Nick stumbled around the floor, attempting to understand his new body, a task that was proving difficult. His extra legs seemed to move randomly, and his wings were just annoying. Not to mention the urge to puke every time he caught a glimpse of himself.

            But, even though it was not a perfect situation Nick was feeling optimistic. He was invincible after all. It might be fun to be a bug for a day. If he could only figure out how to move!

            He did eventually work out the basics. He was able to walk without looking like an idiot, control all of his limbs, and even fly a little. Although landing was not something he had mastered yet.

            “Oh, good enough,” he grumbled to himself after he almost managed to land without crashing. He was done practicing. Now it was time for some fun! But what should he do?

            Eventually he decided to fly around, and hope an opportunity would present itself. He wiggled his fat body under his door, popping out into the massive hallway on the other side.

            He confidently strode out, choosing to walk around a bit before doing anything else. The tiny fly was about in the center of the hall when a door creaked open. He turned, startled, just in time to see his sister, Ashley, emerging from her room.

            She was stunning, towering above her brother. Only about two years older than Nick, she was a pretty girl whose perfect facial features were highlighted by her waves of golden hair that fell almost to her waist.

            The giant strode out into the hallway wearing only a tight T-shirt, and pajamas from the night before. Her bare feet slammed on the ground, shaking the floor with each step. 

            For a moment, the small bug was paralyzed with fear, but he soon remembered the conditions he was in. Yes he was a fly who could be effortlessly crushed, but he was also immortal! There was nothing in the world that could kill him!

            While he was busy thinking about himself, Ashley had walked closer. A shadow fell over the tiny bug, causing him to look up, just in time to see the massive foot crash down on him.

            It was at this point that Nick recalled something else. The wizard had told him he was immortal. He never said anything about getting hurt. So, for that brief second after his sister stepped on him, a pain radiated through his body that can only be described as unpleasant.

            His sister carried on her path, leaving the bug to reform from the blob of body parts she had left in her wake.

            “Hugh,” he said to himself as he looked down. “Didn’t hurt as much as I thought it would.” It was an odd sensation, not by any means pleasant, but when one is quickly converted from a solid to a liquid, it is expected to be quite painful. This was more of an extreme tingling.

            An accurate way to describe the sensation would be to consider how it feels when a body part falls asleep. It is similar to that, except it is your entire body, and multiplied by a factor of 11.3. This number coming from Macle himself after growing very bored one afternoon with a supercomputer only a hallway away. But that is a story for another time.

            Nick started walking again, attempting to shake off the sinking sensation. He soon found relative success, and decided to try flying.

            The tiny bug buzzed around the house undetected. He had to admit, flying was amazing. Even if he had to be a bug to do it, the pure sensation of being in the air, nothing holding you back, was exhilarating.

            He happily zipped into the kitchen where his mom and sister were eating. Neither of them looked well rested. He couldn’t blame them; it was a Tuesday after all.

            “Has your brother woken up yet?” Nick’s mom asked Ashley as she poured a glass of orange juice.

            “Haven’t seen him,” his sister responded through a mouth full of pancakes. His mom glanced at the digital clock on the wall. It flashed 7:15. Coincidently, and completely uninterestingly, there was an old clock in their garage at this very moment that was also set to 7:15. The story of this clock goes back to before Nick was born, even before his family had moved in, and interestingly enough involved the destruction of a rather well known planet, an event that Macle had been involved in, and still remembers fondly to this day, even though he is widely hated for it outside of this galaxy.

             “Well he better get up soon.” Ashley chocked down another forkful of pancakes. “Oh,” she said suddenly. “Doesn’t he have lab today?” His mom nodded her head.

            “Yeah,” she responded. “That’s it.” This year Nick had decided to take an elective class that forced him to go in early every Tuesday. He never would have signed up for it if he had known, but no one thought it was something worth bringing up. Today had not been the first day Nick had forgotten, and it would not be the last.

            Ashley and her mom went back to their breakfast. They soon finished and went off to other parts of the house to complete their morning routine. For Nick’s mom, this meant finding something to wear, starting the car, and dealing with any disasters than chose to pop up. For Ashley, this meant attempting to run a comb through her hair enough that she didn’t end up looking like a cross between Cousin It, and a mop.

             This left Nick once again alone. He climbed along the wall to the doorway, being sure that the rest of his family had left. Ever since he had seen Ashley greedily devouring her pancakes, his stomach had been rumbling. But what could he eat?

            He flew around the fridge, but it was airtight. He soon found that the cabinets would be impossible to breach also. There where boxes of cereal, but once again humans had made them bug proof. Don’t they have any compassion for their bug brethren?

            Then his eyes caught a faint sparkle on the ground. A brown liquid that glistened on the tiled floor. He quickly flew down to it, landing with only a mild crash. Improvement for the new bug.

            After he had recovered, he walked over to the puddle, its sugary aroma tantalizing him, tempting him, seducing him. His black eyes starred at it, and his head unconsciously drifted closer. Then he snapped out of his daze, realizing what he was about to do.

            “I may be a bug,” he said to himself. “But I’m above eating syrup off the floor!” He turned his back to the puddle, and readied his wings for takeoff. But, was he really above it?

            His stomach growled again, begging him for some form of food. He tried to focus on other things, but his mind kept drifting to piles of succulent pancakes smothered in syrup. Thoughts of little pancake women showering with the thick brown goodness, begging him to take a lick. How could he say no to beautiful pancake women?

            Syrup coated his entire body as he jumped into the pile, loosing all self-control he had. Eagerly he slurped up the mess, taking in as much of the sugary perfection as he could.

            His feast ended a few minutes later with his laying on his side, stomach completely full. He grinned happily, or at least he would have been if he were human. A fly’s grin looks exactly like a fly’s frown, mainly because it’s a fly and as such, has difficulties expressing its feelings. This had led to many fights between fly boyfriends and fly girlfriends who just want their man to express themselves more.

            Happy and content with his meal, Nick tried to get up only to find that he was stuck. It was at this point that he realized how stupid it was to jump into a pile of syrup, and grimaced. Of course to anyone watching, his face would not have changed at all, since he was fly.

            Once again he tried to retch himself away, but the liquid clung to him like a new born monkey clings to its mother. Except this monkey was big, brown, and had a grip that would rival that of a terminator. So, describing it as a normal monkey would be accurate.

            “Great,” he mumbled to himself. “At least it can’t get much worse than this.”

            Now, many people believe that saying a line such as the one Nick just said is bad luck. This is not the case. It is in fact very lucky. This is because fate has seen the obvious path played out so many times, that it has become a cliché, and as such fate avoids it. This is why it was extremely unlikely that the following events actually happened.

            Right as Nick finished his thought, his sister walked back into the kitchen, walking right for the tiny bug entrapped in syrup.

            “AH!” Nick screamed, more in surprise than in actual fear. As it has been mentioned before, being crushed was not necessarily painful, but it was unpleasant enough that one would try to avoid it in the future. Plus immortality is something that is easily forgotten when your thousand foot tall giantess sister is about to step on you.

            In the time it had taken for Nick to become trapped, Ashley had managed to comb her hair so that it fell flat on her back, coming down almost to her waist. She had also changed from her shabby pajamas into sweatpants, a thick sweatshirt, and a pair of fuzzy pink socks, the right one of which was about to fall onto Nick’s head.

            Her fuzzy sock fell, first pressing slightly into Nick’s fly body, the gooey syrup expanding to take on most of the weight. But, soon the syrup was spread as thin as it could have, and the small fly was forced to bare the rest of her weight. His body burst, organs spilling out onto the ground, mixing with the sticky coating.

            Ashley pulled her foot up from the spot, noticing in annoyance how sticky it felt. She looked down at the blob of syrup, then back to the clock. 7:30 it flashed, signaling that she was already late. No time to find a new pair. She strode out of the kitchen, in search of her shoes.

            Nick came with her, although not by his own free will. His body had been mixed with the syrup that was now coating the under side of his sisters sock. Each time she lifted her foot up, he would reform just enough to regain consciousness, only to be crushed a second later. As one would imagine, it was not a walk in the park for Nick. (Get it, walk!)

            Ashley crouched in front of her closet, quickly shuffling through the multitude of shoes that were lying on the bottom. So far she had found many that she would have worn, but not a single match.

            This however gave Nick a chance to reform, as she was on her knees, leaving her soles exposed. Fist his head popped back up followed by his exoskeleton, and his inner organs. Then his arms, legs, and finally his beautiful, glossy wings.

            Exasperated, Ashley finally decided to just put on a pair of snow boots she had. She moved to her bed, managing to avoid crushing the tiny fly in the proses. She undid the Velcro that held the boots tight, and moved her foot towards the newly opened hole.

            Nick tried furiously to wiggle free. He knew that he was in no real danger, but if she strapped on her boots, and he was inside, that would mean he would be trapped inside them for the whole day. Continuously being stepped on, trampled on, crushed, and by his own sister to!

            He had to do something, which only made it worse when he failed to do anything. Ashley slipped her foot into her boot, fly and all, and quickly redid the Velcro, sealing him in. 

            Ashley’s foot rose and fell rhythmically as she walked, oblivious to her tiny brother currently trapped underneath her sole. On most days, Ashley’s trip to school consisted of a great deal of walking, since she did not have a car. This, obviously, would be horrible for Nick. Each step she took crushed him, so a walk would be astronomically horrible. Or at least greatly unpleasant.

Today was not one of those days. Her friend, Shannon, who being a licensed driver for almost a week now, was more than willing to drive her friend anywhere she so wanted. The best part was that it only cost Ashley a few seconds of all consuming terror as the girl screeched around turns, ran stop signs, and managed to flip off three pedestrians, only one of which was actually disserving of it.

 So, Nick was finally given the freedom to reform, as Ashley was sitting down, taking her weight of her feet. The tiny bug tried to wiggle around, but found himself thoroughly trapped. Her warm foot pressed in on him from all sides, pinning his arms, legs, and wings against his body. There was nothing he could do.

The sensations going through his body where odd to say the least. Strange, and alien, like an odd mix of other emotions Nick had never felt before. Since he had nothing better to do, he decided to try and describe these feelings.

There was defiantly fear involved, but it was not the main ingredient in the emotional recipe. It was like the feeling was a delicious cake, and fear was the icing. The most obvious component, but not the most important.

So what was the succulent inside of his cake? Was it joy? No, that wasn’t it. Jealousy? No, what would he be jealous of? Perhaps there was a trace of insanity. This is what he settled on as the main emotion, partially because it made sense given recent events, but mostly because he was growing bored of trying to name emotions.

What his mind wandered to next surprised even him. As Ashley moved slightly above him, as her soft sole rubbed against his back, he couldn’t help but think of his sister. He imagined himself as a human, shrunken and rubbing his sister’s feet, letting the aroma wash over him, pressing his face against her delicate soles.

“Interesting,” he said as he shook himself away from his fantasies. “First time that happened with my sister.” In truth, it wasn’t. He was just a bit shy about the topic.