“What the hell happened last night…?”

A groggy groan followed those mumbled words. “Fuck, my head. Fuck…”

The apartment was always dimly lit, even in the brightest hours of the morning. With only a few windows available, and those few being hidden by dark curtains and closed blinds, barely any light ever leaked into the living room. The place was messy, but not outstandingly so; empty beer cans and bottles, overflowing ashtrays, and discarded mail could all be found on the coffee table and the kitchen bar counter, but most everything else was in decent shape. That was only because the two inhabitants didn’t use those corners of space almost at all -- Melanie and Juniper were loners, and they lived their separate lifestyles.

Juniper twisted around in her bed. The thin blanket had already been kicked off hours ago, along with one of her pillows. She wore only half a set of pajamas, her bare legs left to chill in the open air like usual. A freckled face lifted from the pillows and stared blankly towards a windowsill that acted more like a nightstand. In a reach to find a bottle of pills, her fingers found instead a half-open soda, then her cell phone, then finally the medicine.

The bottle was opened and two pills were popped. The hours-old soda washed it down. Juniper groaned again, then slugged out of bed, taking with her the corner bedsheet off its corner.

Her routine took her first to the kitchen. From one addiction to another, her drunken nights had to be met in the morning with a hot cup of coffee. Footsteps lazily slapped at their regular rhythm through the narrow floor plan of the apartment, but stopped just outside the kitchen. Juniper rubbed at her eyes, “What kind of mess…?”

The stove top was a mess of splattered beige and sticky brown. Along one counter, a set of spices had been pushed aside, presumably to make room for Juniper’s waffle maker, which itself was the biggest disaster. Stuck to both sides were thick layers of crispy, burnt waffle remains. Beside it was a plastic mixing bowl, and beside that was a beater which had just been abandoned right there on the countertop, its residue of waffle mix having dried and effectively glued it there. Even a cabinet door was left open, which would have taken zero effort to close on one’s way out.

Juniper studied, and after a long moment, sighed and rolled her eyes. She grabbed her mug-- no, that one has syrup on the bottom, it pooled over there. She huffed and grabbed her other mug, fortunately untouched, and after setting it up to have coffee brewed directly into it, Juniper turned out of the kitchen and towards the second bedroom.

“Melanie?” Juniper knocked on the door lightly. Seconds passed, but rustling could be heard from the other side. The door cracked open just enough for a green eye to be seen from the shadowy room.

“Y-Y-Yes…?” Melanie asked, cowering on the other side of the door. Juniper sniffed the air leaking out; mixed in with the mild smell of Melanie’s usual scent was something sugary.

“I, uh,” Juniper yawned, “I saw the kitchen. The waffle maker was out… Did you make some waffles?”

Melanie blinked. “I did. Yeah…”

“Ah,” Juniper nodded. She leaned back, peeking over at the kitchen. There was a few seconds of silence.

“Y-You said, um, th-that I could use it… if I wanted to…” Melanie pitifully went on.

“I did, yeah.” Juniper nodded again. She dragged fingers tiredly though her reddish hair. “Okay. Well. Just checking.”

Juniper turned to leave, not expecting the conversation to produce much else, but Melanie squeaked in some last words. “I-I’ll clean that up,” she said, “I-I promise. Sorry…”

Juniper comically frowned and shook her head. “Nah, I understand,” she said. “Yeah, just tidy up, I guess.” She continued to leave, hearing the bedroom door just as quickly click to be closed.

As she went to retrieve her coffee, she thought about how long it had been since the two last talked, and why all of a sudden Melanie was in the mood for making waffles. Rarely did her grim roommate cook something, but little did Juniper expect that her breakfast would consist of waffles. She inhaled the aroma of her fresh coffee, So long as she pays rent, not my problem…

“Help us!! Fucking help us!! Please, please help!! She’s got us fucking kidnapped in here!!”

Screaming as loud as she could, Scarlet’s begging went unheard by anyone that could aid them. She was at the edge of Melanie’s desk, hopping up and down without shame of how embarrassing she looked. Her hands were cupped over her mouth to project her pleas even further, and she leaned out as much as she could, hoping that extra little distance would be the inches needed to be heard.

“Please fucking help us!! For the love of shit, just fucking hear us!!” Scarlet had specks of tears forming in her eyes, but full out streams poured from them when she overheard Melanie’s roommate dismiss whatever their conversation was about. This was their chance, she had thought, this was maybe their chance to break free and get someone to help her and her two fellow victims in this supernatural crime.

“We’re… We’re too small,” Adrian said. “Even Melanie can just barely hear us most of the time…”

Scarlet violently shook in response to Adrian’s voice, but she refused to look back at her. She fell to her knees painfully, almost falling off the edge of the desk. She whined, and it crescendoed into a scream. “HELP US!!!”

There was no answer. Scarlet’s voice had been almost completely spent on that final scream for help, and it still achieved nothing. She had sourly expected Adrian or Kimberly to comment about all her yelling, to tell her to stop trying. Even that lack of noise bothered her. Was she silenced, too, by a curse? Maybe she couldn’t speak anymore, and no one could hear her desperate cries to be saved? She wanted to hit herself to physically eject that paranoia.

Adrian hated the scene. The hue in her eyes had been fading since last night, and she could tell so much of her life force had been depleted over the course of just twelve hours. It really hadn’t even been that long, and that taunted her, how only half a day ago she was living in a normal world at a normal size, never conceiving the possibility that she would one day, randomly, be turned into a doll that was watching another woman-turned-toy painfully cry out for help.

Kimberly also hated the situation, but on a grander scale. Her annoyances piled on top of her, sitting alone in a more distant corner of the computer desk. She hated Scarlet’s screaming, she would have in fact been the one to tell her to stop if she had the energy to get up and say something. She hated Scarlet’s logic, too. What if they were heard? What had convinced Scarlet that this other person -- a roommate to Melanie -- would even rescue them? It made more sense to her that any friend of Melanie was equally cruel and unhinged.

And she hated Adrian, too, just like Scarlet did.

The three despaired. Whether they believed in that chance for freedom or not, it was far from achievable, and disappointment racked at their spirits. And in the middle of all this gloom, was a giant stack of waffles, dripping with butter and syrup.

Adrian was fascinated with the food, but not because of any appetite -- that had been lost since the beginning, back when she was cornered in the alley and initially shrunken. She couldn’t think at all about eating, and that had concerned Melanie, enough so that this morning, she was inspired to cook. It would be Adrian’s favorite breakfast, according to what Melanie said. She wanted to laugh about that, but it was too gross to humor. It really wasn’t anything she had the stomach to think about, how Melanie had been stalking her and memorizing every detail about her.

And now, she was shrunken, by that very woman, and she was standing on her desk alongside two others. Innocent women that she had yet to really meet who were also wrapped up in this college student’s mystic rage. She knew only what Melanie had explained to her when they had first arrived at her bedroom, which wasn’t much, only a vague idea of how long the two had been held captive, along with a number of facts Adrian hadn’t the heart to commit to memory right away.

Though she knew little about Scarlet, Adrian had thus far been moved by her. She could sense just how wild and panicked this other student had become. It felt horrible to think about that, how they were students at the same college, how Scarlet’s face was just barely recognizable enough in a crowd that Adrian was sure they had passed by each other before. Neither would have guessed that they would both be reduced to only a few inches tall, and then kidnapped by their shrinker.

Adrian hesitantly approached Scarlet. She offered a hand towards her back, wanting to pull her away from the ledge. “H-Hey…” She bit her lip before going on. She didn’t know her name; she knew Melanie’s name for her, but not her name. She swallowed, “Y-You’re making me nervous… sitting by the edge so close, a-and hopping around. Come on, come back here--”

“Oh fuck your mouth.” Scarlet whipped around, her adrenaline spiking suddenly out of fury. In a flash, she had stood back up and was stomping up to Adrian, pressuring her to back up several paces. “I don’t want to hear bullshit from you, you fucking favorite. You piece of shit! Don’t tell me to fucking give up on getting out of this hell!”

Adrian stammered, her rise in anger being countered by her flood of nervousness. Scarlet had gone from distressed to enraged in just short of a second. “I-I’m just-- Calm down! I’m l-looking out for you!” Adrian explained, her hands up defensively. She didn’t know how or what to argue against from Scarlet’s spat-out words, some of which had been forced into her own mouth. She was hopeful, too, that somehow Scarlet would be heard by Melanie’s roommate, but she had been realistic enough to also be doubtful.

“Look out for your ownself, you bitch,” Scarlet warned, pressing a hard palm into Adrian’s chest to push her back. “I guess you don’t fucking have to, though! You’ve got her to just fucking do anything for you!”

“I-I don’t know her!” Adrian scrambled out a response. She couldn’t let this accusation go by uncontested. She glared, “I’m just as fucked as you about all this! I-I don’t know who she is; I’m not on her side or something!”

“I don’t give a shit,” Scarlet growled, “fuck you. Fuck your ass.”

A meteoric force crashed into the surface just beside Scarlet, but it was no celestial object; Melanie’s fist had slammed onto the desk, straight down like a real punch to where Scarlet had been. The resulting quake that resonated over the desk forced all three women to stumble and shake, regardless of where they were; they shivered in place not unlike the small collectible items that happily decorated the small shelves, or the fork and knife that rested on the same plate as the waffles.

Scarlet had almost blacked out. Her heart had raced to an impossible beating, and she hadn’t the stability to get back on her feet. Adrian had been blown away and responded in time with a scream of horror. She had scared herself terribly, imagining that Scarlet had been squashed, right in front of her, by this fickle college-aged god.

“I’m letting you be free on my desk,” Melanie judged, “and you use this privilege to talk back to Adrian? I swear I explained this to you both…”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Scarlet rapidly apologized. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry…!”

Try as she might, Scarlet was not able to word her way out of punishment. She was grabbed by Melanie, pinched roughly between two fingers. Scarlet’s little arms and legs wildly kicked, and Adrian even tried to reach out to grab one of the flailing limbs to no avail. Scarlet was picked up and carried with a light, careless sort of grasp, hovering at chest level to Melanie.

“And I made food for us, too,” Melanie remarked. Her tone was dark and unamused. “Are you ungrateful? Are you ungrateful because it’s delicious waffles? What would you rather eat, Wormslut? Do you want to eat some worm cock? Do you want worm cock for breakfast?”

Scarlet, again, found herself in this humiliating position. She could beg for her life and safety, but it would just get ignored under these immature, disgusting insults. Her life mattered less than Melanie’s desire to degrade her, and all the while she had to fear that she could be dropped from this height, or crushed right between her fingers, or murdered in some other nonchalant way.

“Being allowed to even interact with Adrian should be an honor,” Melanie said. “If you’re going to act like you’re tough, then maybe I should put you in your place. Should I push you around, too? Just like you did Adrian… I could push you with one hand, too, that would be fair… Really fair.”

To emphasize her threat, Melanie raised her other hand into the air, held flat high overhead of Scarlet. Scarlet cried again, raising one arm over her head in some pitiful defense against the decisive palm. “Please, p-please don’t fucking kill me…!” she begged.

“You and Kim only exist to be Adrian’s friends,” Melanie went on. Her hand was lowered a little, then stopped, just enough motion to make Scarlet squirm delightfully in her grasp. “I know she would get lonely, being tiny on her own, but if you’re not going to treat her nicely, then you have even less worth than I initially gave you. Somehow, Wormslut, you’ve reached negative worth.” Her two fingers pinched tighter around Scarlet’s body, choking out another series of pained spasms.  “It would be beneficial for the rest of humanity to kill you like this, and wipe your remains on a tissue paper so you can be forgotten. Even if somebody found your body, they would just think you’re a pathetic stain. Even that is giving you too much worth--”

“Melanie! Stop screwing with her! Put her down, right fucking now!” Adrian had unleashed all of her anger out towards the goddess above her, but with it also was all her courage to do so. Any ounce of bravery she had was spent, and anything left behind was evaporated the moment Melanie’s huge eyes befell her. Under her sight, Adrian quivered, and even regretted speaking up.

But Melanie was not aggravated. She was impressed, actually, and she smiled at Adrian when yelled at by her. Her expression wasn’t as callous as it was when handling Scarlet; it was pleased, even appreciative. Melanie closed her eyes, her blush taking over her face. She’s talking to me, Melanie thought. She’s tiny and yelling at me! She’s so cute!

Melanie giggled, and the threatening hand far up above was gently lowered. It traveled down to where Adrian was, and though the tiny girl flinched away from it, she couldn’t escape from its touch. Its tender touch, Adrian noted, wasn’t at all what she expected. It was like a pet, two fingers firmly petting her side and her back. Despite the comfortable treatment, the weight of Melanie’s aura had still forced Adrian into submission.

“Aww, Adrian~ I’m not scaring you, a-am I?” Melanie asked, her tone sickeningly genuine. “Maybe you shouldn’t watch… I bet it will be gruesome, seeing Wormslut’s pulp explode over my finger--”

Scarlet screamed at the image put into her mind, but she was shaken out of it -- literally shaken by Melanie. “Yep! J-Just like a bug. Ugh… Maybe I should grab a tissue…”

“Melanie, for god’s sake, you’re scaring her!” Adrian yelled again, desperate to resolve this tension. Her voice was riddled with more cracks and hesitations. “Don’t kill her! Sh-She didn’t even do anything to me! I promise!”

“I saw her,” Melanie corrected her, instantly. “I saw her push you, Adrian. Thank god I did, too. She won’t be allowed to do that.” Her eyes went astray from Adrian, focused instead on Scarlet. Her grip loosened, but only so she could tighten it again and spur another pain out of her captive.

Then, Scarlet was dropped. Adrian gasped, and even Kimberly perked up in fear from her distant side. Scarlet screamed, but the fall was quick. She landed with a soft lump, into a surface that was both plush but ridged. She tried to stand, but she found it far more challenging than expected, like she was being held down. Something sticky had encased much of her body, and her vision eventually cleared enough to see a cube of melting butter not far from where she laid.

Scarlet realized where she was, and tried again to get at least to her knees. Through the thick syrup, she succeeded, but it was nothing she could cherish. All around her was a pool of maple syrup, washed around the tiled ground that was a homemade waffle. Her surroundings were hot to touch, with the only coolness coming from the sticky syrup that was quick to coat her entire body.

Another force from out of this world crashed in front of Scarlet. Yards away, a massive fork pierced the land, digging through the crisp exterior of the waffle. Scarlet panicked, realizing she had even less of a chance than usual to try and escape Melanie’s ploys. She watched the fork like it was an enemy, but soon after it was met with an equally massive knife. With its sharper edge, it divided the world Scarlet sat on, trimming away one part of this edible island, edging even closer to where Scarlet was than the fork had been. She cried out and tried to pull away, but fortunately, the knife had no intention of cutting her.

Melanie giggled while she did this. I’m playing with my food, she maniacally joked with herself. Should I tell Adrian that one? “I shouldn’t play with my food, should I, Adrian?” Would she find that funny? Her giggling stopped only when that section of waffle was lifted and brought to her mouth as a bite of food. She hummed for dramatic effect, even touching her cheek while she ate.

Adrian was agasp. From her perspective, she had assumed only the worst. “Y-You didn’t…”

Melanie blinked, feeling the heavy amount of attention from Adrian. She blushed an even darker red and her heart thumped like a real drum. It was such a special feeling to be looked up to by the one she loved, especially when that expression was so preciously terrified.

But she did understand Adrian’s fear, and she smiled, still chewing her food only now in a rush so that she could speak. “No, no,” she assured Adrian. “I didn’t eat her. Come, you can look!” With that said, Melanie kneeled down so that her head was directly level with the desk. From there, she opened her mouth wide, “Ahhww~”

Adrian looked from afar, but the sight was atrocious. She had moved to look away, but Melanie’s hand swept at her and pulled her closer, despite all attempts to stop the approach. She was scared of the real possibility that she was being wiped into Melanie’s mouth, like just another bite of food, but she stopped just short of the moist cave. Now, there was no way she couldn’t focus on Melanie’s mouth. She saw its wetness through the shimmering off her gums, she could see the pools of saliva mixed in with bits of waffle and strings of syrup. The breath of the giantess washed over her like a fog, carrying with it the sweet stench of a typical breakfast, so sugary sweet that it was beckoning for someone to just walk forward onto the tongue in curiosity. Adrian, however, was not tempted in the least, pressed into Melanie’s wall-like hand as far as she could just to be as distant as possible from the maw.

The mouth closed with a bite, displaying just how powerful Melanie’s jaw was to her tiny prisoners. Then, playfully, a grin formed on Melanie’s lips, concealing the white set of teeth. Adrian flinched at the sound of Melanie’s bite, but Melanie’s words, so close to her tiny frame, were much more overpowering.

“See? Did you see anyone in there?” Melanie asked. “Trust me… I wouldn’t eat that thing. That’s too gross. What kind of diseases does a worm fucker have?”

Melanie moved away, freeing Adrian from the close-quarter interaction. As soon as she was allowed, Adrian dashed closer to the center of the desk, gravitating towards the huge plate. What she had seen flashed in her memory like a strobe light, unable to get away from the concept of a gigantic mouth. She was able to see so deep inside it, and it reminded her critically just how vulnerable she was. Plagued by such a thought, she stumbled, using the rim of the plate as support.

“Ahh… You got scared…” Melanie shifted so that she was finally seated, rolling the chair up to the desk. She picked up her fork and knife again, cutting away into another piece while Scarlet remained trapped precariously in the middle. “I’ll make it up to you,” she said. “Open your mouth…~”

Hoisted towards Adrian was the very tip of the fork, carrying with it a crumb of waffle that had partially been dipped into syrup. The sight made Adrian’s stomach turn again, and she recalled how her appetite had still been missing during all this. How could she eat at a time like this, especially something so sweet? And then she had to ask herself, could she refuse? To this point, Adrian still didn’t comprehend Melanie or her goals.

Adrian turned down the food, deciding for a riskier response. “I-I can’t eat,” she said, her voice quiet. “I’m… not feeling good right now…”

The fork drooped closer to the desk, like a sunken head of disappointment. “Aw, but Adrian~” Melanie said, bobbing the fork in time with her words, “you have to eat eventually. You can’t not eat. Please…” The fork stopped moving, which Adrian was subconsciously grateful for. “Please, eat. I made it special for you, Adrian.”

Adrian was still. She did not want to eat. How could she make that clearer? Her head ached from having to struggle with this simple concept. Why did Melanie like her? That was the crux of all this confusion and madness. Adrian couldn’t understand why her, of the three victims, she was receiving special treatment. Why was she stalked? Why does this classmate of her’s think shrinking people is alright?

Melanie was expecting an answer, but Adrian was flustered. The fork was raised again, coming closer to Adrian’s head. “Eat. Come on,” Melanie said, more serious than before. “You have to eat. I don’t want to, but I’ll force you to eat.”

“F-Force?” Adrian repeated.

“I can hold you down if I have to,” Melanie explained. “I refuse to let you die, so I will do what’s needed. How could I do… anything but that? I love you, after all. I’d hate to hurt you…” Melanie’s glance fell, trading Adrian for Scarlet, who had managed to tread only a short distance in the sticky meal. “I could find other ways to force you, though…”

Adrian understood her implications well enough. The last thing she wanted right now was to feel responsible for the death, or torture, of another person. Scarlet and Kimberly, regardless of who they were, didn’t deserve that, much less if it was over something as simple as eating a waffle. That’s the balance our lives are in, she thought. Eat this waffle or someone dies…

She stepped forward, unable to say anything else in fear that it might trigger Melanie to commit to something. She held the fork by its sides so that she could control the bite of food, and then ate. Just that one crumb was three bites worth of food, notably tasting plain where there wasn’t syrup to compensate.

Melanie’s free hand went to her cheek, overcome by how cute Adrian was. She cooed, wanting to reach over and pinch Adrian’s expanded cheeks, if they weren’t so differently sized. Her hand even twitched, wanting to touch Adrian so badly, but she resisted. Instead, her hands went back to cutting up another small chunk of waffle.

“Thank you, Adrian,” Melanie said. She managed a bright smile, even if it was cracked from years of never really doing so. “You’re adorable… I-I hope you know that.

“Hey. Kim.” Melanie’s voice was starkly different when addressing someone else. “Your turn. You have to eat, too.”

Kimberly looked up, her arms crossed over her legs and pressed into her chest. She rested not far from the desk’s drawers, which were small plastic cubbies occupying a corner of the space. There were six in total, each one colored brightly with its own tint, making them slightly transparent. This was where Melanie was having them sleep, and Kimberly found no reason to travel far from this place if she didn’t have to.

The fork went to Kimberly next. She stood up; she didn’t argue with Melanie, having learned better than that. Without a word, she took the waffle piece into her hands, then sat back down. She wasn’t hungry either, but she forced a bite down to at least keep Melanie content.

And content she was. Melanie smiled at Kim too, but it was far from as vibrant as the one she offered to Adrian. Her attention then went to Scarlet, which was accompanied by a cocky chuckle. Scarlet had managed to make it to the edge of the waffle stack, somehow having broken partially free from the syrup’s stickiness. This only amused Melanie, who effortlessly undid all of Scarlet’s progress by lifting her up with the fork and dragging her back to the middle. Scarlet would have screamed, but the pressure of the fork’s points jabbing under her ribs took away her breath. Again, she found herself splat in the middle of a pool of syrup.

“This must make you feel at home, huh?” Melanie asked. “Laying on your back, naked, and covered in something thick and sticky. Right, Wormslut? Does it remind you of what it’s like to be normal?” She leaned in close to Scarlet, whose response was only mild crying, then laughed right over her. “It’s only been a couple weeks. Can you not remember what it’s like to eat breakfast, and not almost being a part of it?”

Scarlet whined, but it did nothing. She couldn’t even force herself to attempt to flee, she knew it was too pointless. She could only endure as Melanie returned to eating the very meal she was laying in, cringing everytime she felt the fork penetrate the ground and then be cut away by a terrifying butter knife.

“You better be eating,” Melanie said, her mouth half-full with what remained of a bite. “This is all you’re getting for today. Can you even pretend to be as worthwhile as a pig? Put your face into it and eat like one, then.”

Against how humiliating it was, Scarlet was trapped to obey. She turned her head towards the syrup-coated ground, located a ridge she could gnaw into, and bit down. She chewed while tears leaked over her lips. On her hands and knees, eating from the ground she was on, it truly did feel like she had been degraded to a barn animal.

Adrian, meanwhile, could only watch Melanie. She studied her every movement, having a question for each action she did. She wanted answers but the fear of what terror lied behind those answers forbade her from asking, even when she knew she could get away with it. The most major concern that drenched all of Adrian’s other thoughts was how Melanie had the conscience for this. Did she not realize what horror this was for her victims? Even something as simple as eating breakfast, the first step in any normal person’s routine, had become a trial; Melanie’s humble meal that she had proudly put so much effort into was an unbelievable sight to the shell-shocked victims at her desk, always on edge with the worry that the next bite the giantess took could include one of them.

Melanie’s legs kicked from under the desk until both stood solid on the floor. She pushed aside her plate, and Scarlet along with it -- still stuck on what was now only a tiny circle of uneaten waffle. “First, I’ll clean you up in the sink,” Melanie said, pointing at Scarlet before looking more broadly at everyone else. “And then, w-we get to have some fun. Some more fun! Now that Adrian is here, we can do… anything that I want!” She weakly veiled some giggles behind a limp hand. “Anything… Anything…!”

Adrian shivered down to her soul, looking up at the goddess that had selected her, above the billions of other people on earth, to specifically include in this ordeal. The woman that had secretly been stalking her had successfully shrunken her to a helpless state, and one morning’s breakfast had only just ended.