Adam grabbed onto the shoe laces, digging his fingers into the narrow openings between the very threads of the fabric, knowing what was about to come. With Mrs. Brook’s foot already wedged deep into her shoe, and her attention on anything other than the bug at her feet, there was only one logical thing to happen next. One path to tread upon. One step to take.

With almost no warning Mrs. Brooks’ shoe ripped into the air, the force of the sudden acceleration smushing tiny Adam against the top side of her shoe. His grip barely held as she slammed her foot down, his legs staying in the air for a moment, his fingers barely managing to hold on to her laces as he was dragged back to the earth.

His eardrums erupted as her shoe exploded against the hard tile underfoot, his form slamming into the soft cloth as his motion came to a painful halt. With dazed vision he looked up at the giant, his view taken up by her smooth, sculpted leg as it ran up to her waist. As her opposite foot swung forward, continuing her walk, the woman’s pants pressed tightly against her skin, the outline of underwear visible between her legs. The slight bulge near her front, gently moving down to the two perfectly rounded mounds of her butt cheeks, the slight strain of her pants against her skin, the way her legs swung, her muscles tensed, her body powerful body moved, was almost overwhelming.

And then he was ripped into the air again, a scream filling his lounges before being slammed out of his, a small trickle of blood slipping out of his nose.

But it was a better ride than the other stowaway.

Deep inside the black pit of Mrs. Brooks’ shoe, trapped between the wet bog that was her sweat infused insole and the fresh, soon to be tarnished, cotton of her thin gym sock, wedged below the balls of her foot, was the still living, barely breathing, crumpled form of James.

When her foot had eclipsed the only exit of her shoe the boy had gone catatonic, frozen in place, the weight of what was about to happen dawning on him. It wasn’t until her foot at been crammed into her shoe, until her heel slapped against the back of her sole, until her very first crushing step, that he truly understood his mistake.

He tried to breath, but her spongey flesh surrounded him on all sides, gently morphing around the pebble that was his entire being, squishing into his arms and legs, forcing them to the side, unmoving, pressing into his chest making it impossible to take anything in, smothering his face, making any attempt yield only the fowl taste of her gym sock, already coated in the slightest sheen of her sweat.

The smell was polluted, the taste was inhuman, the pressure was unbearable.

The first step was an eternity of torment. The second an endless assault on all five of his senses. The third was a release, as his bones cracked, as his organs were mashed together, as his brain was forced out of the broken chunks of skull that came apart under the crushing weight of her sock.    

Mrs. Brooks stopped when she came into the main room of the office, seeing her young coworker moving between the rows of computers. “Hey Amy,” the mature woman said, giving the girl a smile.

The conversation lasted only a minute, but it was a minute Adam desperately needed. In those six steps from her office to the outside world Adam had been smashed against her shoes, his fingers nearly ripped from their sockets, his nose dripping blood that stained the white fabric in an imperceptible dot. Six steps were all it took to completely beat him. Six steps from a god that didn’t even realize he was there.

Without thinking about what he was doing, the tiny boy started to crawl under her laces, wedging himself between the soft cotton of the tongue of her shoe and her strings. He struggled through, forcing himself between them, straining every muscle that he still had control over, until finally he was cradled within. Through the breaks in her laces he could still see the world, blurry and alien, huge and unforgiven.

But at least when Mrs. Brooks took her next step he was able to endure the ordeal. His stomach churned, he almost vomited, but he could survive.

For now, he was safe.

The same could not be said for two other specs on the ground.

Mark and Nick had been working in the hospital office for about as long as Adam had. They weren’t particularly impactful, the type of guys who were content to keep their heads low and finish whatever work was assigned to them and smile at anything that was said. They could crack a joke here and there, and sometimes joined Adam for lunch, but were otherwise some of the least threatening kids one would ever happen to meet.

Completely undeserving of the hell they had found themselves in. Already they had nearly been trampled by Amy and Chloe as they carelessly walked through the office, their hard shoes crunching on the ground only inches away from their screaming bodies, almost squished by Mrs. Brooks as she came back from her lunch, almost flattened by the nurses who popped in to check on a few files.

And now their boss was walking towards them again.

“We, we have to move!” Nick shouted to his friend, looking around helplessly for something that would help them avoid the coming giantess.

“I know!” Mark shouted in answer, grabbing the other by his shirt collar and dragging him in the opposite direction of their oncoming doom. They ran then, their tiny feet beating against the tile with as much force as they could provide. But every step was met by a thunder, steadily growing louder and louder behind them. Mark didn’t look back. He couldn’t look back, for if he did he knew that fear would overtake him.

Nick, however, had to glance. And when he did all energy, all semblance of life left his body. For he saw Mrs. Brooks walking towards him, her body a living continent as it moved forward at horrifying speeds, her legs swinging, her feet slamming to the earth. He watched as she lifted her shoe over his head, a few grains of dirt and dust falling off her treads and plummeting to the ground all around him.

Her treads looked beautiful. Not like an art piece hanging in a cathedral, or a woman in the perfect morning light. It was the beauty of faraway mountains stretching off into the distance, of a skyscraper when viewed from the base, as the entire universe of stars and galaxies when looking up at night. The vastness was beautiful. The power was beautiful. The all-encompassing, everlasting, soul crushing hugeness was beautiful.

Even when her foot came down and his body exploded under the rubber of her sole.

Mark kept running, unaware that his friend was gone. His breathing was hard, but he pushed himself. His fear was eating him from the inside, but he kept running.

And running.

And running.

Until Mrs. Brooks took one more step. Her sneaker came down on his body, the treads crushing his hard into the cold tile. He felt his arms break, his legs snap, his middle section flatten into the ground. But not his head. No, that small part of his had escaped, wedged between the gap in her sole.

So he saw light again as she lifted her foot off him. Light, if only for a moment, before he blead out, crushed, mutilated.

Dead.