Thomas felt himself flying at high speeds again. Rolling along the ground with a few other crumbs. There was pain, yes, but Thomas was not hurt. For whatever reason, Thomas could not die. He was simply immune. He could feel pain, but his bones would never break, he would never suffer any damage. It was just pain. And even that would vanish soon. The pain, would vanish. And there would be nothing left. 

As chance would have it, when Taylor was sweeping the dirt pile into the dustpan, she did so with a little force, and not exactly straight. It hardly matter, most of all the crumbs went into the dustpan as desired. However, unbeknownst to Taylor, a few rouge crumbs, along with Thomas, were sent hurtling just past the edge of the dustpan, missing it completely and stopping in the middle of the floor. These were insignificant. Nobody would notice them, and they'd probably just get swept up later anyway. Who cared? Taylor lifted the dustpan, and dumped the debris into the nearly empty trash can, then returned to her work. 

Thomas was lying on his stomach again, though for the first time in a bit, there was nothing on him. He was free to move, but, he didn't. Thomas was nearly crushed by his coworkers, then he was almost swept up and thrown away. Thomas had accepted these things. He didn't want them to happen, but he accepted them. And now, neither of those things happened.

Thomas laughed. He thought for sure he was dead, but here he was. Alive and well in the middle of the floor. A big open area in the back of the counter. A place people did things, moved about. It connected the other areas of the store. So it was nice, big, and empty. Thomas was glad he wasn't swept up, that dustpan looked absolutely disgusting. It would have been gross ending up in there. What Thomas didn't know, though, was that pretty soon, he was going to be wishing he had ended up in the trash. Thomas wasn't aware there could be something worse than that, but there was. 

Thomas looked back over at the bakery. He couldn't even see it anymore. It was only about five feet away, but Thomas was much too small, and much too low, to see anything. So he turned his attention elsewhere. Looking forward, Thomas saw the line. That was where the workers made the food people ordered. Sandwiches, salads, soups, all of it. Thomas worked there occasionally, and knew all the people who worked over there, but he mainly worked over in the bakery. That's just how it went. 

Thomas looked over at who was working. He always liked to read everyone's schedule, even on days he didn't work. Plus he could always remember it, basically, he knew who was supposed to be working. Over on the line he saw three people. There was Linda, a girl just a month younger than Thomas, but already with a husband and two kids. There was also Vicky and Sarah. They were twins who always worked together. Thomas looked at the three of them chatting and working, it reminded him of when he worked there. Thomas hoped to get back to that soon. He was tired of this...............

Wait, three people? Thomas knew that wasn't right. There were supposed to be four people right now, but even at his limited size he could clearly and easily count only three. Where was the four person? Thomas knew who it was. It was Vicky and Sarah's older sister, Marie. If she wasn't on the line, then she must be...

If Thomas had bothered to get up and move around, or if he was looking for danger instead of staring at people, he might have been okay. But as fate would have it, Thomas decided to lay on the ground and not move. While he was figuring all of this out, he was unaware that his coworker was now heading right towards him. But, he was a small target. An insignificant crumb in the middle of a wide, open floor. The odds of someone stepping on him would be slim to none, right? Possibly, but not for Thomas. 

Before he could even contemplate what was happening, the area around him started to grow dark. It happened so fast Thomas' mind couldn't even register what had occurred. Marie was in the back, getting something for the line. Once she had it, she returned to the line, walking past the bakery. It was a normal, average, boring day for Marie. If she had any idea of what she had just done, she might have felt some kind of remorse, or grief. But she felt nothing, as she knew nothing. After all, to Marie, she had simply stepped on some crumbs. Meaningless crumbs that stepping on amounts to nothing. She didn't even know she stepped on them. She simply went back to the line and started working. 

For a second, everything was dark for Thomas. It was as if the sun itself had vanished. Pitch black. Thomas would have heard a soft squish happen behind him, but the overbearing sound of rubber slamming and squeaking against tiled floor drowned out everything else for him. Thomas also instinctively noticed the smell. It smelled of old rubber. The kind shoes are made of. Without even thinking, Thomas made the connection. He had been stepped on. But just as before, he had landed right between the treads of the shoe. There was also an awful smell Thomas couldn't quite pin, but it smelled like a mix of a lot of things. Gross, nonetheless. However, all of this was for a second. Thomas didn't have time to think, didn't have time to guess. Didn't have time for anything. 

Thomas felt the whizzing of air flying past him. Felt the sensation of flying. He felt as light as, well, a crumb. Opening his eyes, Thomas saw the red tile floor far below him, and he saw the pathway to the back of the store, which was just behind him. Thomas saw all this in just a fraction of a second, as he soon saw the red tile floor full on, and it was getting closer. And closer. And closer. Then too close. Thomas felt the enormous force as he was pressed hard into the tile floor. It felt like the weight of an entire person was crushing him into the floor, because, well, it was.

What Thomas didn't know was that he was now stuck in between the treads of his coworker Marie's shoe. Working on the line gets rather messy, and food spills all over the ground. It gets busy over there, and it would be obnoxious to try and avoid every little thing on the ground. Most people just walk all over it. For some, this causes pieces of food to get stuck and trapped between the treads of their shoes. That is Thomas. He had been fortunate enough to land in between the treads of her shoe, but maybe that wasn't so lucky? When Marie stepped down, she squished poor Thomas into the particles of food debris stuck in her shoe treads. Thomas was covered in them, one with them. As she continued her step, Thomas was now apart of what was stuck in her treads. Thomas was brought up with her shoe, and carried along for the ride. 

That was were Thomas was now. Face pressed against the gross tile floor of his work. Body surrounded and coated in filth previously stepped on and mashed into her treads. And stuck as an insignificant piece of crud between the treads of his coworker's shoe. It happened again, Thomas was lifted up into the air before slamming down hard into the floor again. Each step would last no more than a second. It was so fast, and so disorienting. Thomas didn't even know what was happening after the second step. He just wished it was over. Thomas would not get his wish.

Step after step after step Marie walked towards the line. It was really only about ten steps away, but it felt like a hundred. With every step, Thomas was squished deeper into the disgusting remnants of food, but he was never submerged. He would never get so lucky. He had to endure the force of being pressed with an entire body weight into the gross floor, and body squished harder and harder into the crud. 

By the seventh step, nothing had changed. Only able to feel some pain, Thomas was never lucky enough to lose consciousness. He had to endure each and every step as they came, fully. He was doing what all crumbs did, be meaningless. But he was self aware of it. He was conscious of his life. He was a living crumb. Eighth step. Ninth step. Tenth step.

The line had just recently been swept, so it wasn't that dirty, but it had already accumulated some scraps of food on the ground. A small piece of avocado lay on the floor. A string of melted cheese sits in the middle. Various crumbs and other assorted food particles. Linda, Vicky, and Sarah just ignored them. It was just some harmless piece of food on the ground. It wasn't going to cause harm to anyone. It would get cleaned up sooner to later. Whatever, not a big deal.

Marie had just gotten back to the line after getting something in the back. She wasn't looking where she was walking, so there was no way she could have known she stepped on a piece of stringy, sticky, melted cheese that lay on the ground. But why would she ever care? It was just her shoes, her work shoes, no less. And not even that, just the soles of them. Who really cared about that? It wasn't like it was her hand, or her arm, or hell, even her feet. It was the soles of her dirty work shoes. They didn't matter. As long as it was nothing really big and gross, then it was meaningless. Just some filth that would come off later. That is why once she stepped on it, Marie continued to go about her work. 

On the tenth step, Thomas was the same as always. Onto the eleventh. He felt his body rise once more with the shoe. He was starting to get accustomed to this. He watched as the red tile sped past him, but this time something different appeared. Thomas had no time to even consider thinking about it as his faced was slammed hard into a pile of gooey white stuff. It was still fairly warm, but also sticky. Thomas could feel it sticking to his skin. As luck would have it, not only did Marie step exactly on the piece of melted cheese, she did so at the exact spot Thomas happened to be. 

Thomas' head was still free, barely, as the melted cheese started to cover his body, and the surround area on Marie's shoe. Thomas felt his body lift up again, only this time with an added passenger. The cheese had much more mass than both Thomas and the crud he was now apart of, but it wasn't smashed into her treads like everything else. Thomas now felt force coming from both sides. As Marie stepped down, his body was impaled deeper into the crud, and cheese plastered more onto his body. As she raised her foot up, and mass of the cheese started pulling off Marie's shoe, and taking poor Thomas along with, away from the food particles. 

With Marie's rhythmic stepping though, neither force won, and Thomas had to suffer between being pushed and pulled by two pieces of food that were bigger than him. If Thomas had any sense of humor left, he would laugh. He was getting played tug of war with between two pieces of food, while stuck instead the tread of his coworkers shoe. It was hilarious. Except no one was laughing.

Thomas was rooting for the cheese to win. He didn't want to stay as a piece of crud underneath her shoe forever, so he wanted the cheese to pull him out. For once, things went Thomas' way. Marie raise her foot and set it on the floor vertically, toes planted on the ground, sole facing out. The gravity then started causing the cheese to pull away from her shoe, and with it's grip on Thomas, pulling him out of the crud as well. It was a slow process, but it was working. Thomas started smiling for the first time in a while. His eyes close, he had  grin on his face, he was going to get out of this hell that was Marie's shoe treads. Thomas opened his eyes and prepared to see the world again without having to be condemned to darkness every other second. What Thomas got instead was the image of an enormous shoe heading straight toward him, pressing into the cheese, as well as himself, with a great force.

Vicky and Sarah were talking when they finished making the food they had to. By complete chance, Vicky had looked down and noticed a rouge piece of cheese hanging slightly off Marie's shoe. Not wanting Marie to have that stuck to her shoe any longer, Vicky positioned her shoe at Marie's sole, and helped scrape the cheese off. It fell to the floor with a little inaudible plop, before she flicked it away somewhere else, and went on with her work. Within a few seconds she had forgotten all about that piece of cheese.