If there’s one thing that Clara Chung hated more than anything in the world, it was manning her family’s convenience store on a hot day.

She could handle warm weather. Her parents were by no means wealthy—no couple that made a living off of running a convenience store was. This meant that the air conditioning devices that the Chungs could afford to keep in their store were by no means first-rate. The dull overhead fans were capable of quelling the heat of a day in the 70°s or 80°s, but were completely helpless when the temperatures rose above that. When it was 90° within her store, Clara couldn’t even feel the fans through the sweltering heat that pervaded through the air.

And of course, it was over 90° right now. On the day that Clara was forced to work the register—perfect.

It was 92°, to be exact. But oh well, Clara figured that she would just have to adapt to the heat. She couldn’t just blow off her parents—who were undeniably enjoying the far more effective air condition system of their upstairs living space. Instead, Clara had placed next to her a small, portable fan. She could actually feel the cool gusts emanating from this device, due to its close proximity. Additionally, she had with her a magazine that she was reading to pass the time, and she was currently dressed to tackle a muggy day.

Clara was wearing a white, sleeveless t-shirt. This granted customers a view of her exposed arms, but this wasn’t viewed as unprofessional or out of the ordinary at all in such a large city on such a hot day. Nonetheless, this tight shirt swooped inwards around the curve of her waist, and stopped a couple of inches above her pants—exposing a bit of midriff. This midriff gave way to a pair of baggy blue jeans that were rolled up to the middle of her shin. These baggy bottoms allowed what little cool air there was to circulate through her legs. Finally, she was wearing thin black socks paired with cream-colored Vans.

Indeed, she did have a couple of defenses set in motion against the unbearable summer day—whether it be actively making herself cooler or simply taking her mind off of the heat. Unfortunately, it was currently a Tuesday, which meant that Clara’s greatest distraction of all most likely wouldn’t show its face. Or rather, her face. In the past few weeks—or was it already a month by now?—Clara had taken notice of a customer that appeared to be under quite a rigid schedule. She only visited the convenience store on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays; Clara had never seen her enter on a Tuesday. And that really sucked right about now.

Why was this customer considered such a distraction, exactly? Well, because she was really pretty. And Clara stared at her whenever she browsed her store. Is there a problem?

Oh well. She was already an hour into her shift. And with it currently being about 3:00 P.M., the day would be over before she knew it. And hey, this magazine article wasn’t too bad once you got into it. She wasn’t at all caught up with the recent happenings in Hollywood, so this was somewhat appreciated. I mean, she had no idea that they were making a sequel to—

Clara’s head shot up from her relaxed position over her convenience store’s counter. She just heard a loud sound from the back of the room—the sound of merchandise being knocked to the floor. That article about the upcoming sequel would have to wait.

Clara left her counter and approached the area where she heard the loud bang emanate from. Surely enough, there on the ground lay four cans of assorted vegetables, seemingly knocked down from their shelf. Luckily, none of the contents had been spilled from the cans, which meant that this ordeal shouldn’t have been too big a deal for Clara. However, what was throwing her off was that the supposed culprit was nowhere to be seen. She wasn’t going to believe that these cans fell down on their own—did the person who knocked them over slip out of her store without her noticing?

How rude! And on such an already unpleasant day!

With furrowed brows, Clara bent down to the ground in order to retrieve the cans. It wasn’t the extra bit of work that annoyed her; it was the sheer disrespect of someone running away after committing such a mild transgression. There was also the possibility that this was just some lame prank. Anyways, she would simply pick herself up from her crouching position in a couple of seconds, and move on like nothing ever happened. She had an article to get back to.

Unbeknownst to her, Clara’s current actions spelled doom for an unwitting customer who had wandered into her store.

…

Riley Miller was hungry. Probably more hungry than she had ever been in her life.

Of course, there was a small chance that this was actually true. But in the moment, it certainly seemed like the truth to Riley.

This is why she made the split-second decision to turn into a random convenience while on her way back to her apartment. She was a college student taking summer classes, and Tuesdays were by far her busiest days. She was forced to wake up at 7:00 A.M. in order to make it to her 8:00 class in time, and had concurrent classes throughout her day until 2:50. This meant that she had to suffer over seven hours of rushing to and from classes, and then having to actually pay attention during those classes.

However, she had experienced these harsh Tuesdays before. What set today apart from the rest was how hot it was, and the fact that she had actually forgotten to eat breakfast before she left her apartment today. This is why she was currently starving!

The young woman known as Riley Miller had certainly seen better days, but she still made the effort to maintain her appearances. The 21-year-old college student was Caucasian, equipped with blonde hair and rather pale skin. This hair of hers was tied up into a high ponytail, with her forehead largely exposed. Blue eyes lined her face, which was rather round. Of course, this was befitting of her height, as the college third-year stood at a mere 5’4”.

The young woman was currently decked out in typical university student garb. She was wearing a thin t-shirt that featured the logo of her famous college, and black leggings that fell down to her ankles. Red sneakers lined her feet, and to top it all off, she was wearing a backpack that contained the materials she needed to get through her classes.

As she stepped into the convenience store at about 3:00 P.M., she noticed that the woman manning the register didn’t even notice that she had entered. That must’ve been a really good magazine she was reading. But it wasn’t a big deal. Riley was just here to grab some sort of filling pastry and be on her way. She’d get the woman’s attention at the register once she finished shopping.

Immediately spotting the pastry aisle, Riley approached the back of the store. There, she found all of the cheap, unhealthy, cavity-inducing sweets that she could’ve asked for. However, right before she could reach for the one she wanted…

A hand came down over her mouth. Or at least, what felt like a hand.

“Don’t move.”

After these words were uttered from behind her, what felt like the barrel of a gun was pressed against the back of her head. Wait, really? She had decided to step into a store like this for the first time in years, and as soon as she did, she was immediately held at gunpoint. Either to get robbed, or even worse…

How unlucky could she be?

But what worried Riley the most wasn’t her imminent demise, and she hadn’t even noticed that the voice behind her sounded rather feminine. She was preoccupied by the fact that she couldn’t see the hand that was covering her mouth. She wasn’t crazy; she knew that it was there. But now matter how far down she looked, she couldn’t see it, or any arm that it was attached to. There was no way that it was just invisible… right?

Unfortunately for her, Riley wasn’t afforded any more time to ponder this mystery. She suddenly heard the sound of a trigger being pulled, and the barrel right behind her head started to heat up. Was it… charging? After about ten seconds of nothing happening, Riley debated fighting back against her invisible aggressor. However, she narrowly missed her chance. After the eleventh second, the young woman felt an exceptionally cold chill rush through her body.

Riley Miller was the very first of many to fall victim to this uncomfortable sensation.

…

When Riley was awoken by the loud sound of cans hitting the hard floor, she was absolutely sure that she had just lost consciousness. However, it felt as if she were out for just a couple of minutes. She was still in the small convenience store she had just wandered into, that much was clear. And from one look out of the store’s windows, she could tell that it was still afternoon. People in work attire were rushing to and from in every single direction under the harsh sunlight, meaning it was still rush hour. So, how did she manage to pass out for such a short period of time?

However, as she regained her bearings… she realized that something was deeply wrong. First off, as she looked underneath her, it appeared as if she was levitating on thin air. She was curled up in a fetal position, as she looked to her sides, she saw that she was somehow level with the pastries on the fourth level of the closest shelf. This was despite the fact that she clearly felt a surface underneath her, a surface that felt rather soft… wait, was this the invisible hand from before?

This brought her to the second truly disturbing occurrence. Everything around her appeared to be scaled up. As she looked beside her to the packaged snacks… she saw that they were all several times her size. The few letters that she could make out on the packaging seemed to be as large as houses. Wait… had the store around her been suddenly enlarged?

It was when Riley looked ahead of her that she learned that this wasn’t the case.

When Riley angled her head down and in front of her, she was confronted with a woman who was taking up nearly her entire field of view. This woman was completely proportional in size to the store around her… so was it Riley that had shrunken, rather than her surroundings growing in size?

Riley had flown on a plane before, and thus has gazed upon a variety of buildings and landmarks from a bird’s eye view as her plane flew close to the ground. And yet, the woman in front of her was far larger than any structure she had ever seen. To Riley, the woman would have appeared to be about 4,525 feet tall. However, the woman was currently bent down to the ground, which means that she currently stood less than half of that height. Due to a combination of her size and her current position, Riley could not catch a glimpse of the giantess’s head. However, she could see objects underneath her. Were those cans? It looked like she was picking them up, too.

It was then that Riley realized who this woman was. This was the convenience store’s clerk, wasn’t it? While Riley blacked out, someone must have knocked these canned goods over, and it was now up to her to stock them back onto their respective shelves.

If this clerk didn’t notice her when she first walked in, then she certainly wouldn’t notice her now.

This is when Riley’s situation hit her all at once. Now that she had a true grasp of her surroundings and a normal-sized person was in her view, a terrible feeling fell down to the pit of her stomach. Was she really just… tiny? Just like that? She didn’t believe such a thing was possible.

And yet, it apparently was. Currently, Riley stood at a mere 0.22 centimeters.

It was Riley’s turn to double over. As she planted her hands and knees on the soft, invisible surface she found herself on, sweat formed on her forehead and her lip began to quiver. Her first course of action should be to call out to the clerk in front of her, right? She’d know a way to get her out of this, right? And yet, Riley couldn’t make out the words. Her body wanted to act, but her brain was telling her that it was useless. Riley couldn’t even fit this woman’s entire body into her field of view, and she was to believe that she would actually be able to hear her?

But, what else could she do?

“H-Hel—” Riley’s throat ran dry before she could finish one, simple word. She tried to repeat herself over the span of the next few seconds, but to no avail. But it’s not like the clerk would be able to tell whether or not she made out her words, anyways.

However, Riley wasn’t left to sit with her hopeless feeling for much longer. The world had other plans for her.

Suddenly, the invisible surface that the shrunken woman found herself on began to lower itself, lowering her down along with it. More and more of the clerk’s body left her field of view. First, her back disappeared, then her rear. Now, all that Riley could see were the giantess’s legs, many times wider in circumference than any skyscraper she had seen.

But as the invisible surface started to incline downwards, another sight came into view—the clerk’s shoes. Her heels were raised due to the manner in which she was doubled over the floor. As such… her socked heels slightly emerged from her cream-colored Vans. It seems like her shoes weren’t on too tightly.

There were a mere two centimeters of open space between the back of Clara’s heels and the back of her shoes. But unfortunately for Riley, she was less than half of that size.

Riley’s invisible surface continued to incline downwards, suddenly arriving to a point in which she was starting to slide off of it. Sure, this hand—or at least, Riley still assumed it was a hand—was more than soft and clammy enough for her to stick to it at certain angles. However, the hand was now tilted at more than a 320° angle, making it hard for her to maintain a grip even at her relative size. But, was this intentional? Was this hand purposefully trying to slide her off?

Riley received her answer to this question once the giant hand started moving closer towards Clara’s body.

Before she knew it, she was advancing rapidly towards the convenience store clerk’s legs… no, was the hand aiming even lower? Was she moving towards the giantess’s shoes?

Once she was a mere inch above Clara’s shoes, Riley felt the surface underneath her jolt upwards. To a regular-sized person, the motion would have felt absolutely inconsequential. However, to Riley, it was enough to propel her into the open air.

The time that Riley spent hurtling through the air seemed like an absolute eternity—even though her airtime truly lasted for just a second. But as Riley looked underneath her, all that she saw was a cold, unforgiving tile floor. She was going to land right on top of it, wasn’t she? Just a few minutes ago, she was simply walking back from her college campus. She had an excellent GPA, and was quite looking forward to her classes for the rest of the week. Her only issue was that she didn’t eat breakfast today. But now, because of that simple mistake, she was plummeting towards her death on the floor of a convenience store.

But it was easy to miscalculate your trajectory when you’re the one getting launched. In actuality, there was no chance that she connected with the floor underneath her, meeting her doom.

This was because Aleena tossed the shrunken woman into the back of Clara’s left shoe with pinpoint precision.

…

Aleena stood up and brushed her hands off on her pants after she disposed of the tiny woman. She was out of her hands now—literally. Aleena had come here to test two inventions she recently finished crafting. The first of these was an invisibility suit, a remarkably thin garment that warped around her clothes, hair, and skin. But truthfully, she didn’t care for the suit all that much. It was merely a necessity that she drafted so that she could test her other device in peace.

Indeed, her favored invention was a shrink ray. She had just finished programming it last night, and could hardly wait until today to take it on a test run. She needed to make sure it was working right away.

Why would she possibly create a shrink ray? Well, everyone has someone they want to protect, right?

Aleena already had a specific target in mind that she wanted to dispose of using her invention—someone that could potentially do a loved one harm. But if she attempted to use it on him and it turned out to be a dud… there could be trouble. This is why she decided to test it out first on a random citizen who had nothing to do with her—not to mention the invisibility suit for added safety.

She supposed that disposing of someone who had nothing to do with her could make her come off as cruel. But she didn’t care. She had an older sister’s duty to fulfill.

…

Riley was a centimeter from Clara’s heel when she realized that she was headed directly towards the gap in the back of her left shoe. Suddenly, time began to speed up from the sluggish pace that it was moving at. Her brain was seemingly acknowledging that she had a chance to survive, but what would happen once her heel came crashing back down? No, surely it wouldn’t come to that.

Darkness filled Riley’s vision as finally entered the shoe. The woman held her hands out in front of her in order to brace her fall, but this was unnecessary. Her landing was more than cushioned by the insole of Clara’s Van. There were two reasons for this:

The first reason was the sheer disparity in size between Riley and the sure. Vans were by no means considered to be peak comfort by anyone, with their rubber insoles maintaining just a baseline level of softness. However, at 0.22 centimeters, these insoles felt like a remarkably soft bed.

However, this brings us to the second reason as to why Riley’s fall was so painless. Despite all that happened in the past couple of minutes, nothing changed the fact that today was still sweltering hot. The looming sun didn’t seem to care for Riley’s ordeal, and continued to blaze down upon the city with 90° heat. This is why there was currently a thick sheen of sweat coating Clara’s insole, further cushioning Riley’s fall.

Of course, this layer of sweat was just a tenth of a centimeter in depth, with a vast majority of the sweat generated by Clara seeping further into her shoe. However, this 0.1 centimeter layer was nearly half as tall as Riley’s shrunken body, and just as long as each of her arms.

As such, when Riley fell flat into the shoe, her entire body was submerged into the pool of sweat.

The shrunken woman instantly felt her gag reflex activate and puke build up in her mouth as she realized what exactly the liquid coating her body was. She immediately attempted to push her upper body out of the sweat, but it was difficult to move through such a viscous liquid. Puffing her cheeks to hold her breath, Riley strained the muscles in her forearms as she planted her palms onto Clara’s insole and began to push. It took her about ten seconds, and many close calls in which Riley’s arms almost collapsed underneath her. But eventually, Riley managed to push her upper body out of the sweat.

Exhausted, Riley fell back onto her rear. As she sat down upright within Clara’s shoe, the ocean of sweat now only rose up to her chest. This still certainly wasn’t ideal, but it was much better than her head being submerged in the liquid as well. Relieved, Riley opened her mouth to inhale her first breath of air in over ten seconds.

However, the air around the shrunken woman was less than pleasant. Much less than pleasant.

Riley’s eyes instantly started to water as the putrid air hit her seemingly all at once. If Riley had to describe the climate inside of Clara’s shoe, she would liken it to the muggy weather outside of the shoe, but multiplied by a hundred. The shrunken woman could almost certainly start to feel her bodily functions slow down as her surroundings were well past the wet-bulb temperature. Just how hot was it…? 110°? 120°? After a certain temperature, it all started to feel the same. All that Riley knew was that the clerk’s shoe was acting as an oven, and if she didn’t get out soon, there would be trouble. Every single orifice in her body started to generate sweat, causing her hair, clothes, and shoes to cling tightly to her body. However, her own sweat was completely indistinguishable from the sheen of Clara’s sweat that already coated her. While trapped in the clerk’s shoe, Riley was denied the simple pleasure of knowing which bodily fluids actually belonged to her—just in line with her extraordinarily unlucky day.

However, aside from the extreme temperatures, there was another aspect of Riley’s current surroundings that was a great source of distress for the shrunken woman. And that was the smell. Riley didn’t know she had the strength to curl up her nose and pinch her nostrils together with her fingers, but she managed to perform these actions anyways. This is because of the sheer putridity of the air around her. Riley was certainly on the more academic, studious side of the fence during her school career—resulting in her being accepted into a pretty great college. But even someone as studious as her was familiar with the interior of a girl’s locker room, well accustomed to the combined smells of sweat and product. And similarly to the heat, the smell within Clara’s shoe was multiplied by one hundred times the average, so much that it became revolting.

Riley’s eyes began to water as the smell penetrated through her nostrils, despite her best efforts to shut them closed while still breathing. She pinched her fingers down even harder, but there was no hope. No matter how hard she tried to take her mind off of it, all that she could perceive was the smell of sweat. It smelled grimy, polluted… dirty. As if the giant woman had stepped right out of a factory. It was diametrically opposed to the smell of “cleaner” sweat, characteristic of someone who just finished taking a lengthy walk out in the sun. If Riley had to choose the closest item to describe the smell, she would settle on wet rubber. But there was no true equal to the smell that she was currently experiencing.

Riley could think of just one way to escape the smell, and one way alone. She would have to open her mouth; a simple yet effective method. Sure, she didn’t like the idea of the murky air directly entering her mouth, but at least she wouldn’t be able to taste it. Besides, it was just temporary. She would simply leave her mouth open, until she made her way out of the cavernous shoe.

However, she forgot that her head was once submerged within Clara’s pool of sweat. Her face was still coated by a thick layer of the clerk’s bodily fluid, a fact that has taken the backseat in her mind given the more pressing smell around her.

However, the moment she spread her lips, Clara’s sweat had safe passage into her mouth. She was now affronted with a far more nauseating sensation than the smell of sweat.

It was the taste of sweat.

That factory-like, smoky smell was effortlessly translated to the sense of taste as the first drop of sweat made contact with Riley’s tongue. If Riley somehow had the pleasure of choosing, then she would undoubtedly choose to smell the sweat rather than taste it. The shrunken woman immediately began to hack and cough, her gag reflexes now in full force. However, this only allowed more of the fluid to pass into her mouth.

As an increasing amount of sweat trickled down from her top lip, Riley began to feel her mouth run completely dry. It was sweat, after all. If she were in any state to think about it, Riley would have tasted salt underneath the taste of smoke. It was this salty attribute that siphoned all of the moisture out of her mouth. The inside of her mouth and the outside were polar opposites—her hair, skin, and clothes were still completely soaked.

Riley struggled to close her mouth shut on multiple occasions, but her acting gag reflex made it near impossible. For seconds on end, her body tries to evict the revolting substance out of mouth—another impossible task, given how much sweat had already entered. Additionally, these actions only allowed more sweat inside. However, after about thirty seconds, Riley managed to reign in her gag reflex, and shut her mouth. But the damage was already done. Copious amount of sweat rested on the bottom of her mouth, contrasting with the dry sensation on her roof and sides.

With her mouth closed, the smoky smell of Clara’s foot flooded into Riley’s nostrils once more. This is the point at which Riley began to full-on cry. The tears that had already formed in the corners of her eyes began to stream down her face, becoming indistinguishable as they mixed in with the sweat coating her.

Riley concluded: she was in hell. There was nothing she could do, no steps she could take, to alleviate the situation she found herself in. Not the smell of the clerk’s foot, its putrid taste, or even the pool of sweat that rose up to her chest. No, she just had to sit there and endure them all…

But just in the moment. Sure, she wouldn’t be granted immediate relief, but she would get out of here eventually.

Silently sobbing, Riley turned her head to her left and looked far, far above her. Above her, she could see a bright sliver of light, which is where the top of the clerk’s shoe must be. If Riley reached it, she would be able to free herself from the prison she found herself in. And while outside of it, she’d be able to finally receive the clerk’s attention! She’d have to notice the tiny woman that suddenly plopped out of her shoe, wouldn’t she?

However, the issue was that the back of the shoe was 215’8” when compared to the shrunken woman. This was far taller than many of the high rise buildings that Riley found herself surrounded by in the big city. Now, Riley knew that she was in no way capable of scaling such an apartment or office building, utterly lacking the necessary stamina and body strength. There was also the fact that the complete darkness within the clerk’s shoe made it near impossible to see the massive wall of the shoe—with it only becoming visible at the top, as it approached the sliver of light. However, she did have just one saving grace here; one hope at scaling the inside of the massive foot. And that was the sweat she found herself coated in.

The way it stuck to her skin, and the way her hair and clothes to herself as a result; surely she could use it as an adhesive to scale the shoe. Besides, there was the fact that the surface was already coated in sweat as well. There was certainly hope, and she wouldn’t know for sure until she tried.

Still recovering from the shock of the past few seconds, Riley slowly placed her hands on the bottom of Clara’s insole—through the layer of sweat—and began to push her body upwards. After struggling for a few moments with her weak, shaky arms, the miniscule woman did manage to stand upright, with the sweat only reaching up to her knees. Much better.

However, the moment that Riley stood up marked merely a minute from when she was first thrown into Clara’s shoes. The world was going on as normal outside of Clara’s shoes… which meant that the convenience store clerk was going about her day, picking up the cans from her establishment’s floor.

And 60 seconds was more than enough time for Clara to complete her menial task.

Once the young woman finished stacking the canned goods onto the nearby shelf, she shifted her body as she began to stand up straight. This meant that her heels, which were raised as a result of her crouching position, started to descend. This was a completely negligible, forgettable motion to Clara… but it completely unraveled Riley’s entire world.

It only took a second for Clara’s heel to connect with the insole of her shoe. But to Riley, it felt like an eternity. After all, it is said that time slows down right before you die.

Riley's eyes went wide as she first noticed all traces of light leave the shoe. Suddenly, she couldn’t see anything—not the sole in front of her, not the insole underneath her, not her own body, nothing. The cavernous vibe of the shoe was now only intensified—a vibe that she certainly didn’t appreciate in the first place.

However, while she now couldn’t see anything, she could certainly feel something above her. It was some sort of… presence. And for some reason, it filled her with a deep sense of dread. It made the air around her feel heavy; or was that the presence itself?

In addition to the unsettling presence, Riley could also hear a sound overhead. It was heavy and rough—the sound that a construction worker would be met with as their excavator rips through solid earth. That’s right; it sounded like scraping more than anything. But what was scraping against what?

Of course, Riley was a bright young woman, and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to decipher what was happening. Riley froze as she realized that the clerk’s heel was descending upon her.

Well, her plans for climbing out were clearly thrown out of the window, given that the massive heel was evidently blocking the path to outside. If not a single ounce of light could seep through, what would make her think that her body could get through?

At this revelation, Riley’s hysteria kicked into full gear. The massive presence above her seemed to be coming down at an infinitesimally slow pace, so she should be able to think of a back-up plan, right? But nothing sensible came to mind. What was she supposed to do? Somehow push the massive heel above her out of her way? At her size, she had no hope at influencing the environment around her.

Now, Riley Miller was an exceptionally smart young woman. While she was attending college in the big city, which was already an expressive feat, she stood out even amongst her fellow peers. She graduated from her high school with an impressive all-A record, hailing as the valedictorian of her graduating class. Now, throughout her three semesters of college, she maintained a 4.0 GPA, never receiving so much as an A- in her multitude of courses. And these courses were by no means easy. Riley was a business major; quite a taxing major to navigate, especially so for a young woman. But Riley preserved nonetheless, due to her sharp wits, resourceful nature, and quick thinking.

Riley had an extraordinarily bright future ahead of her as a direct result of these factors. She had formed connections with professors at her college, more than willing to write letters of recommendation for her. She met with career coaches that pointed her in the direction of professional employers and businesses. Surprisingly, she didn’t know what exactly she wanted to do once she got out of college, and as such hasn’t committed to anything. But oh well, she had another year to decide. After receiving such a great head start, there was no way she could fail.

Or at least, she thought she had another year to decide. Looks like that was all thrown out of the window, huh?

Suddenly, that past lack of commitment caused a sinking feeling in Riley’s stomach. She had worked hard all of those years… but what for? What did she have to show for it, right now? Just a 4.0 GPA, some fancy number logged in a computer database somewhere?

She worked so hard for 21 years of her life, but what was she leaving behind?

Riley’s intense regret dislodged any hopes of escape from her brain, but it’s not like those thoughts would do her any good. All she could do right now was wait.

After being left alone for what seemed like hours with her scornful thoughts, Riley felt a solid object connect with the top of her head. So that was it, huh?

While Clara’s heel lowering felt like an eternity, the act of it crushing Riley’s body seemed to be over in an instant. Which, to be fair, it was.

Riley was angling her head upwards as she stared at her makeshift ceiling in despair. As such, once Clara’s heel pressed down upon her, her head snapped back underneath the unyielding weight, and her neck immediately snapped. This is when Riley Miller officially died, not having the pleasure of knowing what exactly killed her. However, it was remarkably painless for her, due to how quickly it happened.

With Riley already dead, there was no one else to witness her body become mangled beyond repair, which was probably for the best. After her neck, Riley’s torso and limbs bent in ways that they should never be bent. Before her body was completely flattened against Clara’s insole, the shrunken woman looked more like a foldable table than a person.

The bright college student just asked herself what she would be leaving behind after she died. Well, there was now an answer to that question.

What she left behind was a red stain on Clara’s foot and insole, though it was completely unnoticeable.

It would be washed away with her sweat within a matter of minutes.

…

Clara dusted her hands off as she admired her work. There, in front of her, was a fully stocked shelf of canned goods. The four cans that had been knocked to the ground were back where they belonged. However… the young woman’s sense of accomplishment was short-lived. Yeah, what was she doing? It only took her like, a minute to place the cans back. She should be much more concerned with finding who actually knocked them down!

Brows furrowed, the hasty store clerk stormed off to find the culprit. However, she would never find her. The invisible Aleena moved out of Clara’s warpath, her footsteps completely silent as she did. As opposed to Clara, Aleena was rather pleased with herself. She tested an invention of hers that she desperately needed to use in the future, and it was a total success. It’s always nice to see your plans come to fruition.

And what’s more, her little test went completely unnoticed. As Aleena analyzed this random store clerk’s appearance and demeanor, she could tell that she didn’t notice that a tiny person had been thrown down her shoes. And how would she be able too? Aleena intended to shrink her targets down to a size at which they were unnoticeable, and it looks like she succeeded.

Disposed of without a trace. How clean.

…

It was now Wednesday. A full day after that dreadful afternoon with a high of 92° and a low of 88°. Somehow, Clara managed to make it through the day.

And she was damn glad about it, too.

To start off, the much more agreeable temperature today allowed for a change in wardrobe. As opposed to her tight, sleeveless shirt from yesterday, she now wore a rather large graphic t-shirt. The design on the shirt appeared to be the logo of some band. She wore baggy, grey shorts that fell down to her knees, and to top it off, she wore a pair of Vans. However, these were different from the ones she wore yesterday. These shoes were red, and she wasn’t wearing a pair of socks with them today. It was still rather warm inside of her store, but not hot enough to warrant wearing clothes similar to those from yesterday.

But aside from the temperature, it was indeed Wednesday, which meant that Clara’s favorite customer decided to pay her a visit. Or rather, she just decided to pay her store a visit… but it was the same thing, right?

The special customer entered her store at about 4:05, and her visage lingered in Clara’s mind for the rest of the day.

If she didn’t already say it before, Clara thought that Michelle was really pretty. Her rather unique facial structure, her exceptionally soft eyes, her plush lips. Asian girls weren’t too common around here, either, which was also a point in her favor. Clara didn’t care if she seemed shallow at all—this woman was attractive, simple as.

Indeed, Clara wouldn’t say that her interest in this woman could be considered a “crush.” She couldn’t see herself going out on a date with her—she only ever spoke to her when she was checking out her items. That was all she felt towards this woman; just an interest.

She definitely didn’t have any feelings for her. At all.

However, unbeknownst to Clara, there would soon be someone in her store who held Michelle to much higher esteem.

…

About two hours after Michelle left, Clara was idly doodling from behind her counter. However, at 6:58 PM, the loud sound of music filled the air of Clara’s store. Death metal, to be exact. However, this certainly wasn’t any music that was playing through the overhead speakers. Clara winced and covered her ears as she looked towards the entrance of her store, and saw a young man holding a phone up to his ear. He was bobbing his head and tossing his free arm left and right… this guy was definitely the source.

Brows furrowed, Clara looked outside her windows just to see a small group of young gathered around her store. She picked up one of the teens shouting, “Hurry it up, Peter!” to the inside of the store. So that was this delinquent’s name.

Currently at 21 years of age, Peter Lewis was a young Caucasian man with skin that was slightly tanned. However, this skin of his was coated with freckles along his nose and cheeks. His curly, unkempt hair was of a bright blonde. This hair fell down to right above his ears, and obscured bits and pieces of his eyebrows in the front. His face was sharp, with cheekbones that could give someone a nasty cut should they run their hand across them. His eyes more than matched his facial structure in intensity, as they shone with a brilliant, bright brown. Additionally, each of his ears were pierced with two small rings, and he bore two small studs above his right eyebrow.

As he stood away from the admiring crowd, Peter wore a black, leather jacket that had its sleeves ripped off—whether Peter purchased the article of clothing like that or if he ripped them off himself remains a mystery even to his closest friends. His jacket donned spikes along its shoulders, as well as studs alongside its lapels. Underneath this jacket, the boy wore a black, long-sleeved shirt. This shirt sported a pink floral pattern that brought color to his otherwise pitch-black selection of tops. Meanwhile, he was wearing dark skinny jeans that were equipped with a plaid pattern. These jeans slashed at his thighs and knees. Finally, his jeans gave way to black combat boots that rose up to his knees.

Notably, his current choice of wardrobe did little to hide his physique. From just one glance at Peter, almost anyone would be able to tell that he’s exceptionally skinny, despite the fact that he stood 6’0”. He had very little bulk to speak of. 

This meant that Clara was more than capable of running him out by herself.

“Hey!” After manning a store for more than half of her life, Clara was more than capable of raising her voice. Her blunt shout effortlessly cut through Peter’s unintelligible music, causing him to quickly turn his gaze over to her.

“I’ll give you five seconds to either turn that off or get out. Or else…” Without hesitation, Clara’s arms reached underneath her counter until they came in contact with her object of interest. She pulled the object out… and promptly slammed the broom onto her counter.

Immediately, Peter’s friends retreated before they earned the ire of the store clerk as well. Anyone who was hasty enough to threaten her customer with a broom less than ten seconds after they entered wasn’t to be messed with. Clara didn’t spare a moment to think about whether this delinquent was carrying something far more dangerous than a broom, which made her seem more dangerous in comparison.

Unfortunately for him, Peter was far slower to the punch than his friends. He didn’t turn his music down, hoping to come to an agreement with Clara. Big mistake.

“H-Hey!” The young man spoke over his own music. “I’m just here to get—”

“Five.” Clara’s grip tightened around her broom.

“But I really like this song—”

“Four.”

“You’re… not actually serious, are you…?”

“Three.”

Peter stopped talking. In a flash, he retreated to the back of the store, where he found the drinks he came here for.

“Two.”

Peter managed to shove only two of the drinks into his arms as he fumbled with his wallet. He wadded up a five dollar bill in his hands right before—

“One.”

The young man bolted to the door as Clara adamantly stepped from behind her counter, broom in hand. She was really coming at him, wasn’t she? She managed to lunge at the young man only once before he fled through the store’s doors, setting off the alarm system. Wait… he was stealing!

She ran outside her store, and looked to her left and right. But… she didn’t see Peter at all. His friends managing to leave her line of sight made sense. But Peter was just in front of her. There’s no way that he could have disappeared that quickly!

She took a step forward, determined to find the delinquent, but she stopped in her tracks as she stepped on something. See looked down to see a crumbled five dollar bill at her feet.

Together, those drinks cost about four dollars. So he had paid after all, and then some.

Picking up the bill, Clara sheepishly walked back into her store and turned off the alarm from behind her counter. She placed her broom back underneath her counter, and took a deep sigh. Well, that just happened. To calm herself down, Clara returned back to her doodle, and idly kicked off her right shoe. She placed her now-bare right foot upon her other shoe, letting her toes air out. There were just two minutes before her shift ended—she could afford to take the edge off while she waited. After all, she wasn’t alone in her store.

…

Aleena watched the whole incident go down. She had been tailing the delinquent group for the past twenty minutes, viewing either one of the young men as a perfect guinea pig for her shrink ray. Indeed, she was testing out her invention for a second day—what inventor wouldn’t?

Donning her invisibility suit, Aleena stood silently as Peter was pushed into buying sodas for the rest of the group. Was he a leader they looked up to, or a weak link? Either way, she was the target she eventually landed on, for the mere fact that he was separated from the group. That meant he was an easier shot.

As soon as Peter exited the store, Aleena shot him with her ray, shrinking him down to a size that would have been inconceivable to anyone other than her. Luckily, for Aleena, she has enhanced her eyesight, which allowed her to see the tiny man now flying flat on the pavement. He was unconscious, good. This meant that he wouldn’t squirm around while she delicately picked him up—which would have undoubtedly led to his own death as she struggled to keep her grip around him. And that would mean she’d have to find another test subject.

Nonetheless, as Clara walked back into her store, Aleena followed right behind her with her tiny captive in tow. She was looking for a trash bin to dispose of the tiny in. Sure, she knew that she could have just stepped on him where she stood, leaving a completely unnoticeable stain on the bottom of her shoes. However, just knowing that the stain was there is what would have bugged Aleena if she took this course of action. She preferred to keep herself completely clean.

In her pursuit for a trash bin, Aleena silently walked behind Clara’s counter. There, she found that the clerk had taken her shoe off… that was rather lucky. Concluding her search, the invisible Aleena squatted down, and tossed the delinquent into the empty shoe. And that was that.

Standing up, Aleena prepared to leave the store, until something caught her eye. Something alarming.

This clerk… she was currently doodling something while she stood at her counter. It looked to be a portrait of someone, a woman. With long hair and a distinct head shape. As Aleena squinted at the doodle from behind Clara…

Was that Michelle?!

Of course, Aleena wasn’t completely sure. The picture wasn’t hyperrealistic—Aleena doubted that this clerk had a real passion for art, and was simply passing the time. As such, it looked close enough to Michelle, but distinct enough from her as well. But the possibility was there. Aleena’s brows furrowed as she leaned forward to inspect the drawing further… but she quickly stepped back as the clerk suddenly began to move. The young woman slipped her shoe back on and gathered her belongings—including the notebook she was doodling in—and then promptly walked out from behind the counter. She walked all the way to the other side of the store, where she opened a door that led to a staircase. She ascended this staircase, leaving the door open behind her.

As Aleena listened to the woman’s footsteps as they retreated. She knew that it was about 6:00 PM… If she had to guess, this store was run by a family that simply lived on the second floor above it. This clerk was presumably the daughter, and her shift just ended. This meant that she was going upstairs to turn for the night.

Glaring ahead, Aleena followed the woman through the open door. Great. She was sure that her shrink ray worked, but now she had an entirely new problem to worry about.

…

Peter Lewis knew that he wasn’t the best student out there. He flunked out of college during his very first semester of college, effortlessly earning an unsatisfactory 1.0 GPA during his first four years. This is because he much preferred to spend nights out partying rather than studying, and class time texting his friends rather than taking notes.

He knew he wasn’t the best son out there, either. Hell, he knew he was far from it. Despite his flunking out, he never told his parents—they learned themselves after they suspiciously stopped paying for his tuition. After a falling-out in which many vile words were thrown left and right, Peter dropped all contact with his parents as he resolved to live by himself in the city. That was over two years ago. While in the city, he adapted his style and demeanor to fit in with a crowd that he knew his parents wouldn’t approve of.

And to be honest, Peter wasn’t too fond of his friends either. He wished that he had the heart to call his parents and talk to them about what he was feeling…

But instead, he was stuck in the inside of a shoe.

Peter didn’t know what was happening until it was too late. He only gained consciousness right as he was hurtling through the air towards the shoe, seconds away from slamming into the Van’s insole. Although, if he were to regain consciousness earlier, he’s not sure what he would even be able to do.

Peter was currently 0.22 centimeters, scaled down to the same size as Aleena’s previous target. As a result, the shoe was remarkably spacious compared to him. The makeshift cavern was 654’ long and 228’ wide. The top of the shoe—his current ceiling—rose 215’ at her heel, and 104’ at the toe cap.

Due to the manner in which he was thrown in, Peter’s light, aerodynamic skid through Clara’s empty shoe before he stopped. He slid nearly the full 654’ length of the shoe, ending up at her toe cap. He pressed himself against the cap as he regained his bearings.

If Peter was aware of what happened to Aleena’s last target, he would have been extremely grateful for his position. Not ending up at the heel meant that he wouldn’t face immediate death as soon as Clara slid her foot into the shoe, unlike what happened to Riley.

But of course, Peter wasn’t aware of this. And as such, he cursed his current situation, just as Riley did.

Yes, he wasn’t the best person. But did he really deserve this?! Being more streetwise than book smart, Peter quickly put together the pieces that he was shrunken—simple as that. But rather than pondering with the possibility of his predicament, he grappled with the justification behind it. There were more than 9 million in this city, amongst them criminals who have done far worse actions than simply cutting off their parents. Out of all of these people, why was he the one who deserved to be punished like this?

But before Peter could pity himself any further, he heard a roaring noise sound out from hundreds of feet away from him. It was nearly pitch-black within the shoe, but even he could discern that a massive object was coming his way.

In less than a second, Clara’s toes had barreled through the full length of the shoe, already mere comparative inches away from Peter’s face. He closed his eyes and prepared to meet his fate right as the toes crushed him flat against the wall behind him.

…?

Or… so he thought. Peter kept his eyes shut for a good three seconds after the terrible scraping sound ceased. As he finally opened his eyes, he saw that his field of vision was overtaken by pitch-black darkness; any light source was now clearly obscured. However, he could feel an immense pressure right in front of his body.

Peter reached out to make contact with the unknown surface… but his arm couldn’t even extend the entire way. As soon as his hand was about a foot in front of him, it pressed up against a soft, clammy surface.

…Ah, this was a toe, wasn’t it?

Whatever shoe he was thrown into, he was apparently so small that the wearer’s toes didn’t reach him. Of course, no one’s feet went right to the very edge of their shoes—though this person’s feet were pretty close.

The boy took a few seconds to catch his breath, clutching his chest as he leaned slightly forward. However, a few seconds is all that he would get.

Before he could process what was going on, the flat surface that Peter stood on inclined forward. This hurled him towards the clammy toe in ahead of him, covering the front of his body with a thin sheen of sweat and filling his nostrils with the smell of wet rubber. However, after a split second, he was hurled back to the toe cap as the surface below him inclined backwards.

This rhythmic motion… the person whose shoe he found himself was walking, weren’t they?

Well, there wasn’t much he could do about this except go along for the ride, was there? He would just have to hope that once they reached their destination, his captor would take their shoes off, allowing him to escape.

…

127 steps. This is how many steps it took for Clara to reach her desk chair in the room she called her own, up on the second floor of her parent’s property. Although, she certainly wasn’t counting her steps, and the imperceivable person in her shoe lost count about 110 steps ago.

Of course, being pummeled against the hard toe cap didn’t do wonders for Peter’s body. His captor was only walking for about one minute and thirty seconds, and the tiny man’s body was already sore. Every single one of his bones ached, but even more, his brain was pounding from within his skull. Both of these factors rendered him immobile.

Though Peter had no way of knowing, the first thing that Clara did when she sat down at her chair was recline and straighten her legs out in front of her. This put her shoes at a 130° angle facing upwards, sending Peter plummeting back towards her toes.

She maintained this position for about two minutes, idly wriggling her toes all the while.

The rather slow movement of his captor’s toes was largely imperceivable to Peter, especially when compared to the abuse he suffered moments before. After all, the toe that he was unwillingly lying upon was more than 45’ wide, creating a more than large enough platform for Peter. However, as he remained dazed, he slowly slid to one side of the toe…

And after about a minute, he fell right off of the toe pad.

Peter’s eyes shot wide open and he regained his senses as he felt himself hurdle through the air for about thirty seconds, until he finally landed on yet another patch of clammy skin. Unbeknownst to him, he was lying in the valley right between Clara’s big and index toes.

The unpleasant sensations that Peter experienced at the shoe’s toe pad were only intensified now that she lay in the midst of these two digits. Sure, the day wasn’t as hot as yesterday, but a funky smell lingered around Clara’s feet nonetheless. An industrial, smoky smell. Furthermore, sweat now coated the left and right sides of Peter’s body, rather than just his front. Stray drops of the viscous liquid dropped down onto his head from the momentous toes overhead. Indeed, each toe still rose more than twenty times his height as he stood within their valley. Her index toe was about 130’, while her big toe was longer at 145’.

Of course, Peter’s two minutes of peace eventually came to an end.

Suddenly, both walls of flesh tightened around Peter, forcibly restraining him. His world shifted as the toes suddenly turned downwards, giving him worse motion sickness than a rollercoaster ride. As he and the massive toes held their position… the shoe around them withdrew, and Peter could finally see his surroundings once more!

He could tell that there was an overhead light in the room that he was now in. However, a large, flat surface was preventing it from shining directly on him, shrouding him in a deep shadow. Was he underneath a desk or table?

Peter’s intuition was correct. Clara was preparing herself for a comfortable night at her bedroom’s desk. She already had her laptop and her notebook lying in front of her, and she was in comfortable enough clothes to last her the next few hours. All that she needed to do was to take off her shoes to let her feet air out…

Clara let out a contented sigh as she slipped off her left shoe, moments after removing her right one. To Peter, this remarkably loud reverberated throughout the room and drowned out any of his other senses. However, he did notice that this sigh was notably feminine. That made sense—these toes were far too soft to have belonged to a male.

Once both shoes were off, Clara lay her feet down flat on her wooden floor. This is when Peter began to truly suffer under her simple, trivial actions.

Clara’s first move was to tightly scrunch her toes together. Peter felt his bones scrape against each other as his body was compressed to a painful degree. Constricted vertically, an extremely nauseating feeling hit Peter’s stomach and a splitting headache once again touched down upon his cranium. He felt like he had to throw up, but nothing came out.

Clara’s toes were scrunched together for only four seconds, but that was enough to do irreparable damage to Peter’s body. On the fourth second, he heard a crack sound out from his left arm… and then felt excruciating pain shoot throughout his body from the very same arm.

Peter couldn’t turn his head to look at it, but there was no doubt that the limb was broken. That was one down.

Finally, Clara’s toes unfurled away from each other. Peter watched out of the corner of his eye as his captor’s big toe receded from his sight, exiting right. But… that wasn’t all that was happening, was it? Peter was being carried alongside Clara’s shorter index toe as it spread out as well. But why?

…Oh, that was why. Peter was compressed so severely between the two toes that he was indented into Clara’s index toe. Now that the flesh to the right of him had relented, he could tell. His entire left hemisphere was completely engulfed by unyielding flesh. His left arms and legs were completely immovable, even his left eye was forced uncomfortably shut.

Clara kept her toes in this stretched position for about five seconds, forcing Peter to reflect on his current situation. He tried to free himself for a split second… but immediately realized that it was completely hopeless. He lacked not only the strength, but the will to dislodge himself.

At the end of these five seconds, Clara’s right foot turned onto its side, turning Peter’s body over with it. Her right foot followed suit. Peter could only watch helplessly as her left foot came hurtling towards him, a mobile surface far larger than any building he’s laid his eyes upon. He felt intense wind resistance against his right hemisphere, as he was evidently moving forward as well.

Apparently, his giant captor had enough of stretching out her toes. She now moved to clasp her toes together, relaxing them even further.

Peter finally spurted up blood as the index toe of Clara’s right foot slammed down upon him. The long toe burrowed down into the makeshift valley that Peter was stuck in, completely smothering the portion of his body that was left exposed. Both of his eyes were now forced shut, but he heard multiple exceptionally loud cracks reverberate throughout the solid mass around him. These sounds were just a few decibels away from completely blowing out his eardrums, as he was met with a painful ringing sound instead. The cracking noises were clearly emerging from her feet, as she was putting far more stress onto her toes this time around as she scrunched them against each other. This boded far worse for Peter, the soft flesh of Clara’s toe being able to cushion him for only so long…

Right before the end, Peter’s thoughts traveled to his parents. Or rather, they tried to. It had been over two years since he’s seen them—in person, or even through an old photo or contact image. As such, he was struggling to remember what exactly they looked like; their facial imperfections, their amount of grey hairs. And even if he could, he doubted that they still looked the exact same as they did from two years ago.

Peter was more than dismayed by the fact that he couldn’t truly remember his parents as they currently are right before he died. But he was at least glad that they couldn’t see the grotesque form his own face ended up in.

Once the massive toes pressed against each other a bit too hard, Peter’s body was atomized in an instant. The flesh over Peter’s face fell apart at the bone his skull shattered, being ground into fine dust within milliseconds. Peter’s ribs punctured each of his torso’s organs before the set of bones were pulverized as well. Following suit with his left arm, the young man’s limbs were broken as they folded over themselves, before they were each split into two.

Crimson blood and pale entrails stained the pad of Clara’s left index toe and the toe gap of her right foot. However, this would go completely unnoticed by the young woman. The clerk just got off of her shift for the night. He was too busy enjoying her alone time to consider the possibility of killing a tiny man at her feet.

…

When Clara finally made it to her room after work, her usual go-to was to begin surfing YouTube. She didn’t have any content creators she really kept up with, but the random videos she saw on her recommended feed were a good way to pass the time before she left her room to get dinner.

However, Clara didn’t follow that routine tonight. Rather than jumping onto her laptop, she opened her notebook to the same page she was working on downstairs, and resumed sketching her muse.

Wait… what was she doing? Clara was by no means an artist—she’d say that her sketch looked pretty different from the person she was trying to draw. But beyond that… why was she drawing this woman?

She just found Michelle attractive, right? It was just a shallow interest. But if she was simply drawing this woman to get off… then she could have just been using this time to watch porn. That would be much quicker and would require less effort—not to speak of the difference in quality between a video and her own crude sketch.

So, what was the deal? Did she feel something else for this woman…?

No, of course not. She knew that it would never work out between her and another woman—she would never intentionally set herself up for failure.

Clara scoffed and pushed the thought of any romantic interest out of her head. And yet, she returned to her sketch.

Though Clara wasn’t aware, she was actually putting effort into the little doodle. She took great care to make sure that each of the features she drew matched the features she saw just a day ago. The sketch became more and more detailed as the minutes flew by.

However, this worked against the hopeless romantic in the end. As the invisible Aleena stood over her shoulder, she realized that Clara was indeed sketching a bust of her beloved sister.

Aleena’s eyes glossed over, and a dull ringing filled her ears. She held her shrink ray inches away from Clara’s head and pulled the trigger…

But nothing happened. Her prototype had apparently run out of charge for the day.

…This was just a momentary setback. She would make sure that her sister remained safe in the future, no matter what.