The pressure was immense. The strain unbearable. It’s so difficult to find the words to describe what it’s like to be an insole. There’s so much more to it than a person would normally think. Not that any normal person would ever imagine what it’s like to be an insole. People go about their daily lives in the above world, never really paying attention to a girl’s simple footwear. Millions of girls around the world wear flats, its typical female foot wear; nobody would ever stop to wonder what it must be like inside those flats. I never really understood why girls like to wear shoes like flats, and they wore them without socks to top it all off. I’ve overheard on multiple occasions that footwear like that make their feet stink, and yet they still wear it. I guess they’ve never had to worry about somebody being forced to smell all of that horrid odor. Somebody literally existing as the ground that they walk on.

               It’s only been a couple hours since the event that would seemingly cast me into foot hell occurred. Megan hadn’t even attempted to contact me. I wonder what she could be thinking. Not that it would be entirely successful, everything sounds muffled from under her foot. It’s really tight. The only thing I can really hear is the sloshing of foot sweat with each step she takes. Maybe she’s ashamed. She should be. It wouldn’t be as bad if she took better care of her feet, but this is ungodly. Her feet are literally filthy. Disgusting isn’t even the word. There are two different types of foot grime. The type that accumulates from walking around barefoot a lot. That’s foot dirt from the ground. But then there’s the type that accumulates from the sweat and natural dirt from a girls foot after wearing her shoes for a really long time. Hers is of the latter type, but it’s even more extreme. How could a foot really be this horrid? All she has to do is let me breath for 30 seconds. 30 measly seconds and I’ll be free! And yet, she believes the opposite.

               The stench only grows worse with each passing moment. I feel disgustingly drenched. It feels as if I’m trying to break through the surface of a pool of water, but there’s a giant weight on top, and I can’t quite get the breath that I need in order to live. That feeling is constant. And yet any breath I take is tainted with the rancid odor of Megan’s foot. It’s really not fun, always feeling like you’re being suffocated, and any air you get is straight from your own sister’s furnace of a foot. The heat is unbearable. If someone were to ever wonder what hell is like, I’d just tell them to imagine being trapped inside a girl’s flat, with no hope of escaping. I still can’t stop wondering why fate as made it so that I am the one to experience this hell.

               I could feel the disgusting sludge that accumulated over the years in this flat all over my whole body. It was thick and slimy, and felt as though it would never end. The taste of it was absolutely out of this world. It would be like eating literal garbage, and not being able to spit it out, ever. Always chewing on toe jam, but without a stomach, it just sits on my taste buds, allowing me to savor the flavor of whatever physical activities Megan likes to do on her spare time in these flats. I really just couldn’t imagine. Does she ever take them off? Guess now she really won’t be taking them off.

Normal people let their shoes air out. If the odor was already this thick, humid, and cheesy within a couple hours, I can’t imagine what it will smell like in a single day, or 2, or 3, or 4, or 5, or 6, or 7. It felt like there was so much time left, I had only just started this torture but it already feels like I had been here for months.  I can’t help but constantly wonder if Rosie was serious about what happens if I fail this curse. Would I really be stuck under Megan’s foot for the rest of her life? 1 week is nothing compared to decades of foot sniffing. I think I would just die, but then again, I can’t. I’d just have to suffer. Each and every single day, sniffing her grimy, sweaty foot.

Meanwhile, Megan was weighing all the possible options. She sat in her room, sitting on her bed, being very careful not to accidentally perform so much as a heel pop. She wanted to make sure her foot was sealed in that flat with Paul for the full week in order to save him from what anybody would consider a fate worse than torture before death.

“What could I do…how can I fix this?” – Megan thought.

“There’s no way he can survive in there for a full week...but then again, he isn’t really alive, he’s the insole…always smelling my foot”

Megan proceeded to take off the flat that didn’t contain Paul, and held it up to her nose. Immediately she wrinkled her nose and scrunched her face up, pulling the flat away from her nose. She began looking at the bottom of her foot, noticing the sweat, dirt, and grime that had built up from many 12-hour shifts at work. She spread her toes and noticed the toe jam that seemed to grow from nothing. Her foot was always covered in miscellaneous foot grime and sweaty foot lint. She shuddered at the knowledge that Paul had to endure all of that for an entire week without any break or any hope for respite.

“There has to be something I can do…but unfortunately, I have to go to bed now so I can wake up for work tomorrow” – Megan thought as she prepared herself for bed and changed into sleeping clothes….except for her flats.

“I can’t have my flats slipping off of my feet while I sleep…poor Paul” – Megan continued to think as she grabbed a role of duct tape and securely affixed the shoe to her foot. Unfortunately for Paul, the duct tape had sealed any potential open areas where fresh air might get in. Not that any fresh air would get in, but the duct tape only served to further seal in the acrid stench of Megan’s feet.

As Megan tried to sleep, she couldn’t shake her hatred and disgust for Rosie. How could she do this to her own brother?

“I really can’t believe it…right now…this second…I can feel Paul’s breaths on my feet and in between my toes. He’s smelling my stinky feet right now. What if I fail? What if Paul really does get sucked into my foot, and I don’t remember it? He’d really be stuck sniffing my dirty foot forever.” Megan thought as her face twisted with disgust.

“I promise I’ll find a way to save you Paul. I swear it! Maybe if Rosie’s magic was able to do this, some weird magic will be able to undo it.” – Was Megan’s last thought before she was finally able to sleep.

And so with that, the night continued on, Megan sound asleep, and Paul wide awake, still experiencing the fiery hell that was the inside of a girls sweaty shoe.

I can’t do this. I can’t do this. I can’t do this. I can’t do this. I can’t do this! It was the only thing I could think over and over, breath after breath. There really was no way to make this situation any better. I’ve tried breathing slowly, trying to not think of anything, and meditating, but nothing can get rid of this nauseating odor. It hasn’t even been 24 hours…I don’t think I’ll make the whole week before I go insane. There’s just no way. It’s not possible.

I feel like I can’t even breathe, and yet I can’t turn the breathing off. I can’t even close my eyes, it feels like their glued open, and the taste seems to get progressively worst. I would think that I wouldn’t be able to see in the pitch darkness, and I don’t know if this is some strange effect of Rosie’s spell, but for some reason I can see Megan’s entire foot even in pitch darkness. It’s constantly there, always forcing me to look at it, as if to further my torture. The perfectly rounded heel, the perfectly shaped arch, the disgustingly spongey ball of her foot, and the sweaty, jammy, monstrous toes, always watching me, preventing my escape. 30 seconds is all I need to be free.

What if Rosie actually told Megan the real rules and me the fake rules. Then how do I know what’s the right way to escape this hell? Is this part of her sick fucking game? Well….at this point it’s a 50/50 chance.

This is such a fucked up situation. A 50% chance of attaining freedom that should have been mine anyways, or a 50% chance of sniffing my sister’s foot for every second of every day for the rest of her life. God I wish I was dead.

The night passed as constant thoughts of suffering passed through Paul’s mind. Megan slept soundly, as if nothing in the world was wrong, but saving her brother was her first thought upon waking up. Megan got up and dressed for work, skipping a shower so that she wouldn’t have to wear her shoes in the shower. Just as she was about to leave, something stopped her in her tracks…

“What is that smell??” – Megan said under her breath as she sniffed around the air. She continued smelling around for a bit before finally realizing…

“Oh god! Is that my feet? How can I possible smell if from all the way up here!?” Referencing the fact that she wasn’t even bending over anywhere near her own feet. Megan proceeded to spray herself with a light perfume, specifically spraying extra perfume around her feet, none of which actually made it into the shoe, just the surrounding air. If somebody were to sniff around her feet, they’d smell nothing but perfume, but little would they know that sealed within her flats was a hell that no human could stand to experience, unless of course they were a human transformed into a living, breathing, insole.

An entire day passed by, with Megan sweating profusely into her new insole. For Paul, this only furthered his drowning sensation, and caused the odor to grow to astronomical heights. For Paul, the scent of Megan’s foot was so disgustingly powerful that each breath actually caused him pain.

God it feels like the worst migraine in history! How can this be?! How can something smell like this?! How can one girl SWEAT this much!!??

During work, Megan had been researching the ins and outs of black magic, and possible ways to reverse spells. Her research had led her to small shop inside their town, full of mysterious books and strange items. One day however, wasn’t enough. She needed to do more research. She needed to fully know everything if she was going to ever defeat Rosie at her own game.

“I’ll save you Paul, I promise I will!” – Megan thought, as she prepared for sleep again at the end of the day, ready to begin day 2 in the morning.

Meanwhile, Rosie seemed to be plotting something ominous….