With the march of technological advancement ever-present, so have the number of companies attempting to one-up each other in indiscriminately incorporating the newest generations without much oversight. The current generation of technology has utilized a heavy-reliance on artificial intelligence to aid in processing information, and to theoretically be self-sustaining by actively improving through experience and random human variables.

Of all the companies that upgraded their hardware to match the software, the Deutsche Bahn Intercity-Express replaced their human variables to have everything be AI operated. Although the German train line found some success in optimization and a more consistent train schedule, there was still the issue of variables occurring outside the comprehension of the algorithm.

From Cologne to Bonn, a 15-car passenger train was riding through its designated line as intended, and only marginally late. The capacity of each passenger car was meant to hold 54 occupants, with this specific line possessing a dining car as part of its service. Currently, the time frame is late in the evening. Nearly to capacity, the occupants mostly consisted of tourists, university students and a few working Germans that had irregular schedules.

Even though this line was intended to reach its destination within 30 minutes, a few tourists and university students only needed a few minutes to turn this ride into the longest evening of their lives. This small group of young people went on a self-destructive bender across Cologne right before boarding the train. Though they were actually strangers, they were united in having one brain cell left between them all. In their infinite wisdom, this group managed to get access to the room that contained the air handling unit that ran all the HVAC across the train cars.

These drunken vandals began dumping all manners of fluids down the unit. Laughing from uninhibited merriment, everything from piss bottles, beer, and vomit had started affecting the efficiency of the Air Condition system. The AI in charge of the train attempted to resolve this issue by filtering the contaminants and aerosolizing everything it could to prevent airflow from stagnating.

During that attempt, one of the university students dunked several vials of failed experimental fluids down the unit. They were supposed to be inert, so he stole them from his lab to use as a drinking game, but he forgot about them until now. Due to mixing with the other contaminants, the actual nature of this experimental chemical bypassed the safety measures and became an entirely new substance when it got filtered then redistributed across the entire train.

At first, nothing happened. Some people were in the middle of chatting, some took power naps, and others were wandering the cars just to walk. Then, the effects of the aerosolized solution struck all at once. Due to the sheer magnitude of the physical change taking place, no matter how strong they were as an individual, everyone had gone unconscious all the same.

Whether it was their seats, the wooden ground, or even their plates for those eating in the dining car, 736 human lives were slowly reduced to a size less than ants. Fortunately, their attire and some of their personal items had miraculously shrunk with them. The lucky ones were a few passengers who had already perished due to outside forces. Drowning in a soup they shrunk into, their body rolling off the side of their former seat because of the train rumbling or even shrinking straight into the HVAC vents. The ones who got caught directly into the bents had their miniscule body flung like dust particles then were promptly splattered into a table leg or side of the seat. For the unfortunate ones, the vents at the bottom blew their bodies into the center aisle. That is where all the survivors were corralled

By the time many of them began to awaken, the boom of the AI announcing their arrival to Bonn scared them to full consciousness. Every single soul left on the train comprehended their surroundings. Confusion, horror and existential dread. The awe of seeing tables and seats towering greater than skyscrapers, and a train car ceiling that stretched farther up than clouds had spun people into an emotional break. For some, they were worse off due to understanding the micro damages the wood flooring had from constant use; something they had never bothered noticing from normal commuting.

Then, the train doors began to open.

The machinery that controlled the doors could be felt across the entire floor. Something so benign, and it felt like the world was rumbling. The vibrations caused all of the passengers to lose their balance and fall down onto the floor. When the doors fully opened, every passenger anticipated the worst.

By pure happenstance, the stars aligned and it seemed that the Bonn Hbf was empty. Almost every single carriage celebrated with some form of luck coming their way, except the last car.

Stepping onto the train was a single woman. For all intents and purposes, she was an eye-catcher, and attractive in all the right ways. Both men and women would glance at something of this caliber, no matter how shameless. She wore a half-black, half-blue cutout maxi dress that transitioned to purple at the bottom; pantyhose; black stiletto heels; and long white evening gloves. The woman had her black hair tied in a bun with her bangs concealing bright brown right eye. The only thing on her person was a small, blue clutch purse.

To the tiny people at her feet, this individual felt like a Goddess that descended down to earth. In the midst of their mixed feelings of amazement and apprehension, the woman began to move further in. The movement of something so massive destroyed their miniscule brains. It was in equal parts impossibly fast and smooth. The first tens of passengers who broke out of their mental stupor realized too late that this woman’s monolithic heels were descending upon them.

Tens of passengers did not even give a concept of resistance against the heels. Their bodies were unceremoniously crushed into the worn wooden floors. Their clothing and organs had been compressed so thoroughly, that their only proof of existence was either a leftover uniform stain, or they became nourishment for the wooden floor.

For the passengers that saw that happened, they screamed and were disgusted at how easily their lives could be extinguished. To the woman, she was none-the-wiser.

The person who boarded the train was a well-off woman named Allison. She was in the middle of visiting some locations across Bonn, and she decided to take a train to Frankfurt to visit that place as well. By pure chance, no one seemed to be at the station. When she boarded the train, Allison was even more surprised to see how empty the carriage was.

She looked forward and back in the carriage. A smile slowly crept on her face.

“Hello?! Is anything here?!”

The sound of her voice sounded like an explosion going off. The closest people to her held their ears in pain from their eardrums being ruptured.

“Hallo, jemand hier?!”

Yet again, the tiny passengers near her were reduced to a quivering mess of tears from the pain being accidentally imparted to them.

Just as the train doors were closing, the fancy-looking woman smiled fully and jumped up from excitement.

Even though they knew she was still a normal sized human, the tiny humans farthest from her were far too gone to comprehend someone of that size jumping up that high into the air. The closest people who just had their ears drums destroyed were thrown up high off the ground from the ungodly energy Allison put into the ground to jump.

The tiny humans hit the ground first. Many of their bodies had been bruised from the impact at best; at worst, some suffered broken bones or a dislocated joint. When Allison came back down to the ground, the difference in air pressure blew back all the passengers near her.

Those who were survivors of Allison stepping onto the train were reduced to chunks of meat and bone from the sheer air forces alone. People who were further out had their bodies violently picked up and thrown like a tornado had run through them. Their tiny screams could hardly be perceived, and they fruitlessly flailed around in the sky before reaching the ground again.

The lucky ones immediately died on impact and splattered, but less fortunate humans struck imperfections in the ground; tearing apart limbs and shearing their bodies further up where they landed.

Beyond that, the ones who believed they were safe didn’t realize what debris deplacement just occurred. Dust bunnies, miniscule pebbles, or even dandruff. The specifics didn’t matter, but the results did. Tiny particles had been flung further than anyone could imagine. Dirt and tiny rocks were turned into veritable cannonballs; rendering some people into dismembered corpses. Other people were caught or rolled over by boulder-sized dust bunnies. The irregularity of each bundle of debris either crushed them like actual boulders, or they were forced to become part of the bundle; torn apart by hairs like they were razor wire, or suffocated by dust and spider webs.

Just like that, every passenger had died within minutes of the woman arriving.

“Awesome! I have the whole train to myself!” The woman cheered out loud. Her healthy, child-like laughter echoed throughout not just her carriage, but the closest cars attached to hers.

The ones that heard her took a knee and prayed. They knew the time tables; It took about an hour and a half for the train to get from Bonn to Frankfurt.

The rumbling of the train moving to Frankfurt felt like a taste of what was about to befall the rest of the passengers.

Allison’s first action was to visit the dining carriage. When she opened the door wide, the tiny passengers in that location looked on in trepidation. Though the well-off woman looked ecstatic, the way her eyes looked around, she wasn’t there for them. Technically speaking, it made things worse.

When she began to walk through the dining car, it was with a purpose. There was no steady, methodical way of stepping through; Allison rushed through towards the station the dining car curator would stand.

Because of her pace, aside from the people that were stepped on, humans who weren’t anywhere near the path of her heels were picked up by the powerful backdraft her tower-like legs caused. Like her initial appearance, more humans were splattered against the seats or tables, or they were smashed against the floor by gravity.

The dining car soon became a wasteland. Allison got behind the counter to look for a specific control system. After some searching, she found a screen that was meant for a technician to help troubleshoot the AI. Through her past knowledge with this system, Allison accessed the controls, then double-checked to see if anyone else was actually on the train. When Allison saw that it only registered her as the sole inhabitant, she proceeded to open all the doors separating the carriages from each other.

The tiny passengers throughout the rest of the train felt a primal dread when the doors opened. Those who could see in the back of the train witnessed the beautiful woman step out and prepare herself in the aisle.

She stretched her legs, while maintaining a friendly smile on her face.

“Man, I’ve always wanted to do this.”

Due to the open doors, her words reached out farther than her initial outburst. Even then, the energy emanating from her voice maintained such power that it felt like a Goddess proclaiming her intentions to the world.

When she began to assume a runners starting position, the tinies who were within eyesight held their breath. Some hoped and prayed that this gigantic woman would make a mistake and fall because of her heels, but those who knew more realized that there was nothing they could do.

Her form was genuinely immaculate, and textbook. The moment she went into a perfect dead-sprint in spite of wearing heels, and her dress, there was no entertaining survival. The dining and initial carriage were crossed in less than 8 seconds.

The moment Allison ran into the new train carriage, it almost looked like she was flying through the air. Humans who were watching her could only comprehend a massive blur, before their lives suddenly ended. The forces at play no longer turned nearby people to gore; they were burned. Charred. Tens of humans were subject to such a magnitude of power far beyond what a single person could endure, that any and all sources of fluid in their bodies evaporated, then their bodies were reduced to particles.

When Allison’s heel finally made contact with the ground, the pressure was incomprehensibly worse than her first appearance. It was not just the humans below her heel evaporating into the wooden floor. It wasn’t even the nearby people that were instantly reduced to blood and meat. People, as far away from the epicenter as possible, were launched up into the air. The sudden level change was enough to kill some from pure shock, but those who were still maintaining consciousness witnessed either the brown embrace of pantyhose or the tip of her heel barreling towards them.

Humans caught by the goddess’ pantyhouse were butchered by the fibers so thoroughly that whatever gore and blood left behind were instantly washed away by swear and oils. Those caught by her heels were splattered against the powerful genuine leather. The amount of care put into the footwear was obvious, as the humans’ miniscule bodies became an additive for future shoe shining endeavors.

An apocalyptic event passed by the carriage within 4 seconds. In those precious seconds, 50 people became sustenance for inanimate objects; not even fit for food for insects that might come along. Three cars were cleared, with twelve more to go. That was barely a goal to accomplish for someone like Allison.

By the time she reached the end of the train, the woman barely broke a sweat. Her breathing was barely stagnant. She placed her hands on either side of her hips while donning a bright expression.

“That felt good. I wonder if there’s anything good to eat.”

Allison went to go back to the dining car, revisiting the path of death she inadvertently caused. In one minute, she traversed the space of the entire train. In one minute, outside the two initial train cars, 736 people became less than forgettable stains.

When the sole inhabitant of the train went to the dining car, she took a seat and examined her heels to see if she caused any structural damage to the footwear. Seeing the near-microscopic blood stains on the tip of her heel, and even the bottom of her outsole and top piece

“Huh.” Was all that Allison expressed before grabbing a nearby napkin and clearing off the blood.

With a napkin in hand, Allison got up, went behind the counter, and while searching for something to eat, she mindlessly tossed it into the trash can.

For the rest of the train ride, Allison chilled for the next hour and remained completely ignorant of the catastrophe her heels caused.