Opening her eyes with a series of slow blinks, Axcillia stretches her limbs and wearily turns her head to look at the clock beneath the television set across the room. Sighing to herself she realizes she must have fell asleep on the couch while working late last night. Putting on her glasses and allowing her eyes to adjust for a moment she grimaces, the blurry lines of the numbers on the clock coming into view showing that she heavily overslept.
Groaning and quickly sitting up on the couch she throws her feet down onto the floor trying to force herself to get up. However, instead of the sound of her bare sole slapping against the carpet her groggy thoughts are interrupted by a terrible crunching sound. Looking down with tears already welling in her eyes, Axci slowly raises her heel off of the obviously shattered, but still closed form of her laptop sitting on the floor beside the couch.
“Oh god noooo! What have I done! No no no-no! Oh no! Oh god! I gotta finish that code today- No this can’t be happening- I gotta fix this! How do I fix this- I can’t fix THIS! Oh god I gotta take it to the IT Lab. Ah damnit I don’t want to... oh well I guess I have to now- shit.” Axci rants to herself as she examines the damage to the laptop and hurriedly paces around the room.
Grabbing a hoodie off the back of a chair and checking herself in a nearby standing mirror quickly she adjusts her short, plum colored mass of hair on the unshaved half of her head and runs to the bathroom quickly to splash some water across her pale, freckled face before preparing to head out to get emergency repairs for her work laptop.
One extremely stressful car ride through early morning traffic later she pulls into the campus parking lot in a hurry. Parking her car and grasping her crushed laptop in hand she rushes through the bustling campus grounds and into the innards of the facility buildings heading towards the IT Department.
Avoiding making eye contact or talking to any of the other moving people or groups standing throughout the walkways and hallways. Being surrounded by people so early in the morning was making Axci feel more and more nervous by the minute, used to being still comfortably shut up in her little nest at this time of day and she made quick work of the distance from the parking lot to the computer labs.
Her thin leather sandals slap against the tiled floor as she reaches the large door with IT emblazoned above its single frosted glass window, and she pushes it open without hesitation, quickly scanning the room within. Seeing the confused look of a few men in their early 20’s to mid-30’s staring back towards her she blushes and continues her glance till she sees the familiar face of her friend that works in the department, Tessa.
Stomping towards her at the service desk, past the staring boys sitting throughout the work cubicles, she sighs in relief as she looks up from her terminal to smile towards her when she notices her approaching.
“Oh, hey Axci, what are you doing here this early? Need some help wi-“ Tessa begins to say before being interrupted.
“Oh GOD thank god you’re here Tess, I didn’t want to have to talk to THOSE guys. Look I messed up- I woke up and my foot came down and I just CRUSHED it. I smashed my whole screen I think with one big stupid step and I don’t know what I’m gonna do I just- I-“ Axci blurts out, noticeably emotional, towards the patiently smiling blonde girl as she takes the laptop from her hands and opens it, investigating it briefly before sighing.
“Calm down- calm down- it’s fine I can totally fix it. It’s just a broken screen Axci, jeeze. Don’t you like do programming, you should know this isn’t that big of a deal.” Tessa says placing a hand on Axci’s shoulder to pull her back down to earth for a moment as she gestures for her to follow her towards the door beside the service desk leading to the spare parts room. “Come on, look I’ll show you we have a bunch of replacement screens here.”
Axci shakes off her apparently unnecessary panic for a moment and nods her head following Tessa towards the back room of the department chatting with her as the two pass through the door. “Well, I mean, I just do coding and stuff, I don’t really know anything about hardware, if I didn’t need it for work, I probably would have just bought a new computer… heh.”
As the two girls disappear from sight behind the closing door to the back room, the group of IT techs sitting in the sparsely populated workstations around the area finally break their silence, smirking at the girl’s antics and glancing at one another.
Five staff members manned the stations of the department, handling most of the repairs and basic day to day upkeep of the campus computers and any simple tech problems that arise. Most of the day was spent just working on backlog projects in the rather underfunded department office at these workstations though or surfing the internet on their personal computers. The staff was predominantly male, with Tessa, Rebecca and Cheryl being the only female IT crew it tended to be a bit of a boy’s club in the office as a whole.
“Will ya get a load of that one huh? What’s her problem?” Says Brian suddenly, cutting the silence as he stands at his desk- gesturing towards the closing door.
“I dunno man, I guess she’s one of those manic pixie dream girl types eh?” Charles chimes in while leaning back in his chair and laughing towards him.
“Heh, well whatever she is, she’s pretty hot. Did you see those legs? Those little shorts? Mm-“ Harry says, turning his chair to join in on the welcome distraction.
“Ugh- god you guys are such fuckin’ pervos. You do realize the girl like literally JUST walked out of the room, right? Like, you saw her for all of 20 seconds and didn’t even talk to her. Calm down.” Rebecca groans as she continues typing at her computer a few feet away.
“Yeah, plus, we’re sitting like right here you know, you idiots.” Cheryl perks up from sitting with her head on her desk to say mockingly. “Plus, I mean- So what about the legs did you see her ASS?” She finishes before bursting out laughing.
Rebecca sighs and stands up to stretch as the group continues laughing and making various vulgar gestures and half sentences towards each other. Taking a moment, she walks through the tight alleys between the cluttered workspaces making her way across the room, ignoring her co-worker’s immature behavior. Standing in front of the entrance to the department and stretching her arms above her head, she barely has time to move as man hurriedly pushes through the door.
Narrowly avoiding colliding with the familiar face of the man, and the strange metallic object he’s carrying in his arms, Rebecca dodges to the side exclaiming towards him. “Tim! Jesus, watch where you’re going man- aren’t you supposed to be working in research right now? What the hell are you doing here.”
Tim wipes the sweat from his forehead, noticeably worn from making his way across the campus and seemingly distressed. “I-I need help- I mean- I need you guys’ help, alright. I was working on something for one of the professors and I fucked up and dropped it and now it’s just blinking and making this error code sound and I don’t know what to do-“ He begins speaking in a rush, while still somewhat out of breath.
“Woah, slow down, okay, alright, here let’s go over to the workstations.” Rebecca says as she looks at him concerned and pulls him towards the others still giggling clustered over across the room.
“If my boss see it like this, they’re gonna kill me, I figured maybe you can help me out. It’s an experimental device we’ve been working on, but I was just supposed to upgrade the casing with a new one we developed, and I think I messed up the wiring somehow.”
Seeing Rebecca and Tim approaching, Brian, Charles, Harry and Cheryl all quiet their jokes, overhearing their discussion as the two approach and gazing curiously at the strange laptop sized device and pulsing red display in his arms.
“Woah what’s this gizmo you got there, gimme- gimme looks cool!” Says Brian, reaching towards the object in Tim’s arms as he maneuvers into the tight space. The lab coat wearing man recoils quickly avoiding his joking grasp and glares at him. “Hey- wow alright, I was just joking you don’t have to be a dick.”
“Don’t mess with it man, look I need you guys to be serious this is an experimental matter device alright.” Tim says explaining towards the group. “I don’t know exactly what’s going to happen with it messed up like this, but I think we can probably fix it like anything- right?”
“Ahhh… ohh oookay wait. An EXPERIMENTAL WHAT. This thing isn’t gonna make some kind of black hole or something is it?” Charles asks while he nervously watches Tim place the weird tablet like device down on a relatively clear work desk.
“What- No. Well, I mean. No, I don’t THINK so, not exactly. It has more to do with altering the mass of things by changing- look it doesn’t really matter I think I just fucked up the casing and some wires came loose, I just need you guys to take a look at it and stitch it back up, it should go back to normal.” Tim says as he gestures towards the device and stands aside to let the curious group begin swarming around it, leaning, and poking at it to get a better look.
Rebecca stands up from investigating it for a moment, concerned. “Are you really sure we should be messing around with this, couldn’t you just get us in trouble too from coming here if they find out instead of just going to the professor?” The two stand, staring each other down for a moment while the others begin to tinker with the device before Tim lets out a defeated shrug. “I mean, it was the best thing I could think of at the time- I mean I won’t throw you guys under the bus or anything come on!”
“Oh, hey I think I found your problem right here!” Harry shouts cheerfully, having opened the side panel of the device and pointing towards a jumbled mass of wires within. “Ah yeah see there’s a bent connector here where it plugs in.” Brian leans forward with a screwdriver and forces it into the space fiddling with the end of the wire while Harry continues to hold it steady.
“See that wasn’t so bad Tim, no reason to be such a little bitch about it.” Cheryl says towards the relieved looking assistant, laughing as she slaps him on the back.
“So, what’s going on you fix it or what, still looks the same from up here boys.” Rebecca interjects somewhat annoyed at the day’s interruptions before Brian answers back.
“Jusssst aboouuutt- got it!” He says as a clicking sound is heard from within the device and the brightly lit red display screen flashes green. “Hah! See there ya go all it took was a little teamwork!” Harry exclaims excitedly as he raises his arm to high five Brian.
Before their palms can collide in the air above the device however, a burst of otherworldly greenish light erupts from the device as it lets out a shrill beeping sound. The strange light envelops the area, covering the entire group as they recoil in surprise or horror, temporarily blinded by the intensity of the sudden flash. Disoriented and clutching at their bodies under the influence of the intense sensation surging within them, the entire group falls unconscious.
Meanwhile… past the door on the far wall in the back room, Axcillia stands somewhat confused, but satisfied in the safety of her laptop in Tessa’s hands after her longwinded explanation on the replacement of laptop screens. Telling her it would take at least 30 minutes to an hour Axci decides to just go hang out in the office area, reassured by Tess that everyone around is chill and unwilling to venture too far from her precious computer.
While Axci makes her way back towards the main office area, Brian, Rebecca, Cheryl, Tim, Charles and Harry let out various moans of pain and confusion as they slowly lift their bodies off of the seemingly endless expanse of colored fabric rising around them. Finding themselves in a strangely shadowed space, beneath inorganically rigid cavernous structures of unknown materials they panic and shout at each other for a moment, arguing amongst themselves before Tim finally yells over the group.
“Oh god no. It worked- Shut up guys- seriously the device worked! Way better than I think it was supposed to. We’re not on some other world or in a cave or whatever that weird yarn dimension shit Charles said. We’re like fuckin less than an inch tall, standing exactly where we were before. These aren't cave walls, that’s the underside of your desk, Harry, this isn’t “weird grass” this is the goddamn CARPET.” The group stops shouting at each other for a moment to listen to Tim’s unhinged sounding rant.
“Wh- what are you saying Tim, are you trying to say…” Brian interjects raising his hand like he’s asking a question, attempting to act confident but clearly overwhelmed.
“Are you saying we’re really small right now? Like we didn’t get obliterated or teleported, we got shrunken by whatever that thing was up on the desk?” Cheryl says pointing up towards the huge overhanging particleboard form past the rising shape of the computer chair overshadowing their tiny bodies.
“Woah-wha- what the fuck. We’re like fucking bugs on the floor right now?! No way, that’s not even possible- how could that even be possible?! Tim, Tim- buddy- Tell me that’s not what- what are you saying. That’s not possible right?” Harry asks panicking and pushing through the waist high carpet strands to grab onto the other man’s shoulder.
“I… uh… well I wasn’t sure if it was possible on humans, but I mean… we have run tests on other organic objects like… vegetables… I wasn’t… I don’t… I didn’t think…” Tim stutters out looking between the faces of shock, anger and fear staring back at him from the rest of the shrunken individuals around him.
Opening the door to the cubicle area and clerical desk Axci is surprised to find the area entirely empty. Everyone must have left for lunch or something while she was busy listening to Tess’s speech she thinks, smiling as she walks into the room. Relieved that she doesn’t have to actually deal with talking to or interacting with anyone and can just relax she gazes around the room as she casually strolls towards the workspace desks.
The conversation between the tiny staff is cut short as the burst of wind rushing across the room followed by the clashing sound of the thrown open-door echoes throughout the dimly lit space beneath the desk. A thundering sound is heard as the door crashes back closed, the carpet and furniture reverberating around their tiny bodies.
“Oh shit! It must be Tess! She’s finally out of the back room, she’s gotta notice we’re gone- once she starts looking around, we can get her to spot us and help us if we hurry! Come on!” Charles shouts as he begins sprinting through the thick carpet, moving out from beneath the desk.
“Wait- Charles, that just sounds like footsteps- we don’t even know exactly what size we are yet and how are we gonna get her to notice us?!” Rebecca yells after him as the group begins to give chase nervously shouting at each other as they move.
“It’s Tess! Of course, she’ll notice us! She’ll probably recognize our voices even if they sound distant!” Charles says as he reaches the area of the carpet within the alleyway between the desks, standing with his hands on his hips he turns to face the approaching rumbling sound of increasingly less distant foot falls.
Looking over the closely packed cubicles and techie desks she sees the various computers, parts and circuit boards spread across them, aside various books, cups, action figures and other decorations. In a way she’s comforted slightly as the clutter across these people’s work spaces reminds her of her own well nested space back at home. Sighing to herself remembering how much time she has to spend here still she runs her finger over the back of a chair as she steps heavily down onto the floor, flexing her legs and stretching for a moment.
The group shouts in horror as over the somewhat obscuring view of the rising forms of desks and chairs surrounding them, the massive shuddering frame of a building sized woman stomps into view. Her footsteps shake the ground beneath them as she quickly passes the distance of a football field to their perspective in a single step, the huge, pale, flexing mass of her foot slamming onto the leather surface of her sandal as it flattens the carpet beneath it with a deafening sound.
Brian tries to shout to Charles to run back towards the group beneath the nearby computer chair but having turned to face directly at the approaching titaness, he simply stands awestruck. Overwhelmed like a prey animal standing before a fearsome predatory creature Charles stares at the flexing toes of Axcillia’s foot as she shifts her balance before taking her next step, for a moment seeing his own reflection flash across the sheen, polished black surface of her toenails as they dig into the surface beneath them.
Staring upwards he gazes up the length of her milky thighs and tight athletic shorts, and marvels as the baggy material of her hoodie sways in the air, masking the striking color of her short cut hair in the distance far above. Charles takes in the sights of the beautiful body overshadowing him, unable to react except to feebly throw up his arms in some sort of reflexive motion to make a futile attempt to intercept the tanker truck sized mass of flesh and leather rushing down towards him.
As the group watches Axci’s massive sandal clad foot comes down hard as she shifts her weight into a stationary standing position above him, the leather surface of the bottom of the sandal collides with Charles’s barely inch tall body with an unimaginable amount of force as he simply crumples beneath her sole.