Sole Crushing

Natalie lurched to her feet, craning her neck to gape up at the titanic figure, rising above her like a skyscraper. Trev, meanwhile, had not noticed her, his eyes on the door knob as he jiggled his keys loose from the lock, high high above. Wherever he’d been for the past few hours, he appeared hot and short of breath, sweat creeping through his tee-shirt beneath his armpits and backpack straps. 

He stuck his keys back in his pocket and his sneaker lifted off the ground and  her eyes followed it upwards it as it careened over her head, too quick for her to do anything but stand there like a goon, mouth agape, watching as it collided down beside her with an earth shattering tremor, missing her by an inch. She toppled backwards from the impact, smacking onto her butt on the floor, as his weight shifted onto the foot beside her and his other shoe lifted into the air. He might still not have noticed her, had the X-Acto knife blade not let out the smallest of clangs against the wood floor when she fell and his eyes glanced automatically downwards.

 He jolted, his sneaker tremoring and squeaking against the floor as he wobbled on one foot, smacking his hand out against the open door for balance and choking out under his breath, “Shit!” He caught his balance and sucked in a gasping breath, clutching his chest with his free hand and gaping down at her where she sat frozen by his sneaker, her hands pressed over her mouth, gaping back up at his towering form with wide, terrified eyes. 

His hovering foot slowly lowered down to the ground on her other side. 

They gaped at each other for a moment before his face cracked into a tight grin. “And just where the fuck do you think you’re going?”

He squatted down towards her and she flipped over and took off sprinting as fast as she could, back towards the living room, in a desperate attempt to take cover beneath the distant couch. Trev laughed, watching her. “Oh noo, she got away from me! Whatever will I do?”

Natalie ignored him, dashing along the floorboards, leaping over the cracks, running like she’d never run in her entire fucking life. 

Trev watched from where he was still squatting in the doorway, his arms draped over his thighs, a wide grin on his face. “Damn she’s fast. Sure hope I can catch her.” He rose to his feet, slamming the door shut behind him with an echoing BANG! and stalked after her, the floorboards shaking so violently that Natalie stumbled with every step he took. She wasn’t even halfway to the couch before his Vans sneaker drifted over her head and stomped to the floor before her with a quake, so quickly that she smacked into it and toppled backwards with a squeal. 

She clutched her temple where she’d rammed his shoe, her panicked gaze following his leg up, and up, and up, taking in his titanic body, towering over her. 

He stood there for a moment with his hands on his hips, peering around the room. Far, far above, his voice boomed, “Awe, shoot, where’d she go? Oh well, guess I lost her!”

Her eyes snapped back down to his sneaker as it pivoted around, his heel on the ground and the sole rising up over her, the diamond-shaped ridges worn down and coated with dirt and grime and a variety of mystery splatters from all the random little things he’d unconsciously crushed and jammed between them. It hovered there for a second, then slowly began to descend. Natalie screamed, rolling out from under it as it flattened down on the ground where she’d been laying. 

“WHAT THE FUCK, TREVOR!” she shrieked.

His gaze dropped to her, laying on the ground beside his sneaker. “Oh there you are.”

“ARE YOU FUCKING CRAZY?”

“I dunno. You’re the one scampering around down there on the floor like a little mouse. That seems crazier to me.”

His knee descended towards her as he knelt down and Natalie leapt up and darted between his legs. He laughed again, his huge sneaker squeaking against the wood as he pivoted around to watch her. “Awe, look at the little mouse girl go.” She skidded around the heel of his other shoe and sprinted out from under him. “I sure hope you can run faster than that, Nat. You’re really not gonna like what I’ll do to you if I catch you.”

He plopped down to sit on the ground before her with a quake, and she skidded and turned to dash through the archway of his raised knee. His bent leg collided down into her path and she jerked to a stop, spinning around to snarl up at him with desperate tears in her eyes. He wasn’t looking at her, his attention on his other foot, where he’d started unlacing his shoe. 

“Don’t mind me,” he said absently, waving her off. “You just focus on escaping, it’s going so well.”

She stood rooted to the spot, watching him yank off his sneaker and toss it aside. He pulled off his sweaty sock next, and she drew in a shaky breath. “Okay, Trev, you fucking caught me! What’re you gonna–”

“I’d really be running, if I were you.” He leaned over her to untie his other shoe and she craned her neck to look up at his looming face above.

“Make your fucking point, already!”

“And what point would that be, little mouse girl?” He tossed his shoe aside. “That you’re slow as fuck or that you’re dumb as fuck for thinking you could run from me?”

 He removed his other sock and her heart pounded. “Please Trevor…”

 He scowled down at her. “‘Please Trevor’, what? Whaddo you think happens to tiny little mouse girls who run around down there on the floor?” His eyes fell onto the X-Acto knife blade strapped to her back. “Whatcha got there, Nat?”

She gaped up at him, panting. 

He lowered his hand down to her and she shakily lifted the string over her head and placed it gingerly in his palm. He snickered down at it. “What’d you think you were gonna do with this? Were you planning on fighting me?”

She shook her head, pleadingly.

“Well come on, then,” he said, pinching it between his fingers and holding it back out to her. “Let’s fucking go, giant slayer.”

Her eyes shot to the X-Acto knife blade and back up to him, shaking her head.

“You sure?”

She nodded.

“Okay,” he said, sticking the blade in his pocket. “So at least you’re not stupid enough to try and fight me. You’re just stupid enough to try and run from me. But since you were such a good girl and handed over your little sword, I’ll give you another chance... One…”

She drew in breath. “Oh my God, Trevor, what’re you gonna–”

“Two…” He grinned. “Still not running?”

“I’m sorry, okay! I’m fucking sorry! I won’t run from you again!”

“I don’t believe you. Three.” 

Natalie panted through clenched teeth, her wide eyes following him upwards as he rose to stand above her. He grinned down at her as one of his bare feet lifted off the ground and she squealed and darted between his legs.

Trev laughed, twisting around with his foot in the air as his gaze followed her across the floor. “Come on, Nat, how’re you so bad at this? You just told me you wouldn’t run from me again.”

Natalie froze in her tracks, hunching her shoulders, smacking her tear streaked face into her palms.

“Well don’t stop now, stupidass.” The sole of his foot glided over her and she jolted, sprinting out from under it. His foot stomped down behind her and she screamed, stumbling from the resulting tremor and wrapping her arms around head. She kept running and a shadow fell over her. She skidded to the side as his other foot crashed down beside her. She toppled over and hugged herself into a tight ball, screaming.

“Awe, what’s wrong, Natalie?” One knee crashed down on one side, and then the other as he knelt down over top of her, casting her in darkness. His hands touched down beyond the ledges of his knees and his face appeared, looking at her upside down between his legs.

“You’re tryna kill me!” she wailed.

“No I’m not. If I was trying, I woulda squashed you by now. What I am trying to do is make you understand what a bad fucking idea it is to try and run from me.”

“I got it,” she choked out. “I won’t do it again.”

“Right, only, you said that two seconds ago, and what’d you do?”

She whimpered, hugging herself tighter. “I ran…” 

“I can’t hear you.” He straightened up and his fingertips wedged beneath her to flip her over. He unfurled her limbs and pressed her flat on her back, pressing his thumb down into her chest to keep her pinned beneath it, so hard she could barely breathe. “One more time. What’d you do?”

She clenched her teeth, shoving her hands against this thumb with all her strength as she choked out, “I ran!”

“Mmhm. And what happens to little mouse girls who run around on the floor?”

“Th–they get stepped on…?”

“That’s right. They’re tiny and quiet and slow. I nearly stepped on you without even knowing it, didn’t I?”

She nodded, tears rolling down her cheeks.

“And I’da been so sad if I’d stepped on you. If I’d squished you under my shoe like a little grape, shattering every tiny little bone in your tiny little body, too quick for either of us to even register it was happening. If I’m gonna step on you, I wanna fucking know it. I wanna feel you splatter like a little grape. I wanna feel your every tiny little bone shatter and crunch beneath my foot. I wanna do it slow, and hear you scream and beg and try to crawl out from under me as I gradually crush your last breath out of you. Only, I wouldn’t crush you, not all the way. I’d keep you alive just enough for me to carry on my way with you stuck to the bottom of my foot, so I could feel you splattering more and more with every step I took, so you could feel yourself rising off the floor, smeared to the bottom of my foot, only to pummel down again and again with more and more of my colossal weight bearing down atop your poor, flattened little body. And then I’d crush you. So what am I gonna do to you now, little mouse girl? Any guess?”

She let out a sob, squeezing her eyes shut, her tiny arms falling uselessly to the floor. 

“Look at me, Natalie, I asked you a question.” He gave her a curt shake with his thumb and she squinted her eyes open. “What am I gonna do to you?”

“St-step on me?”

He grinned, lifting his thumb off of her, and that cocky grin filled her with such a violent surge of hatred that she pushed herself up to her forearms, screaming, “YOU REALLY GONNA FUCKING KILL ME, YOU CRAZY MOTHER FUCKING–!”

“Lay the fuck back down!” His palm smacked on top of her, wacking her head back against the hard floor and her vision was briefly clouded over with static. His fingers spread, keeping her mouth covered, and he glowered down at her with no trace of a grin. “Did I say I was gonna fucking kill you? I am trying to teach you a valuable fucking life lesson, here. But if you move again, I will fucking hurt you. If you say another fucking word, I will fucking hurt you. Do you understand me?”

His hand lifted off of her and Natalie glared up at him, her teeth bared. 

“Wipe that look off your face and answer the question.”

She sneered. “You told me not to say another fucking word.”

Trev let out a cold laugh. “I’m really gonna fucking enjoy this.” 

He smacked his hands on the ground and pushed himself to stand over her. She glared up at him from between his feet, up those seemingly endless legs, up the length of his tee-shirt, to his face, grinless and glaring back down at her in a way that made her blood curdle. She kept still, ignoring every instinct to run away—the manic fury radiating from him suggested he fully intended to hurt her if she moved, and at his size he could very easily kill her, whether he intended to or not. 

His foot lifted off the ground, and Natalie’s eyes shot from his face to the underside of his foot hovering over her, the sole pale and wrinkly and moist and reeking of sweat and coated in specks of dirt and little black fuzzies from his sock.

“I am dead fucking serious right now, Natalie,” he growled from the sky, and her eyes snapped up to his face again as she panted for breath. “Do not. Fucking. Move.” Then his foot descended upon her, blocking out her vision of him. The smell was so overpowering that she gagged and barely resisted smacking her hand over her nose. His heel touched down on the floor, just below her feet, with his sole arching over her. Then, slowly, ever so slowly, his sole lowered down at a deep arch, doming over her as the ball of his foot met the floor above her head, his warm, clammy sole pressing firmly down atop her entire body. She cringed her face to the side, one cheek against the floor and the other against his foot, breathing deep from her throat to try and block out the thick stench of sweat ravaging her nostrils. 

His voice boomed above, out of sight, in a cold, mocking tone, “Sucks to be you, huh, Nat? And you were so close to making it home, too. It sounds like your brothers are over there, now, I’m sure they'da been happy to see you. Only, they wouldn’t have seen you because you are two fucking inches tall. Not to mention, neither of them know you are two fucking inches tall, so they would not know to watch their fucking step. I almost stepped on you, and I do know. I literally almost stepped on you and that would have fucking KILLED you, you DUMBASS!”

His foot flattened down upon her, ramming her against the hardwood floor beneath the leathery flesh, the pressure so heavy against her ribcage that she struggled to breath. 

“How do you suppose it’d feel to die this way, Natalie?” Trev hollered from above. “Cause you came pretty damn close!”

He applied more of his weight on top of her; the soft, damp flesh molding around her. She whimpered from the increased pressure crushing down on her in all directions, her head completely encompassed in flesh, her bones straining under the building weight, her ribs grinding against her lungs, unable to take in any breath.

“And how do you suppose I’da fucking felt, Natalie,” he snarled through clenched teeth, grinding his foot down upon her. “You think I’d ever have been able to fucking live with myself after crushing you like an insect? Did you stop for two fucking seconds to think how fucking terrible it woulda been for me, to feel a sickening little crunch, and then to have to lift my foot and find you splattered all over the bottom of my shoe? Of course you didn’t, because you’re a fucking bitch, with zero regard for anybody else’s FUCKING FEELINGS!”

Darkness fizzled around her vision and she wriggled desperately beneath him, in a panicked attempt to push him off before she lost consciousness.

“Are you moving!” he bellowed. “Are you seriously fucking moving!”

His foot lifted and for a moment she lifted with it, adhered to the soft, sticky flesh of the skin molded around her, before she peeled backwards and plummeted to the hardwood floor with an “Umph”, clutching her ribs and gasping for breath, covered head to toe in foot sweat. 

His knee collided down beside her with a BANG! and she screamed, throwing her arms over her head. His huge hand smacked on top of her and wrenched her off the ground. She shot upwards, cold air chilling her clammy skin, coming to a jerking halt in his clenched fist before his livid face. 

“What was the one thing I told you not to do, Natalie?” he yelled and she smacked her palms over her freshly healed eardrums.

“I couldn’t breathe!” she wailed.

“I don’t care! That instruction was for your benefit! I can barely feel you wriggling around down there, I could have crushed your fucking head or something! Now we gotta do this all over again!”

“Please listen, Trevor," she sobbed. “I could not breathe! I was suffocating!”

“And we’re gonna keep doing it,” he growled, his fist tightening around her. “Until you learn to do what I fucking tell you to do.”

He lowered her back down and she jolted with panic and screamed, “STOP IT! I get the point!”

“Do you? Because I thought I also told you to stop fucking talking!”

She whimpered, tears filling her eyes, loathing her own weakness. “Please don’t do that again, Trevor… It really hurt…”

He glowered down at her, then released his hand from around her and she plummeted to the hard floor with an “Umph!”

She panted, shaking, and lifted herself upright before his bent leg, laying across the floor, his other knee rising into the air with his arm draped over it. She looked pleadingly up at his glowering face, far above. 

“Apologize.”

“I-I’m sorry Trevor,” she whimpered. 

“For what.”

“F-for trying to run away?”

“Is that a question? You must not be that sorry if you don’t even know what you’re apologizing for. Not really seeing why I shouldn't step on you again.”

She swallowed back a sob, then staggered onto her knees and brought her shaking hands together to clasp before her face. “P-please Trevor,” she begged. “I’m sorry I ran away. I won’t ever do it again. Please don’t do that again.”

“But I enjoy stepping on you, little mouse girl. It brings me immense satisfaction. Don’t you want to bring me joy?”

She sniffed and nodded. 

“Great. So shut up and lay back down.”

She let out a sob, tears rolling down her cheeks, but shakily lowered herself back down to lay on the ground, praying he’d be satisfied with her shameful submission, knowing she was powerless to stop him either way. 

Trev watched her with an ugly sneer. “God you look so fucking pathetic right now.”

Her distressed eyes found his, glaring down at her from above, because that was just the type of thing his dad had been saying to him his entire life. He seemed to realize it, too, hearing those words come out of his own mouth, because he went rigid, as if an icy wind had passed through him, freezing him in place.

He snapped out of it in an instant as there came a sudden pounding from the screen door being wrenched open behind the patio door. Both of their heads jerked towards the sound as the locked door handle began to rattle and Natalie immediately let out a high pitched scream, as loud as she could, just as Trev’s palm smacked over her, smothering her against the hardwood floor.