Susan paced towards the front door; a million things whizzed around in her head. She would make a beeline for her room and affirm where Michael was, if he had somehow escaped throughout her room, she would turn the place upside down. Once that was under control, there was a special someone to ease her stress, she tensed her ass cheeks to remind herself. Casey was most likely still in mourning, she hadn’t expected her to work today, though she felt little remorse for her deceased husband she knew how close he was with their daughter.

The thunk of the door echoed throughout the empty house as Susan adjusted her shoulder with the leather messenger bag that held the shrinker. Once inside, she turned and locked the oak door, a deep sigh escaped her, it had been a long day. Rotating on her heels she made her way down the hallway leading to the living room, her heels clicked faintly against the ground.

Extravagant dark curtains were drawn over the windows, consuming the living room in a shadowy atmosphere. Upon entering the wide space, a dangerous glint caught the corner of her eye, rapidly spinning to face the intruder she was met with the unrecognisable face of Casey. Her features were downcast, with pupils cut into semi-circles, a lack of sleep evident around her screwed up face, contorted by what could only be assumed to be rage. The object of Susan’s fear revolved mostly around the bat in her daughter’s tightened fists.

An ear-splitting screech exploded from Susan’s mouth as she reached for her bag, her brain defaulting to the only item of defence she had. However, time was not of the essence as the solid piece of wood collided with the side of her skull, sending her careening sideways. Splotches devoid of colour exploded across the woman’s vision as her consciousness began to fade.

With a quaking crash, the giant woman collapsed against the redwood floor, her dead weight shook loose objects atop furniture. As the black and white view of the ground began to fade, Susan watched as a mysterious liquid pooled from the side of her head. Two black boots stopped before the small puddle. Casey’s boots.

***

Dull, rhythmic thumping overcame Susan’s throbbing conscious. Multi-coloured speckles coloured the otherwise cold white surface beneath her lying form, her eyes sloppily traced towards the source of the thumps. A finger. A finger as long as she, tapping away ever-so-slightly against a marble countertop. Everything rushed back to the woman, Casey’s twisted face filled with vehemence, the cricket bat that flew into the side of her head with no hesitation. Her own daughter, Casey!

Susan tracked up the massive arm, her overclocked brain struggled to keep up with what she was seeing. Smooth pale skin that led into a tight black logo top. Casey’s left hand loosely held the shrinker against her cheek while she lazily continued tapping mere metres away from Susan’s defeated form.

Casey’s dishevelled raven hair hung low almost covering her green eyes, fear struck Susan like a train as she made eye contact with her daughter, the powerful taps stopped. Susan frantically scrambled backwards from the looming girl, there was nothing but resentment trapped behind the windows to her soul. An agonizing ache pulsed through the side of her face, had she figured out the truth?

“You’re awake,” Casey’s voice boomed across the countertop, Susan had never heard so much force behind words before. Her daughter had always had a voice a little deeper than her own but now it sounded like she spoke through a filter, the deep basso pitches filled the air as a slight buzz washed over her.

“Casey w-“

The iron fist of the terrifying raven giant slammed down beside Susan; a gust of wind brushed her hair. Copious volumes of air entered the girl’s nostrils, her eyes squeezed shut. When they opened again, their gaze lowered until they bore through her, there was a disturbing fire behind them, one that she longed to have never kindled. “Get my name out of your filthy mouth.”

Another shudder came over Susan, hair all over her body stood higher than ever. Her primal fear of shrinking was cast to the backburner as she birthed a new fear altogether. A cold sweat ran down her forehead, what kind of monster had she created.

“Twink was right,” Casey whispered as she twirled the shrinker around her finger, placing it down far out of Susan’s reach, not that she had much chance of operating it.

Susan spruced up momentarily prepared to retort and manoeuvre her way out of the situation, her mouth opened to speak, her best motherly tone activated, “please, just listen to me honey.”

“Please?” Casey scoffed, she leaned closer to her mother, encroaching her personal space with her immense size. “You’re pretty demanding for someone that fits under my boot.”

Her long fingers wrapped around Susan’s body; a choked gasp escaped her as Casey’s fist tightened. An uncomfortable warmth overcame her, only her head was visible above the tensed package of flesh. Even if she wanted to squeak a plea to her daughter, there was little chance a sound could escape from her compressed windpipes.

“You know, I’ve been thinking about what to do with you all day,” Casey’s giant emerald iris flickered with minute movements as it inspected the tiny woman. “But It’s taking everything I have to not just,” the overbearing pressure tightened further, “squeeze the life out of you right now.”

Light-headedness plagued Susan, among other things. Her life from this point on was effectively over, there was nothing to be done that could prevent her fate now. The pressure of Casey’s fist loosened, Susan took a long hoarse gasp, oxygen rejuvenated her depleted brain.

Casey’s nostrils flared momentarily, prepared to let out the pent-up feelings she’d bottled in since yesterday, few words had left her mouth since then. There hadn’t been enough time to process the traumatic event of her father passing, the words she wanted to speak were utterly jumbled inside her mind, she’d barely even had enough time to process the success of shrinking her mother.

“You disgust me.” Decidedly, she would spill whatever came to her first. “Did you think I’d never find out you little rat?” Casey’s voice thundered; the tiny woman’s hair whipped wildly about. ”Just looking at you makes my fucking blood boil. Are you really so pathetic that you would shrink your husband for money? That’s what it was all about right. Money.” Every sound that came from her mouth was enunciated with sincerity.

Susan trembled within Casey’s grasp, beginning to writhe around in panic, her daughter was absolutely correct, but how had she worked out the root cause and how on earth did she discover he was dead. In her daze, Susan muttered the question.

“Ha.” She was lowered towards the gaping maw of her daughter, plump pink lips stared back at her, the corners curled down in resentment. “Look at you, trying to squirm your way out of this.” After loosening her first, Casey immediately noticed her mother’s pathetic movements. Her digits easily overpowered the little woman, prodding her from all directions. “I’m sure you’d love to know.”

Wind swerved beneath Susan’s blonde hair, flying strands hid the zooming world around. Casey’s fist descended towards the floor, Susan instantly recognised the golden baroque patterned carpet and the bottom of her dining room table. Collapsing on all fours, Susan took multiple deep breaths, trying to calm her raging anxiety. The ground violently wobbled under her extremities; it was like nothing she had ever felt before.

“We both know the one thing we have in common.” The rumbles yearned for Susan’s attention; her eyes snapped upwards to witness two gigantic boots slam down on either side of her. Yellow rope looped its way around treads that came to her knees, creaks of leather reminded her there were monstrous feet being held hostage under that thick material. “We love being the biggest ones in the room.”

A rolling thunder rumbled over Susan as Casey began to slowly tap her foot, she watched in horror as the underside of the giant’s boot loomed above, intimidating treads lined the rubber, they were almost large enough to fit her skull.

“I was racking my brain trying to think of what could possibly be worse than grinding you to a pulp,” the massive piece of footwear landed with an emphasising thud, closer to Susan than before. The tiny woman meekly crawled away from the terrifying leather beast while the booming muses of her daughter continued above. “So, I thought to myself, what do you hate more than anything in the world.”

Casey’s torso leaned over her thighs now, her face framed by her resting palms as she sneered at the wretched figure shuffling at her feet. “Then I remembered how you reacted when we dropped to the fifth bracket. You think I didn’t notice how often you decided to work from home or asked me to get groceries. You were fucking terrified of someone looming over you, terrified of what they’d call you or how they’d treat you.”

One of the giant boots raised from the ground and nudged Susan onto her ass, the leather toe landing before her comparatively miniscule feet. Goosebumps exploded over the tiny woman’s skin as a devilish smirk grew over Casey’s deadpan features, the fire in her green eyes still burned bright.

“I’ll show you how the big treat the small.” Casey shifted her Doc Marten over Susan, the tiny woman looked lost under the encompassing rubber, only her head could be seen over the round leather toe. “Everyone likes to pretend that they work hard to earn money and live a comfortable life, and sure that’s a benefit, but there’s a drive that lies beneath that hard work, the drive for size. In the end money doesn’t really matter,” pressure began to build against the tiny mother’s chest.

The rustling of fabric and slight twang of wood signalled Casey’s lurching torso as she leaned back against the chair. Her arms crossed, an arrogant look plastered over her face, she was proud of how she articulated herself. “So you see Susan, in the end there’s only one thing that matters,” her words lingered in the air like smoke from the barrel of a gun. “Size matters.”

“Please Casey. I’m your mother,” unsure of how much longer she could withstand this, she croaked what she thought was her last breath. A sputtering cough shot from Susan’s mouth, drops of blood sprinkled the scuffed rubber on top of her, there was an overwhelming compressive force weighing down on her.

The mass lessened its intensity, Susan’s words had struck something within the raven-haired giant. “Ha… haaaa… haaaaaaa… hahahaha” Disturbing wheezing laughter echoed from above, its inflection unnervingly uncanny compared to what she expected from her daughter. Before she could fall any deeper into irrationality, Casey collected herself. “No. You’re not my mother. You’re a tiny bug squirming under my big fucking boot,” she spat with ferocity that would put even the most ruthless men to shame.

Scrambled letters and noises slammed around the walls of Susan’s thoughts; it was simply too much to bear. She burst into hideous tears; slick drops drenched her cheeks as she sobbed. Nothing was computing with her anymore and she began blubbering the phrase ‘please don’t kill me’ over and over again.

“Weren’t you listening?” Casey dropped into a condescending whisper as she leaned over her thighs, “I’m not going to kill you.” Her less than comforting words did little to ease the sobs of her mother. She pushed down against the tiny fragile body, with just enough care to not erase her from this mortal coil, “but you’re going to wish I did.” A tremendous amount of concentration held back a torrent of insults, she paused to collect her racing thoughts once again,

Susan’s eyes grew puffy as a torrent of tears continued to stream from her sockets, her skin turned clammy under tonnes of rubber and she had lost feeling to her arms and legs. Casey said she wouldn’t kill her but it certainly felt like she was on the brink of death.

“God, will you stop crying,” Casey thundered, “you haven’t even stopped for a second to think about how I feel, have you?” The boot lifted off Susan, her freed hands wrapped themselves in a protective hug. “I hadn’t seen dad in a whole month,” the giant’s bottom lip began to quiver, “I just… I just want to see him again. I left him so many voicemails, begging for him to come home.” Rubbery scrapes sounded as both pieces of footwear lurched backwards under the towering white chair, Casey’s gaze no longer lingered on her mother, instead it longingly stared at the pristine wall for a few moments before she continued. “Do you remember how many times I asked if you knew when he was coming home in that week he 'disappeared'? All you would give me was the same bullshit excuse, ‘he’s busy’.” The giant’s eye matched the shrunken woman’s, “you fucking liar.”

There was not a thing Susan could mutter to calm the emotional tyrant, unfortunately this was checkmate. Rubbing her crossed forearms over her shaking arms, she curled into a ball, the strands of the carpet tickled her balmy skin. Even after hearing her the misery in her daughter’s voice, she only longed for her safety, to be as far away as possible from this situation. A resounding thoom gripped her attention.

"Do you have nothing to say?" Casey's tone bubbled in volume until it exploded in a furious expression, "are you that fucking shameless?!" Silence sat in the air following her outburst, her loud ragged breaths dissipating as she calmed herself. “I’m gonna make your life a living hell,” the aroma of dirty rubber invaded Susan’s nostrils; the menacing tread forced itself down before her. “Every time I stomp on your disgusting little body, I’ll do it twice. Once for me and once for dad.” Susan couldn’t bear to look at Casey, terrified of accepting the reality of her position. “And the best part is, there’s nothing you can do about it,” her boastful words trembled.

Something wet landed near Susan, as she slowly rolled to take in the lumbering visage of her daughter, she found the source. A single streak ran down the side of Casey’s fair cheek before it had fallen onto the absorbent carpet below. Rainfall made of tears begun to litter the carpet.