The following morning was full of unexpected events, one surprise after another. As I woke up in the morning, I clumsily made my way out of bed, almost falling off the string ladder. I was still four inches tall when my feet touched the floor, but not for long. I saw the world around me swirling, changing proportions, the humongous furniture of my room growing taller and larger around me, albeit slowly, gradually. I knew I was getting even smaller and my initial thought was to wait until it was over. But then I realized I had no idea just how small I will end up. And that it would’ve been a better idea if there was someone to watch me dwindle, to find me, should I get… too small. Getting out of the room was risky at that state, but still, I did not want to be alone, not at a time like this. And so I made my way towards the door, losing fractions of my current height with every step. Before I even reached the threshold I cast the shirt aside, as the bulk of this overgrown cloth was only slowing me down. Dignity is overrated anyway, I thought as I stepped into the hallway. There I was presented with a choice of who should I reach out to. It would take me just a few steps to reach Maddie’s door, her room being almost across from mine. Or I could take the long road towards Justine’s. In the end, I chose the former. I knew Maddie would have a blast seeing me like this but the desperation took the better of me. I made my way towards her room, looking both ways as if I were crossing the street and checking the entrance before going in. The first thing that grabbed my attention while inside was, of course, Maddie sprawled on her bed. I realized even her way of sleeping was wild and chaotic, with each limb spread in different direction, as if she collapsed onto the bed rather than lied down. Her right leg wasn’t even ON the bed, instead hanging from it, the toes touching the floor. At first, I tried calling out to her. Then I tried doing so louder. And louder. Either she was a heavy sleeper or my voice had become too quiet for these giantesses. Or both. It seemed as if there was no other way than to get higher and to do that I had to climb. The easiest and, as I quickly gathered, the only way to get up there was to climb Maddie. As I got closer to the bed I realized I had to hurry; already I was becoming as small as her big toe. I tried kicking said digit to see whether that would wake her up, to no effect. Climb it is then, I thought, and I carefully crawled onto her giant foot, making my way up by clinging onto her white pyjama and steadily climbing further, all the while on all fours. Eventually I made it to her thigh and from there I walked onto her stomach. I looked around the landscape of the sleeping young woman as I rose with every breath of hers. She was everywhere I looked and the only sound I heard at the moment was her quiet snoring. I could hardly see her face beyond the two hills on the horizon. To say it was surreal would be an understatement, I felt as if I were transported on a movie set. A very bizarre movie, to say the least.
Once more, I tried calling out to her and it did not work this time either. Still she was asleep and still she was growing larger in my eyes, if ever so subtly. I knew my voice would only get quieter from this point on and that I had to reach a spot she would hear me at – her ear. I started to walk across the soft plain of her belly, feeling the heat of her body beneath my bare feet, as I headed towards the obvious obstacle in my way. The longer I walked the more it felt as if I’d never reach the horizon, the distance getting larger with each second. The smaller I was the faster I seemed to shrink and by the time I did reach her breasts I couldn’t have been bigger than an inch. If they weren’t like hills before, they definitely seemed this way now. I grabbed onto the cloth covering her left breast as I slowly made my climb up, now (for a change) hoping she would not wake up. This would’ve been hard to explain but fortunately for me, she remained asleep throughout my hike. When I made it to the top I took a moment to look around. The world ceased to shift around me, meaning my shrinking stopped, leaving me at a measly half an inch in height. Maddie wasn’t just a giantess now, she was a true landscape. The air was full of her scent and the buzz of her breath, her face filled my entire field of vision. I could hardly believe I used to consider this sleeping leviathan as smaller than me at a point. But, there was no time for sightseeing or recollection. I still had to make my way downhill and reach her ear. Lucky for me, the road down was much easier than it was up, even with my landscape rising every few seconds. I walked across her neck and then across her cheek, the few and far between freckles scattered on it as big as my feet, and crawled into her ear. There, I sat down to catch my breath. After all, I would need it to call out to her some more and I dared not think just how minuscule, how barely audible it would be at this sorry state. But before I could do so I felt my surroundings shake, and it took all my efforts to actually stay within her ear as it happened. Looking out confirmed what I feared the most at that moment – she was getting up. This was only the beginning of my troubles; as she stood up to her full height she tilted her head to the side, throwing me out. I’d have plummeted all the way to the floor had I not grabbed onto her antihelix at the very last moment. I desperately held onto it, too scared to even scream, as the redheaded colossus carried me away with her. I cursed her fast walking once more as I held on, each step threatening to toss me off. Finally, the movement stopped. Up until this point I kept my eyes clenched and it was only then that I gathered the courage to open them and I wish I hadn’t; we were now in the bathroom and Maddie, now naked (when did she have time to undress?), was entering the shower cabin. It was a long way down. If I fell, I’d surely crash against the shower floor and then be washed away down the drain. I used whatever strength I had left in my muscles to pull myself up and crawl inside her ear before the water hit her body.
So there I was, stuck in a cave under a waterfall, waging my options. Even if I had the strength to scream, my voice wouldn’t get through the rumble of the shower. But then, when this was over, and I decided to call out to Maddie, how would I explain the situation? No matter how persuasive I would be, I’d still end up as a pervert who crept on her while she was showering. She’d never let me live it down, I was sure of that. All in all, there seemed to be no way for me to be noticed while maintaining my dignity. Then again – what dignity had I left at that point? I decided to lie low and think of something later on. Eventually the shower stopped and I could see (and feel) her stepping out of the cabin. My surroundings shook as she wiped herself with a towel and put her clothes now, the quaking calming down when the giantess decided to brush her teeth. I waited patiently for her to finish but then I had another stroke of bad luck. As she lowered her head to spit the toothpaste into the sink I fell out of her ear once more. My reflexes didn’t fail me that time either and I latched onto her antihelix again and I found myself holding onto it once more. This time however for much shorter than before, as the moment Maddie stepped out of the bathroom she bumped into Justine. As the giantesses collided, the momentum threw me off the edge of Maddie’s ear and sent me flying down, onto Justine’s grey sweatpants. This time, I screamed. I hit her right leg and tried holding on, to no avail, as I tumbled down and down until I hit a hard surface. At first, I whimpered from the pain. Then I realized, much to my relief, I was not only alive but without broken limbs. The relief did not last long though, as the moment I got up and took a glance at my surroundings I realized just where I was – on the floor, in front of Justine’s right foot. My heart sank from knowing how dangerous a spot that was, as well as from the view before me. As if she didn’t have big feet before, I thought as I watched the ship-sized mass of flesh before me. Each of her toes was larger than me. If I looked closer, I could’ve sworn I could see my terrified reflection in the black polish. It would have taken but a step for her to snuff the life out of me. Just one step and I’d be gone.
‘Have you seen Andrew?’ Justine’s voice suddenly boomed above me, a distant thunder in the sky, thousands of miles from me. Even despite how loud it was, I could sense panic in it.
‘No,’ Maddie’s voice followed, equally deafening. ‘Why?’
‘This is all I found of him. Lying on the floor.’ Another thunder, more desperate than before. ‘He’s gone.’ A hint of tears on the wind.
‘Oh great. Drama.’ Sarcastic thunder. ‘Have you tried looking for him?’
‘No.’
‘Maybe he’s around. Maybe he took it off ‘cause it was too big for him. Maybe… we should look for him before saying he’s gone?’
‘Look for him. Right. Where?’
‘Anywhere! He could be right here! Hell, he could be that tiny thing by your foot.’
I shivered at that remark and looked up. The colossi were leaning slightly enough for me to distinguish their faces. Distant, blurry, yet there they were and they were looking at me. I began to do anything I could to get noticed. Jumping, waving my arms, doing both at the same time.
‘Oh. My God,’ Maddie’s surprised voice rumbled. ‘That IS him.’
‘Andrew, don’t move. I’ll pick you up,’ Justine added and I watched as her gigantic frame lowered itself, then her hand reaching down towards me. I stood still as two enormous fingertips closed in on me, trapping me whole between them, lifting me up to the sky before depositing me in the vast, warm plain of Justine’s hand. ‘I’ve got you,’ she whispered, looking down at me. There was still a lot of anxiety on that giant face of hers, in those brown, pond-sized eyes fixed on me.
‘Oh wow, he really is tiny now, isn’t he?’ I heard Maddie’s amused voice from behind me. ‘What was he even doing so close to your feet?’
No reply from either her nor me. For a moment we all stayed silent, each of us grasping the situation in their own way. Finally, Maddie spoke up:
‘Sooo… About that magnifying glass…’
‘Kitchen, second cabinet from the fridge,’ Justine said without skipping a beat, not taking the sight off me for even a second.
‘I’ll go get it,’ Maddie said and left us alone.