“Sweetie, I'm going to my MMA class now. Are you sure you don't want to come with? You could stand to learn a thing or two about fighting,” Brian's mom said.

“No, mother, I don't want to go to your MMA class.” Brian said. “And please quit treating me like a child; I'm seventeen now, thank you very much.” Seventeen, yet still a head shorter than her. She was tall, muscular and athletic, whereas he was a short, pasty geek with no meat on his bones. Though he had the superior intellect, he had inherited none of her physical prowess, and the knowledge that she was still his superior physically galled him terribly.

“Well, maybe I wouldn't treat you like a child if you weren't still as weak as one. Come on, shrimp!” she said, playfully putting him in a headlock. “Surely you don't want to spend your life being such a weakling. Don't you want to be big and strong like your momma?”“Mom, stop it!” He tried to wrest himself free of her arms, but only got out when she decided to let go of him after having her fun. “I told you, I'm not going. I'm working on something much more important than any dumb MMA class.”“Well, have it your way then. See you later kiddo! Mwah!”

After his mom left, Brian sat still and waited for the sound of her car's engine to fade out of earshot. As soon as that happened, he rushed to his work desk, reached into a drawer, and pulled out a device that would change the world and let others finally recognize him for the genius he was, for what he held was nothing less than a size ray. He had finished work on it earlier today, but didn't want to try it out with his mom still in the house. A simple brute like her would never understand the genius of it, and might well screw up his tests.

As he held it, his head started filling up with all sorts of images about how his life would change thanks to this invention. There were so many possible uses for it that he couldn't even begin to guess which would be the most revolutionary, but one thing he knew for sure was what he would use it for first: to grow himself so he would never again have to suffer the humiliation of knowing himself to be smaller and weaker than his own mother.

He giddily aimed the device at himself and pulled the trigger, whereupon it shot a ray into him. He felt an incredible surge of energy come into his body, one so strong that it knocked him off his chair and left him unconscious on the floor.

He was woken up some time later by a series of rhythmic tremors. He got up and, looking around, came to realize realize that he was standing on his bedroom floor at a mere quarter inch tall. Terrible as that revelation was, he couldn't afford to dwell on it, as the tremors were growing stronger and stronger. They were coming from behind his door, which, after a couple seconds, swung open to reveal his monster of a mother, well over a thousand feel tall compared to him. “Hello? Brian?” She came in with great, lumbering steps, the floor shaking with her every step. He screamed at the fast approach of her massive feet, curling up into a ball as one of them swung right towards him. Her foot fell over him with a tremendous THUD, then everything went silent. Trembling, Brian opened his eyes and saw that he was now between two of his mother's toes, each of them being easily twice his size.

“Where could that boy have gotten to?” his mom muttered to herself while he sat in shock at er feet. After a moment she stepped over to the fallen size ray where it lay on the ground. Brian's heart skipped a beat as he saw her pick it up like it was some toy. If she broke it, there was no way he could ever get back to his normal size; he couldn't make another size ray stuck like this, and there was no way his mom could build one for him.

“Mom, stop!” he yelled, running up to his mother's foot.

“Hmm? Brian, is that you, honey?” She turned around, ad as she did, her foot slid over the floor towards Brian, her sole barreling over him and trapping him under her hot and sweaty skin while she looked around for any sign of him.

“Dammit, mom, get your dumb foot off of me,” Brian groaned as he strained himself trying to squirm out from under her foot. Her sweat seeped into his clothes, covering him in the stuff. The disgusting liquid was everywhere, even getting into his mouth. It even threatened to go into his nose and drown him. Was this how it ends, he wondered? Would he die like a bug under his mom's foot, either crushed or drowned by her sweat? The thought gave him horror unlike any he'd ever known.

After a moment, however, his mom went and took a seat at his desk, playing with the curious device while she waited for her son to show up. Brian remained stuck to her feet as she walked, only falling off once she propped her feet up on his desk. Then he fell off, landing on the desk where he picked himself up and tried to squeeze the sweat off of his clothes. He covered his nose in disgust at the horrible smell of his mom's feet, then marched around the huge wall that was her sole, until he could see her playing around with the size ray. “Mom!” he yelled. At the sound of his voice, she looked around in confusion.

“Brian, honey, where are you?”

“Mom, I'm over here, by your feet!” She looked to the desk's surface and, after a brief moment, her eyes locked onto his tiny form. Frowning, she took her feet off the table and leaned in. Brian stumbled back in alarm over her fast-approaching figure, falling onto his ass and shivering as her enormous face loomed over him.

“Brian, is that you?” she said.

“H-hi, mom,” Brian meekly answered.

“Oh my gosh!” she squealed, reaching over to snatch him up. Holding him between her fingers, she brought him up to her eyes for closer inspection. “How did you get so small?”“Mom, listen closely,” Brian said as he started explaining the situation to her. He told her about the size ray and about how he had accidentally shrunken himself with it. Finally, he told her what she needed to do in order to grow him back.

“Hmm,” she murmured as she looked the device over. “But it would be such a waste to grow you back so soon, considering how adorable you are at that size. I mean, just look at you! You're so small and helpless, it's like you're my little baby again! Only, well, even a baby is stronger than you now. It's like you're mommy's little bug boy!”“Mom, please, I beg you. Grow me back to normal.”

“Even your voice sounds so cute when you're this small. It's like a squeaky little mouse!” she said, petting him on the head. “I suppose I could grow you back, though... Just as soon as you give me a foot massage.”“Mom, you can't be serious. There's no way I can give you a foot massage at this size.”

“I don't care how log it takes; either you give me a foot massage, or you get to spend the rest of the week as my little bug boy. It's your choice, honey.”Brian took a deep breath. “Alright I'll do it. Just put me down next to your feet so we can get this over with.”

“Sure thing, Brian!” His mom went over to his bed and lay face-down on it, dropping him onto her sweaty soles while she pulled out her phone to pass the time.

Catching the smell of her feet again, Brian covered his nose and waited while he got used to the stench. Once it was more bearable, he went over to her toes and climbed onto them, pulling himself up by the her toe prints. Once on top, he looked around at the huge landscape of his mom's soles and sighed as he realized just how much work was in store for him. He'd better get started right away if he had any hope of returning to normal by tonight.

Getting on his hands and knees, he started rubbing the surface of his mom's toe, groaning in disgust whenever his hands met a drop of sweat. He worked quickly, figuring that his mom would have no way of knowing if he had worked as well as he could, and finished the first set of toes in a few minutes before moving on to the next five. As he was working on them, his mom idly wiggled her toes, sending him falling down into the space between them. “Mom!” he yelled as he struggled to free himself.

“Whoops, sorry honey. Guess I don't know my own strength!” she laughed as she splayed her toes, letting him fall, then climb back up. He kept rubbing her toes, being extra careful now so he wouldn't be caught off guard by another toe wiggle, then moved on to working on her soles, which sported wrinkles so deep he lying down he could have easily fit inside one.

He tried to ignore as best he could that these were his mom's feet he was working on; it was too humiliating for him to acknowledge that he'd been reduced to an ant crawling around on her soles, but try as he might he couldn't make himself ignore it, and that just made him angrier with himself for screwing up the size ray, and with her for not growing him back already and making him deal with her big dumb feet.

“Alright, I'm finished!” he yelled at last once he had gone through every last inch of his mom's sole, the work having left him utterly exhausted.

“Really? But I barely even felt you working down there. Well, I guess I can't expect anything more from you, considering you weren't very strong even at your normal size; it goes to figure you'd be even weaker now that you're a tiny bug.” His mom rolled over, sending him falling onto the bed, then she grabbed him and placed him on the floor between her feet. She grabbed the size ray and listened carefully as Brian told her what to do. After playing with the settings a bit, she aimed the device at him and pulled the trigger.

Sparks flew out of the size ray as it shot a ray at Brian. Once more he felt energy surging through him and was knocked unconscious by it, waking up some time later in a place that he struggled to recognize as his room. He was back to his normal size now, but the place had been wrecked almost beyond recognition, the walls of the house had having apparently been blown down by something. Had the device exploded when his mom used it on him? If so, why was he still fine? And where was his mom?

As he pondered this, Brian noticed the smell of his mom's feet hanging in the air. Then he felt the earth shake and heard a thunderous giggling behind him. He turned around and fainted straight away as he saw his mother's soles hanging over the whole city and, beyond them, her big, smiling face.

“Hey there, little guys,” she said, her voice reverberating all over the city, the Earth itself shaking at the mere wiggle of her toes. “I know you're all scared, but I don't mean you any harm. Kinda got this size by accident. Sorry, but you're just going to have to deal with me until my son figures out how to shrink me back down. In the meantime, aren't there any kind folks down there who could help massage a tired mother's feet?”