Matylda and Natalia spent the next half an hour being no less creatively destructive than during the previous thirty minutes. Before swapping the cassette for a new one, they ostentatiously desecrated the old town -- to break the taboo mandating that history be respected -- by crushing its buildings and structures between their fingers. It allowed them to give genuine, though unpunishable and inconsequential, vent to their intrusive thoughts; the ones we all get every now and then that involve destructive and misanthropic fantasies.

When holding the city in the grasps of their hands and french kissing the townspeople farewell got a bit old and lost its novelty, Matylda and Natalia moved on to search for other, more interesting ways to interact with the tiny Poznań. One of the cassettes became the test subject of an experiment involving a small magnet they found in a drawer that managed to attract all loose or freestanding metal objects the size of a scooter or smaller. Another had an earphone put against it so that the ladies could visually observe the propagation of the sound waves and the effect they had on the crumbling infrastructure when playing their favorite songs. In yet another, a deluge was staged by releasing water droplets onto the city using pipettes. When they reached the last, still untouched cassette, however, they decided to take a bit of their time to consider both their craves and their options in order to plan a climactic ending to their session. It wasn't an area particularly rich in unique buildings that could offer opportunities for some fun activities, but there was a facility near the edge that caught Matylda's attention, namely the high-rise housing the city’s biggest university dormitory.

So far the young student had come in contact only with shrunken strangers; the odds that she would come across someone that she had had a few words with in the past were virtually zero - or at the very least, there was no way of confirming that, and that was all that mattered. However, the dorm - now located literally at her fingertips - as far as she knew, was home to hundreds of students, many of which she saw regularly on campus or outright spoke to directly every now and then. What's more, these people were of her age; they were brought up in the same world and era as her, and she felt not much different from them. Wholly aware of this and convinced that even if she doesn't manage to recognize any familiar faces among the microscopic dust herself, it will surely not be a problem for them to recognize hers and haunt her conscience, Matylda came up against a tough nut to crack. She had to somehow make a decision: pretend they don’t exist or the contrary - try something new?

"Have you ever met someone here that you knew personally?” she asked Natalia.

"Sure have, a few times."

“What did you do?”

"It depends on whether I liked them or not.” Having noticed that all her friend did in response was nod, she added: “Why do you ask?"

"Do you see this high-rise?" Matylda pointed it out with her finger.

"You mean the Akumulatory?"

"Exactly. There's quite a lot of my friends in there. Well, maybe not very c l o s e friends, but enough to… you know."

"To feel embarrassed? Haven't we just concluded that there's no point in caring about what they think? Whatever words of protest they might want to voice, these have no bearing on your real-world relationships." Natalia fell silent for a moment, but then spoke again with twice the enthusiasm: "You know what? That's it. I'm going to give you some homework. I'll break the rules just for you."

She stepped away towards the first aid kit, but before reaching it, she turned back around and corrected herself, as if she was being monitored by management:

"I mean bend. Bend the rules."

Inside the medical locker she located a roll of bandage tape and brought it back to the central workstation. Not planning to reveal her plans to Matylda just yet, she grabbed a scalpel, and, without saying a word, gently used it to tap on the dorm building in an attempt to flush out those too timid to leave on their own just to check what happened to the sky.

"Nata, what is it? What are you doing?" Matylda asked impatiently while her friend was waiting for the crowd to gather around the high-rise and preparing a small, rectangular piece of tape.

"Just a moment. I don't want to spook them."

Natalia got the ends of the tape to adhere to her fingertips, creating a handy and portable, sticky trap for students as a result: whenever she brought her fingers together, the strip bent, snatching everyone it touched. Using this technique, she managed to secure a sizable group of people in a matter of minutes that consisted primarily of the university dormitory's tenants.

"A set of Matylda's friends. Collector's Edition," she said, showing her work to her labmate. "What do you think? Are you interested? Or should I chuck them back in?"

Matylda took the strip of tape into her hands, gazing at the numerous students of both sexes stuck in place. She realized that it was too late for secrecy and covertness, and understood that her failing to keep up appearances in front of the shrunken clones of people she meets on a daily basis in the university’s halls that she was just a random and innocent witness to their troubles relieved her of the need to care anymore about not just their feelings about her, but even their fate in general.

“What should I do with them?” she asked.

“Take them with you. Learn it yourself that they’re just copies,” Natalia explained, the tone of her voice making it sound as if she was trying to persuade her friend as well as her own self. “I bet that having them by your side while strolling through your college and not coming across anyone that would complain to you about the things we did here today will make you realize that."

The young student felt a bit uneasy listening to her friend’s slightly too enthusiastic words, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t quite happy to take “care” of the guys and gals gathered on the sticky bandage tape. All the anxiety she had recently felt had by now turned into a kind of aversion; Matylda was in fact a bit upset that she allowed to be manipulated by those tiny specks that couldn’t even survive getting lightly blown on. To keep them near her body; to remind herself of their existence whenever she felt small; finally, to find motivation in owing both them and her own normal-sized self a life lived to the fullest and in not wanting to metaphorically end up in their place - that is what she wanted. The most intoxicating thought, however, was the idea of meeting in real life the same people whose shrunken copies she had in her possession. She wouldn’t obviously be able to fully confirm whether that was the case or not since she had no idea who exactly found his or her way onto the tape, but this kind of uncertainty could just make the intimate, dominant feeling stronger with each sighting of an Akumulatory tenant. There was also nothing stopping her from going there on her own and spiritually taking in the view of her personal fiefdom. And so she made her final decision to take them, though there was still one matter that required some deliberation.

“Where should I keep them?” she asked Natalia.

“In a discreet location, so that nobody notices them. Otherwise we could be in trouble.”

“But… w i t h me or o n me?”

“Well, what do you prefer?”

Matylda could stick them inside her handbag or her wallet, but she was looking for something more personal. Maybe her thigh? Or her arm? Or…

In a place nobody would ever look at. On the bottom of her foot.

Ever since this idea crossed her mind, she was unable to ignore it. It left her wondering why it was that whenever she had to make some kind of decision about these poor souls, her mind always raced towards the most evil and wicked solutions. Was it because there was nobody around to stop her? Was she really this sadistic?

“Alright then,” she said, like there was no going back from what she was about to do. “Let me sit down first.”

Natalia, who had had her curiosity captured, stood up to free up the stool by the workstation. Matylda did not inform her about her plans using language, of course; she teasingly opted instead for Natalia’s favorite technique - demonstration. Holding the piece of tape in her fingers, she used her free hand to untie the laces of her sneaker, which combined the aspects of OSHA-approved footwear and a comfortable, sporty shoe. She took it off, overcoming the resistance near her heel, and revealed a white sock. After stretching her toes, now freed from the prison of her shoe, she got rid of it as well, turning it inside out in the process. Matylda lodged the sock temporarily into the discarded sneaker, and rested her bare foot on her thigh, sole-side up.

Just a day before these events, it would not be appropriate to write a description of Matylda’s foot longer than a few words. Thanks to Natalia's invitation, however, it was soon to become the most popular foot in history by number of people who it had contact with, as well as the last thing most of them would see. It was a bit larger than an average one - Matylda herself was in the upper percentiles when it came to height after all - and looked quite nice, though it was, rather understandably, not free of some minor blemishes. The young student wasn't one to frequently show her feet in public and preferred to hide them within her footwear, which caused her to pick up small blisters and calluses. This also obviously meant that she tended not to paint her toenails, though she remembered to give them a trim every now and then and keep them in good health. However, the thing that could catch the most attention after she took off her sock was the color of her sole, reddened after a long period of standing up. In a nutshell, her feet were as natural and genuine as she was, and the only thing she used them for was walking. In spite of this, one of them was about to find a new application.

With the shocked gaze of hundreds of eyes fixed on Matylda, one could suspect her of being about to break under the pressure and stress if it wasn't for the fact that she was instead clearly overcome by bratty and enthusiastic mischievousness. She brought the piece of tape down to her foot and took a bit of time to find a suitable place it could be stuck onto. She didn't want to squash the tiny mob too quickly; she therefore decided to choose the section which doesn't tend to bear much weight during walking, namely the arch. Grabbing the both ends of the tape, she stuck it in the chosen place, and slid her finger along it for good measure.

“Honestly, I wouldn’t be able to come up with something like this. I guess only a newcomer could be this direct,” Natalia shared her carefully worded thoughts.

“Are you saying I shouldn’t have done that?”

“On the contrary! I think it’s the perfect solution. Discreet and… blunt. So, how does it feel?”

“It’s still hard to say. All this is so absurd and ridiculous, not to mention messed up, that I feel like I’m about to burst into laughter, but still I try to fight it since I know it wouldn’t be appropriate - not while I’m doing what I’m doing to these guys,” thrilled and emotional, Matylda was in a rush to verbalize her spontaneous, somewhat contradictory thoughts. “I don’t even want to imagine what they’re feeling right now.”

“Fortunately, you don’t have to,” Natalia added.

“That’s true. I can focus on myself.” Matylda took a look at the piece of bandage tape adhered to her sole. “Nata, maybe what I’m about to say is stupid, but I have to confess that as long as I don’t let my empathy take over,” she lowered her voice, “being so big and powerful feels addictingly good.”

“I know, right?” A slight smirk appeared on Natalia’s face. “You know, there’s statistically at least one person among them for whom a close contact with your foot is something very pleasant, too.”

“Oh no, please don’t say that.” Matylda found this idea quite grotesque. ”Even if that’s true, I feel like he’ll have changed his mind by the end of the day.”

Having slid her finger once more along the tape and giving the students hidden underneath a farewell glance, the golden-haired lab assistant clothed her foot back in a sock, and put her sneaker on - with some degree of gentleness - to seal the fate of the microscopic young men and women.

“Well then,” Natalia concluded, “I guess that’s it for today.”

After hearing these words, Matylda got up from her stool. Still limping a bit for obvious reasons, she approached her mentor and embraced her tenderly.

“Thank you. It was wonderful.”

“Don’t mention it!” Natalia hugged her back. “Just don’t take the band-aid off before seeing me again, alright? So that you don’t leave any trails.”

“Sure. I can’t come in tomorrow, but we’ll definitely be able to meet the day after that.”

“We could have a look to see if anyone survived before we throw it away.”

The discussion between the two friends died out in a natural manner. Consequently, Natalia got started with the proper portion of the procedure for disposing of shrunken material; she picked up the pile of cassettes and chucked them into the biomedical waste bin.