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I pulled my foot from between thin carpet fibers that had been flattened by years of foot traffic and looked around.  Everything in the conference room looked like it had been built for a race of giants, hundreds of times larger than the average person, though it had been normal sized only a few moments ago.  The wheel of the chair I was about to sit in was several times taller than me, and the chair itself was a black leather mesa.  It seemed impossible to believe, but I had been shrunk to minuscule size in the blink of an eye.

 

The room was packed a second ago, but now it looked empty.  Nearly a dozen people should have been towering over me, but there was no one.  I looked across the vast expanse of blue carpet and spotted a tiny coworker in the distance, looking just as bewildered as me.  Keeping my eyes at ground level I found most of the meeting’s attendees in their shrunken state, all of them trying to make sense what happened.  There were a few I could not account for, but the screaming from higher up led me to guess they were stuck in their chairs or on the table.

 

I thought about what could have caused everyone in the room to shrink simultaneously.  Aside from being in the same room, there were no commonalities between us: we were different genders, ages, lived in different parts of the cities, and ate separately.  Most of us did not even drink from the same coffee pot.  Besides, if it were a biological reason, I doubted our clothes would have shrunk with us.  The video conference device had shorted out during a test dial right after the camera turned on, but I had no idea how that could cause this.

 

My pocket buzzed.  Apparently, my phone had shrunk with me, and I reached in to grab it.  Meet in front of the door someone had texted the group chat.  We’ll figure more out there.  I sent my acknowledgement and said I was on my way, along with many others, and a deluge of messages came in.  Amid confusion and assurances that we could talk about it when we met up, several people confirmed they were trapped higher up.  Promises to rescue them followed, though I had no idea how we would manage that at our current sizes.  Maybe that was one of the things we would generically figure out together.

 

It was a long trek for me to reach the designated rally point.  I had been near the far edge of the table, and what had been a brief walk before was now over a mile.  The carpeting gave me no more trouble than slightly overgrown grass, but the plastic mats for chairs turned out to be formidable obstacles.  My suit did not allow for a full range of motion, and I had to climb up and down each one like it was a low wall.  Dust that had accumulated under the chairs did not help, and I had not yet mentally adjusted to the idea of walking underneath chair legs like they were archways.

 

When I reached the group, they were in a huddle and talking amongst themselves.  “Finally, we can start,” Janice said when she saw me.  “We need to work fast here.  We only had the conference room for a half hour, so someone could be coming in at any moment.”

 

As if that were the cue, the door handle swung down with a clack and the immense wooden door opened inward.  It was a small office, so even with her face buried in a clipboard I recognized the newcomer as Larissa from a few desks away from me.  Her straight dark blond hair fluttered in the door’s breeze, and focused blue eyes scanned the page in front of her face.  Like many women in the office, she wore a black blazer with a white linen blouse, and a black skirt just reached the tops of her knees.  Black high heels made her calves pop, and flesh-toned stockings held them in place.  While she was a few inches taller than me, I never expected I would be looking at her like a skyscraper.

 

Larissa stepped into the room, and the spire of her heel hitting the floor made the ground beneath me shake.  When her toes swung down they landed with a crash, and it felt like a small tremor radiated from the impact.  Her rear shoe flared around the toes while she stepped off, then her leg swung forward, moving much too fast for something her size.  She covered almost two hundred feet in a single step, and the thud from her heel made my legs shake before the sound reached my ears.  A moment later her toes slammed onto the floor, making the shrunken people gathered brace themselves to keep from falling.

 

“Scatter!” someone shouted, and I was already running away.  “She can’t see us!”  The floor trembled from another step, making me stumble mid-stride.  Larissa’s next step hit with the force of a powerful earthquake, and I fell on my face.  Her foot swung into my peripheral vision, and I saw it bearing down on three of my coworkers who had tried to run back under the table.  They spun around when her heel landed and got the pleasure of seeing her shoe’s sole racing toward them before getting flattened.

 

A little ahead of her I could see Janice, a former cross-country runner, trying to get back to her chair.  No matter how fast she was, however, there was no way she could outpace a giantess.  Larissa’s next step was right on course for her, and unless she was incredibly lucky she would end up beneath the titanic shoe.  I called out to her, but it was for naught.  The obelisk holding up Larissa’s heel landed directly on her head, crushing her immediately.  There was no way she could have seen her demise coming, at least.

 

Larissa spun the chair our boss had been sitting in toward her with a hand and began lowering herself into it.  He was one of the people who had been trapped in his chair when we all shrank, and since he did not fall off when she turned it I presumed he was still on the seat.  The careless giantess dropped her weight into the chair with a great thud, then wiggled her butt on the cushion to build up a groove.  There was no doubt she had just smashed my boss, and she had no idea she even sat on him.

 

With her sitting, at least, there was no risk of me getting stepped on.  I realized that, with so many people ground into the carpet beneath her shoes, there was little chance of escaping our shrunken predicament without outside help.  Even at our vastly different sizes she should recognize me if I could get her to see me.  Better, if I could get her attention, she might be able to figure out what was going on and get us to safety.  It would be the least she could do, I figured, once I explained the blood on her feet and butt now.

 

The quickest way to her was under the table, so I headed in that direction.  Hopefully, the broad wooden platform would hide me from view until I was at her feet, reducing the chances of her mistaking me for something else.  I took a deep breath before stepping between two of the table’s feet, knowing that area had not been cleaned since we moved into the building.  Dust particles large enough for me to choke on floated up when I dashed through it, but by holding my breath I kept them from getting into my throat.  On the other side I was covered in deep shadows and much closer to the base of the behemoth.

 

Larissa’s towering legs were easy to spot, and I headed for them like a beacon.  The carpet here had not been trampled thousands of times, and I had to step over the fibers to keep from getting my feet caught in them.  While I traversed the great distance between us, Larissa began fidgeting.  Her left leg was crossed over her right, and the foot in the air began idly swaying back and forth.  The shoe on the ground bulged when she wiggled her toes, and leather thumped against plastic when she suddenly laid her foot on the side.  I would have to grab her attention quickly to avoid getting squashed, but it was better than hiding in a corner.

 

By the time I climbed onto the great plastic surface her movements had died die, but I still approached cautiously.  Any sudden movements from her feet could mean death, and I had no intention of ended up like my coworkers.  One creeping step at a time I edged toward her toes, ready to jump back or leap to the side at any minute.  Fortunately, she remained still until I was by her shoe, and I looked up her tremendous form.  Before I could start shouting up to her, however, I thought better of it.

 

Her enormous shoes were not what gave me pause, though they were the size of boats and the sole beside me reached over my head thanks to its curve, nor was it the great distance up to her ankle, nearly a forty foot climb by my reckoning.  It was not the towering pillars of her shins, either, though they were indeed daunting, and the tent of a skirt wrapped around her thighs did not deter me.  Rather, it was the human figure hanging from her fingers by the collar of their jacket.  Larissa looked curiously at them, her large blue eyes focused on the person dangling in front of her.  She knew what it was, and there was an unmistakable hunger in her eyes.

 

Larissa batted him with a finger, causing them to swing violently back and forth while they were helpless in her grasp.  She laughed while watching, making a horrific rumbling sound that felt like a stone in my stomach.  Her finger struck them again and they started spinning uncontrollably, which only made her laugh harder.  This person needed help just as I did, and she was playing with them like a cat plays with a mouse.

 

Horrified, I could not turn away while the simile proved much too apt.  With a grin Larissa leaned her head back and raised our shrunken coworker above her, positioning them over her mouth.  Slowly she lowered them toward it, and with the tight grip on their collar there was no chance of escape.  She opened her jaw wide, creating a yawning cavern that could have accommodated the whole shrunken meeting staff, and placed them inside.  Her lips closed behind them and she withdrew her fingers, giving no hope of escape, and a moment later a lump moved down her throat.  Larissa had swallowed a person whole and seemed quite satisfied with herself.

 

Getting her attention would no doubt lead to the same fate, and I did not want to end up as her snack.  Desperately I ran toward the door, preferring to take my chances outside to putting my life in her hands.  A loud, terrifying whistle came from overhead, and I tried to not think about what was making it.  The toe of her shoe turned on its side landed in front of me, and I could not stop in time.  I slammed face-first into the solid leather wall, stumbling backward from unspent inertia.

 

If Larissa knew I were there I would be inside her mouth, but lack of awareness did not stop her titanic feet from inconveniencing me.  She rolled her shoe forward and back like a seesaw, giving me split seconds to dart through that would end with it grinding me into mush.  While I considered what to do, Larissa began waving her toes as though tapping her foot, striking me with the tremendous leather wall.  It hit me several times, shoving me away before pushing me onto my back.

 

Larissa began tapping her other foot, and the steady, rhythmic pounding of her toes hitting the ground made me feel like I was in the middle of a forge.  The resulting quakes were not life-threatening, but they made my insides feel shaken up a little more each time.  Every time I tried to get up her toes landed again, and my elbows gave out under the stress.  Until she stopped, there would be no way for me to get away from her.

 

Her foot rotated on its heel while in the air, and the gray sole with lined treads blocked my view of her colossal legs.  It came down just far enough to strike me, then retreated, leaving me to feel like I had been punched over my whole body.  While I reeled from the blow, Larissa’s foot came down again, hitting me hard enough to knock the breath out of me before she pulled it away.  I gasped for breath while it descended a third time, cracking some ribs with its impact before she took it away.

 

I was effectively immobile while Larissa’s shoe slowly came down one last time, coming to rest on top of my body.  Weakly I tried to push it away, but even in my prime I had not been strong enough to move something as massive as her foot was.  Larissa slightly pressed down with her toes, greatly increasing the pressure on me, and I hoarsely cried out in pain.  She pushed a little further, compressing my chest so tightly that I could not breathe and bringing the ceiling so low my arms would not turn upward.  One last nudge from her toes triggered a wave of agony as my body gave way and I was squished beneath the sole of Larissa’s shoe.

 

Idly, Larissa ground the toe of her shoe on the plastic mat beneath her chair, unknowingly grinding the person she had just crushed into paste even less recognizable than their smashed body had been.  She was still thinking about the person she gulped down.  They had tasted fine, she thought, but the real joy was from the power she felt from having a whole person slide down her throat.  Though she had no idea where that tiny person had come from, she would not waste another opportunity like it.

Chapter End Notes:

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