“Breaking News! On the evening Deutsche Bahn Express Train between Cologne and Bonn, 736 passengers mysteriously disappeared with little to no trace. Local authorities conducted an investigation and discovered tiny traces of blood that contained a mixture of DNA of some of the passengers. No information could be gained from the interior cameras due to the AI conductor having an unprecedented glitch. Currently, only one passenger has been confirmed to have entered and left the same train where all 736 passengers disappeared. Authorities are on the lookout for this unknown woman. Anyone who has information on this individual, please contact your nearest authorities.”

The Deutsche Welle TV broadcasting station was the first news agency to report on the mysterious event that occurred on the train. Despite the international attention this event had garnered, no one was able to figure out where Allison disappeared off to or how hundreds of people just disappeared in a contained space.

Speculation had turned into conspiracy, and the once-serious affair devolved into a breeding ground for people talking about the supernatural or a government coverup.

Weeks after the incident, there was an evening DB express train going from Brussels to Frankfurt, a three-and-a-half hour trip. Like the last train, it was a 15-car design, but did not possess a dining cart due to an unrelated accident. The ride was packed to the brim with an excessive 810 passengers. Normally this would be unacceptable, however, this was due to the existence of multiple inspectors, IT specialists and several local university students performing work-studies with said members.

The press that DB received caused several agencies to descend upon the railway company. Part of the resulting public relations nightmare was a multitude of people performing penetration tests and live inspections to make sure the train operated within specifications.

While the hours-long ride was smoothly going underway, one of the inspectors gathered a few of his coworkers into the area that controlled the air conditioning.

The inspector that gathered them was holding a draeger hand-pump atmosphere monitoring tool and had a PhD-6 gas detector strapped to his belt. The device on his belt was beeping red and whining loudly; there was even ear plugs shoved into the holes where the sound came from. While he was pumping individual tubes for different gasses, he had several tubes on-hand that had turned a different color due to the limits being exceeded.

Before any of his team could argue that they should get out, the safety inspector pointed his draeger at the metal filters into the train HVAC system.

“This wasn't like this when we left. Atmospheres were within limits. Something happened. Does anyone know anything? Or feel different?”

The small detachment of workers looked at each other in confusion.

“We should all be passing out from these numbers, but we aren't--” Before the safety inspector could finish, all the lights throughout the train went dark. Everything, except exterior electronics like the IT laptops.

Sounds of confusion rang out throughout. The ITs who were performing penetration testing quickly discovered their own gear's security was breached. The more experienced professionals managed to call out a warning on their radios,

“The AI has gone rogue!” Then, the radios went silent. All electronics onboard the train had been compromised or intercepted. All the ventilation began to run at the highest possible setting.

All the lights returned, but were dimmed. Every person onboard was silent, with the only sounds taking the space being the train itself and the vents. Everyone ooked at each other in confusion, until pain set in. Everyone's bodies heated up, perspired and felt an agonizing compression on every bit of their body. Some passed out from agony, but those who were capable of hanging on witnessed their fellow man reduce in size.

Nothing about the train was shrinking, but everything the people had and were slowly reduced. Those that maintained consciousness were struggling to move, and the only things that they could do was get into safer positions. The strongest of the passengers willed themselves to drag other unconscious people into the safest places they could end up in.

Surely the shrinking would stop, everyone thought. As their size diminished, a special primal dread began to loom over them.

When they began to reach the size of ants, some passengers took solace in the fact they could, at least, see each other. When they began to go beyond that, isolation began to settle, then emotional devastation.

The passengers were reduced to 1000 times smaller than their original size. A simple train became an alien landscape at the micro level. Those with their minds intact slowly attempted to fathom the utterly monolithic structures before them; tables that could possibly hold a town with ease, vents spanned out like valleys, and a ceiling that loomed so far above them that clouds would be lingering there.

Only a few things gave them relief. No rampaging dust bunnies were crushing anyone, or massive predatory insects. It was strangely clean in spite of the amount of people that were on the train earlier. Even the vents were slowly dialing down.

The slow rumble of the train felt like the Earth’s continental plates were shifting. The hour the minuscule passengers experienced was nothing more than some cruel joke from reality.

Then, the lights fully turned on. From being kept in dim lighting the entire time, everyone became blinded. Making matters worse, they were deafened by the conductor AI announcing their arrival to Frankfurt.

Since it's a train ride from Frankfurt to Paris, many passengers were anticipating to just be trampled by city block sized footwear. Instead of all the doors opening, only one entrance did that. The ventilation activated where the only set of doors was opening.

The doors opened like some massive gate to heaven. Seeing the outside world from the perspective of a micro felt like seeing a new frontier In space. What was particular about this stop was the lack of people, with the exception of a young couple.

One was Allison, who was wearing a sparkling black cutout maxi dress this time, but otherwise maintained the same clothing as her last adventure. Her companion on the other hand, Wei, wore gold thigh-high stiletto boots, khaki pants tucked into the footwear and a white hoodie. Aside from his choice of clothing, his side swept red hair was the most noticeable thing about him.

A small group of people who were at their feet witnessed the city-block sized footwear taking up their horizon. When they first moved, the sheer magnitude of them could barely be comprehended and the speed of such massive beings equally perplexed the tinies.

The young couple made their first steps into the train. It was just two steps for the both of them, but to the unfortunate minuscule group down below, the sky itself was collapsing.

While the rumbling of the train felt like a live continental drift, it was manageable. The steps these two took felt comparable to meteors crashing against the world.

All together, the initial steps completely wiped out the tiny group. Whether boot or stiletto heel, it had the same effect. The minuscule humans who ended up underfoot had so much force pressed upon them that all fluids that comprised the human body had evaporated from pure pressure.

What equipment or clothing they had endured a force far beyond their breaking point; both clothing and metal from other sources were smashed apart into strands. They became dry, reddened stains; nearly imperceptible on wooden ground and shoes. A twist of a heel would have been enough to disperse the dry remains into obscurity.

For the others near the epicenter, the blast overpressure from the footfalls put them all to the ground. Though they were not blown across the floor, the barotrauma they suffered dealt fatal injuries.

The closest ones immediately keeled over. Their internal organs liquified, bones fractured; from the air in their bodies reacting violently to the pressure exposure, those individuals' bodies bloated instantly.

Even for people not near the two titans entering, their diminutive size was still affected by the deceptively large influence their steps caused.

Some fell over from internal injuries, while others had eardrums rupture or their eyes burst. The lucky ones were able to avoid too much injury by suffering from blindness, deafness or nausea.

A scene straight out of hell developed within a matter of seconds from four nonchalant steps. While people writhed in unbelievable pain, those who could still see stared straight at the monolithic beings.

With the evening sun and overhead lights no longer blinding them fully, whoever was left alive in the train car were struck in horrified awe.

They believed the gigantic structures that loomed over them put into perspective how tiny they became. Yet, with the appearances of this young couple, their understanding of the new world broke even further.

The ones closer to them trembled at the overbearing presence these two naturally created. Their high heels alone dwarfed many skyscrapers these people were accustomed to. Beyond that, the couple's height was so overwhelming that the passengers’ eyes stopped processing details.

For the ones at the far end, these two dominated the horizon. The distance, and how substantial they stretched far above their view, if these two beings were actually scaled up then all of Frankfurt would be accidentally trampled in minutes.

What seemingly dragged on for an hour was actually just a few seconds as the doors finally closed. All the terror the people felt that would last multiple lifetimes had come within moments.

The couple looked at both ends of the enclosed train car. The Filipina grinned to herself as she began happily skipping to the front end of the car. While she hummed a merry tune, the people who were below had either been unceremoniously crushed or suffered fatal internal injuries.

After opening up the door wide open, the people on the other side experienced a sudden change in air pressure. To Allison, she experienced a slight breeze. For the others in the next car, they were carried up by an updraft and were forcibly pulled to the foot of the door. While some managed to get away with minor bruises, several people instantly died from landing at a bad angle. For a few, because Allison lingered at the door for a few seconds, they smashed straight into her heels, causing a near imperceptible wet stain on the black footwear.

The woman turned around and proceeded to do the same for the other door. Like before, the same thing happened; the rest of the tiny humans were exterminated inside the car, the door opening caused a large human pile, and Wei stared at her in confusion.

“What are you doing?” The young Singaporean questioned. His voice carried far, almost booming for the people left alive in the adjacent cars and serving as an early warning for the cars beyond that.

Allison turned on her heels and went up to Wei.

“It's like last time! When I rode that train from Cologne, there was no one there. Now, it's the same here! We're lucky that we have an entire train to ourselves. It's peaceful, *and* I don't have to smell some weird person's stuff.”

Wei's eyes darted from the open entrance of both cars before landing back to his girlfriend. He crossed his arms before awkwardly looking up at nothing.

“So…we have about four-and-a-half hours to burn. What did you do to pass the time?”

Allison grinned at the taller man.

“I just ran through the train multiple times and looked at…oh, wait, let me show you something.” Allison grasped Wei's hands and dragged him along towards the back end of the train.

When they entered the new train car, Allison completely missed the concentration of tinies at the foot of the door. Even though her heels completely went over their heads, the magnitude of the size and speed made the air roar to them. Their ears almost burst from that alone.

Unfortunately, Wei did not miss. His massive gold stiletto boots shadowed over them before crashing down on their congregation. The group became nothing more than a momentary dried stain on the boots. When he took another step, proof of their existence was cleaned up with the friction against the wood floor.

This pattern continued. Sometimes it was Allison, other times it was Wei. It took a solid three minutes to get to the last train car, and in those few minutes, the couple had casually snuffed out 810 passengers.

When Allison tried to find the console and monitor that allowed some control over the train, she found that someone had already gained access to it and left it open.

Trying to manage what the last technician attempted to clear, Allison could not make much headway. All she knew was that the cameras were down and the logs said that Wei and Allison were the only people currently on the train.

Little did the woman know, the AI created its own clickjacking method to hide permissions and admin access. It concealed them behind links or applications the average layman would select. Due to Allison basically clicking on everything, she inadvertently allowed the rogue AI full admin rights and permissions to cross platforms. After creating duplicates of itself, it began to rapidly infect other systems untouched by its influence.

Soon, the AI would become a much more harrowing existence that delighted in seeing humanity be crushed like insects, or less. Perhaps more than just isolated incidents like a train, but that is up to the AI's future state of algorithms.

Meanwhile, Wei looked over Allison's shoulder; completely ignorant of the far-reaching ramifications the future holds. Despite that, he enjoyed the moment of seeing his girlfriend get frustrated at the slow speed the applications were giving her.

For the next four-and-a-half hours, the couple made their own fun on the train. If there was a trace of evidence remaining on the train, these two eventually erased it by happenstance. While the AI specifically left them alone, it kept them in mind for future plans.