In the the dark of the shoe I knew another step was about to be taken. Her toes began to lift up this time and something different happened; my head was yanked upward. For some reason her big toe had raised up while the rest of her toes remained down, locking my chest underneath them. I thought my neck would snap, but instead of feeling pain, I felt the rest of my body getting pulled out of the jam and flesh that I was wedged under. I found myself pulled up into the air under her big toe before slamming my face into the wall of the leather shoe, splashing onto my back in the sweaty big toe print. The pool of sweat here felt significantly deeper than where I was earlier, to the point that I had to lift my head to be above the sweat level.

I'm so fucked; I try to scramble away but her huge calloused toe came hurtling down like a ton of bricks.

I only just lifted my head off the ground.

It felt like a ton of bricks. I was dazed and my whole body in pain.

I was under-sweat, my face and body being pushed into the marsh that was her big toe print. I'm sure that if it wasn't for that marsh I would have had my skull bashed in, but it had cushioned the blow like an airbag.

So this was it. I was completely under the sweat level and couldn't breathe, the big toe continuing to press me down into the black muck below me; it was almost about to reach the back of my ear, everything else on my body already immersed in the under-sweat sole. The big toe above was a whitish yellow color and felt like a rounded boulder that wasn't quite perfectly smooth, and was covered in a decent layer of moss. The sweat looked dark brown to my sides and I could only see shimmers of faint light. I blew out whatever air I had in my lungs, and watched a stream of bubbles float around in the sweat. It ran along the calloused big toe, rolling towards the side of it where the skin wasn't as calloused, continuing along the ridges only to float above and out of my vision. If I was going to die, it would be with some self control. I at least would have that.

I closed my eyes and felt the muck completely covering my ears, reaching the sides of my face.

I didn't attempt to breathe.

insert mystifying memory flashback effect

I was just a college student and hadn't cared much about politics. When Dianne Trent was running for president she was just another amusing meme to the students. I had only vague notions of her campaign promises from what I saw in commercials that I didn't pay much attention to otherwise. My interests were in football, my love for history, and my simple attempt to have a good time. There were a few girls I wanted to pursue but women still made me nervous – even as a college athlete. It was easier for me to pick a fight with somebody who was tougher than I was than to ask a girl on a date – I guess I was always just a glutton for punishment, as most football players tended to be.

After Dianne was elected everything changed. There were new policies introduced at the school – the football program was disbanded for being too “toxically masculine”. It wasn't fair of course. Almost all of the boys on the football team were good kids – even the bad ones hadn't done much as far as I knew – yes, some were aggressive jocks and didn't have much of a filter, and one or two had gotten in fights with other kids - but that was about as bad as they were. Don't get me wrong. Some of the players were jerks, but they weren't any worse than the average student – male or female.

But the stereotypes, the cultural zeitgeist, and the pure propaganda in the media started to warp the student body. Female students were being told regularly that they were victims of an oppressive male hierarchy – that all actions of men were because of an attempt to oppress them. Everyday situations in which a student wanted to communicate with a female often led to a false accusation of sexual harassment – even something as innocuous as asking for a pencil was at risk for “unwanted verbal conduct and a violation of a safe space” to some of the more sensitive females.

I hadn't even heard about the mandatory miniaturization process, but the deans knew what they were doing. They decided that if they told the student body it might cause riots, so they simply scheduled a day of midterms where lunch was catered – and the catered lunch included the appropriate levels of shrinking medication for the boys.

So when President Trent was elected and her policies were beginning to be implemented, some of the more activist students saw this as an opportunity to finally rid themselves of the “male problem” that they were convinced was the reason for all the woes in their lives and the world. And toxic masculinity was at the root of it – football made an easy target.

Few in the student body knew what was happening. Those who did tended to be the most politically driven – dogmatic ideologues who knew nothing outside of the propaganda loop they existed in – if a fact contradicted with their emotions, it was a sign of an aggressive oppressive male patriarchy – either reinforcing their confirmation bias or cognitive dissonance.

These activist students went to the deans with a novel suggestion. Any sport which had been deemed to spread “Toxic Masculinity” by the executive branch would be given a different standard as part of the 3 strike policy – automatically starting at one inch. They felt that this would right the perceived wrong of toxic masculinity in history arguing that it was the only way to negate the evil society we currently lived in and were responsible for.

The deans agreed, and when speaking to the local officials for the 3 strike program found it a marvelous idea – anybody who had a record of “toxic masculinity” would be reduced to one inch in height automatically and with no appeal – but the 3 strike program could still apply afterwards – reducing them even further – to the point of almost being naked to the eye.

So during midterms that semester after election I found myself in the middle my exams to pause for lunch. During my next test I became light headed and confused, blacking out. I woke up naked on a giant wooden floor in a white room.

I hadn't realized I had been shrunken yet. But then I heard booming from behind me that caused the room to vibrate – I turned my head towards the direction of the sound and saw my first giantess.

It was my friend, Stephanie. She was one of the few female friends I had made in college that freshman year. She was a small, skinny black girl with a bit of a skater punk style, and I met her on one of the first days of school freshman year. Up until that point I only really knew kids on the football team, who had already cased me as a bit of an oddball – which was fine, I knew I was. I saw her sitting alone in the dining hall, and being a bit of a loner myself, decided to sit with her and strike up a conversation about whatever random topic came to my mind. We naturally began talking – we were both fans of obscure science fiction – and could talk endlessly about Star Wars.

Now, as Stephanie boomed closer, her figure came to stop at the edge of the platform I was on. It turned out to be a chair. I was level with her jeans at her knees and I found myself staring as these two blue towers moved with what appeared to be supernatural speed. I was terrified.

When Stephanie stopped before the chair, appearing about 20 yards away but was probably only a foot to her she stopped. I craned my head upwards. She looked down at me with her dark brown eyes, her hand lowering towards me within torn sleeve of a hoody. I had been easily a foot taller than her before – now she could grab me easily between her thumb and and index finger covering more than half my body. I freaked and bolted in the opposite direction, still not quite sure if any of this was real.

“It's ok Mark” I heard her say. Her voice sounded mostly the same – but it sounded like it was incredibly loud noise coming from far away. The soundwaves seemed to barely cause a vibration in my body. “I'm not going to hurt you. Here, I brought you some clothes”

I hadn't stopped running, and as I did, it became darker until I could felt a sudden rush of hot air. The next thing I knew I was caught in her fingers – the her thumb and index finger each feeling like I was standing next to a warm fire. I was flying through the air, everything around me a blur, quickly being raised towards her face.

“Wow – you're really tiny” she said, her face wrinkled up a bit like she was thinking about something. “You must be confused – to be honest, I was too at first.”

She opened her other palm below – it was paler then the rest of her dark skin. It reminded me of the landing platform on an oil rig. It looked to be about 30-40 yards below me. The hand I was in slowly began to lower me towards it and I noticed small articles of in her palm – a shirt and a pair of shorts. In comparison to her hands they didn't even look doll sized. They looked truly miniature.

This shocked me and gave me some honest perspective that I hadn't really been expecting. I was now about 5 yards away when she gently placed me down.

At first I didn't move - I was completely frozen and felt like I was standing on an alien planet. Her palm was warm, and I could feel the heat radiating up around me. It didn't have a particular smell. The ridges and grooves in her hand were pronounced from my perspective, appearing in form like dried out streams. But the terrain itself wasn't dirt. It was alive. I could feel the thumping of the pulse in her palm through my legs. And the material itself was like walking on a giant leather couch, where the leather wasn't dry. It wasn't wet either. Just – alive. The palm itself looked like the dimensions of an average room – I could put a couch on on end, a tv on the other, extra furnishings on the sides and table in the middle – and still feel like I have plenty of room to navigate. The sleeve on her sweater on this arm was pulled up, and I could see her smooth black sin extending off towards her monolithic chest, meeting at her elbow. It looked like at least a 50 yards.

There was sudden boom of noise and I thought it was the voice of god at first – but quickly recognized it as Stephanies.

“Hellooo?” - she said sarcastically, like when we would hang out and after smoking too much weed I would get lost in my own thoughts.

But before she could say anything else I panicked, and turned around. This would be the first of many times in my tiny life that I almost died. I started running without thinking, I just bolted away from the noise; the only thought that I had was that I was dreaming – but I also somehow new I wasn't.

It didn't matter, the irrational fear caused me to run towards her fingers. They were curled up, but she had left a gap between her index and middle finger. Even curled up slightly they appeared to extend upwards two or three times my height, and were 5-10 feet thick. The patterns on her skin and the ridges between her hands made them look something like surrealistic sculptures. I felt like I was running faster then I ever had – instinctively running between the gap of her fingers.

To Stephanie, the gap must have been less than a centimeter, narrowing as it got closer to her palm. This was plenty of room for myself, and I attempted to run through it, not thinking anything rational - until I saw the free fall below – but it was already too late, the momentum too great, I couldn't stop myself.

And then suddenly it was black. For a fraction of a second I felt relief. I thought the nightmare had ended and I had must have woken in a dark room. But I quickly realized that it felt like I was surrounded by this hot alien surface – just like the living skin of Stephanie's hand before. Everything started to dawn on me then.

“Jesus Mark! What the hell is wrong with you?” She sounded a bit agitated.

The shock was so overwhelming that I didn't even notice I couldn't breathe, but it didn't matter. Almost as quickly as I got trapped in her fingers, they loosened, while the thumb and index of her other had pinched me and deposited me back in her hand, this time not taking the time to place me in any particular way. I was deposited at an angle and fell over onto my face.

I lay there face down, naked, in her palm, feeling heat of this alien planet rising around and me. It was quite comfortable to be honest.

I didn't look up. “Sorry” Stephanie laughed. “You'll excuse me for saving your life though – twice now” Eventually I would learn of the fate of one or two tinies on their first day. It could easily be true.

I picked my head up and saw that Stephanie had cupped her other hand against the one I was currently in. I appeared to be at the bottom of a giant bowl – but it looked like a crater as well – with the divots and swirls in the surface and wall from her skin – and uneven gaps and bulges where the muscles below them manipulated the hand. Even though I was still in shock, I found myself standing up and continued to crane my head upwards to see where the sound was coming from.

There, appearing to float in a way that seemed to defy my understanding of physics, was Stephanie's face. I found myself staring at her eyes. They were a deep dark brown, about a 20-30 yards above me, and looked like something from a movie – like a holographic billboard in some futuristic science fiction. One of her dreadlocks partially obscured an eye and it swayed slowly back and forth. I suddenly realized I was naked.

In what was an odd mix of fear, embarrassment, and confusion; I found myself running over to the clothes and covering my naked body with them. I didn't even attempt to put them on, but just found myself looking up at Stephanie again, with a mix of terror and amazement.

Her brown lips parted and revealed her pearly whites. It looked like the mouth of a cave, with thick stalagmites and stalactites for teeth, glistening with saliva. At first I thought she was snarling at me, but when I took a step back I could tell she was grinning.

“What? You think I've seen a naked tiny man before?” She rolled her eyes and chuckled. “Ok, I guess you are my first naked *tiny* man.” She stuck out other tongue.

It was long and redder than the rest of her skin, and stuck out further towards me - it seemed about five or 10 yards. It was covered in bumps and had rivets on the bottom – on the top a grayer layer of bumpy flesh. I could see the saliva roll from one edge, and down the middle before approaching the tip. She retracted it with a slurp, looking like a fox disappearing into a hole.

“What, do you want me to see you naked?” She was laughing again. I felt my hand-bowl elevating closer, this causing me to lose my balance and fall ass first in her palm. I managed to continue covering my crotch with the shorts. The floor began to tilt and suddenly I felt like I was on a 45 degree angle, and I tried wedging myself into the warm skin of her palm in a moment of panic. But then it stopped. I was hit with a gust of steamy hot air, causing the insecure clothes and my hair to billow. It had a bit of a familiar sweet smell. I realized it was Stephanie's breath.

When I looked up again I saw a giant floating eye. It was only a few yards away. It was the most bizarre thing I'd seen up until that point in my life – but since I first saw Stephanie life had been a case of the ever increasing strange. Her eye flicked about rapidly, and I could see her pupil dilate – it would have been large enough for me to crawl into if it had been an actual hole. The lashes seemed to be almost as long as my body, and from where I was was nearly close enough to hit me – only short by a foot or two. The brown color of her eye varied in shade, from light to dark, and almost looked like it had the pattern of camouflage. This was flanked by the whites – I could see thin streaks of red lines that I had never noticed before at my normal size, darting about like broken glass from a hole in the middle. The whole thing shimmered slightly in the light. It was staring right at me. I felt like I was being judged by god.

Stephanie was resting her palm against her cheek, and from her perspective I was only a few inches away from her eye. I felt helpless– something I would quickly learn that, even if you get used to, can easily be overtaken by an even worse situation. And that some situations so helpless in terrifying that's all that could be felt.

“So, are you ready to put on your clothes or do you want to do a little strip tease for me?” She laughed again – between the booming of her voice and her laughter I felt like I would have fallen out of her hands if hadn't been lying down.

“Hell, from this angle it looks like I'm talking to a normal sized Mark!” Another bout of the self hilarity ensued.

All the shaking had begun to make me scared and I wanted it to stop, so I answered more out of fear than out of a desire of my own.

“Yes, ok, please! Just lower me down!” I pleaded. The thought crossed my mind that it was not something I should have been begging from her.

Stephanie's eye darted me up and down again, before blinking, causing her pupil to dilate in and out. It almost looked like brick hitting a pool of water.

“Promise not to go and try and kill yourself again?” Her voice sounded like she was teasing me.

I looked into her eye, my two to her one. “Yes. Please! Just lower me back down!”

Her hands began to close and this time I didn't move. I just froze. I could see things rapidly descending before me. We suddenly came to a stop, the arm between her elbow and shoulder parallel with her chest, the other half of it was perpendicular to it. It seemed I was out at the end of long catwalk connected to a tower.

Throughout her little jokey session I hadn't changed expressions. Her hand hovered closer to her chest and I found myself looking at her face.It was like staring up the side of a skyscraper – it seemed to be almost about a hundred yards away. But unlike a building, the whole thing was, well, alive. It was so unnatural looking and terrifying.

She looked like a friend – she was my friend. But she was also giant – something out of the Odyssey – something in my life I would have never thought or expected to see anything like. It probably looked like I was in shock because I was. Little did I know what horrors I would see in just a few weeks...

“What are you, in sleep mode?” She was still smiling. This all seemed very entertaining to her.

Sleep mode. An inside joke we used whenever somebody wasn't paying attention for whatever reason, albeit it be the phone or if we just smoked too much and found ourselves daydreaming. We both daydreamed a lot.

I finally came to. “I feel like I just landed on the platform in Cloud City.” I don't know why but that stupid joke just rolled out of my mouth.

She chuckled, then tilted her head and said in a valley girl voice “Your clothes?”

I looked up again at her. The fact that I was standing in her palm high above the ground made me more that a little nervous. “Do you mind closing your eyes or something?”

She smiled but closed her eyes. I threw the clothes on as quickly as I could. The shirt felt like it was 3 sizes too big. I felt as though I was dressed as an early 2000's rapper. It was the same with the shorts but luckily I could pull the strings tight and tie them. They fell down below the knees.

She opened her eyes and laughed. “Yo Dog!” Her laugh revealed a set of pearly white teeth.

Her laughter and the fact I was in her palm dressed like a clown was just too much. I finally asked the obvious question.

“What the fuck is going? What is happening to me?”

She looked down at me and then whistled. “Well for that, I'll need to be sitting, and so should you.”

Her hand curled up around me, faster than I would have expected for something so massive. I was suddenly locked in a very fleshy cave, her fingers hitting my back and knocking me forward so that I was lying face down. I landed in the soft palm of her hand, from here, it felt like that same living sofa – but even more warm. Her pulse noticeably bumped me ever so slightly.

I could see but barely, out of a gap in the sides of her curled palm. She hadn't warned me – just another time I was just manhandled by her in the last few minutes. But at my size there wasn't anything I could do about it. I was still in shock from it all.

We walked for quite a while. Stephanie clearly left the room and I realized we were in the building I was in while taking the tests before. Looking past her skin into the hole at the end of her finger tunnel, I could see we left the building, walking in a cool breeze in the evening across campus. It was March and a bit chilly, but Stephanie's hand was more than warm enough for me to remain quite comfortable. I could see she was heading for her dorm.

Once inside, she went back to her room. She had a single in a double room – so she had placed a couch where the other bed would be. It was perfect for chilling with a few people.

I felt us falling towards it as she plopped herself down, and the quick movement bounced me around her palm. She didn't notice or didn't mention it. I was lowered towards her leg and she placed me on top of her denim jean, slapping her left hand down next to me on top of it. The thing was so large the slap sounded like a grenade going off. I yelped uncontrollably.

“Watch it Stephanie!” I yelled, more out of fear than anger.

Stephanie could tell and looked embarrassed. “Sorry Mark – I keep forgetting how strange this all must be”

I sat down, craning my neck up to see her her head bent down and staring at me. I once again had the feeling that I was conversing with the top of a building. It hadn't yet, but I would learn to no longer notice the bizareness of it all. But there always was just something new to take the cake. And certain things just never lost it's edge. But I digress.

She then explained to me what was happening.

I started to protest. How could they do this? We have rights! I'm a human being – they can't just give me away!

She explained “Well, it was kind of a loop hole but it's so popular it's hard to push back on it. Since you were reduced to one inch you meet the stature of the 3 strikes rule – so you've already lost your personhood.”

My personhood – lost it?

“In fact college campuses in California were some of the hardest hit – almost all boys lost their personhood – either from the sports regulation or the testimony of a malicious actor. All it takes is the word of a girl that you were aggressive to her and the school institutes the shrinking if you want to remain a student – purposefully unclear to most as they didn't even tell them that by staying they would be shrunk. Unfortunately our local State of California quickly passed a law for most male athletes early on – so you lost your status before you were even shrank. People are so progressive out here they though they don't even see the irony of it, self-righteousness blinding them from reality”

I was flabbergasted.

“There's not much we can do right now – all the laws are changing so quickly it seems that we'll have to wait to vote Trent out of office before anything can be done – she has too much political influence and is in fact wildly popular.” Popular? How is that possible? How would men have agreed to this?

She then explained how she managed to remove most men's ability to participate in the political process. I was again stunned. How had we gone so backwards so quickly?

Stephanie continued: “Look, I bought you at an auction to be your owner – and trust me, you could have ended up with somebody much worse. Some of the girls have taken this opportunity to, well, let's just say do things they wouldn't have done when you boys were normal.”

My owner? What was happening to me?

I became angry. I started yelling, not at Stephanie, but at the school, and the other female students. At Dianne Trent.

Stephanie frowned at this. “Look I'm sorry Mark. I'll let you cool off – I got you your own house you can chill in, isn't that neat?”

I was suddenly pinned between her fingers and thrown into the air, it suddenly felt like I moved hundreds of yards in a few seconds, before I was being lowered in front of giant plastic house.

When I landed, I noticed the thing was designed for dolls 2-3 times bigger than me. I turned and looked at Stephanie, not wanting to go inside.

“Look, I'm going to go take a shower. I left some food and water inside for you, and rigged up a little outhouse out back.” She smiled – we'll have a lot to work do on it if you want to get the house up and running properly. She then turned, grabbed a towel, and left the room.

I was suddenly alone in this giant structure that was Stephanie's room. At one angle it looked like a normal room – but everything was impossibly far away – feeling more like a dream with a never ending hallway. I turned around and looked at the doll house. It was at least twice as large of the normal dimensions of a house. The front door, shaped like a normal door, appeared to be designed for people at least three times bigger than myself. It looked like the door for a building in congress – epic in style. I walked forward towards the house. The steps were about half my height, and it required me to hoist myself up using my arms one at a time. When I reached the porch, I realized I was slightly too short for the knob, but I pushed anyway, hoping there was no mechanism. There was not, and the door swung open – not particularly heavy as it was made of plastic. Everything was. I was inside of a doll house, the plastic smell lingering.

I was in what appeared to be a kitchen, everything looking warped and gigantic. Turning to my right I could see cabinets, refrigerator, counter, oven, sink. None of it worked, obviously. To my left I saw a table, and then what at first I thought was some type of decoration. I swiveled my body to get a better look and I saw two eyes.

Shocked, I stepped back, but I quickly realized what I was looking at. I walked towards it. It was a Princess Leia toy that Stephanie had shown me, part of a larger collection of Star Wars toys she had accumulated over the years. It was her rescued princess look, she had a white dress on that exposed one of her legs up to her thigh – she was pointing forward, holding a blaster in her other hand. I held it in my hand once, it wasn't particularly large. If I gripped it in my hand I would just barely cover the whole thing.

Looking at her now I again was slammed in the face with how small I was. I barely came up to Leia's knee.

I continued exploring the rest of the house, and found in the living room the water (she had simply poured it into a little cap I could lap from) and some food – an opened bag of pretzels. I would have to crawl inside to pull out a piece, so I did, lugging it out as it was as big as I was. I took one bite out of it and realized that it felt like I was eating a giant chunk of hard pretzel – not bad, just odd.

I went over to the cap and lapped up some water. Stephanie had covered the plastic couch in some cloth. It wasn't a lazy boy recliner, but at my size it was soft enough. I lied down and thoughts raced through my mind. I must have been overwhelmed because I began to doze.