Trey worked as a line cook in a breakfast cafe for barely over minimum wage. Already in his mid-30’s, he knew his chances of ever climbing out of the rat race of life were quickly slipping away. But he kept his head up and worked hard regardless. He looked young for his age, exercised most days of the week, and maintained a relatively healthy diet.
Due to his low income, Trey rented a house with a few other roommates. He had a car, an old slightly worn Kia that had hail damage, but kept up on servicing otherwise. He took pride in his ability to save money and take care of things despite so many obstacles and setbacks.
One day Trey was working his regular morning shift in the kitchen when a rush of orders came through on the screens. Unfortunately, the baristas in front of house were short staffed that day, so in addition to cooking and preparing the various dishes as fast as possible, they also had to run out and deliver the plates to the various customers in the dining area.
One of the orders that came through during the rush was the dreaded veggie burger, an unholy entree made of some kind of meat substitute that Trey wasn’t quite sure of. Something about it smelled off in its refrigerated container, but it didn’t compare to the foul stench it gave off upon being grilled. The aroma filled the kitchen as he cooked it to order.
Upon plating the order, Trey noticed no one was available to serve it to the customer, so he brought it out of the kitchen himself in search of the corresponding order number flag set out on the tables. He almost thought he might have had the wrong number because he couldn’t find it anywhere in the main dining room, but then he rounded the corner towards the booths where less customers were seated.
At the far end of the dining room, nearest to the restrooms, Trey spotted the order number flag on the last booth. As he approached, his conscience suddenly flooded with memories. A dreadful feeling came over him. This was the customer he’d heard about from his coworkers.
It was some girl that he’d probably seen her once or twice before himself who had to be in her early to mid-20’s. She was pale, overweight, and dressed in some combination of pop-punk and gothic styles. Her hair was black and cut very short, and sported red or purple highlights, Trey couldn’t remember which. He did, however, recall a moment some weeks ago when she seemed to look his way while he was idling in the kitchen on a slow afternoon. Sometimes he could people-watch from his post near the grill, though the customers rarely ever seemed to notice. But that time, someone did.
Trey had heard a couple tall tales of this young woman being a troublemaker when it came to the preparation of her veggie burger. She had complained at the front of house staff that the patty was undercooked. Upon sending it back to the kitchen, the cook on shift gave it another pass on the grill. Unfortunately, they apparently overcompensated and burned it to a crisp, causing the girl to throw a fit that it was utterly ruined and demanded a refund. Upon getting her money back she stormed out of the cafe with nary a thank you despite the staff’s best efforts. And yet after all of that, here she was again, apparently ready to give the establishment a second chance.
Trey could see the top of her head, her short black pixie cut with a streak of red, poking out of the top of the booth facing away from him as he carried forth her smelly veggie burger. As he rounded the booth, she came into full view. She was wearing a hoodie and sweatpants, which partially obscured her chubby figure. She beamed a smile at Trey as he set her plate on the table. Her eyes felt like x-rays on him and he fought to return a polite glance.
“Oh, thank you! That was fast!”, she said.
“My pleasure, enjoy!”, Trey replied as he turned to hastily make his way back to the kitchen.
But before he could take two steps, he heard her clear her throat.
“That better not mean it was undercooked.. was it?”, the girl asked in a slightly terse tone of voice.
Trey quickly whipped around and smiled reassuringly.
“No ma’am, I can guarantee it’s cooked through. I prepared it myself.” Before turning to leave, he added, “and if there’s anything you need please don’t hesitate to let us know.”
This seemed to appease her.
“Okay!”, she said with a cheery expression. Trey noticed then that her round face was actually quite cute, despite her plump figure.
Around twenty or so minutes later, the meal rush had calmed down and Trey leaned against the counter in the kitchen, taking a moment to idly watch the bustle in the dining room. He watched as the chubby goth girl approached the front register, suddenly feeling nervous. He saw her say something to the front staff, but was too far away to make anything out. But she seemed calm. After another few seconds, she turned and headed towards the door. Right as she opened it to leave, she turned her head around and looked directly at Trey, very similarly to the first time she did so a few weeks back. He felt like she looked right through him. And then she was gone.
Just then, one of the male front of house staff entered the kitchen, approaching Trey with his hand raised gesturing a high-five.
“Good job, Trey!”, he said as they slapped hands. “That lady got real nasty with us last time she was here, I’m sure you remember the story. But the veggie burger you made her today was apparently so good, she told us to offer her complements to the chef—which was you, of course!”
“Just doing my job”, Trey said humbly. He was getting the feeling compliments like these, which came his way semi-regularly, were in lieu of fair pay. When his coworker left the kitchen, he shook his head. One day, he said to himself, he would make a decent wage.
A few hours later, Trey hung up his apron and clocked out for the day. It was the mid afternoon, and he was getting a little hungry. Sometimes he ate the hot food made in his kitchen, but increasingly less often due to how fatty and greasy it tended to be, even for cafe food. He had a fridge of fresh veggies waiting for him at home, assuming a roommate didn’t steal any as they tended to do from time to time.
Trey approached his car in the back parking lot, mainly reserved for employees. He hardly seemed to notice how uncannily quiet it was in the parking lot. Right as he was about to open his car door, he saw something out of the corner of his eye.
“Surprise!”, said a familiar feminine voice, just as a blinding green flash filled Trey’s vision, rendering him unconscious.
*********************************************
Trey awoke on a strange plastic surface. All around was a deep rumbling sound, like some humongous engine. The floor vibrated in unison with the noise. He also detected what sounded like pop-punk music, paired with some feminine voice humming along quite out of tune. On top of all this everything was shaking considerably, making it nearly impossible for him to stand up.
He looked around. The room was cylindrical, with weird rows of shelf-looking features all around the wall. The floor also had a few deep grooves in it as well. Very odd. As he tilted his head upwards, the structure strongly reminded him of the inside of a cup, only gigantic….
Then he looked all the way up above him and his jaw dropped.
High above Trey’s head, he saw what appeared to be the ceiling of a car interior, only this car would have to belong to a giant hundreds of feet tall. And then, the giant in question came partially into view to Trey from his vantage point down inside the giant cup he was seemingly trapped in the bottom of. And the giant was.. female? A giantess?
Then Trey immediately recognized the features of this giant woman. It was the girl from his cafe, only now she was positively colossal.
What was going on?!?! Trey began to hyperventilate, praying he would wake up any moment from this bizarre nightmare. Had he fallen asleep in his car? Was he dead? His last memory was entering his car after his work shift… or had he even gotten into his car? Then he began to fuzzily recall seeing something—the girl! Had she… somehow miniaturized him? His mind continued to race as his surroundings shook and vibrated to the movements of the car.
Anya peeled into the driveway of her mother’s house and parked her car. She looked at the cup holder between the front seats, reaching down to pick up the plastic cup sitting there. She held the opening up to her face and peered inside with a wide smile. There he was, small as ever, her little captured prey. She had reduced his size to what looked to be about… two inches, she estimated. He looked up at her, speechless, nothing but a look of pure horror on his face. It didn’t bother her. He was probably going to be in shock for a bit longer, she assumed. She giggled and winked at him, then opened the door and exited her car.
Anya glanced down with glee as the now-tiny man rattled around slightly in her cup as she walked into the house.
“Hello darling”, she heard her mother say elsewhere in the house, her attention likely focused on some kind of ancient tome.
“Hello, mother”, she echoed back, casually making her way towards her bedroom.
Anya and her mother were witches. Descendants of an extensive lineage of witches throughout the centuries, they were a more humble, less prestigious branch of their family, but still respectable and formidable in their own right. At least Anya’s mother was; Anya was still a fledgling witch, only a few years experienced in her crafts, with a long way to go in perfecting them. Witches did not did not become fully proficient until much later in life, hence why one doesn’t typically picture a stereotypical witch as being young.
Anya was a young adult witch, but determined to learn as much as she could as quickly as possible. And part of her learning involved the use of others. This was part of her motivation in capturing Trey, at least what she told herself. She was equally motivated by how handsome she found him. Anya realized she didn’t have the most attractive figure, or even the most pleasant personality, and it really did not bother her. Traditional manners or even laws need not apply to witches, as they possessed abilities and powers that could utterly defy the possibilities of normal ungifted humans.
For years, Anya had fantasized about having her own little man to toy with. She knew it was possible, given her heritage, but not a simple wish that could easily be granted. The size-altering spells were complicated and nuanced, and the one she used on Trey had taken her many months to learn how to do correctly. And, even still, the spell wasn’t completely stable on behalf of her slightly imperfect execution. But it was close enough for her to accomplish the plan she’d devised.
Anya entered her messy bedroom and quietly shut the door behind her. Despite being a witch, Anya’s bedroom looked as normal as any teenage/young adult slob’s, with pop-punk/screamo band posters framed on the walls, as well as an assortment of gothic-looking ornaments and paintings or photographs. Her hardwood floor was littered with dirty clothes, used dishes, and other random things. She sat down on her unmade bed, the sheets having not been changed for weeks, and tilted the cup over her outstretched hand, witnessing with baited breath as the tiny Trey tumbled out the top into her grasp.
Trey yelped as he helplessly rolled down the ridged walls, falling for a second before landing on something warm and soft, with a strange bodily aroma. He quickly realized with dread he was now in the cupped hand of his captor, this chubby gothic giantess he did not yet know the name of. He looked up to see her huge round face presiding over him, wearing a smile that made him somehow feel even smaller than he already was.
“…Hi there”, she said to him.
“You’re probably still utterly confused as to what is even going on right now… and that’s not really my problem. It’s yours to sort out. But you can call me Anya.”
Trey gulped. Anya’s palm and fingers enveloping him were so warm, they were almost causing him to sweat. So this pudgy-cafe-patron-gone-imposing-goddess’ name was Anya.
“Uh… hi. Is there any way you can turn me back to normal now, Anya?”, Trey bravely asked, almost immediately feeling regret based on the way her face twisted mischievously and her grip tightened around him during his modest plea.
“I’m going to cut right to the chase, little man—the simple answer is no. You’re here to serve me. As my plaything. You’re spending the foreseeable future as my slave. Now… I don’t consider myself to be overly cruel, but I have my own ideas of a good time that probably won’t be very fun for you. But… I’m sure you’ll still have some fun regardless.”
Trey was absolutely petrified. What was he in for? What did he even do to deserve a fate like this? In the end, it ultimately didn’t matter. This was simply what this demented girl wanted and he was powerless to stop her.