into the day with a gentle pull -- but the slamming and stamping happening away from her did more to jolt her up. She used a corner of the washcloth to shield herself from the daylight, looking across the loft to understand what the ruckus was about. Juniper was dashing back and forth across the room, dressed in a uniform that was so freshly unpackaged, its creases were still visible. The front had not yet been buttoned up, allowing her bra-covered chest to hang out as she dug through piles of clothes.

“Juniper?” Nicky asked groggily, flinching when a stray beam of sun struck her eye. “Ung… What time is it? It’s so bright…”

“Noon,” Juniper spat. “Almost, anyway. Shit. Where the hell is that name tag, man? I thought I freakin’ had it…”

“The one on your shirt?” Nicky asked, pointing up at what clung to Juniper’s uniform. Juniper noticed, groaned, then began fixing up the rest of her outfit. Nicky laughed, “You look adorable in that uniform.”

Juniper rolled her eyes, “I hope my boss thinks the same thing so they don’t realize I’m late.” She swung her purse over her shoulder, still grabbing small items to stuff it with. “On my first day… I knew I should’ve set an alarm…”

“You didn’t set--? Oh, Juniper,” Nicky sighed, but wasn’t able to resist laughing a bit at Juniper’s misfortune. Her mundane amusement, however, faded fast after remembering that Juniper would be leaving her, all alone. Worse yet was that because of Juniper’s tardiness, Nicky had even less time to mentally prepare, or even say goodbye. Moments after she had woken up, Juniper was fully dressed and on her way out the door.

“Okay, wish me luck that this job doesn’t suck ass,” Juniper said over her shoulder, offering a wave as she went through the door frame. “I’ll be back in a few hours. See ya’.”

Nicky stuttered, wishing to say more or, better yet, keep Juniper at home. Fingers curled wanting to reach for her, but she was only able to squeak out her own farewell and wave. The door closed behind Juniper, and Nicky listened to each step drum down the stairs, listened to the front door beneath the loft be opened, and listened to her car cough up into life. Nicky gazed out the window, hand against the glass as she confirmed Juniper’s leave.

The house belonged to Nicky, or at least, what little of it she had access to. She had only to occupy herself for one short shift of work, but at her size, there were few options to fill that time. She could travel to the foot of the bed and back up to the windowsill, and nowhere else. Juniper had been considerate and left out a bag of cheese-flavored chips for Nicky to pick from, but snacks made for an unsatisfying breakfast. Yet, despite also lacking an appetite, Nicky was drawn towards the food. There was no other way to spend her time.

Minutes trickled by uneventfully into hours. After one lap around the bed, Nicky had seen it all, and she collapsed near the bag of chips with a great sigh. Juniper needs to leave me with something to do, she thought, staring up at the ceiling. It was a thought she dwelled on in the silence, nothing else available to occupy her mind. The emptiness of the boredom riddled her with anxiety, reminded of an atmosphere that was similarly dreary and strange. When she belonged to Melanie, there was equally a lack of anything to do but wallow in despair, waiting for her fickle captor to decide on a game to play. To that, she smiled and shook her head. “Anything is better than that…”

Just as Nicky rolled onto her side to possibly nap the rest of the time away, there was an abrupt knock at the bedroom door, a light series of taps that barely made a noise. Instantly, Nicky perked up onto her knees, hunched forward and ready to run like a wild animal. She held her ground, but dashed into hiding when the door opened a crack. She scuttled inside of the chip bag and froze, limiting how much noise she made with the foil.

But who was entering? Nicky was confident it couldn’t be Juniper, who would normally just charge through the door without warning. Curious to discover who, Nicky allowed only the tiniest glance to peek over the bag, watching the door as it opened. A voice chimed in, “Juniper…? Are you home?” It was Marine, Nicky realized with some relief. The question, then, was what her purpose for coming up was.

Marine snuck into the room on her tip-toes, only ever opening the door as wide as it needed to let herself in. She asked once more, “Juniper? D-Did you have any clothes to wash? I was going… to…” Her words trailed off as she learned the room was empty, with evidence of Juniper having rushed out some time ago. She paused in the middle of the loft with her arms crossed, leaving Nicky in heart-thumping suspense.

A moment of nothing passed, then Marine swayed over to the dresser, her gaze along the clothes-covered floor finding her nothing she was in search of. She sifted through the items on top, but soon after dropped to a knee and opened up the first cabinet. She said nothing as she dug through Juniper’s belongings, careful enough to not disorganize anything too obviously. Nicky crept further out from hiding, appalled by what she was observing. This break of privacy had only one explanation: Marine was searching for Juniper’s weed.

What the fuck is her problem?! Nicky wondered. Does she not trust Juniper? Or, does she already know she’s been smoking…? Shit, this ain’t good.

She wished to pass the message onto Juniper, but there was no way to do that. Instinctively, she looked to the pillows where Juniper rested her head, but there at the windowsill was a surprising find. Left behind from their midnight session was the pipe, only ashes within its bowl, but its existence alone would be damning enough evidence. If Marine spotted it, Juniper would get kicked out for sure -- Nicky refused to see her savior be ruined in such a way.

Marine grunted in disappointment as she moved onto the second drawer, ripping it open to similarly messy results. Nicky knew her window was small and shrinking; she would have to sprint to the windowsill, hide the pipe, and then hide herself. She imagined it happening too easily, only acknowledging the consequences passively. I’ll be lightning quick, she told herself as she stealthily left the chip bag and took cover behind a fold of blanket. She licked her lips, glanced once more at Marine, then made a mad dash forward.

Not being the athletic sort, it was not long before Nicky was panting from the effort. Each step bounced up from the plush ground, making her sprint all the more difficult; she tripped often, but would instantly leap back to her feet, always mindful of what Marine was doing. The third and final drawer had been opened, and Nicky had only just reached the hill-sized pillows, throwing her body into their softness before committing to the climb.

From the pillows, Nicky could walk right across to the windowsill. Such a step was simple, but the next was a puzzle. She had made it to the pipe, but what was she to do with it? It hadn’t occurred to her in such stress that she wouldn’t be able to merely pocket the pipe and have it be hidden. It was big to her, comparable to a gatling gun but fortunately much lighter with its glass material. Its weight would offer little benefit, however, as the problem was finding any place to hide it, and with time constantly ticking. The cabinet was closing -- Marine would be looking elsewhere any second.

With only so many possible options, Nicky rushed to the most convincing solution. She hugged the pipe up into her arms, then stumbled in the direction of the pillows -- specifically, the head of the bed. She hurried down the pillows and to the crevice between them, dragging the pipe behind her between the cushiony walls. Footsteps alerted Nicky of Marine being on the move, so as quickly as she could, she flung the pipe forward and into the space between the mattress and the wall. So frantically was this completed, Nicky threw herself onto the mattress in the same motion, gasping as the pipe dropped into the valley. She winced preemptively, realizing an error she could do nothing about--

Dink-dink-dink. Glass bounced off the wall and the railing of the bed’s base, succumbing to a dull thud at the floorboards. Nicky closed her eyes and held her breath, but the footsteps she listened to had halted. She could imagine it there between the pillows, Marine turning in her direction. As expected, the next steps resonated through Nicky, approaching where she was hidden. Her heart raced, caught without many places to duck away.

“... Juniper?” Marine asked, leaning in towards the bed. “Or rats? Which is it?” She smirked at her own joke, unaware that there was any audience. She crept onto the bed on her knees, edging further to the pillows. What she had heard undoubtedly came from behind the mattress, and to prove it, she plucked up the pillows and revealed what was under them.

Marine squinted -- not at the nothingness under the pillows, but the gap between the bed and the wall. Her eyes widened and she tossed the pillows behind her, her interest focused on that space. “Don’t tell me she still…” she muttered, crawling up to the space so she could dig into it.

Nicky dizzily lifted her head, her arms feeling at the wrinkles of blanket around her in a daze. When she had guessed correctly that Marine would look under the pillows, Nicky put all her faith in clinging to the underside. She was thus picked up and tossed aside to the foot of the bed, flung off the pillow after its first bounce and launched into the middle. As part of her senses settling from the sudden flight, she realized a tights-clad foot was sliding towards her. Without delay, Nicky flipped onto her feet and dodged being kicked away, finding herself stranded between Marine’s legs. The giant’s rear-end was raised overhead, forming an archway that went under the looming body bent forward. Marine must have returned from work not long ago, for she was still dressed in office-appropriate attire; this included a pencil skirt, which blissfully revealed to Nicky the ass that was suspended in the air, hugged by tights that stretched with every motion.

That same ass then began a rapid descent. Nicky gasped and scrambled away, narrowly avoiding being pinned under Marine’s rear. She was not completely safe, as the weight pressed into the mattress formed a pit that drew Nicky towards it. She stumbled and fell, rolling directly into Marine’s rear but pushing away from it immediately. Scared to death that she would be discovered, Nicky looked to the sky, expecting a titanic face to lock onto her.

But Marine did not twist around after rising up. Rather, she had found what she was looking for, giggling at the prize in her possession. “It’s like we’re still kids,” she mumbled. “This might have fooled your mom… Never fooled me, though.”

Nicky gasped when the grand weight in front of her then flew into the air. She shielded herself, wary of the leg that was then thrown over her and off the bed. After the mattress finally stopped shifting from Marine’s departure, Nicky balanced herself and gazed up at the giant. Marine turned towards the door, still cherishing what she had taken; the pipe, and a glass jar half-filled with green buds. All of Juniper’s weed now rested underneath Marine’s grin.

Fuck! Fuck me! Nicky whined, restless with her inability to change course -- Juniper had never revealed to her where she kept the weed hidden. She first ducked behind one of the tossed pillows, peering past its corner to keep an eye on Marine. Everything was crumbling apart, so she felt. Her attempts at saving Juniper from punishment had only lured Marine directly to the motherload. She could only watch Marine helplessly, left to imagine how she would explain this to Juniper and where the two of them would even go afterwards.

But Nicky had expected a more volatile reaction, which earned additional concern. Marine had not rushed down in a rage after finding a jar of weed; no angered phone call, not even a hiss or shake of her head. She kept smiling, glancing about nervously, only making an idle turn to look over the room once more. Her eyes lit up -- she found a lighter, and excitedly plucked it off from the floor where it had been dropped.

The following scene was surreal for Nicky to observe, as though cast into a dream. Working from the dresser, Marine opened the jar and pinched from it powder-like scraps from the bottom. She loaded the empty bowl with that meager amount, her lip bitten in suspense and her heel tapping nervously. Once prepared, Marine gave her handiwork a look over, nodded, and equipped the lighter with her other hand. Nicky blinked, but the scene played out as normal; Marine lit the green and inhaled lightly.

A series of horrid coughs instantly followed. Smoke erupted from Marine’s mouth as she gagged, hunched forward with an embarrassing, red-faced expression. She groaned in between haggard coughs, turning around where she stood as if having been punched in a boxing ring. Nicky would have laughed if she had not been so astonished. She’s smoking Juniper’s weed, she realized, and… she’s not even good at it.

Nicky was paralyzed with fascination. She had come to know Marine as a straight-edge authoritarian, but that character had blatantly been broken in the privacy of Juniper’s room. The image before her was unlike anything she imagined of Marine, still dressed neatly in professional attire yet keeling over from coughing, the bowl still smoldering. In her hacking fit, Marine accidentally tipped the pipe too far, and a layer of green spilled from it to the floor. Marine gasped and kicked at what fell, creating a scene that tripped Nicky into a bout of laughter.

“... J-Juniper?” Marine was suddenly still the next time Nicky looked at her. All motion in the room had slowed to a stop. There was no more coughing, and no more laughing. It struck Nicky with a delayed effect, that her eyes were being met with Marine’s. So carelessly, Nicky had revealed herself, unmistakably caught under Marine’s baffled expression. Nicky couldn’t move, but Marine inched forward, clutching the pipe and lighter between both hands. Her knees bent, but she hesitated to be near the tiny woman any closer than that. “... Who are you…?”