So close, yet so far away. A simple phrase that haunted Adrian as a horrifying theme to her situation.

There was no doubt in her mind of who this was. Even with the distorted vision that came from being a shrunken person, Adrian was positive that this was Erin standing before her -- or more accurately, standing before Melanie. She could never forget Erin’s soft, high-pitched voice. She couldn’t forget that long, reddish-brown hair that was, today, knotted in two cute braids. She couldn’t forget Erin’s sincerity in everything she did, the honesty that prevailed in her actions, even when they were breaking up.

Immediately, those bitter goodbyes came to Adrian’s mind. It made her pause before doing anything else, recollecting on how they had separated. None of that mattered to her now, more than anything she wanted to reunite with her just to escape the hell she had endured.

Yet, despite being within arm’s reach in one sense, there seemed to be no way to get Erin’s focus to be on her. “Erin!! Erin, save me!!” she screamed, forcing her mouth up to the one gap in Melanie’s fingers that she had to work with. She reached an arm out, punching her way out of Melanie’s grasp. “Please Erin!! Please!! Please, just look here!! I’m right here!!”

Melanie twisted her grip, closing her grasp around Adrian more tightly. She shut off Adrian’s one peek to the outside world, and idly destroyed her chances of contacting Erin by pocketing her discreetly. Her eyes never left the missing person paper in her other hand, the same way Erin’s eyes never thought to look at Melanie’s fist.

“You look like you’re our age,” Erin said. Her voice was parched, surely from having been dashing around all day to hand out her fliers. “You don’t go to school here, do you?”

Melanie opened her mouth, biding her time by pretending to read every detail off the paper. Truthfully, her mind was rushing to form any kind of response but only turned out blank, leading to an awkward stutter into silence. She started to sweat under Erin’s watch, still struggling to comprehend all of this. She took another glance at the paper, assuming she had lost herself in a dream-like state and only imagined that the photo was of Adrian, and that her name wasn’t actually written in full along the upper-half in bold letters.

“... I don’t… know her,” Melanie muttered, the first thing that came to mind. “I-I mean, I do to go school, um, here. But I don’t really… talk to people…”

Erin frowned and her shoulders dropped. She wasn’t that surprised to hear that, but she was more let down than annoyed. “... You’ve never seen her?” she pressed on.

“I don’t think so,” Melanie quickly answered, and made a move to get around Erin. “I-I’m sorry. I… I really am sorry.”

“Can you spread the word?” Erin asked, hoping for at least that.

“Y-Yeah, sure,” Melanie said. “I’ll k-keep an eye out…”

Every breath was becoming thinner, every heartbeat more noticeable. Melanie could stand it no longer, and after a final brief pause in front of Erin, she turned around and made a hurried walk to get away. There wasn’t any destination in mind, not even to the temporary sanctuary of that one corner in the mall she had been using. She lifted up on her messenger bag, securing it around her shoulder, and lightly slid a hand over her pants pocket, feeling for the shape of Adrian.

Adrian reached out of the pocket, her hand feeling the outdoor air for just a moment before being pushed back to the bottom. She screamed as her life depended on it, she needed Erin to hear her, even a squeak, but all the effort it took to climb up to the top of the pocket was wasted by an idle push by a single finger. Resisting as she did was fruitless, her grip torn from the pocket’s edge in an instant, forced down into the corner of the fabric hole.

“Erin! Erin, Erin!” Adrian stammered over and over. She clawed and kicked at the pocket in a fury, lost in the dizzying motion of Melanie’s enormous paces, thrown back and forth with every step going ahead. She gave up quickly, collapsing awkwardly into the divet amid a chunk of lint. The motion was maddening, pushing her to insanity, certainly not helped by the cruelty of coming so close to salvation.

There was only one thing Adrian could accept and understand, and that was that her chances of escaping at the outlet mall had been vanquished. After such a scare, Melanie was in no comfortable position to trust having Adrian out again, Adrian was certain of that. She regretted heavily all the little things she could have done to achieve a different fate, she could have screamed louder or tried harder to break through the clasp of fingers, anything to get Erin to look down and realize that the missing person she was pursuing was there, right there, begging for her help, right there.

Adrian broke into a shout that unleashed her build up of tears. She swung her elbows into the firm wall on one side, knowing she was beating on Melanie. Even if her blows were bouncing off the thigh, she continued relentlessly, hurting herself far more than she was damaging Melanie.

“You bitch! You fucking piece of shit fucker!” Adrian kicked and howled at Melanie, painfully aware of how both of these were ignored. “God damn it, I could kill you! Aahhh! Erin, why?!” She whimpered, passing an arm swiftly over her cheeks to wipe away her tears. “Why…?!”

Despair diluted the passage of time, but even Adrian had to acknowledge that something wasn’t right with how long she had been kept where she was. Melanie was still walking, even after several minutes had passed since she had been stopped by Erin. At first, Adrian thought of this in consideration for another break out; she didn’t care if anyone was there to spot her, she just wanted to leave Melanie and run away. However, as Melanie continued to walk, more concern came to Adrian’s attention. She listened closely to the outside world and what passed by. As far as she could tell, it was still the outlet mall, so what was taking Melanie?

Suddenly, she was being lifted out of the pocket. She squirmed in the grasp of Melanie’s fingers, but the motion was faster than usual, taking the wind out of her by the time she was in an open palm. She turned, looking up and around her -- the distant walls were pearly clean with mint-green strips, plus a soapy smell in the air. It was a bathroom, meant for families but being completely occupied by just Melanie.

It didn’t matter to Adrian where they were. She glared all the same, eventually looking up at Melanie for a moment before the sight disgusted her so much as to look away. She expected Melanie to say something, though not about what specifically. Yet, there was nothing said. Melanie offered only silence, quietly observing the tiny woman she held.

Adrian scoffed, still hesitant to speak up but unable to restrain herself for very long. “What is it?” she asked, her tone snappy like a betrayed lover. “Weren’t we going home? Where are we?”

Melanie’s expression didn’t change. She looked unamused, conflicted even. “W-We… We’ll head home… soon…”

There was hardly any pause. “We need to go,” Melanie said.

“Where?” Adrian asked, but was given no answer. She demanded a reply, but Melanie deposited her back into the messenger bag pocket. Melanie stood up, waited, and then moved again. Even more did this confuse Adrian, and even more did she want an explanation. The mysteries around this situation became major stresses on Adrian, who failed time and time again in her attempts to discover anything on her own.

A door slammed, jolting Adrian awake. She panted, reaching out for anything to help comprehend her darkened surroundings. She had lost track of where she was, but she recalled still being left in that pocket for what felt like an hour, maybe more. She yawned, rolling over to a slightly more comfortable position to look up at what light dimly trickled in from above. Moist stains dotted her cheeks, but she paid them no mind, observant only of any clues that might enlighten her to what had happened during an unexpected sleep.

Something felt familiar, and Adrian acknowledged it as the scent of Melanie’s room. So, we did come back home after all, Adrian thought. A second later, the building-sized bag she was trapped in rumbled as it was placed somewhere, shifting her surroundings and causing her to fumble about.

Adrian stood up, expecting Melanie to reach for her. Nothing. She cared little for how that giantess would treat her, so she trudged to the top of the pocket, poking her head out and looking around for details. A light then turned on, illuminating what she had assumed correctly; they were back in the bedroom, the world that she had been spent a week trapped in.

In the distance, Melanie could be overheard. She didn’t say a word, but she was at her desk in the midst of something. Adrian groaned as she squeezed more of her body out of the pocket, no longer afraid to attempt something like this if she were in the relative safety of Melanie’s apartment. She could see much more now, how Melanie hovered over her desk, picking up the dot-sized people that were Kimberly, Nicky, and Scarlet, and placing them back into their cubbies. It felt wrong for this one time to see Melanie say and do nothing to her slaves, stoic as she pinched their bodies.

A cold shadow swept over the bag, chilling Adrian enough to make a short retreat back into the pocket. Melanie passed by her, but still had no remark. Adrian looked out again, this time only able to see Melanie’s shadow along the humongous wall opposite of the chair she understood the messenger bag to be on. The silhouette kneeled down to the floor, first squatting while doing something, and then momentarily it was a crawl towards her bed.

Is she grabbing something? Adrian wondered. It sounds like she’s packing.

Adrian’s heart began to feel heavy, sinking into her chest and wanting to drag her back to the bottom of the pocket. This was about Erin, a fact that Adrian had been in denial about. The shady behavior, the sudden silence, the monotone packing; Melanie was preparing for some kind of plan. The more Adrian theorized, the more she berated herself for acting so short-sighted. This entire time, Melanie was up to another scheme, and Erin was the most logical target to fall under the crosshairs.

“Melanie! Melanie!” Adrian shouted her name, one hand cupped over her mouth. “What are you thinking?! Please, I want us to talk! Please stop!”

The shadow Adrian could see flinched, buckling under the tiny voice. Melanie turned her head back, she longed towards Adrian, but she resolved to continue what she had been doing. A bag rustled, being filled with a variety of items that Adrian couldn’t make out.

All Adrian was armed with were words as pitifully small as herself. Melanie was unslowed by these protests, continuing towards what she had envisioned and leaving Adrian out of this knowledge. When she had collected everything, there was still a crucial step to be done. She held up the missing person paper as well as a phone, one Adrian barely recognized as not Melanie’s own, but Scarlet’s. It was that same flip phone used to lure Nicky -- Adrian screamed, realizing that this wicked fate couldn’t be stopped once again.

“I’m sorry, Adrian,” Melanie said, back turned to her bag while she tacked away at the phone. “I can’t help myself. It’s like breathing… I need to do this…”

Adrian didn’t know what that meant. She kept crying. “Please don’t do this to Erin!” she wailed. In her denial, she was hammered with questions that she hoped couldn’t be answered. “H-How…? What are you even doing -- did you get a hair from her or not?!”

Melanie had a reply, somewhere lost in her throat. She swallowed, and approached the chair with heavy steps. She loomed high over Adrian, with one hand holding a simple tote bag for groceries, now filled with important tools. “You’ll get to see,” she finally said, and then grabbed the messenger bag with Adrian in stock. “The truth is… I’ve dreamed of this before.”

Adrian protected herself in the blind darkness that immersed everything in the pocket. Her tears were dry remnants from the only thing she could do while being carried across miles of a massive world. She couldn’t sleep, or even close her eyes. Every bump made her shriek, every sound made her whimper, like an abused dog cowering into a corner. Pitifully, she would occasionally stare up at the slit opening of the pocket. She envisioned those nasty fingers prying their way in and finding her, or worse, pocketing yet another person to add to her collection.

Every other thought was about Erin -- the concern her ex-girlfriend had for her, the danger that was approaching her, the potential reactions she would have to the surrealness, and sometimes just memories. Memories of them together, when Melanie was a nonexistent concept, as fictional as the possibility of being hexed to the size of a doll. She meditated on that stray possibility, a split into a different timeline, where she didn’t give up on Erin and in turn Erin did not give up on her. They would be together right now, enjoying the night in bed, maybe. Or maybe they’d be fighting, just like they did before graduation. Maybe Erin would only just now realize she wanted more from a partner than Adrian could give. Or maybe Adrian would have proven Erin wrong, and changed, into something she didn’t want to be.

Adrian could cry again, but her eyes had nothing left to shed but their diminished glimmer. She dimly looked back down, away from the rays of light that randomly shot past the pocket for brief intervals. She wondered where they were going, but she also knew that it didn’t matter. Part of her, for some reason, wanted to return to that alley, just near that gas station. She would give anything to feel normal, to be reminded of what normal felt like, with or without Erin there.

Impatience turned to deep ire. Adrian felt the nothingness closing in on her, all due to her lack of action. She was spurred into spasms, unleashing her fury onto the fabric, before her growling ascended into her standing up and climbing up to the pocket’s edge. How much longer?! she needed to know. Maybe…! Maybe there’s still time for me to do something…!

With a huff, Adrian threw up the pocket’s flap and exposed herself to the night. She didn’t care if Melanie saw her acting up now, it made no difference at this point; if anything, she hoped her actions would ruin something for Melanie. But what she saw surprised her; they were back at campus, somewhere branching off from the commons but not somewhere Adrian immediately recognized. Turning left and right revealed nothing, except that Melanie was alone, walking in the dark with a mission in mind.

A minute later, everything spun in a new direction. Adrian bunkered back into the pocket, but still kept her head poked out. Melanie had jolted off somewhere, seemingly into the bushes if the cascade of thick leaves was any indication for Adrian. She was hiding, Adrian guessed, but from who, and why?

For just a glimpse, Adrian was able to make out a structure, a building that Melanie was on route to. Ahead was the old library, a closed-off building that students were banned from occupying. She only remembered the name Anders Library when she heard it in Melanie’s voice, collected from a memory of when she was first shrunk. Somewhere behind those walls was once a spellbook, Adrian recalled, and she wished it had stayed there, undiscovered for all of time.

The bouncing prison of the pocket ceased its rhythmic bouncing. The next second, such calm was broken when Adrian was hurled to the bottom of the pocket, dislodged from the edge as everything rocketed upwards. Melanie was hopping the wire fence, and a meteoric slam left Adrian dazed and disoriented. The walking continued, more in a hurry this time, as Melanie rushed to enter the lightless building.

Not a sound came from Anders Library. It was silent before, but now even the idle chirping of crickets and the racking caws of crows had been closed away. Adrian heard only herself think, and those thoughts were as perplexed as before. Why did Melanie return to Anders Library? What did she bring? Where was Erin in all of this? And, stressing her the most, why was she brought along?

A vague answer to that question came in the form of Adrian’s world shifting once again. The messenger bag was set down, along with the tote bag Melanie also brought. From the pocket’s lip came a scramble of fingers; Adrian shouted, but the hand was quick at nabbing her entire frame in one balled-up fist.

“What-- What’s going on?! What are you doing to me?! Melanie!!” Adrian panicked and thrashed about, but Melanie casually overpowered all of that. She placed Adrian onto a desk, occupied otherwise only by a small stack of books. Adrian nearly tripped when being let go, and when at first she was relieved to have some distance, the void she was abandoned in was too lonely. She looked back to Melanie, but she was practically gone, fading away into the shadows and taking with her the two bags.

Adrian was silent and still, until the terror awakened her fears to burst. “Come back! Wait, wait, please come back!” she yelled. She ran to the end of the desk, arms waving to get Melanie’s attention, but she never reappeared. Adrian felt smaller than ever before, like a speck of dust in a vacant room.

“Please… Please Melanie…!” she whined. “I-I… C-Come back! I need--”

She gasped, choking on her trembling words. She held her breath; two double doors at the front had opened, and a clean pathway connected the entry to Adrian’s table. Light seeped into Anders Library from the distant street light, but it wasn’t much illumination, just enough to highlight the silhouette of a figure. Adrian flinched away from who it could be, but she had a feeling -- neither good nor bad -- of who it was.

“... Is… anyone here?” the delicate voice asked, barely enough to travel down the first hall of the library. “... Adrian? … Adrian…?”

It was Erin, walking forward into the darkness she first hesitated from. The shadowy interior of the abandoned library would make anyone dread entering, but Erin didn’t see it as completely black. Somewhere within the old building was a candle light, that faraway hope that this would lead her to Adrian, and she was guided by this flickering idea, lured to its warmth.

“Erin…” Adrian could barely mumble her name. She felt that time was ticking, and yet she still could do nothing. “Erin! Erin, Erin!” Her voice got louder, but despair made her tone bleak. Erin didn’t hear her, not with how far she was, but Adrian held onto hope. She was coming closer, stepping forward with her phone’s flashlight being cast in front of her.

“Adrian…? I-Is anyone here?” Erin called out, her voice wrought with worry. She tried to assure herself, looking back at her phone’s screen where that mysterious text message was. According to it, Adrian was seen frequently around here at night; it was a lead, if nothing else, that Erin couldn’t afford to underestimate.

Erin lifted her voice. “A-Adrian, it’s okay,” she said, shining her light down a leftward aisle, then an opposite one. The long, sharp shadows of bookshelves moved as she exposed their emptiness. “I don’t care why you’re here… J-Just tell me… that you’re okay…”

Adrian’s breathing became harsh. She wanted to rip into her chest and tear out her heart. “Erin…!” She swiped at her face, then raised both arms into the air. She jumped and yelled, “I’m here, Erin! Erin, please!”

“--Adrian?” Erin perked up; she almost dropped her phone, startled by what little of a sound she heard. It was tiny, she thought for sure she just made it up. The light in her hand was shaking as it whipped around the library in pursuit of the sound’s source. “Adrian? W-Was that… No…”

But Adrian felt that she had been heard, she had made contact -- some degree of contact, anyway. Inspired, she jumped again and again, “Erin! Look at the desk, please look at me! Please hurry!”

Screaming had, finally, worked. Erin cast the light over to the table ahead of her, where the movement of a shadow caught her eye. She leaned forward, edging just slightly closer to the spectacle of something bobbing up and down from one of the many tables. Then, she heard the squeaking, a noise not unlike the one before, and she stepped closer still. Her mouth widened in awe--

“Adrian…?!” Erin shivered, a cocktail of emotions swirling across her expression. She stuttered to say the name again, but it almost didn’t make sense. In that moment, nothing did, even while she was magnetized to coming closer to what she saw. There on the desk was a never before seen sight; a shrunken person, like a living toy, begging for her attention. She knew who it was, but what did that information mean? What did any of this mean?

Erin approached, saying Adrian’s name again. It became more clear as Adrian was revealed more beneath the flood light that blazed from Erin’s gigantic phone. Adrian still waved her arms, even when she felt like buckling under the woman’s presence. Yet again she was exposed to a giant, but this was Erin -- above all else, it was Erin.

It was Erin. Erin… Erin… Erin… Adrian’s yelling had stopped, and the two observed each other in silence. Each one struck awe into the other, but fear was more quickly to entangle Adrian. She knew, she understood the lurking horror; it was Erin.

“Erin,” she said, her voice weak from yelling but needing to last just a little longer, so she forced it forward, “Run!! Run away -- t-take me and go, go!!”

Erin stood where she was, startled by how suddenly Adrian had began yelling again. She could only comprehend so much at a time; finally she discovers her ex-girlfriend after having gone missing, and she’s three inches tall, and telling her to go? To go where? She panicked under these strangling thoughts, unable to perceive anything else besides the unreal scene of a diminutive woman stranded on a library table.

“Believe me!” Adrian shouted, tip-toeing the very furthest of the edge in some rush to escape. “We have to go, Erin, we’re not alone! She’s still here!”

Erin came closer, partially kneeling towards the desk. Curiosity was difficult to restrain from satisfying, she wanted to touch and hold someone at such a miraculous size. However, Adrian’s concern was terribly real, her tone desperate and dire. She stuttered to speak and ultimately said nothing. She reached--

Thucc. A flat impact from a sharp strike. Erin’s eyes closed, her knees gave in, her arms gracelessly searched for support, her body fell. Like a mountain being demolished to its base, the massive shape of Erin had melted to the ground right in front of Adrian. She was gone, her phone dropped to the floor with another thud beside her. The light shined upwards, like an opening from hell, unveiling that another giantess had taken her ex’s place right behind her.

“Erin!!!” Adrian howled, dropping to her knees and gazing far down to the floor where her chance of escape now lay in an unconscious slump. The light was blinding, pushing her vision up so that she could only see Melanie, illuminated by this, with a hefty book clutched in both hands so that its binding was pointed outward.

Melanie had attacked her; a blunt assault, slamming the biggest book she could find hard into a rear-corner of Erin’s head. Not at all did Adrian foresee this violent action. She never thought of Melanie as capable of such a brutal, barbaric feat. Melanie was frail, like a thin coat of ice. She was doubtful and weak. None of those traits failed to describe Melanie now -- she was shaking like a leaf, recovering from the sweeping blow she had dealt -- and that made it only more terrifying to know what she could inspire herself to do.

“Why…?!” Adrian whimpered. She wanted to scream at Melanie, loud enough to somehow eradicate her existence, but she had lost all strength. She pleaded for an explanation, tears making a rough return to her cheeks. “Y-You… You hit her…! What are you doing, Melanie?! Th-This is…! Th-This isn’t necessary! I-I thought you said… you said you only need a hair…!”

“I do,” Melanie said, her eyes closed as her words were spoken. “There wasn’t any other way. I had to do this, now.”

Melanie knelt down to the body, offering a soft hand to feel the girl’s neck. She was breathing, but the blow had really done her in. It was perfect. “I know who this was,” she explained further. “She was your ex-girlfriend.”

“Melanie… Y-You have to let her go… Please, just this one, sh-she was just looking for me!”

“I know,” Melanie interrupted. “How… insulting. If she wanted you, she never should have left you.”

“That isn’t fair, Melanie! We broke up-- We broke up with each other! P-Please, she doesn’t deserve this, Melanie! Do not drag her into this, please, Melanie!”

Melanie had no reply. She resolved herself to speak more about the topic later. She didn’t wish this confusion onto Adrian, but there was still work to be done, and barely any convenience in time. Melanie shoved her arms underneath those of Erin, and with a grunt, hoisted the body up enough to be dragged across the library floor. Adrian broke down, following Erin all around the desk as Melanie pulled her, wildly screaming and reaching out to the next victim in line.

Adrian was right in front of her. All Erin had to do was reach out. She was right there. She was small, but she was there, on the table, at the very least no longer a missing person. Erin wanted her safe and sound above all else, she wanted to lift Adrian into her hands and dash away from such a bleak, horrid location that Anders Library had turned out to be.

Adrian was still right in front of her. Why won’t I move? she continually asked herself. Her fingers twitched -- finally her body was starting to function, finally she could grab Adrian and leave, once her arm could move, too. She tried to blink, but her eyes were hard closed. Adrian was still there, though, always in sight.

A dull but hard pain corrupted the back half of Erin’s head. She tried to blink again, and this time her eyes could open. She was dizzy and what she could see was a blobby mess of a setting she didn’t understand.

Shnip. A haircut? Erin would have felt tickled by the sensation, but she could barely stay awake. That affliction, in and of itself, alerted Erin to a strange fact. For some time now, apparently, she had been unconscious. She tried to move, feeling a sudden urge to get up, but her body couldn’t, not because it was still fatigued, but because she was restrained. She wiggled her arms and kicked her legs, but they were tied down, and panic immediately started to set in.

It wasn’t a flurry of a panic, but a steady rise of her anxiety. She waited impatiently for her vision to clear, picking up whatever details around her that she could. The first thing she noticed was that her legs were tied together by rope, forcing her into a seated position. She felt something, like a bar or pipe behind her -- indeed, her arms and torso were also anchored to a wall. She looked down, not to peer for any more details, but to feel the gag in her mouth. She chewed hard on the cloth bundled up and tightly jammed into her mouth, but it was too huge on her small jaw.

This felt fake, like from a movie, but Erin had been kidnapped, a reality that terrified every inch of her.

“Are you waking up?” someone said. Erin’s head shot up, and she saw Melanie, or rather, a girl she didn’t know. A creepy looking woman, hovering around her age, perched in front of her like a bird of prey. Erin mumbled a reply, she was begging for help, but it made Melanie only smile. “I didn’t think I had hit you that hard, but you weren’t out for very long.”

Erin’s vision was starting to clear up -- it had to, given such a dangerous situation. She looked all over, but the room didn’t make sense to her. She last remembered being in a dark library, somewhere in the middle of its tables, but now she was in a white brick room, with a cold floor and some kind of machine behind her. A few candles and Melanie’s cell phone light illuminated the area.

“Oh, we’re in a boiler room,” Melanie said, noticing Erin’s curiosity. “We’re still in the library. We didn’t go far. It’s only been…” Melanie checked her phone. “... Fifteen minutes.”

Erin’s heart started to race. Her unpleasant slumber had felt like an eternity, stuck there perpetually unable to rescue Adrian. Adrian! Erin remembered, and she tried again to communicate a message past her gag.

“Hah? You know I can’t understand you, right?” Melanie tilted her head, genuinely trying to comprehend what Erin’s muffled screams meant. “Ahh… You’re being way too loud. You know, if I could trust you, I would take that off of you and… talk…” Melanie sat back, not too disappointed it seemed.

Erin’s face burned red, thick tears being produced from pleading eyes. More and more she spoke, but Melanie could only imagine what was trying to be said. Using that imagination, her lips warped into a fun smile. “You must want to know what’s going on,” Melanie said. “I-I mean, you must have a lot of questions, since you saw… this.”

Melanie twisted back to grab and reveal Adrian, the shrunken woman that Erin was convinced was a tainted part of her dreams. Just like before, Adrian was no taller than a few inches, fitting perfectly in Melanie’s pale hand. Their eyes met, and between them was a clash of silent emotions. Adrian hesitated to say anything; Erin could say nothing at all.

Melanie leaned forward, breaking her way back into the scene as far as Erin was concerned. “On the bright side, you did find her.” Melanie’s words were distracting, but Erin didn’t remove her eyes from Adrian. Melanie took note and began petting Adrian like an animal, much to Erin’s torture. “Don’t look so mad,” Melanie said, “she’s been in good hands. She’s my… my obsession. She’s everything to me. She’s my soul, so, don’t worry too much. She’s been living comfortably with me. She hasn’t really been in any danger--”

“Don’t fucking believe her…!” Adrian interrupted. Her voice, so sharp and hurt, came as a surprise to Erin. “Please, Erin, I-I’m so sorry…! I’m so fucking sorry… I got you into this, I-I…”

Erin shook her head, completely disagreeing with the tiny Adrian. She wanted to cast blame on herself, it was her fault for being careless. She had so much to say, too, but her muffled cries was too garbled to understand. Her onslaught of tears did most of the talking on her behalf, never ceasing as they left moist stains along a fabric wrapped over her mouth.

To this, Melanie maintained her smile, gentle and understanding despite having one woman tied up to a water boiler, and another the size of a doll in her hand. “She’ll be okay, I’ll make sure of that,” she explained, “but you, Erin… probably won’t. I have different plans for you.”

Melanie placed Adrian on her lap, a position that Adrian protested against. Melanie looked down, bringing Erin’s attention to the items set out between them on the floor. A bowl, some cups of things, a couple candles, and pinched between Melanie’s fingers was a lock of reddish-brown hair. Erin’s eyes bounced from one item to the next, but the hair Melanie held stored a cryptic presence, like it was too vital to look away from.

“You’re… Y-You’re going to shrink,” Melanie went on. “Just like Adrian… Just like the others.” Her smile brightened, flashing a gleam of wickedness. She was hungry for something. “I-I heard that… they’ve been saying women in the area, especially younger women, have been getting kidnapped. They just turn up missing, and no one knows what happened to them. Well, this is the truth. I wonder if you wanted to know, or if you only cared about Adrian…”

Erin’s head shook, but it didn’t indicate anything. It was a frantic motion, looking to break free from perhaps not the real bindings around her leg and arms, but the mental walls collapsing in on her. When her energy ran short, she looked to Melanie for mercy, but only found an intense gaze on herself. Melanie was studying her, observing her like an item on display. More and more, with no evidence to back up the idea, Erin wished to lunge forward and take back the hair that had been cut from her.

Melanie could almost sense this, like expecting a counter. Yet still, it only amused her taste for despair. “Either way… aren’t you happy to see her again? Just like you wanted! So even if you’re shrinking to be the same size as her, won’t it be worth it? For someone as undeserving as you… this should be a blessing.”

Erin wriggled again, but this time it was blatantly ignored. “Undeserving,” Melanie emphasized. “You really don’t have any right to see her, after what you did.” Melanie edged closer, one hand offered to Adrian to keep her in place while she moved up to Erin. “Not only did you try to steal her from me… but you gave up on Adrian. You hurt her.”

“Melanie, th-that isn’t true!” Adrian shouted. “Don’t do this, you don’t have to do! Please, i-it was both of us, we both decided--”

“How can I let her go?!” Melanie snapped, her huge face bearing down at Adrian directly beneath her. She sighed, and with it went most of that anger. “She should have known-- everyone should know that you belong to me, Adrian. She didn’t, and then she took you, just to break you apart. I saw it all,” she turned her attention back to Erin, certain of her growing curiosity, “I reviewed it all. I stalked Adrian, and you, and others… as much as I could. After I saw Adrian, and knew that she was the one that belonged to me, I had to know more about her. Of course, you two had only recently broken up back then. I couldn’t…” She laughed. “I couldn’t believe it. Someone would date someone as great as Adrian, a-and… then say, ‘No, this isn’t what I want. I hate her.’ Even now, I still can’t believe that. For nights, I stayed up researching you and cursing your name. But tonight, it won’t be angrily saying your name over and over and wishing you would die. I’ll cast a real curse on you.”

None of this provided any clarity to Erin. All that Melanie’s misshapened explanation did was rack up more confusion, mysteries that lead Erin to think this was all a nightmare. She didn’t know Melanie, she only barely recognized her as one of the people she stopped at the outlet mall. Yet, that was apparently her most dire mistake. She was looking for help, to locate a missing ex-lover, and that had brought her here, to this fantasy land where people could shrink and a maniac was obsessed with that very ex’s life.

Melanie squirmed back into position, reeling Adrian along with her. She sat so that the ritual items were between her and Erin, like a stage that had been set. It was time to start the action, it was better now than to wait any longer. Melanie cleared her throat, then grabbed the pinch of hair once more. Erin shook her head, she banged it against the pipe so hard that she could knock herself out a second time, she yelled for help as loud as she could muster. But Melanie was in control, and she still hungered for more.

The hair was dropped. The lighter, thinner hairs swayed away to the outer ring of the bowl, but the middle clump dropped right into the dark liquid. It floated, but as it grew soaked, it started to sink to the pitch bottom. Erin felt a tingle, but it was just in her head. Panicking felt useless, so she did nothing but fall into a cold emptiness. She became shallow and weary, her dripping tears the only animation to her entire body.

Melanie went into a prayer, but even that did not wake Erin up from her trance. She stared hopelessly at that lock of hair, now long gone in the depths of the wine. Was all this necessary? Was all this real? It couldn’t be, but she looked to Adrian again, wrestled between Melanie’s legs. That was real, that was definitely real. If that could happen to Adrian, then certainly none of this was a game. She shivered, the ends of her limbs twitching.

The chanting was finished, and Melanie opened her eyes to see her target still before her. “Ahh… I kind of wished it would be different this time,” she said. Idly, her hands picked up Adrian, as if reaching for something to comfort her. Fittingly, she pressed Adrian against her chest where her heart had been throbbing like a drum. “I know it doesn’t work like that, but I had hoped it would be instant this time… Ugh, I can’t wait! I just… I just want to play with you so badly… Looking at you right now, tied up to a water boiler… It makes me wish you were wrapped up in my hand, and I could feel you try so~ hard to break free!” Melanie giggled, an eruption of humor that she couldn’t immediately contain. “Ah, a-and I want to step on you…! I want you to smell my feet and lick them… I want to let my ass sit on you and press the air out that whore body…!”

Adrian had been trying to break free from Melanie, but she was snapped out of her efforts by the touch of something wet. The sensation was warm, but it dropped to being cold. She looked up -- Melanie was salivating, and her drool had escaped her lips and dropped onto her, an absent minded action. Erin, too, felt a twinge of disgust at the sight, realizing that her vulnerability was entertainment for her captor.

“Mmm… We’ll get to that, soon enough,” Melanie went on, dreamily talking on about what she will do to Erin. “More than anyone I’ve shrunk so far, you really deserve this the most! For dating and breaking up with Adrian, the only suitable punishment would be tormenting you forever, right? I’ll make your life hell and I’ll jack off to it the entire time…! I hope you can scream really loud, because it turns me the fuck on to know just how much pain I can put my toys through…!”

Melanie’s breathing was becoming intense, and the hand itching at her crotch made for two signs that she was losing herself to the excitement. Another deep sigh left her lips, only doing so much this time to calm her. “Soon… Soon…” She sighed again, this time with part of it becoming a yawn. Her eyes were weary, more so than they normally were. “You’re lucky, but so am I; the curse takes a day to settle in. That gives us twenty-four hours. Tomorrow, your new life as an insect starts. Until then, I’ll have to keep you here, and I suppose I’ll have to keep us entertained, too.”

Adrian was picked up from Melanie’s chest, laid out in the giant hand but turning around as to avoid staring up at her kidnapper. She looked instead to Erin, horrified again by the predicament she had stumbled into. These were the final moments, Adrian thought, that she would be able to see her like this, as a normal-sized adult. She wept; when was the last time before this that she saw Erin? She had predicted their inevitable reunion would be strange, but she never would have guessed it would be like this.

The boiler room was quiet. All three girls had reached a stage of acceptance. Only a ghostly giggle teased the end of the silence, Melanie snickering to herself in steamy anticipation.