Dust covered the tome much as it did the rest of the library. It was also old, abandoned, and smelled like just the same. But this wasn’t a fault, from Melanie’s perspective, of the book she held. It was a familiar scent, a welcomed one. She associated it with safety, privacy, and that little chill of danger. Anders Library wasn’t a space open to the public, and neither so was the book she ran off with.

Anders Library was an active campus facility long ago, but after some issues with its own unstable infrastructure, the dean decided to simply close the building down. It was planned to be stripped, wrecked, and replaced with a new library, but the budget was always lacking. For the time being, Anders Library was locked up, fenced off, and stripped of most anything valuable. This left the library’s shelves empty, making the building purposeless.

Not entirely purposeless. It had its uses, if only among the reckless and brave. As college students were known to be, many paid no mind to the littered “KEEP OUT” signs posted all over the fences and even on the library’s walls and doors. An abandoned, isolated location such as Anders Library was the perfect place for rebellious types to hang out, a place where even campus security rarely patrolled. Anything could be gotten away behind the library’s walls and within the maze of shelves and desks.

Melanie had less nefarious uses. She noticed Anders Library on her own, in the midst of her own nightly explorations. She had heard of the building in passing, but it would eventually become her home away from home. Upon realizing just how abandoned the abandoned library was, she immediately began to use it as a hideaway, a sanctuary she could retreat to when she needed privacy or a place to slink to when it was dark. Melanie never verbally admitted it, but many of her traits were suspicious qualities -- sneaking, eavesdropping, stealing, and more were just “quirks” that often got her into trouble.

Before long, Melanie had made the place her own. She found herself to be the most frequent occupant, allowing her evenings and sometimes entire nights to be spent alone. It was exactly how she wanted it. Soon, too, did she have the layout memorized, and had she familiarized herself with a fascinating detail of the library; the number of remaining books.

She was never quite clear when she had added the tome to her collection, but one had eventually caught her attention. While flippantly searching the books once more with keener eyes, Melanie had noticed a bizarre emblem etched into one of the covers. It practically glistened in her vision, as if gravitating towards it. She thought she was kidding herself, that she felt an energy from the book.

Not doubting that gut feeling for long, Melanie had opened the book. She discovered it to be an occultic writing, a list of recipes for all sorts of mysteries. She kept joking with herself to read on, feeling the next spell or curse to be even more laughable than the last. That attitude changed when she next blinked, and hours had vanished. More obsessively than she thought had she been flipping through its pages.

Melanie’s evenings had regularly then been to reside at Anders Library and research more about the book. One of the curses described in the book had looked especially enticing, and even relatively easy to make. Many of the ingredients, once understood, were simple alchemical components -- nothing too complicated that she couldn’t steal from a chemistry lab elsewhere.

Am I really going to try this? Melanie wondered. It can’t hurt to try. It would be a fun story to tell people…

For the past two years, there was a student that had tugged at her heart, even though the two had almost never spoken. Melanie was too shy and terrified to speak up about her feelings, so instead of ever approaching her, she would follow her from afar, in the shadows as a stalker. She dreamed of a way to truly express her desires, how she wanted total dominion over everything this woman was, and now, she was on the verge of finding a way. Jokes or not, Melanie was putting her trust in the book to provide that power. A hex for shrinking a specific target, reducing their height and weight to a pygmy, so it claimed.

The ingredients were gathered into Melanie’s bag, quietly stolen from an unsupervised chemistry lab. Salts, minerals, acids, and a bowl of wine -- she had everything, except the wine. Her roommate back home would certainly have something to make due, but for now, all Melanie sought to do was bring the ingredients to the library and double-check that she had everything right.

“A strand… of hair?” Melanie read the book from her own private corner of Anders Library. She had the recipe for the curse still in her bag, and while almost everything had checked out, there was one detail she had overlooked. “A strand of the target’s hair, ahh.” Melanie took a deep breath. If there was any real hurdle before her now, it was getting that piece of hair from her crush’s head.

Footsteps made Melanie alert. Someone was walking around in the library, close to her corner that was so distant to reach. Without warning, the source of the steps appeared; another college student, a young woman with an unamused scowl, fashionably dressed with cool colors that contrasted the sunset hues which painted the walls and bookcases.

“O-Oh, what the fuck are you?” the girl gasped, smartphone in hand and at the ready. “Hey, oh, you must be another student. Are you trying to scare the shit out of people, creep?”

“Wh-What? I wasn’t--!”

“You zombie-looking freak!” the girl cut Melanie’s stammering off sharply. She gasped again, fanning herself with her free hand. “Yeah, good thing I’m dusting this place out first or else we would have had you fucking creeping people out.”

Melanie stuttered, her anxiety intensely flaring up. This was a nightmare scenario for her, to be suddenly ambushed like this in a place she considered safe. What’s this bitch doing here? she thought. Who does she think she is?! This is my territory!

“God, you’ve got this shit organized and everything,” the student said. “You must come here everyday, don’t you?”

Melanie’s face was red with embarrassment. She bit her lip hard, backing away deeper into her corner. If an escape was needed, she had her hands at the ready to grab her bag and run. However, there was one thing she wouldn’t be able to snatch in that situation, and that was the occultic book.

Her eyes had been drawn to it, and the other girl noticed. “You read in here?” she said, semi-curiously picking up the book by a corner.

“Scarlet! D-Don’t-- Please put it down!” Melanie barked. Her panicked voice made the girl wince.

“Whoa, okay,” Scarlet rolled her eyes and placed the book back on the desk where it was. “How do you know my name? I’ve definitely never met a girl like you.”

Melanie paused. There wasn’t an easy way to admit that she kept at least some tabs on everyone she crossed paths with. In Scarlet’s case, the two shared a writing class last year, but only for a brief two weeks before Scarlet transferred out. Despite the limited interactions, this was still enough time for Melanie to dedicate Scarlet to memory, along with only a small handful of facts; she was a sorority girl, she liked to drink, and she had a boyfriend at one point.

But those facts did little to aid Melanie in the moment, and her silence wasn’t an appeasing answer for Scarlet. At the very least, Melanie did manage to get Scarlet to let go of the book, but in doing so, she had invited Scarlet to inspect the corner more thoroughly.

“Are you… planning something…?” Melanie asked.

“Yeah,” Scarlet nodded, “me and some guys are looking to throw a big party. Like serious stuff. This old place is perfect, so, you should grab your things and go. How old are you, anyway?”

“T-Twenty…” Melanie stuttered out that answer, instinctively submitting herself to Scarlet’s orders.

“Yeah, you’re definitely not invited,” she laughed, “especially looking like that. They weren’t kidding when they said this place was fucking haunted.”

Fuck off, you stupid slut, Melanie thought. She wouldn’t dare let those thoughts escape her mouth. “Um, okay,” she hesitantly replied. It stung to just ignore Scarlet’s insult, but she was used to this kind of treatment. “W-When’s the party? I’ll just stay out of… your way, if that’s--”

“Friday,” Scarlet said. “Tomorrow I’ll be coming by again to clean up, and the day after this place will be poppin’. Fuck,” Scarlet fanned herself, opening up the collar to her blazer to vent out some hot air, “this library sucks-- it’s so hot!”

“Well, th-there’s no AC, after all…”

“Obviously.” Scarlet rolled her eyes dramatically. She pushed the book aside, clearing a space for her to sit. Just that touch to the book was enough to make Melanie twitch. “People will be too drunk to notice how hot it is, right? Like, the drinks will be really cold, so…” She looked to Melanie, as if she was an expert that could verify that plan, but there was only silence.

“Shit, whatever,” Scarlet grumbled. She unbuttoned the top layer she wore, exposing a white top underneath. The overshirt was then laid back onto a nearby chair. “Anyway, are you on your way out? Get your shit and go. I’ve got to dust this place out at least a little bit to make sure we all don’t die partying in here. Not gonna get done if I’ve got you hanging around.”

Melanie continued to hold her tongue while her thoughts raged. Once again, she found herself being walked over by other people. Worse yet was that she was being attacked by this normie, some party-crazed deviant that was worth a dime-a-dozen around the school. What gave Scarlet any right over her to own Anders Library, much less to be used for some alcoholic meet and greet?

Melanie listened, however furious she was. Confrontation was not her strong suit, and so she forfeited the library without any fight. She swiftly picked up her belongings while Scarlet vaguely looked busy inspecting the rest of the library. Melanie would shoot her nasty looks when her back was turned, a gesture that almost made her forget to grab the tome.

God forbid a bimbo like her got her fingers on this, Melanie said, half-joking to herself. She grabbed the book, but she froze. In the corner of her eye, Scarlet’s blazer had caught her attention. Scarlet herself was still distracted, leaving the blazer vulnerable, and Melanie curious. There was especially one fine detail that intrigued her intensely; a thread of brown hair, pressed into the collar with a dab of sweat. It had an enticing shine, it was so clean and well kept much like the rest of Scarlet’s hair.

Melanie was still frozen. When she snapped to, her next action was already in motion. Before she acknowledged it, she had the single string of hair wrapped around her finger, so tight that it could cut off circulation.

The hair relaxed in Melanie’s palm when she had finally made it back to her apartment. She locked the front door, made no comment to the roommate passed out in front of the television, and then locked her own bedroom door -- but not before quietly helping herself to a simple bowl and a bottle of red wine.

Her heartbeat was pounding. It had suddenly dawned on Melanie that she was actually committing to this arcane ritual. Her real, actual intent with gathering these ingredients, separating them into specific proportions, lighting candles, drawing sigils with chalk on a blank mat, and putting a bowl of wine in the center to provide an offering of hair was to shrink another human. Shrinking another human was a part of her checklist.

Melanie laughed, openly laughed at herself, convincing herself again that even if the experiment flopped, she could say it was all in good fun. “At least I’m learning something,” she told herself, looking down at the set up she had made on her floor. The preparations were complete.

Opened to the relevant pages, the book lay not far to her side. Melanie traced the archaic words with a finger, highlighting to herself that it would take “one full cycle of the rotating moon and sun” for the effects to begin -- twenty-four hours, she assumed. Melanie looked at the time on her phone. It was almost 7 pm, and this limited how long Melanie could hesitate to begin the ritual.

She looked at the hair one last time. The candles were lit and the wine was still. Melanie’s green eyes grew wide, flaring up in excitement as she unpinched her two fingers. Softly, just like a feather, the brown hair fell. It touched the surface of the wine, stood there, and then slowly sank into the red-black depth. It was gone.

The next step was a prayer. Melanie hated this part, she had despised memorizing the necessary chant, but after clapping her hands together, folding her fingers over each other, she felt possessed. Not by a spirit, but her body was manipulated by a demon of obsession, one that lived in a pit inside Melanie. She was much more dedicated to this ritual than she gave herself credit for. All of her being was put into making sure this curse -- to shrink a person to the size of a doll -- was going to work.

Scarlet had arrived at Anders Library, and Melanie was not far behind. Melanie had been following her that entire day, as far as she could, and she was pleased to see that Scarlet was true to her word. Indeed, that next day she had returned to the library to continue fixing it up. The sun was setting, just like when they had confronted each other before, and best of all, she was alone. Melanie giggled to herself, but she didn’t let her humor get too loose. After all, this was going to be immensely embarrassing to herself if the shrinking curse failed, and there was also a lingering possibility she would be caught by Scarlet sneaking around.

Fortunately, there were no surprises to get in Melanie’s way. Shortly after Scarlet entered the building did Melanie come after her. She knew the best places to keep out of sight, and so she kept a close-eye on Scarlet, and on the time as well.

Melanie anxiously watched each minute tick by, hidden behind a tall bookcase. Her heart was racing between being full of excitement and being hollowed with doubt. Scarlet was still there, moving perfectly according to how Melanie envisioned it. The minute changed, and it had then been exactly twenty-four hours since Melanie cast the curse.

Scarlet yawned, then coughed. “Fuck all this dust,” she snarled, “shit.” Then, she continued to move a desk to one corner so a space could be cleared.

Melanie was on edge. Why am I so damn stupid? she asked herself, immediately passing doubt over the curse and the book in its entirety. People can’t shrink, idiot! You really thought this was going to work, Melanie?!

Interrupting her usual self-berating was a thud. Melanie perked up, and she saw that Scarlet had tripped, just slightly did her knees give out and she found herself supported by the table with both arms. She brushed some hair out of her eyes, then looked around with a second yawn. Melanie cowered more behind the bookcase, spying on Scarlet through an empty shelf. Was it actually taking effect after all?

Scarlet ignored the sensations plaguing her, focusing instead on her work. She grabbed two chairs and began to drag them across the tiled floor. She panted, “What the hell?” Earlier she had been able to pick up a stack of chairs, at least three at a time, but now she found herself struggling to drag just two of them. This fact was noted not only be her, but by Melanie as well.

Scarlet winced. After giving up on two chairs and limiting herself to one at a time, she felt a sickeningly warm spike drill through her head and into her stomach. She breathed heavily, constantly wiping away at sweat that beaded her temple. “This library… I-Is it really gonna be this hot?” she whined as she collapsed into one of the chairs she had been moving. “Fuck, dude, we need… some fans, or…”

Melanie’s eyes continued to widen, as if they knew no bounds to how expressive they could be. Her mouth was left agap, It’s working… She’s actually shrinking…

It was true, though only Melanie herself recognized what was happening. Scarlet, having become delirious soon after the effect took hold, wasn’t going to guess first that she was supernaturally being reduced in size. She tossed around in her chair and opened her shirt down a button to help cool off, but she wasn’t paying attention to her surroundings. Each passing second was another slither of height being stolen away into nothingness, and even the chair she sat in was becoming comically oversized for her without her ever realizing.

Scarlet slowly picked up her head, holding it still with both hands. A migraine was now inflicting her, and she decided then that the library was not going to be worked on. “Fuck this shit,” she told herself, rising to her feet. But when she did start to move, it had finally hit her. She noticed right when her feet touched the floor that something was different, and when her eyes were only inches above the seat of the chair she had been in, it was clear what had been happening to her body.

Right away, Scarlet gasped and shivered intensely. She swayed away from the chair and closer to a desk, but the sight of even that being so giant made her panic again and stumble the opposite way. She spun around, wanting to understand her shifting surroundings, but the turn only increased her sickness. She nearly fell, tripping over her own two feet but managing to stay standing -- standing in a world that had tripled in size in just a couple precious minutes.

“Wha-- Holy shit, holy shit,” Scarlet stammered. She bit her fingers, aimlessly trying to find some answer to her predicament. “W-What’s happening?! Is someone there?!”

Melanie flinched. Was she caught? Then, she giggled. Did it matter? That was a more fun question to her. The more Scarlet dwindled in size, the less resistance she could put up to anyone, even Melanie herself. The anticipation was volcanic in her heart.

Scarlet threw reason out the window. She started yelling for help, hoping someone could stop this disease or at least explain to her what was happening. Her tiny voice, even when trying as best as it could, was only as much of a chirp to Melanie, the only person that could hear her pleas. It made Melanie want to bust into laughter, but she remained silent, having bigger plans to make her debut than to be caught giggling maniacally.

Melanie couldn’t hold herself back any further. She stepped out from behind the bookcase, her eyes immediately targeting the shrunken Scarlet. Uncertain of just how small Scarlet would get, Melanie decided best to act sooner rather than later. Fortunately, as far as the book had described, the effects of the curse were permanent, so she had no other time limit restricting her fun.

Scarlet jumped when she heard the creaking of a footstep. A terrifying image came to her mind, the simple sight of a giant human towering over her, but the reality was so much more horrible. As she slowly rotated to face Melanie, her arms hugged at her gut, still wrestling with the queasy sensation of a more conventional illness. All of her ailments doubled in intensity when she looked up at Melanie. The creepy, awkward student that she had only just met the day prior was now an unparalleled monster, a massive demon that was once mistaken for a mere ghoul.

Melanie didn’t slow her approach. Scarlet screamed and stumbled back, unable to look away from the awe-inspiring sight of someone so huge coming directly at her. In a panic, she tried to run away, but the impending sound of footsteps trailed her so much faster. Her sprint only carried her weary body as far as under the chair she had been sitting in, its legs now thick poles of wood that held up an impossibly big slab of a seat.

Any feeling of safety for having gotten that far was fleeting. It was no protection against Melanie, her eyes still locked on her prey. With one hand, Melanie held the chair and tipped it aside. Scarlet shook and curled down to the ground, bracing for impact. When the chair hit the floor, she jumped, the quake and its sound popping her into the air for a split second before she fell to the ground. She was a crying mess, having felt the equivalent of several buildings being demolished just beside her.

“That was my seat,” Melanie said. Her teasing was dark and stoic. “This was my library… You thought you could… take it away from me?”

Scarlet was pained just to lift her head up. Tears streamed down her reddened cheeks as she tried to comprehend Melanie’s size. It was almost impossible to consider this the same girl as yesterday, the girl that was so timid and weak that she could be knocked down with a little push. No longer was this the case. Shrinking had put Scarlet in a whole new perspective to view, and fear, Melanie.

“W-Why?!” Scarlet shouted. “How did this happen to me?! W-Who are you?!”

Melanie tilted her head. The only way she was going to hear the shrunken Scarlet was if she paid close attention to her. Had she not been listening for a tiny voice, she never would have heard her questions. “Who am I?” she asked. “Who are you? To me, y-you look like… a tiny slut. A bug in my way.”

Scarlet shook her head violently, exaggerating her gestures so that they could be read. “I-I’m not a slut! Or a bug!” she cried out. “For the love of fucking god, please! Un-shrink me! Please, I’m going to die like this!”

“Are you?” Melanie’s face went plain, but then a smile was shocked onto her lips. “Is that your plan? To die pathetically like an insect? Well,” Melanie giggled, and raised one foot into the air, “let’s make that… happen.”

Scarlet shook her head again, she raised her arms in protest, but as the long shadow of Melanie’s loafer creeped over her form, she knew this was nothing she could talk her way out of. She had lost that ability right with her size, and now, just like the bug she denied being, she had to scurry away. She turned around and ran, ignoring the tipped over chair and focusing only on creating distance between her and the titan.

Melanie blushed as that smile persisted. She relished in how much fear she could generate in one woman by simply raising her foot. Truly, she had no intention on crushing Scarlet, certainly not this soon into her shrinking. She toyed with her for now, letting her run off along the floor while she stomped her foot behind her. Each of her footsteps made Scarlet shriek, quieter than the time before but always genuine and desperate, weaker in volume only because she was quickly running out of breath. Scarlet panicked as much as Melanie was amused.

Scarlet came to a halt, quickly glancing backwards to see that Melanie was still hot on her trail. All of her running was matched by just a few simple steps forward. That fact was one more stresser racing through her mind, clouding her decision making. She had run straight into an obstacle; a wall, a flat dead end. No escape seemed reachable by just going forward. She turned right; another wall, a corner. She turned left; Melanie’s shoe slammed to that side just then, cutting off that exit. No matter where she turned, there was no outrunning the giantess.

Without somewhere to run, Scarlet resorted to begging. She turned to face Melanie, much she would a person, but in front of her were two godly legs that soared into the sky. Instead of yelling and crying like she had planned, she was only stunned before the immense sight. Her legs became stiff, taking her backwards several more steps until she was just shy of touching the wall.

“Y-You can have the library!” Scarlet shouted. She wrapped her arms tightly around her chest. “I’m fucking sorry! You can have the fucking library, fuck the party! J-Just let me go! Don’t-- Please don’t crush me!”

Melanie rubbed her chin, her grin still as wicked as ever, like a promise she was making to Scarlet down below. She really wanted to be witty in that moment; she wanted to say something clever, funny, preferably both. Despite the power high, Melanie hadn’t become any cooler, much to her own disappointment.

Having drawn a blank, Melanie only blinked and continued to pick up her foot. She licked her lips; little squeaks poured out of Scarlet’s mouth, tickling Melanie’s ears, and she could hear those squeaks get louder the longer she left her foot suspended.

“You’re worthless,” Melanie deemed, “so you deserve to die.”

Scarlet screamed incoherently and buckled down. She crawled, but she knew there was no escape, and eventually lay still with her head tucked deep into her arms. Like a rocket charging right at her, Melanie’s loafer was crashing down upon her, its shadow darkening to consume Scarlet’s pathetic form.

Melanie’s foot landed. For Scarlet, there was a deafening slam from all around her. She spasmed, and all the air in her lungs was choked out. The earth shook like it had been impacted by a meteor, and Scarlet was in the dead center of it.

She cried, then became hollow and silent. She shivered again, opening her eyes to see darkness all around her. Scarlet twitched severely while rotating her body to peer upwards; right above her was the ridged surface of the shoe’s sole, wedged precariously between the floor and the wall. Scarlet whined, shivering back away from the bottom of the giant shoe.

Melanie tilted her foot to the side, allowing her to peek down at Scarlet and observe her intense reaction. The shrunken classmate looked traumatized, so badly horrified that she could easily die from choking on her own tears. Melanie laughed, but muffled her amusement behind a pale hand.

The foot rose again, and its movement inspired a new wave of spasms and shakes from Scarlet. “Please!” she screamed again. Her words did nothing to slow down Melanie’s second stomp, or her third. Over and over she raged, bashing her foot into the corner with as much strength as the strike before it, but always making sure that Scarlet wasn’t in a position to be crushed. She wanted to torture this weakened person, and she could only imagine how terrible it had to be, reduced to a pitiful size and reliving a cataclysmic experience repeatedly, an earth-shattering ordeal happening on tempo for what had to feel like an eternity, and knowing, too, that at any point, this titan of a young woman could make one wrong step and completely end the life she toyed with. Her imagination was not far from the reality Scarlet was enduring.

Melanie stomped one last time, just slightly off beat. Her foot now stood flat on the tiled floor, its edge only inches from Scarlet. Her grin had eased, but it was still electrified with amusement. Scarlet’s expression hadn’t changed, but she no longer had any voice. Even her whimpering was gone, as lifeless as her eyes had become. The only sign of life she maintained was her violent, fear-induced shaking.

“Do you know why… I didn’t crush you?” Melanie asked. There wasn’t a response, at least none that Melanie heard. “You’re worthless, but out of all the whores on campus, you are pretty cute.”

“... C-Cute…?” Scarlet coughed. It was the first word she had managed to form clearly from her tongue since the stomping first began. She had to say it aloud, to believe that this was actually a deciding factor in whether she lived or died as an insect.

“Cute in a… an abusable sort of way,” Melanie said. She had tried to remain cool and plain with her tone, but she was pressured into a giggle at the tail end of her words. “Like, someone should put this dumb bitch in her place kind of cute.

“That’s the only way you can live. You have to entertain me now.” Melanie slid her foot toward Scarlet. She actually had to show some control here, it would have been terribly easy to move her foot too far and kick the tiny person without meaning to. “Lick this shoe. You’re so tiny, I bet you can even find a clean place to lick.”

Scarlet didn’t understand at first. She wasn’t trying to play dumb, but the concept of dragging her tongue across the edge of a leather shoe was so foreign and unexpected. What kind of humiliation did this college student have in store for her? She understood just enough to correctly guess that this was only the beginning.

“Lick!” Melanie demanded. For emphasis, she adjusted the angle of her shoe, aiming the toe directly at Scarlet. “For fucks sake, I really will crush you, you know? I’m giving you a fucking chance here. Lick.”

Scarlet finally felt some motivation to move. Her entire body was shaking, as if she had just stepped off a roller coaster, each step only slightly more certain than the step before it. Her body moved like a shambling corpse, practically falling on top of Melanie’s loafer. Am I really doing this? she wondered. This is what I have to do to live.

Yet, even with such a strong reason to comply, Scarlet still found herself hesitating. Her tongue was held back by her teeth, just past her lips but hovering over the broad surface of the shoe. Like being forced to eat something vile, she knew she could only commit to the act by force. She plunged forward and dragged her tongue across the leather material -- it was bitter, dry, with a dusty taste that tainted her mouth. She licked again, even more dedicated than before. The last thing she desired was to fail at this one disgusting job and be crushed for it, a penalty that she never imagined would hang so realistically over her.

“Huhu…~ I can kinda feel it,” Melanie whispered. She wasn’t sure if that was meant to encourage Scarlet or to belittle her, but she did admit that she was surprised. “Even with such a tiny tongue, I can barely feel you… Licking away, like a dog. Ah, you’re much more pathetic than a dog now, aren’t you?”

Scarlet shook her head, but she said nothing. Melanie’s taunting weighed heavy on her, but she didn’t stop to argue. She licked, and each time she did, Melanie felt a tiny tickle up her spine. It would actually start there, at her toe, and then ride up her body. She relished this sensation of being superior, ultimately above this other human in every way. Her eyes closed, and a loose finger shivered anxiously.

This is turning me on, Melanie duly noted. She bit her lip in shame. I’m getting turned on by having a tiny woman clean my shoe with her tongue. Why am I like this?

She smiled. Her own thoughts were, if anything, entertaining in their own right. She wondered if Scarlet had noticed, and she wondered what Scarlet would think. What would her opinion be of this unnerving college student that had stolen her height and was tempted to masturbate to her suffering? Melanie didn’t deny she was creepy and had appropriately weird tastes, but even this made her second guess herself.

That shame washed away when she remembered another crucial detail about this situation. Her eyes lit up, like being awoken from hypnosis; the curse worked. All the salts and acids and wine, the lone piece of hair, the chanting -- it actually was able to shrink someone, true to every last word in the recipe. An occultic spellbook hadn’t deceived her, it actually did empower her exactly as intended. In all the fun she was having with Scarlet, Melanie hadn’t even taken a moment to appreciate this success.

As that knowledge came rushing to mind, so did Melanie’s other priorities. Her heart went cold, then extremely hot at a singular thought. She remembered Adrian, and she remembered why she wanted to experiment with such a wild curse in the first place. She wanted to own Adrian, to hold her against her body and completely envelop her with love. All she needed was to repeat the ritual with a strand of Adrian’s hair, and it would be complete.

But this, too, was fascinating. Torturing a random woman as payback for bullying her. Melanie looked down at her victim, still dragging her tongue up and down the point of her shoe. She was perceiving a painting, a masterpiece, an art she had worked on and every detail was falling into place, almost too conveniently. Everything felt right about this, how there was a human soul bound to being her obedient servant.

Scarlet’s body was unexpectedly wrapped up into a fist. She gasped and fidgeted, but with her depleted strength, there was no resisting Melanie’s giant hand. “You’ll be my toy from now on,” Melanie explained, carelessly handling Scarlet while she stood up to her full height. She held Scarlet only a short distance from her lips, making sure her wispy words were thick and heavy over the tiny woman. “You are worth nothing to me… so you better do everything you can to at least fake some value.”

Melanie wasn’t confident that her words had the exact impact she wanted, but when Scarlet’s reply was frantic nodding and desperate agreement, she figured she had said enough. A creak echoing from elsewhere in the library drew her attention away from Scarlet, further reminding Melanie that she had to wrap up this encounter. Her first test with curses was a grand success, and it was only the beginning.

“Hey, Scarlet? Where’re you at?” someone called out from the library’s entrance. “We got everything you asked for. You still cleaning up?”

Melanie looked back to where the voice came, then back to Melanie. There was no longer any time to play there at the library. Melanie hastily grabbed her bag, as well as Scarlet’s purse which had been set on a desk earlier. She deposited the purse into her messenger bag, then did the same with Scarlet herself, discarding her into a pocket and expecting the college student to adapt. Everything was collected, and an exit out the back doors made for a quiet getaway into the night.

Two evenings in a row, Melanie entered her apartment with a drumming heart. Just as she had the night before, she clutched her bag, knowing it to hold something irreplaceable; before, it was the book, but now, it was the results of the book. Her roommate was still passed out on the couch, none the wiser that the girl she lived with had successfully kidnapped and dehumanized a fellow student. Melanie herself couldn’t believe it either; she was a criminal, empowered by occultic mysteries.

Focus had to be maintained, Melanie knew she could get distracted with this ability. What if it was a coincidence? she pondered. Maybe it wasn’t my curse. Maybe something different happened to shrink Scarlet…

Her bag was dropped onto her bed, and she swore she heard a tiny chirp of protest from inside. Melanie’s face became warm, glowing red in the shadowy bedroom. She could hardly wait to inflict this curse onto Adrian, but there could be no errors with the love of her life -- everything had to be perfect. Her vision fell onto the spellbook, still sitting on the floor where she had left it. It would have to be tested at least once more before she could confidently aim her dark magic at her deepest obsession.