Part 4 - Back to Our Regularly-Scheduled Program

Troy could feel the light hitting his eyes even before he opened them, and doing so gave him a brief spell of blindness as his retinas adjusted to the brightness of the light. However, as his vision came to, he was able to make out vague gigantic shapes all around him, grey silhouettes towering over him, both near and far. Once everything cleared up, he was able to easily resolve just where he was: a kitchen, and a giant one at that. Near him was the wooden table with its matching chairs tucked underneath it; off in the distance against the lime green walls were the white refrigerator, the sink and cabinets, the counter with a microwave and dried dishes set upon it, and the silver stove. The morning sun shined from outside through the window dead ahead, and its light refracted off of the shiny white tiled floor.

It was a very nice kitchen, and it was one that Troy knew all too well. It was the kitchen that belonged to his old place, where he had resided before meeting and moving in with Mitch.

Troy wondered what he was doing in a place where he had not lived in several months. However, as he examined his surroundings, he was hit with a sense of nostalgia. Not due to having lived in there for a period of years, but due to some of the activities that took place inside of that very kitchen. He peered down towards the shiny white floor, towards a blank spot that otherwise did not stand out for any reason. But to him, it was a mental marker of one of the many places where he had been murdered. Not in cold blood, but as a fun activity between two close companions.

And that other companion, the person who so gleefully ended his life, was none other than...

Suddenly, Troy heard thunderous rumbles from behind, and in response he turned around and stared towards the unbelievably large doorway in the distance. Loud thuds echoed through the area, each one following immediately after the last, and the sounds quickly became louder than the one before the previous one as well. It was clear that something was approaching. Troy wondered just what--or who--would soon be revealing itself.

Before long, he would have his answer: Dorothy.

"Whoa, what!?" Troy was mystified to see his exgirlfriend of all people show up. "Dorothy!? What is she doing here?!"

Troy was almost at a loss of words. This young bespectacled woman had returned with her family to Taiwan the previous year and chose to remain there. Yet, there she was, entering the kitchen in all of her very cute and very titanic glory. Looking upon her, Troy saw that she was just as attractive as he remembered, and her outfit did little to think otherwise: a knee-length white sundress with red strawberries in various sizes towards the bottom hem and red flip-flops. Troy remembered this particular outfit as the very same that she wore when she had her outing with her college friends; he had stowed away with her via being tied to the thong of her right sandal.

Dorothy continued her stroll, her eyes looking dead ahead and seemingly oblivious to the fact that he was on the floor below her. Instead, she walked forward, directly towards her tiny ex.

For his part, Troy waved at her with both hands and continually called out to her, but it was clear that she either didn't hear him, or that she was ignoring him. Neither one would be out of the ordinary for her; there were times that she blatantly ignored his existence as part of their macro play, and it typically ended with him splattered all over the floor and on the sole of her foot. As her gigantic sandal-clad feet approached, Troy knew that the same would be happening to him in only seconds.

Resigned to his fate, he merely kept watch, his eyes locking onto her massive red-polished toes on top of the red foam of her sandal as they drew closer and closer, each step bringing with it a near-deafening roar. He eagerly anticipated what was to come: him being reduced to a red mess by her red shoe, like he had been many times before

He was soon engulfed by its shadow as it loomed overhead, providing him a view of the treads on the bottom of her flip-flop. As it did so, Troy could not help the wide grin that was painted on his face.

...However, what he was expecting did not come to pass. Her foot simply passed over him, stomping down onto the floor behind him.

Troy was disappointed as he watched his exgirlfriend walk on, heading towards the refrigerator. He decided to follow after her, breaking out in a fast sprint as he chased after the towering giantess. Meanwhile, Dorothy had reached her destination and opened the fridge, rummaging inside and pulling out a carton of orange juice. Letting the door close by itself, she turned to the dishes on the sink and pulled a clear glass from the strainer, in which she poured the orange beverage into.

As the towering titaness began to chug down her drink, Troy had reached her right foot after a rigorous jog. It seemed as if he had ran faster than he logically should have, but he did not question it. He craned his neck upward, and fully took in just how large she was, and at how pitiful he was compared to her. Normally, he stood over her by a good nine inches, but at present, he was just barely twice as tall as the top of her flip-flops and from his perspective he could barely see her head past her dress.

Shifting his attention downward, he stood before her cream-colored foot and observed her toes, mostly lying prone but occasionally wiggling and flexing. There were so many times he had those toes and her soft feet on his face and in his mouth, so many times they were wrapped around his manhood, and so many times those stunning feet would be the instrument of his temporary demise. It was almost hard to believe that those normally-small size 4 peds held such destructive power, but he had experienced it firsthand countless times, how even her tiny feet could bring him to her complete mercy and then grind him into a fine paste underneath it. He could feel himself becoming hard just by thinking about it.

At that moment, he knew he had to go in for a touch.

Dorothy was still ignorant of his presence, it seemed. Step by step, Troy slowly approached the massive ped, his hands outstretched as they reached for her foot. He knew that by doing so, she may react in surprise and smash him underfoot; something that he was banking on. At the very least, he wanted to feel her flesh for one last time.

Troy barely fought to hold back a grin as her foot was just barely in reach of his open palms. In only seconds, he would be feeling her warm, silky skin against his own. His anticipation had almost reached a fever pitch.

"What are you doing?"

Her foot pulled backwards, removing it from Troy's line of sight. Falling off balance, he fell onto the hard floor below. He picked his head from the floor and peered upwards. Dorothy had finally noticed him, but rather than a warm or even mischievous expression, she instead had a scolding look upon her face, as if she was ready to punish a disobedient child.

"Hey..." Troy whimpered.

"Troy, no," she chided with shake of her head. "We're not together anymore. You don't get to touch my feet. Find someone else you can fool around with."

~~~

The alarm buzzed loudly as Troy was awoken from his slumber. He sat up and looked towards the alarm clock, the source of the shrill noise: it read 6:30. Reaching over, he turned the alarm off. As he sat in his bed, could not help the disappointment that he was feeling from the dream that he had.

"Not even a little touch..." Troy muttered to himself. If the alarm had not have woken him up, he wondered if he would have been able to convince Dorothy to change her mind. Not likely, he concluded. Even in his dreams, she was pretty headstrong.

It still did not explain why she was in his old apartment.

He shook his head rapidly in an attempt to get some of the drowsiness out of him, before removing the light sheets from his body and getting out of bed.

After all, it was the beginning of a new work week.

~~~

"...And that's where we stand now," Troy concluded, having given a report to his manager. "I'm going to make some calls this afternoon to see where we go from here."

"Alright, great work," his manager, Mr. Holder, responded. "When you make those calls, patch them to me, so I can speak with them as well."

"Alright. Well, I'll get back to my cube, then."

Mr. Holder nodded, after which Troy exited his office. Walking through the rather loud and bustling office space filled with cubicles, Troy headed towards his own cubicle, located on the far side of the floor. After arriving, he pulled out his seat, sat in it, and let out a sigh, before moving his computer's mouse and logging back into his account.

He looked on his monitor, reading through various emails that he had received from representatives of the companies that his corporation was currently in talks with, forwarding them as needed to Mr. Holder, other managers, and HR, and replying to a handful of them as well.

The day was still young, and thus there was a lot to do.

"Hey, Troy," said a voice from behind.

Troy turned, finding his coworker Bill standing at the entrance. Bill was a rather stocky middle-aged man who had been working for the company for over 15 years. However, in that time, he had not made much progress up the corporate ladder.

"Hey," Troy greeted. "Just getting in?"

"Yep. Had a bit of car trouble this morning, so I gave them a heads-up."

"Oh, that's too bad." Troy wanted to sound sincere, but the truth was that this wasn't the first time Bill had used that excuse for being late.

"So, did you give Mr. Holder the report?" Bill asked.

Troy nodded. "So far, so good. I don't think I need to tell you, but if we can get this contract, then it'll be a huge boon for the company."

"More like, a huge boon for the suits upstairs," Bill stated.

"Are you sure you want to say that out loud?" Troy asked, taking concern over the possibility of eavesdropping ears.

"Eh, don't worry about it. I'll be fine."

'And you wonder why you never get a promotion,' Troy thought to himself.

"Anyway," Bill stepped closer to Troy, and his voice became somewhat quieter. "How'd things go with your date on Friday? Was she the one?"

"No," Troy responded, also in a low tone. "She's the latest in the long line of self-proclaimed voraphiles."

"Oh... Well, don't give up. You'll find your crusher. I mean, I did. Heck, I married her!"

"Yeah. You also married her LONG before the pill was even invented, and LONG before Vince Vane opened his big mouth."

Bill chuckled. "Yeah, that's true. I didn't have to deal with the struggle like the rest of you do now. ...Hey, if you're interested, I can put in a word with my wife for you. She doesn't mind crushing other guys. In fact, she gets offers all the time. She charges them, but for you, it'd be on the house."

"No thanks," Troy responded. "It'd be kind of awkward, since we work together." The bigger reason was that Troy did not find Bill's wife to be physically attractive.

"I understand, but if you ever change your mind, the offer is still there."

"Okay," Troy said.

"Um... Mr. Dill," said a female voice from the cubicle's entrance. Both men turned, finding a brunette woman in a business jacket and skirt standing there. She carried a clipboard in her hand. "Mrs. Gilles would like to see you."

"Alright, Casey," Bill responded. "I'll be there in a sec."

Casey nodded, before walking away. Bill then turned back towards Troy, and nudged him with his elbow.

"What about her?" he asked, his tone once again quiet. "She's pretty cute, and you saw her feet too? Pretty nice, eh? I bet she could crush you all sorts of ways with those heels."

"Maybe if we were in different departments," Troy answered. "I don't shit where I eat."

"But that's how I met my wife... ...But I guess times have changed."

"I suppose..."

"Anyway, I guess I should go see what Mrs. Gilles wants. ...Knowing her, it can't be good." He sighed, before heading out of the cubicle.

"Good luck," Troy said to him.

Bill waved before turning the corner and walking away. Troy knew that Bill was about to get chewed out by Mrs. Gilles for his rather lax attitude at the office. It wasn't the first time it had happened, and sometimes Troy wondered how he still even had a job. However, Bill was able to buckle down and get work done when it was needed the most, so perhaps in the eyes of his superiors, his usefulness outweighed his liabilities.

Plus, it was nice to have someone to talk to who actually shared his tastes in macrophilia.

Not wanting to put much more thought into Bill and his troubles, Troy himself returned to his own work. After all, unlike Bill, a promotion was actually in the cards for Troy.

~~~

The morning grind seemed to go on forever, but the lunch hour had finally arrived, offering Troy a reprieve from his hard work. After locking his account on his PC, he grabbed his messenger bag, swiped his card in a nearby card reader, and headed for the elevator, heading down to the ground level floor and then walking outside.

There were people all around him walking through the streets, all of whom more than likely had the same mindset that he had at the moment. Since this was a downtown area, there were many restaurants available to him. Perhaps he should go for his choice diner? He quickly decided against it; while it did have great food, it was also more expensive than what he was willing to pay at that point, not to mention his recent failed date with Jennie there.

"I'll just go to Wendy's," he said, before turning to his right and walking down the sidewalk, walking past numerous people in the process.

Walking three city blocks away from the high-rise that his office was in, Troy was nearly 3/4's of the way to his destination when something caught his attention. The sound of a male voice to his right giving some sort of speech. Actually, listening to him more, it seemed more like he was preaching, doing his best to spread his dogma to those around him. Troy looked towards where the voice was coming from, and saw a man--perhaps in his mid-to-late 30s--standing on a wooden stand with a few pedestrians standing around him and listening, while most simply walked past and ignored him.

"...But make no mistake!" The man said. "Those pills are evil incarnate! Man is not meant to crawl on the ground like a lowly insect, or be consumed by other people for sustenance! Those pills are tools crafted by the Devil to lead humanity astray! First Thessalonians Verse 5:22 says to abstain from all evil, so saith the Lord!"

Trevor simply walked past the small group. Or at least, he attempted to.

"Hey, you!" The man called. "Young Black man with the bag! Come here!"

'Aw crap,' Troy thought to himself. He contemplated simply ignoring him and moving on, but the man stepped off of his stand and approached him faster than Troy could get away.

"You look like a smart young man," the man said to him. "Can I ask you something?"

Troy sighed. "Fine, but I'm in a hurry."

"You know of those evil shrinking pills?"

"Yeah, what about them?"

"You're not using them, are you?"

Troy stared at the man for a few seconds before giving his response. "I don't really think that's any of your business either way." Troy knew that such a response was rather rude, but he frankly didn't care.

The man seemed a bit upset at what Troy had said. "That's sad. With an answer like that, it's clear that you are using them. Don't you know how evil they are?! They're an opiate created by the Devil for Man to submit to their base desires! You have to be stronger than that! Give them up and give your life to the Lord our God!"

"Sorry, but-"

"You know I'm not lying!" The man interrupted. "Others have seen it! When they partake in those sick 'macro games' and are brought back to life, they saw for themselves that those pills are made by the evil magic of Satan!"

Troy knew what this fanatic was referring to. When people are killed and subsequently revived while under the effect of the Minimizer program, they experience different things. Most simply black out until they are revived. Some also experience brief out-of-body experiences before their vision fades away; Troy himself had occasionally experienced these as well when macro-playing with Dorothy. Others have also said that they lingered around for the full amount of time until their revival, witnessing everything that happened in the meantime.

However, there were more fringe accounts from a handful of people who saw something else entirely, something much more frightening. They reported seeing disturbing imagery such as the faces of demons flash by in rapid succession or simply one demon laugh in their face until they came back to like, and the wispy forms of tortured souls crying out in agony. Those who reported these claimed to have been turned off the pill entirely and were driven right into the arms of religion, convinced that the Minimizer pill was indeed the work of the Devil and that they were given glimpses of Hell.

As Troy and most people he knew and knew of had not experienced these visions, and since such visions were primarily reported on fringe and/or fundamentalist religious websites, he did not take those accounts seriously. Even when the Minimizer pill hit the mainstream, there were religious fundamentalists trying to discredit the pill as something evil. Like this man before him, they felt that the Minimizer program undermined what they felt was God's purpose for humanity; they took offense to people shrinking themselves to willingly be treated as something less than human. They also took offense to the fact that the pill brought people back to life, as they felt that that undermined the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and what they felt that it meant for humanity. Perhaps those reports were fabricated by fanatics who wanted the pill banned entirely.

"You have to repent!" The man cried. "Give them up and follow the Lord!"

Troy shook his head. "I've had my fill of religion. Have a nice day." With that, he began to walk away.

"Don't you realize that you're gambling with your eternal soul!?" The man yelled after Troy as he walked away from him. "Give up the pills and repent, young man! Acts 3:19: 'Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out'!"

Troy simply walked further away from him, instead trying to focus on the meal that awaited him at Wendy's just ahead.

"I'll pray that you see the light, young man!"

Troy figured that he would take a different route back to his office when his lunch hour was finished, even if said route took him a bit longer to return than he'd liked.

~~~

That night, Troy logged into his MacroMeet profile to do a bit of browsing and to check his inbox. There were no replies to the many messages that he had sent out.

Such a thing was normal in the world of online dating and hook-ups in general; women on those sites tend to get flooded with messages, while most men are lucky to even get a fraction of that. Troy didn't take it personally; he knew that he had to be vigilant in order to get even one reply back. After all, he did manage to hook Jennie on his line, even if she ultimately got away.

He browsed through a few profiles, and sent messages to those that struck his interest.

Several minutes later, he logged off of the site, and soon made his way to bed.

~~~

The following Wednesday evening, Troy sat at the desk in his room, watching a video on his computer. The work week so far had been pretty intense, and he predicted that it would only become busier before the week ended. To help get his mind off of things, he decided to relax a bit and pull up a video stored on his hard drive: a macro fetish video.

He did not know why he was looking at it, especially that early in the evening. Perhaps his frustrations of not finding a suitable macro play partner made him want some sort of outlet. This video was just one of many he had stockpiled over the past year, and thanks to the Minimizer pill, he felt that the quality of newer videos was improved immensely, to the point that he felt older videos completely reliant on greenscreen to be almost worthless.

However, the Minimizer program could only do so much. Greenscreen effects were still needed for some of the plotlines--if they could be called that--that these videos had. The video that Troy was currently watching involved the sultry blond actress shrinking her male companion with a handheld shrink ray fashioned after some sort of futuristic gun.

"Wait! Don't shrink me!" the man pleaded in a somewhat stilted manner, while holding his hands up. "I'll do anything you want!" His acting was not exactly up to par.

The woman laughed. "That's good, because what I want most is to shrink you!" Her acting wasn't much better.

Then, lightning shot from the barrel of her gun and struck the man, who started to shrink. It was scenes like these where greenscreen was still used, as the Minimizer program's process obviously would not mesh well with whatever method these videos used. Some avoided greenscreen altogether and utilized a first-person point-of-view during the shrinking process.

In the video, the shrinking came to a stop, and she stepped forward, before the camera focused on the now-tiny man standing before her bare feet.

"Aww, look at you, little man!" she said. "You're so tiny! Ah, we're going to have lots of fun together!"

She picked the man up from the floor and cupped him in her hands, before walking to the couch that was in the background behind a small coffee table. With her directly interacting with her tiny actor, her actions were much more believable than in older videos in which the tiny man would be inserted in during editing.

Troy just wished that their acting was also a bit more believable, but Troy figured that he couldn't expect much else from what was essentially porn.

As he continued to watch, he heard several knocks on the closed door behind him, and then Mitch's voice. "Hey, dude! You in there? I got something to tell you!"

"Yeah, hang on!" Troy paused the video and then brought up his minimized Internet browser, completely masking the video that he was watching. He got up from his chair and walked to his bedroom door, opening it upon reaching it. Mitch stood on the other side, holding his smartphone in his hand. "What's up?"

"I was talking to this girl earlier, a friend of a friend," Mitch started, "and the subject of macro play came up. You're not going to believe it, but she actually told me that she likes stepping on guys."

Troy almost gasped in shock. "Are you serious?"

"Very serious," Mitch responded. "I mentioned how you were looking for a girl to crush you, and she's interested in meeting up."

"Mitch, you're the best." Troy was getting rather excited.

"...There's just one tiny issue. I'm not sure how you feel about it, but... Here."

Mitch turned his phone's screen towards Troy, showing him a photo of the woman in question. Immediately, Troy's excitement transformed into both disappointment and disgust, as the woman in the photo was rather overweight, weighing at least 240 pounds by Troy's estimates even with the upward selfie that she took.

"Hell no!" Troy shouted.

"Aw, come on, dude," Mitch said. "Haven't you heard of the term 'Big Beautiful Woman'?"

"Only two of those words are correct," Troy responded. "And it's not the middle one."

"Now that's just rude. She seems like a nice person, and after all, isn't it what matters on the inside?"

"Since you like her so much, why don't you have her eat you? I'm sure she'd love to chow down on you, among other things. Then you can really see how she is inside."

"Wow, I never thought you were this judgmental, dude."

"If you're so open-minded, how come I never see you with any fat girls? A mouth's a mouth, right?"

"The thin babes get to me first," Mitch said with a smile. "...But you really should hook up with her at least once."

"No." Troy firmly responded. "And here I actually got my hopes up."

Mitch sighed. "...You know what? I think I know how we can settle this."

Troy knew where this was heading; Mitch has invoked this in the past whenever they had gotten into similar arguments. "...No, Mitch."

"That's right, Troy-boy! We're gonna SETTLE IT IN SMASH!!!" Mitch said with a rather boisterous tone.

"No, Mitch. I'm not playing Smash Bros. with you."

"Come on, dude! There's this new combo I have with Sheik that I wanna try out!"

Troy fought the urge to close the door in Mitch's face. "And you're gonna use a top tier against me?"

"I'll tell you what: If you beat me best out of five, I'll go out with this girl and have her eat me."

Troy stared at Mitch for a few seconds, before deciding to tack on another stipulation. "The next two girls you bring home also have to be fatties, not including this one."

Mitch frowned. "Oh, come on!"

Troy folded his arms. "That's the deal. Take it or leave it."

Mitch sighed. "Fiiine..."

"Well, alright then. Let's Smash."

The two men walked into the living room and each grabbed a Wii U Pro Controller before Mitch turned on the console and inserted the Super Smash Bros. For Wii U disk into the console. As they started the game up, Troy was perhaps more determined than ever to defeat him than ever before. Perhaps his desire to not meet his end under the undeniably pudgy foot of Mitch's "friend of a friend" was motivating him to give it his all in defeating Mitch.

As luck would have it, Troy did indeed prevail that day, much to the extreme dismay of Mitch.

~~~

Later that night, Troy once again logged into his MacroMeet profile. Again, he had received no response messages from any of the women he had messaged during the week or before. He checked his Sent folder, and a number of his messages had been read, but no further action from their recipients had been taken.

Once again, Troy went on the offensive, this time extending his search radius further out from his general location to see who else in the metropolitan area he could connect with. He uncovered a number of new women on the site, and after browsing through their profiles, he sent messages to the ones that he felt were attractive enough or did not mention any particular distaste for crushing.

One woman that showed up in his results was a young, dark-haired Asian woman with glasses. Troy did a double-take as he encountered her picture in the list of his search results. She reminded him of Dorothy; perhaps too much so.

He decided to bypass her completely.

After sending a few more messages, he logged off and decided to call it a night.

~~~

Like the days that had come before it, Thursday brought with it a plethora of tasks that needed to be completed before the day's end. Troy's job was truly a hectic one, one that required him to constantly be on the move and talking with people, both within the organization and outside of it. Luckily, by now it was nearly 4pm, and thus nearing the time for him to go home and take a breather.

He still had a few tasks to complete before he could bid the office farewell for the day.

Stepping into the elevator, he pressed the button for the 14th floor nine floors above him. As the doors began to close, he heard a familiar female voice from the hall outside calling for the person in the elevator.

"Wait, wait!" she shouted as the sound of her heels banged against the floor. "Hold the elevator!"

Troy pressed the "open door" button, opening the doors back up and delaying its departure by a few seconds. Soon, the source of the voice revealed herself as Casey, Mrs. Gilles' assistant. She rushed inside, breathing heavily after she reached her destination. She then looked towards the buttons on the wall.

"Can you press 16 for me?" she asked.

Troy did as she requested.

"Thanks."

The doors closed, and the elevator began to ascend higher up the building. Both Troy and Casey quietly watched the display over the doors as it counted up one by one. Six... Seven... Eight... Nine... Te-

Suddenly, the elevator around them shook, and their upward movement stopped suddenly, causing both of them to stumble a bit.

"Oh, you have got to be kidding me...!" Troy said as he pressed the 14 button several times, with no response from the machinery around him. "Son of a bitch!"

Casey sighed. "I thought they fixed this elevator."

"All they basically did was put duct tape on it and call it a day," Troy responded, before pressing the emergency button twice. The sound of a bell rung around them with each press of the button. He pressed it three more times for good measure.

Over the next five minutes, with seemingly no action being taken outside of their enclosure, both Troy and Casey called their respective managers to inform them of their situation, managing to reach them in spite of the weak reception. For Troy's part, Mr. Holder told him that, depending on when the elevator issue was rectified, that he could postpone his tasks until the next day, which was a bit of a relief for Troy, even if they were a bit time-sensitive.

He still wanted to get them done that day, though.

"I hope we're not gonna be stuck in here all nig-" Troy turned around, and was shocked to see that Casey had activated the Minimizer program from within her, its bluish control panel hovering over the back of her right hand. "Whoa, what are you doing?"

"I don't like being trapped inside of small places," Casey responded. "But if I shrink myself, it won't be that bad."

Troy shrugged. "I guess... But I thought you were gonna try to find a way out."

"No, that's dangerous." She adjusted her size setting to three inches, before touching the "Shrink" button at the bottom of the panel. After it disappeared into her hand, Casey was coated with a bluish light as she quickly diminished in size, shrinking down to her selected height of three inches tall.

For Troy, this was a bit of a new experience. He had never been around a shrunken woman before; he had always been the smaller party in comparison to his much fairer companion. He could not help but admit to himself that she looked rather adorable as a tiny.

"Oh," Casey said. "Please watch where you're going. I don't have a respawn point set up at the office, so if you squish me, then it'll kick me all the way back home."

"I wouldn't dream of it," Troy responded.

"Good."

Silence returned inside of the elevator as the two of them waited, Troy standing near the buttons while the tiny Casey sat on the floor near the center of the elevator. Troy tried to browse the Internet on his phone, but due to the poor signal strength, web pages loaded very slowly, if at all. It was times like this where Troy wished that he had his Nintendo 3DS or Playstation Vita with him, though he made it a point in leaving his gaming devices at home. Even his Kindle tablet would have helped pass the time, but he had left it inside of his messenger bag at his desk.

Suddenly, a male voice spoke through the speaker in the wall. "Hello, is anyone in there?"

Troy pressed the speaker button. "Yeah, two people are in here."

"Alright, we'll get you both out ASAP."

"You got an ETA on when that will happen?"

"Uhh... Give around thirty minutes."

Troy was flabbergasted. "Thirty minutes?"

"We'll try to get you out sooner than that, though."

"...Alright, thanks." Troy removed his thumb from the button and turned slightly away from the wall. He looked down at his smartphone, which at the moment was almost useless to him, and sighed. "...I'm starting to wish that I had downloaded some games onto this. Even something stupid like Angry Birds."

Despite that, Troy continued to struggle with his smartphone's Internet connection, hoping that he could load something. Anything. Even a Wikipedia page would be better than just standing around and waiting for freedom.

"...My boyfriend has bigger feet than you," Casey suddenly said after several minutes of silence.

Troy's eyes widened in mystification upon hearing this. He turned and looked towards the tiny woman, whose eyes were affixed upon his loafers.

"O... kay...?" Troy was rather perplexed.

"What are you, a size 13? 14?" she asked.

"Thirteen and a half," Troy answered.

She nodded. "He's a 16. He's also taller than you are, so there's that."

Troy was becoming a bit annoyed. "I didn't know I was in competition with your boyfriend."

She looked up towards his face. "Oh, sorry... Sometimes I start thinking out loud when I'm bored."

"Oh..." Troy still thought that it was weird of her to say such a thing at all. "Should I ask why you were even thinking about my shoe size?"

"It's nothing, really. I was just thinking of all the times he got me when we macro play. His feet are pretty hard to avoid, but it's so much fun to try."

'And thus, the beginning of an odd conversation with a coworker that I barely know,' Troy thought to himself. "So, you're a tiny, then. I mean, I guess it's obvious, since you have the program."

She shook her head. "Actually, that's half true. We're both switches. Every Saturday, we flip a coin to decide who will be the one that shrinks. It's been me for the past three weeks. Hopefully I get my chance to stomp the crap out of him this time."

This surprised Troy. "Whoa, you're into crush? Like, foot crush?"

She nodded. "I love it. Both doing it and having it done to me. In fact, I think I like doing it more, which is why I'm hoping that it's heads this Saturday."

"That's surprising to hear, really. Most girls I know of despise it."

"They're only going with what Vince Vane said on TV. They think it's what guys want to hear, though I guess guys aren't innocent in that, too. They pretty much jumped on the vore bandwagon just because he's a famous voraphile."

"It's like you're reading my mind," Troy said with a chuckle.

"I mean, I like eating guys, but I don't like being swallowed or digested. My boyfriend is the opposite, so I guess that works out."

"...This really is a weird conversation to be having right now," Troy said. "I didn't expect any of this from you, but I guess we never really talked before now."

Casey nodded. "True. So, what about you?"

"Yeah, I'm into crush as well. ...But not crushing ladies. I like being the one who they step on."

"What's your go-to height?" she asked.

After thinking it over a few seconds, Troy responded with, "I'll show you." He stepped closer to the minuscule woman now before his feet, before pressing the back of his left hand with his right hand's fingers. From the height selection, he inputted 4 centimeters, and then touched the "shrink" button.

His control panel retracted into his hand, before his vision was tinted with a bluish hue as the elevator's walls expanded further away from him, the ceiling rose higher, and the floor spread out more and more like a crimson plain. Casey, the tiny woman that he seconds before towered over, grew and grew, until she actually surpassed his height, though not by much. Troy's shrinking process soon ended, leaving him standing at half of his coworker's height.

"Here it is," Troy said, now having to look up at Casey, past her breasts above him.

"Pretty nice," Casey said as she kneeled slightly. "Easy to crush with no effort at all. Those are the best kind of tinies."

"Yep," Troy said. "I just wish I could find someone who actually wants to do it. But like you said, Vince really did a number on that."

"Have you been crushed by a girl?" Casey asked.

Troy nodded. "Yeah. My ex did it all the time. She became a natural at it, too."

"...But I guess she's your ex for a reason. ...I don't want to pry or anything, that's your business."

"No, it's fine," Troy responded. "It was a mutual breakup, and we're still friends. Her job just took her too far way for us to make it work."

"Aww... I'm sure you'll find someone soon who'd love to squish you. ...If I were sing- No, never mind."

Troy chose to ignore her last bit. "...Anyway, this elevator really does look much bigger when we're small like this," he said as he looked around.  "I guess it's good, since we'll be stuck here for-"

Suddenly, the elevator around them vibrated violently, and they could feel upward momentum. It was slower than usual, but the elevator was once again mobile. Both Troy and Casey were relieved that their ordeal seemed to be over.

"...Well, that was faster than I thought," Troy said as he looked up towards the display.

"Uh-huh," Casey agreed. "Guess we should hurry up and get big again before people see us and get the wrong idea."

Turning to her left, she brought up her Minimizer control panel and deactivated the effects of the program. As she began to quickly grow, her body glowing with the same bluish light that coated her when she shrunk, Troy backed away from her as she rose higher and higher over him. Soon, her growth spurt came to a stop, and she was back to her regular height of 5-foot-9 with her three-inch heeled sandals.

Standing on the floor below her, Troy found himself somewhat mesmerized by her feet, the nails on each of their long toes painted a reddish-orange. While he did notice them several times before, he had never gotten this close of a look at them. He found them to be quite lovely. He could only imagine what it would have been like to be at their mercy, to be completely helpless as they crushed him into bloody bits as she relished in ending his life like an insignificant bug on the floor.

He had nearly lost himself in the thought before Casey's voice brought him back to reality. "Hey, what are you waiting for?" she asked. "Hurry!"

"Yeah, right." Troy brought up his own Minimizer control panel and cancelled the effects of the program, and he too quickly grew back to his regular size, once again standing taller than his coworker, albeit only by a few inches.

"Can I ask you something?" Troy asked. "Since I told you mine, what's your shoe size?"

She smiled slyly at him. "Were you staring at my feet?"

Troy blushed slightly. "...Yeah, you caught me."

She giggled. "I didn't think you'd admit it. Anyway, I'm an 8."

"Cool," Troy said, right before there was a ding, after which the elevator doors opened to his destination floor.

He stepped out of within onto the hallway, and let out a huge sigh of relief. He heard those familiar heels walking from behind as they met with the hard floor, as Casey turned to her right and started to walk down the hall.

"Hey, I thought you were going to 16," Troy said.

She stopped and turned around to face him. "I'm not risking getting stuck in there again," she replied. "I'm taking the stairs."

"All the way back down to 5 when you're done, too?"

She sighed. "Yes... If I have to, I'll take these heels off when I'm going down the stairs. Anyway, if I don't see you again today, you have a good one."

"Same to you," Troy replied.

Casey smiled, before turning back around and walking away, the sound of her heels knocking against the floor becoming less audible as she went further down the hall before turning the corner.

Before that day, Troy had never really interacted with her aside for business purposes. She was quite attractive, with a nice slender build and a respectable bust. Most importantly, her feet were also quite wonderful. He wished that they had talked about something other than macro play, but at least he learned a bit more about her, especially that she was the seemingly rare woman who liked to crush tinies underfoot. He kind of felt himself falling in love; perhaps Bill was onto something earlier that week.

Alas, not only was she already taken, but even if she wasn't, like Troy had said to Bill before, he did not mix business with pleasure. His search for a crusher of his own continues on.

Troy pulled out his smartphone and looked at the time: it read 4:22pm. He figured that he'd try to get as much done in that little time as he could before everyone started to leave for the day. With that, he turned to his left and headed down the hallway, making his way towards the suite that he had been tasked with visiting earlier.

~~~

That night, Troy logged into his MacroMeet profile, expecting the same story that he had seen for the past week. However, something at the top of his screen grabbed his attention: the Inbox tab was highlighted a yellow color compared to the blue of the site's general color scene, and next to the word "Inbox" was "(1)".

"Holy shit, a message!" Troy became rather excited as he clicked the tab. The message was a response to one of the many messages that he had sent out over the past week. From the thumbnail picture, it was from a young redheaded woman with deep blue eyes and a bright smile. Very cute, if he had to say so himself.

He clicked her message, eager to see what she had to say to him.

"gtfo this site foot freak"

Troy's elation quickly faded into disappointment. He sighed heavily as he deleted the message. He clicked on his Sent folder, and saw that every one of his messages sent the day before had been read by their recipient, but no response to any of them had been written.

It was times like this that Troy wondered why he bothered with this site.

After all, it was co-owned by Vince Vane himself.



[TO BE CONTINUED]