Eden regained consciousness to the sound of grunge, shouting, and a boot connecting with her stomach.

“Wake up, bitch!” a gravelly, feminine voice urged Eden back into the real world. Her vision was a blur of disconnected images she struggled to comprehend, and the repeated blows to her midsection weren’t helping. She tried to bring her arms up to defend herself, but they wouldn’t budge - were they broken? No, just bound behind her back at the wrists, same with her ankles. 

“S-stop...” she mumbled, trying to indicate her consciousness. The blows ceased, giving her a chance to catch her breath and get a bearing on her surroundings. The carpet she was laying against was thin and filled with grit and dust. The lighting was poor, a single dim bulb outshone by slats of sunbeams from a window just above Eden’s head. The radio blaring that music was across the room from her, a black boombox resting on a dilapidated dresser. Everything about this place was so far from the aesthetics Eden preferred to drape herself in, she wondered if she hadn’t died and gone to Hell.

“Oh hey, look who decided to wake the fuck up.” Eden turned now to face her abductor. A short, heavyset girl with messy blonde hair stood over her, looking down at Eden with naked contempt. She held some kind of rod in her hand - maybe a collapsible baton? She wore a white sleeveless top, ripped black jeans, and a pair of black boots Eden was certain were steel-toed. “You awake enough to feel pain?”

That didn’t strike Eden as a question worth answering. “What do you want?”

“I asked if you’re feeling pain yet, bitch.” She punctuated her point with another kick, catching Eden in the ribs. A throaty gasp passed Eden’s lips, and she raked in a hard, painful breath. She writhed on the floor, mouth agape, trying desperately to catch her breath again while the crass cunt above her laughed. “Looks like it. Good. We’re gonna use that to make sure you don’t get confused about who’s in charge here.” Before Eden could compose herself again for another reply, that boot came down on her skull, pressing the right side of her face against the filthy carpet. “Stick your tongue out and lick the floor.”

Like hell, you degenerate fucking animal. Eden kept her mouth shut, sucking air deeply through her nose as her breathing finally caught back up with her. The blonde pressed down harder, grinding her tread into Eden’s cheek. “Just tell me what the fuck you want! What is it, money? Attention? A shout-out?”

“I am not one of your fucking fans, bitch!” Eden tensed when the boot lifted off her head, and sure enough another blow rained down on her, this time mitigated somewhat by Eden’s expecting it. “What you do is sick! Filth! Trash!” Three more kicks, and Eden was quick enough to roll such that they landed against her back. Still painful, but she could endure simple pain. “You’re nothing but a leech, a fucking... a fucking parasite!”

“Hey babe, don’t kill her right away,” a voice called out some rooms away. “You’re right, she’s a leech, but she might be useful for us still.”

The blonde looked down at Eden, breathing heavily, her knuckles white around the baton. Eden slowly rolled and twisted herself onto her front, rising up to a kneeling position, and was silently grateful her attempt wasn’t met with more resistance. Instead her captor seemed content to stare hatefully down at her while Eden got the tiniest bit more comfortable on her knees.

What do I say to these people? Eden wondered to herself, keeping her eyes lowered to not provoke any more ire than necessary. Of course she hadn’t actually done anything wrong - by a legal standard, anyway - but trying to explain that probably wasn’t going to go over very well. “I’m sorry,” she instead offered, quietly.

“What did you say to me?” The blonde stepped closer, and the tip of the baton was brought up underneath Eden’s chin fast enough to clack her teeth together. Eden raised her eyes to her enemy’s.

“I’m sorry, I...” Eden’s pale blue eyes welled with tears. “...I wish I didn’t have to do it.” The two stared at one another, and Eden could see the faintest softening in the hate staring at her. “You don’t understand, I don’t have control of my life. It’s my boyfriend, he... he fucking owns me, okay? I can’t go anywhere, do anything, be anyone I want to be without his say so. He makes me do that sick shit online, he and his friends a-and his audience - not mine - they get off to peoples’ suffering, the tiny peoples’... and my own.”

As she recounted her story, Eden could see the blonde’s expression changing from rage to bewilderment. She tasted copper on her tongue, and deftly pushed a small pool of blood in her mouth forward, letting it trickle down the corner of her lips as the weight of what she’d said hung in the air.

“That’s bullshit,” the blonde said, though she obviously didn’t fully believe it. “Hey hon, there’s no way that’s not bullshit, right?” The second woman entered the room shortly after being addressed, a taller woman dressed more elegantly in a long yellow dress that matched her hair both in shade, and how it flowed when she moved.

“It is.” The second woman came to a stop in front of Eden, squatting down to be eye level with her. “Hello, by the way. I’m Natalie, this is Taki.”

“Agonia,” Eden said, and Natalie smiled.

“Mmm, the Mistress Agonia. Do you mind terribly if we refer to you as Eden, though? That is your name, right?”

Eden hated annoying, gloating cunts. Especially when they were right. “Yeah.”

“Marvelous.” Natalie patted Eden on the head, then rose to her feet again. “You’re going to find it very difficult to lie to us, so you might want to put a stop to it before you embarrass yourself further.” She had already pulled out her phone, and was scrolling through something with her phone. “Where did I write it down... yeah, here: your last romantic relationship was with Giselle Porter, and it ended... with your March 21st stream for 2018.” She looked down at Eden. “So three years ago.”

“So the boyfriend stuff was bullshit?”

“Oh most certainly. As if our little Edey here would ever allow herself to be controlled like that.” Eden started to challenge this, but Taki’s backhand shut her up, dropping her back onto her side.

“Fucking bitch,” Taki spat. “I almost felt bad for you.”

“What,” Eden breathed heavily as she pulled herself back to her knees. “do you want?”

Natalie offered her phone to Taki. “Would you like to show her?”

“Sure.” Taki took the phone from Natalie and, after a quick glance, tapped the screen and turned it around for Eden to see. It was one of her own streams, by her recollection at least half a year prior. She was in her full Agonia makeup: death-white face with black eyeshadow, deep purple lips, and long black hair. Her costuming was simple that evening, a revealing corset under a black dress that flowed to the floor. Pinched in two of Agonia’s fingers and held up for the camera to see was a tiny man, dangling upside-down by an ankle and screaming for his life. At several points he reached out towards the camera, and Agonia seemed to delight in letting him catch the very edge of it, only to slowly pull him away again.

“He was important to you.” Eden looked up from the screen towards her captresses, studying their expressions. “That’s what this is, then. Revenge.”

“Keep watching,” Natalie said with a smile as she pulled over a chair. Taki remained quiet, staring daggers into Eden. The gothy streamer sighed and, after shifting her weight uncomfortably, refocused on the screen.

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“Hangrygamer, thank you so much for the five~” Agonia said absently, still giggling at the little man’s struggles to pull himself free of her grip. “Huff...sstrix - ‘Huffs Trix’ - thank you so much for the five~” The words came naturally, unconsciously. Using two hands, she held him such that his body was bent backwards, his spine stretched to nearly its limit. She brought his face towards the camera, his helpless expression of pain crystal clear to hundreds of watchers.

This was the pre-stream ritual she engaged in every night. Idly teasing a tiny in front of the camera while the odd donation or message came in. It gave people a chance to get settled and ready for the main show, but still provided some amount of engagement for those who were ready. “Oh chat! I actually learned something interesting about this one~” She pulled him away from the camera and held him closer to her chest in an upturned palm, cradling him like a mouse. “It turns out our little one here is named Keanu, isn’t that interesting? I always think of that name as just the guy, you know? I forget it can be a real name for other people sometimes.” She looked down at the pet in her hands. “Or, well, I say ‘people’ but...” Agonia glanced up, head still tilted forward, and winked at the camera.

“Oh, ten dollars from Mezza9 - thank you very much for the ten - with a message that says ‘Do you think it’s okay to hurt tinies?’” Agonia looked down at her toy again, then to the camera. “Well. There’s two questions there, aren’t there? And I’ll answer them both. First, is it okay for me to hurt tinies? Absolutely, I’m Mistress Agonia, I can do whatever I like~” She stuck out her chest, drawing in a breath and striking a pose she had no doubt would become a video thumbnail later.

“But if you’re asking if harm to tinies in general is okay?” She relaxed in her seat, leaning back and crossing one leg over the other. Agonia shrugged, then smirked. “Sure. Why not? It’s not like they’re our equals.” She pinched Keanu’s wrists in her fingers, holding him up by his arms. The tiny man dangled weakly from the fingers of a girl markedly younger than himself, and Agonia took a moment to appreciate the image on her own screen. She brought her smiling face up just beside his body, playfully contrasting their situations.

Another donation indicator popped up. “Another ten from Mezza9: ‘Would you hurt Tybalt?’” Agonia rolled her eyes, her light-hearted smile fading, and she looked across the room at her grey cat, curled up asleep on her bed. “This is such a tired argument. Tinies are like bugs or insects, not domesticated animals. Cats, dogs, birds and stuff - cute animals - are innocent and cherished. This,” she waved Keanu’s limp body around. “This is not a cute animal. And before you ask, yes, if someone had a pet walking stick I’d be okay with them stepping on that too.”

She sat back as chat flooded her with messages of approval and support, as well as several more donations voicing disapproval against the dissenter. Agonia watched and smiled, reveling in the benefits of her lifestyle. She would likely face resistance in such forms for the forseeable future, but complaining was all they’d ever be able to do. There was too much societal momentum for ‘tiny rights’ to ever be anything more than a joke.

Among the donations, she saw Mezza9’s name pop up again. She read the message silently to herself this time:

What if you were a tiny?

There it was. The appeal to selfishness, the last bastion of defense against people having fun and expressing themselves. Agonia didn’t even have to do anything, her moderators had already banned the account. The donation message never came up on the stream, though she still received the money.

“Chat, let’s play a little game,” Agonia said, lowering the register of her voice. She held out her hand, palm up, and displayed the vulnerable man curled in the center of it. Slowly her fingers wrapped around the little form, until she was holding her fist out to the camera. “Say when.”

Her microphone picked up the muffled screams as her fingers slowly contracted. True to form, her chat was a long list of egging on and encouragement. She let her fingers part just enough to see Keanu’s face, his arms twisted awkwardly over his head. He howled and begged for a mercy that wouldn’t come.

Slowly, Agonia’s finger replaced the space Keanu’s torso had once occupied. “The poor little dear,” Agonia teased, staring directly into the camera. “He’s trying so hard you guys.” His face was red, eyes bloodshot, and his warm blood had already started to flow down Aognia’s pale fingers. She eased the pressure momentarily, letting her prize draw in a hard breath, keeping him on this side of the edge for just a little bit longer.

“Chat, there are people out there who hate us - hate me - for doing this stuff, but...” She pulled her fist back, examining the human toy trapped within. “...I honestly don’t see anything wrong here. What, should it be illegal for me to break the stuff I own, too?” Agonia laughed, and chat laughed with her. With little more fanfare, she closed her fingers around the tiny form, ending the suffering of her latest miserable toy with a wet ~squelch~

“Bye, bitch~” She teased, opening her hand and letting the sticky lump of flesh droop awkwardly off her palm, stuck to her flesh by the gore, before falling off-camera - directly into a wastebin Agonia kept beside her desk. “All right, I have to go clean up my hand, and I suspect some of you are in a similar situation.” She winked at the camera. “Back soon loves, tah~”

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“Cute.” Eden looked from Taki to Natalie, and nodded. “No, yeah, very cute. You play your little game, make me say those things about tinies, and then oh no! Now I’m in danger and the things I said apply to me! ...except no, they don’t, because I’m a full-size person. You two are pathetic.”

“Oh, darling... we know everything about you.” Natalie smiled, sitting backwards in her chair, her arms slung across the backrest with her chin resting on top. “Like that you were going to a handoff when we grabbed you. A handoff I bet you don’t even remember scheduling, do you?” Eden’s expression must have given her away, because Taki barked out a laugh. “We set it up for you, of course.”

“We got all fucked up in your wires, bitch. All communication in or out goes through us now. Your phone, your computer, your two laptops-”

“The point is,” Natalie interrupted. “We know where you get some of your tinies. We know you have a shrinking device.”

They’re reading my messages. When did I mention the device? What exactly did I say? “Oh, fuck off, I’m not nearly rich enough.”

“And you were dumb enough to bring it to a public handoff. What, do you carry it around for self-defense or something?”

“Listen, you-”

“Mm-mm, you listen.” Natalie reached into her cleavage, producing a long, thin teal tube. “Because things are about to get a lot worse for you very quickly. You’re not gonna be in control of anything ever again, Edey.”

Eden’s blood ran ice cold as Natalie slid her thumb along the tube, extending two small metal prongs at the end. She looked back to Taki, who had since pocketed the phone, and was now glowering down at her with her arms crossed on her chest. She thought about the interruption, the messages, the money. The messages. “There’s tinies you don’t know about.” A beat of silence followed, and Eden took it. “Yeah, yeah, I get it, shrink me and go liberate all the fucks in my house, but you think you know where they all are when you don’t. It’s not like I text the exact details of everything I do with every one of my pets all the time to anyone who will listen.”

“Who says we care about your pets?” Taki scoffed after she and Natalie exchanged a brief look.

“If you shrink me, there are tinies who will starve to death over days and weeks. That’s their suffering on your hands because you were too short-sighted to let me live long enough to show you where they are.”

“Babe...” Natalie whispered, sliding her thumb up and down the tube, her eyes drilled into Eden’s.

“No. No, fuck that, she’s lying again. What, she has tinies buried in her backyard or something? We’ll save her, Nat, I promise.”

“Oh, it’s a her you’re worried about?” Eden interjected. “That’s gonna lower your odds.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Natalie jerked up from the chair.

“Just what it sounds like, there are more hidden girls than guys. Good luck though.”

“Bitch, you shut the fuck up. Nat, it’s okay, we’re going to get her.”

Eden watched her opponents carefully, studying their expressions. It was clear that Natalie was anxious about something, someone specific that Eden owned. She just had to convince them the girl might never be found without Eden’s intervention. “Of course, that’s assuming I didn’t loan her out to a friend or something. Then she might just be totally fucking gone if I suddenly vanish.”

“Oh, fuck...” Natalie paled, and Eden nearly laughed.

“You really didn’t consider the worst case scenarios, did you? You had one idea that you figured might work, and you just charged straight ahead. It’s almost poetic, how in trying to save her, you may have act-”CRACK!

“I said shut the fuck up, bitch!” Eden spit up more blood as the baton connected with her face, and her face connected with the floor. She coughed and twitched, adrenaline and fear spiking through every cell in her body. “You don’t know shit about us!”

The taller blonde girl was pacing now, staring at Eden. “Hey, baby, fuckin’ ignore her.” Taki moved over, putting an arm around her friend. “Do you want me to do it? I can shrink her.”

“No, no,” Natalie shook her head, backing away. “I cannot risk her just being... fucking out there in the world, okay? I have to find her.” Eden limply tried to pull herself to her knees, but utterly failed. She watched the two women with her face against the floor, furious with her body’s own inadequacy.

“She was on the stream a week ago and she was fine! This bitch didn’t bury her, she didn’t hide her, she didn’t give her away to anybody! She’s there, we just have to go rescue her!”

“W-week... ago...?” Turning to the sound of Eden’s voice, Taki started to march over, but Natalie caught her arm. “I-I lent a pair of girls four days ago, I - I can help you find them.” Eden was laboriously struggling upright as she spoke, but still managed to fix her invictive-slinging captress with a bloody smile. “Sorry Taki, you’re overruled.”

“I’m overru- bitch how dare you speak to me!” Taki roared, yanking herself out of Natalie’s grip. Eden pulled her lips back in as much of a grin as she could manage before the baton came down again, slamming her to the floor. She felt Taki’s weight fall on her, crushing her lighter frame against the ground. “You don’t speak to me ever again, you hear me?”

“Taki STOP IT!” Natalie shrieked, pulling at her friend’s arm, but Taki shoved her away again.

“No, fuck that, she’s had this coming for too long.” Taki brought her baton up just as Natalie pressed the tube against her upper arm. Two metal prongs pierced the flesh, and the tube gave a sharp mechanical Beep! Taki let out a sharp, shaky scream as she watched the tube withdraw from her arm, following its movement up to Natalie’s face. The taller blonde stared back eyes wide, her mouth covered by her free hand.

“I’m sorry, I...” Natalie murmured. Taki didn’t get a chance to reply before her body rapidly diminished, shrinking into her clothes. The baton dropped from her fingers, bouncing lightly off of Eden’s head before coming to a rest on the floor. Eden drew in a slow, longer breath as the weight lifted off of her. She could feel the small thing against her midsection and shifted her weight, using the curve of her body to roll Taki down to the floor.

Natalie didn’t notice the small lump until it was too late. Eden rolled onto her back, carefully managing her weight as she looked up at Natalie. Her face was a mess of blood and matted black hair. She grinned through the pain. “The key to the handcuffs, or I sit on your friend to death.”

“No, no fucking way...” Natalie stammered, still visibly shaken from what she had just done.

“There’s no making this better, Nat. There’s only making it less worse.” In her field of vision swam several instances of Natalie, but she could still think and she could still speak. “You need to give me the keys to rescue her, otherwise you lose everyone.” The blonde girl didn’t respond, didn’t move. “If I sit down you lose Taki, and if you shrink me you lose anyone else you wanted to save.”

“Sh-show me that she’s still alive.” Natalie was holding the shrinking device in both hands, jutted in front of herself like a spear. “Do it or I swear to God I’ll shrink you!”

“I don’t have a way to do that, Natalie, you’re just going to have to trust me. Give me the keys and I’ll give you back your friend, I swear.”

Natalie watched Eden for a long moment. It was, strictly speaking, true: Eden didn’t have a way to show Taki to Natalie, because she wasn’t quite sure where Taki was. She had carefully fanned her fingers out underneath her, sweeping the carpet like a dragnet, but so far she hadn’t felt a warm lump nor a tell-tale wetness. The luxury of searching more overtly for her was denied to Eden, so the best she could do was lay there and hope the little shit didn’t scamper out into the open before she got her keys.

“...Fine. Fuck, fine, but you’d better fucking help me find my... the girl I’m looking for.”

“I promise, you’ll get your friend back.”

The blonde turned on her heel, hurrying back down the hall and ducking into another room. Seizing the opportunity, Eden turned on her left side, pulling back to her knees and rolling -- crunch.

“Fuck.” Taki’s life had no intrinsic value to Eden, of course, but she was a useful bargaining chip when she was alive. Her being dead limited Eden’s options. She carefully retrieved the body out from under her knee, turning her mouth up in a sneer as she beheld the limp, pathetic form of Taki. Her whole right side was smushed in, her arm having been twisted off, and the whole back of her head was caved in, smeared with gore. “You died like a roach.”

“...What...” Natalie’s voice surprised Eden - What did that take, five seconds? - and she didn’t allow herself to think for a second longer. Instead of preparing a defense, Eden leapt forward as much as she was able with her ankles still bound together, driving her head into Natalie’s stomach. The two women fell in a heap, with Eden watching Natalie’s hands. Still gripped tight in her right hand, the device held both of their fates on the delicate end of its prongs. Tasting her own blood on her tongue and feeling a sick, horrible fear in her throat, Eden gave herself over to her instinct to survive.

It would take time to prepare another lunge, time Eden wasn’t sure she had. Her whole body ached, the pain a white-hot fire that she fueled with the fear of what waited at the end of that tube. She rolled onto her back, focused all her muscles towards her feet, and screamed with exertion. In one shuddering, uncertain motion, Eden curled her stomach to bring her center just over her feet, then kicked up as hard as she could.

Natalie, for her part, was just getting her bearing when Eden’s scream caused her to sit up, seeing the raven-haired woman lurch awkwardly into the air. Then --

Eden’s feet came down on Natalie’s arm.

A short, sharp shock.

Eden on her back again, moaning in pain.

Natalie’s howl pierced the air. “FUUUUUUUUUUCK YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!” Eden never stopped moving, even as she was grunting in pain, through the agony of the two fingers she could feel were bent backwards from the fall, she didn’t allow herself a moment’s reprieve. She slid on her belly towards Natalie’s mangled arm, the tube jostling loosely as Nat writhed. The prongs were still extended - a blessed convenience. Eden bit at her enemy’s hand, getting only flesh, sweat and blood. She bit again, and her teeth sank into hard plastic. Perfect.

“No, no no fuck n-!”

And just like that, it was over.

Eden remained unmoving for a long while, breathing and thinking. Somewhere behind her, Natalie had been reduced, made harmless. Her whole life had become nothing, all over... what? A tiny? “...a stupid fucking tiny?” she muttered. There was grit from the carpet in her mouth, along her cheeks. She did nothing to spit it out. “All over one meaningless fucking bug?” Eden was stirring now, rolling over and rising upright once more, no longer with the urgency she had felt for the past twenty minutes. She could see Natalie bumbling aimlessly through her own dress, lost in the oversized fabric. “Was it fucking worth it?” Her voice warbled and some part of her mind hated the sound, hated the weakness.

But she wasn’t the weak one here. She was strong; she had survived.

The next hour was methodical. She got herself freed, secured the device, and dropped Natalie into a glass she retrieved from the kitchen. Next was her hand: sure enough, the ring and pinky fingers of her left hand were bent too far backwards and they hurt constantly. Eden contemplated cutting them off, but there would be better candidates for her spite soon.

Eden’s purse had been rifled through, but the contents were easy enough to recollect and store, along with one new prisoner. “Oh hey, check this out Nat.” Eden’s voice was devoid of joy. “I brought a carrying case for the tiny I was going to be bringing home. Lucky you.” The blonde’s screams as she was tucked into a small, restrictive box were a very small step on a very long road to redemption in Eden’s eyes.

The building she was in was a small home set back some ways off the lane its driveway connected to. High, poorly-maintained hedges around the property told her someone had had land, but not a lot of money. They did, however, have a charcoal grill in the backyard, along with plenty of lighter fluid.

Stepping onto the front porch and closing the door behind her, Eden pulled out her phone to get a route home, then thought better of the instinct. No, she would put some distance between herself and this place first, then maybe call a lyft. As flames licked at the curtains of the room which had been her cell, Eden stopped at the end of the driveway, glanced in each direction down the lane, and began the long walk home.