“I don’t see anything, thank god,” Mrs. Beth said as she glanced at the underside of her shoe.

“I don’t either,” said Erin, looking at her flats.

“Nope, nothing,” said Bree. “Guess that’s good. I’d never be able to live that down. What about you, Clair?”

“I think I’m fine,” the other girl answered, letting her sneaker fall back to the ground. “So, no one accidently stepped on a shrunken person then. That’s good. Maybe this isn’t as widespread as we thought.”

“We can only hope,” Mrs. Beth answered.

As the other girls talked, worried about the recent developments with the contagion, Chloe let one of her boots fall back to the ground. She knew that there was a lot of dirt and grime still stuck on it from her walk outside, so she was taking extra care to look between all the ridges of her sole. She couldn’t bear the thought of just glancing over a shrunken man who might still need her help. She then lifted up her other boot, her eyes scanning her treads.

Suddenly Adam was pulled back into the light. For the last few minutes her hand been trapped under Clair’s boot, her heavy treads compressing his body as the giant girl did something so simple as lean on him. Breathing was hard, and when his lungs did expand he could practically taste the grime that surrounded him. Mud and dirt were one thing, but the actual organs of a slug, or snail, or whatever it was that the girl had stepped in was something so much worse. He wanted to vomit whenever he thought about the fact that slime was dripping over his body, running over his bare skin. He had never liked bugs even when he was normal sized. As a microbe, they were even more revolting.

The giant’s foot lifted into the air, with Adam still stuck to the underside. He screamed, though it didn’t really mean anything. Not even he could hear his cry as the air roared around him. Then the movement stopped, and he found himself looking up, the girl’s sole pointed to the sky. He wasn’t sure what was happening, but he could see Chloe again. She was just as powerful and imposing as before, more so now that he was stuck to her foot like some pathetic little speck of dirt.

But what was she doing? Adam watched as her eyes traced the pattern of her sole, the big blue orbs moving over her boot. His hopes suddenly flourished once again, thinking that maybe, just maybe, she was looking for him. Wouldn’t that be amazing? Maybe she had heard that he was missing, and had somehow found out about all the shrinking. A stretch, sure, but it might just be possible.

Her eyes passed close to him and a chill went through his body. Even with her looking, there was still a chance that she wouldn’t be able to pick out his small, dirt and grime covered body from the other crud stuck to her sole. He needed to do everything he could to make her realize what had happened. “Chloe!” he shouted. “I’m stuck to your foot!”

But the giantess couldn’t hear him. He tried to break out of his confines, but he was squished between her boot treads with no way to move out. The mud below him held him tight, and the bug’s organs were sticky and coiled around him. “Chloe, please, I don’t want to get crushed! I’ve been tiny for so long, I just want to be back to normal! I just need you to help me, please!”

Her eyes moved over him again, but still they didn’t see the tiny spec. He began to lose hope, knowing that this was going to be like all the other times he came close to being found. It would just be ripped away from him at the last second. Chloe would just shrug and let her foot drop down, and he would be squished under her boot, until she eventually walked on him enough to squish him, or he would just suffocate. There wasn’t a point in being hopeful.

But then her eyes moved to his body, and stayed there. The girl looked closer, her eyebrows coming together in a look of curiosity and confusion. But he wasn’t about to believe she had seen him. Maybe she had realized she stepped on a bug and felt bad for it, but not for him.

Then her lips parted, and she breathed a whisper down. “Adam?”

His heart practically stopped. She had called his name. She had realized it was him. Finally, after everything that had happened, he was found. A joy passed over him that was indescribable, and he tried to pull out of his confines again. “Yes, it's me!” he screamed. “I’m here, I’m here!” He kept saying.

“Holly shit,” the girl said down.

“What was that, deer?” Mrs. Beth said, noticing that the young girl was doing something.

Chloe looked back at her superior. “I… I think that Adam is stuck on my foot.”

“What?” the rest of the room said in surprise. They all went over to the girl and looked down. Sure enough, struggling towards the toe section of her boot was a tiny creature.

“I’m going to try and help you off, okay?” Chloe said down to Adam. She didn’t know if he nodded, or even understood, but she moved anyway. She brought her hand down to him and tried to press her pointer finger in between her threads in an attempt to push him out. Adam suddenly felt a great pressure as she did so, her finger practically squishing him more into her sole. But after a few attempts she finally broke the sticky substances that held him, and he was free.

Too free. Without the aid of the grime Adam slipped off her sole, gravity pulling him down the slope her shoe made, until he was falling in the air again. He screamed as the hard floor came up to meet him.

“Oh my god!” Chloe said as she realized what happened. “I think I dropped-” she suddenly stopped as she realized she was falling over. She had been standing on one foot for a while, and the shock was enough to make her lose balance.

“No, don’t!” Erin tried to shout as she saw the other girl about to lower her foot. It didn’t matter though, there was no stopping it. Every woman watched as a spec of dirt fell to the floor, and Chloe’s boot smashed down.

Adam screamed as he saw her sole hover above his head for a moment. Now this was the death he was expecting. A complete accident, something that was out of his control. A meaningless movement by the gods that dominated his life. Snuffed out right after he had been found, crushed like the hope he had foolishly let build inside of him. He was a bug, and he needed to remember that for the rest of his life. Even if that was only a fraction of a second.

Mrs. Brooks left the bathroom feeling a little bit better than when she had entered. There would be no easy way around this, and she would live with the guilt of knowing she had killed an innocent person for the rest of her life. But for now, today, she had a job to do. It was up to her to make sure that no other tiny people were needlessly crushed, or eaten by bugs, or swallowed alive by some ignorant normal sized person. She would prevent that from happening. It was the least she could do for the people who put their trust in her.

With confidence the woman walked back to her office, her shoulders back and her head held high. It was a trick she had been taught back in college. In those moments where you feel like garbage the right thing to do is act confidant. Even if it is just an act, soon enough you’ll believe it too.

After only a few steps she felt like herself again. Like a woman of power, a person capable of doing anything. She would find what caused this issue and fix it. She knew that she would.

The only downside was that with her head held high she wasn’t looking at the ground. Though she would never know it, there was another tiny person running for his life in that hallway. A male nurse who had been shrunken only a couple of minutes ago.

With a single step, a single crack of his spine and a pop of his guts, the man was crushed under Mrs. Brooks’ treads, his screams dying under her sole.

“I will save them all,” the woman spoke to herself, building up that confidence she needed to command. “This will not be a tragedy.” When she finished speaking the blood from the crushed man’s body had almost dissipated.