The Secrets We May Keep
“What’s that? A note?” Came a familiar voice into Katie’s ears.
Katie just could not take it anymore. Eighteen years old and she had a seven o’clock curfew, was constantly doing chores, and often being yelled at. The worst part for Katie is that her adoptive sister had more freedom than her, despite being a few months younger.
Katie looks over her shoulder in the sunlit kitchen, the early morning sun blazing through a patio door and splaying across an oak kitchen table and a green tiled floor. Sasha, her bratty adoptive sister, is standing right behind her. The asian girl stood a petite four foot, eleven inches tall, dressed in thin, pink pajama bottoms, and a white tank-top, her small bare feet resting against the cool tiles of the kitchen, the tiny toenails painted a deep soothing blue.
“Leaving, where are you going?” Sasha asks seriously as she adjusts her glasses, taking a step towards the kitchen table and Katie.
“Yes...It’s a note...I’m leaving…” Katie says as she turns her head away and looks down, whipping her dirty blond hair slightly.
“Away.” Katie says, annoyance in her tone. Sasha stops her approach, one foot planted in front of the other as she stares at Katie, her jaw opening slightly, her teeth just visible beyond her lips as the sun glints in her eyes.
“Um…” The small girl shrugs her shoulders, leaning against the top of a kitchen chair.
“I can’t take you or mom anymore, the only thing she knows how to do is yell at me! And the only thing you know how to do is play video games, or watch attack of the fifty foot woman…” Katie rants as she slams the paper down on the table, her hand held firmly on top of it as she looks sideways at the asian girl. Sasha blushes and takes a step backward.
“You can’t just wal-” Sasha stammers, only to be interrupted by Katie.
“I can do whatever the hell I want!” Katie half shouts. Katie was ready to go, car keys in hand, dressed in cut off jean shorts and an orange shirt with a small dufflebag at her sneakered feet.
“Katiiiee!” Sasha whines as she follows Katie, who had picked up the duffel bag and had since headed towards the living room. “Don’t walk on the carpet with your shoes on, Mom will kill you!” The smaller girl yells. Katie snorts and shakes her head.
“She’s going to have more to worry about than a dirty carpet, and stop calling her that, she isn’t really my mother…” Katie says dismissively. Sasha runs to the front door and plasters herself in front of it, a determined look on her face.
“I never wanted to do this to you…” Sasha says solemnly. Katie stops in her tracks, a look of surprise on her face.
“What do you think you’re doing?! Get out of there!” Katie yells.
“No!” Sasha stands firm, walking a few steps towards the taller girl. “We take you in, my mother adopts you so you don’t have to live in some group home, we treat you like family, and this is the thanks that we get? No!” Sasha’s eyes peer deep into Katie’s, whose throat begins to close, causing her to gag a bit and drop her bag onto the hardwood floor of the hallway. Katie’s world begins to expand outward and upward as she clutches her throat, falling to her knees. Sasha begins to take on truly massive proportions before her eyes as the petite girl stares downward at her.
“You’re not going anywhere!” Sasha’s voice booms down. Before Katie realizes it, she is on all fours, panting. Ten tanned toes, many times taller than the now diminished girl, loom before her, like an ancient monument to some goddess that stretches hundreds of feet into the sky. The smell of strawberry and fresh foot sweat wafts into her nostrils. Katie takes hungry gulps of air as her throat opens up once more. The tiny girl sits up on her knees and tries to comprehend why Sasha’s toes were so large, her head craning upwards and taking in two pink walls that seemed to stretch skyward for all eternity. Once Katie realized what she was looking at, she let out a blood curdling little scream. Sasha looms over her, the massive girl’s head small and distant from her perspective, her tanned feet towering and all encompassing. The toes wiggle lazily, lifting tens of feet in the air and allowing the tiny girl to see the vast expansive ball, which spanned enough area to cover the whole girl’s perspective before the toes lower and raise again and again.
“Wanna get squished?” The gargantuan version of Katie’s sister asks while planting one hand on her massive hip and then giggling. Katie immediately stands up, screaming at the top of her tiny lungs as the nonchalant threat of getting ‘squished’ booms down from overhead.
“Oh..oh god, oh god, OH GOD!” Katie screams as her legs begin to pump, carrying her slowly away from Sasha’s towering toes. The tiny girl begins to pant as desperation plays across her little face, she was no larger than a small ant, and her adoptive sister seemed to loom so massively over her that it was impossible for her mind to comprehend that she was a person. Sasha was large enough to command the stars themselves, and seemed more like a heavenly body floating overhead than an actual human being.
I’m gonna squish you! I’m gonna squish you! Squish, squish, squish, squish, squish. Sasha’s tremendous voice sings, rolling over the landscape as her toes begin to flex continuously. As Katie runs she looks over her shoulder and blubbers incoherently. Sasha’s foot lifts into the air, her big toe pointed at the ground and hovering for a moment before slamming softly into the hardwood floor just behind Katie, sending her flat on her face.
The world around Katie appears to move in slow motion as she rolls onto her back, her eyes bugging out of her head as Sasha’s foot flattens out on the floor, looming above her and angled to the right, her massive toes filling the entirety of her vision as they rest against the ground. The toes wiggle hungrily as Katie watches, slowly boosting her upper body slightly as she rests on her elbows. Everything seems to drag out for Katie as the immense heat from Sasha’s incomprehensibly huge foot wafts over her, the tiny girl could see little specks of dirt and dust that had attached themselves to the front of Sasha’s toes. It was as if Sasha’s foot itself was her predator, the foot becoming her whole existence, trapping her in it’s impenetrable presence.
Finally Sasha’s thundering voice reigns down from the next dimension.
“See look, you couldn’t even run away from my little foot…” The giantess taunts from on high as her gigantic foot slides forward, her big toe lifting and casting Katie in it’s murky shadow. Katie screams continuously as it begins to lower, blotting out Sasha’s small, faraway face before lifting once more and lowering again. “and now it’s going to smush you.” Sasha explains as her toe continues its slow descent. “Oh no! It’s a giant toe! Help meeeeee!” Sasha’s commanding voice mocks in a high pitched tone as Katie’s vision is filled with a small spot on the bottom of her adoptive sister’s big toe, her world quickly going dark as it mercilessly presses her down into the wood beneath her. Katie can hear Sasha giggle just before she is fully enveloped in the stretching flesh, a wet crackling sound marking the end of her existence.
Sasha smiles and twists her petite toe into the ground before sliding her foot backwards and resting it flat. The girl basks in the moment before allowing herself to submit to the fact that she had daydreamed the whole thing. Sasha looks upwards, towards the staircase as Katie lumbers down in blue pajama pants and a white Tee shirt.
“Were you talking to somebody?” Katie asks as she stops halfway down the staircase.
Oh yeah, stubbed my toe…” Sasha says, looking down at the floor and twisting her big toe back and forth over the spot she had imagined the micro-sized Katie to be. Sasha looks upward and smiles.
“What’s for breakfast?” She asks innocently.