“Oh, Junebug.” May calls teasingly.

Oh god no. It’s too soon. I swear I always wake up half an hour before her. I shoot upwards, and my eyes dart towards the clock. It’s five after seven, and she’s already fully dressed for school.

I can feel her hot morning breath over me, and I don’t dare look up at her. It’s like engaging a rabid dog—don’t.

“Junebug,” May calls again, this time with much more authority in her voice.

“I’m awake!” I croak, hoping May would be merciful.

“Okay, good,” she says.

May grabs me between her fingers, holding me in front of her face. She has this cruel smirk on her lips as she drops me on her bed, and I’m looking up at her from a low angle.

She disappears under the bed and comes back up holding a pair of flats. The shoes are a light green color, something like a darker mint or a light vomit. Needless to say, the shoes are ugly, and I swear the only reason she picked them was because I hate the color.

Expectantly, she points toward the opening of the shoe, and I climb in, knowing I’m better off following directions the first time. My feet sink into the bottom of the ground, and the smell hits me immediately. It’s a stale, cheesy musk that assaults my senses.

Being at least half an inch tall, I’m able to walk without crawling until I reach the toe section. I look down at the imprint of her foot, finding an outline of my body. I lie on my back, lining myself up with it. Sure it’s not the most pleasant thing, but it’s the safest. I’d rather have my head stuck between May’s toes than struggling to breathe.

I close my eyes, expecting the worst. It’s the same every time, but I still can’t get used to it. I can feel my sister move the shoe and place it on the floor. From the skewed view I have, I can see the tips of her toes hanging above, grasping the rim of the shoe.

Her foot slides in with a brute force, knocking the wind out of me. She wiggles her toes, getting herself comfortable and kneading me into the shoe. My head is right between May’s big and second toes, and she squeezes me face in between them.

May stamps her foot against the ground, twisting the ball of her foot. I’m pressed against her sole, feeling the full force of her weight on me. She hasn’t even taken a step, and I can already tell today is going to bad.

The first step is always the worst. There’s something about the brief half second of weightlessness before the full, effortless weight of my sister is on me. The ball of her foot twists and bends my form as I’m lifted back into the air.

My arms and legs are open, spread eagle, and I’m planted under the thickest padding of May’s foot. It still hurts and I can feel my joints and bones lock in pain. The crushing weight of her foot is hard enough make my experience hell, but it’s never enough to knock me out or even kill me.

Maybe I was taking April’s torture methods for granted.

Her toes are massive, battering me senseless without any sort of remorse or mercy.

With May, the only silver lining I get is that I’m not being treated like a toy. Then again, being an insole isn’t much better. At least my intelligence isn’t insulted.

What the hell am I even saying?

May takes the bus to school every day, and the short walk from the house to the bus station is just a notch a way from being unbearable. Her strides are smooth, rhythmic to say the least, and I count my blessings that she’s not the type to drag her feet.

I hate the lack of stimuli. It’s dark, musty, and everything hurts, and that’s pretty much it. Over time, I’ve pretty much picked up a lot of May’s habits. She’s reclining slightly on the bus seat, alleviating some of the pressure, not as much as I’d like though.

I can hear the pressurized whine of the bus’s breaks, and I count each one, dreading the eighth as it approaches at an alarming rate. Sure enough, the eighth stop comes around, and the pressure increases just as I barely get used to it.

I don’t have time to breathe. I only get brief gasps in before it’s forcefully knocked out of me as May simply takes a step. As time goes on, I can smell the slightest bits of perspiration forming. It’s either mine or hers, but I’m soaked within minutes. I can feel the dirt on her soles rub off on me until I have a layer of filth around me.

I faze in and out of focus, sometimes for hours at a time. It’s probably the one defense mechanism I have other than obedience. It definitely helps keep me sane. There’s something about repetition that makes it easier.

When I regain my focus, the cold air against my skin is the first thing that registers. I’m outside of her shoe, but I’m stuck against her foot. Her sweaty sole is like a glue trap, and I can’t move or even wiggle without pain shooting through my limbs, which is why I keep my hair short. If I kept it as long as when I was fourteen, I’m pretty sure it would be forcibly ripped off whenever May peels me off her foot.

May’s sole is turned sideways, and I’m treated to the view of the other students in her class. There’s someone talking in the distance, but I can hardly make out the words. All I can really say is that it’s youthful, springy with a little bounce to it. The speech seemed prepared, and the girl is probably talking about some recent news. If I remember correctly, May’s second period is a current events type class.

Gosh, have I been out of focus that long?

There’s a sudden movement in the corner of my eye, something almost unnoticeable on the floor. My head darts to the left, and I hold back a scream as the pain quickly follows.

It’s a boy. He looks around my age, maybe a little older, but more importantly, he’s exactly my size. He seems cautious as if one wrong move could be his last. His long, shaggy blond hair covers his face, and I can see the dirt coating his body, the same amount of grime I face every day.

For a brief second we lock eyes. We’re both staring in shock, and we both immediately recognize that I’m the first tiny he saw other than himself, and he’s the same to me. And I can’t help but connect and identify with him and his plight despite not even knowing he existed.

The boy snaps out of his trance, remembering his goal at hand. I’m rooting for him as he runs off but not before looking back at me with a sympathetic nod, almost encouraging me to stay strong and bide my time for the perfect moment. How I got that through a simple nod, I don’t know. For all I really know, I’m just making that up. He’s hiding behind the desk’s silver leg, hiding from the giant girl occupying said desk.

I assume the girl is his sister. She shares the same bright blonde hair and similar face structure. The girl’s wearing dark brown sandals, and upon closer inspection, there’s bright pink string wrapped around the thong of the shoe where the boy was probably tied up before.

Ever so slightly, a look of panic goes over the girl’s face, but it immediately disappears as if she’s expecting others to catch on to her expression. She lifts a pencil off her desk, twirling it around her long, slender fingers before purposefully dropping it on the floor. As she bends down to look under her desk, a wide, menacing smile forms on her lips. Unfortunately, the boy can’t see his sister from behind the table leg.

She lifts her pencil back up and sits upright in her chair. My heart’s pounding, not knowing what to expect next. The girl wiggles her right foot, the one with the string, and takes her sandal off. And in one swift motion, her massive bare foot strikes and pins the shrunken boy under it.

Just as quickly, my heart breaks in half. Any hopes of escape have been dashed, and the way she caught him only served to humiliate him. I’m scared to even imagine what kind of punishment she’d subject him to.

I’m not sure whether or not I’m glad I’m not the only person like this or feel depressed for every single one of us tiny people have someone like May or the boy’s sister dominating their lives.

She’s holding his body between her big and second toes, and I watch helplessly as the boy thrashes and slams his fists against the meaty prison. She wiggles her toes, and that’s the last I see of the boy as she’s dragged beneath the crevice.

Not a second later she raises her hand and asks to go to the bathroom, and my stomach drops as I imagine what she might do to him while they’re alone. I’m just stuck there, knowing that someone’s life has probably just gotten a hundred times worse, and I’m the only one around to witness it.

After staring numbly at nothing for a minute, my attention goes back to the girl upfront giving her speech. She thanks the class and walks back to her seat and another student walks up. The voice is quiet, fumbling her sentences, but I try to listen to it, hoping it would take my mind off the boy and his sister.

It’s hard to focus, but I manage to pick up a few words like “tiny, protective, legislation, and population.” Immediately, my mind tries to piece them together, but I have trouble finding a possible link.

My prison shakes, and before I can truly realize what’s going on, I’m being pressed into the stale depths of the shoe as May forces her foot in. I panic at the sudden crushing weight, and my mind goes into full shut down.