“What do you mean, ‘NAH?’” asks Michael, looking up at Claire’s imposing face as she continued to smile down on him and the others.
“I think this is fine. I like you guys just the way you are.”
“Good one, Claire. Very funny. Ha Ha. Okay, now let’s get started on changing everyone back.”
Claire laughs. “Why would I want to do that? Like I already said, I like you guys at this size.”
The group watches as Claire stands up and walks out into the kitchen after tucking the device away in her pocket. Their hearts drop in their chests. They had come so close to being helped by this young woman, or so they had thought. Now it seemed as though she had no intentions of returning them to their full sizes. But why? What reasons could she have for this? What could she possibly gain by refusing to help them out of their situation? They were snapped out of their thoughts when Claire entered the living room carrying a large round white porcelain plate. She set it down to their left, producing a clinking sound as it made contact with the table.
“Okay everyone, all aboard!” Claire said as she smiled at them. Nobody on the table moved. “Come on, guys, get on the plate.” Everyone continued to stay completely still.
Claire reached over and grabbed the plate in her left hand and pulled it back towards her body. “So I guess you all wanna do this the hard way? Fine. But just so you know, the hard way is still going to be incredibly easy for me.”
The group looked on as the girl brought the plate to rest at the edge of the table. She held it there in her left hand as she reached towards them with her right one. First she picked up the little blue truck. She placed it on the plate and set her left thumb down gently in the bed of the vehicle, her fingers still holding onto the underside of the plate. “Better hold this down. We don’t want it rolling around loose and hitting you down there while I walk.”
Claire brings her right hand back to the table. She sets it down behind the group, standing it up by placing her pinky finger and the side of her hand on the cool marble surface. Very slowly, she begins pulling her hand forward. Everyone tries to scramble out of the way and the little women scream as the high wall of soft pale flesh comes towards them.
Claire carefully herds the little people onto the plate with her hand. She watches in delight as they flee from her body part. After the last person boards the plate to escape her approaching hand, she lifts it from the table and places it beneath the plate where the fingers of her other hand continue to support it. She raises the plate to her face and gazes down upon the tiny people standing on its surface. “See, I told you it would be easy.”
Claire stands and begins walking, causing Michael and his friends to wobble, most of them falling down, unable to stay on their feet while the massive woman carries them through her home. They can’t accurately decipher where they’re being taken. They know they’ve left the living room but they’re uncertain of anything other than that as they can only gaze up at the ceiling above Claire’s head as she walks or watch as they pass by large objects on their left and right too quickly to tell what any of them really are.
Soon they come to a halt as Claire stops walking. She removes her right hand from the plate and reaches up with it. The group follows her arm with their eyes and watches as she unlatches something on the ceiling. She then pulls down at it and stairs descend from their sky. They know now where they’re being taken: the attic.
Claire ascends the pull down stairs and walks to the middle of the attic. Overall, the attic is in very good shape, but some of the floorboards still creak and groan beneath her weight as she steps onto them. Claire doesn’t need to switch the lights on as the room is already well illuminated thanks to the sunlight supplied by the windows in the walls. Standing in the middle of the attic, Claire leans down with her back to the stairs and plucks the little blue truck from the plate. She extends her arm to the right and places the vehicle a couple feet away from her on the wood floor. Next, she tilts the plate forwards away from her and dumps its passengers as gently as she can, spilling the ten tiny bodies out onto the floor.
Michael groans as he picks himself up and watches as the others do the same. He looks around at his new surroundings. The attic is massive, it’s vast and mostly barren. There are piles of boxes stacked fairly neatly and pushed into the corners and a large wooden board leaning against one of the walls. Other than that, and of course the gigantic girl towering over him and his friends, the room is empty. He and everyone else around him look up in surprise as Claire begins to kneel down in front of them. She wraps her arms around her ankles as she rests her chin in the gap between her knees and stares down at them, watching.
Isaac is the first to speak. “What are you doing? You have to help us. You need to grow us back to normal!”
“I don’t NEED to do anything, little man” she replies calmly as she continues to kneel with the plate on the floor in front of her, the only thing between her and the little people.
“We trusted you! We trusted you, and you betrayed us!” yells Amy.
“Awwww. Poor little Mrs. Parker. Don’t be like that, we’re going to have lots of fun together.”
“Why did you bring us up here? What are you going to do to us?” asks Isaac.
Claire looks down and watches as the women cling to the men in search of comfort. She rolls her eyes. “Oh, stop. You look pathetic down there. As if this is going to be SOOOO bad for you. Like I said, we’re all going to have a lot of fun together. It’s gonna be great.” With those words, she rises to her full height. She turns herself around and walks to the left towards a pile of boxes stacked in the corner, the heels of her flip flops slapping at her feet as she travels. She grabs two light brown shoeboxes from the top of the stack and lifts their lids, checking inside them. She opens another much larger box and dumps the contents of the two smaller ones into it.
With the boxes now empty, Claire carries them back towards the group of people on the floor. She sets one of them a few feet away from her next to where she had placed Jim’s truck earlier. Leaning down and over the little people, she removes the lid from the other box and sets it aside before laying the rectangular box down on one of its longer two sides behind the group of people with its opening facing their backs. When she’s finished with this, she stands back up.
“I thought about keeping you guys in my room but decided up here was better. I come up here and hang out sometimes, It’s like a second room to me. My mother NEVER comes up here, she’s afraid of the big spiders and other creepy crawlies that she thinks live in here.” The people below her are visibly spooked at the thought of being stuck in the attic with spiders and other bugs that would be like large predatory animals to them. “Don’t worry about that, though. I’ve spent a lot of time up here and I’ve NEVER noticed any spiders or anything like that. But it’s good that she thinks this place is full of them and is afraid to set foot up here. That way I don’t have to worry about her coming up and finding you, and YOU don’t have to worry about her accidentally crushing you. See? It works out for everyone.”
“Who do you think you are? Do you not understand the situation? You can’t just keep us up here like hostages!” Keith yells up to her.
Claire laughs at the little man. “It seems like it’s YOU that doesn’t understand the situation, so let me help you out. You and all your little friends are the size of insects, and I’m much, MUCH bigger than you. Therefore, I can do whatever I want with you.”
Keith hangs his head, defeated. The men take their women in their arms, some of them sobbing as they’re wrapped in the embrace of their husbands and boyfriends.
“Anyways, I need you guys to get in the box.” Claire points to the shoebox she had placed on the floor behind the group of people. They turn around and look inside, the opening facing them like a small cardboard cave. “I have some important work to do. We’ll figure out some better living arrangements later, but for now I need you guys to get in there. I don’t want you running off and hiding behind things up here while I’m gone before I get a chance to talk with you again. So go ahead, get in the box.”
Claire waits patiently for a couple of moments, staring down as the little men and women just stand still and stare back at up her. Finally, she has had enough of their defiance and decides she must do something to persuade them to obey her command.
“You know…” she begins, smiling as she starts slipping her right foot out of its flip flop. “I take REALLY good care of my feet.” Claire lifts her leg and extends it, sending the now bare foot forward.
Michael and the others watch from the ground as the foot comes towards them slowly, toes wiggling gently as they travel through the air. It stops and hovers, looming above and dropping a shadow onto the plate on the floor in front of them. Suddenly and without any warning, Claire brings her foot down, her sole slapping loudly against the plate. The ground briefly quakes under the group and though they are shaken by the tremor, they manage to stay on their feet. Claire’s foot flesh oozes out, spreading, expanding, taking up a little more area as she presses down, applying more pressure onto the plate. She lightly wiggles her toes and slowly rocks her foot, lifting it slightly on its sides back and forth to the left and right. A peeling sound is produced each time she lifts as her soft sole becomes unstuck to the plate beneath it before being pressed back down.
Claire watches the floor, deeply satisfied with the sight of ten people completely enthralled by the gentle movements of her foot. “As I was saying… I take REALLY good care of my feet. And now, I have ten little helpers to help me with that.” She giggles and continues smiling.
Claire keeps her heel on the plate and begins lifting her foot, exposing her pale sole to the tiny group. The action of her skin peeling away from the plate creates a loud suction sound. Everyone watches as her sole continues to rise, wrinkles are already visible and many more begin appearing as she scrunches it up. “I didn’t think I’d have to put you guys to work so soon, but if you REALLY don’t want to get in the box for me, then we might as well get started.” She continues teasingly wiggling her toes in the air, high above the little men and women as her foot remains standing on its heel.
Claire’s words sink in, releasing the group from their trance. Everyone turns around and runs towards the box as quickly as they can. They scramble into the opening and run to the back of the box, pressing their backs against it to put as much distance as possible between themselves and Claire’s massive wrinkly sole.
“There. Was that so hard?” Claire removes her heel from the plate and brings her foot to the top of the outside of the box. The group taking refuge within their cardboard shelter cowers in fear. Claire pushes on the box with her foot, returning it to its intended position. The people inside tumble around as the part of the box they had been leaning against now becomes their floor. They lay on their backs and stare up at the attic ceiling until it is replaced by Claire’s beautiful face. “Might as well put this in here with you for now.” She lowers Jim’s truck into the box, placing it with the rear bumper touching what is the back right corner relative to her own current position. “I’ve got important work to do, little ones. I’ll be back later and we can spend some more time together. See ya later!”
“NO! CLAIRE, PLEASE! DON’T LEAVE US IN HERE! CLAIRE, PLEASE!” The group tries pleading with the young woman as she places the lid on the shoebox. As they are sealed in their world goes black.