The way Fulda said that made my blood run cold. There was a bright twinkle in her icy eyes, and I got the feeling she wanted to test how much control she had over me. Going off how I had written her in this period, she could be extremely cruel to people she shrank, and it was debatable whether she even saw them as people anymore. Now that I could no longer reel her in, she may take that to extremes with me. It may not be a control test I was in for, but one of durability.
Fulda flattened her palm into a vast plain. Her glossed lips spread from a grin to a full smile, then her other hand descended to rest at the base of her palm. I had written this setup enough to know what came next. “When you hit the ground, start running!” Fulda commanded, her deep voice making my body tremble even in her hand. “That is, if you’re still conscious. I want this to be sporting.”
With a soft click her finger shot forward from her thumb, scraping against her palm as it barreled toward me. Her unadorned nail struck me in the chest, lifting me out of her palm and forcing my body to conform along her fingertip. In an instant her finger reached its fullest extent, and momentum launched me into the air. Still formed in the shape of her fingertip, I flew toward the ceiling, and saw Fulda’s expression of sheer ecstasy as she watched my puny body launch out of her hand. My ascent slowed, and I just missed a light fixture on my way to the apex of my journey. As I passed, I did not have time to enjoy the light’s warmth before I began plummeting to the ground.
My descent was slow at first, but quickly accelerated. I raced toward the ground and landed on my chest, extremely glad I had always specified she had thick carpet. From my descent’s inertia, my body embedded itself down to the roots of Fulda’s carpet, the fibers making way as my body pushed through them. When I finally stopped, I was dazed and had the wind knocked out of me, but I could still move. Slowly, and with a twinge of pain in my abdomen, I pushed myself off the very base of Fulda’s floor to stand among the knee-high carpet fibers.
I looked around to evaluate my options for where I could run and hide from her. The yawning cavern underneath her bed was an inviting choice, but I knew that once I got underneath it there was nowhere else to hide. Plus, it would be the first place she looked when she could not find me. Scurrying under her dresser would keep me safe for longer, and she would have to work harder to get to me. Was that a good thing, though? That might just annoy her and make her even more likely to smash me. I decided to split the difference and run toward the door, hoping she would at least find it entertaining.
“Now comes the most decisive question for you,” Fulda boomed, and the floor shook when her huge feet thudded onto the ground. “Do I want to risk breaking my new toy? I can have so much fun with a good, obedient toy. Then again, I do love it when my toys break, and you’ll be broken sooner or later. They make such a satisfying crunch. I can always pick up another toy from school if I want.”
The floor trembled from her footfalls, getting stronger as they drew nearer, and I risked a glance over my shoulder to see what she had chosen. Her signature lo-top black Converse were tied around her feet, with the canvas of one already wrinkled as she got ready to take another step forward. She had decided she was okay with breaking me as long as she got to have a little fun.
“I can see you running from me!” she boomed as the ground shook from another step. “You know how to follow basic commands, that’s a good sign.” The ground shook again, in two stages this time, and I knew she was drawing close. All she had to do to win was go her normal speed and Fulda was not holding back. “Maybe you’ll survive our first game after all.” Another quake and aftershock made me stumble, and I doubted I she was watching where she stepped.
I was only a few inches from the door, just a quick burst to the threshold. Resolved to get one over on her, I dashed toward the slit underneath the door, picking up my knees to step over the thick, round carpet fibers in front of me. The ground shook, nearly toppling me over as I stood on one leg. Staggering toward the door, I prepared to dive into the carpet as a shadow fell over me.
“Sorry. I can be a little rough with my toys,” Fulda rumbled, and I leapt toward the door. There was just enough space between the wood and carpet for my body, and I slid through by the skin of my teeth. Fulda’s gigantic Converse slammed down behind me, just missing me, making the ground quiver from the force of her stomp. Had I been beneath it, there was no doubt I would have been obliterated.
Having narrowly escaped death, I stood back up and walked into the hallway. When Fulda found out I was not a stain on her shoe she would certainly pursue me, and that was part of the fun. If she wanted to play with me, I would give her a game. She could look for me in one of the spare rooms or downstairs if she wanted to play with me so bad. After all, I had written all the people she had smashed, and knew everything they should have done.
Before I could step out from underneath the door, footfalls on the stairs made me pause. They were getting louder, coming upstairs, and soon they would be able to see me. The only other people in the house were Fulda’s sisters, and they were the only people whose attention I wanted less than hers.
As Fulda’s sisters ascended the stairs, their voices reached me amid their pounding steps. “I just think it’s weird she’s so attached to a tiny man,” Jessica said. “There’s got to be something going on.”
“I know, right?” Gina replied. “Something’s fishy. She’s embarrassed about something. I mean, I’m only two years younger than her, it’s not like I don’t know what’s going on. And if she’s into some weird stuff, so what? Maybe it’d be cool to have a tiny boyfriend, I don’t know!”
“I think it’d be pretty cool,” Jessica responded, and their blond crowns crested the top of the stairs. “They’re totally in your control, so they have to do what you say. And if you want someone else, you can just squish ‘em! Like, are they even people, legally?”
They neared the top of the stairs, and would soon be able to see me hiding underneath Fulda’s door. I could not allow that, so I turned around and saw the white rubber toe of Fulda’s enormous Converse in front of me. Telling myself that she might respect or appreciate me for coming back once I was free, I grabbed on to the rounded rubber spikes that lined the front of her shoe and hoisted myself up. After a few seconds of effort I was on top of her shoe and looking at the vast expanse of canvas and shoelaces in front of me.
Fortune favors the bold, I told myself, and rushed forward onto the lowest level of her shoelaces. I sprung off from the black canvas onto the white woven fabric and began scrambling upward, unsure if she could even see me. Limb by limb I climbed up the crisscrossed laces until I was at the steep wall of her shoe’s tongue, a repeating pattern of white-lined triangles running along the top. Climbing atop that, I balanced against Fulda’s ankle and looked up her shin. It was a sheer, smooth cliff, with the only handholds available the tiny imperfections in her bronze skin.
After coming this far, I was not about to let something like an unclimbable obstacle stop me. I launched up from her shoe and clawed for a handhold, desperate for anything, but her skin was too smooth for me to find anything. When I slid back down to her shoe, I barely made an indentation on the loose tongue. If I wanted to get up her leg, I would need to go around to the back.
Before I could make another attempt, Fulda’s heel lifted off the ground, tilting her shoe enough that there was no way I could remain standing on it. She launched me from her ankle, and the arc carried me past her shoe until I was over the carpet. I landed on my back and bounced off the thick fibers until coming to a stop beside her toes. At least I had not hit the door or ended up outside it.
From the ground, I got a full view of Fulda. As I had just been made well aware her Converse towered over me, with the toe of the shoe alone at least twice my height. Her ankle was even further up, necessitating a climbing expedition along her shoe to even reach the base. From there, her smooth, toned calves provided me no succor, and her thighs bulged outward against her shorts. Fulda’s legs were magnificent, as I had designed them to be, and her white tank top followed the contours of her abs. Beyond that were her significant breasts, not too large for someone of her stature but absolutely massive to me. Past those, all I could see was her eyes, fixed downward as she searched for me.
Practically immobile beside her shoe, it did not take long for her to spot me. When she did, she smirked and leaned her head back, immensely cocky about her victory over someone less than an inch tall. “Did you really just try to climb me?” she asked, doing her best to keep from laughing. “By the way, this is one of the cases where I expect you to answer.”
“Yes, I did,” I told her. “It seemed like the best move at the time, considering your shoe was blocking me from anything else.”
“Yeah, I’ve got big feet,” Fulda replied, smirking. “And you tried to leave my room, didn’t you?”
Fulda had a finely-tuned bullshit sensor and would be able to tell if I misled her. “Yes, I did,” I answered again. “If you want to chase me down, I figured it would be best to open up the whole house as your hunting grounds.”
“Really?” Fulda responded, her cheeks dimpling as her smirk grew larger. “Then what stopped you? I would definitely like to chase one of my toys through the whole house.”
“Your sisters came up the stairs.” A bit of embellishment could not hurt, I figured, especially if it flattered her. “But I’m not their toy, I’m yours. It would hardly be fair if one of them got to play with me before you finished your game, would it?”
“I guess you have a point, even though you are tiny.” Fulda leaned forward and I recoiled from her hands until they pinched around her shoelaces. With one steady pull she untied one of her shoes, drawing the lace as far out as it could go. She moved her other shoe behind her, and with a loud pop her left foot sprung free of her shoe. Turning her toes downward, Fulda scooted the shoe back until it was beyond the reach of even her massive feet.
“You’re a very obedient toy,” Fulda said, lifting her socked foot off the ground. “You not only do exactly what I say, but you interpret the thought behind it.” She moved the foot until it was directly over me and let it hang there while she spoke. “Plus, I can count on one hand the people who wanted to climb me, and they were the most contentious.” Fulda smirked and twitched her toes downward, making the whole sock strain as it bent to conform around them. Her gigantic socked foot loomed over me, and there was nowhere for me to run. My whole future depended on how hard she would bring it down.
The huge foot loomed closer, but not quickly enough to annihilate me. When it was close enough that it was all I could see looking up and each individual thread could be defined, it stopped. Fulda curled her toes downward and hooked her big toe behind me, pulling me away from the door. With a sudden hard shove from her toes she yanked me toward her hard enough to send me tumbling over the thick carpet. I rolled over the fibers until I was by her heel, dwarfed by the tremendous Converse she was still wearing.
“Let’s play a little longer,” Fulda said as she bent down and grabbed a shoelace. “You have until I get this shoe off and back in its place to get as far as you can. I doubt you’ll get very far with those puny legs of yours, but we’ll see.” She stood back up, and her socked foot soared overhead on its way behind her. The toes braced against her heel, and with a soft pop her foot emerged from the canvas. Slowly she withdrew the rest of her foot from the shoe, and the floor rumbled when her foot landed back on the floor.
Fulda bent down and hooked a finger into each of her shoes, and lifted them into the air when she stood. With the wall of black canvas out of the way, I could see the terrifying behemoth wrapped in white behind it. I was awe-struck by its size even from some distance, but Fulda’s thundering voice brought me back to the issue at hand. “Are you waiting for me to wind you up? Get moving!”
I ran toward the furthest wall of her room, and the enormous barrier of her foot disappeared when she stepped away. Thinking quickly, I made for the depression where her foot had been so I could run a bit faster. Unfortunately, by the time I reached it the carpet had completely uncompressed and came up to my knees again. My journey was not made any easier by the floor constantly shaking from Fulda’s steps. Though the quakes got weaker the further away she was, they still made me be conscious of my footing with each step.
The tremors stopped, giving me a brief reprieve. With the floor steady I could make some quick progress. I bounded over the carpet fiber in front of me and immediately sprung forward again, the closest I could get to a dash. Upon landing I leapt once more, overtaking two whole carpet fibers this time. My legs were beginning to ache from the effort, but I paid it no mind. Whether I was an entertaining toy for Fulda would determine whether I lived or died.
It felt like I was making solid progress, but when I looked at Fulda’s dresser I was barely any closer. Despite all the effort I was putting into it, I had only gone a couple of inches. The carpet was slowing me down too much, and I had to spend too much energy overcoming obstacles every step I took. Aside from that, I was simply too small to get very far. Even over a clear, flat surface I might have made it half a foot.
Worse yet, the floor began shaking again. Fulda was done, and in just a few seconds she would be on top of me. I continued struggling forward, but the quakes grew steadily stronger until I was stumbling after each of her steps. The pounding of her footfalls that accompanied each tremor filled me with trepidation, like it was a countdown. Fulda’s shadow fell over me, and I knew the timer had reached zero.
An enormous white wall slammed down in front of me, creating the most powerful quake yet. I staggered back to stay standing and gazed up at the tremendous socked foot in front of and over me. The sock was barely big enough to contain the foot and clung tightly to the curves of her sole and heel, the cotton threads straining to stay together. I stared up at it and observed the light playing along the sides, casting long shadows over the bottom of her foot. In turn, the foot cast a shadow over me; I did not think I would ever get used to being in the shadow of Fulda’s foot.
“Stop. Right. There,” Fulda demanded, and I froze in place. “If you move again, the next thing I’ll be doing is washing my toy off my socks.” I was already still, entranced by the size of her foot alone. I watched, fixated as it lifted effortlessly into the air, then slid backwards until her toes were even with me. She tilted her foot downward and rotated it slightly, setting her big toe down beside me. The digit itself dwarfed me.
Fulda twisted her foot to the side, striking me with her big toe. The blow lifted me off my feet, and I flew in a low arc until I was embedded in the carpet in front of Fulda, almost exactly between her feet. She was looking down, smiling as she towered over me, and placed her hands on her hips. For a moment she simply loomed over me, grinning in satisfaction. I looked back up at her, fearful of what she was going to do. If she wanted, she could smash me like an insect and there was nothing I could do to stop her, and I imagined the same thought was running through her mind.
Her colossal foot came into view, and she moved it until the center of her sole was right over me. “I had fun playing with you,” she rumbled, “but it’s time for that to end.” This was it, then. I was to be squashed under the enormous foot of my own gargantuan creation because she thought it was fun.
Fulda’s foot set down on top of me, the soft skin of her sole giving way around my puny body. It formed a seal around me, perfectly flush with the carpet, creating a fleshy pocket that contained me perfectly. I pushed back, trying to move the massive weight of her foot, but it was much too heavy to budge. “No, Fulda, please!” I shouted as the pressure increased. “Don’t crush me!” Desperately I tried to wiggle out from beneath her foot and she responded by leaning a little harder, pinning me in place. Panicking, I gasped for breath as her foot pressed down, and I heard my ribs creak under the pressure. The air in my tiny pocket got thinner, and it was now a race between her smashing and suffocating me.
My struggle intensified. I clawed at the fibers of Fulda’s sock, so weak I could barely even budge them, in an effort to drag myself out. Rumbling laughter reached me through the thick flesh of the enormous foot crushing me, and I felt extremely light-headed from the lack of air. Without air, my fight for life weakened until -