“If you couldn’t already tell,” Eryn explained to the woman in her palm, “I’m a, heh, pretty big deal. I have thousands of subscribers that watch my videos everyday!” An eager and bright smile turned away from Noel and up to the screen -- “Ah, here’s a batch of votes~” Two bars competed with one another on a social media page as it refreshed the results; a poll, with two options to choose from. Eat her. Keep her.

Noel stared at the glow of the monitor in a broken trance, viewing the simplistic choice of words like messages from god. Her arms and legs had coiled into her chest, diminishing herself even smaller within the giant hand that possessed her. The tears had dried some time ago, leaving behind streaks beneath her eyes. Why is she making me do this? Noel wondered manically. Why is she making me watch…? Why did it come to this…?

She remembered her sibling, Pryce. She remembered seeing them rush down the stairs in a frantic search for Gail, only to rush back up in their pursuit. Noel said nearly nothing to them before she chose to venture outside their stolen home. If she had known Pryce would be crushed alive in the hands of this titanic internet celebrity, she would have said more -- something worth remembering as their final moments together.

And she remembered Gail, only hearing of her screams from afar since having awoken to this nightmare. Her fate was less gruesome, but by no means any better. She had been swallowed, genuinely eaten alive by the whims of this horridly uncaring woman. Gail never had a chance; she was made into food, and now, Noel risked falling into that same throat to join her.

Noel whimpered when the results refreshed again, the bars changing to the tune of Eryn’s idle humming. Neither result was desirable, but what she saw brought her to weep.

“Oho~ What’s the matter, little one?” Eryn cooed, lifting Noel up to eye level. The motion frightened the girl further, causing her to flinch and roll away from the gazing eyes. Though Noel was clearly terrified, Eryn found the reactions charming. “You act like a hoppy little bunny! What are you so scared for?”

Noel gawked at such a brainless question, but the stone in her stomach had to be vocalized. When asked, Noel put her crippling fears into words, “Why… Why is anyone voting to eat me?!?”

“Hmm? Did I hear you right…?” Eryn asked, facing her ear at the tiny. She popped back with another smile. “I know, right?! There’s a lot of weirdos out there that like this sort of thing, hehe.” Eryn sighed and spun back in her chair, forcing Noel to collapse flat on her stomach and cling to her skin. “Can you believe I used to get made fun of when I used to eat tinies? I cried once because of it! But now look at me. I get, like, paid to eat you guys. I don’t get it~”

The answer sickened Noel worse than how she was already plagued. Her life to this woman really did not matter in the slightest. Her destiny was being decided by strangers across the internet, none of which knew Noel or had any actual stakes in whether she lived or died -- and living was barely an option on the poll. What did Keep her mean? How long, Noel worried, would she be kept for?

Noel glanced down from the palm’s edge, suddenly fascinated with one such tiny that had been kept. She heard Eryn address her before using the monicker Acorn. Were there more like her? Did this selfish influencer keep a collection of her victims, nicknaming them like pets or toys? And was that any sounder of an ending for Noel than simply being digested? Acorn, if nothing else, seemed content with her life -- whatever life there was in being a literal accessory to someone bigger, richer, and more famous than herself.

All these thoughts flatlined when a notification tone rang from Eryn’s computer. The content creator spun back and slid into her desk, trapping Noel in a cage-like fist while she navigated her social media. Chuckles leaked from her as she finalized the results of the poll, a cryptic noise that taunted Noel and her predicament while she squirmed in the unforgiving space. Before showing anything to the tiny, Eryn first flipped on her cameras to record -- the fans, she imagined, are going to want to see this.

“Heh-heh… Okay, little one! Are you ready to see the results…?” Eryn hyped the reveal as she slowly unfolded her fingers in front of her screen. At first blinded by the page, Noel squinted at the results, deciphering them from the initial blur that they were. The weight of this unorthodox judgement dropped onto her chest as she found the poll’s conclusion to be despairingly close.

“Ta-da~! Hooray~ I get to keep you!” Eryn cheered, her bounciness making waves of movement that shook Noel out of her paralysis. While Noel kept staring at the monitor with a dead expression, Eryn continually glanced at the cameras with round, rosy cheeks on display. “Welcome to the family! I was hoping I’d get to hold on to you~”

Noel was whipped into the air, suddenly opposed by a charging set of lips. She wailed in terror, expecting to be eaten despite the poll’s results, and so she panicked appropriately, smacking and kicking the lips that enveloped her. But it was not Eryn’s intention to eat her, only to kiss her. The lips made a distinct pop to emphasize the intimate gesture, and no matter how Noel resisted with everything she had, Eryn’s fist demanded her to bear the experience. A slight dampness was left behind the shivering woman before she was repositioned -- held differently, this time pinched by her arms and held in the air while she kicked cyclically. Ahead of her was the black lens of a camera, emotionlessly capturing her tearful attempts of wriggling free.

“Get a good look at the newest addition~ Isn’t she precious? She gets so spooked by everyth-- Blargh!!” Eryn jolted forward without warning, chomping her teeth down especially close to Noel. The shout alone made the little person shrill up into stunned silence, but no less did the clamping of a huge jaw push her into a long whine. Meanwhile, Eryn reeled back in laughter, “See, see? She reacts so great to everything~

“Oh, oh, oh-- new nickname! Ugh, I love this part.” Eryn rocked side to side in her swivel chair, toying with Noel by rotating the one hand that now held her. With every minor tilt and turn, she threw the woman into hysterics, climbing around her palm and fingers as best she could. “Gotta be something cute, and something simple… so I can remember it… Any ideas, Acorn?”

Acorn blinked into alertness, lifting her chest up as to speak back to her master. “N-No, I don’t, ma’am!” she answered honestly. She winced when the chain equipped to one arm was pulled upward; she was being dragged into a more prominent view of the recording, and from there, she could better look over the newcomer. “Hmm… You’re right, sh-she does get scared easily! Um-um… Hello there! My name is Acorn! W-Welcome~” With the unpulled arm, Acorn managed to wave at Noel.

“Awww, they’re already getting along~” Carelessly, Eryn unpinched the necklace, letting Acorn swing back into position at her breasts. An exaggerated pout illustrated her deep thoughts, until finally her eyes lit up with inspiration. “How about… Bunny? Is that a good nickname?”

Noel’s shivering froze, as though the name had cast a wintery wind over her. Little whimpers failed to argue against the suggestion, despite every fiber of her being hating to be called something so meek and frail. But Acorn, of course, thought divinely of the name chosen; she nodded with exaggeration, kissing-up to Eryn by so blatantly agreeing. Noel silently begged for anything else, but Eryn’s smile had curled to its limits.

“Bunny it is~ Or maybe, Bun-Bun? No? Just Bun? Hehe… Bun!” Eryn gasped after saying the name aloud. “Bun!” she announced directly into the tiny woman. “Ohmygodthat’ssocute… I love it! You are just like a scared baby rabbit, haha!”

The past became an emptiness, like a door had been closed on a vacant space. The life known before this had officially evaporated. Dropping out of college to take subsequent “break years,” moving in with her sibling when she had nowhere else to go, playing video games all night and morning on the very couch she crashed on; these aspects of life were over, far away and done with. Noel knew then she would never cherish that humble mundaneness ever again. She was now Bun, little more than an expendable pet meant to entertain a master and said master’s internet following.

“Y-You’ve gotta be k-kidding me…” Bun whined, shivering again into her own arms against the cold of reality. “I-I can’t do this… I-I need help… Pryce, please…!”

Ironically, a wide fingertip hovered onto Bun’s back, stroking it gently in a hollow attempt to comfort her. The touch only made her coil tighter into her own embrace. Nevertheless, Eryn continued with adding Bun to her collection, kicking up out of her chair and using her smartphone to keep recording where she walked to. Bun could barely comprehend how the huge room swirled into a different corner, but she at least made out the entrance of a walk-in closet that Eryn was eagerly approaching.

A curtain was pulled aside to unveil the wonders that were within. The surreality blinded Bun as she was taken into the chamber, awing at the impressive displays propped all along the shelves. It seemed like an alien factory, this bizarre collection of all things Eryn had found and taken interest in while producing her deconstruction videos. Everything was particularly organized; entire walls and floors to houses were aligned on racks, furniture was categorized into slots, and doll-like clothes were neatly hanged on tiny racks. There was this illusion of it being a toyshop, and Eryn ventured through the corridor as happy as if she were in one, but to Bun, the location reeked of a prison, and her cell was unabashedly exposed to her in the far corner.

“Here we are~ Let’s get you to meet the others!” Eryn announced, aiming both her enthusiasm and her camera down at the woman in her hand. “You’re so cute~ You’re gonna fit in just fine!”

Situated on a waist-high counter at the end of the closet was a plastic tub, and within it was a dollhouse of mix-matched colors and features. It was evidently made-up of different houses Eryn had taken apart in her career, with every floor and section designed to separate from one another like a proper toy. Eryn demonstrated that exact feature when she raised the roof up from its foundation, revealing beneath her a one-storey home occupied by a small variety of women.

And Bun was aptly placed among them, lowered into the living room where she was greeted by three others, all of which were older than her by different margins. As overwhelmed as Bun was, she looked to each of them in their eyes, but saw only gazes half-alive. These victims were eerily similar to Acorn, but none were as chipper without need to be. Notably, all of their outfits were quite peculiar, likely picked out and possibly handmade by Eryn herself. They dressed according to her whims, and so there was a woman outfitted in a tight fitting top and denim shorts, another wore a maid’s black gown, and another wore a mock nurse’s outfit. The trio responded all the same, taking to their own corners of the room while the newcomer was placed in the center.

“Look at you~ You’re part of the family now!” Eryn laughed, her phone held over the heads of her captives. “Everyone, this is Bun. I want you to be nice to her! Once we pick out some nice clothes for you to wear, we’ll take a photoshoot and everything~ You’ll just have to wait til then!”

Bun stared at the other women, shaking her head in denial, not knowing that her reaction had played out exactly the same for each person around her. All the same had they been stripped from their normal worlds and deposited here, into this cobbled-together home designed to garner internet fame for a strange, spoiled young woman. They, too, had tried to deny their circumstance, but they were now fully the things of Eryn, and soon, too, would Bun be incorporated in the same way.