In the little while since Kate and Jill had left California, the population on Kate’s sandal had exploded exponentially. Her intuition about the light-colored patches on her footwear had been correct, as thousands of people had flocked to the surface for almost as many different reasons before their arrival. Now the number was well into the millions. The whole world had been brought to a screeching halt the moment the two titanesses appeared on the scene, unstoppable and uncaring, boldly destructive even in their ignorance. Now there was a safe zone. A place the goddesses themselves had declared was off-limits. The world took notice.

The wealthier people of the world hired private aircraft to safely deposit them on the surface of the sandal. Most commercial planes that were already in the air immediately deviated from their courses once the pilots heard the news, saving hundreds at a time. The more intrepid people, mostly from the western US, tried to climb the sandal, every bone and muscle relentlessly pushing forward and upward for the chance to live to see another day. In any other setting, a population so diverse and crowded would doubtlessly have succumbed to infighting or riots, but the crowd on the flip-flop rippled with excitement and hope.

Then the crowd slowly began to fall silent as they became aware that the girls were returning. They felt it before they heard it, the slow, rhythmic rumbling of the ground beneath them. They heard it before they saw it, repeating, resonating thumps that doubtlessly carried with each of them the anguished screams of thousands of snuffed-out lives. And when they saw it, they couldn’t believe it, two incalculable giantesses hundreds of miles away emerging from the horizon, drawing nearer to the crowd over a dozen miles with each step.

The tremors grew almost unbearable as the two girls approached, the brunette leading the way and the blonde following behind, a look of curiosity and excitement evident on her features. Then they stopped. The brunette stood directly in front of the sandal. The tops of her toenails were visible to those on the edge of the flipflop closest to her. Those who looked upward could hardly see past her knees, and a looming darkness dozens of miles overhead was the only indication they had of her crotch. Above that the tiny people simply couldn’t see that far. If they had been able to look into Kate’s eyes, to see the look on her face, it certainly would not have given them much hope.

The silence was deafening. Millions of people waited for their goddess to make a move. Then, wordlessly, she lifted her left foot over the sandal and set it down in the ocean on the other side. It was absolutely breathtaking to behold. As the bare foot passed overhead, the millions assembled could see every crease in her foot, the patches of dirt and dust several miles in area that had once been small towns or city blocks. Her power was obvious and overwhelming.

As her foot splashed down in the ocean, an uproarious cheer erupted through the crowd. Everyone around the perimeter of the sandal could see that the water displaced by her footstep had created a tidal wave thousands of feet tall that swept over north L.A. Every skyscraper and city block was overcome by the rising wall of water, including the hundreds of thousands who had decided to take their chances at ground level, or who were simply too stubborn to let some twenty-something girl dictate the rest of their lives. All of them were swept away, or were crushed by the debris of the once mighty skyscrapers that now crumbled like sand, or were drowned in the avalanche of seawater. Some were even crushed as the tidal wave carried them forward at breakneck speeds only to dash them on the sandal itself.

Those on the flip-flop, however, were overjoyed as the waves lapped harmlessly against the side of their mighty bulwark. As the waves receded, those on the sandals edge looked down at a completely new landscape. The earth was absolutely barren for miles around. North L.A. had been washed out to sea. Cries of joy rippled through the crowd. “This is it!” “She has rewarded us for obeying her!” “I knew this was the right decision!” “Good thing I brought spare underpants!”

Their joy was short-lived. The brunette lifted her foot from the water and rubbed its wet sole against the side of her right shin, drying it off. In the process, a single tiny drop of water plummeted to the sandal’s surface and squashed a few thousand unfortunate people. What was to her an unnoticed drop of water was to them several tons of space debris, rocketing down to earth. It was a sobering reminder of how insignificant they all were. Their elation quickly turned to terror as the now-dry foot hovered ominously over the sandal, poised a few miles overhead and holding. Many wondered if the journey had been worth it. Some hoped this was simply a test of their faith. A few regretted not bringing a second pair of spare underpants.

It was Jill who finally broke the silence. “Kate, what the hell are you doing?” Jill had followed Kate in silence ever since her tirade in Utah. It was obvious to Jill from the look in Kate’s eyes that there was nothing she could say to stop whatever was about to happen, so she followed in silence for close to a thousand miles as the girls strode back to where Kate had left her flip-flop and declared herself a goddess. Now the situation had grown so absurd, yet so imminent, that Jill could hold it in no longer. “Are you going to step on them?”

Kate, clearly annoyed at having her display of dominance interrupted, shot Jill a look that could kill. “What? Are you gonna try and stop me? All of a sudden do these tiny things mean something to you?”

Even Kate was taken aback by Jill’s response. “No. I want to watch.”

Both girls again fell silent as Jill slowly lowered herself to the ground, her monstrous shadow falling across seventy miles of California coastline and most of Los Angeles. Since the girls’ initial appearance almost everyone in Los Angeles had attempted to evacuate. They could not go north since Kate’s sandal blocked the way, and they dared not go east and get even closer to the ones they were fleeing. Instead they travelled south as fast as they could, but even on a good day traffic in L.A. is congested to say the least. Today it was immobile as the entire city attempted to travel in the same direction. Now millions of them were trapped under Jill as she slowly settled into place.

Time was not an issue for Kate. She had been a gymnast for a few years and so was perfectly comfortable balancing on one foot, and could have held the position for hours if she wanted to. Right now she was tempted to make it last as long as she could, since her attention was divided between the equally enjoyable thoughts of the people quaking in the shadow of her foot and those who were about to get crushed by Jill.

Jill actually hadn’t given a second thought to the millions of people staring up at her. She was enraptured by the thought of Kate crushing millions of tiny people in a single footstep. It was a shame she didn’t give more thought to her own escapades, though; as someone who had been self-conscious of her appearance all her life because of the image of glitz and glamour and skinny perfection projected by Hollywood, she would have taken great pleasure in knowing that the entire city and millions of its inhabitants were being destroyed beneath the body of an enormous, naked, buxom blonde who was simply lying down on the beach.

At last Jill’s body met the ground, punctuated by a satisfying “whumpf” of air that emanated from her outline. She gently rested her chin on her hands and stared down at the flip-flop and its millions of temporary inhabitants only inches in front of her.

The millions of people on the sandal were in full panic mode now. Hundreds of them jumped over the edge of the sandal and plummeted to the ground, preferring that death over being stepped on like a bug. Others simply wailed in terror. Thousands, on the other hand, stood silent and still, entranced by Jill’s enormous face staring down at them. None of them had ever been so close to the face of a goddess before, and it was awe-inspiring to take in the proportion of her features.

Then Kate slowly began to lower her foot. She was savoring every moment as her foot descended at the rate of a tiny fraction of an inch every second. She could imagine the people screaming in terror as they could see their own doom. Many no doubt would be most upset at the cruelty of it all. They had trusted her, how could she betray them? But their feelings and desires meant nothing to her, except as sorrows to enjoy as they were crushed by her. And what did she have to do to inflict her will on millions of people? Nothing more than put on her sandal! That was what was so delicious about the whole ordeal. She had donned these sandals hundreds of times before without a thought. Going out to the mailbox or even lounging around the house, without giving a second thought to what might be on them. And now the simple act of her slipping on a flip-flop was headline news around the world.

Hell, these tiny people probably knew more about her sandal than she ever did. Every line of her foot had worn a groove on a microscopic level into the surface of the flip-flop. The smallest variations in her day-to-day walking stride had worn down certain parts of the sandal more than others. Every time a pebble had gotten caught between her foot and the surface would have created an imperceptible divot. And now these imperfections were like an imposing landscape for the millions assembled there now. Every groove a canyon, every worn-down part a smooth plain, every divot a pit hundreds of feet deep. They lived in her footprint.

At least she had gone to the trouble of cleaning off her foot before inserting it into the sandal. Ah, but she knew all along that was more for her sake than theirs. She didn’t want all the nasty dirt and debris of her previous escapades clouding her impression of this event. This was to be clean, glorious. The start of a new life. And her preparations were totally rewarded. As her toes touched down and then slipped under the strap, the ball of her foot and then her heel slowly fell into place, and the sensation was totally unique for Kate. In all her previous barefoot steps, she had felt a range of sensations under her feet. Crumbling, flattening, crunching, etc., but this was unique. Nothing had ever felt like this before.

They squished.

The sole of her foot became moist as every crack, every ridge was filled with the remains of hundreds of microscopic people, the sum total being a moist sensation sliding across her foot as millions of insignificant people were ground into mush with a single step. No pesky buildings or trees or cars. Just people. Millions of them.

The tinies beneath her foot could see nothing for the last minute or two of their lives as the surface of Kate’s foot was so close as to block out all natural light. The only people who had a really good view of what was coming were the people in the toe section of the sandal. First they saw her toes impact on the other side of the strap, crushing thousands beneath each toe, hundreds of thousands beneath the big one. Then hundreds of thousands more were bulldozed as her toes slid forward and the rest of her foot settled into place. The lucky ones between her toes were dumbfounded. They had survived and now walls of human flesh thousands of feet tall surrounded them. In any other situation her toes would have seemed delicate, even well-maintained. Here they were monstrous.

Then suddenly the toes receded. Kate gently slid her foot back out of the flip flop and lifted it into the air. A cheer erupted from the thousands of survivors. There were five camps of survivors, those that were spared in the spaces between each of her toes, and those who had been protected under her arch. Now they stared up as the foot receded into the heavens and settled on the ground. Then many of them gasped and a few dropped dead at a sight they had forgotten had been there all along. It was Jill’s enormous face. It had not moved at all. It was still there, her eyes peering down on them from the heavens. The only difference was now she was smiling. Her smile was…unsettling. Then, her expression changed. She looked down on them intently. They felt so small under her sweeping gaze.

Kate slipped her foot back out of the flip flop and set it down on the ground, staining the now desolate north L.A. landscape with the gore of the millions she had trod on. “You like the show?” she asked Jill.

Jill was looking very intently at the surface of the sandal. She slowly moved one of her hands in front of her face until it covered her mouth, but her eyes still peered over her hand and down onto the surface of the sandal. “Kate, you have to see this.”

“Have to see what? Why do you have your hand over your mouth?”

“Because I think there are some survivors. I mean, I think there are still people alive in the places where your foot didn’t touch down. Oh, and I don’t want to blow them all away with my breath.”

Curious, Kate lay down on the other side of the sandal so that she and Jill would be face to face with the sandal in between. Although the population north of the sandal was nothing compared to what Jill had crushed in L.A., they smooshed all the same beneath Kate’s massive frontside.

An interesting spectacle met Kate as she looked on the surface of her own sandal. The most striking feature was an immaculate representation of her footprint. Every contour and ridge of her entire foot was captured in exquisite detail in a very light red, covering most of the surface of the sandal. But it was the other areas that captured her attention. Sure enough patches of microscopic specks could be seen in the spaces that had been between her toes and under her arch. The girls stared at the sandal for what seemed like an eternity before meeting each other’s gaze. This sign of their power had clearly excited them both.

“So, what should we do with them?” Jill asked from behind her hand.

Kate paused to put a hand in front of her mouth. “Do something sexy,” she dared. She knew Jill to be a very reserved person, and the questioning look she received from Jill confirmed this. But there was also a spark of wickedness in Jill’s eyes, so Kate knew she had struck upon something good. “Go ahead and try it. I want to see what you think is sexy.”

Jill thought for a moment. Then she removed her hand from her mouth and gave Kate a look that she imagined to be very sexy, a kind of squinty stare. Kate was thankful to have her hand as a shield so Jill wouldn’t see her smiling at how ridiculous the sight truly was. Then Jill stuck out her tongue and slowly swept it across the toe region of the flip flop. She twirled it around and licked enthusiastically, like she were licking Kate’s imaginary toes. The thousands of survivors were instantly smeared into the flip-flop or trapped in Jill’s saliva and drawn into her mouth. Kate, though, could stifle her laughter no longer and began giggling unstoppably.

Jill looked hurt and withdrew to her side of the flop flop. “What?” she said in an injured tone as she quickly replaced her hand. Wasn’t that sexy? I really thought that was sexy.”

“No, no, that was fine,” Kate uttered between laughs, “that was great. It wasn’t sexy at all, but it was adorable. Thanks for trying. At least now I know what I have to work with.”

“Oh, and you could do better, I suppose?”

“Watch this,” Kate replied. Kate looked deep into Jill’s eyes. Their eyes locked onto each other and Kate held Jill’s stare for a moment before dropping her hand. The moment lingered in the air as Jill took in Kate’s beautiful face, her sometimes tomboyish features that masked a strong femininity. Jill was caught up in the moment and she, too, dropped her hand so that they were now staring each other directly in the face, with thousands of tiny captives staring up at them as the connection deepened.

Kate moved her head forward slowly, inching closer to Jill at a painfully slow pace, and Jill matched the movements. This is it, Jill thought, and I’m ready. Slowly they scooted forward until their chins were directly above the edges of the sandal. Jill closed her eyes and was about to pucker her lips when she felt a strong, quick gust of air on her face.

The instant Jill had closed her eyes, Kate let out a powerful burst of breath for a split second, a quick and gentle puff on their scale, and the result was the annihilation of everyone who had survived in the shadow of her arch. Some of them had been pulverized by the sheer force of Kate’s breath, but those who had been carried away by it were unceremoniously splattered against Jill’s face. They all died on impact, crushed by colliding with her chin, cheeks, or upper lip, and a few were even lucky enough to be smashed by her pursed lips, joining the fate of their unlucky brethren who had survived until recently in between Kate’s toes.

Jill opened her eyes to see a mischievous grin stretching across Kate’s face, and they both burst out laughing at how ridiculous the whole thing felt. Jill turned red for a moment as she realized what Kate had almost lured her into.

“See?” Kate taunted. “That’s how it’s done.”

“I guess I’ve got a lot of work to do to get in shape.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll help you practice,” Kate replied with a sly grin as they rose to their feet. “Now, let’s go get my other flip-flop. I don’t want your smelly pee getting all over my beautiful feet, now do I?”