As the blinding light of the sun shone across the September evening, Tyler peered out from behind the colossal dumpster. As bad as it seemed, this was home. Or at least it had been for the last week, since his shrinking incident less than a block away.

Before his life began as a finger-sized scavenger, Tyler had been in his last year of high school, making plans for his future: going off to college, getting a job, being independent. Instead, it seemed the universe had other plans for him. Rather than thinking about any of that, he only had one question on his mind right now:

How the hell am I going to survive winter at this size?

Sure, the makeshift rag he had been wearing warmed him up enough to get through the night, but the idea of a Midwest winter out on the streets at this size sounded next to impossible to survive. Perhaps he could find his way into a local business and survive in their air vents.

"...Or, maybe I'll freeze to death," he whispered under his breath. After all, it's not like dying on the streets was an uncommon fate for someone like him.

The shrunken boy's thought process was swiftly interrupted by something in the distance. That smell... what was it? He moved forward just a bit to see a rather large woman plop herself down onto a bench just outside the alley. She held a freshly made sandwich in her hands, before setting it in a bag between her feet.

"I'll save you for later," she said to herself before getting on her phone.

It wasn't exactly a perfect opportunity, but Tyler was forced to consider just how long it had been since he'd had anything that wasn't half eaten trash discarded into a dumpster. This was something he felt like he had to pursue.

"Worst case scenario I'll just hide somewhere..." he said to himself before shuffling forward out of the alley and under the bench. He got a better look at the ebony woman's features as he approached her. Her massive butt, tucked away in a colorful dress, seemed to almost spill out between the seams of the bench.

As Tyler got closer to the bag, her foot slipped and the bag dropped to its side. Tyler nearly ran away, before realizing that the woman hadn't even noticed.

Jackpot.

He reached forward into the bag, hoping he could at least take a piece of lettuce or tomato or bread back with him. Using all of his strength, he was just barely able to tear a chunk of the warm bread out before he began uncontrollably devouring it, savouring its delectable flavors. Just as he started to forget how sensitive the situation was, the bag suddenly tipped over, with the tiny man sliding forward and onto the pavement right where the massive giantess could see him.

"...Huh?" She exclaimed as her eyes focused in on him.

Tyler's instincts took over as he ran as far as possible away from the giant woman. He couldn't make it more than a few feet away before he felt her thunderous footfalls in the distance.

"Hey! You tryin' to steal my food, 'lil guy? Get your ass back here!"

The woman was running after him now as fast as her body could carry her, and the empty sidewalk wasn't revealing any easy hiding spots. Tyler spotted a storm drain that he could run into, but just before he could make it...

WOOSH!

In an instant, he was grabbed between two fingers by his head and swooped up to an up close view of the woman's face. Her chubby countenance was marked with a scowl, and the grody scent of her breath washed over the tiny boy as she breathed.

"I'm sorry ma'am, I'm so sorry-"

"Don't "ma'am" me, mister. That ain't gonna cut it. I think you need to learn a lesson about respecting people's property..."

"I was just hungry-"

"So you stole my food?"

Tyler couldn't believe how much pain he was in, he was practically willing to say anything to be set down.

"Since you took some from me, maybe it's only right you give me a few extra calories, huh 'lil man? How 'bout I make you the final ingredient in my sandwich?"

Gulp.

"Or, better yet... At your size, there ain't nothing to stop me from swallowing your tiny ass whole..."

Tyler was met with the ominous expanse of her gaping maw, its putrid breath invading his nostrils and causing beads of sweat to form on his skin. Within, crooked and uneven teeth displayed remnants of her daily meals, while a monstrous wet tongue menacingly approached his vulnerable form. The terrifying ordeal unfolded in an instant, leaving Tyler screaming.

"AAAAHHH!!"

Tyler had been unceremoniously dropped back onto the ground, his whole body crying out in pain as the woman stepped over him, unintentionally giving him a view of her thick thighs underneath her dress.

"Loser."

He was relieved that she was finally gone, but he couldn't help but think about how humiliating that encounter had been. He had never been treated so rudely by a stranger before. Was this really how normal sized people were going to treat him from now on?

He tried to forget about it as he pushed himself to his feet, trying to just be thankful that he made it out of that encounter without being someone's dinner. Now he had to find his way back to the alley and hide out for the night - it would be getting dark soon and being out late could be dangerous.

As he crawled underneath the familiar dumpster that he had learned to call home, he found his makeshift sleeping bag - a dirty sock he had been lucky enough to find on the ground - and called it a night.

---

Tyler came to a rude awakening as loud mechanical noises erupted from above. It felt as though the heavens themselves were shifting before a bright light blinded him.

"Found one," a raspy male voice said, and the tiny boy didn't have a chance to process what was going on before he was swept up in yet another hand.

By the time he came to, he felt himself trapped inbetween two walls of cloth that kept mashing him against each other as something heavy erupted on the ground below. The feeling of the cloth was unmistakeable - denim.

He was in the pocket of the man's jeans.

Tyler wanted to call out for help, but simply finding getting his bearings within the pocket was a struggle in and of itself. He was jostled up and down repeatedly, and there was no sign that the chaos was going to stop anytime soon. The smell of cigarettes was so strong it almost made him want to puke.

He was pulled out, but only for a brief moment before being tossed into another dark prison - this time a more spacious one - whose door slammed shut with a deafening bang. The noises of an engine erupted all around him as it became clear he was in the glove box of a car.

As he felt his way over to the opening, he tried desperately to fiddle with it, hoping he could open it somehow.

"I hate to break it to ya, kid, but we already tried that," another raspy male voice spoke, this time not so gargantuan.

Tyler jumped as the two other passengers in the glove box revealed themselves.

"Who are you people? W-what is this?"

"Beats me," another voice said, this one female and assertive. "We know just about as much as you do."

"It's better if we don't resist so much," the male voice suggested.

"Fuck that. I will die before I let these giant bastards control me. I say we wait for an opening and make a break for it - haven't you ever heard of strength in numbers?"

Tyler's eyes adjusted to the darkness, and he could see just enough to comprehend his fellow captives. The man was rather old, balding, and had clearly taken a beating. The woman was probably in her 30s or so, and he couldn't help but notice how naked she was.

"My eyes are up here, asshole."

"S-sorry," Tyler quickly averted his gaze.

"Whatever," she responded. "I'm Maria."

"Frank," the male voice added.

"I'm Tyler. I'm still... new to all of this."

"How long?" Maria asked.

"I think a week. How about you guys?"

"You stop counting after a while," Frank said.

"We both got picked up by this dirtbag tonight, and it looks like you're just as lucky as we are. So, what do you say we figure out a plan?"

Before the conversation could go any further, the engine came to a stop. All of the tinies shielded their eyes as the bright light of the car washed into the compartment, the only thing blocking it being the face of their kidnapper.

"Alright, three little fuckers... Not bad for a Saturday night," the giant said to himself.

"Hey, you piece of shit! Let us go!" Maria yelled up at him.

The creepy giant was completely unintimidated - rather amused, actually. He took a closer look at the proud miniature woman, looking her up and down.

"Hey, you're a pretty little thing, ain't ya?"

Maria looked down, clearly having regretted speaking up.

"I'm sure Penny won't mind missing out on one tiny," he said before his dirty fingers wrapped around the woman's body. "After all, I've EARNED this."

"Let go of her!" Tyler yelled, waving his arms, trying to do anything he could, but the giant wasn't paying attention at all.

Maria's screams pierced the air as she was held in the giant's tight grip. The sound of a zipper sent shivers down Tyler's spine as both he and Maria realized the man's intent. The creepy man opened the waistband of his underwear, exposing the dark, cavernous space within, and with a callous motion, he plunged her in headfirst. Her muffled screams diminished gradually as the zipper sealed her inside. The giant sighed contentedly, cupping his hand around his groin, visibly relishing the sensation of the tiny woman squirming within.

"Alright, you two," he shifted his attention back to the traumatized men left behind. With no warning, he scooped Tyler and Frank up in one hand, pushing their bodies uncomfortably close together as he carried them out of his truck.

Tyler could just barely see the sign of the building they were entering, which read "PENELOPE'S PETS".

Oh, god.

Tyler had seen this place before. He had walked by it plenty of times. During most of his years he had rarely thought about the fact that tiny people were sold as commodities, but after testing positive last year, his perspective had changed. Each time he passed stores like this, it was a stark reminder of what could happen to him should he succumb. And here he was.

Tyler and Frank were haphazardly tossed into a cage which was barely large enough to fit the two of them before it was thrust into a lockbox and they were trapped in darkness again.

Tyler decided to break several minutes of awkward silence.

"Frank, right?"

"Yeah," the older man groaned, clearly defeated.

"What did you do, before all of this?"

"I was a janitor. Down at the university. I got by alright," Frank choked back a sob. "You know, when it happened, the kids down there, I thought they would be nice. They're smart, educated."

"What happened?"

"It happened in a stall while I was cleaning the girls bathroom. A couple of them came in, they thought I was some kind of pervert. They took me to their dorm... They.. they..."

"I-it's okay, Frank, you don't have to talk about it."

"Anyway," Frank recovered. "I found a way out about a month ago. Surviving on the streets ain't much better."

Tyler didn't know what to say. Even with all of the horror stories he had heard, he never knew people could be so cruel.

"I know you're young and you probably won't listen to me," Frank started. "But it's going to be better for you just doing what you're told. You don't want to end up... like me."

"I know you had some rough experiences but... It can't all be so bad. There has to be a way out of this, right? Maybe some nice giants will buy us, or something," even Tyler knew he was being too optimistic.

"I don't know, kid. I don't know."

---

There was yet another rude awakening as the lockbox was opened the next morning and the two mini men were greeted with the billboard-sized countenance of a new giant. It was hard to see much other than the age signified by the wrinkles on her face as well as her long black hair.

"What do we have here?" she said, almost bored. The cage was ripped out of the lockbox at a high speed before both Frank and Tyler were dumped out onto a table.

As Tyler stood up and rubbed his eyes, he peered around the room to see dozens of lockboxes like the one he had been trapped in as well as numerous cages of different sizes.

Tyler looked up at the middle aged giantess before him, taking in her form. She had a stern and authoritative look to her, and yet a motherly feeling of compassion seemed to radiate off of her at the same time. She was relatively slender and tall, although it was hard not to notice just how busty she was, with her hulking breasts forming an outline in her black shirt.

Tyler was lifted into the sky and given a front row seat to her face, which had an old and tired look but was still pretty nonetheless.

"Hmm... Male, maybe 18 or 19... three or four inches, athletic build, probably fresh out of school."

Tyler was placed back onto the table and switched places with Frank.

"Hello, miss-"

"Male," she interrupted him. "Oh, dear. Old, probably early '50s, bald, overweight. Ugh. Just my luck. I told Roman to avoid these types..."

Frank frowned as he was set back down on the table and the woman just stared at him for a minute or more, as if she was trying to figure out what to do with him.

"Here's the bottom line, little guy. Your looks just aren't going to sell. I don't know if you're up to the standards of a Penelope's product."

"What? You can't be serious, I- I'm more than happy to be obedient for giants, I-"

"That's not the problem," she interrupted him again. "What college girl is going to want to come in here and spend two hundred on an old coot?"

"I..." Frank was at a loss for words.

"We're selling above market average here, and I'm afraid you don't meet our standards."

"Wait, what's going to happen to him?" Tyler asked, only to be ignored. His heart sank as Frank began to sob and the giant woman started writing on a clipboard.

"Stop crying," she said, but Frank wouldn't let up. His sobs only became louder as he fell to the ground. The woman looked down from her clipboard.

"Shut the fuck up," she said. Frank still wouldn't listen.

Tyler didn't know what to say - wasn't this a good thing? Maybe they would let Frank go or something... right?

"That's it, you little shit."

SPLORSH!!!

Tyler fell onto his back and felt blood splash onto his face as a fist came down like a meteor onto the table. It took him a couple seconds to realize that the red smear on the fist was Frank.

"Oh my god..." Tyler was speechless. She had just... killed a man in front of him. The woman went over to a nearby sink and washed what was left of Frank off of her hands before drying them and walking back over.

"Oh, don't worry, little guy. You're young, fit... I'm sure you're going to sell fast."

She spoke like it was the most casual thing in the world, like she had done nothing but crush a tiny insect. Tyler's stomach churned.

"By the way, I'm Penelope."