For a while, everything was dark. He didn’t know how long he’d been standing there, but, in a way, it seemed irrelevant. Time simply had no meaning for him anymore. There was… nothing. Just him. Alone.

...and then there was light.

His eyes took a few moments to adjust to sudden brightness, almost stinging as they returned to function. He found himself kneeling on the floor, his hands splayed out forward instinctively to keep his head off the ground. The ground seemed unusually cold, and on closer inspection seemed to be… concrete? It certainly felt like it at first, but the colour seemed quite wrong, being less sludge grey and more a strange artificial blue, and it was oddly smooth.

Now having the strength to do so, he lifted his head up to see the world around him. The same concrete beneath him extended out in all directions, mostly flat, save for some odd-looking ditches that dipped down every several metres or so, about a quarter of his height deep. But that was hardly the strangest thing about the landscape. Off in the distance, there were quite clearly massive, flat walls that extended what seemed like miles into the sky. Except, there wasn’t a sky. Instead, a ceiling that was impossibly high hung over everything, the sun replaced with a light that must have tens of metres wide.

Standing up, the realization of where he was finally hit him. The monolithic cliffs that he could see off in one direction, far too geometric to be natural, were actually huge sets of cupboards. The strange, alien structures in the opposite direction were a similarly massive table and chairs, large and far away enough that his depth perception was failing to comprehend their scale. He was in a kitchen. An impossibly colossal kitchen.

The thought of it - the absurdity of it - was like a kick in the stomach. He couldn’t even think straight anymore - how did he get here? Why was this happening? None of it made any sense; he’d just been living his life and working and being happy and...

No. He had to focus. As much as he wanted to, panicking wouldn’t help him at all here. He had to keep his thoughts straight. He could get out of this; he just had to figure out what was going on.

And then it happened.

A horrifically loud cread rung out through the air for a couple of seconds, clearly coming from behind him. A part of him immediately knew what it was, knew that in a way it was inevitable, knew what it meant for him. The rest of him didn’t want to know, didn’t want to deal with this problem. But as he turned around, his worst fears were all but confirmed.

He felt the strong breeze blow over him as a door that was taller than a building slowly swung open, kicking up the tiny piles of dust that were littered everywhere. A foot came shoving through, quickly followed by an impossibly long leg as it smacked down on the floor. This contact was enough to shake the ground sufficiently that he would’ve easily felt from his distance, if he wasn’t already so distracted by what was going on. Soon enough, a huge figure was standing in the doorway.

Mouth agape, he simply stood there. Logically, it was clear that this was a woman - but this was a fact that his mind struggled to comprehend as she began to move. Hair that looked like it should’ve weighed tons bounced effortlessly off her shoulders, and the ground shook as a foot hit it once again, although this time it was significantly more violent. Violent enough, as it turned out, to break him out of the trance he’d fallen into.

Shaking off the disbelief, it became clear that was a situation he was going to have to deal with immediately; that first step appeared to be aimed in his direction. He looked up at her face, hoping that she’d spotted his puny form. Unfortunately, she seemed more distracted by the phone that was clasped between her hands and held in front of her, her face distorting with expression as she reacted to whatever was on the screen. No hope there at all.

A second step brought her scarily closer with another bone-shaking thud. He still felt like he was in her path, but it was honestly hard to tell from down here. He was already thinking about how he should try to get her attention once she’d stopped moving. It’d be incredibly difficult, but he reckoned he could make a good try of climbing her leg - the tights she was wearing would likely be very scalable at this size, and he wasn’t exactly very heavy at the moment.

But the third step dispelled any such thoughts instantly. He was almost knocked off his feet by the jolt as it landed what looked to be about a hundred metres or so away. Planning ahead meant nothing if he couldn’t survive this.

Sometimes life is complicated. A thousand choices, a thousand options, a thousand ways to screw things things up. But sometimes, life is incredibly simple. Two simple options. Two options that could change everything.

Do. Or don’t.

As the far foot began to lift, he made his choice. If he stood still, he would be fine - it’d either pass over him or off to the side. It'd be scary as shit, but he’d live. And so he stayed put.

The foot began to soar through the air, the other noticeably shifting in place as it compensated for the change in weight from above. It seemed to be moving straight towards him, but he stood his ground. No backing out now.

Doubt only began to enter his mind as a shadow was cast over him. This was expected, though, right? It was going to go straight over him, and he’d be perfectly fine.

But it didn’t.

Instead, it stopped moving forwards, and started descending. Time seemed to pause for a moment as he realized he’d been wrong; the sky was now quickly filling with the sole of the boot, his unique viewpoint giving him full view of the mud and dirt that was caked and clumped over it. He tried to react, but instead merely fell onto his back. Anything he could’ve done now was pointless anyway.

Everything went black as it all slammed down on top of him. At least it was painless.

...except it wasn’t. Agony shot up through his legs, alerting him to the fact that he was very much not dead. Opening his eyes, he found himself in mostly darkness, with little light coming in from either side. Eventually, he was able to make out a single wad of half-dried mud hung directly over his head.  A quick scan around - and the overwhelming smell of rubber - proved fast that he’d gotten lucky, that’d he’d ended up in the grooves of the undersole.

Well, most of him had. As he looked down his body, he could now see that his legs, from his mid-thighs downwards, were gone. Instead, they’d been replaced by a wall of tread, blood from his stumps pooling underneath it as he continued to lie there. Both the sight and the pain was enough to leave him in shock - his legs hadn’t just been broken, they had simply ceased to be a part of him.

He screamed. He screamed and he screamed and he screamed.

For a few seconds there was no answer, the universe seemingly indifferent to his plight. But then, light returned to his world as the sole lifted back up. He stopped screaming as he realized this, and for a moment was relieved. Maybe he’d been heard. Maybe he was going to be saved from this bizarre hell.

The sole stopped moving. Confused, he looked down the length of it, following with his eyes down to the far end (deliberately ignoring the mangled mess that used to be his legs in front of him). The heel of the boot was very much still on the ground, the entire foot precariously balanced on that one point. He could hear a slight creak as the leather shifted very slightly, mostly likely so slight that it would be unnoticeable to a normal person. What was going on?

A gentle giggle came from high, high above. As he looked up, the boot once again came crashing down, this time giving him no time to react whatsoever.

His tiny body was immediately pulverised by the weight of the woman, splattering over a small portion of her sole. The foot remained still for a while, but eventually began to move again, mulching up his remains as it lifted up and down and shifted left and right, soon leaving nothing but a red smear on both her shoe and the kitchen floor.

As she walked out of the kitchen - to be honest, she didn’t really remember why she’d gone in there to begin with - she felt like her right shoe was sticking to the ground slightly more than it had before. But this thought proved to be fleeting, and by the time she had left the room, she’d all but forgotten about it. It was, after all, insignificant compared to everything else she had to deal with that day.