You come back from the toilet to find someone sitting in your chair.

You’d worried about this, but didn’t expect it to actually happen. The cafe is always busy, with only a small space for seating, on a raised platform to the left of the counter. Stools along one wall, three round tables with soft chairs packed tightly together by the window. It’s especially nice on wintry mornings like this, with the warm yellow glow of fairy lights and its old chunky wooden bookshelves and floorboards. Almost every seat is taken, and you were lucky to get one, at a table where you’d been enjoying catching up on emails over a spiced latte. Going for a toilet break had been necessary, but a calculated risk: your coffee was finished, but you left your coat on the seat.

She’s actually sitting on your coat, though.

There’s no question of not confronting her. You wanted to stay for another drink maybe, or at least a cinnamon roll, enjoying the cosiness for as long as possible. You might have avoided the confrontation and just left, but you can’t leave without your coat. With her sitting on the coat, you have no choice.

She’s beautiful, though.

It gives you mixed feelings, as you stand uncertainly in the middle of the cafe floor. There’s worry and fear of course, that someone has imposed on you in this way. That you don’t know how she’ll react when you interrupt her. There’s a little indignation, because how dare she take the seat that was obviously yours? But also a pang of curiosity, maybe a little hope, as you take her in. She is, in fact, really beautiful.

Might this be an opportunity, rather than a problem? An excuse to strike up a conversation…

She’s focusing on her own frothy coffee, cradling the big cup in both hands, giving you a moment to properly take her in. She’s all the more striking for being rather unconventional: a round-featured face, with a sweep of blue-dyed hair hanging over the right side, most of the left side shaved, big eyes with a ring through her left brow, plump lips. She wears slightly baggy faded denim dungarees, ripped around the knees to show off bronzed skin, buckled over a striped t-shirt. Big, worn leather Doc Martens, the top laces undone. This punkish look adds to your nerves and your little spark of excitement. She could be fun, she could be dangerous.

Either way, you have to talk to her.

“Excuse me,” you say quietly, but she doesn’t hear. The cafe is noisy, of course, with a good dozen or so young people chatting away. You clear your throat and try again, but now it comes out in an awkward blurt: “You’re sitting in my seat!”

The woman looks up, questioningly.

“I’m sitting there. That’s my coat.”

She raises her pierced eyebrow as she takes you in, auburn eyes going up and down your body. Assessing you in a curious way that’s not entirely unpleasant. She seems to like what she sees, lip twitching at one corner for a smirk. Or is she just amused by you, and how put out you are? She says, in a husky voice, “No it’s not.”

You’re thrown for a second, definitely not expecting that. “What do you mean?”

“It’s not your seat,” she says, gaze drifting back down to the coffee, as though the conversation has reached its natural conclusion.

You clear your throat again, feeling emotion rise through you, warming your face. What are you supposed do when someone has that much gall? Again, you’d be tempted to abandon this, but there’s your coat, bunched under her. Her bum squishing it to the chair, your coat, trapped underneath her.

“I don’t mind,” you say, desperate to avoid making this harder, “if we share the table. If you want? I’ll take the other seat. But I need my coat.”

She looks at the other seat as only just realising there is a spare. It would put you close together, given how modest the table is. She says, “No.”

Nothing more. But she’s looking at you again. Waiting for your response, like it’s a test. That glint of amusement is still there. Okay, maybe this is a kind of flirting? You try to smile back, but your body’s not having it. Instincts suspecting she’s not well-meaning at all. You’re too unsure how best to act and decide it might be best just to get out of here.

“Can you just give me my coat then?” you ask, quietly.

“No,” she repeats, almost laughing, and this time follows up, “I really think you should go now. Before you regret it.”

“But…” You stand with your mouth open. What is actually happening here? Did she threaten you? Are you going to have to physically push her off your coat? Is this… like, a mugging?

“Fine,” she says, rolling her big eyes, as apparently you’ve taken too long to respond. “Seeing as you’re insisting. You can join me for my coffee.”

“What?” you reply, because now it sounds like a bad thing. You have a sudden urge to run, but you’re not sure why, and that confusion costs you all the chance you had.

She raises one hand and clicks her fingers, with a short, sharp whistle, and something hits you, unseen – you’re knocked back a step, with a gasp for air, and the room sways. Your feet are firmly on the ground, but the cafe itself is expanding, rising up, along with everything in it. The ceiling shoots off towards the sky, the people on stools to your right grow huge like statues, and the woman – the punk before you in your seat is rising, growing, looming over you as she smiles properly now, showing off white teeth.

You tremble as you turn on the spot, realising it’s not the cafe getting bigger but you shrinking. You’re getting smaller and smaller, with a sick, dizzying feeling, now knee height, now shin. You let out a frightened sound, which gets louder as you get even smaller.

Then it stops.

You frantically look about. The floorboards under your feet are mottled and textured like a landscape, the uneven grain of the wood like ruts in mud. You crane your head up, to a girl on your right sitting on a stool, and she looks as big as a skyscraper. Then you flash your gaze to the front, to the dreadful watching face of the punk woman as she leans out of her seat towards you. The glint in her eye is all too eager now, thrilling at your new state, with frightening intent.

“What have you done to me?” you cry, voice tiny. It doesn’t matter how it happened – she’s some kind of awful witch – you need to get away. You shout at the girl on the stool, “Help me! Stop her!”

But you pause with new horror as you realise the girl isn’t moving. The bustle and noise of the cafe are suddenly noticeably absent. As you spin on the spot you see that the entire massive cafe is motionless, frozen like a tableau. The barista at the counter has a hand half-raised, mouth open in the middle of cheerily saying something to a customer. A woman sitting in the window has a fork of cake raised to her lips, crumbs falling off it frozen in the air. The complete quiet is chilling. No – there must be a way to break them out of this spell.

Your eyes fall back on the punk woman as she, the only person moving, chews her lower lip, a mean look in her eye. Move! You run for the girl on the stool, waving your hands over your head and shouting for her attention. “Wake up! Down here! Listen to me! Hey!”

You trip over the gap in the floorboards, falling to your knees. As you get back up, an awful grinding sound penetrates your ears, and you wince as you see the punk woman pushing her chair back. Standing. She rises enormously, legs apart, hands on her hips, focus on you, and it’s like being seen by a goddess. You’re struck for a moment, as her beauty is only magnified by her tremendous scale now, an incredible sight. But her threat is magnified too, and you look down, to her huge boots, each bigger than a car. They could so easily crush you. You need to get away from her, fast.

You keep running, gasping for breath as you aim for the girl on the stool’s shoe. She has one toe on the floor, foot tilted up, in a scuffed blue Converse trainer. As you get closer, the size of it slows you down, the toe of her shoe alone almost as tall as you are. You must be about three inches tall, you realise, and the shoe rises up to an impossibly high leg, in dark slacks. The girl’s torso, head, lost somewhere far beyond, in the sky. But you have to try and get her attention, frozen solid as she is.

The floor shakes with a boom as the punk woman takes a step closer. She’s moving slowly, in no rush, but it fires you into a panic, and you charge at the Converse shoe. You push the toe cap with all your strength, shouting, “Hey! Down here!” No effect. Another boom and the giant punk comes a step closer.

Swearing, you find yourself climbing, not thinking, just doing whatever it will take to get help. You scramble up onto the toe of the girl’s shoe, then crawl to her dirty laces, using them to pull yourself further along. As you start climbing the ridge of her foot, the giant punk’s shadow sweeps over you and you glance fearfully to the side. She’s crouching, knees out to the sides, watching with interest. She’s absolutely massive, bent legs out far to the sides, boots taller than where you are now.

You pause. There’s no hope of getting much further than the shoe laces; even then what could you do? Crawl up the giant girl’s trouser leg? You let go and slip back down, scanning the other stools. With a half dozen other patrons sitting here, there’s a forest of feet and legs separating the wall from the rest of the room. You can run down it, there’ll be enough obstacles to shelter you.

Taking a bracing breath, you step towards the edge of the shoe. A big movement to your side indicates the giant is coming for you, so you jump with a shout, just as her hand sweeps down. She just misses you and you land badly, falling onto your side. You roll and get up as fast as possible, no time to waste, and start running.

Out of nowhere, the giant hand falls in front of you, and your momentum takes you bang into a wall of flesh. As you hit the woman’s palm and immediately try to push back, her fingers close over your back, pinning you into her flesh. Your face is buried in her palm, hot, slightly salty skin in your mushed mouth, and you’re lifted. Your legs hang free, feet kicking as you have nothing to support them, and your stomach lurches as you fly up and around, moving quickly, terrifyingly.

There are more booms of footsteps as the giant woman carries you through the cafe, and you struggle to get free, even if you’d fall to your doom. You writhe your shoulders and kick your legs harder, but her hand is bigger than you, her grip effortless.

Then you’re descending quickly, and light and air flood back over you as her grip slackens and you’re released. You fall, landing on your behind, and scramble backwards for a few paces before stopping, terrified.

The giant woman sits above you, back in her chair, with you lying on the table in front of her. The tabletop is huge, a circular wooden plain that you would struggle to sprint across. Her steaming coffee cup stands on its saucer even taller than you, like a hot tub. And the woman herself is a monster, a titan looking down at you, torso filling the sky. She rests a hand on the table near you and you scramble away from it, watching her fingers. Each one is longer than you are tall, as thick as your middle, each capable of squeezing or subduing you. Her index finger taps the surface with cruel promise.

She can do whatever she wants with you now, you realise. She could pull you apart like a bug. Crush you like crumpled paper. There’s no chance of running, nowhere to hide. Whimpering, you look at her face and call out, “Please. Don’t hurt me!”

It broadens her smile, and despite your predicament and the clear danger of this situation, her bright expression gives you a pang of hope. In her monstrous size she is also breathtakingly impressive, after all. You had thrilled slightly at her company before, hadn’t you? Maybe this won’t get any worse. It could be her teasing, ready to turn you back, to laugh about this…

She sweeps her other giant hand down to the cup, the unexpected movement of her huge limb enough to make you cower again, and she lifts her coffee with all the power of a crane carrying off a car. You watch with awe as she raises it to her mouth and takes a sip. The volume of her slurp suggests a frightening volume of liquid filling her mouth before she swallows. She watches you, in turn, the whole time, contemplating.

“Turn me back?” you plead, as a frightened question.

“No,” she says, her favourite word, big voice now vibrating through you. She says it happily now. She lowers the cup.

“What are you going to do to me?” You dread asking it, but need to. As she doesn’t answer at once, seeming to consider the question yourself, possibilities jump to your mind. She could carry you away, hidden in a pocket, to wherever she chooses. No one will notice you disappearing; if she could stop time, she can probably fog everyone in the cafe’s memories, too. Then what? Will she keep you in a cage like a pet? Use you like a toy, for her own amusement, running labyrinths or dancing on hot plates? Or will she just dispose of you, tossing you in a bin you can’t get out of, or a river? Or something worse – feed you to an animal?

“I wasn’t going to have dessert,” she says, though. “But it is nice to have something sweet with my coffee.”

You frown. Surely she’s teasing.

“And you do look sweet enough,” she adds.

Her hand lifts off the table.

You twist around, not sure if she’s joking but no chance you’re risking it. In a second, you’re running as fast as you can, but her hand comes easily after you, and a massive finger and thumb pinch at your sides. You’re lifted off the table mid-step, legs still running as she squeezes you at the waist. You fly through the air, carried over the table towards her, free this time to throw your whole body about in fear. You push useless at her fingers, trying to prize them open, but your hands only sink into her skin.

You’re lifted up to her face, held briefly in front of her moon-like eyes, before being lowered again. Down towards the coffee cup.

“No!” you shriek, pushing harder as she tilts you. You wave your hands ahead of you as if you can push back what’s coming. “Stop!”

You’re dunked face-first into the coffee, the hot rush of liquid soaking you, then gasp for air as you’re pulled out. The rich aroma bludgeons your senses, clothes dripping and bubbling with frothed milk, as you’re lifted back up to the giant punk’s face. To her lips, twice as wide as your shoulders.

“Stop!” you scream again, as her mouth parts, opening onto a wet, muggy cave, dark beyond the white flash of brick-sized teeth. You barely have time to consider what’s happening, that she’s really going to put you in there – then you’re carried in. You land on the slick, wet surface of her tongue, hands skidding over it as she releases your waist. Your hips fall on her teeth, legs dangling out, and her jaw lifts you. Her lips close around your middle, pursing to hold you in place as you kick frantically and try to get some purchase on the tongue. But you only sink into it, flopping up and down with her movements. She sucks, savouring your taste, the cavern filling with saliva that washes over you. It gags you for a second, and as you splutter, regaining some breath to shout again, she sucks again, pulling you the rest of the way in. Her mouth closes, locking you in darkness, and you turn onto your knees, just trying to stabilise yourself. You’re inside her mouth, how is this possible!

But never mind how – you hear the fleshy cave stretch wetly open before you. A wide passage into her throat. You tremble for a moment, unable to see but imagining it well enough. Your final plea comes barely audible, “Wait –”

Then the giant punk swallows, and you’re thrown into the tightening tunnel, flesh squeezing around you, sucked down, down, inside her. All you can do now is scream.