When the enormous hand backlit by the glaring light of the room reached to grab hold of the thongs of the shoes, Dean and Leon were too shocked to even stand up. Their angle allowed them to fully take in the fact that it was a human hand of incomprehensible size reaching toward them, the structure upon which they leaned finally recognized.
As the fingers gripped the high end of the tower they leaned upon, Dean’s mind raced. We’re on a fucking shoe! This is a fucking shoe! Whose shoe? How can we be here? How fucking small are we? Oh my god this is a fucking flip-flop! His mind reeled at the realization that he and his friend were somehow so small that they hadn’t realized it was a shoe they were lost upon. As the fingers pulled them into the light, another thought settled in, deepening their dread: they were on someone’s shoe, and that shoe was about to be worn.
Now completely bathed in light, Dean had a moment to look around, his eyes now fully adjusted. Bright colors in the world beyond took shape, becoming walls and carpet. Pink walls? White carpet? Must be a girl’s room; this thought comforted Dean just a little. This preference, ridiculous as it must seem, as regardless of sex he is still basically a speck on someone’s shoe, still made him feel better about the situation. Then came the inevitable rumble, a vibration in the “ground” that signaled that a foot was being slid into place. Dean’s mind raced, looking for anything that could save them. It was too far to the end of the shoe, and when she began walking, they would fall off anyway. That was a hell of a fall down to the ground. Then he remembered where they were standing: directly in front of the sandals’ thong.
“Dude, just put your back to this wall. We are in the safest place we can be.” Said Dean, backing up and placing his back against the black tower. Leon quickly joined him, the time for debate or questions just not available.
Just as soon as they got into position, two gigantic walls shot by either side of the teenagers. Dean looked up and watched these gargantuan living structures that were some girls’ big and second toes slide into place. They were the height of buildings, a couple hundred feet at least. Dean was never too good at spot estimating size; there were no windows to count the increments of ten feel like a normal building would have. The toes stretched far into the distance as they came to a stop, their tips coming together at the very end. To Dean, it was like standing at the end of a living canyon. Admittedly, most canyons didn’t have a tan line, but…the effect was the same.
The smell of flowers overcame the boys. There were still small beads of moisture on the walls of toe canyon. “Well, either she is sweating or just got out of the shower, I guess. Shower would be nice, toes typically are not on the up-and-up when it comes to smelling good.” Dean thought to himself. He was terrified, but he couldn’t help making light of the situation. He knew that if he truly let his new size get to him, he would in all likely hood go insane; anyway, Leon wasn’t coping with this as well as he, and he needed to be strong for the both of them.
“Holy fuck dude! We are so dead! So dead, man! You see how small we are? Just dead, man!” screamed Leon, holding his hands to the side of head in a melodramatic fashion.
“Leon, just…just calm down, okay? You aren’t helping by freaking out on me. We need to have a plan. We have no idea when she’ll start to walk-“
As if on some sort of cosmic cue, it was then that the world around them began to move, the flesh canyon compressing as the foot did it’s job supporting the weight of its owner. She was standing up.
“Hold on!” shouted Dean.
“To what?!” replied a panicked Leon.
Dean did his best to hold onto the toe thong that they had been standing against, attempting to find a purchase for his fingers. Leon copied Dean’s movements, trusting his friend had the right idea. Neither was prepared for the simple action of a teenage girl taking a step. As their world tilted, without a secure handhold, the two did what any two objects their size would have in that position: they fell.
Dean hurtled end over end, losing sight of his friend as he fell what he believed to be to his death. Just as abruptly as he was thrust through the air, he felt his decent stop as his back hit a wall. Reacting on instinct and thrusting his hands out behind him to grab onto anything that would secure him, he found handholds in living grooves. He turned himself around, gaining footholds in the process, and pressed himself up against the warm wall of flesh until the world he was now a part of took a moments rest. In that moment, he turned his head and gazed out to figure out just where he had ended up. Ahead of him he took in a wide gap to another flesh wall, where he could see a dark form in the same predicament as he.
Dean had avoided death in the strangest way possible; he was now grasping to the side of the unaware girls’ big toe. As this realization sunk in, the flesh shifted slightly, and his world began to tilt again. She was taking another step, one of many she would be taking, he assumed, until she reached where she wanted to go. With that bit of obvious logic, Dean held on for dear life, hoping that Leon could hold on too.
Ken couldn’t believe his luck, for good or bad. As he quivered on the ground, he realized that he wasn’t dead, so in that regard, he was the luckiest guy around. On the other hand, though, he was incredibly small and on the shoe of some giant human being. His life had flashed before his eyes as he saw the sky, in the shape of a foot, fall down on him and he wasn’t the least bit ashamed that he screamed. After all, it’s easy to be brave when there are a handful of people in your state that are taller than you, but it isn’t so easy to act tough when you are roughly the size of a grain of salt.
But here he was, still alive, and he owed it to the fact that whoever’s foot this was, they weren’t flat-footed. He was safely underneath the arch of the foot. Regardless of his current safety, he knew that it wouldn’t last. She could start walking at any time.
I got to get out of here, or I’m dead. But where the hell can I go that would be safe? Man, I wish Dean were here. He would know what to do. He always knows what to do. Now where can I get that would- Ken’s thoughts were interrupted as the environment around him began to move. Looking behind him, he saw a sight he realized he might have to get used to: Her heel was lifting, and it seemed as unreal to him as would a mountain suddenly lifting up under its own power. The ground he stood upon began to tilt, and with it Ken lost his footing, falling flat on his stomach, and began to slide. Thrusting an arm out to turn onto his back, he realized that he was sliding to his doom: he was in a rapid decline down, past the safety of the arch of the foot and sliding toward the toes…if he made it that far.
His arms flailed, trying to find a purchase onto the ground, but his fingers couldn’t penetrate the foam of the sandal. As he slid farther down into shadow, the sandal began to right itself. He knew his time was running out, he had to make it to the toes or the ball of the foot would crush him utterly. He tried to steer himself, but to no avail; he couldn’t tilt himself one way or another, he was falling too quickly.
Come on, come on, come on! Almost there! Ken thought as he sped toward the gap between the fourth and pinky toe. He could see the bottom of the foot descending now as he slid, and as he was just about there…the surface he slid upon tilted the other way and his fall was arrested. He began to fall backward, back the way he came, but his time, he knew, was out. He came to a stop and was only able to pause for a moment to glance up at the wrinkled, peach-hued ceiling before it came crashing down, crushing him into an unnoticeable red speck on the sole of the unknowing girl.
Samantha walked out her front door after a stop in the kitchen, where she picked up her lunch. She hated the filth they served at school, and she had dietary standards to fulfill; her body didn’t make itself lean and fat-free. The uncharacteristic joy she felt today continued as she happily strolled to her car, the steady flap flap of her flip-flops slapping against the soles of her feet. Climbing into her fiery red convertible, she put the top down, turned the radio up and began her drive to school.