I’d had to stay late to make up a physics test, and the school was an entirely different place after hours.  Normally, when I was in the halls it was bustling full of people, and I had to fight my way to get anywhere in time.  Now, it was wide open and clear, and you could hear a pin drop.  Even so, force of habit made me stick close to the wall as I walked.  It was easier for me to slide by people here, and I had a tendency to get lost in the crowd if I strayed toward the middle.

One last intersection before the front door, and then I would be home free.  I could spend my weekend reading, or playing games with my friends, or doing nothing at all.  It was entirely up to me.  Unfortunately, as soon as I walked into it a seemingly unstoppable force crashed into me, sending me staggering toward the other wall.  The other person cried out in surprise, but when I finally came to a stop and turned toward them they had a very different tone.

“Hey there, little guy!” came a boisterous, feminine voice.  Shit, anyone but her.  “Didn’t see you there!  Not like you can blame me though, right?”  Always with the jabs.  “Come to think of it, I haven’t seen you in a month!  You been hiding from me?”  My unintentional assailant had long, chestnut brown hair that piled on her shoulders and large, expressive brown eyes – all the better to see my fear mirrored in.  With her rounded nose, full cheeks, and thin yet vibrant lips it was impossible to deny that she was pretty, but it was her toxic personality I despised.  She had a nice body too, wearing a too-small Dead Kennedys shirt and tight black jeans that showed off her legs, and brown Doc Marten boots to give her a height boost she didn’t need.

I wanted to run, make a mad dash for the door, but by the time I was steady and cognizant of what was happening she was already upon me.  She rested a hand against the wall, blocking any attempt I might make to escape, and I looked up into her big, chocolate-colored eyes.  “N-no, of course not, Meredith,” I stammered.  Everything about her made me nervous, and her being a head taller than me did not help me feel at ease.

“Really?” Meredith asked, leaning hard on the first syllable.  “So was it my imagination when I saw you scurrying away out of the corner of my eye, or you actively trying to vanish into crowds?”  She looked down at me smugly, knowing she had me trapped both physically and rhetorically.

“That’s different,” I told her.  “I had places I needed to be in a hurry, and couldn’t stop to chat.”  My right shoulder was still sore from our last ‘chat’ when she held me at eye level against a bank of lockers using only it, then leaned in close enough that I could smell the scent of her skin, acting like she was going to kiss me.  She had been bullying me for years, and the growth spurt I thought would save me from her never came.  What kind of high school senior has a girl for a bully, let alone wants to admit it?

“Aw, that’s too bad!” Meredith replied, forcing her face into a fake pout.  She let it linger for a moment before smiling again, increasing my unease.  I was used to her teasing me, but when she was happy I had no idea what to expect.  “You’ve got time to talk now though, don’t you?”

“Um, yeah, uh sure, I guess.”  I tried to come off as confident and self-assured, but something about Meredith made that crack like the façade it was.  She’d been getting under my skin like no one else since we were in junior high together, and in truth she had never left.

“Great.”  She dropped her hand from the wall beside me, but I knew better than to make a break for it.  With her long legs she could easily catch me before I reached the door, and then I’d get worse than whatever she was planning.  “You know, I’ve been working on something just for you the past couple weeks, and I want to find out if it works.”

I could hardly contain my enthusiasm.  What could it be, some pressure point that would leave me paralyzed for a few minutes?  A new way of hitting me that was guaranteed not to leave marks?  “Well, what is it?”

“If you would shut up I could show you,” she growled.  Meredith took a step back, and though I had more room to move I knew it was just an illusion.  If I took off, she could still easily catch me.  “Just focus on me for a bit.”  Where else would I even look?  The only other thing I could see was white cinderblock walls, and say what you will about her, she was at least more interesting to look at than that.

I complied, as I had been the whole time we’d been talking, and almost lost myself in her deep brown eyes.  Suddenly, she started growing.  Just an inch at first, then a couple more, and it started snowballing.  After a few seconds I was looking up at her chest but she kept getting bigger, and I watched helplessly as her stomach rushed past me.  By the time I was below her waist, I realized that something else must be going on.  Meredith continued to tower over me more and more, and by the time I reached her knees I realized that either she was 20 feet tall and should have burst through the ceiling by now, or I was shrinking.  The smaller I got the more room there was between us, but I also felt more helpless to do anything about it.  Before long I had passed the cuff of her boots and was dwindling along her shoelaces, and my sense of insignificance was getting exponentially stronger.  Just when I thought I would never stop getting smaller I leveled out, looking up at the rubber sole’s peak and thick yellow stitching beyond it.

“Whaddya know, it worked!” Meredith boomed, sounding almost as surprised as I was.  I stared up at her, agog at her tremendous size.  There’s no way this just happened.  Several times I tried to say something, to shout up at her towering over me, but my voice refused to comply.  I was speechless at her feet.

I flinched when she clapped her hands against her hips, making a loud crack.  Meredith leaned forward, bending in half at the waist so she could look directly down at me.  Sheepishly I returned her gaze, trying to decide which of her gigantic brown eyes to look into.  She had not just shrunk me.  Couldn’t have.  Yet, I still found myself withering under her gaze, and a feeling of heightened alertness seized my body.  It was not exactly fear – she had made me feel that many times before, as she did now – but like it had something else mixed in with it. 

“Hey there, little guy!”  Her voice was like the crack of thunder, and I vainly shielded my ears.  “Funny seeing you down there!  No, really, it’s pretty funny.  So, what do you think?”

My eyes darted around, between her colossal boots to her legs hundreds of feet tall, to her face, so far above me and shockingly beautiful for such an ugly person.  “What… what have you done?” I asked, even though it was self-evident.

She let loose a loud, boisterous laugh, each peal like an explosion pressing down on me.  I’d heard her laugh before, and even for the cruelest reasons her laugh was like the tinkling of a bell normally.  “Isn’t it obvious, hm?” Meredith asked.  Yes, but I just wanted to hear it in her words.  “I made you look the same way I see you!  Nothing more than a tiny little thing, darting about my feet, trying so hard not to get stepped on.  Isn’t that exciting?”

I wouldn’t exactly rule that out, but only because “exciting” has so many definitions, like if I were to describe Meredith as “terrific” or “awesome.”  “Okay, it worked, Meredith!” I shouted back up at her.  “You can grow me back any time now!”

“Can I?” she asked, suddenly doubtful.  “I’m not sure I can.  You’ve been living your whole life without getting stepped on.  Maybe it’s time that finally happened, hm?”

“This is too far, even for you!”  Meredith was no stranger to using her physical prowess to intimidate people and get what she wanted, especially with me, but this seemed beyond the pale even for her.  “If you just grow me back right now I’ll go right home, and I won’t tell anyone about any of this.”

“Seems like that only benefits you, doesn’t it though?” she asked.  Damn, she loved asking rhetorical questions.  “Maybe I want everyone to know about what I can do, hm?  Or maybe I just want to have a little fun with you, like we used to?”  Her lips curled upward in a smile, and I felt a brief chill in my spine.  “Or maybe I want you to feel my absolute dominance as I stomp the life out of you.”  Meredith’s smile spread, and that same, unquantifiable emotion lodged itself in my gut again.  “Yeah, I think I like that one best.”

The gargantuan boot on my left began rising into the air, and I simply stood there, watching it.  There was nothing I could do except look at it go higher, mouth slightly open, at what was sure to obliterate me in an instant.  I couldn’t run, couldn’t fight back, couldn’t negotiate or talk my way out of this.  Meredith had always made me feel abjectly powerless, like a victim, but there was something new about this.  In addition to being completely helpless at the feet of my monolithic bully I was hopeless, and my fate was entirely in her hands.

Her leg had fully coiled up, and the great sole of her boot was over me.  She let it hang there a moment, drawing out the fear inside me while I tried to focus on the tread.  Maybe I could slip between it and make it out of this alive.  “Hm.  Any last words before I pulverize you under my boot?”

My whole body was tingling from fear, and my mouth had gone dry.  I looked pleadingly up at the titaness, hoping to find some shred of humanity, but all I could see was that same smug smirk she always wore when I was at her mercy.  “Please, don’t,” was all I could croak.

Meredith burst out laughing, so at least I knew she heard me.  It was a cruel, mocking laughter, and every rumbling peal of it was like a nail being hammered into my eardrum.  I simply stood frozen, watching her wobble on one leg while she tried to get herself back under control.  “That the best you can do, huh?” she shot back, somehow making me feel even smaller.  “I think I’ll be doing the world a favor by splattering you all over my sole after all.  Bye now!”

I wanted to snap my eyes shut when Meredith’s boot came racing down, but I felt compelled to keep them open, like I had to see it coming.  The whole situation seemed unreal as the brown sole rapidly grew larger, blocking out more of her behemoth body until it even blotted out her face.  A cool breeze from air pushed aside by her boot hit me, and I tried to face its approach stoically.  In my last moments, the last thing I wanted to do was give her the satisfaction of hearing me scream.

At the last possible moment Meredith shifted her boot slightly, slamming it into the ground just to my left.  An abominable caterwaul emanated from the point of impact, overwhelming my senses.  Once it passed a loud ringing persisted in my ears, and everything looked slightly blurry, even the rubber ridges of her boot’s platform in my face.  It was accompanied by a terrifying earthquake that felt like the earth would crack and swallow me up, sending me stumbling against her boot.  I felt some wetness on my bottom lip and dabbed it with my fingers, and when I inspected it, it turned out to be a mixture of blood and saliva.

The ringing began to subside, and Meredith’s cruel, rumbling laughter took its place.  I gazed up at her in awe, not just at her sheer size and power, but complete inhumanity toward me.  She had just missed exterminating me by a hair’s breadth, and it was funny to her!  Even though I wanted to run again my feet felt like they were weighed down inside lead blocks, trapping me.

“Aw, that’s so cute!” Meredith bellowed when she finally got some control back over herself.  “You really thought I’d do it, huh?”  She tapped the foot of her boot next to me, making me wince.  “I just wanted to prove that I could, you know.  Besides, if I smashed you now, who’d I have fun with later on, hm?”  That smirk came back, the sign that something deeply sadistic was in the cards for me, and it hit me like a jolt of electricity.

“Y-you proved your point,” I managed, though my tongue fought me every step of the way.  “Will you grow me back now?”  Being this small made me intensely uncomfortable and afraid.  I had never been more vulnerable, and against the boot of my long-time tormentor I knew that with just one small twitch was all it would take to squash me.

“I don’t know, do you deserve to be grown back?” Meredith asked coyly.  “Personally, I like you this size.  I feel it’s more reflective of who you are and where you belong.  You should be down there, I say, so I can look down and laugh at you.”  The smirk finally dropped, and she let out a deep sigh.  “But I probably should, huh?  I’m sure as hell not taking you home with me, and I’d like to find you again later.”

The process of growing back was significantly less shocking, and Meredith made it as quick as she could, apparently taking no pleasure from it.  When I was back at my full height, however, she still towered over me, and I was close enough to feel her breath on my face when I looked up.  She stared at me sternly, her wide brown eyes narrowed and hard.

“Don’t be a stranger, little guy,” she purred.  I wanted to step away but my back was against the wall, and every other direction was dominated by Meredith.  “I’d really like to have another one of these… chats with you, and soon.”  She drew herself back up to her full height and glared down at me, then let out a cold laugh.  For a second, it felt like she hadn’t grown me at all.

Meredith stepped away from me, slamming her hips into me as she started along the corridor again.  I winced from the blow and knew I’d be favoring that leg for a couple days at least.  While I shook it out, I figured it would be wise to let her get a good distance away from me before I left.  If she thought I was following her, she could be very nasty, as I knew from experience.

Once I figured it was safe, I walked out to the parking lot and got in my car.  The whole way home I thought about what had just happened, turning over every detail in my mind.  Just what the fuck was that, and how had she learned to do it?  Meredith could have literally crushed me at any point and didn’t, solely because she wanted to keep me around for more.  Furthermore, what the hell was going on inside my head, throughout my whole body, while she rendered me powerless?  There was definitely a strong fear, but it was lightly tinged with something else that I couldn’t ever remember experiencing before, especially not when at Meredith’s whims.  I could only find out with more data, if she did it to me again, and I was in no hurry to go through that terrifying experience again.

The experience weighed heavily on my mind for the rest of the day, as most near-death experiences would.  Periodically I would get flashes of her boot over me just before it diverted, or feel the shockwaves from her stomp.  That night, just as I was drifting off to sleep, I heard her deceptively sweet voice whisper, “Don’t be a stranger, little guy,” and I knew she would find me again.  I had never wished more than at that moment that I could simply not exist, and ironically, Meredith was the person most likely to make that happen.