It had been hours.

It felt like the unseen walls were closing in on him. Graham’s breathing was getting faster. After sitting on the sock and waiting for the drawer to open for what felt like an eternity, he had finally gotten up and walked to the front end of the drawer. He placed his hand flat against it.

Why wasn’t it being opened?

“You should be back by now, you should be back by now…” Graham whispered, over and over. What was going on? Why wasn’t she letting him out?

Maybe something happened at school, maybe Liz just had to stay a little while longer…but no, no, she wouldn’t have, she knew that Graham was waiting for her. She wouldn’t purposefully leave him in here. Right?

Well, she had put him in here in the past as something like a time out, but…he hadn’t done anything to upset her, had he? She seemed like she was in a good mood before she had left for class. He was pretty sure she wasn’t mad at him. He didn’t know what she would be angry about, anyway. It was…everything was okay. Everything had to be okay, but why wasn’t the drawer opening? 

She could just be standing right on the other side of the drawer, and he wouldn’t even know it. Hey, maybe that was it. She had probably come home hours ago, seen him asleep in the drawer, and didn’t want to upset him. That had to be it.

“Don’t be stupid,” Not Liz said. “Why would I do that? I would’ve taken you out. Or cracked the drawer open, at least.”

“Shut up, shut up…” Graham whispered, shutting his eyes as tight as he could. He continued rubbing his hands across the surface of the wall, as if he would find some hidden catch or switch that would magically open the whole thing up.

He backed away, and just stared. He still couldn’t see anything in the darkness, but he just kept looking in the direction of the wall. Any second now, the drawer would be pulled out. Light would flood into the little ‘room’ like the grace of God. Or at the very least, he’d hear movement, or voices, or something, dammit, on the other side of that wall.

His hands balled up into little fists, his nails dug into his palms. His breathing was getting so fast. He was shaking all over, and with such severity. He stepped back to the wall, and again he placed his hands on it. Then, he pushed. He leaned against the wall as hard as he could, trying to force the drawer open. He remained firmly in place, his feet sliding across the floor as he tried to gain traction. He just kept pushing and pushing as hard as he could, but the drawer wouldn’t budge in the slightest. Tears began welling up in his eyes with all of the useless effort he was exerting.

“This is kinda pathetic,” Not Liz piped up. “You realize that this is just a drawer, right? Just a tiny little bedroom drawer that I put my socks in. And you’re actually stuck in here. You can’t get out.” She laughed. “Oh, that’s just too funny.”

“Be quiet!” Graham shouted, lashing out with a long arc of his arm in the direction he assumed she would be. “Shut up!” He turned again to the drawer, and he pushed against the wall again, harder, stronger. He started ramming against it with his shoulder, doing everything he could just to even nudge it open a crack.

“Liz!? LIZ!” He started screaming her name, slamming his palms and fists against the wall as he continued to push, but no response came. There were no muffled footsteps or voices on the other side. A tiny part of him kept hoping that any second now, a panicked Liz would just open the drawer and ask him what was wrong, but nothing was coming. Slowly, that hopeful voice in him was starting to disappear.

“LIZ!” he shouted again. “Please, God, Liz, let me out! LET ME OUT! Liz, please, where are you!? LIZ, PLEASE, GET ME OUT OF HERE!” His mind was devolving into full-blown panic. The darkness felt like it was crushing him. He couldn’t get his mind to shut up, either. He kept seeing the four walls of the drawer around him in his mind, and only one thing kept on popping up over and over, like a little demon whispering in his ear: This is a coffin.

It had been hours by this point. Graham knew, some part of him knew, that this wasn’t right. He had been alone in this dark before, waiting for Liz to return, and it had never taken this long before. Never. It was long past the point where she should have come home. Something wasn’t right. It wasn’t right at all. And somehow, Graham knew, he just knew…

“She’s not coming,” he said, with a shocked little cry, as if he was amazed he had been able to admit it. “She isn’t coming,” he said, a bit more quiet this time. He sank to his knees, his hands and forehead pressed against the wall. His body was shaking completely. It felt like everything in him was breaking. Tears were streaming from his face. He couldn’t get out. He wouldn’t be able to get out.

He was trapped.

“Liz,” he choked out. He banged his fist on the wall in a now weak and pathetic attempt. His repeated cries of “Liz, Liz,” had gotten softer and softer to the point that even he could now barely hear them, let alone anyone who might have been standing on the other side of the drawer. And still he banged his fist on the wall, the sound coming out in tiny little taps. 

“She has to just be late,” he whispered. His body was nearly convulsing with the shakes of his fear and despair. “She, she’ll be here any second now, she’ll open up the drawer, sh-sh-she’ll come back. I know she will. She’ll come back.”

“Aw, honey,” Not Liz cooed. Graham felt like she was kneeling down next to him. He could almost feel her hand on his back. “Now you and I both know that just isn’t true.”

“Please go away,” he whined. “Just leave me alone…” He collapsed completely to the floor, curling up into a ball, and covered his hands with his ears, again trying to just block out everything, trying to shut up his brain, just trying to get even a few seconds of blissful silence, but he couldn’t. It felt like a deep chasm had formed in his stomach where all of his hope was going to die.

He was terrified.

“I don’t want to die in here,” he said, his voice still hushed, as if saying it too loudly would make it happen. But the thought lingered in his mind. He was trapped in here, and there was nothing he could do about it. No matter how loudly he screamed, nobody would come. No matter how hard he pushed, he would never be strong enough to get the drawer open.

He had long felt like a single insect in a world of giants. But he had always had Liz with him. Even though she had long since ceased being just any other girl in his eyes, she was still there for him. Ever since he had been shrunk, he had felt lonely. But this was the first time he had ever felt truly alone.

He clutched his head with his hands, digging his fingernails into his scalp. Slowly, he could feel the despair in his gut turn into something else. Rage. Pure anger at his own inadequacies. It wasn’t fair that he couldn’t do anything about this. He hated feeling like an ant waving his arms up and down, trying and failing to get the attention of the ‘normal’ humans. And he even hated those thoughts, too; there was a tiny part of him that felt like a petulant little child throwing a temper tantrum that his mother wasn’t coming home on time. 

But Liz would never be in this situation. She would never feel as weak and helpless as he was feeling right now. She could just pull this drawer open, one-handed even. But he couldn’t. And there was a very real chance that he could starve. He would die in here, forgotten and alone. No more dignifying a death than if he had been crushed under an avalanche of socks, no reason to suspect that he’d get any more notable a remembrance than being buried in a shoebox or thrown through the garbage disposal. He was trapped in here. And it wasn’t fair.

“It’s not fair…” he muttered. He slowly got to his knees. “It’s not fair!” he growled. Energy surged through his veins once more, and he began pounding his fists on the wall with renewed vigor. “LIZ!” he shouted at the top of his lungs, his voice actually somewhat echoing within the cavern of the drawer. “LET! ME! OUT!” He was on his feet now, again ramming his shoulder over and over into the wall until his arm became numb, hoping that he could prove himself wrong, that maybe he could get the drawer open or even break it or at least get somebody’s attention. That he could, at the very least, do something. But there was nothing. Yet. And so he continued to pound and scream and take out all of his aggressions against the drawer until his fists became a bloody mess and his arms grew covered in bruises, and all the while he shouted her name:

“LIZ! LET ME OUT! LIZ! LIZ!!!”


---


“Liz?” Graham asked. She had just fallen asleep at the table, and he gently shook her shoulder until she blearily opened her eyes.

“Hrm,” she grunted. Presumably, it was sleep-talk for “what”.

“You fell asleep.”

“Hrff hrrn,” she replied, and closed her eyes again. Graham wasn’t sure what that one was supposed to mean. 

“But don’t you want to keep studying, Liz? It’s so much fun!” he teased.

“I’m gonna stab you in the eye if you don’t shut up,” she mumbled, not even opening her eyes as she spoke. The two of them had been helping each other study for the finals of their respective classes. They had been at it for a few hours by this point. Graham smiled and stared at her.

Several weeks had gone by since that day in the rain, when Liz had taken Graham back to her apartment. Since then, they had become fast friends. They loved watching old cheesy B movies together. Sometimes they simply enjoyed hanging out. Liz always seemed so patient, so willing to hear everything that he had to say about anything. Graham was pretty sure he spent more time at her place than he did in his own dorm. He had stayed the night more than once. 

It was a pretty nice apartment, too. For a while, Graham kept worrying that Liz had a roommate that she wasn’t telling him about, but he eventually found out the place was all hers. With much reluctance, Liz told him that she came from a fairly wealthy family. It wasn’t something he had ever heard back in high school. Both of her parents had been very successful lawyers, and although her dad had died when she was young, her mother always made sure that she never wanted for anything. Graham couldn’t help but feel a little twinge of jealousy; his parents always seemed to struggle for every penny they earned, and he had had to fight tooth and nail for the scholarships necessary to go to college. Liz had just been able to get in right away, and even got a decent apartment all to herself. 

But there was just something about Liz’s attitude that made any feelings of jealousy evaporate. She never once came across like a spoiled kid. She had told him that she knew full well how lucky she was, and she was absolutely grateful for it. Graham believed her. It might have made him like her even more, actually. 

Liz had, of course, made plenty of friends down here, sociable as she was. But she always seemed to make time for Graham. They went to see a lot of movies together, usually accompanied by new friends of Liz, like Sharon. Graham was still shy and rarely said two words to whoever came along, but he was grateful that Liz was at least attempting to get him to have fun. She could have easily just left him behind all those times, but never did.

Of course, his crush on her stayed just as strong. She hadn’t grabbed his hand like she had back in high school. Maybe she had grown out of that casual flirtation. And he didn’t want to ruin the friendship he had with her by making any rash moves. She meant a lot to him.

But God, she was so beautiful.

Without even really knowing what he was doing, Graham slowly reached out his hand and took gentle hold of hers, loosely stretched across the table as it was. He delicately stroked the back of it with his thumb. He was about to let go when Liz opened her eyes and looked at him.

She straightened up in her chair, looking down at their interlocking hands. She didn’t recoil in horror and flinch away, but she did very gently pull her hand out of his grip. Liz looked into his eyes.

“Um,” was all she said. She looked a little confused; maybe she hadn’t fully woken up yet.

“I’m sorry,” Graham said, shaking his head. “That was stupid; I didn’t mean anything by it.” She was quiet for a bit.

“It’s just holding hands,” she said. She spoke quietly, not really looking at Graham.

“No, it’s…it’s more than that,” he replied. He looked deep into her eyes. He could feel his face turn bright red. He quickly got to his feet. “Um, I’m sorry, I should go,” he said.

“Graham, it’s okay,” Liz also stood up. She was smiling, but it looked like there was something like pity behind it. She still had a confused wrinkle in her brow. “It’s just…holding hands, it doesn’t really mean anything.”

“Yes, it does.” Graham felt strange being so passionate about this. It would be difficult to explain to her. “Liz, I…I had the biggest crush on you in high school.” Now her face was growing red, too. “I still do. You’ve never known how much it meant to me, just you…being there. Noticing me. You were…the only friend I had. But every time I look at you, I just see how absolutely beautiful you are, and I want more. Is that…is that greedy?” He felt worry and doubt gnawing at his insides. 

She was fidgeting. His words were making her nervous.

“Graham,” Liz said. “I can’t.” Graham backed away, biting his lip.

“No, I understand, I do, really. I’m sorry, it was stupid, and I just…let’s just forget it.” He started to collect his things to leave.

“Wait,” Liz said. She took hold of the back of her chair, gripping it tightly, maybe for balance. “Graham…things didn’t end well with Ryan.” Graham fully remembered her old boyfriend. The two had always seemed so happy together, though. He had been wondering what had happened to make the two of them break up.

“What happened?” Graham asked. She seemed to consider her answer for a second, but there was a noticeably pained expression on her face as she thought.

“I hurt him,” she finally said.

“What do you mean?”

“Look, it doesn’t matter,” Liz said. She actually looked fearful. She began pacing the room as she spoke. “Graham, I-I like you, I really do. But…I can’t get too close to people. If I do, then…I lose control.” She stopped. She looked like she was staring off into space.

“I don’t understand, Liz,” Graham said. “Lose control of what?”

“Please,” Liz said. It almost looked like tears were forming in her eyes. Graham was hopelessly confused. He didn’t know what to do. “I can’t say.”

“You can’t do that,” Graham said. His voice had gotten really quiet. “You can’t just tell me to drop it. And you can’t just grab my hand and bat your eyelashes at me all the time and expect me to just forget that all ever happened.”

“It didn’t mean anything!” Liz cried out. 

“It meant something to me!” Graham shouted back. He sighed in frustration, knowing exactly what he wanted to say, but not how he wanted to say it. When he spoke again, it was with slow care. “I want this, Liz. I do. This is right, I know it.” He stepped closer to her, and looked deep into her eyes. She looked scared. “Please,” he said. He leaned his face toward hers, knowing that he had won her over, knowing that it had all led up to this: in a second, she would lean her face into his, the two of them would lock their lips together in deepest passion and harmony and...

She backed away.

“I think you should leave,” she said, quietly. Graham froze for several long seconds, and then nodded his head up and down. He quickly gathered the rest of his things together, throwing them hurriedly into his bag. It felt like his world had come crashing down. He headed to the front door.

He should have just walked through. He should have just left without looking back. But he couldn’t.

He turned around at the door.

“I’m so sorry,” was all he said. There was a look in her eyes that caught Graham’s attention and made him stand still. It looked like longing. Liz was shaking all over, as if she were freezing. 

It would be much later before he looked back on her shaking and noticed it for what it really was: the cravings of an addict.

“Are you sure you want this?” Liz asked in a breathless tone. Graham nodded.

Liz walked across the room, pushed Graham up against the door, and pressed her lips into his. He didn’t even feel or notice his bag fall to the floor. He wrapped his arms around her body and she around his. They kissed each other, slowly at first, with absolute passion. Their movements became faster, more frenzied. She tugged at his belt. He grabbed at her T-shirt, quickly pulling it over her head and throwing it to the side. They continued to kiss, nearly ripping each other’s clothes off as all of these feelings overtook them, and they descended to the floor, Graham pushing her into the ground, lying on top of her, making love to her.
Liz pushed at his shoulder, hard, rolling the two of them over until she was on top. They continued to kiss. He lifted his hips. She let out a small gasp of raw pleasure as she leaned up into the air, arcing her back. She looked down on him with an expression that told him perfectly well just how much she completely wanted him, and she leaned back in.

It was beautiful. Fireworks shot in the air. Dogs barked and people cheered. The heavens came tumbling down and the oceans erupted with bliss. It was everything he had ever wanted. It was perfect.

Some time later, Liz continued to sit on top of him, both of them out of breath. There was still longing in her eyes. But something else as well that he couldn’t quite place. She pressed her hand against his cheek with utmost gentleness. She was no longer smiling. In fact, she looked almost sad. Graham was about to ask her what was wrong when she spoke.

“I’m so sorry,” she said.

He was about to ask her what for, but he was feeling…strange. It was getting difficult to breathe. He felt so cold, but at the same time, it was like his skin was on fire. He looked up at her in utter confusion. She just stared back.

It was then that he noticed the world growing around him.

He noticed how she practically seemed to grow on top of him. He felt like he was sinking into the floor beneath him. Everything was getting enormous. He looked up at Liz with fear in his eyes.

“Liz, what’s--?” he started asking, his voice dripping with panic.

“Shh, shh, shh…” She pressed her fingers across his mouth. Her hand could have easily covered his entire face. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” she whispered, her voice so soothing and delicate, but also slightly panicked. “You’re going to be okay. Just let it happen, don’t fight it. Don’t fight it.” She kept getting bigger and bigger in his eyes. He tried to get up, to squirm out from underneath her, but she continued to sit on top of him, and now pushed down on his chest with his free hand. He was trapped beneath her, completely unable to move. He started to thrash about, but she held him down with virtually no effort at all. He tried to scream, but his voice was completely muffled behind her hand.

She had rendered him completely helpless within seconds. 

“I’m so sorry, Graham, I’m so sorry, but it’s better this way, it really is. It’s better this way.”

He continued to shrink, smaller and smaller. He couldn’t take his eyes away from hers. They seemed to be getting so distant, yet still so enormous. The size of everything around him was getting to be beyond comprehension, especially her. She began leaning off of him, and he realized with horror that she was trying to not crush him beneath her weight. She slowly stood to her full height, apparently no longer needing to hold him down to keep him from running. Indeed, he finally felt the shrinking slow at last. Looking up at her towering over him like a monolith beyond description, he knew that she could likely hold him in a single hand, if she so desired.

She smiled.

“It’s better this way,” she said again. She bent over and reached for him with one of her giant hands. He crawled backward away from her, but there was no escape. She snatched him up, holding him in a tight fist, his arms pinned to his sides. Liz lifted Graham high up into the air, and stared at him lovingly, even as he was held effortlessly in her fist. “You’re mine now,” she said. “And you always will be. Now, we can always be together.”


---


Graham moved about the drawer with panicked purpose. He couldn’t feel either of his arms, and both of his hands were covered in blood, but he just ignored it. After that burst of desperation and rage, he had begun to formulate a plan. It was simple, and it was stupid, but it was something. 

He was beginning to accept that nobody was coming for him. He had to find a way out of here himself. If he didn’t, well…he didn’t want to think about that. He was trying to lose himself in whatever plans he could. If he let himself think about his situation for too long, he knew that he would just collapse to the floor in despair yet again.

And there wasn’t enough time for that.

He had been pushing at the socks again, moving them into piles and bundles against the walls. All the while, he had made absolutely sure that he knew which of the four walls was the one that would pull out. He was terrified that he would lose it in the darkness.

With his movements against the socks, he had eventually made something of a path for him in the drawer. He had realized that he couldn’t push the drawer open because he was inside it, standing on its floor; he just wasn’t getting any motion against it. But if he got enough of a running head start, if he jumped through the air and rammed the wall without touching the ground…maybe he could nudge the drawer open a crack. Maybe.

“This is horrendously stupid,” Not Liz said. “You know exactly what’s going to happen here. You’re not strong enough.”

“I’m strong enough,” Graham whispered, his eyes burning with intensity as he glared in the general direction of the wall. He had carefully mapped out the path that stretched from halfway across the drawer to his destination, knowing exactly how long he would have to run before reaching the wall. He didn’t want to run face-first into the wall out of not being able to see it.

This had to work. It had to.

He burst into a run.

Faster and faster he moved, his feet pounding against the wooden floor beneath him. He was rapidly counting the steps, moving, getting closer, getting closer…he jumped and twisted. He slammed against the drawer, his shoulder taking the brunt of the force, and he fell backward, collapsing on the ground below in a heap. He clutched his arm in agony as he stared at the wall.

It hadn’t budged in the slightest. He hadn’t done anything.

“Told you,” Not Liz said. He let his head fall back and he shut his eyes tight, still gripping his bruised arm. His perception of his pain was coming back, but he was trying to shut it out. All of the feelings he had been able to block felt like they were suddenly swarming back in. The pain. The hunger. Even the slight tickle in his throat that he knew was the beginning of thirst.

He would just have to keep at it. Maybe if he kept doing it over and over, he would eventually get it open. Then…what? Maybe he could move the socks against the wall and build a staircase with them. He’d be able to climb up out of the drawer, pull himself up onto the top…he would get out of this. He would survive. He just had to keep at it.

But first, he needed to give himself a little break. His arm felt like jelly. He lay there for some time, his eyes closed. He was still too worried and anxious to go back to sleep, but all of his panicked actions, his assaults against the wall, they had driven him nearly to exhaustion. But he’d be back at it in a second, he just needed to—

There was a noise, somewhere in the distance.

Graham’s eyes opened. At first, there was a confused terror. He wondered if maybe there actually was something in the drawer with him. He slowly got to his feet and backed into a corner, trying to keep his eyes open, trying to see something of whatever monster lurked in the shadows, when he heard the noise again. It was like a deep rumble, miles away, but he could still hear it. With a jolt, he suddenly recognized the noise, muffled as it was.

It was the door of the apartment.

Someone was here.