Through a sleepy haze, James felt a soft thud as he laid in his sleeping bag on the coffee table. He looked over at his cousin, Michael, who was sleeping soundly in his own sleeping bag. He turned the other direction and saw the gigantic screen of the television glowing with a blank screen that said ‘no input’ on it. The boy’s had fallen asleep and the Nintendo Mini had deactivated due to inactivity. James had no idea what time it was, all he knew was that it was the middle of the night, and he couldn’t stop thinking about-

THUD…

There was another soft boom, but as he looked around he couldn’t see anybody. He thought it was just because he was half asleep, and he must be seeing or hearing things. Well, not seeing, he was groggy and confused as hell. He laid down again and closed his eyes. All night long, he couldn’t stop thinking about his aunt Mary. Her ass, her feet, her face, absolutely everything about her drove him crazy. He would have pleasured himself to his fantasies if he wasn’t worried about Michael catching him.

BOOM…

Another thundering noise jolted his eyes open. But again, he couldn’t see or hear anything. He got up and looked around and saw a shadow moving along the staircase on the other side of the room. It had to either be Petyon or Mary. Whoever it was, they went towards the kitchen and clicked on the light. The little bit of light that flickered in the living room revealed that it was Peyton. She went into the kitchen and James couldn’t see her anymore. He was curious, so James used the bit of light that was now coming in the room to climb down the ladder to the floor and run to the kitchen.

When he made it to the hard tile floor of the kitchen, he saw the titanic teenager making a snack on the counter. She was wearing short gym shorts and a tank top. He understood why most of his cousin’s friends had a crush on her.

Peyton turned around, “Oh my god!” she shrieked, looking at the floor. “You frickin scared me little guy.” She breathed a sigh of relief and carried her plate to the table. “Don’t tell my mom about this.”

James was barely able to register what she said before one of her titanic feet landed right in front of him, shuddering his tiny world. His heart sank as the sight of her colossal toes dominated his view. He looked up just in time to see the sole of her other foot passing overhead, taking another booming step. Her legs towered above him. Her toes, once encompassing his entire horizon, lifted and passed over him, stomping down some distance away from him. Before he knew it, the teenage colossus had passed over him and was out of range of immediate danger. She sat down at the kitchen table and James jolted to his senses as he slowly approached the giant girl. 

“Tell her about what?” he asked.

“My nighttime snacking, because I’m getting fat,” she said, taking a bite of her food.

James paused a minute, looking at the colossal beauty sitting in her chair.

“But you’re not fat,” he scoffed.

“Oh yeah?” she said, pinching an imperceptible piece of skin on her tummy, “then what do you call this?”

“Uh, skin?” he said, shrugging his shoulders.

“You’re just not looking closely,” she said, taking another bite.

It might have been stupid, but James went closer. He approached her crossed legs and overlapping feet under the chair. “You want me to look closer?”

“Ew, no,” she scoffed, kicking him away with her feet, almost by second nature.

James was caught off guard as her titanic toes plowed into him, sending him tumbling backwards, head over ass. “I didn’t mean it like that!” he said, getting back up sheepishly.

“Mmm hmm, sure,” she said sarcastically.

James shook his head and walked back toward his towering cousin, this time cautiously avoiding her feet. “So what are you doing up this late eating anyways?” he asked the giant teenage girl.

“Me and Josh broke up tonight,” she said flatly.

“What? Why?” he asked. Even though she was his cousin, he didn’t see why any guy would ever want to break up with her.

“He says I don’t have enough empathy for tinies,” she rolled her eyes and took another bite of ice cream. “Which is stupid. I totally do!”

“Peyton, I hate to be that guy, but you literally just kicked me across the floor,” James chuckled nervously, “that’s a little ironic, don’t ya think?” Peyton looked under the table at her tiny cousin. It looked like she was about to cry. “It’s okay Peyton, I was just joking!” he said, feeling sorry for the person that literally just assaulted him with her giant feet. “I’m fine, see? You know how durable us tinies are!”

“Yeah, I guess,” she said. “I just don’t get it.”

James approached his cousin’s giant toes once again. He stood before her biggest toe and patted it with his hand. “Would it make you feel better if I kissed your feet again?” he said with a slight laugh.

“You’d like that, huh, you little pervert?” Peyton smiled and wiggled her toes playfully.

James stammered with a big nervous look on his face, realizing his mistake. “No! It’s just that-,”

“Yeah, go ahead,” she smirked, “I could use the laugh.”

James all too eagerly planted a soft little smooch on his cousin’s big toe. He smiled and looked up at her. She was watching him with amusement. “Feel better yet?” he asked.

“No, not really…,” she laughed. As if her tiny cousin kissing her toe would help her heal from the pain of being dumped.

“Well, I don’t mean to brag,” James said with an awkward smile, “but I did give your mom a pretty good foot rub earlier tonight. I could give you one too if you’d like?”

“What? Ew! No way, mom did?” Peyton clarified. “My mom let you give her a foot rub?”

“Yeah, why?” James asked, baffled by Peyton’s reaction.

“Mom has never let a tiny person near her feet on purpose, she’s never even gone to those expensive nail salons that use tinies for manis and pedis. So I just find it surprising, that’s all.”

“Well, when I was done, she did say she finally understood why people paid all that money for them.”

Peyton paused for a moment then shrugged, “What the hell, why not?” she scoffed. She couldn’t believe she was about to let her little shrunken cousin massage her feet. “So I just, like, what, hold my feet still, or how does this work?”

“You could, but it might be easier if I were on a higher flat surface so your soles could stand straight up?” he said.

“Gotcha,” she said. Then with a threatening, yet playful, smirk, she covered her cousin with her toes and pinched him in their grip. She lifted her leg and deposited him on the next chair over. She set both of her huge feet before him. 

“Warn a guy! Would you?” he spat, recovering his senses as the sudden pressure from having his body squeezed by her toes made him light-headed.

“I don’t know,” Peyton laughed, “that WAS fun, maybe Josh was right about me…,”

James ignored his cousin's remark and looked up at the two towering soles in front of him. Peyton’s skin was much different than her mother’s. It was soft and smooth, barely any wrinkles in the doughy flesh. And there wasn’t a hint of any dryness. He wondered how it would work without lotion or even any oil, but he pressed himself into her heel and heard her react.

“Oh wow, that feels weird,” she chuckled. “I can totally feel you down there! I didn’t think I would!”

“So tell me what happened, I wanna hear the story,” James said, pushing his hands into Peyton’s soft rubbery heel.

“There’s not much to tell, honestly. He just said that I don’t have enough empathy for the tiny population. He’s an activist and wants to go into government to protect their rights and everything like that. I guess I just didn’t match his level of passion for it. But, ugh, honestly, who has that kind of time and energy?”

It felt weird for James to hear his cousin talk about not having passion for protecting people like him. He wished everybody felt the way Josh did about it. James could remember feeling bad for tinies before he shrank…, but then it really hit him hard afterward. Then he really was keen on seeing tinies get every right they deserved. But he didn’t say any of that to his cousin, of course. He just kept pressing and kneading the soft skin of her foot as she kept talking above.

“I guess I messed up when I told him about my mom stepping on that tiny worker by accident,” she continued, “I thought it was horrible, yes, of course, but it was also a little funny. I guess Josh didn’t like when I laughed when I told that story. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have empathy! I totally felt bad for that little guy and his family, if he had one. I mean, that has to count for something, right?”

James was hit with a sobering wave of reality, thinking about his aunt who, not just stepped on, but crushed and killed a tiny person. Bit in a sick twist of irony, he adored the feet of the woman who killed someone, not just someone, but a tiny, a tiny just like him. He thought back to giving his aunt a foot massage earlier in the night; what if he was servicing the very foot that committed the atrocity? It made his anxiety kick in if he thought about it too much. Luckily, Peyton’s talking distracted him again.

“But I think the straw that broke the camel’s back was tonight,” she sighed and ate another big bite of ice cream. “I should have never stepped on that unregistered tiny,” she said while casually rolling the melting treat around in her mouth.

“What?” James asked. He was shocked but never stopped rubbing.

“Yeah, there was this unregistered tiny begging for food outside the movie theater. So I stomped her.”

James swallowed hard. “W-why?” he asked. Now wondering which one of Peyton’s feet had murdered the tiny woman.

“Because she was unregistered,” Peyton answered matter-of-factly.

“So?”

“You do know what unregistered means, right?” Peyton asked.

“Yeah, it means that you don’t have a registered identification number from the government, all tinies get them when they shrink. My mom works at the city administration building, so registering tinies is one of the things she does there.” 

“Right, and so without a registration number, a tiny person basically doesn’t exist. It’s like they’re some sort of bug and not a person anymore.”

James couldn’t believe what he was hearing. How could Peyton not get how someone could find that callous and cruel? “How did you know that she was unregistered?” James asked, still trying to piece together what went into Peyton’s thinking.

“Because I asked her,” Peyton said.

“Then what sort of tiny would voluntarily tell you that? Knowing they would just be increasing their chances of getting killed?”

“I don’t know, I just asked ‘Are you registered?’ and she said ‘No, I am not, can you please help me, I’m hungry, blah blah blah..,’ and it was so annoying, so, like I said, I stomped on her. Squished her right into the pavement.”

“Oh my god! Peyton!” James shouted. “What if she had shrunk and hadn’t had a chance to get registered yet?”

“Oh…,” Peyton said, distorting her face into a wrinkled expression, “I guess I hadn’t thought of that. Whoops!”

“Peyton, you idiot!” James said. “That’s why Josh broke up with you! It’s because you fuckin’ squashed and killed an innocent woman for no reason! That’s why he was upset!”

“You know what’s funny about the whole thing?” Peyton asked, flexing her massive feet over her tiny cousin. 

“What…,” James said grumbly.

“Is that, the whole time I’ve been telling you about this, you haven’t stopped rubbing my feet even for a moment.”

“Yeah, so?” he asked.

“So you must really like feet, or, my feet at least. I mean, if you are still wanting to touch and caress them like that after I’ve told you the story. Just think about it, James. Here are the feet of a killer of tinies getting massaged by another tiny. That is a bit ironic, don’t ya think?”

“What are you saying?” James said, stopping for the first time since he started rubbing Peyton’s feet.

“Well, I mean, what if I decided just to squash you too?” she asked, lowering her soles on top of her cousin. James shrieked and yelled as he was covered by the soft flesh of the giant teenager’s soles. “Oh wow, that feels weird,” she chuckled. “I can totally feel you squirming and wiggling down there!”

“Peyton!” he screamed. “Oh my god, what is wrong with you?! What are you doing?!” he kept screaming with a muffled voice. He kept pressing against the vast canopy of foot flesh above him. It stretched in every direction no matter where he kicked or pushed. The rubbery skin was just too much to move. And on top of it all, hearing his cousin laugh at his plight was just adding salt to the wound. Then, in an instant, Peyton’s foot lifted and the crushing weight was gone. James could see his cousin’s face laughing with absolute delight. Her face normally would have been beautiful to him, but now it was the face of a murderous monster he wanted nothing to do with. Peyton put her hand over her mouth and just kept laughing.

“Oh my god, I can’t!” she smiled and busted out laughing again. “The look on your stupid little face right now, is priceless! I can’t believe you bought that!” James didn’t know what was going on exactly, but he was too stunned to respond. His heart felt like it was going to burst out of his chest and his stomach was just one big pit of anxiety. “You actually believed I squashed a tiny! Oh my god, I was just messing with you, you dork” she smirked and shook her head. 

“It wasn’t true?” James stammered, still a little stunned.

“How could you not tell I was teasing you?” she asked. “How would I be able to do that in a public place in front of so many people? How would I be able to hear her if she was unregistered since she wouldn’t even have a communicator anymore? There were so many things that didn’t add up in my story, I’m surprised you didn’t catch on.”

“Why? Why would you lie to me and tell me that?” James asked.

“Cuz it’s fun to tease you,” she smirked and wiggled her toes in his tiny face. 

“Is this some sort of weird coping mechanism from Josh dumping you, or what?”

“Oh! My gosh, no,” she said, rifling into her bra. “Me and Josh are totally fine. We never broke up. It actually turned out that he caught the virus too.” Peyton removed her hand from her bra and produced her tiny boyfriend in her palm for James to see.

“What?!” James shouted.

“Yeah, I haven’t gotten him a communicator yet. I’m taking him downtown on Monday morning to get him registered. But until then, I thought he could spend the weekend with me.”

Josh stumbled to his senses in his girlfriend’s gigantic palm, “I’m sorry bro, she has a weird sense of humor. I’m sorry I couldn’t stop her from-”

Peyton closed her fist back up and deposited Josh back into her cleavage. “So anyways,” Peyton said, getting up and putting the icecream away, “I was just down here for a snack. So I was serious when I told you not to tell mom about this. If you tell her, then I might actually consider squishing you, like, for real!” 

“I-I won’t…,” James said, starting to feel a little normal again.

“Good,” she said with a mischievous smile. “Well, goodnight, little dude, get a good night’s rest, see you in the morning!” Peyton said as she casually left the kitchen and flicked off the light, leaving James in the darkness.

As James heard the thudding of his cousin’s footsteps fade in the distance, he realized something. There was no way for him to get down from the chair he was laying on. Not unless he wanted to jump a few hundred ft to the kitchen floor, which he was not going to do. 

“Wait! Peyton!” he cried. But it was too late, his giant cousin was already too far out of range of his communicator. “Crap,” he said, laying down on the hard wooden surface. He realized he was going to have to spend the night alone on the giant kitchen chair.