“Mare! Are you home?”

Aura Bella Fiore opened the door to her apartment building, calling out for her brother. The house was completely dark, despite it being 10AM. Sighing, she walked over to the window and pushed the blinds open, beaming light into nearly the entire home.

“Mare, are you oversleeping again?! I told you to wake up early and clean the house!” She looked over the counters of the kitchen, seeing weird gray specks of dust that she brushed off with her fingers, some small crumbs remaining stuck to her brown glove.

Walking over to the door to Mare’s bedroom, the elf attempted to get rid of those crumbs. She opened the door, nudging Mare awake, who was laying in his bed, still asleep.

“O-oh, sorry! M-my alarm clock must’ve malfunctioned…” Mare quickly sat up, wearing only a light blue nightgown.

Aura rolled her eyes. 

“*Sigh* It’s ok… just get started cleaning soon. This doesn’t look like the kind of house that servants of our Master should have.”

As Mare got up, planting his feet on the floor, he wondered what could’ve happened to make him oversleep. He did feel oddly itchy… had something happened while he was sleeping…?

*A few hours ago…*

As the evening darkness washed over a certain unfortunate metropolis, everything was normal and peaceful. At least, on the surface. The citizens, mostly still awake, were being gazed at by a being so large they would not be able to perceive her no matter how much they tried. A being that had chosen them, among many more, to be whisked away and sent somewhere else.

Suddenly, the stars disappeared from the sky. The air became less clean, a bit… stuffier. The cold weather shifted, seemingly in the blink of an eye, to a much warmer temperature. The outskirts of the city, formerly green grass, had turned into an endless, bumpy white expanse.

It didn’t take long for this information to reach the entire city. Many tried to contact others outside, only to realize that they had been cut off. The city’s power quickly ran off after the access to their grid vanished. And in the distance, they heard strange noises… shuffling, soft moaning and exhaling…

Then a huge boom that shook the entire city, rupturing its floors. Something had fallen in front of it, something several times larger than it. A huge, light brown wall.

Many approached the object, leaving the safety of their city to brave the soft white expanse. The wall was spongy, firm but soft enough to dig your fingers into. It smelled odd…

Several that approached the object from the right noticed what seemed to be a huge almost spherical mountain attached to this larger object. and on top of it, four more mountains, becoming larger  and more oval shaped the higher up they went. Some people slowly started to recognize this object…

Several people started climbing this wall, either out of worry that there may be others in danger on the other side, out of a desire to find out where they were, or just out of curiosity. The several hundred people digging their fingers into the surface to climb, though, seemed to result in a response from the object…

“Nggh…” 

A sleeping Mare felt an itch on the bottom of his right foot. It was subtle enough that he didn’t wake up from it, but it did make his left foot subconsciously move towards it, scratching the sole with his big toe.

Those who were lucky enough not to be squished were kneaded into his sole, deeply enough that it would be nearly impossible to get unstuck on their own…

Another victim city appeared somewhere with much fresher air, and a much more irregular floor. They were lucky enough to very quickly piece together what had happened, as they saw their typically mountainous horizon had been replaced with the towering face of a sleeping elf. His partially open mouth led to a small stream of saliva that trickled down his cheek and onto the pillow, dangerously close to the city.

The citizens went into a full blown panic, with most of them wanting only to get away from that godlike kid as fast as possible.

Their plans were quickly interrupted however, as an equally massive arm suddenly cut them off, trapping several people underneath his armpit as Mare softly hugged his pillow, bracing to turn.

But what for him was simply turning in bed, something he had always been quite prone to doing, was an apocalyptic sight, as that huge face started dropping down on them like a living meteor…

They weren’t lucky enough to just be squished under his cheek, either. They had appeared on the lower end of the pillow, perfectly placed so that it was his partly opened mouth that was about to descend into the city.

The glistening red lips fell onto the citizens like an impenetrable wall, completely trapping everyone in a musty, wet cavern. Mare’s unconscious sighs and exhales blew his hot breath directly onto the thousands of lives as his tongue hung close to them

This was their reality for the next several minutes, as Mare kept sleeping soundly. Completely sealed within his mouth, all that the citizens would attempt to do was crawl under his lips, which would only result in them ending up stuck to them. Until finally…

“*Sigh* Haaaah…” Mare closed his mouth, rolling over once more. The fates of the thousands of citizens were now at the mercy of his tongue: And as saliva flowed in from the tiny amounts of stimulation that the tiny people caused to the tongue, it was only a matter of time before he swallowed…

After several hours worth of weird itching, Mare woke up. He checked his alarm clock, confirming it was still far too early, and went back to sleep, unaware that by turning the clock he had dislodged the cable and disconnected it from the power.

*Back in the present…*

Aura sat down on the couch, tired after a long, annoying night shift job, and turned on the TV, hearing her brother getting ready to clean around the house. She placed her socked feet on the table as she set her boots aside, and leaned back on the couch.

Her eyes wandered to some odd stuff on the table, though. Those weird gray specks… What were they? She assumed they were dust but they looked a bit off to be that. She brought her foot towards one, and poked it with her toe. Immediately she felt a tiny crunch against the bottom of her toe, much to her surprise. Though the idea that she had just squashed a city under her toe did not come across her, it still captured her attention enough for her to get a bit more curious…

As she adjusted on the couch, she felt that odd crunch again, this time under her butt. She decided to scrape some of the “dust” onto her hand, and took a closer look…

On her gloved hand, she saw tiny, fractured objects. They almost looked like some kind of cubic crystal at first, but then she noticed it was far too complex for that.

Her eyes widened as she noticed just what she was looking at. She thought she was seeing things, or that maybe someone had left some miniatures at her home… but then she noticed a tiny speck, crawling across her palm. Then another, and then another. She couldn’t make out any of its details, but she could put two and two together…

“Um… Mare?” She dropped the rubble of her hand on the floor while turning to her brother, inadvertently dumping most of the contents in her boot.

“Y-yeah?” Mare was carrying a mop, ready to start cleaning.

“Do you see those gray spots on the floor?” She spoke with a huge smug grin on her face, which only made her brother more nervous.

“Yeah… I was gonna clean them up, wh-why?”

“Can you get closer to one?”

Confused, Mare timidly moved to the nearest clump of gray dots.

“Okay… what do you want me to do?”

“Step on it.”

“...huh?”

“Step on it!” Aura didn’t try to hide her excitement, knowing that Mare would do whatever she asked him.

“Um… sure.”

Mare timidly lifted his foot, his boot hovering over several hundred thousand lives worth of cities, before descending down on them, completely crushing them in an instant against the cold leather surface.

“Um… why did you want me to do that, sis…?”

“Oh, no reason~” Aura teased. “You can get started on cleaning now!” She jumped out of the couch, confusing Mare further as she shoved her feet in her boots and went to the kitchen area.

Mare didn’t question his sister’s odd behavior much further though, and got started on mopping the floor. Many of the gray spots were washed away in the process, with many more being stepped on by either him or his sister as time passed…

When Mare was done with the floor, he felt the aroma of coffee suddenly reach his nostrils. Not too long after that, Aura suddenly returned with a cup of iced coffee in her hands. She sipped it in front of Mare, made a confused face, sloshed it around in her mouth and swallowed with a quizzical look in her face, before bringing it towards her twin.

“Hey, can you taste this and tell me if it’s off?”

Mare grabbed the glass, looking at it for a few seconds before taking a tentative sip.

“N-not that I can tell…”

Despite the mundane answer, Aura seemed to have enjoyed it very much, based on her slight smirk.

“Great, thanks~!” She quickly grabbed the glass before continuing to drink it.

Mare stared at her in confusion as she walked away. He had seen bits of those gray spots in the glass. What was Aura trying to tell him…?

Aura didn’t have any intent to tell him, and she was confident enough that he was probably not going to figure it out on his own. She had a lot more things in mind to try to get her brother to do with those cities…