“God!  I told you that I was sorry!”

Parker harshly awoke to the high-pitched sounds of the fuming screams of Katie and Claire’s fearful justifications.  Initially not being able to comprehend their cries, Parker rubbed his aching head and worked to comprehend his surroundings, not to mention how long he had been unconscious for.  The tiny man still rested on the expansive surface of Katie’s desk, hardly in good health after his lost battle with Katie’s feet and his tumultuous dream.  In the midst of all of these happenings, he was still halfway in between the Amazon’s dream world and his bizarre reality.

That…dream.  I don’t get this drug, these girls, that Amazon blonde, ugh…I don’t get any of this!!  She keeps telling me that it’ll make sense soon and that it’s for my own good, but she’s so fucking vague and mysterious that I don’t understand shit.  Wait – Shit! What the hell am I doing?! These girls are causing trouble again, who knows what they’ll do to me next…And Ava!  She’s my only hope now…I have no idea how she’ll…And my office, I wonder if they’re worried about me or anything…God!  My head’s such a mess.  Is it another effect of the drug?  I need to straighten out and get through this, especially if that giant bitch claims that this is “therapy,” or whatever.  I don’t see how getting grinded by this girl’s feet is helping me at all, damn.  I guess we’re back to trust and obey: trust that Ava will help, and obey this brat, for my own livelihood.

Slowly but surely, the wheels of Parker’s brain were spinning like they used to, his thoughts reactivating.  Maybe the dream had helped, albeit marginally.  He was still far away from the astonishing determination that had gotten him discovered by Ava.  But hell, at least he wasn’t in a robotic comatose anymore.  Not wanting to attract any attention to himself, he made no attempt at standing up, instead opting to lie down and pray that Katie’s anger would stay focused on Claire.

“I told you, I didn’t hear anything!”  Slightly unkempt, Claire’s red hair was barely able to hide the worry in her eyes.

“I’ll ask you again: What were you doing with my phone?”  Even more frustrated than during last night’s breakdown with Parker, Claire breathed heavily in between her demanding questions.

“Well, I’ll tell you again!  My phone is running out of battery and I needed to tell my mom that I was staying here for another couple of hours!” 

“Then show me your phone, bitch!”

“Don’t call me that Katie, god!  I don’t have to show you anything!”

“You know what?  Fine.”

“Well, you know wha – wait…really?

“Yeah, I mean if you’re my best friend and everything, what reason do I have to distrust you?  Right?”  The redness faded from Katie’s face, slowly being replaced by her familiar mixed expression of mischievousness and self-assurance.  She had an idea.

“Yeah…you’re right…I mean…I don’t know why you would have even questioned me in the first place,” Claire meekly responded, her pale face losing even more color as she anxiously defended herself against her intimidating friend.

“I’m so sorry Claire.  I’m just worked up over Friday, that’s all.  I just want it to be perfect.”  Katie grinned, making Claire even more apprehensive and nervous.  She couldn’t let this go that easily, right?

“Same!  Like, people will totally have fun and everything…they’ll love the little guy and it’ll all be because of you.”

“Oh Claire, give yourself some credit!  You’ll be there the whole way.  You’re like…the Robin to my Batman!”

“I…I guess.  Thanks, Katie.”

“Anytime, sweetie.  Now, you look stressed.  Why do you look sooo nervous?”

“Just, that Catcher in the Rye test is tomorrow and everything…I’m afraid that it’ll be, like, hard and stuff.”

“Oh don’t worry about that.  We’ll just cheat off that nerd girl, Lizzie.  Let’s have some fun instead!”

“Sure!  I know that The Bachelor is on tonight…”

“I have something more fun in mind.”

Claire looked like she was about to be sick.  She knew what Katie had in mind.  But what else could she do?  In her world, social life was paramount.  Crossing Katie meant crossing the border into social irrelevance.  Social irrelevance, well, that was just about the worst thing that could happen, at least in Claire’s mind.  Preventing that meant that she had to stay on Katie’s good side.  At least until Friday, of course.  Colleen would be okay until then, right?  Right?

“Like…what?”  Claire choked out, her voice oozing with dread.

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*** So wake me up when it’s all over

When I’m wiser and I’m older

All this time I was finding myself

And I didn’t know I was lost ***

Ava shifted her blue Chevy Cobalt into park, shushing the engine into a low roar.  She lowered the volume of the radio, which was playing her beloved Top 100 hits.  Despite the cheery tunes, she could not shake the butterflies from her stomach.  She was sure that Parker’s coworkers would be amiable and helpful, but she still felt off.  Was it that she was in an unfamiliar place?  Was she still upset about Parker?  She let out a prolonged sigh.  Still no relief.

The sun just having set for the night, Ava looked out her window at 154 Bedlington Gardens, a bricked office complex about a mile from her comfortable suburban home.  There were a few cars left in the lot, most likely some caffeine-soaked busybodies that needed an extra hour to get their work done.  She figured that someone would be on the top floor, where Sunny Day Events called home.  After all, she was tied up with school commitments until about 5 PM, and she surely didn’t want to bother the workplace with her questioning during work hours.  As Ava picked the stray ends of her hair, she realized that she was just delaying her mission, so she turned off the radio and headed towards the door of the complex.  Here goes nothing.

Fortunately, the large glass door of the office was unlocked, giving way into a standard-looking lobby, with a few green couches and a coffee table.  Ava checked the directory to make sure that she was going to the right place, surprised that such a small company had an entire floor to themselves.  After brushing past a group of 30’s-something businessmen, she entered into the elevator.  Floor 11.

Tapping her sandal-clad feet against the metal floor, Ava impatiently waited as the elevator soared into the unfamiliar.  Looking around the inside of the expansive elevator, she noticed a small camera perched on the upper-right corner of the space.  Is that supposed to be there?

Slightly perplexed, but still thinking nothing of it, she watched the dotted red light of the camera blink, the machinery looking like it came straight from a Mission Impossible movie or some other. 

3-4-5. The elevator rose towards her destination.  6-7-8.  The camera twitched, focusing in on the young brunette.  9-10----*CRASH!*

Abruptly, the elevator’s lights died, which were immediately followed by the permeation of earthquake-like rumbles throughout the space.  Ava screamed as the elevator crashed, struggling to stay on her feet.  As quickly as the incident occurred, it ended, leaving Ava in a haunting standstill.  Her senses were useless, surrounded in darkness and drowning in silence.  The only sound was the sound of her exasperated breathing.  As she was about to call for help, she heard another noise.  It creaked and screeched like a rigid metal door, and it sounded like it came from behind her.  Before Ava had a chance to turn around, a hand roughly found her and muffled her screams.             

The hand covered her entire face.

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“Take off your shoes.”

“But…why?”  Claire replied, her nausea exponentially worsening.  She knew exactly the game that Katie was playing.  She looked at the recently-awoken micro man, who now was on the ground in between her low-top red Converses and Katie’s bare feet.

“Why not?  I told you how much fun I had messing with him earlier…Don’t you want to have fun?”  The malice was pouring from Katie’s words, as she recognized that she now had leverage over Claire.  Knowing full well that Claire had snooped on her phone and how badly she wanted a share of the glory on Friday, she could now torture her with as much cruelty as she exhibited with the shrunken man. 

“Yeah, I do…I just, like, don’t see how putting him in my –”

“What? You don’t trust me?”

“I do, but – ”

“Do it.”

Feeling just as big as the inches-tall man at her feet, Claire kneeled down and untied her left shoe.  She looked up at Katie, her passive-aggressiveness enough to pierce the psyche of just about anyone.  As she finished untying her right shoe, she worriedly looked at the little man in front of her, who anxiously, yet obediently awaited his next disaster scenario.  What could he even do?  Claire wiggled her sock-covered toes, grimacing as she felt the wetness from hours of wear. 

“Katie, can’t we just – ”  This time, Claire cut herself short, Katie’s persistent glare doing all the talking.  “Can I at least keep my socks on?”  Same glare.

Her face scrunching in disgust and guilt, but mostly disgust, Claire removed the sock from her right foot, the light of Katie’s bedroom reflecting off her sweat-covered soles.  With much deliberation, she followed suit with the other sock, the state of her left foot just as unforgiving.

“But I don’t want to touch him, like – ”

“Oh, that’s fine!  Let’s see here…”  Katie stuck her big toe out and prodded Parker, who stumbled forward a bit with the collision.  “Hey!  She doesn’t want to touch you, so get in there yourself.”  She gave a smug smile to Claire.

With resistance to the humongous teens being foolish, the bug-like human pitifully marched towards the shoe, which in comparison to him looked more like an aircraft carrier.  As he reached the intimidating footwear, it became obvious that he was too tiny to even hop into his terrible fate.

Katie rolled her eyes, crouched down, and pinched him in between her fingers.  She dropped him into her friend’s well-worn shoe, watching him tumble onto his ass.  Annoyed, she watched him for a moment, and said, “What?? You admiring the smell?  Walk!”

“Katie, just – ”

“Oh hell, like get over it.  It’s not even like you know the guy,” Katie spat, waiting a few seconds for the man to reach the toe end of the shoe, where he no doubt was floored by the craterous indentations within, amplifying his dread.  “Well?”  She raised her eyebrows at the reluctant Claire.

Coming close to psyching herself out Claire looked at her unpainted toes, trying not to imagine the pure, unrestrained misery that she was about to impose on another human being, not to mention the nastiness of the whole ordeal. 

Under the pleased supervision of Katie, Claire slowly placed her toes on the edge of her sneaker, hesitating for an infinite second…then continuing on, sliding her foot into the makeshift prison.  Gradually, the tips of her toes met what was surely his cowering form.  Another pause.  Her foot continued its mission, moving ever-so-slightly over the insect, so that he safely fit beneath her toes.  Scowling throughout the whole process, Claire felt the man twitch and move under her petite toes, which she imagined were downright scary to him.  Settling them down over him, she again began to overthink the situation.  Her Converses were how old?  She’s had them since freshman year…so that’s three, four years?  And it was 90 degrees out today…She cursed Katie as loud as she could in her head.  The situation that she put her in was just too unnatural, embarrassing, and foul to just be OK with.  Claire again felt the man shift against the sweaty underside of her toes.  Gross.  

“See, I told you that it would be fun!”  Katie jointly laughed at the obvious discomfort of her friend and the more-than-obvious pain of the shrunken man.  Claire simply frowned in response, to which Katie said, “Hey!  Maybe this’ll get you to stop making fun of my feet, especially if we ask him whose was worse after!”  Claire huffed, putting her other shoe back on, thankfully sans-human being.

“Hey, it’s 9!  We can watch The Bachelor after all!”  Katie cheered.  “Oh, and be careful to not put too much pressure on him, so, like he doesn’t get crushed or anything.  And I’ll make sure to remind you to take him out for a breather later.  We need him, remember??”

“Sure,” Claire mumbled, making sure to keep her weight on her other foot.  She made her way down to Katie’s living room, where she took a seat on the couch, still visibly upset.  Meanwhile, Katie was still visibly delighted.

For the rest of the night, Claire stared blankly at the TV, hardly able to ignore the movements of the helpless man underneath her toes.