Alix worked at a small sub shop in his home town called The Steak Shack. It was a shitty, minimum wage job, but he had friends there, so it wasn't too bad. Currently, he and his friend Sharine were both working the register. One would bag, and the other would ring up whatever the customer got.

Of course, they struck when he was alone. During a slow part of the night, when Sharine went to the back of the shop to get change for the register, Alix shrunk.

Everything happened so suddenly. One second he stood behind the register, staring off into the deep space of the counter, and the next, he found himself standing on the counter.

When he came to, two other people of the same size stood before him. The one closest extended their hand towards Alix, helping him up. 

"I am Lasius, this is Pogon. We are the people of the small world, and we need your help." Lasius explained.

Before anything could be discussed, however, Alix needed a second. He was standing on the counter at work. 

The expanse all around him stretched outwards in every direction. He could see the far end of the counter that stretched to the wall, what was once barely two steps away, blurred because of the newfound distance.

He spun around, looking now upwards at the register. It towered above them all, a machine so simple yet so terrifyingly large. The keys on it looked to be the size of cars.

Nothing, however, compared to her. Sharine was walking back to the register, titanic in size. Usually, Alix was taller than Sharine. Now, standing on the counter, he was smaller than her finger nails. A crumb, in comparison.

"I know you are in shock, but we need to move." Pogon said, making her way down the counter.

Sharine moved behind the counter, seeming confused to where Alix went. 

"Alix?" She said aloud, looking around the cubby behind the counter. Her voice boomed, vibrating Alix like he stood too close to a speaker.

Settling that he wasn't there, Sharine moved behind the register. The store was dead, so there wasn't much to do.

"Let's go!" Lasius said, dragging Alix by the wrist. The three moved down the counter, towards the second, non-functional register. 

Before they could get too far, though, Sharine spotted them. Alix looked up at his coworker, who only looked down at them in disgust. 

"Run!" Pogon cried, ushering the other two along.

Sharine reacted casually, seeing them only as ants, and treating them as such. Quickly and carelessly, she swiped her hand across the counter, trying to push them off the counter. 

However, out of pure luck, Alix and Lasius made it. Pogon, though, wasn't too lucky. She was caught by Sharine's pinky, tumbling along the counter towards the edge. She screamed out in fear and pain as her skin peeled off against the counter from roadburn.

She survived the fall, landing in a pile of receipts in the full trash bin. Alix and Lasius watched from above, hiding on the power cord of the broken register. 

Alix knew what was coming next. Whenever the trash was full, Sharine would put her foot on top and push it down. And that is exactly what she did.

Pogon watched as Sharine's sneaker rose above her, only to drop down on top of her, as Sharine watched the trash be pushed back down, uncaring. She didn't see Pogon fall into the trash, and she didn't care. Pogon was crushed beneath Sharine's strength, feeling her bones crunch and her already peeled skin burn from the dirty rubber pushing onto her. And Sharine didn't know, and never would.

Alix sat in fear next to Lasius, who, come to think of it, he didn't even know. "She. How did Sharine not see us? I mean she did but -" 

Lasius gripped Alix's shoulder. "I'm sorry for what has happened, and what you have seen. Pogon is dead, and I must tell you now, as I meant to before, that to your kind we appear as ants."

Alix lost his breath. He stared dumbfounded between Lasius and Sharine, petrified of the news. "So she did see us. We just look like ants." 

"That is correct. There are other species that truly are ants, but for some reason our kind, although being human, appear as ants to our larger variant." Lasius explained.

"That's... Terrifying." Alix said. He watched as his gargantuan coworker simply went about her day, unaware that at any second she could spot her friend, and kill him, simply because he looks like an ant to her.

"Indeed it is." Lasius said, moving down the diagonal wire to the floor. "We have requested your help to an issue related to this. Our scouts have caught word that your people intend to cleanse the store of any and all insects - our kind - and need to put a stop to it. We need your help to do so."

Alix, following Lasius to the floor, stopped, as the pair reached the hardwood. He knew about the plans, the store was supposed to close for a day to do it. A health inspector or someone had spotted, apparently, the colony, behind the fridges that held the drinks. The store then failed the inspection, unless they eradicate the ants. It began to hit him, the effect such a careless act would have on a whole civilization. 

"Innocent people will die, if you do not help us." Lasius emphasized.

The pair made their way across the floor, moving towards the cubby at the back of the register area. 

Evidently, Sharine had the same idea. Lasius slammed Alix back, thrusting his arm into Alix's chest. Sharine's sneaker smashed into the ground directly in front of them as Sharine walked past towards the cubby. He watched, petrified, as her rubber sole squished down underneath her and bounced back up as she walked.

The shockwave blasted the two of them backwards, crashing into the wood on their backs as Sharine continued on, oblivious to the plights of the two living breathing being nearly directly below her. Even if she could see them, they were simply ants. 

"We intend to move our colony once this is done." Lasius said, helping Alix up. "But the process to do so is lengthy, and the date for the purge is tomorrow." 

"This feels like a last minute plan." Alix pointed out, still dumbfounded by the sheer scale of his usually-inches-shorter coworker. 

"It is." Lasius said, leading him further. 

The pair hugged the side, avoiding Sharine's shifting feet as she stood on her phone. Not soon later, Alix's phone buzzed. 

"Where are you?" The text read. It was from Sharine.

"Was that her?" Lasius said, standing before Sharine's impatiently tapping foot. 

"Yeah." Alix answered. "Am I allowed to answer it?" 

Lasius turned towards him, pausing for a second before snatching the phone from his hand and tossing it underneath Sharine's foot. "No." He answered.

"WHAT THE FUCK?" Alix cried out in anger. "That was my fucking phone!!" 

Lasius sighed. "My people do not have phones. Once this is over, I will do what I can to get you another." 

As Sharine walked back to the register, Alix picked up the remnants of his crushed phone from where her toes had been. There was barely anything left but a semi-rectangular shape.

"Come." Lasius said, "We must keep going."