Stagnant air touched by a chemically-clean smell introduced Melanie to the room still veiled in its own darkness. Her shadow was a silhouette where it was cast on the floor, framed by the light that illuminated in from a street light behind her. She flipped the light switch, revealing the motel room and all three of its features; a bed, a television, and a bathroom. Though far from a luxurious getaway, it had all she would need, plus a television. Dinky as the room might be, she concluded firmly that sleeping here would beat camping it out in the woods. She expected nothing less from a motel of this sort; no questions, just cash.

Melanie stepped into the room, lightly applying her back to the door until it closed. She pressed the knob lock in, then set up the chain lock for extra protection. The curtains were closed, yet she tidied them anyway, extending out their edges to cover up as much of the window as possible. The cool air of the air conditioning just below the window blew up at her refreshingly, but not enough to ease her mind. She clutched tightly to her messenger bag, sighed, then sat the bag down onto the bed.

“We’re here,” Melanie said. There was almost an attempt of a sing-song tone. She opened the side pocket after slumping the bag onto its side. Crawling out slowly from the hole was Adrian, blinded by the room’s light even with her arm raised as some shade.

The room was compact, even Adrian could tell that, but to her scale, of course it was huge. The bed alone stretched out like a plain of cloth, and unlike Melanie’s bed which had always been used recently and wrinkled, the bedsheets here were straight, clean, and tight. She didn’t gawk at the television bigger than any theater screen she had seen, nor did she marvel into the bathroom, what little of it she could peer into. Her survey of her surroundings was unremarkable, as chilly as the room was.

Melanie had expected this. If the room was this unimpressive to her, she assumed Adrian’s reaction would be even more bland. Despite the adventure they had set out on, only a few hours stood between the present and two murders. Though Melanie could at least maintain a private smile, blessed by Adrian’s presence, the target of her obsession could still not shake off what haunted her, even when presented a change of brighter scenery.

Adrian stood, but only for a brief time. The motel room might as well have been a wasteland, a huge open space with nothing of note. She swayed and turned back to the messenger bag, staring into the pocket. “Do I have to be out here?” she asked.

Melanie hesitated, manually selecting each word and debating over how effective it would be. More than ever, she was conscious of how fragile Adrian’s mind had to be right now. “Err… N-No,” she said, not wanting to answer so honestly. “Y-You don’t have to, but… I think the bed might be comfier than the bag…”

Though Adrian did not look up to verify it, she could sense Melanie’s expression; apologetic, nervous, attempts at appearing gentle and harmless. So close was Melanie to convincingly sound as such, but Adrian knew better. Slipped beyond those lips, the same lips that quivered to a smile, had been a human.

Adrian winced. Remembering that scene all over again was no better now than it was the last time. The horror of it all just dawned on her more, and when she made the jump to try and think of anything else, who would come to mind but the other person that died? Pushed to the back of her mind as it were, her attempts at ignoring that burden only weighed on her greater. There was a guilt piling up, a flood preparing to break past the dams of her mental barriers, and she was in no position to fight back when that would happen.

For now, there was a calm in how broken she was. She cherished it, in a way, being so devastated by how the day’s events had unfolded. She blinked, and when she opened her eyes, she was back in the motel room. Temporarily did she find herself lost in that place of time, dangerously close to reliving that moment before she found herself awakened again. She held her head, recovering from what felt like whiplash.

To subtly keep Adrian from returning to the pocket, Melanie lifted the bag and opened its primary pouch. From within, she pulled out a phone charger, then a tube of potato chips, something she had swiped from the pantry before leaving. She popped the lid, watching Adrian the entire time. As expected, Adrian’s nose perked to the salty smell of something to eat, a layer of pain that she had forgotten.

“Here,” Melanie offered a cracked-off piece of one chip to Adrian, who reflexively pulled away at first. The chip, even just that piece, seemed hard like wood to her, yet between the thick pair of fingers, it could crack to dust so effortlessly.

Adrian sat down, getting more distance between her and the snack. “I’m… I’m not hungry.”

“Yes,” Melanie scoffed, “yes you are! I-It’s been all day. A long day, no less… I-I know you’ve got to be hungry, s-so, please…” She inched the chip closer still.

“Melanie…” Adrian muttered the name under her breath, like a curse word. She spoke up, “I said, I’m not hungry.”

Partially giving in, Melanie reeled in the chip slightly higher above Adrian. With her other hand, she brought the original, greater chip up to her own mouth. “Adrian, if I’m this hungry, th-then I’m sure you’ve got to be starving.” To feed off her worries, Melanie closed her eyes and bit down on the chip; two bites and the whole snack was gone, only enough to tease her appetite.

But as mundane as this was for Melanie, the crunching sound of that one chip had triggered a spasm out of Adrian. Against her better thinking, she glanced up at Melanie, specifically her mouth. She winced again, shuddering under another chomp, able to note how the once crispy texture was softening into a mush. Her jaw was wickedly strong, and yet it barely worked at all to break apart the chip nearly as tall as Adrian was. And then, as one final, accidental insult, Melanie idly licked her lips, exposing her pink tongue as it swept up what salt and crumbs had been left behind.

Tears jerked just at the corner of Adrian’s eyes. She was shivering, and it only intensified after every nibble she could hear.

Once again, Melanie offered a fraction of that chip back to Adrian, but before she could bargain with her shrunken obsession, Adrian lashed out. A screech followed her action, her arms shooting up at the food in volatile frustration. One hand punched through it and split apart a shard, while the other gripped the side and pulled. In less than a second, the chip had been wrecked, crumbled into a mix of fragments and powder.

Like pulling her hand away from a snapping dog, Melanie retreated just after Adrian had erupted. She was surprised at this influx of energy, unaware that she had caused that surge to happen. “Adri--” Another screech, cutting off Melanie before she could speak again; Adrian yelled in bursts, swinging her fists at the bed in a fully realized tantrum.

“Do you ever fucking listen, Melanie?!” she screamed, her fists clenched into the cushiony floor beneath her. “Why?! Why the fuck are you so goddamn stubborn?!”

“H-Hey, hey--”

“Why do I have to repeat myself?! Why do you do this to me?!”

“I-It… It was just…”

“No! I don’t want you! Or your fucking food!” To emphasize this, she kicked at the crumbs that she had made, launching a shard a fair distance away.

Melanie was flustered. This level of anger had never been seen before, not from Adrian. Truly, it had scared her. “A-Adrian… I’m sorry…! P-Please, don’t yell at me--”

“You killed someone!” Adrian growled, a sound that then diminished into a whimper. Shakes infested her after such an outburst, and tears dotted her eyes while her mouth hung agap. “And you… And you made me kill someone. Y-You… made me a murderer… You made me kill Erin…”

Melanie felt the sharpness of Adrian’s statement slide along her thinning heart. She could justify herself again, just like she had earlier, but what good would that do? She trembled in front of Adrian, fearful of how she might react to hearing her defend herself. It was as though their massive difference in size meant nothing.

“And do you feel anything?!” Adrian spat while Melanie succumbed to silence. “You ate someone. You ate someone! A-A living person, a grown woman! How heartless do you have to be…?! To do something so… so fucked up! Why?! Why did it come to all this?!

“I remember what you said,” Adrian raged on, preventing Melanie from answering for herself. “It’s because… because you love me. You have a crush on me. So this is what you do then? You fucking eat people?!”

“She… She w-would’ve--”

“You make me kill my friends?!”

“E-Erin… I couldn’t just--”

“After you tortured her?!”

Melanie held her breath. She couldn’t argue with Adrian, so she meditated on the subject, how cruel her actions had been, and where that cruelty had taken them. This scene, sitting on a motel bed and yelling at each other, was not the romance Melanie wanted. This was not how she envisioned her life with Adrian, shrunken or not.

“This… This isn’t what you do when you like someone, Melanie!” Adrian said. “People don’t do this. They don’t kill when they have a crush on someone. They don’t shrink people and kidnap them. Do you think that’s how I acted with Erin?!”

Melanie flinched. Adrian noticed, and it sparked something in her. She knew then that Melanie would hate this conversation, and with momentum on her side, she chose to push even harder. This vulnerability would not be overlooked.

“She was a chorus kid. She loved singing. As much as I loved her voice, it was her passion for singing that… that swept me off my feet. Anytime she giggled at one of my dumb jokes, it felt like she was singing just for me. I’d sit outside the choir hall and listen to her practice. I went to one of her recitals, all the way on the other side of the state. I wasn’t even in choir, I had to have my mom drag me out there just to listen to her, and I didn’t even ask Erin if that’d be cool.

“Do you think that’s when the kidnapping starts?!” Adrian’s voice splashed in volume. “No! I asked her out! I went to her, after the recital, and I just… I just told her! I told her how I felt, and we talked, and then the next day, we went out! To a movie! And she spilled soda on me because she couldn’t find the drink holder! All of that… it was normal! It felt normal, and human! Like two people in love!

“Look at yourself! And look at me!” Adrian shivered. To so vividly go back to another time and place, just to return to this motel room, made her voice crack with depression. “Erin never would have done this… I’d never do this to her! If two people love each other… in what insane world would they kidnap people for them?! Or murder?!”

Throughout this, Melanie had stiffened. Her eyes were blank and her most idle of motions stopped. As if turned to stone, she could only think, If that were true, then why… then why did you two…

She flinched, harder than before. Her hands reached to her head, addressing an agonizing headache that had been manifesting from Adrian’s words. This is what Adrian wanted, she herself knew this, but there wasn’t some pleasant satisfaction for having hurt Melanie. Striking back at her with a mental assault was only adding fuel to the fire, a fire she deeply wished would burn out already.

Their talk was suspended for a time, hanging off that last spoken word. In the dim motel room, in the middle of the woods, murder was the game. They were killers, intentional and unintentional, part of an elite fraction of the world who could truthfully say they’ve brought a direct end to another human’s life. Unable to vocalize how they felt, yet undoubtedly they admitted to themselves how connected this made them.

But that made Adrian cringe, and Melanie mope. Their bond in this matter was more like a mire they were sinking into together, rather than a string of fate.

Melanie swallowed, a sign of just how much courage she had to swell before speaking. “Adrian… C-Can I hold you?” Her cold hands reached out carefully with a hug-like form in which to grasp Adrian.

However, Adrian refused. She lashed out again, “No!!” and slashed at one of the encroaching fingers. She added a kick, and then a series of flurried punches. From a delicate flake of snow to a jagged clump of ice, she refused Melanie’s grasp. “Get away!! Get the hell away!!”

And Melanie did, retreating once more. Adrian’s counter was sharp, inflicting a tiny yet burning wound. She gasped even, realizing that Adrian had attacked her, successfully so. “A-Adrian…” she muttered, unable to bring words to her desire. Instead, her lips only quivered, a wish to say, I don’t want to be alone…

Words unsaid would go unheard. Adrian backed away towards the huge pillows that stood up behind her. She faced Melanie unblinking, arms prepped for another strike if it came to it. It mattered little how strong Melanie was, for when Adrian had been pushed this deep into her corner, her usual passiveness could not be maintained. The more she understood this feeling, the more rushed her flow of adrenaline became.

“If I was normal sized,” Adrian said, panting, “I’d… strangle you…!”

Melanie’s hands were lowered together onto one side, one hand coddling the other. Even just looking at Adrian felt like an assault on her, an intrusion onto her obsession that she didn’t intend, yet she couldn’t help doing so. This was her Adrian, saying such dreadful and real things.

“Don’t ever touch me again,” Adrian said. She pointed hard at Melanie, up to one of the huge eyes that gazed down on her. “Not unless I say so. Never touch me.”

Melanie’s eyes plunged into darkness. She closed her eyes, fighting against her instincts. “I… I won’t.”

“Don’t grab me. Don’t poke me. Don’t pet me. Don’t step on me!” Adrian clenched her teeth, getting only angrier. “I’ll never make it easier for you! Not while you’re this… this freak! This monster!” She huffed. “As long as you’re a monster, I’ll fear you like one…! I’ll never love you, Melanie! I never will love you like you want, no matter what you do to try to force me!”

Melanie weakly nodded, her head hanging at its lowest part of the arc. “I understand--”

“Now you understand?! You’re just gonna say that?!” Adrian shook her head, stray hairs whipping over her face. “How did you believe this would even work out in the first place? You really have no clue what the fuck love is.”

Again, Melanie closed her eyes. This time, her comment could not be swallowed back into her throat. She spoke, just a mumble, “I thought that I knew. I really did…”

She stood up, lifting herself off the bed. In her absence, the mattress’s weight shifted, and Adrian bounced from its movement. She nearly stumbled off her feet, but the sudden motion did force some of her excess ire to a calm. A heavy breath stabilized herself further, and she watched Melanie, wary yet of what she planned to do.

Melanie turned, revealing that her somber expression hadn’t changed. Barely did her eyes gloss over Adrian, focused instead on her bag. She grabbed it, and then nonchalantly tossed it behind her into the corner. A few of its contents spilled, but she paid it no mind. She stared at nothing, not even Adrian but only the empty middle of the bed.

“I wanted to feel complete,” Melanie said. “You felt like the other half. The moment I saw you, I wanted to commit everything to you. I wanted to close any gap between us. At any cost, no matter what the universe said.”

Adrian scoffed. “So, murder? Back then, did you think you’d murder someone?!”

“Yes,” Melanie said, and she giggled, “yes! O-Of course I did…!”

“There’s something wrong with you. There’s something cold inside of you, Melanie.” Adrian choked. Anytime she thought of this alleged moment, when Melanie first laid eyes on her, it made her stomach turn and her heart drop.

“Is that really… so wrong?” Melanie’s smile faded back to its hurt state. “I… I guess it is. But to me, that’s what I thought love was. Nothing could be more important in the whole world than that other person, th-that… other half. Why wouldn’t I kill for you? Why wouldn’t I do anything to make you mine…? And to be… made yours…? Is that not dedication, in its purest form?”

Adrian’s mouth hung open with nothing to say. She was only baffled into silence, listening to the logic that ran through Melanie’s mind. Finally, she stuttered, “Where did you get this idea…?! Th-This isn’t right, Melanie, that isn’t right at all.”

Melanie turned her head away. “That’s just how my parents were. They loved each other so much, they only ever thought of each other. All the time, you could see the love in their eyes, a-and the warmth in their faces, just from looking at each other.”

“You could?” Adrian said this sourly. She had found another weak point. “So even they aren’t together anymore, that dedication didn’t do much for them.”

“No, m-my father… he… Th-They were separated, forcefully.” Melanie slumped forward, internally conflicted. “He’s in prison. And… he won’t be coming out.”

Adrian flinched at this detail, finding so much to unpack all at once. She hadn’t spent any time considering Melanie’s family, only then comprehending how much insight into her captor could be gleaned with this knowledge. And what insight this was; her father, a devoted lover to his wife, was convicted of something. It was a mystery with an uncomfortable answer, and Adrian ignored that as well as she could.

“It broke my mother,” Melanie went on, her words a lost ramble, just speaking from one sentence to the next. “She hurt herself so badly in front of me. She felt useless not being able to do something for him. Everyday, she says she’s a traitor… if she says anything at all. So many days now, she just sits in silence.”

Melanie brought a hand to her chest, clutching at the fabric of her shirt. “A broken heart, after so much devotion… It’s so despairing. Nothing is more despairing than that. It’s to be maimed and left to bleed out slowly. That’s how she is now… and it’s how my father must be. And, now I’ve…”

She chuckled, sharp breaths exhaling out her nose. Finally, she could look at Adrian, but she felt undeserving of this privilege. “Now I’ve discovered a worse despair. To fall in love in such a completely wrong way… being so close, and so far. It… hurts.”

I hope it does, Adrian thought. I hope it stings and burns.

She held her head, as though trying to grab onto those thoughts. No, she argued against herself. That’s so vile. It’s cruel. That’s… not like me. She hated to admit it, but Melanie’s toxicity was contagious. She could feel herself wanting to hate and wanting to destroy, a sensation that drummed hard in her core. She wanted the thrill of fighting back against a giant opponent, but there was no excitement. She wanted to see Melanie suffer, but to cherish that would be to let Melanie have altered her.

Keep it together, Adrian, she told herself. Don’t let her win like this. Don’t play her games.

“That…” Adrian sighed, unsure as of then what to say. “That explains a lot. I mean, of course I’d be shrunken and kidnapped by a girl from a fucked up home. Who else would be insane enough to do that?” She paced in a small circle. “Do you think that justifies anything, though? This changes nothing. Nothing at all.”

“I… I know, Adrian. I’m sorry that it’s come to this. I-I wasn’t trying to justify anything. My actions… I’ve chosen to make them myself. This is all my responsibility. This is all I’ve done out of my love for you.

“And it’s… not been enough.”

Adrian shivered. The temperature dropped. “Melanie…”

The giantess stooped to her knees, descending closer to Adrian’s level. It was a sight Adrian could never come to grips with, this surreal sensation of a building-sized person suddenly dropping down and stopping, like frozen in mid-collapse. When Melanie was seated on the floor, her face was equal with Adrian’s, but still ginormous and intimidating. A different light was in her green eyes, like a rekindled flame.

“I’ve failed to convince you, but only so far.” A crooked smile etched Melanie’s lips. “This is the only way I know how to live… how to love. And yet, it’s caused so much pain. How can I tell that this is the wrong path, or… the righteous one? Isn’t this just another trial…?”

“Melanie,” Adrian stammered, understanding how she had caused this. “Melanie, listen to me. This is not-- You’re wrong! You’re just wrong!”

“Haah… Am I?” Melanie giggled, but the amusement was bitter, like she was laughing at herself. “Of course, I wouldn’t be surprised if I was just an idiot this entire time. I wouldn’t put it past me. So I’ll let destiny decide! I’ll let you decide, Adrian.”

“Huh?” Adrian shook her head, disagreeing with any of the plots or schemes Melanie would suggest. “Deciding on what?! I-I’m not going to join you in these fucking--”

“You’ll see…!” Melanie chuckled. “You’ll see soon enough. Tomorrow, maybe… But, for now…”

Two hands creeped upwards from the edge of the bed; to Adrian, two serpents that were hungry to strike. “No!” Adrian shouted, her sharpness exposed again. “I said no! Y-You won’t touch me!”

Melanie flinched, and her hands did fall back. “Ah, y-you’re totally right,” Melanie said. “I agreed to that… I won’t touch you. I’m… sorry.”

This only confused Adrian more. The way Melanie spoke, the way she was acting, it all seemed to have taken a sudden turn, as though she fell and flipped backwards. Adrian didn’t understand it, so she observed. Melanie stood up and walked to the corner she had tossed her bag. Of the items that fell out, she spotted what all she wanted. When she returned, only one thing was in her grasp: a nightgown, dotted with yellow stars, but fitted for a doll. Among the clothing Melanie had bought for Adrian from the toy store, one of which had been this dress to sleep in. There had yet to be a time to use it, but Melanie brought it to Adrian now, lowered to her level.

“Wear this,” Melanie suggested. “It’ll be more comfortable.”

For Adrian, this was unexpected. She barely recognized the gown at first, and she didn’t seem to want to, not after remembering that the same day this dress was bought, so too was it the day that Erin would be lured into Melanie’s curse. Yet, in her confusion, she didn’t refuse it. It draped into her arms, and as requested, Melanie did not touch her at all.

Is this what she was grabbing me for? Adrian wondered. She looked over the nightgown, noting how light and soft the scrap of fabric was. Regardless of what it reminded her of, she couldn’t deny that it looked cozier to rest in.

She was still, so Melanie urged her. “Go ahead. There’s no trick or anything.”

Doubtful of that, and still wanting to assert herself, Adrian dropped the nightgown onto the bed. She kicked part of it off her foot, “No. I don’t want anything from you.”

“Ahh, th-that…” Melanie tilted her head. “That isn’t true, is it?”

Adrian heard the subdued giggle behind her tone, and her glare deepened. “What?! What could I want from you?”

Melanie jittered, her fingers pressing into each other anxiously. “Ha, well… that’s for you to decide. Right? Heh…” Once again, she kneeled down to be at Adrian’s level, this time laying with her legs out to one side.

Whatever this riddle was, Adrian had little patience for it. She swayed her arms at her side dismissively, pacing around again for another full circle. She searched for something to do, as if something had to be done now that she had all this energy back to her. All she found was emptiness, from the vacant hugeness of the motel room, to the flat surface of the bed, to the hollow look in Melanie’s eyes.

Melanie chuckled, “You look so antsy. You should get some rest.”

Adrian glanced at Melanie, then towards the hills of pillows. The spite within wanted to disagree, How am I supposed to rest when I know we killed two people…? At the same time, there was appeal in deactivating herself from this mad world. What a relief it was, she thought, to just not be conscious anymore while she existed in this miserable state.

“Well,” Adrian said, “where?” She looked around, mostly towards the nightstand neighboring the bed. “Where am I sleeping?”

“Oh, th-the bed!” Melanie answered, gesturing towards the mattress. “I-If you want to sleep there, that is. I’ll sleep somewhere else. The floor, probably.”

Adrian, confused and frustrated, accepted this for what it was. “Fine. Sure.” Aimlessly, she wandered closer to the center of the sheets, but to truly reach the middle would be a long walk. Only a few steps later did she give in, laying down on her side, watchful of Melanie still. “Remember what I said. No touching.”

“No touching,” Melanie repeated.

In a huff, Adrian turned to her other side to better ignore Melanie. So much weighed on her mind, and she couldn’t sleep knowing Melanie was right there, looming. Her eyes closed, forcefully so until it was natural. Shivers would stir her, little kicks and spasms, ever fearful Melanie would betray this thin twine of trust they had built upon this one strict policy. Eventually, the ease of sleep came. As promised, Melanie did not touch her.

But she stared. Unblinking. She watched Adrian rotate around in the bed, her body dwarfed by the expanse of the mattress. She studied every movement, every shiver, every snore. A dulled smile watched her as the hours past, time she spent mentally pushing her energies into Adrian, like prayers; the bed, an altar, and Adrian, the idol.

Melanie leaned back, then stood up gently. Soft steps took her to the messenger bag, which she then carried into the bathroom. There, she laid the bag onto the counter, and then she leaned over it, both arms supporting her weight. Green eyes met green eyes in the mirror, a flicker of a look into herself.

“Adrian. I’ll leave it all to you,” she said to herself. She dug into the bag, and from it she retrieved a book with missing and torn pages. Then, a bottle of wine. Containers of salts. Candles. An ornate bowl.

Melanie opened the spellbook. Into the night, she would dive into her studies.

“Please… Y-You’ve got to be kidding me, please!” A tiny voice sobbed in a dim hallway, within an empty apartment. No one was there to hear these pleas for help, nor would they even if they were present. Nicky was too small for her peril to be noticed. She would be overlooked, wedged inside the crack underneath Melanie’s door.

Since her escape had began, Nicky had only thought of her destination and the distance between them. From the beginning, she knew it would be a long, cold trek, lonesome and scary. She had imagined what it would feel like, to finally exit the room on her own terms, and to see the world that was on just the other side of the door. Nightmares is what she visualized, a new dimension of huge monsters that would trample her without even noticing, no more than a bump under their footfalls.

It had sickened Nicky so much just imagining that trial and how dramatic it would be. It was belittling, insulting, when she found herself bested by the very first real obstacle. It was no human, not any living creature. It was nothing fantastical, but horribly mundane. The crack underneath the door was too small for her to slide under, and she was now stuck in the middle.

“Shit! Shit!” Nicky whined, her voice escalating in volume. She had been keeping quiet thus far, it felt like the normal thing to do; it was late at night, and she was sneaking. But trapped where she was, halfway through the crack, she knew well enough no one would hear her or her screams, for better and for worse. “Please! For god’s sake!”

Squirming was doing nothing. Kicking was doing nothing. She feared that this would happen, but never believed it would be like this. Before giving it her attempt, she measured the distance, and figured that it wouldn’t be an easy feat from the get-go. Barely any space separated the floor from the bottom of the door, much of that space was only because of a strip of wood that separated two different fields of carpet. It was a gap she had little confidence in getting past.

There were no other options. Where else would she turn? How could she escape from this hell if not through the one exit? There was a meager dream that perhaps Melanie had holes in her walls, but that sounded cartoonishly convenient. Beneath the door it was, but her desperation for freedom had gotten her trapped.

She cried. Her fists pounded at the fibers of carpet. Again, she pulled hard to move forward, but she barely budged. Her waist was too wide; never did she think that attribute would haunt her like this. A large rear was once considered an asset, but ironically, here it had become a burden, worse than a lame leg.

If Nicky stopped for too long, the silence alone would slay her. She hated the surrounding darkness, cementing the fact that she was embarrassingly stuck underneath a door. She couldn’t stay like this, she couldn’t let it all end like this. What would even happen of her, stuck in this crack? Would Melanie return and find her? Or, worse, would she never even notice, and just open the door?

Goosebumps coated her skin. She wouldn’t give up. Never before had she felt so spirited about anything. She had more than just herself to think about; Scarlet and Kimberly were behind her, imprisoned still in Melanie’s desk. Erin needed justice, vengeance for what happened to her. That detective, too, who she heard Melanie taunt so harshly. Whatever became of her, she could only imagine.

Inspired by all this, Nicky gripped the carpet fibers as tightly as her hands could. She panted, gathering together all her strength into one pool. Every time she pulled forward, her back burned from scraping underneath the wood. It stung, the feeling of her skin grinding under such an imposing surface. It was agony that her body was flattened like this, her ribs feeling crushed in such a cramped space.

“Go…! Go…!!” She pulled, and she pulled. She whined, then pulled again.

Finally, her endurance paid off. She jostled forward, making a leap in progress. This movement jolted her with renewed stamina, and she pulled forward again in this painful crawl. Inch by inch, she was sliding out, until eventually her ass had cleared the gap and she was propelled forward by the remainder of her pulling.

“Oh… O-Oh god,” she panted, her crawl slowed by her limp. “I… Holy shit… I did it…”

She felt like cheering, but this was no time to celebrate. Immediately, the emptiness of the apartment shook her to her core. She had surpassed a barrier into a terrifying world. To some degree, there was safety in that prison behind her, a consistency in what to expect. That was gone now. Ahead lurked dangers she could never predict, all found in such a familiar environment.

Vaguely familiar, anyway. A light shined into the hall from a more distant part of the apartment, perhaps an entry light that had been left on. What she saw was a hallway she hadn’t considered to be too vital at the time. She remembered briefly how she passed through here only once, before she met her fate as one of Melanie’s toys. She was high, an enjoyable high, just following an awkward, creepy girl into her bedroom when promised “something cool.”

Significantly more time was spent wandering that same hall now than before. In truth, the hallway was only a few paces long, narrow and short. Previously, she had stumbled directly from the living room right into Melanie’s bedroom. But now, it was a trip in and of itself, like a highway road in the middle of the night, eerily devoid of any and all traffic. Around the block, or the wall in this case, would be the living room, something she genuinely wanted to marvel at.

Indeed, what she saw was impressive, if alien. Immediately she noticed the living room couch, which was not only her destination, but the most familiar part of the household. It was there that she sat beside Melanie, taking hits from a bong and wasting time. Now, that same couch would rival a whole block of buildings. She chuckled nervously, realizing that somehow, she would have to scale that thing.

Nicky walked and turned as she did, not wasting any time to try and reach her beloved phone, but still wanting to survey the land. Complicated structures of wood were but a dining table and chairs, occupying a nook of a dining area. A gigantic wall rose to the sky, but it was just the kitchen counter. It all looked amazing, as too did it look trashy. Just like she remembered -- liquor bottles and dirty dishes topped just about every flat surface, only now those same bottles would stand as tall as street lights, and those dishes could hold a lecture hall’s worth of students.

She chuckled, tickled by how small she felt, and what freedom there was to be exercised. No longer under the heartless authority of someone who collected cute girls as dolls, Nicky felt a swelling of energy underneath the layers of fear. It did little to brighten her outlook, but for just a brief second, she cherished this space she had, the control she had. Finally, she had some sense of privacy, even if it was as a speck in the middle of a living room.

All that joy was tarnished and washed away the second a metal click was heard. Nicky jumped like a cat, her shoulders stiffened up past her neck, as she spun around to face the source of the noise, far over at the front door. It was being unlocked, and Nicky was paralyzed under the threat of her grandest fear. She came back, Nicky panicked. She’s here. She’s going to see me.

The door opened, unleashing a heavy sound that scared Nicky to the next level of terror. Crippled by this entrance, Nicky collapsed -- her legs wanted to run, but her muscles refused to function. On her knees, she shivered madly, realizing then that where she was had to be the worst possible spot. In the middle of the floor, with nothing to cover herself with. Nowhere to hide, nowhere to run.

All this distress came to an uneasy hold when Nicky looked up again at the door. It wasn’t Melanie, but someone else. Another woman, about the same age as Nicky and the other college students. Although the demeanor of this person was not gloomy and dark like Melanie, little relief was had to witness such a massive person stomping into the apartment, swinging open a door that Nicky never would have been able to power past.

Juniper was unaware of what a godly presence she had, nor did she suspect that she had an audience at all. She was far from calling herself a deity of any kind, much less when she entered her apartment, phone in hand, writing out the message, im off the shits and honestly?? hell…...yeah. After tapping the send button, a laugh bubbled up from her mouth, and so did a tap of a burp.

“Fuck me,” she groaned, applying all of her weight suddenly into the adjacent wall. The impact was a thud, one that startled Nicky for how it signalled the incredible weight of this giantess. “Seriously,” she rambled on, “it’s a dirty job but someone’s gotta do it, right?”

Juniper sighed, venting some of the heat building up within her. Her night out had ended with less intimate company than usual, but she also left home without having had any plans. She was fortunate that some friends could house her while she had to be out of the apartment -- a fact she remembered only just then, as she glanced up at the hallway leading to Melanie’s room.

“Melanie?” Juniper beckoned, hardly looking up from her phone. “The cops left, right?”

Nicky hugged herself, bunkering her head down as this woman’s volume was so intense, even with each word slurred into the next. This had to be Melanie’s roommate, but what did that mean? None of the girls ever spoke of Juniper, her name itself only ever mentioned in passing by Melanie. Based on first appearances, at least, Nicky could assume this was not the responsible adult she was hoping to find.

But more than just a lack of aid, Juniper was a deadly hazard. She was on the move, walking towards the hallway with lazy steps. Each footfall crossed a distance that would have required a whole sprint from Nicky, and that fact was an especially hard reality when it dawned on her that this giantess was coming right at her.

“No…” Nicky muttered, in awe at the second step that crashed into the floor. She quivered, her fingers itching to get herself to move. Yet, she could do nothing, not even scream in horror as she witnessed the next step, and the next, each one bringing this behemoth of a drunk closer to annihilating her.

“Hey? Mel-Mel?” Juniper said, nose deep into her phone while she moved across the living room. “You here, dude?”

Another step. Another. Nicky shuddered backwards, but it created minimal distance. Another step, the closest the giantess had come yet. Her foot slammed into the carpet with an intimidating force, a reckless amount of strength behind it. Nicky was stunned by the display; ahead of her was a row of giant toes, pressing down on a black flip-flop that begged for mercy. Yet she had little time to gasp at this, for the other foot was rocketing into the air, just over Nicky.

The tiny woman never closed her eyes. If she was going to die, she would watch the entire scene til its end. She would watch the foot rise up, and she would gaze at the unforgiving ridges of the flip-flop’s sole. She didn’t raise her arms or try to defend herself, all too aware of how hopeless it would be.

Boom, the sound of another footfall. The scene was frozen; high above Nicky was a pair of jean short-shorts, constrained around an ass held up by two bare legs. Directly over her was Juniper’s center of mass, an unreasonable amount of weight for one creature. In front of her was a foot, and behind her, a heel.

Another step, and one more. Juniper made it to the hall, peering around the corner at Melanie’s door. It was closed, without even a light seeping in from under it. She shrugged, not as concerned for Melanie as much as she was about the police. With her answer obtained, Juniper twisted around and made a line straight for her room, located in the opposite corner of the apartment.

Nicky was startled when the series of footsteps began again. She was stretched out on her back, collapsed there after Juniper’s foot soared right over her. Her skin turned pale, her heart had almost stopped. Behind her, she watched from an upside-down angle as Juniper’s foot grinded in a twist, then propelling forward with another long step, and then another, and then another.

The quakes of each footfall were fading. Juniper reached her room without interruption, and the door closed behind her. Nicky was again alone, and she was ever grateful for that. An entire minute passed before she had the soul to lift herself up, to look at her surroundings; she expected an apocalyptic wasteland after all those heavy crashes, but it was still just the same living room, completely unchanged.

Nicky stood up. Her legs wanted to give in, they shook miserably after having survived such a surreal event. She had to continue, she knew this, no matter how much pain her body was in. At the very least, she would have to reach the refuge that was the underbelly of the couch. Now that she had received a taste of what horror it would be to die under an unknowing person’s foot, she swore to avoid that fate, to reach her phone, and to survive from there.