Camila Novak had heard whispers of the shrunken people given to other competitors for a particular and sickening purpose. Coming from a tiny Eastern European city-state nation, which most countries of the world hadn’t even heard of, Camila didn’t anticipate getting her own shrinkies, and thus wasn’t surprised when her coach quietly told her so. They didn’t have the training budget of the gold medal winners.

            It was just as well, though. Camila was a gentle soul, and the very idea of subjecting a miniature human being to her feet, especially after she’d been exerting herself, was disgusting and unfathomable. They had feelings, after all!

            Given her taut yet petite frame, angelic sand-blonde hair, and piercing doll-like blue eyes, people didn’t take Camila for a serious athlete. When she told them she was headed to the Olympics, most raised an eyebrow. Then they added a derisive laugh when she told them she was a mountain bike racer.

            But Camila had gotten this far by refusing to listen to the nay-sayers. The twenty-year-old was about to compete in the most challenging race of her life the next morning. Even if she wouldn’t have the supposed advantage of tiny people tending her feet, she had to remember she’d gotten here on raw talent. Her family was poor, and her hometown had no claim to fame except Camila’s spot on the team; if she allowed doubt get to her now, she’d let them all down.

            When Camila returned to her Olympic village apartment after evening practice, however, she was surprised to find a mysterious white box on her bed. The top was emblazoned with the Olympic symbol rings. A tag attached read, “For Camila. Good luck, and love, from us all.”

            The girl’s spirit was warmed before she even touched the lid to open it. Her community was rooting for her. Fingers shaking with excitement, she opened the box, then promptly had to cup her hands over her mouth to avoid shriek-gasping.

            Laying in the box were four items. The first and largest two were a logical discovery: a twin set of new athletic shoe insoles, fresh and insulated for the maximum pounding they’d endure the next day during the mountain bike race. The other two items, however, nearly made Camila faint.

            It was Thomas and Sofia, her two best friends in the entire world since childhood. Except they were nude, and only four inches tall apiece.

            “Hello!” Sofia called to her stricken-silent giantess friend. “You’re not dreaming, Cammy! It’s us.”

            “Aren’t you going to say hello back?” Thomas said with a grin.

            Shuddering to her knees, Camila crouched by the bed. She put herself at eye level with her action figure-sized best friends, standing in the box. The athlete was boggle-eyed, breathing heavily, unable to comprehend what she was seeing. Just to ensure Sofia was telling the truth, the girl extended a finger, gently stroking the bare bodies of her friends. Upon discovering they were made of flesh and bone, as well as tangible genitals, she retracted with fear.

            “Oh my God,” Camila stammered. Her eyes welled. “What’s happened to you? What’s going on? Were… were you captured? Please, tell me what’s happening. I can help you. We can return you to your full sizes, if only-”

            “Nobody captured us, Cammy,” Sofia said. To reassure, the girl climbed out of the box and approached her friend’s gigantic face, and rubbed a tiny hand on her broad cheek. “We are here for you.”

            “For me?”

            “Yes!” Thomas cheered. With some effort he picked up the corner of the new sneaker insoles in the box. Then he pointed to a four-inch-human-sized hole carved into each of the foamy insoles. “What do you think these openings are for? It’s so you can wear us, during the r-”

            “Ease her into it,” Sofia hissed at Thomas, then smiled lovingly again as she turned back to her enormous bestie’s beautiful and bewildered countenance. “You’ve heard of the program, yes?”

            “W-What?” Camila blubbered. The tears were rolling now.

            “You know it. Very hush-hush, but people being reduced in size down to very small, and used to-”

            “I’m sorry, I… I know what it is,” Camila corrected. Emboldened by the comfort of her friends, she reached forward. Her curling fingers and soft palms wrapped around Thomas and Sofia, scooping up them up from the bedspread and holding them before her big blue eyes. “I mean what are you two doing here? We have so few training resources on the team, I-”

            “We know,” Thomas said from the warm perch of Camila’s hand. “They couldn’t afford it. That’s why they put out an open call for anyone willing to participate. Dozens of people from town volunteered to do this for you! But we argued the hardest.”

            “W-Why would you do that? Why would anyone?” Camila mumbled, overcome with emotion and shock. “You’re telling me that dozens of people that I know argued for the right to be… shrunk… and, given to me, to be used to… t-to…”

            “-to service and clean your feet, before, during, and after the competition,” Thomas said, finishing the thought for her. Sofia shot him another irritated glance.

            “During?” Camila scowled, repulsed. “You don’t mean you expect me to…”

            “Actually, we don’t just expect. We insist, Cammy,” Thomas said.

            “I won’t do it! You can’t make me put my dearest and most beloved friends under my feet!”

            “You must!”

            “Why?”

            “Because we love you. And we wanted to support you in your dream,” Sofia explained. “That’s why you have to put us in those insoles Thomas showed you. We will support you… literally… every pedal of the way.”

            Utterly overwhelmed now, Camila slumped against the bed, a weepy puddle of feelings and responsibility. She cuddled her two tiny friends to her increasingly wet cheeks as she cried out all the aggression and misunderstanding over this unthinkable gift she’d been given. Every once in a while, the girl paused in her tears to lay sloppy kisses on the faces of Sofia and Thomas. The two confident shrinkies did their best to comfort their friend, rubbing her fingers and whispering soothing assurances, even though it was they and not she that would be worn inside a pair of sweaty sneakers all day. An hour later, a red-faced Camila had recovered enough to form words again.

            “Why don’t you put us down, Cammy?” Sofia offered with almost maternal grace.

            “What for?”

            “We’ve been training. We want to show you why this is going to work,” Thomas insisted.

            “But… I’ve just been biking all day. I still haven’t cleaned myself. My feet are so gross, and I…”

            “That’s the point,” Sofia said, then patted the giantess’s thumb curled over her hips. “Please. Put us down. Let us prove to you how much we care.”

            Another deluge of tears started pouring down the emotional cyclist’s cheeks, but she relented, and lowered her cupped palms to the carpet. Camila set her friends down on the floor between her thighs, and carefully outstretched her legs.

            “You should probably take off your shoes,” Thomas said.

            “Don’t be afraid, Cammy,” Sofia said. “Let us help you.”

            Silently, Camila nodded and did so, prying away her trainers, then peeled off the white socks, which still adhered to her overworked foot flesh by sappy perspiration. Her stubby toes were decorated with a polka-dot pattern of squishy, cottony flecks of toejam. A reeking fog of vile, balmy stink rose like steam from the girl’s cute little peds, which were intimidatingly massive to her four-inch friends. If Camila had to cover her nose to endure it, she could only imagine how nauseous her body odor was making Sofia and Thomas. To her surprise, though, they didn’t pinch their nostrils, or even grimace.

            Like a choreographed dance, Camila’s childhood friends walked the length of her legs, toward her newly unveiled feet. They looked to one another, mouthed something Camila couldn’t make out, and separated. Without hesitation, Sofia pressed her hands against the sweat-sticky decline of Camila’s shallow arch, while Thomas gripped a smelly toe-bulb the size of his own head.

            And, if that gesture alone wasn’t bizarre enough for Camila to witness, both of her friends then desperately pressed their mouths to her skin with the urgency of people clawing for gas masks in a fire. Sofia massaged her hands in tandem circles, while her tongue explored the nearest furrowed crest of a sole wrinkle, sliding her tiny wet muscle from end to damp end like a corn on the cob rind. Meanwhile, Thomas opened his jaws wide and shoved as much of the tip of that pink marshmallow-toe into his mouth as he could manage; from there, the boy hungrily suckled the skin, nibbling gently, gulping down soggy toejam, and licking every curve until the toe gleamed with both sweat and saliva. Then he moved to the next.

            Camila surrendered to the instant and undeniable rush of rich goose bumps which assaulted her body. This was like nothing she’d experienced before. She’d never felt guiltier in her entire life. Yet this strange process of having her dear shrunken friends licking, rubbing, and gnawing her gunk-marinated biker’s feet was inspiring all kinds of strange feeling inside Camila.

            Most notably the fact that she knew, even now, as much as she hated the concept, that she would allow her beloved friends to camp inside her shoes for tomorrow’s race. God help her and her caring heart, she might even enjoy it a little.