Chloe was thrown into a dark alien world. This night was getting crazier by the minute. First she had witnessed an impossibly tiny man squashed like a grape, and now she was teleported into another realm entirely. She could still hear the music thumping so she must be somewhere near the club. Before her was an impossibly tall black wall that looked like rubber until about 10 feet up and seemed to stretch forever in all directions. The rubber wall was marked all over with gray streaks.

Confused, she turned around and all of her questions were answered and replaced with more questions. Her heart skipped a beat and her blood went ice cold. Before here, as if right out of a fairy tale, were purple and white bus-sized sneakers. One of the sneakers began to tap its toe with the beat and that's when Chloe realized just how bleak her situation was. She looked beyond the pale legs in front of her and saw dozens of similar titanic beings jumping and swaying, but they looked so far away, like a moving mountain range.

She turned her attention back to the shoes in front of her and saw that the white walls of the sneaker were flecked with brown or red paint and every time the giant before her tapped her foot, she got a glimpse of more of the paint on the sole of the toe. Images of the tiny man she had seen minutes before flashed in her mind and she became sick to her stomach.

Was it her turn to be mercilessly squashed now? Chloe felt a panic attack coming on and wanted to curl up in a ball and wait for this nightmare to end. But she shook her head and took a deep breath. She had to survive, however impossible that may seem.

She knew that the giant woman before her was waiting for her to look up, likely so she could savor the fear in her eyes, but Chloe would give her no satisfaction. She immediately bolted to her right, running as fast as her now pea-sized cork wedges would take her. If she could only make it around the corner, she could sprint across the hallway and slip under the back-door to freedom.

Chloe was making excellent headway. Her heart was pounding louder than the bass and the hundreds of massive stomping feet on the dance floor. She couldn't believe it. She was going to escape and outrun an actual giant. As she was about to take the corner, she hit a purple and white wall that wasn't there a second ago.

She sat up, having the wind knocked out of her, and wiped her now bloody nose. Blocking her path was the giant woman's left foot. Chloe did not hesitate to get back on her feet. There was still some wiggle room between her toe and the rubber baseboard, but as if the giant woman could read her mind, she slid her shoe forward so the toe sealed Chloe's only escape route.

It was time for plan B. Chloe whipped around and started running along the wall in the other direction toward the dark corner of the room. Perhaps there would be a crack or crevice she could slip into to escape. She grimly expected to run directly into another stomping purple sneaker but this time, the giantess calmly pivoted her foot against the rubber of the wall and slowly slid the toe of her sole against the rubber, making a shrill squeak sound.

The way was one again shut as Chloe slowly came to a stop. It was time to face the music. She was a varsity sprinter in college and could virtually run all night but the giant woman had made her point that she had the upper hand, or rather, foot.

Defeated, Chloe slammed her back against the rubber wall and slid to the floor with her knees to her chest. Maybe she wouldn't end up like the tiny man. Maybe the woman who insisted on teasing her would simply leave her alone to fend for herself.

As if resigning her fate to the woman, she finally looked up. Surprisingly, the massive face that met hers was neither smirking nor laughing. The woman looked almost sympathetic. She brushed aside some of her red hair as she looked down so it wouldn't be in her face. Chloe finally gave this woman her attention as what she would say next was probably going to seal her fate.

"If it's any consolation, this guy," she lifted her right shoe to the side to reveal her now brownish red stained diamond-shaped treads, "was a real scumbag and deserved it."

Chloe waited with bated breath on any hint of what this meant for her.

"You, on the other hand, were just at the wrong place at the wrong time. And I want you to know that it's not personal. I just can't have you talking to the cops."

I won't talk, Chloe screamed in her head over and over. She just wanted to live. If only this giant lady knew that she would keep this secret for the rest of her days if it meant she would live.

"I'll make it quick. Are you ready?"

Chloe was the opposite of ready. Her fight or flight reflex was at max and adrenaline rushed through her brain. She was going to show this giant that she was still the master of her fate. She fished in her pocket for her hair-tie and secured her long blonde hair in a ponytail. She unbuckled her cork wedges and kicked them at the giantess, one of them managing to strike one of her massive pale shins. It had no effect on the woman but that was not the point. They would only slow Chloe down.

She had taken gold in her college's conference in sprinting and now she was going to be competing one more time, this time for her life. There was only one way to go now, forward. She took a sprinter's stance and pressed her bare foot against the rubber baseboard, relieved that it had a slight springiness to it. She would need any and every advantage she could get.

The giantess must have taken the tiny shoe attack as a signal that she was ready to accept her fate as she raised her mammoth sneaker clad foot high into the air right over Chloe.

Chloe focused on the diamond treads above her, trying to ignore the reason why the front of the sole was a slightly different color. She had to concentrate and time this just right. If she took off too soon, the giant would readjust her stomp. If she was too late, it would be a very short sprint.

The sneaker seemed to hang there forever; it was a thousand times worse than waiting for a starting pistol. So much for making it quick, she thought. And with that thought, the sneaker began it's quick descend and Chloe was off.

It all happened in a fraction of a second but Chloe knew that she had barely cleared the heel of the shoe and the burst of air from the booming stomp gave her a tailwind. Every little bit counts, she thought. As she was racing past the other giant sneaker, she figured she only had one or two seconds before the woman realized that she had given her the slip. She imagined it was like stepping on a crunchy-looking leaf only to find out that it wasn't crunchy at all and questioning whether you actually even stepped on it.

She snapped back to the task at hand, surviving. She made the unconscious decision to veer deeper into the dance floor. What she was doing was insane. She narrowly escaped a giant person's stomp only to be surrounded by a hundred more. But she figured that she'd take her chance with the unaware giants over the one who deliberately wanted to kill her, any day.

Chloe had never run faster in her whole life, considering her size. Her adrenaline levels were through the roof and she didn't know the meaning of tired. She weaved in and out of the way of massive shoes that would mercilessly mash her to pulp if she took one misstep. Although she was absolutely terrified, the adrenaline rush was like no other. It was like running with the bulls, something she always wanted to do, but about a thousand times more dangerous.

Even the music was pumping her up. She didn't really like the music at first but it really got her blood pumping in this situation. It also helped her time when and where people would step, giving her a bit of help on her split decision route through the massive dance floor. She had a few close calls and even ran under the arch of a stiletto heel.

She just had to watch out for those not dancing to the beat, perhaps those who were simply going to get a drink.

As though fate had heard her thoughts, her lucky streak came to a screeching halt when she was blindsided by a bright red open-toed pump. The impact was immense and Chloe hit the floor with a thud and slid as her body squeaked to a stop, giving her a friction burn to remember. She couldn't believe she was still alive and figured she had only suffered a few broken ribs.

She tried to get up but it seemed impossible. That's when she looked down to see what was wrong. Her leg past her knee was horribly bent in the wrong direction. It was only then that the pain hit her and she couldn't help but let out a blood-curdling scream. She tried bending it back but almost passed out from the pain.

She was screwed. Although she seemed to have eluded the killer woman, she was now disabled surrounded by unaware giants.

Chloe was left with one last option, however fruitless it seemed.

"Help!" she cried out. No one could hear her. Even without the head-splitting music, she would have been hard to hear with her tiny lungs. "Help!" she screamed and half expected to be scooped up to safety by the giant in loafers, or the giantess in black leather flats, both of whom danced lazily to the now more mellow tune that was being played.

The black leather flats were getting dangerously close as the giant woman who wore them unconsciously drifted in Chloe's direction. Every other step seemed to be a few inches closer, like a deadly tide moving in. Chloe had to keep moving. Despite here harrowing injuries, she was still determined to survive the night. All deals were off, she thought, she was definitely going to "talk to the cops," as the woman put it, when she got out of here.

With that dreadful reminder, Chloe snapped her head back toward the back of the club, looking for any sign of her pursuer. The mellowed tune made the club-goers a bit more docile and she could see farther and clearer. That's when she noticed a flash of purple and white a few rows back. The unmistakable converse shoes were traversing the dance floor. She watched as one batted a crumpled napkin to the side, no doubt looking for someone underneath it.

Chloe again tried to stand up but her injured leg made it impossible. She was in so much pain but the adrenaline kept her from passing out. She would have to crawl, but to where? She needed a plan. She couldn't just keep going forward. The front of the club was super packed and she wondered if another banging track, which was sure to come, would make her body explode, being so close to the speakers.

She had to get the attention of someone who wouldn't squash her, accidental or otherwise. She could no longer leap onto someone's foot and alert them. She should have done that before being hit by the giant red bus-sized pump. She needed someone standing still. That's when the idea hit her. The bar!

Chloe began clawing at the ground and crawling like her life depended on it. She glanced over her shoulder and to her horror, the purple Converses had gained half the previous distance.

She slowly and painfully made her way toward the towering bar. The cliff side of the counter was almost obscured by the legs of giants waiting on their drinks and Chloe did not have time to speculate on which giant was a good person. She needed to get noticed and picked up pronto and that meant someone wearing sandals with thin soles so she could reach.

Much to her fortune, there was a pair of gold gladiator sandals waiting at the base of the bar. The right foot was vertical as the giantess scrunched her brown toes waiting for her drink. With her knees and stomach bruised and scratched from the crawl to the bar, Chloe approached the left side of the left sandal hesitantly. Hopefully this person isn't jumpy and I get squashed by accident, she thought.

As she reached for the oversized pinky toe, she could practically taste freedom. This person would notice her and take her to the police, and she would sing like a little bird, and the red haired woman would go to jail forever. And then scientists would figure out how to make her big again and this nightmare would be over. A thought crept into her mind that those scientists might experiment on her for the rest of her life, but at least she would be alive. She had to think about the more immediate danger.

As she was lost in her dream, she realized that she missed the toe she aimed to tap and that the woman must have gotten her drink and left. Talk about bad timing. Maybe another easy target will take her place, she hoped.

What rolled into view crushed Chloe's dreams like it had tried to crush her body only moments before. Before her, and behind her, as if standing shoulder-length apart was a pair of sockless purple Converse sneakers.

Ever the optimist, Chloe almost convinced herself that these belonged to someone else. After all, they were popular shoes. She owned a red pair herself.

But then again it was rare to find a pair that had bloodstains on the striped white walls.

Chloe had no more energy; she couldn't even scream. She whimpered as the red haired giantess looked down at her like how she might look down at a penny on the ground. She lifted her head and said something to the bar-tender, no doubt getting a drink to justify her presence at the bar. This gave Chloe the idea to try and crawl away but the woman effortlessly and calmly blocked her path.

There was no need for stomping displays of power this time. Chloe had gotten the picture. She was beaten.

***

Stacey had to hand it to the little woman. She was fast. She was sure she had stomped true but something felt off. She had been swift and heavy not only to eliminate any recognition of a body, but also because she promised it would be quick and painless. But the unexpected feeling of emptiness and lack of splatter tipped her off to the speed and prowess of this little lady.

While impressed, she felt worry in the pit of her stomach. She could not let this person get away or be picked up. Her very freedom, and maybe her life, depended on it. It's either her or me, Stacey thought.

She was somewhere out on the vast crowded dance floor and Stacey once again had to go hunting.

She started going in a sweeping pattern starting in the back. She hadn't seen which way the tiny had gone, unfortunately. Her heart skipped a beat as she came upon a crumpled napkin and kicked it to the side but there was no one underneath it. She stomped the napkin not only in frustration, but also just in case the little woman had managed to cling to the inside of it.

Stacey, took a breath, trying not to freak out. She couldn't have gotten far and the dance floor is a death sentence to someone two inches tall. She had to think small. Her only chance of getting out of here is with help and it's really hard to get help from someone lost in the music.

Her new plan meant abandoning her search pattern, but seeing how cunning the little sleuth had been up to now, she was sure she was on the right path.

Stacey let out a sigh of relief as she saw the tiny woman crawling toward the bar. She had no doubt been injured, badly. When she saw she was crawling toward someone's sandal, she became extremely worried, but in a stroke of luck, the sandaled woman grabbed her drink and joined her friend on the dance floor, leaving a gap in the bar.

Stacey quickly and fluidly filled in the gap, cutting off another club-goer. She looked down at the broken woman as the bartender asked for her order, barely audible over the once again pounding bass.

Stacey ordered another Red Bull Vodka. She didn't care about the drink, she was only here to put her mind at ease.

The little broken woman still had a little bit of fight in her but Stacey put any possibility of escape to rest by moving her foot carefully into the path of her crawl. While she felt bad about killing a now-handicapped person, she had to put her out of her misery.

This little lady had almost given her a heart attack but she felt no anger toward her. In a way, they were much alike. They both struggled for survival or freedom tonight, despite Stacey's obvious advantage. This tiny speck of a woman had done the almost impossible and had eluded someone hundreds of times her size and was a worthy adversary in Stacey's eyes. They both knew what was coming and the tiny woman puffed out her chest and although Stacey couldn't hear it, she knew it was her last battle cry.

The promise of quick and painless still stood and she raised her sneaker and quickly and powerfully stomped down.

The floor and the side of the bar now had a fresh splattered coating, but due to the already black color, the splatter looked like any other stain from a spilled fruity drink. The only glaring evidence of the unfortunate woman was a red splotch on the white tennis shoe of the man on Stacey's left and on the side of the foot of a woman wearing flip flops. Only the woman noticed and she pinched a napkin from the bar and wiped what she thought was cherry sauce off the side of her foot.

Stacey ground the remains of the brave little woman under her sneaker and looked around for any witnesses. It seemed she was once again in the clear. Satisfied, she dropped a few napkins on the floor and mopped up the mess with her shoe.

To Stacey's surprise, she already had her drink in hand and had drunk half of it already. She did not give herself time to savor this kill like she had the first, and her subconscious was obviously making up for it.

As she made her way back to the dance floor, she was weighed down by a nagging feeling. She had rid the world of a scumbag and potential rapist, and had tied up loose ends by eliminating a nosy witness. She was free to dance the night away but found she could no longer get back into the groove.

The music was no longer giving her that blissful high it had when the night began. It had been replaced  with the desire for power and the thrill of almost getting caught.

Maybe it was the alcohol talking, as Stacey usually only had one drink when she went out dancing. But she began to suspect that the only way to satisfy herself now was in her purse and one click and a flash away.