Andrew struggled to piece together exactly how he had gotten here. The last thing he could recall was nearing the end of his shift when a green-haired girl sporting a few piercings had come in asking for a can of Lime Green MomsterTM. He didn’t really want to go into the back to check, so he just said they were fresh out.

The next thing he knew, the whole world was spinning around him - he felt woozy, faint - and then he blacked out.

The next thing he knew - he awoke in the middle of  some sort of strange, unrecognizable wilderness. Strange stalks of some plant he had never seen before reached up to his waist, like an endless savannah grassland. For some reason, he seemed to be totally naked - he had no idea where his clothes had gone. He felt a strange breeze on his exposed skin, rippling through the grassland, and ran his hands over the top of the stalks - something wasn’t right here, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was.

“Oh, hey - you finally woke up, lil’ dude!” A voice rang out, seemingly coming from everywhere at once. The voice was accompanied by a thick grey fog that reeked of smoke, totally obscuring his view in a hazy mist that made him gag and cough for air. The bitter, smoky cloud hung in the air for a moment as he waved his hands around, trying to disperse it, eyes watering from the much hotter air, stinging his eyes and nose, gagging violently as it dispersed. 

After he had managed to wipe his stinging eyes and cough up a lungful of second-hand smoke, Andrew spun around, struggling to find the source - until eventually, he did-  and much to his shock. It was that green-haired punk from the corner store - except now, she was the size of an apartment block, looking down on him with a lazy grin on her face as if this was the most normal thing in the world, idly perching a lit cigarette in her fingers, having just blown her last puff out directly onto him. Speechless, he looked up at her - a pair of sneakers on her feet that were easily the size of two buses put together stretched out on his left and right. The rubber on them was dingy and graying with age, the once white tread having been stained a yellowish hue, each massive wall of rubber streaked with grime and bits of dirt. He could fit his entire hand in one of the tread imprints. The “strange landscape” he had found himself in was nothing more than a punk girl’s carpet.

The sneakers were huge -  but the rest of the girl was even larger, towering over him above, sitting with her legs spread wide on the beat-up couch, looking down at him from above as she crunched idly on a bag of chips, the evening light catching the edge of her piercings with a glimmer. Andrew finally found his voice in the midst of adjusting to his new size.

“Who are you? W-why are you so huge?” He says, his voice shaking a little at the surreal situation. The punk can’t help but stifle a laugh, letting out a small snort at the end as she tosses her snack down on the table. “I’m not huge, dumbass - you’re just super small. Like, this big.” She says, pinching her fingers together in front of her eye.

“I’m Ramone. But uh, your name doesn’t really matter now, because you’re like, bug-sized and stuff. So you don’t have to bother telling me.” She says with a shrug, sliding her sneakers back on the carpet as she adjusts. Andrew narrowly avoids being scraped underneath the tread as she brings them closer to herself, pressing the toe of her left sneaker onto the heel of the right, crunching up the canvas as she presses it down, working it off her foot.

Andrew was quickly hit with a wave of the hot and humid environment from inside Ramone’s shoes as her socked heel popped free, making him clasp a hand over his mouth and nose. “What the hell are you doing? Can’t you change me back, or get some help, or something?”

Ramone looks unconcerned, poking her tongue out of the corner of her mouth in concentration as she tries to kick off her sneakers without having to bend down. “Haha, relax, little dude!” She says, waving her hand in the air dismissively. ”You ever think that sometimes things just happen? Like, destiny?” She says with a lazy air as she kicks her shoe off onto the floor. It lands with a heavy thud on the fibers, shaking Andrew’s footing, the opening of the punk’s sneaker practically steaming in the open air. He opens and closes his mouth, speechless - what the hell was this girl even talking about?

Ramone wiggles her toes in the open air with a sigh of relief, the black low-cut socks clinging to her feet with a thin film of sweat - there were at least three or four holes in the fabric showing off the pale foot underneath. It was massive - especially compared to Andrew on her carpet below.

Ramone continues, enjoying the fresh air on her toes. “So yeah, lil’ dude- basically, just think of this as like, your destiny, or something.” She says, and slowly works off her other sneaker - Andrew opens his mouth to reply, only to find himself gagging on the steamy cloud of cheesy foot funk that rolled out of the two sneakers like a toxic fog, making him cough and cover his mouth and nose. He could practically taste her feet on his tongue when he tried to breathe in!

Ramone notices, laughing a little bit. “Oh yeah, they’re probably kind of bad today. Sorry lil’ dude, tough break!” She says, and moves her foot forward, casting a looming shadow over the tiny man as he looks up with watering eyes. The underside of her sock was stretched thin, stained with sweat and bits of debris from her worn-out insole - he felt himself frozen on the spot by fear as Ramone let it drop lazily onto him, taking another drag of her cigarette, wanting to finish it off before she got yelled at for smoking in the house.

He was instantly knocked flat onto his back, pressed into the carpet fibers by the wall of sweaty fabric as Ramone smothered his tiny naked body against the ball of her foot, enjoying the sensation of his squirming on the sole of her foot. She grabbed her bag of chips and started to snack again. Meanwhile, Andrew was in a hellish, sweltering cavity as she rolled her foot back, scraping him along the carpet like a fidget toy, the rug burning his skin as the stench of her feet burned his nose, salty sweat stinging his eyes.

-

Andrew hadn’t ever thought that he’d wind up in a situation like this - but to be fair, who would? Whenever he opened his mouth to protest the rough treatment under Ramone’s soles - in the very brief window when his face wasn’t being pressed up against the carpet or smothered under the damp fabric of her sock - he was instantly greeted with a mouthful of discolored carpet fibers or the moist cotton of Ramone’s sock; at one point he got a face full of Ramone’s wrinkled arch. His face lined up just at the right time to slip into one of the small holes on her worn sock, getting him acquainted with the girl’s foot flesh. The sheer heat was far more intense than he ever could have imagined, spilling out from the hole like he was standing in front of an open oven door, the sour scent making his eyes water, all before he had even made physical contact. Then, her next motion smeared his captive head down into the hole, idly smothering him under the ball of her foot that poked through the hole.

By the time she moved away, he was bruised and battered, red all over from being ground against the carpet, almost breathless, and struggling to gasp for fresher air. Ramone lifted her socked sole up for a moment, cracking her toes against the carpet - Andrew saw that she had slipped on a pair of chunky headphones and was jamming out to some faintly audible music, eyes closed, not thinking about him at all.

Then, the huge shadow of her foot came back over him - this time, her heel finding his tiny form, and pressing down on it. Ramone rolled it in circles around him like a rolling pin, massaging the hard flesh of her heel through the sock, Andrew’s bones creaking and cries of pain and discomfort totally drowned out by her music. She switches between her right and left foot, playing a little air guitar as she pulses the pressure in time with the beat, making the poor clerk’s eyes feel like they’re about to pop right out of his head. He is rolled around like a stress ball, flying out from underneath the punk’s heel and landing next to the opening of her sneaker, which had fallen on one side, letting him see the huge, cavern-like opening looming before him - he swore he could see it still visibly steaming in the air, a wave of cheesy funk rolling over him that was strong enough to make him double over. Ramone’s feet slide back and forth on the carpet, looking for the poor boy by feel alone. Her socked toes spread out wide, splaying and then raking back along the carpet where he had been, narrowly missing him as they dragged a damp furrow through the carpet fibers, leaving behind a visible trail of destruction. 

Not feeling her new guest underneath either foot, Ramone opens her eyes, finally squinting down at the floor, trying to locate Andrew, tugging her headphones off to rest on her neck. “Where’d you crawl off to, lil’ dude?” She mumbles, before spotting him next to her discarded shoes, laughing a little. “They’re pretty thrashed, huh? Wanna take a closer look?” Andrew was still light-headed from the close encounter with Ramone’s downright hazardous soles - the punk lazily flicked her big toe forwards, and the next thing Andrew noticed was the hard keratin of her toenail smack against his back with enough force to knock the wind from him, sending the tiny stumbling into the muggy opening of the shoe. He fell forward onto his hands and knees, feeling them touch down on the fabric siding of the canvas sneaker - finding it was still noticeably warm and damp to the touch, old perspiration soaking his palms as it squished out from the dingy material like a sponge.

He gasped, catching his breath - and getting a faceful of the scent of Ramone’s trashed sneaker insole at full force. He didn’t even have time to process just how rank the interior was before a loud, annoyed voice rang out. “Ramone! I asked you to take out the trash last night - it’s still sitting by the door! Honestly, I work all day long and I just want a little help around here-”

Ramone smacks her forehead. “Oh, shit - “ she hollers back.  “I’m doin’ it right now!” She doesn’t even give Andrew a second glance, flipping her sneaker back over on its sole - sending him tumbling down into the downright swampy depths of her footwear. He hits the dark, deep imprint formed by her heel and feels his whole body shudder in disgust, looking up at a distant circle of light above him that illuminates a hellish, alien world. The tattered and stained insole stretched out in front of him like the dunes of a desert, a deep, vast canyon worn into the sole by Ramone’s constant wear, and far beyond it, five lake-like divots similarly beaten down under her toeprints. The hills and valleys of the humid “ground” were littered with bits of dust, dirt, stray strands of hair and bits of lint - but he wasn’t given much time to adjust to his new environment.

Soon, the circle of light above him is blotted out by a huge, lanky sole covered in a low cut black sock that looked like it was practically glued to the toes - he opened his mouth to protest, but only got the bitter, acrid taste of the hostile atmosphere congealing on his tongue, causing him to break out in a fit of uncontrollable coughing.

Ramone doesn’t waste any time at all, carelessly shoving her foot into the comfortable sneaker - and Andrew watches in horror as a tide of foot flesh wrapped in a thin layer of sweat-soaked fabric comes at him like a tsunami - paralyzed to the spot as it bulldozes him like a grain of rice. He is scraped along the teen’s greasy insole, thankfully still so slick with sweat that it lubricates his journey without friction tearing his skin clean off - Ramone’s foot carrying him all the way to the toe section. Ramone’s toes settled into the familiar indents in the fabric lining, and Andrew’s tiny form was smothered in the crease between her second and third toes like so much dirt, trapped in the hot, damp, acrid darkness.

He was miraculously in one piece - bruised and battered and aching of course, but otherwise alive - even though he was very quickly starting to wish he wasn’t. The temperature quickly skyrocketed as the heat from Ramone’s socked foot filled the cramped and humid space that Andrew found himself crammed into, arms and legs bending at awkward angles as the giant punk stood up to deal with the garbage. “Man… I was gettin’ into it, too…” she complained under her breath, and the poor shrunken clerk felt his stomach drop into his toes as she took her first step. 

THUD

The sensation of weightlessness was  quickly replaced by an intense pressure that slammed down onto him as her foot made contact with the floor - the sheer intensity of her weight pressing down on him making him feel like he was about to pop like a grape, the pressure squeezing out old, stale sweat from the spongy surface beneath him - the indents gushing out a fresh deluge of brackish sweat from the depths of the insole. The salty liquid covered his skin with a hot, oily film and stung his eyes and nose like battery acid - and this was only the first step. Every breath he struggled to take in was like a sauna full of old gym socks, the pressure of the socked foot slamming down like a steamroller, the heat, the stench-

Another lurch of gravity-

THUD-
And he felt the slick sock flatten the air out of his lungs,

THUD-

And the fresh sweat threatened to bake him alive,

THUD-

And he was sure he could no longer feel his legs-

THUD-

And he started to splutter as steaming sweat waterboarded him against the tight fabric, until

-SKLPRTCHT-!

The teen lazily shuffled her way to the back door and kicked it open - and Andrew felt something snap, a rush of white-hot pain filling his senses- Ramone hopped down the step with the garbage bag in one hand, and grimaced as she felt a warm, wet sensation between her toes that she was fairly certain wasn’t her sweat. She stomped a bit grumpily towards the bin and flung the rubbish inside, slamming the lid and then only slightly more gently walking back inside. Sitting back on her perch with a sigh, she peeled off the ratty canvas of her sneaker with the heel of the other, freeing her socked sole once more.
“Dammit…” she groaned, flexing her toes around what was now nothing more than a greasy red smear split equally between the battered insole and her threadbare sock. “I didn’t even get to enjoy it, ugh…” She throws her head back and slips on her headphones, stuffing the stained sock back in the sneaker with a resigned shrug. 

Maybe she’d snag another one tomorrow - just  to make up for this one.