It was rare that Tiffany ever really struggled when reconsidering her own choices. She’d always been the moral compass of the family even between their feuding parents, often ending up as the negotiator, and the only one acting like an adult when problems would arise. Now Tiffany was adding an additional few roles. For Danny, she was not only the negotiator of his fate, but the judge, jury, and living prison for her youngest brother.
But wait, that kind of thinking was entirely crazy. Danny was alive, somewhere, and soon enough they’d get this whole thing straightened out, and she could put this silly shrinking business behind her. Besides, it didn’t make sense that Danny would survive being swallowed. If he was real, then he was gone. If not, then it meant she really was seeing things.
Unless Danny did manage to survive in her stomach…?
No, impossible, tiny people don’t survive in big giant stomachs of acid. Tiny people don’t exist. So then where were Danny, Jake, and Allison?
“Caught in a bad romance…woah-oh-oh-oh woah…” Lady Gaga’s voice caught her attention; it was the ringer on her cell phone, assigned to her father, the deadbeat who had lost her brothers and sister. At least now she’d get her answers.
Tiffany’s pocket couldn’t be described as anything else but hot. The temperature was already in the 80’s outside, plus the addition of being in a hot car, being surrounded by thick blue-jean fabric, and the warmth of Tiffany’s thigh penetrating through it all made everything worse. As bad as it was though, their own personal comfort was the last thing on Jake and Ally’s mind.
Allison had gone from openly sobbing to silently weeping, her face buried in the fabric of Tiffany’s jean pocket, Jake was idly curled up in a wrinkle of fabric, only partially connected to the reality of his situation. Ally mourned the death of her younger brother, and the deterioration of twin brother’s mind. Escaping this, getting back to normal size, and being a normal family again was looking pretty bleak.
But it was Allison’s turn to be the leader. Jake needed her now, Danny needed her too, even if only in spirit. Tears or none, they had to get away from Tiffany, and find help from someone else, family or not.
“Come on…Jake…” Allison spoke through her tears, fumbling her way through the dark recess of Tiffany’s pocket. “We’ve gotta go…we can’t let Danny die in vain…”
“Danny’s...my fault…I failed everyone…Tiffany…” Barely coherent mumbles were Jake’s only response, and Tiffany used those words to scramble to him, eventually making out his form and taking his hand.
“I know it hurts, but we gotta go…we gotta live through this, for Danny…he would never want us to stay here and wait for Tiffany to hurt us.” Allison pulled Jake’s arm around her neck to help him stand on the springy surface, but he immediately pushed away.
“I KILLED DANNY! I KILLED OUR BROTHER, I KILLED HIM!” Jake was screaming now, and violently kicking at the wall of fabric between him and Tiffany’s thigh flesh.
“No you didn’t! Don’t you ever say that again! Tiffany did this, she took Danny from us, and you have to help me help you get out of here so we can do something about it!” Allison replied, doing her best to stay vigilant, though she was still fighting tears. Jake crumbled into tears again, and Allison got to her knees, curling around her twin brother to console him.
-------
“That man is so frustrating...I don’t know how I could be related to him sometimes.” Tiffany’s father had stuck to his story of dropping the youngest three children off at their mother’s house, for Tiffany to pick up. Half awake and suffering from a terrible hang-over, Vick was the ultimate deadbeat father, at least to Tiffany he was.
One way or the other, he didn’t have her brother’s and sister, and Tiffany finally began to worry. She’d given Joanna, the kids’ mother, a call at her office, but when she didn’t answer, figure the situation was important enough to visit her at work. Maybe she’d heard something? Who knew?
Soon enough, she pulled into the parking lot of the office building where Joanna worked, hopped out of the car, and was heading inside, purse swinging gently at her side. She didn’t know what kind of work Joanna did for a living, but getting to know her former step-mother a little better wasn’t anything she was opposed to.
Meanwhile, Allison had finally gotten Jake to a point of resolve that he could follow her lead, and escape their wicked half-sister’s pocket, and soon enough, her wrath. Once she had gotten out of the car, they’d managed, though not without numerous failures, to climb the pocket. They’d arrived at the pocket’s entrance eventually, however. The gentle sway of Tiffany’s hips as she walked had caused the siblings more of a problem than they’d anticipated, but they could now clearly see that they had arrived at Tiffany’s first destination.
The enormous goddess of a woman was standing still talking to the receptionist, and resting ridiculously close was Tiffany’s purse. Getting out of the pocket was priority number one. Once Tiffany forgot about them, or decided they didn’t exist anymore, they could escape without her searching for them, or causing them anymore undue harm.
With the lip of the purse resting a mere 15 feet below the cuff of the pocket, Allison jumped, sliding down the fabric of Tiffany’s shorts, and tumbling right onto her purse, which was zipped closed, providing a landing strip for the two. Knowing that staying there out in the open was not safe, the two headed for the closest available pocket of the purse to hide. But before they reached their destination, there was a change of plans.
“Oh, okay. I can wait for her then…” Tiffany spoke to the receptionist, who’d informed her that Joanna was in a meeting, and would be out shortly. Checking her cell phone, neatly tucked in her back pocket, Tiffany took a seat in the chair at the receptionist’s desk, and set her purse on the floor, which immediately tumbled over onto its spilling the tiny siblings from where they stood on top of it.
They’d endured much worse falls though, and soon were running full speed away from that purse, and Tiffany. A few minutes of jogging straight ahead in an open field of carpet had them pausing for a rest, near the leg of the receptionist’s desk.
“Where are we going…?” Jake uttered, bending down and resting both hands on their respective knees.
“I don’t know Jake…away from Tiffany? I hear people everywhere; someone has to be close that can get us some help.” Of course, the couple hadn’t any clue that they were standing in their mother’s office.
“Well can we at least get somewhere safer than the middle of the floor?” It hadn’t taken Jake long to begin to reassert his authority as the oldest twin, even if it was only by a few short minutes. Allison, agreeing, but refusing to submit to Jake so easily again, just sighed and headed off in the direction they were facing.
Soon, they were passing the threshold that was the receptionist’s desk. Eventually, Jake spoke up again.
“..A-Ally…”
“...what?” She sneered, maybe a little maliciously.
“...look.” Things had gotten dark enough under the desk, that they couldn’t see what was lurking in the distance, until it was a lot closer than they wanted it to be. Not fifty yards ahead and to the right was a huge dark blue wall, with intricate design. It went several hundred yards left and right, and stretched high into the distance, flattening off somewhere at the top, narrowing into a miles tall pillar.
“It’s …a foot!” Allison spoke with a little more fear than she’d have ever expected to at such a simplistic body part.
“Go, Ally…move!” The receptionist’s left foot, clad in a navy blue flat with grey lettering was docile, at the moment, but the twin’s experiences with Tiffany’s toes and Joanna’s sole was daunting enough that they wouldn’t dare risk more time with another foot.
“Ally…where is it?!” Jake yelled, as the light jog they had maintained evolved into a full sprint.
“Where is what, Jake? We don’t have time to play games!”
“The other…” Jake’s sentence was cut off, the object that he’d been looking for, the receptionists other foot, made its presence known then. The woman’s legs had been crossed so that her right leg was bouncing lightly in the air, with her shoe dangling lightly off of her toes. The shoe, at that moment, had decided to swing a little harder though, and flat had slipped off of the woman’s foot entirely, and come crashing down only inches in front of the two.
“Ahhh!” Allison screamed, the sheer power of the casual footwear’s crash to the ground sending them both on their backsides.
“Get up, let’s go, let’s go!” Jake pushed Allison to stand and escape the presence of that shoe, turned over on its side to expose the insole. Allison whined and stood again, running to circle around the shoe.
Danielle was a short, slim, brunette, working both as Joanna’s receptionist and personal assistant. She enjoyed her job, being 26 and making enough to support herself off of one job, straight out of college, was something to be proud of. As she talked lightly with Tiffany, who she’d met one other time, the girl had made a joke, causing Danielle to giggle a little harder than she expected, and her shoe tumbled off of her toes. Those toes were not painted, but they were polished, and the whole foot was very well maintained. Why not pamper yourself, right?
She’d dropped her shoe several times while bouncing it, and she’d never needed to look down to find it before? Just as quick survey of the floor with her barefoot should do just fine. Uncrossing her legs, she let her toes begin to slide along the carpeted floor under her, looking for her shoe absently, but also enjoying the tickle of the carpet under her sole.
Panicked, the tiny teens ran for their lives. As they came around the heel-end of the flat that nearly flattened them, they were treated to another unwelcome sight. Danielle’s foot swung out of nowhere, grazing the carpet. The massive bare foot was even more intimidating that Joanna, cast in a light shadow from the desk. The skin was warm, and even from a few inches away, the siblings could smell the light musk of sweat from it.
The toes wiggled lightly, touching down for a moment in the carpet. Finding now shoe there, it advanced forward, lifting a few inches into the air as its owner moved it to a new location to search. Taking a few steps back, Jake and Allison found their backs against the sole of the over-turned shoe.
The foot continued its search, lifting a little higher every few seconds, exposing the long, soft expanse of pink flesh that was Danielle’s arch, before crashing down again, toes squirming for the simple sake of intimidating Jake and Allison.
The twins were too exhausted to do anything anymore. Danielle’s foot was a force to be reckoned with, as soon they found out, when it finally swung forward towards the couple. They both dove to the ground, covering their heads as the foot glided over head like it was the sky itself. The woman’s toes collided into the shoe they were hiding behind, and everything went dark.
Danielle’s sole, long and powerful, fell down on top of the two, catching them in one of its many wrinkles. They were back, trapped under a woman’s foot, and this one was much less fragrant than their mother’s.
As the rest of the foot settled back onto the carpet, the pressure increased, and the moist sweat lingering on Danielle’s foot acted as a glue of sorts. The toes gave a final wiggle, before the entire foot lifted up, carrying a bit of dirt, as well as the young twins, into the air, neither of them with breath to cry in fear. The foot righted the flat, and aimed so that the toes would slide in first. She was putting on this shoe, with Jake and Allison trapped under the pretty receptionist’s foot, held like glue to her sole.
“Danielle?” Tiffany uttered, looking up at Danielle after their laugh. “Will you get me some water? I’m kinda parched.”
“Sure, Tiff! Be right back.” Tiffany, finding her shoe, slipped it on effortlessly, stood, and headed for the vending machine.