The women chatted well into the evening as Sean rested, sitting with his back to the cotton ball and being completely uninterested in whatever they were discussing. It was hard to ignore their booming voices, so loud despite the fact they spoke in a usual tone, bouncing around the bars of his cage. But it was all he could do now – sit down and wait until it was over, all the while trying to block the noises bombarding him from every side to the best of his abilities. He couldn’t blame them for getting together and having conversations, but sometimes he wished things were a bit more quiet, the giantesses’ voices starting to strain his ears. He finally got his wish when he heard Nicole saying it was time for her to go and he watched his world go up, as both women stood up from the sofa.

And then the familiar dizziness returned. He blinked, several times, and took a careful look around the cage as he stood up. This time he could see his surroundings change as he watched. The bars were getting longer before his eyes, the spaces between them wider, the ceiling was once again higher than he ever remembered it. This time there was no doubt about it either – he was getting smaller, dwindling, his minuscule body turning infinitesimal, much to his horror. It was over in an instant and a quick estimate revealed everything around him was now three times its size. Which of course meant he was now three times smaller, going down from six millimetres to just two – the size of the head of a pin, standing on a vast surface of the cage’s floor. And then, to make matters worse, Kristine began to move, making him try and keep his balance as each of her steps shook his entire world.

Thoughts began to race through his mind in the brief instances when he wasn’t busy trying not to fall or, worse yet, fall out. First of all being “why”. Why did he just get smaller? How is Kristine going to take care of him? Will she even notice him at this size? Was he going to get even smaller and vanish altogether? Soon these thoughts were replaced by panic, as Sean noticed the ground tilting, sending him sliding down. He couldn’t tell why was it happening. Maybe Kristine leaned down, maybe the girls hugged when they were at the door, whatever the case he was now in peril. He tried grabbing onto something, but the smooth floor he was sliding through offered nothing to hold on to. And he did not manage to grab onto bars either, simply slipping through between them. He screamed as he fell down towards Nicole’s leg, from which he bounced off, falling further down. When he finally landed on a soft, grey surface, at first he couldn’t tell where he was, the shock of the situation disorienting him. He was surrounded by tall walls made out of some leathery material. The plain he was on stretched far ahead, into the darkness. When he looked at the ground, he noticed a circle, as big as a helicopter landing pad. It was worn-out, barely visible even from his perspective, but he could still read out a number ten within it. ‘I’m in Nicole’s shoe’ he thought with horror.

Suddenly he felt a movement above him. Looking up he saw her humongous toes slowly descend right upon him. He sprang into action and started to ran forward, as fast as he could, as Nicole’s foot slowly nested itself inside the shoe. He miraculously made it to the indentations at the very end of the shoe that her toes made with the usage, each of them as big as a crater. Her foot reached him soon enough, a monstrously huge object funnelling its way in, threatening to crush him. Fortunately, being this small he had some space to stand between her digits and the tip of the shoe, although he knew if he stayed down there he risked falling under one of those mammoth-sized things. The giantess remained still for a moment, probably still talking some more with Kristine and Sean used that to try and get higher. He approached her big toe, now well over fifty feet hight. At his current size he could see pores in her skin and ridges running across her toe’s surface, which he figured he could use to climb. He grabbed onto a pore firmly with one hand, beginning his journey upwards in a great hurry. Fortune seemed to favour him, at least in that aspect, as before long he was pulling himself up on the top of Nicole’s big toe, panting, breathing heavily. This was no time to celebrate however, as Sean knew he had to get to a more stable ground, or at least somewhere he won’t fall off so easily. Thus he was on the move again, walking through the milky-white lake of her toenail. He could see the imperfections on its surface, layers of concentrated polish here and there looking like waves frozen in time. A short while afterwards he made it to her big toe proper, taking a seat on a vast mound of skin and flesh overlooking the white lake. The air here was thick and musky with her smell – and hot. He found himself wiping sweat from his brow as he was being coated with the heat radiating from her body. Soon he could feel her entire foot rise, then fall, and him with it as he was rocked up and down with each of her steps.

He held on to the skin of her big toe, especially so when Nicole was already in her car driving home, his ground tilted once more. He was well-aware of the lethality of the place he was in. Falling down from his current spot meant death. She would pulverize him under the weight of her entire, colossal body pressing down on him, without feeling it, without realizing what she’s done, without even finding his body. The despair and ridiculousness of his situation almost brought tears to his eyes. There he was, a brilliant inventor who was the very first victim of his own folly, whose biggest concern now was avoiding falling under the foot of a girl half his age. He went from a man setting out to change the world to a virtually unnoticeable speck lost against the landscape of a part of a humongous body. As he sat down there, overlooking the lake of Nicole’s toenail in the darkness, he wondered why he hasn’t given up earlier. He could’ve let Mandy or Kristine crush him underfoot, or stay in that lawn until something found and devoured him. Why did he still insist on carrying on?  

‘Because I’m human’ he whispered in the dark. No matter how small he’d become, he could adapt and survive. No matter how mind-bogglingly colossal people would become to him, he could learn how to live with them. And he would never again think himself lesser than them, because he knew that, in the end, he was one of them. He was feeling more and more determined, knowing exactly what he would do: he would find a way out of Nicole’s shoe and means of contacting her. He would return to Kristine. And then, eventually, he would get back to his normal size, even by his own sheer will if need be. He interrupted his musings to look once more towards Nicole’s toenail and he noticed something curious. It was slowly, but surely, getting smaller before his eyes and Sean smiled knowing what it meant. In a matter of seconds he was back to his usual quarter of an inch height, sighing in relief. It wasn’t much, but it was better than his previous size. And it was a start – maybe a beginning of growing back? And finally, it was a size Nicole would expect to see him at, further increasing the chances of being noticed.

The journey finally stopped, Nicole having made it to her place. Unfortunately, despite Sean’s attempts to hold on to her toe, he fell off when she was sliding her foot out of the shoe. He found himself alone in the musky darkness, planning his next move. But it seemed luck was on his side again, as he soon noticed a long, grey object with a white tip at its end in the centre of this unusual chamber – a shoelace. Eagerly, he ran to it and began to climb it, making it to the surface in no time. As he stood on the top of her shoe, amidst the long, wide ropes of the rest of her shoelaces, he looked around the massive space unfolding before him. He had never been in this place but he immediately recognized it for what it was – Nicole’s bedroom. He felt grateful to her for carrying him this far, saving him the trouble of trying to reach her by trekking through the rest of her house. He was surprised to see it was deserted, however, with no sight of the young giantess. Wherever she has gone to, Sean thought, she’ll get back in here eventually. He looked over to a massive bed in the corner of the room and decided this was a good place to get her attention. But first, he had to get there.

He climbed down the shoelaces until he reached the tip of the shoe, from which he made it to the floor. Fortunately for him Nicole didn’t seem to be too big on carpets. Before him spread a vast plain of bare, wooden floor. It seemed as if he was in for a long, but otherwise unobstructed, walk. And so he began to move his feet in the direction of the bed, its massive frame looming on the horizon, moving fast enough to get there in a matter of minutes but not too fast to avoid exhausting himself on the way. To his right was the door, a long sheet of white rising for miles into the air, and even though it remained closed for the moment Sean knew it could open at any time – which, eventually, it did. He hardly made it to middle of the floor when the door suddenly swung open and Nicole entered, her enormous feet shaking the ground beneath him and, worst of all, walking right in his direction. He had no time to run, no time to dodge or otherwise avoid the impact and he screamed as he fell on his back, his arms outstretched forward in a desperate, instinctive defence, as her wide sole filled his vision and the titanic mass of flesh collapsed right upon him.

And then he noticed, to his great surprise, that he was still alive. Being this small and lying on his back, he could easily fit beneath the arch of her foot, where he found himself at that moment, miraculously surviving. If he was standing a bit to one side or the other he’d now be a wet stain on either her sole or heel. But there he was instead, still breathing and pretty much unscathed, if not counting his heart beating so hard it almost seemed adamant to jump out of his chest. He quickly got up and looked for any sign of further danger, but noticed the giantess was now on her bed, lying on her stomach and browsing her phone, her feet high in the air. He was safe, for now, but he still had to reach her and that meant another climb up. But he knew he could do it, he could stick to the plan and make it out alive and well. As yet another wave of determination surged through his body, he noticed his surroundings shift in size once more. And once more for the smaller. He smiled as he slowly grew on the floor and when he was finished he quickly estimated himself to be at least a centimetre tall now. With the feeling that things were looking up for once, he continued to run towards Nicole’s bed.