- Text Size +

It wasn't long after Barbara's family moved into their new home that the young woman found the nest of micros living in a the back yard—a modest little village of perhaps a hundred tiny huts spread out over an area that would fit in the palm of her hand, all hidden in a patch of grass near her bedroom window.

The micros—tiny people the size of fleas—had stopped at her appearance and were staring at her, tensely waiting to see what she would do.

Barbara's bright blue eyes scanned the little village, taking in all their fearful faces and puny houses. At her smile, the micros stirred uneasily. There was no warmth or friendliness in that smile—a smile like that of a child beholding a new toy.

As she reached out towards the village, the micros started panicking and trying to flee, only for her hand to stop short of them as Barbara's name was called. She stood, wiped her skirt with her hands, then went inside. When she came back a couple hours later, she sat before the village and set her sandaled feet next to it, the width of her sandal alone utterly dwarfing their puny little huts. Smiling, she reached out again and used her fingernail to scoop up a hut that she'd seen a micro run into. She brought it closer for a better look and saw that the structure had collapsed as she was moving it, with the micro struggling to escape from the wreckage, trying to escape. After carefully removing the debris, the micro looked at her, yelped, and curled up on her hand, shaking in stark terror.

Barbara tilted her hand to one side and another, watching in amusement as the micro tried to cling to her skin, failed, then rolled around her palm before getting stuck between the folds of her skin. She closed her hand a bit, just enough for those folds to close against the micro so she could feel it squirming pitifully between them, unable to escape until she opened her hand again. After that, the micro slowly slowly got on its knees and waited to see what Barbara would do. When she brought her finger closer, it cried out and held out its hands as if fearing she would crush him. Instead, she only set her finger down beside him and nudged him with her fingertip.

“Hey, you. Can you understand what I'm saying?” Barbara asked. The micro looked at her in confusion until she nudged him again. “Well? Can you or can't you?” The micro hesitated before giving her a nod. “And can your friends down there also understand me?” Again he nodded. “Good,” Barbara said, then set him back down in the village.

“Alright, listen up. I just told my parents that I saw some bugs in the garden and they already called someone to come fumigate. That means you're all going to die if you stay in the garden. Lucky for you, I'm going to offer you a way out. All you have to do is come live with me as my pets. You'll be my property, so you'll have to do whatever I say, and let me do whatever I want to you—not that you could stop me anyways. If you agree, all you have to do is climb onto my toes and I'll bring you all inside with me. If you don't, I'll be merciful and crush you right now so you don't have to suffer a slow and painful death by poisoning.”That Barbara said all this with a smile only made her words all the more chilling for the poor micros. They looked at each other in disbelief, unsure what to make of her offer. “Well? What do you say? Hurry up and choose; I don't have all day to wait around for you,” Barbara said. Finally, the micros all started making their way towards her feet. As unsavory as it was to be made someone's pets, they simply had no choice.

Barbara watched as they climbed up her sandals, then up her toes. “Are you all holding on properly?” she then asked, wiggling her toes and causing a few of them fall off. “You're going to have to stay there while I walk so make sure you hold on tight!”Once the fallen micros had climbed back onto her toes, Barbara wiggled them again, and when she saw they were all holding on, she stood and went inside. Once in her room, she sat on the bed and kicked her feet up. “This is my room,” she said, turning her feet around to give them a good look. “Hope you like it 'cause it's going to be your whole world from now on. You're never leaving this room alive.”Barbara curled her toes tight, giving her pets a little squeeze, and when she uncurled them, about half of them fell off onto her bed. She brushed the rest of them off beside the others, then lay down so that her face was hanging over all of them.

“ Did some of you guys fall off on the way here?” she said. She was pretty sure there had been more of them back outside. “Eh, I guess it doesn't matter; you're more than enough micros for me. In fact, now that I think about it, there's a few too many of you. I don't want to take care of so many bugs. Looks like I'm going to have to get rid of some.” Barbara reached towards the micros, who started screaming and running. She picked up about twenty, all of them fitting neatly between her fingertips, then brought them up to her face, smiling a she felt them struggling to escape. She pondered them for a while, and started wondered how they might taste...

Opening her mouth, she dropped the micros onto her tongue, their puny bodies being held fast against the wet surface by her spit as they were swished about her mouth. Barbara sucked on them thoughtfully, trying to see if she could make out any sort of taste, then shrugged and munched down on them before swallowing. They were totally tasteless, at least with this few of them at once, but she still felt a pleasant tingling sensation as they went down her throat, and shuddered in delight when they passed into her stomach.

“There; that's better,” Barbara said, turning her attention back to the other micros, who looked on in horror. “Alright, now all of you stay put until while I go get something to put you all in, okay?” With that she stood and left her bedroom.

After seeing her eat some of their friends and families, many micros were starting to think that they had to get out, and they decided to try climbing down the bed and leaving to find somewhere else to live. Others preferred to risk staying with her, hoping she wouldn't choose to kill any more of them, and bid farewell and good luck to those who were leaving.

They started climbing down the bed sheets but weren't even halfway to the floor yet when Barbara came back carrying a bowl and immediately noticed them. “What's this?” she said, crouching beside the micros . “Are you trying to run away? Did you change your minds so soon? Well, hey, that's totally fine. You should have let me know sooner, so I could help you out. After all, I did promise you a painless death if you didn't want to be my pets.”She reached for them, but rather than let her get ahold of them, the micros let go and fell to the floor below, landing dazed and winded but quickly getting to their feet and running away under the bed.

Seeing them trying to flee, Barbara giggled smugly and stood, then raised a foot over the micros. “Bye-bye, you little bugs,” she said, slowly lowering her foot onto them and pressing down forcefully, crushing them all under her bare sole. “It's such a shame they didn't tell me they were leaving sooner. Then I wouldn't have had to eat those other micros. Oh well; no use crying over spilled milk.” Barbara wiped the residue of the micros' crushed bodies off her sole, then stood and placed a bowl she'd brought back next to the micros. “Here, let me show you your new home.”She started putting the micros into the bowl a few at a time until they were all inside. The bowl itself had been filled with a bit of dirt that cushioned their fall when they landed inside, along with a few cut grass stalks that she figured might be of some use to them. The sides curved up so steeply that they were almost totally vertical, and smooth as they were there was no chance that they would be able to climb them. They were trapped here, completely at her mercy.

Barbara picked up the bowl and brought it closer, until her face was just about the only thing they could see outside their little bowl. She giggled and flashed them a grin, the sight of her pearly whites making them shudder in remembrance of the friends and family they'd lost in that dreadful maw of hers. Then she carried them over to her desk and set them down in front of the window. “There. That's a good place for you, don't you think? I'll leave you there a while so you can get used to it and come back later with some food for you. See you later,” she said, wagging her fingers in good-bye at them, then exited the room, leaving them to ponder what their new life as her pets would hold.

You must login (register) to review.