Gina strode the halls of her school, surveying what she considered her new subjects.  By this time most of the other students had gotten the memo and stayed clear of her path.  Those who did not quickly learned why they should with a hard shove or a knee to the face.  Coming in at a little over nine feet she towered over every other student, and never passed up a chance to rub it in her classmates’ faces.  Even the few she allowed to call themselves her friend she held a tyrannical rule over.

It was one such friend Gina had zeroed in on: a tall, shapely redhead who had been her partner in crime for years.  She slapped the locker beside her with a powerful fist, making the girl startle.  Though she was tall relative to everyone else she looked like a child next to Gina, the top of her head barely rising past her belly button.  “Shelby,” she began, looking down at her contemptuously, “I see you’re still enjoying the view from my ankles.”

“Gina, you huge bitch!” Shelby replied.  “I haven’t seen you all summer!  Where the hell have you been?”

The tall blond smiled.  “I was at basketball camp all summer,” she said.  “I’ve been looking for you all day, but I seem to have forgotten my magnifying glass.”

“Hey, now that’s not fair,” Shelby protested.  “I grew like half a foot over the summer!”

“And I grew a whole foot,” Gina shot back.  “If you keep making such pitiful gains I’ll end up being the tallest girl in the school with naught but a speck at my side.”

Someone loudly clearing their throat behind her drew Gina’s attention.  She quickly spun around, ready to berate some dwarf for breaking her concentration, and was surprised to find herself looking straight at a chin.  Quickly she looked down, expecting to see this person wearing two-foot platforms or even stilts, and was taken aback to see her tanned legs end in a pair of flats.  “I’m sorry Gina, what were you saying?” the stranger asked.  “Some lie about being the tallest girl here?”

For once Gina was speechless.  She hadn’t been shorter than anyone for years, and this girl had at least half a foot on her.  Not only that, but she was gorgeous and a sharp dresser.  Straight, jet black hair ran down to the small of her back, and pitch-colored eyes stared down from beneath expertly plucked eyebrows.  Her purple top was simple but elegant, with white rings at the front and end of her short sleeves, and her cut-off jean skirt showed off a scandalous amount of her terrifically long legs, which came to end in a pair of plain but stylish black flats.

“I… but…” Gina sputtered, trying to come up with something to say.  For as long as she could remember she had a quip ready for any situation, but she had never expected to run into something like this.

“What’s the matter?” the stranger teased.  “Not used to feeling as small as you are?”

“There you are, Jenna!” some little mouse called out as she ran up to stand beside the titaness.  Gina was astonished looking at them side by side.  The shorter girl barely even came up to Jenna’s waist.  “I see you’re already trying to replace me with new friends.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that, Maddie” Jenna said, tussling the much shorter girl’s hair with a hand that engulfed her entire cranium.  “No one could ever replace you, especially not this little twerp.”

“I am not little!” Gina exclaimed while trying to shove Jenna back.  To her shock the taller girl did not budge, but she continued, “You’re just some sort of freak!”  A crowd was gathering around them, much to Gina’s chagrin.  Mere minutes before they were unwilling to even risk looking at her, and now they were witnessing her complete humiliation.

“A freak, am I?” Jenna replied.  She stepped to the side, making Maddie give way before her, and squared up with Gina.  The taller girl had her stuck against the locker with nowhere to run.  “I’d rather be a freak than a monster like you.  How long have you been bullying these people under the assumption there’d never be a bigger fish?”

Jenna grabbed Gina by the armpits and easily hoisted then slammed her against the bank of lockers with a tremendous crash.  For the first time since starting high school Gina felt intimidated by someone, making her feel even smaller in comparison.  In her mind Jenna was easily fifty feet tall, then a hundred, a colossus against which she could never stand.  Gina looked at her fearfully, trying to come up with something to shout back without sounding ridiculous but coming up empty.  The powerful hands gripping her while her feet dangled off the floor made her feel helpless, and she imagined herself disappearing into one of Jenna’s hands.  Then it would only be seconds before her fingers squeezed, crushing her like a bug as she had done to so many tiny people.

The force holding Gina aloft suddenly relented, and she fell back to the floor.  Weakness flooded her body and she collapsed to her hands and knees.  She looked up at Jenna with tears welling in her eyes, who returned her gaze with a smug expression.  “I hope you learned your lesson,” Jenna said, “but I’ll be around to remind you.”  Gina felt like a speck compared to her.  “Now get out of here.  I’m imagining how you would look plastered to the bottom of my shoe and I don’t entirely dislike it.”  Gina scampered away on all fours, struggling to get to her feet while she went, and nearly tripped over a shorter girl.  The crowd didn’t part for her.  They no longer feared her.

In that moment Gina resolved to get her revenge, and with a quick, muttered syllable in Jenna’s direction it was set in motion.

Gina ran into Jenna several times over the next week, as though the taller girl had planned it.  Each time she carelessly bumped into Gina she tried to play it off as though she hadn’t noticed the blond in her path.  When Gina tried to go around her Jenna would move to block her, keeping her trapped.  They would dance for a minute until Jenna got bored and stepped aside so that her “little friend” could pass.

Jenna might not have noticed it, but Gina certainly did: every day Jenna was a little bit shorter.  Gina played the hapless victim subject to the giantess’s whims, but inside she was glowing.  It might not be swift, but her revenge against Jenna for her abject humiliation was certain, and Gina looked forward to the day she held Jenna in the palm of her hand.

One day Jenna had shot up again, and once more looked down at Gina with scorn while blocking her path.  While they danced though Gina heard loud clicks with each of her steps and she came to a stop.  She looked down, and to her satisfaction her tormentor was wearing a pair of shiny black pumps.  “Hey beanpole,” Gina began, “why don’t you stop hiding behind your wardrobe and take those off?”

“Why?” Jenna asked smugly.  “Do I make you feel as small physically as you are on the inside?”

“Just do it,” Gina insisted, “unless you want me to scuff your fancy shoes.”

Jenna sighed and kicked of her heels.  She had been hoping to delay the inevitable, but standing barefoot across from her she could no longer deny it.  The two were eye to eye.  Gina laughed while Jenna looked at her furiously.

“I knew it!” Gina exclaimed.  “You’ve been looking shorter each day, but I thought I was just imagining things.  You’re actually shrinking!”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Jenna shot back while fumbling to get her shoes back on.  She had to maintain the illusion a little longer.  “You’re just having a growth spurt.  Enjoy it while you can squirt, I’m still growing too.”

“Yeah, sure you are,” Gina replied sarcastically.  “It has nothing to do with this shrinking disease I heard about on TV the other day.”

“On what, the sci-fi channel?” Jenna retorted, finally getting her heels back on.  She glared down at Gina and continued, “Enjoy it while you can.  Mark my words, in a month I’ll be big enough to squash you.”

Gina smirked.  “Just do me a favor and measure yourself, okay?  I’m really worried you’re shrinking.”

“Yeah, sure you are.”  Jenna continued her path down the hall, shoulder checking Gina as she passed.  To her disappointment the blond barely flinched from what should have laid her out.  Though it was impossible, she felt the niggling doubt in the back of her mind that Gina might not be spouting nonsense.

By the time she got home, Jenna’s tiny bit of doubt had turned into full-blown panic.  “Mom!” she shouted the minute she entered the door, before she even dropped her bag.  “I need you to measure me!”

“Already?” her mom replied from the living room.  “I just measured you last week before school started!  Are you having another growth spurt?”

“Just get the tape measure and stepladder!” Jenna implored while she walked over to her measuring wall.  Several years ago she had outgrown the doorway they marked her height on, and they began using the wall beside it. 

Jenna’s mom came through the doorway, stepladder folded under her arm.  Ever since her legs outgrew her Jenna had wondered how she came from such a tiny woman.  It couldn’t have been her father – last time she saw him she was head and shoulders taller than him, and that was years ago.  Her sister was also puny, even shorter than their mother: Jenna enjoyed teasing her sister about letting her rest in her palm if she got tired on long walks.

With a clank Jenna’s mother unfolded the stepladder and extended the measuring tape.  Having done this dozens of times before Jenna placed her foot on the cold metal tab, holding it flat against the floor.  The tape unraveled as her mom ascended the stepladder until it reached her shoulders.  As she had become accustomed to recently, Jenna’s mother lifted her arms the rest of the way, then set a pencil atop Jenna’s head.  She made a quick mark then tapped Jenna on the shoulder, instructing her to step away so she could look at it.

“Nine feet, three inches!” Jenna’s mom exclaimed.  “You’re still my gigantic daughter!”

“Three inches?” Jenna repeated.  “Mom, last week I was nine feet nine inches!”  Her face contorted, and she let out a high-pitched wail.  “I’m shrinking!”

Her mom patted her on the back.  “There there, honey,” she said.  “There’s no need to be upset.  I bet you still tower over everyone else at school!”

“But I don’t!” Jenna replied.  “There’s another girl, and she’s the same height as me, and she’s a lot meaner, and… what if I keep shrinking?!”

“Calm down, Jenna,” her mom implored, struggling to get her arms around her.  “If it’s that big of a deal to you I’ll call the doctor and make an appointment.”  Wordlessly Jenna heaved in her mom’s grasp, and the older woman made the call.

The next day at school Jenna tried to avoid Gina, not wanting to face her reversal of fortune quite so soon.  Unfortunately Gina was not keen to let her, and actively sought her out.  They met in the hallway as they so often did.  Jenna tried to duck into a classroom before Gina noticed her, but the blond’s eagle eyes spotted her easily and she interdicted.

“There’s my tiny friend!” Gina exclaimed when Jenna bumped into her.  “Did you learn anything about your shrinking disease?”

“Get out of my way,” Jenna demanded, trying to push her way past Gina.

Gina grabbed her by the shoulders and held her at arm’s length.  Though she was just an inch taller, Gina felt positively gargantuan looking down at Jenna.  She did her best to suppress a smile and continue with her mock concern.  “There’s no cure, you know.  They’re working on one, but it’s pretty far away.”

“Fuck off Gina.”  Jenna tried to escape the marginally larger girl, but Gina’s fingers kept an iron grip on her.

“I just want you to be ready for when you’re itty-bitty is all!” Gina protested.  “You’re going to need someone to help you get around, bring your assignments to you, get things off the bottom shelf, that sort of thing, and I want it to be me.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Jenna growled.  “Just wait, when I shoot up in a few weeks you’re going to look like a bug at my feet and I am going to be merciless to you.  You’ll be lucky if all I do is smash you!”

“Sure thing, short stuff!”  Gina relented and finally let her pass, but decided to get a parting shot in.  “If you change your mind let me know while I can still hear you!”  Jenna fumed, and Gina finally stopped holding back her smile.  She was inside her head.  Time to turn up the pressure.

Jenna sat on the examination table while her doctor looked over the results.  She flipped the pages on her clipboard back and forth, shooting Jenna a glance every now and then, before she set it on the table beside her.  “You’re nine feet tall, and though the chart doesn’t go that high your body fat percentage hasn’t increased so you’re still far from an unhealthy weight.  Your tonsils look fine, reflexes are better than normal, and you’re not complaining of any aches or pains.  It may be premature to say without blood work, but you’re in perfect health.  So why the emergency appointment?”

“You already said it!” Jenna exclaimed.  “I’m nine feet tall!”

“While that is abnormally large, it’s perfectly-“

“I’ve shrank nine inches!” Jenna cut off the doctor.

“Oh.  You… think you’re shrinking?”  Jenna nodded, and the doctor took a second to adjust her glasses.  “Frankly, I’m relieved.  With your immense height I was worried you had a rare form of gigantism and was just waiting for the negative side-effects to kick in.  While there’s no medical reason for you to shrink, particularly at your age, there’s no reason for you to be so big either.”

“What about that shrinking disease?” Jenna asked.  The doctor gave her a confused look, so she elaborated.  “One of my classmates told me about a disease that makes people get smaller until they’re only a few inches tall and that there’s no cure.  I’m worried that I have it.”

The doctor chuckled.  “A shrinking disease?  Jenna, do you believe everything your classmates tell you?”  Jenna looked embarrassed, as though she had just now realized how ridiculous the premise was.  “I can assure you, there’s no such thing.  Maybe osteoporosis, but that’s something you won’t have to worry about for many years to come.  But if you have any more concerns about this shrinking disease just give me a call and I’ll fit you in, okay?”

Jenna smiled and got off the table.  “Thanks, doc,” she said, grabbing her folded jacket off the nearby chair.  Then she went out the door to where her mother was waiting for her and tried not to look down so she wouldn’t see the tears.

For the next few weeks at school Jenna lived in fear.  Her mother refused to measure her daily, but she could tell that she was getting smaller, about an inch a day.  Each day she stared up longingly at the mark she had left earlier that year, remembering the days she had towered over every other human.  Now she could walk through doorways without ducking, something she didn’t expect she would ever miss.

To compensate for her dwindling height, Jenna had vastly expanded her collection of high heeled shoes.  One day while she was walking to her locker after class she turned the corner and ran face-first into a pair of breasts.  Surprised, she took a step back, and looked up in horror to see Gina smirking down at her.  Ever since she had outshrunk Gina she had managed to keep her distance while the blond was content to observe her from afar.  This was the first time in a while she had seen Gina up close and the difference was staggering.

“Hey there small fry!” Gina shouted.  “Still waiting on that growth spurt, huh?”

“Shut up,” Jenna muttered, and tried to push Gina out of her way.  The larger girl did not even budge and continued looking down at her smugly.

“Jenna, I’m hurt!” Gina exclaimed.  “I’m rooting for you, really, I am!  I’m just waiting for the day that you’ll be, how did you put it, big enough to squash me?”

“Leave me alone.”  Jenna stepped sideways in an attempt to get around Gina, but this was hardly a new game for her and Gina easily anticipated her movement.

“I feel like we hardly see each other anymore, too,” Gina pouted.  “When school first started we were inseparable, now it’s like you’re avoiding me.  I mean, it is harder to see you now that you’re so small, but I still want to hang out with you.”

Jenna snapped.  She stepped in and sternly thrust a finger up toward Gina’s face.  “For your information,” she growled while Gina tried not to laugh, “I’m still the second tallest girl in the school, so why don’t you take that ‘so tiny’ crap and shove it?”

“Actually, you’re the third tallest,” interjected a voice behind Jenna.  She spun around and found herself eyes to nose with Shelby.  “Hey there, pipsqueak!  Nice shoes you got there.  How about you take them off and we find out how tall you really are?”

But I…” Jenna began to protest, but she knew it was worthless.  She was trapped between Shelby and Gina, both of whom towered over her significantly, and even if tried running she would not get far.  Reluctantly she slipped off her heels and slid them to the side.  As she did so Shelby seemed to grow larger until she was almost a head taller than her.  Jenna looked up at her, hoping that the boost from her heels had not been nearly as significant as it was.

“Wow, you’re really small!” Shelby said, looking down at her.  “I’m starting to doubt you’re even third tallest, probably not even top ten now.  With how you’re shrinking you’ll be looking up at your little friend in just a couple of weeks.”

“See, now that’s what a growth spurt looks like,” Gina butted in, placing a hand on Jenna’s shoulder.  “Shelby’s been sprouting up over the past few weeks instead of just talking about it.  Now she’s a distant second and you’re… whatever the hell you are.”

Shelby shouldered Jenna out of the way as she bent over and picked up the discarded high heels.  “I think I’ll be taking these,” she declared.  “Do you think I’d look good at seven feet, Gina?”  She nodded her agreement, and Shelby continued.  “As for you, tiny, I don’t want to see you wearing anything else that boosts your height, got it?  If you’re going to dwindle, do it with dignity.”  She slipped the shoes into her backpack and zipped it up while Jenna watched helplessly.

After slinging the bag over her shoulder Shelby stepped forward, sandwiching Jenna between herself and Gina.  They felt the smaller girl struggling to get free while they pressed harder, crushing her with their bodies.  Her flailing got more frantic and she tried to push Shelby away, but with no leverage she could not make her stop.  Finally, Gina stepped back, letting Jenna sprawl out on the floor at their feet.  The pair laughed at her and walked away, leaving her to gather her pride alone.

Several weeks later Jenna paused while getting ready for school.  She looked at the mark that was even with the top of her head now and read the text beside it.  “Jenna, age 8 – 5’0.”  It took great effort to fight back tears when she thought about it.  As a fully-grown adult she was no taller than herself at eight years old. 

Jenna’s mom came into the room just as she finished fixing her earrings.  “Come on, you’re going to be late!” she chided her daughter.

Jenna looked up at her mom in bewilderment.  Did she even notice that she was half a head taller than her formerly-towering daughter now?  “I don’t want to go to school today,” she protested.

“Oh?  Why not?”

“Can’t you see?” Jenna shouted up at her mother.  “I’m puny now!  Everyone else is taller than me and I can’t take it!”

“Honey, I wasn’t much taller than you at your age,” her mother explained.  “That’s just how tall you are, and if anyone makes fun of you for it that’s their problem.”

“But you didn’t shrink five feet in a year!”

“Maybe I didn’t, but you’re still going to school,” she replied sternly. 

“Can’t I go see Doctor K instead?” Jenna complained.  “She said if I needed to see her I just need to call.”

“Dear, Doctor Kaplan is on vacation for the next month.  I’ll make you an appointment for when she gets back.”  Jenna looked crestfallen.  “Now get your bag and get in the car, we’re going.”

Jenna had been trying to keep a low profile at school.  She traded in her denim skirts and tight tees for baggy sweatpants and a hoodie, and did her best not to stand still next to anyone.  At lunch she ate alone, and had taken to arriving early and lingering after class so that she could avoid notice.  If she had to keep going to school she was going to make it as painless as possible.

That morning, while trying to weave through the crowd to get to her first class, she bumped into someone.  Jenna excused herself and tried to slip away, but a familiar voice stopped her.  “Jenna!” Maddie called.  “I haven’t seen you in weeks, I thought you moved!”

Jenna looked up at her friend.  It was just a couple inches, but at this height it made a big difference.  “Oh, hey Maddie.”  She was much less excited than her friend.  “You’ve… grown.”

Maddie looked down at her.  “Yeah, I guess I did.  Come on, stand up straight and let’s compare!”  Jenna groaned, but did not want to disappoint her friend.  She stood straight as a pole in front of her friend while Maddie did the same, then slid a hand forward from the top of her head.  It easily cleared Jenna’s, then she spread her fingers to close the gap.  When she showed it, her fingers were at least three inches apart.

“Huh, I don’t feel like I’ve grown that much,” she said, looking at Jenna in confusion.  “Seems like not long ago you were towering over me.”

“Well, an inch here and there adds up,” Jenna offered neutrally.  “Here in a couple months I bet you’ll be so tall you’ll barely be able to see me.”

“If I outgrew you I guess anything’s possible!”  Maddie checked her watch.  “Oh, I gotta get going.  Don’t be such a stranger in the future!”

“Yeah, sure,” Jenna replied as her friend departed.  She watched her friend leave, fondly remembering when she barely came up to her butt.  Now she fully expected the roles to be reversed and then some.  What would she say when she didn’t even come up to Maddie’s ankles?  Would she maintain the fiction that her friend must be a hundred feet tall, or would she figure it out on her own?

Jenna moved to continue on her path but got a face full of black denim.  She looked up to see a familiar face smirking down at her.  Terrified, Jenna tried to back away and blend into the crowd, but ran into another solid wall.  Quickly she turned and saw that she was face to chest with an impressive rack, and a glance up confirmed it was Shelby.

“Hello down there, little one!” Gina began, relishing the sight of Jenna trapped between Shelby and herself.  “Still waiting on that growth spurt, huh?”  She giggled at her own joke while Jenna futilely worked for an escape.

“It’s coming any day now, right?” Shelby chimed in.  “Some day next week we’ll all look up in awe at the giantess that sprung out of your pitiful form?”

“Please, just leave me alone,” Jenna asked while trying to slip out between the two of them.  “I don’t want any trouble.”

“Wait, hold on Shelby,” Gina said, leaning forward so that she loomed over Jenna.  “I think it’s finally happening!”  Her arms shot forward and grabbed Jenna by the armpits.  “She’s growing!”  Effortlessly Gina lifted the diminutive woman from the floor until her head nearly bumped against the ceiling.  “Wow, look her go, she’s really towering over us now!”

“Hey!  Let me go!” Jenna shrieked while she kicked her legs at empty air.

“It really happened, everyone!” Gina shouted, addressing the hall.  “Jenna’s growing into a giantess!  Everyone, get out of the way so she doesn’t crush you when she keeps getting bigger!”

“This isn’t funny!” Jenna squealed.  “Let go of me!”

Gina grinned.  “Okay,” she said, and released her grip.  Jenna raced to the floor and hit it hard, then collapsed in a pile at Gina’s feet.  She looked up and groaned while Gina struck a pose.  “You should get used to that view,” Gina said, then jabbed her in the ribs with the toe of her shoe.  “That’ll be permanent soon.”  Then she stepped over the prone girl and continued on her way, laughing about Jenna’s misfortune.

“I don’t wanna go though!” Jenna cried up at her mom while grabbing onto her skirt.  “I’m just a kid to them!”  That morning while getting ready she had stopped and checked her height.  She did not quite make it to the lowest mark, which was labeled “Jenna, age 4 – 2’2.”  Her mom had even dug some of her old clothes that hadn’t gone in a yard sale for her to wear. 

“The least you can do is not act like one!” her mom scolded.  “I’m talking with your principal about letting you stay home as long as someone brings you your homework today, to you think you can manage this for one more day?”  She had already managed to shake Jenna’s tiny hands free from her clothes and was busy straightening her skirt.

“I guess…” Jenna replied, looking down at her shoes.  “Just one more day?”

“Just one,” her mom replied, leaning over her daughter.  She ruffled her hair then stood back up.  “Then you’ll get to spend all day safe at home.”

Her mom left, and Jenna went into the school.  The only thing she could see in all directions was legs, forming barriers she had to swiftly dart through if she wanted to get anywhere.  A week ago she had stopped trying to hide herself from their eyes and found that it barely made a difference: she was so short no one really noticed her anyway.  It was all she could do to avoid the sea of churning legs each time she tried to get to her next class.

The argument with her mom had delayed her, and Jenna was still turning her locker’s dial with both hands when the person on the top row arrived at theirs.  She tried to avert her eyes when the pair of legs taller than she was walked up and hoped that she would go unnoticed between the legs.  The front of the skirt rippled back however, and Jenna found herself caught in the gaze of the woman towering over.  To her horror she recognized the face all too well: Maddie.

  “Hey there little guy, want some help?” she asked, not recognizing her friend.  Without waiting for an answer she knelt beside her and grabbed the dial between her fingers.  “What’s your- oh hey Jenna!  I barely recognized you down there!”

Jenna sheepishly looked away.  Maddie’s face alone was massive, and even kneeling she towered over her.  “Yeah, you sure have gotten big,” she offered, trying to avoid looking at her gigantic friend.  “Never would’ve seen it coming.”

“I mean, I’m not that big,” she replied, blushing.  “I didn’t even think I’d grown since I last saw you.”

“That sort of thing sneaks up on you,” Jenna said.  “You must be what, thirty feet now?”

Maddie thought about it for a second.  “With how much taller I am than you I’d have to be,” she began, “but I’m still shorter than everyone else, so that doesn’t make sense.”

“Everyone else must have grown, too.”

“But we still fit in the building just fine, if I were thirty feet…”

Jenna sighed.  “Look, Maddie, I don’t want to talk about it, okay?  Could you just help me with my locker and leave me alone?”

“Sheesh, fine.”  She turned the dial to the digits Jenna gave her then popped it open with a click.  While Jenna gathered her things from the locker Maddie stood and loomed over her friend.  “I know it’s hard for you to be shorter than everyone else, but you don’t have to be such a bitch about it.”  With that she turned and left, leaving Jenna alone to struggle with her load.

With her books gathered Jenna spun around and slammed her butt into the locker door hard enough to close it with a single motion.  She moved to step forward, but a tremendous shin in her path caused her to freeze just short of running into it.  Jenna gulped and looked up the leg twice as tall as her, it’s knee alone a good bit above her head, knowing who it was.  Sure enough, far away were Gina’s sparkling blue eyes while she smirked down at her.

“Going somewhere?” she asked while pushing her shoe forward.  Gina lifted it from the floor and placed the white tip of her oversized Converse against Jenna’s stack of books.  “I haven’t seen you in so long I thought you might be avoiding me!”  With a slight nudge she toppled Jenna backward, sending her books scattering when she hit the floor.  “Then again, I don’t usually look out for bugs.”

Gina carefully set her shoe down beside Jenna with her heel next to the smaller woman’s feet, making it clear that her foot was not nearly as long as she was.  “I hope by now you’ve given up dreaming of growing,” she said, sliding her shoe until it bumped into Jenna.  “You’re so ravaged by that shrinking disease this is about the best you’ll get.”

Jenna did not feel like getting bullied by Gina today.  She rolled away from the encroaching shoe and scrambled to her hands and knees, but before she could get all the way up Gina’s other foot came down.  With a sharp blow she drove Jenna to the floor, then held her firmly against the ground.  The width of her foot covered the whole small of Jenna’s back, pinning her securely.

“I really am sad that you got it, you know,” Gina continued.  “You had all the makings of a giantess – you were strong, confident, and didn’t take shit from anyone.  I was jealous of you, and you made me want to be my best!”  She pressed down on Jenna, making her wince from the pressure.  “But now you’re smaller than everyone else, and I can’t help but feel a little sorry for you.  Just a little though, since you were so mean to me before.”

Jenna tried to squirm out from beneath Gina’s shoe, but she was held tight.  Gina laughed and pressed a little harder, causing her to grunt.  “I could watch you struggle beneath me all day,” she began, “but I have places to be.  Rumor has it they’re looking for volunteers to bring you things after you get pulled out of school, and I’m not about to leave a good friend in the lurch like that.”  She pushed down hard again then relented, removing her foot from atop Jenna entirely.  With a chuckle she left, and Jenna set about gathering her books again.

The crowd parted around Gina, making a cacophony of shuffling to get out of her way.  One student, in a rush to make a path, forgot to watch where she was going and tripped over something.  After a brief struggle she lost her balance and fell to the floor, nearly missing bashing her head against the lockers.

Jenna fell a pair of legs bump into her, and she looked up in a panic to see one of her classmates continuing backward.  She stumbled back, and with a yelp she slipped.  Her calves hit Jenna hard, knocking her to the floor again, and her butt just missed pulverizing Jenna’s spine.  Fortunately the girl’s legs splayed outward instead of landing atop Jenna, and the small woman quickly sat up.

“Hey, watch where you’re going!” she reprimanded, looking up the black leggings on either side of her.  “You could’ve really hurt me!”

A shock of platinum blond hair shot up above the red shirt covering the clumsy girl’s torso.  “Why don’t you watch where you’re standing instead?” she retorted.  Swiftly she coiled up a leg to her waist and shot it forward, slamming her shoe into Jenna’s chest.  The blow knocked the breath out of her lungs and sent her careening away until she slid into the feet of someone else.  Luckily that person paid her no mind, and Jenna was able to gather her things in peace while the girl stormed off in a huff.

Three weeks later Jenna stood on the doctor’s upturned palm, her miniscule weight barely dimpling its skin.  She looked up at the doctor leaning over her, terrified to move in case the titaness made a single wrong move.  The doctor’s blue eyes were focused on her tiny body, kept from shaking out of fear only by the ruler she was leaning against.

Abruptly the doctor pulled the ruler away, causing Jenna to stumble forward as it withdrew.  “Just under three inches,” the doctor reported, causing her to clutch her ears.  Being so tiny compared to other people made their voices that much louder, she had learned, and significantly deeper as well, as though their voices were running at a quarter speed.  She set the ruler aside and leaned in closer, not noticing Jenna’s discomfort.  “Have you been in any sort of pain or discomfort recently?”

Despite covering her ears Jenna could hear the doctor quite well.  “Standing in someone’s hand is quite discomforting, yes!” she shouted.  While normal people’s voices were booming to her, she had to struggle to make her voice even register to them.  To make it worse she had heard a recording of her voice that morning, and it was little more than a mousey squeak.  “I’ve been too busy shrinking to notice much else!”

The doctor’s lips drew into a narrow line and he held Jenna closer to her face.  “Other than your height you look to be in perfect health,” she said.  “I’ve reviewed your labs extensively since your last visit, and there’s no physical reason you should be shrinking.  Frankly, with how you’d been growing I expected that you’d be holding me in your palm before long.”

Jenna let her rage explode: it’s not like anyone was afraid of what she would do anyway.  “Well frankly, doctor, I think that’s a load of shit!” she shouted, stepping forward to stand on the heel of her palm.  “I’ve been getting smaller for months and you’ve been on vacation, and when you come back you make lame jokes about it?  I’m not here so you can laugh at me, I’m here to get some fucking help!”

“Doctor, please excuse her,” Jenna’s mom boomed from across the empty exam table.  “She’s been irritable lately and I don’t know why.”

Jenna spun around and spied her mom between the doctor’s fingers.  “You don’t know why?” she yelled, finding a new target for her anger.  “I’m three inches tall, for fuck’s sake!  If anything I’ve been remarkably calm about this!”

Jenna’s mom gave a nod, and the doctor’s fingers began curling inward.  Jenna shrieked at the encroaching fingers, and with nowhere to go curled up in a ball atop her palm.  Seconds later they had completely covered Jenna, enclosing her in the doctor’s loose fist.  She screamed out of a mixture of fear and fury, but the flesh enclosing her muffled her voice quite effectively.

“Now that we won’t be interrupted,” Jenna’s mom began, “tell me straight: what’s the prognosis?”

“Like I said, there’s no medical reason for this,” the doctor replied.  The heat from her hand made Jenna uncomfortable, and she began to sweat.  “If this is the result of some shrinking disease it’s never been reported before, and I have no idea what to look for.  For all I know, she could stop shrinking tomorrow or she could keep going indefinitely.  Hell, she might spring back up when whatever this is has run its course.”

There was a long silence while Jenna’s mother thought about it.  “There must be some way you can help her,” she said.  “My daughter hates being doll-sized.  We’ll do anything.”

“There’s nothing I can do,” the doctor admitted.  “Anything to make her life easier is on you.  Keep the house free of clutter, keep a close watch of her size, and if she gets too small – say, smaller than an inch – keep her somewhere safe at all times.  I’ll keep looking for something, but the outlook is grim.”

There was another long pause, then the fingers around Jenna opened revealing her mother’s concerned face mere inches away.  She started from surprise at her mom looming so close to her, but did not even have the energy to recoil.  Instead she sat there helplessly while her mom’s hand approached, fingers held out to pick her up.

Her mother’s fingers pinched Jenna around the waist and lifted her out of the doctor’s hands.  Her eyes went wide while she was carried through the air, but neither her mom nor the doctor paid her any mind.  Gently her mom set her down inside a hard sunglasses case, the felt lining rough against her skin, then snapped it shut.  In darkness Jenna tumbled and landed in a heap on one end when her mom picked it up to move it again.  There was the faint sound of a zipper, and Jenna was trapped in a purse.

Jenna woke up to loud thuds and light tremors running through the floor as she had the past week.  She had given up sleeping in her bed entirely: climbing into it was too much effort, and getting down had become too dangerous.  Instead she made a small pile of bedding at the base of her nightstand out of a clean ankle sock and the tip of a cotton swab.  It was far from ideal, but with the door closed she was at least safe.

All around her was white cotton with a gaping opening some distance away.  She must have shrunken even more overnight to disappear into the sock like this.  With a groan she rolled over and got to her feet, struggling to balance on the individual soft threads on her way out.  When she got out of the sock she sank up to her knees in the carpet.  Defeatedly she sighed and stepped over the long fibers toward her nightstand, where a ruler had been notched into the side.

Jenna did her best to stand up straight and measure herself, but her shoulders slumped when she finished.  Almost exactly at the one inch mark.  Suddenly she felt very heavy, and leaned forward against the wood for support.  She couldn’t believe it: an inch.  It set in then that she was truly, unbelievably tiny.  In only a few months she had shrunk over a hundred inches and no one could explain why.  It seemed like just yesterday she had towered over her fellow students, and now she would be lucky if one of them didn’t accidentally step on her.

The rhythmic thuds of her mom’s footsteps while she got ready for the day brought Jenna back to the present.  What would she even do now that she was an inch tall?  Everything was too big for her to use.  She could not even leave the room unless she wanted to squeeze through the crack, and if she got stuck she would never hear the end of it.  Even her phone was monumental compared to her.

Jenna shrugged off her clothes from the previous day, now comically large on her.  There was one more outfit she could wear laid beside the sock where she slept, something she had taken off a novelty fitness doll weeks ago when she realized becoming this small was a distant possibility.  She slipped on the pink running shorts and pulled the black tank top over her head with a brief thought about how she used to use these for finger puppets.  After this she would have to make do with scraps cut out from her old clothes.

Five minutes later boredom had already set in.  The only thing she could think of to pass the time was read and even that was out of the question.  There was a bookcase against the far wall, but getting to the bottom shelf would require scaling something three times her height now.  Even if she could manage that, she doubted she could pull a book from its slot.  If she got that far it would take more strength than she had to open it.  Finally, if she managed all that, she could only read a few letters at a time while standing on the pages – if it didn’t snap shut on her.

Without anything else to do, Jenna decided to check out her old stuff.  She walked over to her bed where a row of shoes was laid out in perfect order.  Closest to her was the pair of black flats she had worn on the first day of school, her favorite.  They fit her feet so snugly, she remembered, and brought out her skin tone. 

Now she stood beneath their tips, looking up at the black leather.  Is this how ants used to see me? she wondered, looking at the rounded points.  Jenna walked along the side, running a finger along it, and found she was still shorter than the edges.  It took several minutes for her to reach the heel – she never realized her feet were that enormous, since they were always roughly proportional to her.  The fabric here was not even worn since she had worn them less than a dozen times, and if she wanted to climb to where her Achilles tendon used to be it could easily support her weight.

Next was the pair of pumps she wore when she realized she was getting smaller.  The heels were modest but still seemed like obelisks to her now.  Jenna made sure to walk between that towering post and the hard outsole, reasoning that it was not every day you got to stand under the bridge of a shoe.  The sole’s hard, light brown surface contrasted deeply with the shiny black front, broken only by a bold, black 18 within a circle.  She had asked Maddie once and was astounded to learn that she wore a 6 – she did not even know shoes came in single-digit sizes.

After that was the long series of shoes she had gotten to cover up how short she was getting.  Many of them had high heels that were more like six-inch spikes, veritable redwoods to her now, and were bright, vibrant colors to take attention away from the rest of her.  Blood red, sky blue, pure yellow – each one had an outfit to go with it, of course, another thing to keep people from asking about her height.  Then she came to a gap, the pair Shelby had stolen from her, and no longer wanted to keep going.

That had been a nice distraction, but there was still a lot of daylight for Jenna to burn.  Aimlessly she walked toward the center of the room, trying to think of something to do.  At the very least, she thought, she would get into shape from all this walking around.  Jenna grinned at the irony: her body was sure to grab attention if anyone could see it.

The door shook from a gigantic fist pounding on it.  “Jenna, honey, I’m heading out to run some errands,” her mom called from the other side.  That explained why she had not left for work yet: it was Saturday.  “One of your friends is here with a project for school, she promised to lock up if I’m still gone when I leave, shouldn’t be very long.  Love you!”  Another series of pounding footsteps followed by the front door slamming, then she was gone.

There was a beat of silence, then Jenna’s bedroom door swung inward.  The person on the other side was absolutely massive: everything from their sternum up was cut off by the doorframe.  They stooped nearly in half to fit through the door, a long blond braid hanging down to their knees.  When they stood up so tall that their head nearly bumped against the ceiling Jenna could no longer deny who it was.

“Fee fi fo fum,” Gina boomed, an enormous smile plastered on her face.  “How’s the world’s smallest giantess doing today?”  Jenna was petrified from fear looking up at Gina.  Her titanic body made her feel even smaller, like she was nothing in comparison.  She wanted to run, but had no idea where she would even go. 

Gina took two long steps toward the tiny woman in the middle of the room, her tremendous hi-top Converse making great tremors when they crashed into the ground.  When she stopped Jenna was between her insteps, left with nothing to do but gaze up the pale, towering legs on either side of her, bare except for the light pair of rolled shorts.  Gina’s hands rested at the base of her tight black shirt while she looked down at Jenna trapped between her feet, her grin only getting wider.

“J… just leave the project and go,” Jenna managed to squeak.  She hoped it was loud enough for Gina to hear.  “I’ll work on it with Maddie.”

Gina let out a terrifying, resonating laugh that caused Jenna’s insides to shake.  “You must be the dumbest, most gullible person I’ve ever met!” she said when she finished, her voice overpowering Jenna to the point that she was stunned.  “There is no project, if you hadn’t guessed.  I bet you believed me about the shrinking disease too, right?”

Jenna was totally incapable of answering, which Gina interpreted as a yes.  “Have I got a story for you, then,” she continued.  “But I’d like to talk face to face, now.”  She squatted as low as she could go, forming a gully with her legs with Jenna at the bottom.  Mirthfully she eyed her victim, still paralyzed from abject terror, practically engulfed by her.  Methodically she lowered a hand toward the tiny woman who could only watch the tremendous digits draw closer, then with a light pinch plucked her up by the back of her shirt.

Gina stood rapidly, causing the blood to rush out of Jenna’s head during the ascent.  Dazed and stunned, Jenna struggled to stay conscious, let alone focus on the enormous face dominating her view.  Her head lolled, and Gina stifled a giggle at her predicament, not wanting to accidentally knock her unconscious.  Patiently she waited for the shrunken woman to recover before launching into her monologue.

“Being smaller than someone is my biggest fear,” Gina began.  Jenna clapped her hands over her ears at the sonic assault, but quickly found that it did little to lessen the impact of the titaness’s voice.  “So when you showed up I was shook.  In my mind you weren’t just a few inches taller than me, you were hundreds of feet tall.  I imagined myself shrinking into your hand.  To me I was nothing but a bug to you, and you could do whatever you wanted to me – and you did.  The thought was exciting, really, but I couldn’t let you get away with humiliating me like you did.

“Before I even left that day I cast a spell on you.  Every day at midnight you would shrink an inch.  I was going to cut it off when we were even, but you had to keep pushing my buttons.”  Gina batted Jenna with a finger, causing her to swing like a pendulum in her grip.  “Bragging about a growth spurt you had coming, wearing heels to cover up how small you were getting, and I couldn’t let that go unpunished.  Down you dwindled, and I kept a close eye on you to see if you deserved to stop, maybe even get some of your height back, but you never did.  Now, ironically, you’ve shrunk into my hand, and I can do whatever I want with you.”

Jenna doubted her ears would ever stop ringing from Gina’s voice, and the giantess’s omnipresence had overwhelmed her visually.  Driven beyond the capacity for rational thoughts or emotions she asked flatly, “Are you going to kill me now?”

The corner of Gina’s mouth tugged up in a smirk.  “I could, couldn’t I?” she asked devilishly, as though she had never considered it.  “It would be really easy.  I could crush you in a fist, swallow you in a gulp, put you back on the floor and stomp you into dust… I’ve got options, is what I’m saying.”  Gina’s hand crept into her purse and dug around until she found what she was looking for.

When Gina withdrew her hand she held an empty, lidless glass jar.  “Killing you in your own home would be barbaric,” she declared, centering the opening beneath Jenna.  “Leaving your tiny corpse for your mother to find… just unbearable.”  She lowered Jenna into the jar until her feet touched the glass bottom, then let her go and withdrew her fingers.  “Better to let her think you shrank down into nothing while I have my fun with you.”  She screwed the lid back on slowly, letting the treads grinding together burn their sound in Jenna’s mind until it was completely sealed.

Gina delicately held the jar to her face with two fingers.  She tapped the glass several times, causing deafening thuds to resonate throughout the confined space while powerful vibrations ran through the glass.  Jenna looked in horror at the giantess looming outside the glass, its curvature causing her already humongous face to warp around and seemingly surround her.  Unable to deal with what she saw, Jenna retreated to the far side and sat down, brought her knees to her chest, and whimpered.

The blond titaness beamed at her tiny captive.  “Hey, don’t be like that,” she said.  “I won, and to the victor go the spoils.”  She slid the jar back into her purse and left, keeping her promise to lock up after herself.  Covering for her kidnapping would be easy: she already had it planned out.  There was nobody in Jenna’s room when she came in, she would say, and she looked everywhere.  From there it would be an easy jump to her shrinking to nothing more than a speck, and she would be left to have her fun.