Melanie’s footfalls were twice as heavy on the return trip than they had been going towards her apartment. A rage flared in her center as she traced her steps, headed back to Anders Library with the burden of defeat being pulled by her heels. Her twilight-lit surroundings passed in a blur as she hurried through town, her thoughts a nebulous mess of swelling emotions, barely concentrated enough to keep her on the sidewalk.
She huffed, tugging at her messenger bag to adjust how it draped over her shoulder. “Juniper,” she growled under that breath. She rolled her eyes, needing these little ways to vent. I’ll fucking kill her, she told herself, who does she think is?! Who does she think she’s meddling with…?! She has no idea what she’s doing. She’s preventing Adrian from…
Like lightning, Melanie’s body was struck with an obnoxious pain. She strayed out of the middle of the sidewalk, rolling her back against the wall of a business. That reality was still setting in, the magnitude of her failure. By allowing Juniper to have stolen those pages from her, the spellbook was now incomplete, and so the cure was out of reach. Adrian, and the others as well, would remain in their shrunken states indefinitely.
I need her, she thought, I need motivation… Or else I’m going to end up throwing myself in front of a car. She glanced at the road, just as a truck sped by. It was an escape from all this that she was considering, at least in passing, while slinking into an alley. As long as she had Adrian, however, that wouldn’t be an option.
Cast into a shadowy sanctuary, Melanie felt free to open her messenger bag and peer within. Adrian was there, huddled into that same corner, practically untouched from before. Melanie couldn’t resist this time, and she reached in to retrieve her, gently entangling the woman into her fingers. Even when grabbed, Adrian hardly moved, unphased by the hand that held her or that familiar face beaming down at her with a growing smile.
“H-Hi, Adrian,” Melanie greeted, but Adrian was unamused. The shrunken student looked to her sides, quickly understanding that they were not at Anders Library, or even that close to it. In fact, the area felt eerily familiar to her, a shiver of the near-past jogging her memory.
“Why are we here…?” Adrian asked.
“I… needed to look at you,” Melanie answered, smile persisting. She felt guilty to be there now, but she had already come to a halt. “Th-That’s all. I’m out of breath, so I thought holding you--”
“So you brought us here?” Adrian glared, gesturing to the alley. “This is where you shrank me, wasn’t it? Behind the convenience store, when I was walking you home.”
Melanie blinked, then looked again at her surroundings. It was only when Adrian mentioned it that it felt obvious. Indeed, this was that same destined location, now serving as her hideaway in the midst of running from authorities. Memories came dashing back to Melanie, recollecting that wonderful night where she confessed her feelings to Adrian. They were happy memories, but a dark fog encroached its edges. It became bitter and corrupted, much the way Adrian perceived things.
“I-I s-suppose it is,” Melanie said. “Err, I didn’t pick this area i-intentionally. I just… happened to come across it.”
Despite how genuine Melanie sounded, Adrian was split on believing her. She wouldn’t put it past her to bring her back to such a traumatic place with some twisted, evil goal in mind. “Yeah. This isn’t the library,” she scoffed. “Do we need to be stopped?”
Melanie closed her eyes. “It’s… just for a moment.”
Adrian lifted her head. She sensed something disearnest in Melanie’s tone. “Why?” she asked again. “We have everything we need, and the police are hunting for you. Shouldn’t we get back as soon as possible?”
“W-We will,” Melanie stuttered, “I’ll hurry up, j-just give me a second…”
“I can’t wait for seconds, Melanie!” Adrian groaned. “What are you waiting for?! If I have to put up with this, the least you could do in return is hurry up on curing me, damn it!”
Melanie winced. Biting her lip did nothing to hide her fear from Adrian, who looked onward more inquisitively. The pressure became too much, and nervous breaths hatched into the truth; “I couldn’t find the pages. There’s no cure.”
“... The pages?” Adrian pushed the realization back, delaying how it would impact her, knowingly avoiding the emptiness that wanted to swallow her. “W-What exactly is missing? There has to be a way to do it without the fucking book.”
“It’s… a chant. Like the one I repeat when I’m casting the ritual.” Melanie glanced at her messenger bag, where the incomplete spellbook was stowed, somehow heavier than usual. “The book has it written, b-but the pages with it are gone.”
“What do you mean gone?!” Adrian spat. “They just disappeared?!”
“I-I think it was Juniper. I think she took them.”
“Your roommate?!” Adrian shook. “Well?! Go get them! Get those pages back, we-- we need them, Melanie!”
“B-But… Sh-She’s got them,” Melanie tried to explain. “I don’t know where exactly, but she’s probably hiding them. I wouldn’t--”
“Just take them! Shrink her o-or what the fuck ever, then tell her to give them to you! If that chant is really necessary, then you have to go back and get it!”
“I-I can’t! I… I don’t have the potion with me…!” Melanie whined. “I wouldn’t be able to--”
“Do it without the fucking potion!” Adrian shouted. “Melanie! Come on! This is too important to let slip by! I-I’ll be trapped like this forever if you don’t go back and do whatever it takes to grab those pages!” Adrian waited, then shivered by Melanie’s lack of action. “Go! Go already! It’s just one woman, and she stole your things!”
“Go back and d-do what? Fight her?”
“Yes!” Adrian urged. “If that’s what it takes, yes!” Guilt pinched her sides, but not much else. “She’s in the way! She doesn’t understand what she’s doing! You can’t let your fucking roommate be what stops me and everyone else from returning to normal! Be real, Melanie!”
“I-I… I could never…!” Melanie swallowed. “I’ve never gotten into a fight…! And Juniper, she’s taller than me, so--”
“No,” Adrian said, dread overtaking her volume. “No… This isn’t you.”
“W-What…?”
“That’s not what Melanie… would do. This isn’t you.”
“I don’t… I don’t understand.”
“Just earlier today…” Adrian winced, a flash of a horrid memory. “Hours ago…! You took a woman… and nearly snapped her spine! You made me choose a person for you to torture, but now…! Now you’re unwilling to go fight someone? Someone that’s standing directly between me and what I want…?”
Melanie’s mouth slowly opened, forming an excuse word by word. “I don’t have the potion! I wouldn’t be able!”
“You’re pathetic! The weakest thing on this planet!” Adrian screamed. “I hate you! You’ve ruined everything -- you’ve caused everything! There isn’t a single thing you can do right!”
“A-Adri--”
“Without that potion, you’re fucking nothing! You’re not clever, you’re not strong! All this time… All this time, I’ve been tortured by the world’s weakest girl! A piece of shit, that can’t do anything unless she’s given infinite, magical power -- and she’ll still find a way to fuck it up! You end up with a detective following you, you let Nicky escape somewhere, and you let your roommate steal the cure that you promised me! The cure that I had to sacrifice someone for…!”
Adrian wailed, then scrambled to the ends of Melanie’s fingers. On the verge of hyperventilating and with tears bursting from her eyes, she leaped out from Melanie’s grasp. The plummet below, terrifying as it were, was exactly what Adrian wished to embrace.
Melanie, initially baffled by Adrian’s jolt of a movement, was able to catch her with her other hand. Adrian smacked into the palm, but was already on the way back up to her feet. “W-What’s gotten into you?!” Melanie gasped.
“I’m done,” Adrian replied hauntingly. “I won’t let you… I won’t let you keep me like this…!” Immediately, she was dashing forward again, tripping over herself in such a rush to fling her body over the edge. Again, she managed a split second of air time, before Melanie grabbed her and restricted her into a coiled fist. “Bitch! Let go of me!”
“I-I won’t let you…!” Melanie affirmed. She was startled, scared even, of how strong Adrian’s desperation manifested. Although Melanie could hold her in one fist, Adrian was proving difficult to manage, putting forth all her might to force an opening to squeeze from. “Please, I’m begging, Adrian! D-Don’t--”
“Let me die…!” Adrian howled, heartbroken over Melanie’s refusal. “I can’t do this…! I should have done this ages ago…!” She grunted, another hard attempt at breaking loose. When this failed, she resorted to thrashing her arms about, whipping them into the bone of Melanie’s digits. “This is what I want!”
“No… I need you, Adrian, I need you!” Melanie pleaded. She shook her head, “I won’t… I-I won’t let you! You’re everything to me--”
“Exactly! I’ll take it all away from you!” Adrian spat -- inch at a time, she was squirming through Melanie’s grasp. “There’s no cure… There’s nothing for me! If I have to have nothing, so will you! I’ll make damn sure of it…!”
Melanie shivered, readjusting her grip. She didn’t want to hurt Adrian with her grasp, a tightrope balancing act of maintaining a firm enough hold on someone struggling to escape. “Adrian, l-listen to me, we-- I can fix this! J-Just-- I need you--”
Red and blue lights silently flashed over Melanie, bouncing off the walls that surrounded her. Her heart jumped from her chest, then dove back into her ribs with a depressing descent. A police car had arrived during their argument, paralyzing Melanie without any build-up to the horror she faced.
The nearest window rolled down, and an officer’s head was there to poke out from it. “Hey, miss,” he called out, his authority expressed gently. “Do you need help, miss?”
The flashes persisted, a constant drive in the adrenaline being built up in Melanie’s system. She tried to block the lights with one hand, but this left the other exposed -- Adrian, unphased by the police, was still resisting as much as before. She had almost wormed out of Melanie’s fingers, but Melanie reclaimed her, hiding the shrunken woman against her chest while she panicked into her next action.
Melanie ran, turning tail against the officers. There was no trusting any cop, so Melanie had assumed the worst. She imagined that the officers were after her, that she had been found. Not willing to take that risk of gliding under their radar, Melanie chose instead to brashly escape. Only a few steps in, she had heard the retaliation of that same man yelling out to her, followed shortly after by the tear of an engine and the squeal of a siren.
After turning the first corner, Melanie addressed Adrian, who had bunkered into the giant palms as the massive person holding her began to flee. “I’m sorry,” Melanie whimpered, sniffling back tears. Her head snapped back around, listening out for the vehicle as she continued her run ahead. “I’m so sorry, I’m…! I’m…!”
“H-Help me!” Adrian screamed. She lunged back in the direction Melanie hurried away from, stretching an arm out in a hopeless reach for the police. “Save me! Save me from this maniac, please, rescue me! I’ll do anything! Anything! Plea--”
Melanie wrapped both hands around Adrian, silencing her entirely. Not that she was worried such a small voice could reach anyone, but the cries for help were stressful. Adrian wouldn’t cooperate, forcing Melanie’s hand. I just wanted inspiration, she chided herself, depositing Adrian too quickly into a side pocket of her bag. All I wanted was to hold her…! What have I done…?!
She stumbled out of the other end of the alley, a river of a road dividing her from the next block of businesses. Traffic was average, which meant that the approaching sound of a police siren was especially foreboding for Melanie. She was drastic, leaping into traffic just after a car blitzed past, crossing it just before a honking truck rushed by. Melanie panted, catching the attention of a couple bystanders that she would then shove past in order to sneak off into another alley.
They’ll be all over me now, Melanie deduced. They’ll know it’s me running away. They’ll know it’s Melanie without a doubt. They’ll ruin everything… She slowed up to a wooden fence, a thin barrier between her and the passing of a second police car, whose siren started to wail just seconds later. It was confirmation of her dreaded fears. I need to hide at Anders, she decided, it’s all I have.
An orange aura of a hue dropped behind Anders Library, a magnetic light of a setting sun that drew Melanie to it. The street lights around the old facility hadn’t yet popped on, leaving the location even shadier than usual, as though it were painted with the shade of night. The chilling demeanor, however, was a sign of solitude; a sanctuary for Melanie, so were her very thoughts as she hopped the fence to its flank. The landing of her jump compounded with the rest of her exhaustion, and she nearly collapsed onto her knees. Powering through the weariness, she forced herself through a growth of bushes, ignoring the claw-like branches in favor of reaching the window, her secret entrance.
Melanie held her breath, staring back behind her one last time. The police had been close, but she had been nimble. Passing through alleys and even diving into stores, she had managed to escape everything but the sirens. Throughout the city, distant cries of cop cars on the move could be heard, an echo that urged Melanie back on track. She opened the window, settling with what little relief she could get.
It was pitch black inside the library, even darker than it had been before. The trace light that had leaked in from the curtained windows was now fully depleted, leaving behind no grace of illumination or any hint of warmth. Melanie wandered into a freezer, chilled by how quiet and desolate the air felt. Any heat from the outside that coated her was phasing away as she navigated the paths by phone light.
The glow of the laptop’s power light was a guiding star back to her quarters in the center of the library. A sigh escaped her as she hoisted her messenger bag up and onto the desk, just beside the laptop, while keeping the strap over her. Her priority was to first check for Adrian, realizing that in her rush, it was entirely possible that her obsession could have undone the button and threw herself out into the huge world. Fortunately, that hadn’t been the case, as Melanie felt the bump of a person still in the pocket.
“Adrian,” Melanie whispered, trying to force a smile to peer into the bag with. “We’re… home.”
Melanie removed her, but Adrian lacked the itch of life. She was a motionless doll, laid out in Melanie’s grasp and uncaring to her fate. If she had been dropped, she wouldn’t scream. If she had been betrayed all of a sudden and crushed into her first, she wouldn’t argue. The reserve amount of energy she had left was all in her eyes, dimly open to the cloud of darkness.
Melanie shivered with the cold body in her hand. “H-Hey…” She bit her lip, sliding closer to the bookshelf. She glanced up, finding her collection of women to still be there where she had left them. As grateful as she was that they hadn’t discovered some way to escape, it was a relief that fell quickly to the back of her mind as her worries for Adrian took over. It seemed as though Adrian was ill or hurt, but Melanie knew that it was no physical wound crippling her.
“I’ll look something up online,” Melanie suggested, bobbing her hands a little in hopes of startling some extra life into Adrian. “I-It’s the internet. Someone must know something about this… b-but,” she swallowed and nodded, “I promise, Adrian, I’ll… figure something out. I’ll fix this.”
Still, Adrian had no reply. Melanie wouldn’t lie to herself into thinking she could help her, not instantly. Holding her was only bound to keep Adrian lifeless. Melanie moved to the bookshelf and raised Adrian up to it, but even then, Adrian refused to move. Begrudgingly, Melanie had to push her onto the platform with her other hand, attempting to make the motion as kind as possible.
Chloe and Kimberly were there to greet Adrian, but only after Melanie’s hand had retreated from the shelf’s edge. They neared her, with Kimberly kneeling to her side to offer some support. Chloe was concerned, but observed from a distant, hands clasped together in a sort of prayer. “Adrian…?” Kimberly asked, lightly shaking her shoulder. “Don’t… Don’t tell me you’re dead…”
Finally, Adrian had reacted, as though awoken from a spell. Far from jumping to her feet, she began to blink, her mouth opening just a crack while she inhaled a dust-touched breath. She mumbled something aimlessly, comprehending who specifically was neighboring her by voice alone. In the blackness, it was the best she had to go with.
“I’m… I’ll be okay,” Adrian sighed. She tried to rise to her feet, but Kimberly kept her hugged down.
“R-Rest a little, at least,” Kimberly said. She swallowed dryly. “You look pretty out of it…”
Melanie booted up the laptop, its monitor lighting up with activity a few moments later. The light was a precious resource in the library, the only source of dedicated light to make anything visible. The glow fortunately spread wide, but anything beyond that very heart of Anders Library was still shrouded in the dark. That was fine for Melanie, who wanted to avoid being seen by anyone, even her own collection of women.
She perched in front of the computer as she waited for it to load. Just as her hand went to lift off her messenger bag -- thuck, something had dropped to the floor, not far from the table she sat at. The sound was distinct, a hardcover book falling to the floor followed by the flutter and crumpling of its pages. Melanie jerked up in fright, scanning the library for dangers, but only locating the book in question. She followed its trail, up to the very shelf that her captives had been placed.
“What the hell was that?” Melanie asked, halfway out of her chair. She studied the shelf, searching for a culprit. On the end of the shelf opposite of where Adrian had been placed sat Scarlet and Bradz, peering over the ledge to verify the results of their combined efforts. Immediately, a rage had filled Melanie, triggered by the sudden scare.
More obnoxious to her, though, was the lack of reason behind it. She stood up and approached the shelf, each footfall just enough to rattle the wooden building that the tiny women occupied. “Wormslut,” she growled, “this isn’t the time to be testing my--”
“Don’t move, Melanie.” A voice spoke out to her, somewhere hidden. Melanie flinched, and the woman’s voice continued, “You won’t touch them. You’re going to listen me. Then we’re going to talk.”
Melanie swallowed, looking up the narrow path of desks and chairs that stood in the valley of bookcases. A figure blended into the shadows, but their image cleared as they stepped forward, the glow of the laptop revealing her to be Professor Bradz’s assistant, Paige. Only adding to Melanie’s nightmare was what Paige held equipped in one hand; not only had she been discovered, but her potion had been stolen. The tables hadn’t just been turned, the whole rug had been swept from under her feet.
She has to be confused, Melanie thought. “P-P-Paige, this-- Paige, I-I can explain, i-it looks--”
“Hey, h-hey! Let go of me! Get off!” A small scream had Melanie completely freeze, her shivering lips halted from trying to speak. She whipped around fast, knowing that it was Adrian’s voice crying out for help. By the time she had turned, however, everything was already in its place. Adrian was pinned to the wooden ground, her arms stretched out to either side and held there; Kimberly on her left, and Chloe on her right. Bradz restrained her legs, a struggle that left her getting kicked in the face more than once. But Scarlet stood out most of all, with a red thumbtack held in both arms like an automatic rifle, its sharp point targeting Melanie’s obsession, solidified with an unforgiving glare of an expression.
Melanie twitched, wanting to reach out for them, but before she could, Paige had spoken. “There’s nothing for you to explain, Melanie. They told me everything. I know everything that’s going on.” To this, Melanie slowly turned, torn between keeping an eye on Adrian’s security, and appeasing the holder of the cards.
Paige continued, “In fact, I’ll be the one explaining things from here on out. To get the obvious out of the way, you won’t try anything tricky with me, not unless you want to see her get skewered. The moment I say so, Scarlet will stab her, and I’ll still have this.” She lifted the potion, a gentle shake to bring out its sloshing noise. “I think this is more than enough for you to calm down and hear me out.”
Melanie’s fingers tightened on the strap of her messenger bag, the only movement she felt permitted to. Even the one backpedal step she made, to try and get closer to Adrian on the other end, was met with Paige making up for twice that distance. There was no denying that Paige was serious, willing to have Adrian murdered for the sake of her goals -- whatever those goals were.
“Do you understand?” Paige asked, shaking the bottle again.
“Yes,” Melanie answered obediently. “I understand. P-Please, don’t hurt her.”
“I don’t want to,” Paige said. “Unlike you, I’m not trying to be a maniac kidnapper that pointlessly tortures and kills. Even better, I’m not even trying to get between you two.”
“W… What? What does that mean?”
“If you listen to me, and give me what I want, then I’ll let you two go.” Paige’s words echoed in Melanie’s head, as it did in Adrian’s. There was an escape out of this, possibly. “From what the others said, you’re quite in love with Adrian. So you can keep her, and do whatever you want with her. It doesn’t matter to me what happens to you two after tonight. I know you won’t be able to tell anyone about this, not without giving her up, too. We’re both guilty of something, right now, you and me… We can go our different ways without tripping each other up. There’s things both of us want.”
Melanie trembled to speak up, but the pause requested her to. There were so many questions to ask, she didn’t know where to begin. “W-Why?” she plainly wondered. “Why are you doing… all of this? H-How did you even find out?!”
Paige frowned, but it slowly evolved into a smile the more thought she put into her reply. “Why did you do anything you’ve done? What made you brew a magical potion? What made you decide to start shrinking random women off the street, or your own poli-sci professor? What provoked you to rape them?” She chuckled, the loosest her aim would ever get. “Sorry, but that’s sort of an embarrassing use of something so special. Because while you’d be using this thing to keep up a supply of living masturbation toys, I’d be putting its power to good use. I’d be saving this college from corruption, I’d be able to restore it to its former glory, the glory it saw when it was managed by… a good person.” Her grin flashed with a little wickedness. “Fortunately, regardless of what happens… I’ve at least gotten my revenge.”
Melanie listened intensely, not wanting to miss a detail. If this was all leading to a deal to be reached, then Melanie needed information to fight Paige with. Her curiosity, too, had risen. “Revenge...?”
Paige seemed content to be questioned about that. Smiling still, she dug her free hand into her vest pocket, from which she pulled out a tiny woman of her own. Despite the professional attire and mature physique, Dean Coatler looked ragged and wrecked. She was soaked, burdened with the weight of whatever she had nearly drowned in. With barely an ounce of life left in her, she hung limply between Paige’s pinched fingers, shivering from the cold air and the feeling of such giant eyes on her.
“This little rodent has been making holes all over the school,” Paige elaborated, enjoying the sight of her defeated enemy wallowing under her explanation of matters. “Like a parasite, she turned the college into her own playground for her to profit from. She had no merits to be dean, but she blackmailed and uprooted the previous dean to give herself an opening. Only a few years later, and this campus is falling apart. Entire libraries are left abandoned, parties on school property happen without consequence, students getting kidnapped without even a sign of stepping up security.” She huffed, a spit-like breath that crossed Coatler before setting her away, back into the inner pocket.
“That previous dean was, believe it or not, my elementary school principal,” she went on. “I knew her. I knew her very well, because if it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t have gotten into teaching. Seeing her torn away from the position she worked so hard to get, after she sought to improve education for so many, had left something wanting inside me. This potion, this curse you’ve been putting on people… it was made for me. That’s why it was here, in this school. Someone knew that one day, its power would have to be used to save it.
“But that book, whatever it is, is in the wrong hands.” Paige reaffirmed her aim, another push for Melanie to step back, and again she matched her movement. “Thank you for finding it for me, but it’s mine. I need it. What I can do with this ability is far more important than your selfishness.”
Melanie’s brow furrowed. It’s my book, bitch, she thought, but even that mental message was hesitant. Her expression softened as reality dawned on her, that it really wasn’t her book. Not now, anyway, not while her obsession was held hostage, not while the potion itself was aimed at her. Despite knowing more of Paige’s motivations, the facts of the situation hadn’t altered. Melanie was still under Paige’s boot, living by her whims.
“I… I can give you the recipe,” Melanie stuttered. “Just the recipe is what you need, r-right? I-I could give you that--”
“No,” Paige cut off, shaking her head. “That won’t do. I need the whole book. I wouldn’t believe your version of the potion, and beyond that, there’s more I need to know. There has to be more to it than just that one spell, after all. There could be countless other abilities, just waiting to be tapped by someone worthy of it. I could become a hero, I could improve so many lives, or destroy the ones that are making others suffer.” She shook her head again, and then fixed her glasses. “I’ll be putting this spellbook to good use. Wouldn’t you want that?
“And you get to keep Adrian, too.” Her mention of this made Melanie look behind her, back to where Adrian was pinned. She was putting up a fight, but she was depleted of energy, outnumbered and overpowered, with the sharp promise of death looking down at her. Paige watched the scene, pleased to see her arrangement working out. “You can keep Adrian all to yourself. I won’t bother you, you won’t bother me. Be reasonable here, Melanie, this is the best deal you could get out of this. Consider what all you’re even losing. The spellbook itself? So you won’t be able to shrink any more people, not without its chants to recite. Your current list of victims? You won’t have them to torture any longer. You get to leave here, normal-sized, with the love of your life, totally unharmed. All you have to do…
“... is hand me the spellbook.” Paige’s conclusion had been reached, and the deal had been set onto the counter. Melanie dwelled on the subject, nervously glancing at the messenger bag against her hip. Within it was the spellbook in question, still missing a few pages but otherwise in a well-enough condition to trade, at least for what Paige wanted.
To forfeit the spellbook, however, was to forfeit her extraordinary power. The god-like life she had been cherishing would come to an end. It was true what Paige had said, how so much of the book’s potential was left unused. There was possibly more she could be doing with it, opportunities she wasn’t ready to sacrifice.
The shriek behind Melanie was a convincing argument to think otherwise. She turned her head, needing to check up on her obsession. Adrian was still pinned, but a burst of vigor had been quelled by Chloe, Kimberly, and Bradz. All of her thrashing was achieving nothing, and the sharp point of the thumbtack only grew closer.
“Let go!” Adrian shouted, almost snapping her arm free from Chloe, but failing to break out. “You guys must be joking! Th-This isn’t funny! What’s gotten into you?!”
“Please, be quiet, Adrian,” Kimberly urged in a hushed voice. She watched the two titans talk, hopeful that an agreement could be reached. “We don’t want to hurt you. But… this is what it’s come to.”
“No! This is wrong! Wrong!” Adrian heaved, her stamina failing her. Any chance of simply snapping out of the grapple was gone, which wasn’t a promising prospect to begin with. It all felt despairing; being held down, threatened by her fellow victims, with no place to escape, bound to the limits of a mere bookshelf. All the while, she knew the context of her predicament. She would either die here, betrayed by people she considered friends, or she would remain as Melanie’s tiny pet for the rest of her life. Her destiny was decided, fitting for something as feeble and pathetic like her.
“Adrian,” Melanie said to her, “h-hang in there… I’ll… I’ll--”
“The spellbook, Melanie.” The swishing of the potion pulled Melanie’s focus back to Paige. “I’ve made myself clear. Playtime is over, Melanie. Hand the book over, and you and Adrian can go back to living whatever weird life you two want to have.”
The gravity of the situation weighed heavily on Melanie’s shoulders, a crippling weight that made her shiver as the ultimatum approached. Her emotions were frozen solid in their vortex state, held there in place as she calculated her next action. Two different paths of defeat and humiliation were ahead of her, and the longer she took to answer, the closer Adrian came to paying the price.
I need this book, Melanie thought. It’s the only way I might be able to help her. It’s the only chance I have to making a cure for her. She winced, realizing how much she had failed. Even with the book, the cure was out of reach, and as a result, Adrian had lost her will to live. It was possible, in fact, that despite being terrified of the act itself, perhaps Adrian wanted to be killed, to finally be freed from Melanie. The thought burned Melanie’s chest, and she buckled forward slightly; she was pulled, caving in to Paige’s demands.
The messenger bag was opened, and Melanie shuffled inside of it. Her arms and legs quaked with fear, justifying her slow retrieval of the spellbook. The glow of the laptop revealed its arcanic cover and aged binding, allowing Paige to confirm. She nodded approvingly, her small smile on the rise. Melanie bit her lip, and began to approach with the book outstretched in her right hand.
“I know this isn’t easy, Melanie,” Paige said. “This is the right thing to do, though.”
Melanie had nothing to say as she pointed the corner of the tome to Paige. Her eyes naturally fell onto the spray bottle, which remained aimed at her like a gun through the entire trade. Paige was diligent in keeping her finger ready at the trigger, right up to when she had taken the book into her hand. Relief washed over her at the peak of that moment, knowing well that victory was hers.
But before she could even gauge the weight of the book, before it fully left Melanie’s grasp and became the possession of Paige’s, a swift attack had been made. From underneath the book, a blade had been drawn -- a knife of shimmering purple, its cool, modern grip firmly in Melanie’s hand. Hidden just under the item being exchanged, Melanie had quietly held it with her the entire time, a weapon she was eternally grateful to have brought with her from home.
Chnk. The blade tore into the side of the plastic spray bottle. It wasn’t flesh Melanie had aimed for, but the potion. The knife sliced deep into its flank, wedged tightly by the shredded plastic. The slice it created was an open leak, causing pink-ish splashes to trickle out and over the knife. Paige tried to pull back, but it only deepened the tear that had been made. She was stuck, unable to fully pry her weapon away, though neither could Melanie.
It wasn’t just a struggle for the potion, but for the spellbook as well. Melanie, of course, had no intention on giving up her magical item. Her plan was to disarm Paige, to act quickly and suddenly so that she could then rescue Adrian. She had flashed a look back to her, but her focus immediately returned to the arms-length wrestling match between her and Paige. The fight was far from over, and Melanie’s plan hadn’t been sketched this far. Panic swelled, and she threw herself randomly to try and rip either occultic item away from Paige.
Melanie hadn’t been quick nor sudden enough for this to work. Paige growled, “Kill her! Do it!” She had no mercy with her words, sentencing Adrian to death by a bark of a command. This had been her security in forcing this deal, and she was unafraid to utilize it.
Paige’s words filled the tiny women with dread, and Scarlet in particular with hesitation. This had been the ending unpromised, the conclusion that wouldn’t happen. A threat, supposedly, and nothing more. Adrian would be a hostage, under the assumption that Melanie would never risk the life of her beloved. Yet, the command had been clear, consistent with the context below. Melanie had done the unexpected, and was fighting to have it all.
Scarlet dropped a heavy gaze down onto Adrian. She looked into her eyes, sensing how deep Adrian’s heart had sunk. She reeled the thumbtack back, not at all moving as fast as she had imagined she would had this been the outcome. She had never wielded a weapon, never put someone’s life to an end, but she had agreed to be the executioner. It was her duty, it was everything they had been riding on when agreeing to work with Paige.
“Go, do it already!” Bradz yelled, almost enthusiastic for the bloodshed.
“Don’t! Don’t do this!” Adrian argued, finally overcoming how choked she had become. Tears welled in her eyes. “Y-You know that this is wrong…!”
“Just… shut up, dammit!” Scarlet whined. She readjusted the thumbtack in her grip, the sweat of her palms getting in her way. “Don’t look at me…! I have to…!”
The battle between Paige and Meanie waged on, with Melanie’s one advantage of surprise beginning to wear thin. She had made an admirable first push to unbalance Paige, striking the spray bottle and forcing herself forward in hopes of knocking Paige back. As the fight continued, however, Paige evened the odds, pushing back against Melanie and keeping an unletting grip on both the book and spray bottle. It was obvious, both knew, that Paige was just slightly stronger, a gap in strength that was slowly putting her ahead.
Melanie realized she couldn’t control both items, that a decision would have to be made. She twisted so that her weight could rip better into the plastic bottle, abandoning her grip on the book altogether. By concentrating her efforts, she was able to pry the spray bottle out of Paige’s grip, but not without a shot of the red liquid spitting out onto an empty square of the floor -- a close call for both of them, but now a subdued threat. Paige had been disarmed, and the potion dropped and rolled away at their feet.
The thrill of victory boosted Melanie’s spirit, just as much as it made Paige swelter with worry. Both suddenly scrambled for the book held up high in Paige’s hand, but Melanie was less careful in her attack. She had rolled her shoulder into Paige, tackling her forward but unable to bring her down. In a blind reach for the tome, Melanie smashed her elbow into the binding of the book, missing a chance to clutch the item but successful in forcing it out of Paige’s hand just as well as she had the potion. The book hit the wood floor with a thud, accentuated by the crumpling of pages and the scratch of it sliding far against the ground, somewhere in the darkness.
“She’s going to die for this!” Paige reminded Melanie, a note that physically pained the obsessive girl to have brought up. “And you, too…! You’re nothing but a brat!” In a whirlwind motion, Paige had managed to grab hold of Melanie’s knife-wielding arm, twisting it back painfully. Melanie squirmed, almost achieving a clean escape, but a solid force slugged into her jaw when she least expected it. Without any light, Paige’s punch, despite being aimless, had stuck true, well enough of an ambush that the knife fumbled out of Melanie’s grip. The metal hit the floor with an even denser thud, a dull impact that was in sync with Paige’s follow-up tackle.
The two wrestled against one another, with Melanie still struggling at the losing end. She was about to trip, and so she directed her stumbling to where she knew the bookcase had been. Desperate for the support needed to keep standing, she had collided hard into the bookshelves. Paige clawed at her before finding her fingers embracing Melanie’s neck, throttling her head back into the wall of books. Melanie gagged, grabbing at Paige’s arms in a contest to separate them.
This clash of titans had finally approached the tiny women, who had been only vaguely tracking the past few seconds of combat. Their situation, after all, was just as intense; Scarlet hovered her weapon over Adrian, holding it high in preparation to kill her. She had lifted the thumbtack to a peak, but before she could launch it into Adrian’s gut, Melanie had been rammed into the bookcase.
It was no different than a skyscraper rattling from an earthquake. The force of Melanie and Paige’s half-blind battle colliding into the bookcase had caused all the women to tumble from their positions. They huddled close to the floor, except for Scarlet, who tripped hard onto her knees, and then forward some more -- the sharp point of her thumbtack came racing down.
It impaled confidently, right next to Adrian’s head and into the wood. Inches from death, the chaos had just barely allowed Adrian to survive, a fate she greeted with a spit of a scream. What little freedom this window allowed her, however, was short lived. She couldn’t even stand before her ankles were grabbed again by Bradz, and shortly after did Kimberly roll on top of her, using her weight to keep her pinned.
“Ad…! A-Adrian--!” Melanie coughed, terrified of what Adrian’s short scream had meant. She shivered with despair, unsure what the outcome had been for her beloved. As much as her heart pounded for Adrian, the rhythm was starting to die out, without enough air to fuel it. Paige’s grip was only getting more restrictive.
Scarlet used the embedded thumbtack to stand back up. “Fuckin’ shit,” she stammered, glancing down at the battle beside them.
“Go already, Scarlet! Hurry, finish this!” Kimberly urged, her face red with fury. Adrian headbutted her from the cluster while she was distracted, but it wasn’t enough to get the nude woman off of her.
“I-I know,” Scarlet yelped in reply, rising back to her feet and withdrawing the thumbtack once more.
“I’m begging! Don’t do this!” Adrian shouted, her chest throbbing with maximum anxiety. “Don’t…! Don’t become a murderer! You’ll be just like her…!”
Scarlet heaved, readying the weapon again with a glare fixed onto Adrian. “I…” she shook her head, “I never trusted you…! Quit staring at me, l-like I’m doing something wrong…!” She closed her eyes, to shield herself from the reality. “This will save us…!”
“Fucking kill her!” Paige boomed with unrestrained frustration, shooting just one look at the tiny women illuminated distantly by the laptop’s continuous glow. A shine on her glasses made it clear that she had beamed a signal to them, that she wouldn’t be tested like this.
“Don’t kill Adrian!” Melanie shouted afterwards, with all her limited air devoted to her plea. But Scarlet still stood, still ready. “N-No… I-I’m sorry, j-just please…! Scarlet…!”
I think it’s funny, pretty appropriate too, Scarlet remembered, weeks ago. The rumbling of two colossal beings wrestling was silent to her against these memories. You were just a slut before, b-but now you’re a tiny slut. Only worms would want to fuck you and I bet you’d come around to liking it…
Scarlet stared down, burrowing her sights into Melanie -- into the image of Melanie overtop of Adrian. The heart of this foul, cruel goddess was primed to be punctured by her whim. Anger filled her, all the anger that had been bullied and suppressed into the corner of her battered mental state, and she affirmed her aim with more precision. Adrian winced, sparked by this electrical feeling of Scarlet’s murderous instinct finally being unleashed.
Pushed deep into her troubling corner, Melanie’s adrenaline was provoked into a burst of energy. Adrian’s cries empowered her to strike boldly at Paige, swinging for her face; she clawed at skin and grappled a long braid of hair, a modest but important advantage. Paige spat a whine of pain, her hands loosened and twisted off of Melanie’s neck for just a moment, a moment long enough for Melanie to assess what she needed to do.
Paige wouldn’t leave her for long, and was then back on the offensive. An animalistic growl debuted her consecutive bumrush into Melanie, and Melanie embraced it. She would need the extra weight to help her, for she had turned around and applied all of her own weight into the bookcase. Her hands grabbed at a lower shelf and pulled up, and when she lacked the strength to achieve her feat of strength, Paige had unwittingly charged in to assist her. It was with her attack that enough force slammed into the near-empty bookcase, just enough to allow gravity to do the rest.
As Melanie had intended, the effect it had on the tiny women occupying that very bookcase was catastrophic. The building-like structure that they occupied had rumbled again, except an extra jolt had everyone scrambling across the ground. Their entire world was tilting, tripping Scarlet over Adrian; the weapon, and the rage that had inspired her to kill, was lost in the chaos, dropped from her grip. As the thumbtack rolled down to the other side of the bookshelf, right over the edge, it had foreshown the fate the women had to prepare for.
Screams blurred into the dark madness. Whatever light the laptop had provided was now irrelevant as the women panicked into vain attempts of avoiding the fall. Chloe had raced to the other edge, but the incline became too much; she fell to her knees, then slid down the path, right into Scarlet and her best attempt at holding onto the wooden floor. Both girls tumbled away, hurdling past Kimberly and Bradz. It was only they and Adrian left, clinging to whatever chips in the wood they could embed their nails into. And yet, the ship continued to sink.
Adrian groaned, focused only on what lie ahead. This was unlike Kimberly, who looked down below, desperate to know if Scarlet and Chloe had survived. Instead, all she saw was the plummeting of books, descending like massive chunks of debris that rained upon the earth below. The explosive sound of their impact startled and shook the remaining women, notably a shriek from Kimberly.
“K-Kim!” Adrian shouted, finally looking down. She first saw Bradz, clinging to her legs more so than she did anything else. Beyond her, she saw just a glimpse of Kimberly, just moments before her grip could no longer be sustained. A scream signaled her tragic fall, a yell that shrunk into nothingness. “Nooo! Kim! Scarlet!”
Her own grip was failing, a miracle that she had managed it for so long, yet she knew it wouldn’t last. The burden that grappled at her legs was certain of that. Adrian groaned, “L-Let go!” and tried to shake Bradz away. The professor refused, and so she doomed themselves together.
The bookcase had hit something, just as its fall back had picked up speed. The sudden halt was a challenge too great for Adrian’s grip to beat, and so she and Bradz were flung off their final stand. Alongside them were the remaining books, each as tall as houses, falling to the same bleak pit. Adrian shot an arm to the sky, one last chance to save herself, but there was no platform to be found. Just as the others had, she was swallowed whole into the darkness.
The cacophony abruptly ended, leaving behind only the echoes of its destructive sounds. Old dust filled the air like a cloud, uprooting a scent of staleness. Melanie and Paige both gagged in the dirty environment they had collapsed into, blindly trying to gather their bearings. It wasn’t very clear what had happened, but they could tell that the bookcase hadn’t completely fallen over. Melanie was the first to confirm, opening her eyes and barely able to make out that it had tipped over onto the adjacent bookcase. The small collection of books that had remained were now completely drained onto the floor like a spill of papers and covers, and the shelves they had fallen from now hung over them like an angled bridge.
Melanie squirmed to get back into motion, but bruises littered her body. She winced, then coughed a storm. Having been strangled just seconds earlier, it was torture to have to inhale the filth in the air. She cussed as she navigated off the bookcase, knowing that she had to hurry; both the book and Adrian would have to found, and then--
She was grabbed. Pulled backwards by her the hood of her jacket, Melanie stumbled back onto the collapsed bookcase with a painful landing. She swung aimlessly, missing her target completely. Paige was invisible to her, allowing that foe to stand up without any ordeal. Once risen, Paige kicked into Melanie’s ribs, forcing out an aching groan. Still not content, Paige reached down and grabbed Melanie by her hoodie, ripping her aside and onto the floor. Melanie’s limp body collided with the legs of the desk, rattling it and the only light source atop it.
“Look at what you’ve done,” Paige said, from somewhere in the darkness. Melanie flinched, stomping at a chair leg she mistook as her enemy. That same chair was whisked away in a flash, thrown aside and out of Paige’s way. “You’re crazy. That’s the only explanation -- insanity.
“Do you realize that you’ve killed her?” Paige continued. Melanie held her side where she had been kicked while trying to slide across the floor, making only a vague amount of distance between her and Paige. “You probably have, anyway… I gave you the chance to deal with this peacefully. I gave you-- Do you truly love her? Because, after what you just did, I don’t believe it.” She chuckled hard. “Not for a second-- Where the hell is it?!” Thrashing could be heard, miscellaneous things being tossed around. “It fell over here, so where-- ah, yes…”
Melanie ignored her, and tried again to get to her feet. She made it as far as to her knees before she was grabbed again, exactly the same way, pulled backwards to be laid out on the floor. She gasped and raised her arms up in mercy, “I-I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she pleaded, “y-you can have the book, j-just g-give me… give me her…”
The desk was moved, taking away the low ceiling that had been above Melanie. Now the full height of the library weighed down at her, given light by the laptop and its newly adjusted angle. Stepping out from the shadows, Paige had appeared with a disgruntled expression. Her left braid was coming undone, her glasses were at the tip of her nose, and dust coated the front of her sweater vest. She stared deep down onto Melanie, and Melanie couldn’t look away. In just the corner of her eye, she saw the truth that terrified her; in Paige’s right hand was the spray bottle, just barely in usable shape despite the gash in its side. Only a fraction of the potion remained, existing beneath the bottle’s leak, but it was more than enough for Paige.
Melanie crawled backwards, but Paige matched the movement, stomping between her legs. Paige took aim, imposing stillness onto her target. “You… You had a knife… and yet,” Paige scoffed, she panted, “you didn’t have it in you to stab me? Is that it?”
Melanie swallowed, eyes aimed up at the sound of Paige’s voice. “I-I--”
“I’ve heard what you’ve done to those women. The nightmares you’ve made them live out. Where’s that bloodlust now? Had you stabbed me instead of this bottle… well, things would be pretty different right now. Can you not do it? Is it because you’re not big? It’s only when people are like bugs to you, that you can act like a demon? But you’re no demon at all. You’re a sad, creepy girl. And starting now, you’re even less than that.”
A mist rained over Melanie as she closed her eyes reflexively to the mundane spraying noise. Both hands shielded her, but Paige had hit her mark. A red drip fell from the nozzle, and Paige lowered the bottle to her side. The lack of a bang to accompany her execution made silence do the job of vocalizing the fear and terror of the situation. Melanie felt the sticky wetness of what had marked her, the moisture that collected at her chest as a stain on her hoodie.
Melanie looked up, shivers riddling her. Paige’s shadowed smile was coy as she stepped back, abandoning Melanie to her fate. “I still need that book,” she muttered, glancing back at the direction of the bookcase. The book had slid off in that direction, into the once empty hall between bookcases, but now a pool of novels cluttered the floor where it should have been. She snarled, but her patience was recovering. She fixed her glasses, sighed, and looked back down at Melanie. Her smile returned like a candle’s flame, “But I guess there’s no rush. I’ll let you know if I find your girlfriend’s corpse; it can be the first thing you see with your new perspective.”
Paige left Melanie to the tune of the her wining, her tossing and turning as the curse took effect. The biggest hurdle was overcome, but there was still a mess to clean up after. She shook her head in disbelief as the damage was given another survey. Melanie’s rage had truly clashed with Paige’s, and this was the result. From just looking at the toppled bookcase and its spew of books, Paige felt exhausted, but she couldn’t yet rest. Wedging herself under the bookcase allowed her to put in a mighty push upwards, correcting the bookcase back into order. The shelves, however, were still empty, and their contents blurred into the shadows, taking with it the one book Paige needed.
The light of Paige’s phone cleared a path out of the darkness, revealing just how badly scrambled the books were. She had hoped the spellbook would stand out, but all of the books appeared somewhat aged, and she had never obtained a good look at the book itself, either. She groaned as she shuffled past some of the books, and then kicked aside a smaller pile of them.
“Look out!” a squeak responded to her kick. “Paige! Paige!! I’m down here!”
Paige flashed her light down to where she had just toppled over some books, revealing the source of such a tiny, desperate noise. At her foot was Professor Bradz, sitting up from on top of one of the books, waving one arm in a stretched arc. Paige kneeled down to her, bringing with her the harsh light that remained cast over the shrunken teacher.
“Oh, god, oh thank god,” Bradz panted, blocking the light from her vision. It pained her to move her legs, leaving her to drag herself closer to the giantess, the same giantess that nearly crushed her with such a minute action. “P-Paige, please-- th-thank god you’re here, b-but we’re… we’re hurt, a-and--”
“I get it, yeah yeah,” Paige rolled her eyes, “I figured. Blame Melanie.” She aimed her light in the area around Bradz, having to readjust her angle as the shadows danced to the rhythm of her phone’s direction. “Where’s the book?! The spellbook!”
“I-I dunno!” Bradz answered quickly. “But Adrian ran off! Sh-She got up immediately, she went that way!”
“Forget about her. She’s worthless now. Seeing her would just… rile me up.” Paige stood back up, an act of defiance against Bradz’s begging to be lifted with her. She shed her light across the pool of books littered about, glaring at everything that wasn’t the tome. “Listen up!” she announced. “If you guys want a cure, then I need that book! Find it! I don’t care where you are, or what you have to do to get my attention. Find me that book and we’re done here.
“You too, Professor.” Paige knocked her foot into the book Bradz laid out on, pushing it slightly but enough so that it spooked its tiny passenger. “Or would you rather share a ride with the dean again? She’s been quite annoying, heh.” Paige pinched at the left side of her chest, squeezing at the bump of a woman that lived inside her pocket. Throughout all the commotion, Paige had forgotten about Coatler, and was oblivious to the roller coaster ride she was putting the shrunken dean through. The pinch quelled the squirming happening within, allowing Paige to press onward without distraction.
She cared for none of the books as she trampled over their covers. Exposed pages were crushed underfoot, and bindings were dented with her sweeping kicks. She hoped to thin out the pile first, exposing each of the books enough so that she could better look over them.
Paige was unaware that her tactic for sifting through the books was creating a fantastical storm for the tiny women beneath her. Dust was getting kicked up all over again, a sandstorm that made whips out of air. Books were bulldozed aside as she slid her foot across the floor, forming hills to her sides where they bunched up. In this valley of fallen literature was Chloe, a struggling survivor, screaming a signal to the giantess overhead. Her cries for attention, however, were outright ignored. Paige thundered right over her, and Chloe buckled to the ground in terror, gawking up at the huge legs that met directly above her.
“Chloe!” someone yelled to her. Chloe looked around, trying to make anything out in the dark while at the same time overcoming the dust and cold. Finally, she had seen her; Kimberly stood atop a distant book, both hands waving rapidly under the constantly swaying spotlight of Paige’s phone.
“K-Kimberly?!” Chloe gasped. She choked while shakily getting to her feet, ever watchful of where the titan’s next step would be. Kimberly continued to wave and call out to her, and so Chloe found the courage within her to race in her direction. “I’m coming!”
“Just get away!” Kimberly shouted, hands cupped over her mouth. “Get to somewhere safe! Anywhere!”
“O-Okay--”
“I’m not getting anywhere like this…” Paige’s voice conquered their distant conversation. Both women stared up at Paige as she grumbled her complaint, but fear swelled when they saw her descending. One knee dropped to the floor with a blunt impact, followed by the other. Unbeknownst to her, her feet had just raced right past either side of Chloe like two big rigs blitzing through a highway. Not only was her path cut off, but she was surrounded on both sides by Paige’s legs as she continued her sifting on her knees. Embarrassingly, Chloe caught herself staring up and into the darkness, where the movement of Paige’s rear posed to be a second, potentially more serious threat.
Kimberly could no longer see Chloe, her line of sight broken by Paige’s repositioning. She held her head tight, praying in whispers that the worst hadn’t happened. There was no way to confirm, and there was no reason to stand there to find out. Kimberly jumped from the book and down to another, then another. She would escape from here, regardless of what kind of jagged path she had to trek.
She ran hoping to make distance between her and Paige’s search. If she made it to the other bookcase, she imagined, she could hide out there and be safe from the giant books being tossed about. Kimberly’s plan, however, would have to change. Just as she had climbed up one of the last books in her way, she heard a cry for help. The voice was too familiar, and she shouted back instinctively, “Scarlet?!”
There was no response, at least none Kimberly could hear over Paige’s storm. She looked frantically all over, dueling with herself over the prospect of ignoring what may have been her imagination. Any time spent being held back, looking for survivors, was budgeted directly out of her chance of escaping alive. She bit her fingers, then called out once more, “Scarlet?! Are you out there?!”
“Kimberly! Help!” Scarlet’s voice was heard in the brief window where Paige had slowed her movements. Kimberly looked in that direction -- nothing, until she saw a cover of a book flapping, ever so slightly. Kimberly’s heart rose, then sank; where Scarlet had to be was right in Paige’s path. Just as Kimberly flinched to move, so did Paige start to progress. A distinct scream for help was heard as Paige’s knee moved ahead. Kimberly cussed, she cussed again, then leaped off the book in a sprint towards Scarlet.
“Hang on, hang on!” Kimberly yelled, climbing and leaping over book after book. Twice, she got a glance at Paige and her approach, but the second time proved that she couldn’t afford any distractions. She raced up to where she had seen Scarlet’s signal, making her way through a fog of spinning dust.
When she finally stumbled to her location, she spotted Scarlet, as well as a severe situation. She was trapped, caught under more than half of a novel’s pages. The position of the book left her with no comfort, twisted nastily against another book’s binding. Scarlet was near motionless, only able to grip and continuing to flap the cover of the book she could reach.
Kimberly jumped over to her, trying to process the situation. She wanted to ask how this happened, then kicked herself for wondering about something so silly. Without thinking, she went for the obvious, grabbing Scarlet’s arms and pulling. This triggered a sharp yelp, which Kimberly attempted to ignore until her attempt ultimately failed.
“It hurts…” Scarlet winced. Dust filled her mouth and she coughed dryly. “I-I don’t want to die, Kim… I don’t, I don’t, I don’t--”
“I know you don’t,” Kimberly cooed, with panic ever present in her tone. She shivered as Paige stepped forward closer than ever, her knee callously colliding on top of one unfortunate book, one that very well could have been Scarlet’s. That next second, Kimberly had released Scarlet and changed her strategy. Though she knew herself not to be very strong, she acknowledged that their only chance at freedom was to push open the book and let Scarlet out. Using all her might, she struggled, but a few inches of space were added between Scarlet and the heavy pages, a feat accomplished not without an agonizing, adrenaline-powered groan from Kimberly.
Scarlet pulled herself out as best she could with legs that had nearly been flattened. She tumbled out gracelessly, winding up in a small pit formed by how the books fell. A temporary trap, one that she was able to pry herself free from with the help of Kimberly’s offered hand. Then, they jumped with little more than a dash to get them speed.
Every second had mattered, because just as the two leaped aside, Paige’s legs had barreled through. The book they had landed on then began to flip, causing their little bodies to roll down the upturned story and dropping them to the floor. Their screams were completely drowned by the destruction Paige caused, but they had been able to scream at all -- they were alive, they had survived.
These perils meant nothing to Paige. She would stop at nothing to locate the book, even with her frustration rising to its absolute limit. Excitedly, she had grabbed an old book that was falling apart -- This is it!, she thought, incorrectly. It was just an ordinary old book, and in her anger, she threw it carelessly out of the pool of others; another bomb-like blast to terrify the tiny stragglers.
“Where! Where is it?!” Paige yelled, sitting up to her knees and casting her light quickly over the remaining half of the books. If it was anywhere here, it had to be coming up. She had told herself there would be no other distractions between her and the spellbook, but there was an exception that appeared in the shimmer of her light, a moving dot of a shadow that was scaling up a stack of books. Another one of Melanie’s victims, but this one stood out, with its staggered mobility and straight-forward direction.
Paige stood to her feet, her phone locked onto her prey. With just one step, she had made it up to Adrian’s path of escape. Not a word had to be said to get the shrunken student’s attention, as just the landing of her foot had caused a quake that made Adrian trip and collapse forward. She couldn’t get up, despite wanting to do so instantly. All she could do was look back at Paige, blinded by the piercing light pointed at her.
“So, at the end of the day, they failed me,” Paige mused aloud onto Adrian. She sighed before continuing, “I guess I can’t blame them. I, too, expected Melanie to play along fairly. You weren’t supposed to be killed, but that was Melanie’s decision. Looks as though Scarlet hesitated for too long.”
Adrian inhaled, then flipped back around to kick off onto her feet. She was in a mad sprint up an angled book cover, leaping off the surface like a diving board and onto another. The landing was a trip, she stumbled into a scraped knee, and then she was caught. A scream brought her no remorse from the clutches of Paige, whose hand dwarfed the woman into a cage of fingers. Only once did Adrian feel this exact sinister energy, weeks ago, when Melanie had dwindled her in size first.
Tickling was all Paige felt within her coiled fist. All of Adrian’s claustrophobic struggling could only manage an idle giggle of a response, entertaining her captor more than she was incentivizing her to release her. Paige’s fingers shifted, allowing Adrian’s head to be revealed. Adrian could then see the woman’s face, up close and breathing down upon her with a mechanical sense of ventilation. Despite the warmth of her air, Adrian found herself shivering, her entire body running cold with fear as she searched for the eyes behind the round glasses.
“P-Please--” Adrian’s begging began, but her tiny voice popped a laugh from Paige. The sudden exhale and noise startled her into defense, prying one arm loose from the trap of fingers to block the gust. “I-I don’t want any of this…!”
“You’ve had it really easy, Adrian,” Paige said. “I was so worried when I heard the news about you at school. It took a few days for the report to be official, but when the story broke out, I just couldn’t believe it. One of my students for my assistant teaching job had been... kidnapped. I wondered what kind of monster could do such a thing to someone. I never imagined it would be… another one of my students. I never expected a monster to look like her…
“... You’ve developed a bond with her, haven’t you?”
Adrian stuttered, taken back by what this question meant. She shook her head, “No! No! I hate her!” Her response triggered something, for immediately after her answer did she feel the fist tighten harshly around her body. A groan crescendoed into a cry, a yell that wouldn’t cause the constricting pain to stop. Paige held her there in that strangle of a hold.
“All of this happened because of you,” Paige said, “you and whatever you inspired inside of Melanie. Both of you were normal girls once; additional, faceless students that filled just one of a few classrooms I aided in. But when I look at either of you now, I feel different. I feel sick. It isn’t just the staff on campus that needs to be cleansed, but it’s the students, too.”
“I… I did nothing…!” Adrian cried, her voice hoarse and hurting. She stammered into a tearful mess, a pitiful expression offered to the judge that choked her. “I never…! Asked for…! This…!”
“How unfair for you. Just as it was unfair for all the other people who were shrunken down into toys. A curse that never would have come to life… without you, and without your effect on Melanie.”
“Th-That isn’t-- Raaugghh!” Adrian screamed, a pulse from Paige’s hand threatening to break in her ribs and hips. The tips of her hands and all of her legs were stiff with numbness, as though her body were deteriorating from the ends first. A weak pound of her arm against a trunk-thick finger was her final bout of resistance, a cheap attempt to fight back.
The restricting grip then suddenly gave in. Freedom of movement washed over Adrian, but only most of her. Her legs and torso were exposed, but a ring of flesh still hugged her chest and neck, keeping her locked in the air. She grappled with the finger, not to undo its grasp but to ensure she wouldn’t be released, dropped into the depths beneath her that tickled her legs with the absence of ground. Adrian’s breathing, terse in its rhythm, was asking the silent question of what Paige intended to do.
Just as life returned to her legs and she was able to kick them aimlessly, one of them had been snatched. Two powerful fingers held the leg in place, and Adrian lacked the energy to pull it away or even stomp at it. Perhaps she also knew it was futile, but her mind raced into a frenzy like no other. Her shouts were air-deprived babbles, confused ramblings that begged for peace and mercy. No matter how unclear her speech became, it was all the same to Paige. Squeaks, and nothing else, from an untamed rodent.
“I’ll teach you, Adrian,” Paige said softly. A wintery nostalgia was beset onto Adrian, reminded of how Paige used to speak in that innocent classroom. “One painful step at a time… I’ll claim you as mine. I can’t trust you to be normal again… so I’ll teach you how to live without Melanie, and how to live with me.”
Those words sank into Adrian, deeper into her soul than any lesson she had ever learned, only to explode within her in a literal snap. The agony that riddled her body was gone -- not healed, but forgiven, made worthless in less than a second, as all her senses flooded from the single pain in her leg. Paige had pressed her thumb forward, going against the knee it had previously been massaging. One small press, a minor amount of effort, and Adrian’s left leg had been bent backwards in the middle, unlocking a crack of a noise that even surprised Paige with its volume.
There wasn’t a scream at first, or even later. The sound Adrian made was a comparable to a groan, a sigh. In her mind, everything flashed with a brutal red, like the world was heating up to an end. It wasn’t the literal injury that wounded her to her core, it was the ease of it. Her body was not hers to control, it wasn’t hers to freely interact with the world. Her leg, just like her arms or chest or head, were all just parts. Parts of a toy, an Adrian toy, passed from one set of hands to the next, in a pattern that promised to spiral into increasingly worse and worse days -- months -- years.
That redness was fading. A deep light was trickling into her vision; if the world was ending, then this was the end itself. Anything she could picture out of her surroundings became ugly and unclear when she was turned upside-down, held by the lifeless leg that had been unceremoniously broken. The floor above her greeted her like a scrapyard of books, a perfect place for garbage like her to be disposed of, while her newly appointed master continued her search.
Rolling thunder sent quakes through the world. A stampede was suddenly on the approach, a charging force blitzing over the valley of texts. The dusty clouds dispersed with the rapid footfalls of another titan, no concern for the survivors scattered across the wasteland. Chloe gawked at the giantess’s run, hiding behind a novel. Kimberly and Scarlet bunkered back into their hole, just as the challenger jet past them. For each of these shrunken women, the shockwaves of this mighty run had them hopped into the air, as if one half of the world was on a collision course with the other half.
Paige flicked the light off of Adrian and towards the unabashed sound of running coming from the shadows behind her. It was too late to respond, but disbelief had certainly hit her with time to spare. The light undid the shadowy cloak draped over her enemy, and it bounced back at Paige in the form of an emerald-colored glare.
Melanie tackled into Paige where she was seated, a full-force charge that saw both women lunged into the remaining spill of books. Both fell to the ground with a heavy crash, two monoliths collapsing in a dust-raising display of violence. Melanie had tripped so far that she was outside the alley made up of bookcases and into an open circle of the library’s main hall. Slightly further from her point, Paige was laid out, twisting from the sudden shock. Her fingers clenched, checking for Adrian, but she had disappeared. The grasp on Adrian had failed when Paige was struck, and the tiny woman was sent tumbling across the floor, as though she had leaped poorly out of a running train.
Melanie rose swiftly to her knees, the first of the two tumbled giants to show life. Her one question was of Adrian’s safety, and one glance provided her answer. Even in the dark, she could point out Adrian with compass-like precision, and so she noticed her, abandoned and frail on the floor not far from her.
Her answer was clear, but Paige’s own questions were left unsolved. She stared at her opponent, newly risen and a threat once again. Melanie had changed since their showdown, no longer sporting her hoodie but donning instead the black v-neck shirt she had worn underneath it that day. This was not at all like the change Paige had so highly anticipated. She had expected Melanie to be squirming on the ground like a true bug, shrunken by the same curse she had applied to innocent lives. Paige did not realize, of course, that these two details were one in the same.
It had been Melanie’s saving grace. This braided bitch doesn’t know how the magic works, Melanie had coldly thought when she was on her back, defenseless and ready for a lifetime of misery, had Paige’s aim been better. She doesn’t know that it needs to touch hair.
And so she had recovered in silence, playing the part of succumbing to the curse. Paige had left with the illusion of victory, but Melanie bided her time. She had to, forced to let her senses recollect and for her flares of pain to cool. At the same time, she was waiting for Paige to be at her weakest, so that this reengagement could happen. She removed her stained hoodie, crept to the aisle the others were in, and saw her worst nightmare playing out.
That rage fueled Melanie even now. She was fast to get back on her feet, already taking aim at Paige for her follow-up attack. Paige wasn’t slow either; she scrambled to her knees, eyeing her opponent, but making a crucial mistake. Out of instinct, her arm reached for the only weapon she had, but she didn’t have it. In her cruel play with Adrian, she had placed the potion down onto the floor. It was by Melanie’s feet now, but Melanie had no interest in it. Their battle would continue without the spray bottle’s influence, a decision of Melanie’s that Paige hadn’t predicted.
Flat-footed still, Paige was a simple target to lay into. Melanie charged like a bull once more, taking a direct path to clash with her. Paige threw a punch ahead of her, hoping to at least use it to lock a set distance, but other than bashing into Melanie’s unsuspecting skull, it did nothing to slow the assault. She was grappled, hugged into Melanie’s arms and pulled back, dragged so quickly that her feet couldn’t brace themselves at all. Here, Paige could fit in a desperate punch into Melanie’s back, again doing nothing to the crazed woman and her tolerance for pain.
Then, she was tossed. Thrown forward and forced into a stumbled balance on her feet, Paige almost collapsed back onto the floor like she had been. A firm stop helped sturdy herself, and she applied her weight onto the surface in front of her, half-slamming into it from Melanie’s throw. But it wasn’t a wall; it moved, just an inch, and then clicked close. It was a door, the front doors to Anders Library, and accompanying the sound of its lock fitting into place was a mundane clak, a chirp just above Paige’s head.
With her back pressed against the door, Paige looked directly up. A frame was all she could see, the image of a white mug falling at her, with its red-tinted contents expanding out of it in a splash. Wetness marked her with a cold slap, but more harsh was the weight of the mug hitting her in the nose, shattering the left lens of her glasses, and tearing a drip of blood with that broken glass.
The blow alone sent Paige into a swirling daze. She barked in fury, trying to make sense of it all, but the damage to her head made her too dizzy to stand. She collapsed to her knees, one arm supporting her and the other wiping away at the sticky spill getting into her hair. A scent burned her nostrils, enough that she gagged, but not because the alcohol was insulting. Her stomach was spinning, and a different category of dizziness was corrupting her mind. As this all dawned on her, Paige was paralyzed, gazing into the floor with empty, broken eyes.
And again, the dust had settled. Silence won over except for the pair of heavy breaths, both figures coming to terms with the outcome. Melanie was wary and stepped back into the aisle of books, watching as Paige swayed and stumbled, unable to get back to her two feet, unable to lock eyes with her. Paige coughed from a burning pain rising in her chest, an ailment that paled before the strike of a migraine. One last attempt to stand ended in failure, and Paige fell back to her knees, shorter than before.
Even in the darkness, Melanie understood the familiar scene. Just like Scarlet, just like Kimberly, just like Adrian, just like Nicky, just like Erin, just like Candi, just like Chloe, just like Bradz. And just like each of these situations, all performed in the same pattern, each one stood unique to her, always different enough that her heart never felt the same way twice. She watched, diligently, patiently; she made sure that Paige dwindled away completely, until her rival had melted into a doll of her former self.
Paige trembled on the cold ground. Nothing in the world was moving to her, only her sickened motions that left her uneasy. The shockwaves of Melanie’s first steps beckoned to her, but she refused the call. She stared only at the ground right beneath her, even as the chill of Melanie’s presence hung overhead. She expected the worst -- everything cut to an even darker black, a more confined darkness. Her heart drummed madly, the only indication that this hadn’t been a swift, merciful death.
Melanie’s creativity was at a low. She saw nothing in Paige but a nuisance, a reminder of the problem that once existed. With the very mug that had been Paige’s downfall, Melanie closed her off beneath it. A temporary cage to ensure her enemy couldn’t flee, not while Melanie had so much to be working on.
Which, in turn, brought her attention back to Adrian. She returned to where Paige had been, just before their final encounter began. Adrian was still there, discarded on the floor, limp and motionless and depleted. A brick formed in Melanie’s heart, she choked, “N-No, oh no,” and fell softly to her knees, using the adjacent shelves for balance.
A gentle hand neared Adrian, making the most tender of contacts. She pushed her with just a finger, like shaking her wife awake in the morning. “Adrian,” she cooed, “wake up… Y-You’re fine, you’re okay…”
But the body was unresponsive. Melanie feared the worst, all of her anxieties began to blow up. She pressed her finger more tightly into Adrian’s chest. She closed her eyes, settled her breathing until it was entirely held, and she listened. Faintly, but at the tip of her finger, she could feel the beating of a little life. When she looked at Adrian again, it was depressingly apparent how damaged the shrunken woman was, how battered the giant world had left her, and how mangled that leg really was.
She needs-- Melanie scoffed, she covered her mouth, anguished at what she knew. A doctor, damn it, she understood, she needs a doctor! I-I can’t do anything for her like this!
Her eyes closed more tightly. Despair struck at her again, because there was something she could do. There was one chance at getting Adrian to the help she needed, the help she deserved, after having survived through so much.
Melanie’s head slowly craned up, surveying the mess of books. With her phone’s light, she had discovered Scarlet and Kimberly, and not far behind them was Chloe and Bradz. She moved without a word, lifting them up without unnecessary fanfare and depositing them in pairs into one of the shelves. Their struggles and plights fell onto deaf ears; Melanie couldn’t recollect a single detail of what they said or how they acted, cherishing nothing from these interactions like she used to.
Adrian was gently lifted off the ground, just as still as before, into wide hands that carefully blanketed the cold body. Melanie stared at her exclusively, fumbling through the library in a stupor. Everything she needed was collected and gathered into the boiler room, except for one thing, the one thing she wasn’t able to retrieve. A critical incantation that she would have to go without.
Candles burned around a bowl that held a recipe of dry ingredients. Minerals and grounded roots combined into a powder, set upon a pedestal of stacked books. The ripping of plastic clashed with the atmosphere, but it was a needed step; the spray bottle was too damaged, and thus Melanie removed the top half. The red liquid within was a trickle of the amount it began as, much earlier that day, but the quantity had yet to mattered. She anxiously swallowed on the hope that this would remain true, even as she crossed a threshold of no return.
Chloe… and Bradz… the dean, and now Paige… The names were mentally arranged, added like an equation perceived as deceitfully simple. But the math was true; four names, awaiting a fifth. Melanie looked to Adrian, an unconscious body set between her and the alter. As always, the sight of her sparked her resolve. For Adrian, Melanie would commit to anything.
Two fingers dipped into the remaining wine and were then held at the peak of her head. Tiny streams of the potion trickled through her scalp, and what remained of the concoction was added to the bowl, swirling the ingredients with its pour.
Melanie clasped her hands, fingers folded over one another, and words flowed from her. All of her being was put into making sure this cure -- to grow a shrunken person back to normal size -- was going to work.