Carefully creeping his way through the alleys as the sun sank toward the horizon, Dave thought about the first time he met Vicki.

It had taken him several days simply to adjust to the reality that he had really shrunk and it was not simply a prolonged very detailed nightmare. A few days of starvation and denial had driven him to dig into dumpsters and trash cans, resulting in food that made him sick as often as it actually sated his appetite, which is what lead him to nearby places like the coffee shop and a greasy spoon that offered portions large enough to their giant customers that at least one garbage can was filled with actually edible food. However, within a few weeks, he knew his narrow diet of carbs and lipstick coated cheap hamburger meat would be just as bad as eating the literal garbage he had choked down in his first few days.

Dave had been shocked how far he had had to walk from his tiny haven until he finally found a bar. It took hours before he picked up the sickly sweet smell of foul beer and liquor that infested the air around a certain type of bar. At his former height it was something he might have picked up on walking by or when he first stepped in, and then quickly forgotten. But recently shrunken, Dave couldn't dislodge the strange smell from his nostrils, and it quickly made him gag as he circled around the huge lumpy black garbage bags that leaked god only knew what onto the alleyway around him.

The tiny man knew that if he didn't get a certain amount of vitamin c in his diet, as well as a few others, he would most certainly die a far worse fate than being impaled by a stiletto heel. As a normal human being, this would not have been something he even thought about, but surviving solely on the occasional bit of wilted lettuce thrown out with a salad and croissant crumbs, he knew he needed more. Dave knew that like British sailors of old, he needed limes and he needed them bad.

And that's why on a hot July day that left his minuscule body coated in sweat, Dave was prying open garbage bags outside of a bar in search for the wedges of fruit that people got with their drinks. After being nearly buried in chicken wings as big as his legs, and almost drowning in watered down beer that had somehow found its way into the garbage, he finally tore open a hole to a world that looked like paradise. A mountain of yellow, orange, and green that meant he had found his needed cache of citrus fruit. He clambered onto the rinds immediately, pushing and shoving them aside as he tried to find something that he could bite into and suck the juice from.

Dave was so absorbed with his task that he didn't even know that a giant had stepped outside the backdoor of the bar until he yanked at the wrong lime wedge and was sent tumbling out of the hole he had made in the bag. The tiny man tumbled ass over tea kettle until his shoulder hit the asphalt of the alley with a sharp crack that made him writhe and scream in pain. His vision blurred as lime and orange wedges splattered against the ground around him, their juices splashing against him as he rolled from the sharp pain of hitting the ground.

The shrunken man was so absorbed in his own pain that he didn't notice the giantess had seen him until his entire world was plunged in shadow. With his eyes shut tight, Dave wanted to believe that a cloud had just passed over the sun, or that it had finally fallen behind the seemingly endless buildings above him, but he knew that wasn't the case. Yet, when he opened his eyes, Dave could feel his heart thundering in his chest because he knew there was a gigantic person looming over him.

A few weeks after his big attack, Dave had avoided the now gigantic people around him like the plague, and he had certainly never been so close to one. He couldn't stop himself from flinching and screaming as her billboard-sized face filled his vision, and while it was far from a Brobdingnagian sight of every single pore being open to his sight, the tiny man couldn't help but notice the blemishes that would have gone unnoticed at his previous height. By the same reasoning though, he also found it hard to ignore the attention to detail the raven-haired giantess had put into perfecting her cat's eye mascara and other subtle touches that made it look as if she hadn't put on any other make-up even though she clearly had. As he fully took in the sight of her enormous face, he couldn't deny that there was a distinct beauty to her pale skin, full cheeks and plump lips.

And yet, as he stared into her big blue eyes, all Dave could do was scream at the top of his lungs.

The huge eyes, easily bigger than his head, widened in disbelief as his screams reached the huge ears that hung in the sky above him. Then, the plump painted lips parted and Dave's skin crawled as puffs of the giantess's breath blasted against his skin as she giggled down at him. The little man thrashed and threw himself onto his hands and knees, ready to bolt even though he knew just how useless it is.

“Wait.”

The single word boomed out so loudly that his ears rang, and his shrunken body froze in terror because of the massive being that hung over it.

“I'm sorry, I didn't mean to laugh at you, but...” A warm wind that smelled of hot wings and cigarettes wafted over Dave, “Sorry, I have no way of describing how crazy you look that isn't ludicrously demeaning.”

The shrunken man cringed and turned his head back toward the sky to see the huge woman's apologetic and pitying look. His jaw dropped slightly as he realized he didn't see any lust or superiority in the big blue eyes that hung over him.

Then those huge dinner-plate sized irises rose high into the sky as the giantess pushed herself to a standing position. His eyes went from the well worn black converse on her feet, along her torn up jeans and faded t-shirt, till he finally found those huge apologetic eyes again.

“Did you need some help, little guy?” She asked, a weird quiver to her voice that made Dave relax ever so slightly until her foot unconsciously ground against the asphalt, making him flinch back.

He stared up at the huge woman, unable to make sense of the fact that someone so much more powerful than him could possibly be nice to him.

Dave learned shortly thereafter that Vicki wasn't Immune like some of the giants he had seen torturing small people like himself for their own amusement. He felt like that wasn't enough to explain why she was actually nice to him, since he had seen plenty of people completely susceptible to the disease eat and stomp on shrunken men and women like himself for no other reason than that it was fun, but he wasn't going to question it. And so, at least once a week, or more if he was starving, he would literally eat Vicki's scraps.

As he crept toward the bar's backdoor, the same sickly sweet stench of alcohol filled his nostrils, but rather than make him sick and uncomfortable like the first time, Dave found it made his stomach rumble. He paused and looked toward the darkening sky, wondering exactly when the huge woman would take her break, and if she even expected to see his tiny little body waiting for her. The sun continued its way toward the horizon and a chill ran down Dave's spine as he waited in the deep dark shadows of the alleyway for Vicki.

Finally, with his stomach rumbling loud enough that he'd bet giants could hear it, the door crashed open, and he watched as the giantess's scuffed up engineer boots pounded against the asphalt and listened to her let out a loud huff before the door crashed closed with a resounding thud. Dave crept out from between the overflowing trash can and a trash bag, to see the giantess lift a chicken wing as big as his arm up to her lips before tearing into it with a ferocity that made the little man cringe. He couldn't help but imagine himself danging between her fingers as her big white teeth tore meat from the bone before dumping the mostly bare wing back into a small palm sized paper basket.

He paused a solid two feet before the toe of the giantess's boot, before clearing his throat, and shouting, “Hey!”

The huge woman paused midway through her third wing as she heard his little voice, even after him coming to her in need for weeks, it still always took her a moment to recognize his pathetic cries. The huge face turned from her food to the shrunken man at her feet and she slowly smiled as she recognized him. “Hey there, little dude.”

The huge denim pillars that were her legs exploded out into the air above him as she squatted down to get closer to his world, and Dave couldn't stop himself from backing away. No matter how many times he reminded himself that Vicki meant no harm, he couldn't help but imagine this would be the week she snatched him up and turned him into a slave.

“Hungry?” She asked, the smile turning into a smirk as she dangled the mostly eaten wing above his head.

Dave had to swallow the saliva in his throat before he shouted back, “Please, I-”

A giggle erupted past her lips, and she shook her head, “You don't need to beg or explain, dude, it's ok.” The huge blue eye winked down at him as she set the paper basket down on the asphalt and slumped against the wall, “You're a pretty cheap date.”

The tiny man tried to laugh at the cheap date comment as he crept toward the giantess's massive amount of food. The tantalizing smell of hot food threatened to turn him into a wild animal as he approached but Dave reminded himself that he needed to be calm. He wanted to believe that Vicki was sympathetic, but maybe she was simply playing a long con to capture him at his most vulnerable. Still, standing before the hot wings, even the nearly bare bones, the smell overpowered everything else in his world and the hunger took over.

Dave's knees stung as he fell to the ground and he ignored the way his skin felt as he pulled at the hot sauce laced meat in front of him. His mouth and skin burned, whether from the heat of the chicken or the hot sauce, Dave had no idea and he didn't care. It had been well over a week since he had last begged for the young bartender's scraps, and he had no idea how he had been able to survive off the cold hard crumbs of others for nine whole days. How, the tiny man wondered, could he possibly choose a chunk of chocolate croissant that had been thrown to the sidewalk by a germ covered infant over this dark haired goddess's warm spicy castoffs?

He lost himself in such thoughts as he filled his little body to the bursting with meat, uncertain of how much time had passed until he heard the click of Vicki's lighter high above him. Dave looked to the sky to see the cherry red bulb of the cigarette's end standing in stark contrast to the dark purple sky beyond. Her face lit up by the dull flame, she turned her bright blue eyes to his tiny body and the small bulge on his stomach that came from gorging himself on the bits of meat that still clung to the chicken bones.

“So,” she let the single word hang in the air as she took a long drag and expelled a cloud of smoke into the air high above that was easily large enough to choke him. He watched as her free hand dragged against the asphalt, not quite reaching him, but making his heart start to pick up as he watched her fingers drift so close. “What are you going to do when it starts to get cold in a few weeks?”

The question hit him harder than the huge hand that circled away from his little body ever could. His jaw moved of its own accord several times before Dave heard his little voice go, “Wh-what?”

“Like, I mean, you've never said where you're from or anything, but this ain't the west coast or something,” the world shook as she scuffed her boot against the ground. “It's gonna start getting cold in mid-October, and the first snow isn't long after that. Like...” She trailed off, but Dave knew her next words before she spoke them, “What are you gonna do?”

Dave's tongue grew heavy and his throat went dry. In a single season, his tiny body had gone from flabby to ripped, and he had kept trying to convince himself that he could survive anything, but the seasons were changing and there was no amount of ingenuity at his size that would change that. He stammered, unable to think of a response.

“Is there, like, someone I should call?” The giantess pulled out her monolithic phone, and held it in the sky above Dave's tiny body.

All the little man could do was stare up the lock screen that depicted Vicki and her girlfriend smiling and laughing on some mountain they had visited that summer. He had thought about being saved by someone from his past countless times; a coworker that went to visit the same client he had, an old girlfriend who had left New York City a few years ago, or even his own parents searching for their son. Yet, as he tried to imagine contacting any of them, all he could see were the bars of the cage that they would inevitably put him in.

Given the nature of the disease, the little man doubted that even the safe bet of his parents was actually safe. They could already have shrunk or worse, they might not until after he had been forced to live in a cage in his old room for months or years. Even if they never did, the thought of moving back there felt so foreign, so terrifying, so wrong, that he couldn't even bring himself to say their phone number. He had never forgotten it, it was one of the few he still remembered beside his own, but yet, the little man found himself shaking his head before weakly saying, “No, no there isn't anyone.”

The ambient light of the phone disappeared and Dave felt more than heard Vicki's feet shuffle about as she shoved the phone back into her painted on jeans. “I'd...” the giantess spoke and then trailed off, “I'd say you could come live with me but Melanie wouldn't treat you like I do.”

Dave looked up toward the sky, to see the giantess biting her lip before she took another long drag of her cigarette.

“Sometimes I...” she grunted and her foot stamped against the ground in rage, sending the tiny man sprawling onto his back. The huge girl, normally so nice and caring, didn't even bother apologizing for the unconscious movement before she said, “Sometimes I really think she's only with me because she's waiting for me to shrink, ya know?”

Ash rained down as she flicked the cigarette and took another drag, luckily none hit the tiny man but he found himself backing away in fear, uncertain what Vicki might do as she vented.

“Like, I'm sure she'd treat me ok, she likes me for me but I also, it's hard not to wonder when you're dating someone who knows they're Immune and knows that you're not. Like, I know she'd expect me to do things sometimes, but I'm sure she'd treat me better than she would someone she didn't know. I think... I think I'd be like her little pet, ya know? And that wouldn't be so bad, right? Being a hot girl's pet?”

Dave looked up at Vicki to see the same hopes and fears that had played through his mind constantly before he shrunk etched across her pale face. He crept forward, hoping that a small pat on the toe of her boot would be enough to get her to understand that he got it, that she wasn't alone, but as he started to crawl toward her on her hands and knees, the huge phone in her pocket buzzed and chirped.

“Ah well, little dude,” She said with a laugh that did little to cover the single tear rolling down her cheek, “Back to the real world for me.”

Dave started to scramble back as she rose high up into the sky, and watched as she flicked the cigarette in her hand down onto the asphalt. Embers scattered for a moment before they were engulfed in a rapidly growing shadow.

BOOM!

The single stomp made the tiny man's bones shake before Vicki started to grind the cigarette back and forth beneath her boot. Even though it was just a flimsy piece of paper wrapped around loose tobacco, Dave couldn't stop himself from imagining the rust colored flecks of tobacco as blood and the bright white paper as his own flesh. His whole body shook as he watched Vicki, someone who could easily be his size at any moment, so casually destroy something that was barely any smaller than him.

“Don't be a stranger,” her voice echoed out across the dark alleyway before the door opened and closed with a resounding crash.

His heart still pounding and his body still shaking, it took Dave several minutes to recover from Vicki's casual departure and when the little man looked at the ground up cigarette, it was easy for him to remember why it was so easy to eat crumbs rather than Vicki's castoffs. No matter how good the food tasted, and no matter how nice and understanding she seemed, Vicki was still a giant in comparison to him. She still thought, or more appropriately didn't think, like every other giant that Dave had seen stomping about the city.

Slowly, the little man pushed himself to his feet and started to walk back toward his tiny haven. His stomach rolled as he walked and it desperately tried to digest the greasy spicy meat he had just eaten and Dave knew that the next morning would not be easy. In spite of himself, Dave actually managed to laugh as he thought, 'At least there's no chance I'll be sleeping in.' Giggling to himself, he turned down the long alley that would lead him toward his storm drain without a single care in the world.

Then he heard it, a deep rhythmic pounding coming from down the path.

'RUN!' was the single thought that consumed his little brain as he turned to see a huge female figure turning down the alley on her regular post-work jog.

Dave broke into a sprint, trying desperately to reach the far side of the alleyway and eventually the chain-link fence that protected his little haven from prying eyes. How many times, he asked himself as his limbs started to burn and his overburdened belly threatened to revolt, how many times had this giant bitch almost seen him returning to his little hideaway?

He could hear her hard breaths as her feet hit the asphalt in perfectly measured strides, each one sounding like a thunderclap in his tiny ears. The little man didn't dare turn back as he neared the upturned section of the fence, imagining himself diving beneath it and feeling his whole body naturally lower itself toward the ground in preparation for the desperate maneuver. Months of hard scavenging paid off as his muscles coiled and exploded, sending him diving beneath the chain-link and rolling across the cement storm drain without injury.

Thanking god and whoever else was looking out for shrunken people, Dave pushed himself to a standing position and dusted himself off. Just as he breathed a sigh of relief, Dave realized that he couldn't hear the pounding of the giantess's feet, and then the fence behind him rattled like Zeus himself had come down from Olympus to tell him he was fucked.

Dave's head craned back just in time to watch a fit goddess clad in running tights and a sports bra sail through the sky. Behind him, her feet crashed against the storm drain with a fearsome quake that sent Dave sprawling to the ground as a wave of displaced air coated him in dust and grime.

The imposing giantess was a being composed entirely of shadow as she loomed over him, “Aw, poor little man, did you really think I haven't seen you scurrying in here every time I go for a run?”