Content
Something vaguely tugged at Dave’s awareness, like a quiet sound gently stirring him from his sleep. Only it wasn’t a sound, it was a sensation; the feeling of something moving over his skin. Gradually, he began to wake further, and he realized that he was the thing moving; slipping through the warmth that surrounded him.
He was only half-awake at best when he felt a chilling embrace suddenly engulf his head and face. He opened his eyes in shock, but was immediately met with a blinding light, forcing him to shut them again. As he tried to recover from the assault on his senses, he felt the cold take more of him, working its way down his body. He reached out instinctively, trying to find the warm walls he had become accustomed to, but no matter how far he reached he just couldn’t seem to find them.
Before he knew it, all warmth had left him. He laid there cold and blind and a sort of fear began to fill him, but then he heard a voice.
“Huh, that wasn’t so bad…”
He recognized it as Rachel’s, but he wasn’t yet conscious enough to fully put things into context.
“Alright, Dave, here we are: home sweet home.”
She paused, awaiting a reply.
“…Are you okay?”
Dave felt a new warmth against his skin; nothing like the deep, penetrating heat that he had left behind, but welcomed, nonetheless. He felt himself begin to move as he was picked up.
“Phew, still breathing. I guess you just need a bit more time to snap out of it. Hmm, I should probably clean you up a bit; I don’t think you’ll enjoy waking up covered in my goop like this.”
A moment later, Dave felt something soft begin to brush across his skin, wiping away layers of a wet substance that he hadn’t even realized was there.
“It’s not exactly a five-star hotel, but you’ll be safe here for a while,” Rachel explained idly as she wiped. “I won’t be around too much, but I took the only key- and it’s not like anyone ever comes down here anyway. I made sure there’s plenty of food for when you start growing, and you even get a comfy little bed.”
She finished cleaning him and placed him down on a soft, fluffy surface that cradled his tiny form.
“Anyway, you can rest here for a while, I gotta go. But, boy, do I have a surprise for you when you wake up.”
…
“Dave? Are you awake down there?”
“Rachel!?”
“Shhh!”
Dave heard a door close, followed by a few footsteps, and then Rachel appeared descending the nearby staircase. He spared her a number of glances, but he was largely preoccupied with the box of cereal he was currently demolishing.
“Where have you been!?” Dave asked between mouthfuls, a bit more quietly.
“Busy,” she replied hintingly.
“‘Busy’? It’s been almost a week! I’ve been locked in this room the whole time and I don’t even know where I am!”
“It’s been two days,” Rachel countered.
“Really?” Dave hadn’t realized how much he’d lost track of time, stuck in a constant cycle of scarfing and snoring inside a room with no windows and no clocks.
“Yeah, if you’d been down here a week, you’d’ve grown a lot bigger than that cereal box.” She had a point. Sitting up, he was just barely the size of the box he was gorging himself on.
“Whoa, it looks like you really did a number on the food I left you.” Glancing around the room she could see a number of empty boxes and trays, along with numerous wrappers and many inedible parts of various fruits. To his credit, all the garbage was more or less in one pile, which was much more organized than she had been, but it was clear the cravings of his growing body were in full force.
“You didn’t answer my other question. Where are we?” Dave asked. Rachel paused and thought for a moment.
“…Come on, there’s something I want to show you,” she said.
“Uh, I’m a little ‘busy’ too,” he replied, shoving another fistful of cereal into his tiny mouth. “And I’m still too short to make it up the stairs anyway.”
“I’ll carry you- and we’ll bring a couple boxes with us,” she insisted.
Dave eyed the girl suspiciously as she approached, but made no objection as she reached down and picked him up along with the snack he was holding. She cradled him in one arm and then reached over and picked up a few more nearby boxes for the road before walking back toward the stairs.
“Just try and chew quietly, okay?”
Dave swallowed and nodded affirmatively.
Rachel walked up the stairs and opened the door. On the other side was darkness. Dave peered into the inky void, trying to make out some detail with his unadjusted eyes, but found he could hardly see a thing. Rachel walked through without hesitation, closing the door behind them with a quiet click. She navigated the shadowed environment like she’d done it a hundred times before, around corners and up a set of stairs, until they came to a new door with light leaking out from underneath.
Rachel opened it and walked inside, closing it behind them like the last. Inside was a bed, a dresser, a closet, a few random articles of clothing in odd places on the floor. Dave recognized it all instantly.
“This is your room,” he said with surprise, now significantly distracted from his snack- though still eating. “We’re back at your house? But I thought you didn’t think it was safe? What about all that stuff you said about Sarah and her father? And explaining everything to your mom?”
“I told you I’ve been busy,” she replied. She started to put Dave down on her bed, but then changed her mind and instead placed him on the floor. She didn’t feel like sleeping in cereal crumbs that night. While she was down there, she reached under her bed, shuffling a few things around and eventually pulling back out with a box.
Dave’s eyes locked onto it immediately. He stopped eating.
“Rachel… is that?”
She nodded.
“Where did you get another one of those?” he asked with a hint of accusation.
“I went back to the shrinking place, the day after you went inside.”
Dave was shocked. The next logical question rang between his ears, but he was scared to ask it.
“…Is it empty?” he asked.
Rachel shook her head.
“No, Rachel you didn’t… After all this, you went and got more tinies?”
She brought the box over to him and undid the latch.
“Just two,” she replied. She opened the box.
“Rachel!” cried a new voice. “Thank God! Please, I’m-”
“Quiet!” Rachel reprimanded. “Come on now Sarah, you know better. If you’re too loud, I’ll have to punish you.”
“Don’t you threaten my daughter!” came another voice, angry but obediently quieter than the first.
“Actually, I think I’ll threaten her all I want,” she spat back.
“Rachel…” Dave breathed. She looked over to him. “How?” was the first question that made it out of his mouth.
“I tricked them into one of their own shrinking rooms,” she said proudly, “just like they did with me. I do wish I coulda seen the look on their faces when I shut the door on them, but the look after they woke up was almost as good.”
“My men will find you,” Sarah’s father threatened.
“You mean those five or six guys you have slinking around back there? They couldn’t find you for a whole week while you were shrinking right under their noses, now they don’t even have a chance.”
“Rachel, please let me go. I never wanted to hurt you; I swear. I had no choice!” Sarah pleaded. Rachel shot her a murderous glare and she immediately went silent. The tiny teen let her gaze fall to the floor of the box, but Rachel kept staring her dead on.
“‘Friends make the best snacks.’” she quoted. “You really expect me to believe you were forced to do all this? Save it. You’re full of shit- and trust me, I should know.”
Sarah’s face suddenly contorted with anger and she shot her head back up to meet the other girl’s gaze.
“You fucking bitch! You should have melted into fat on my ass you useless brat! How the fuck did you survive!?”
Rachel was admittedly caught off guard. She had never seen Sarah act like that. But she got over it pretty quick. A scowl spread across her face and she reached into the box, grabbing the tiny girl. The teen opened her mouth to shout again, but Rachel quickly blocked it with a finger.
“Damn it, Sarah!” her father cursed quietly.
“I warned you what would happen if you were loud again,” Rachel growled. “Only one warning per tiny- just like you taught me.”
“What are you going to do to her!?” her father asked. Rachel stared Sarah right in the eyes.
“Exactly what she did to me.”
“Rachel!” Dave exclaimed. She looked over at him again. “You don’t really mean that, do you?”
“She deserves it!” Rachel insisted, the pain of betrayal clear on her face.
“And you didn’t?!” Dave countered. Sure, it was a cruel card to play, but he only played it in the face of equally cruel revenge.
“No, you didn’t!” she answered. Dave was taken aback. Rachel frowned and glanced away. “You didn’t deserve any of it,” she muttered. She took a moment to collect herself before facing him again.
“They’re the ones behind all of it, and they’re the only people who know who we are. If they’re gone, we can finally get back to our normal lives. If they’re gone no one will be left to run the shrinking place, the money will dry up, all of it will stop.”
Dave was dumbfounded. How had he never realized? She wasn’t just doing all this for herself, she was doing this for him too- still trying to make everything up to him. And as much as she wanted revenge, he could see in her eyes that she had also thought it through. And in a sick, twisted way… she was right.
“You could just keep them in the box,” Dave managed; a last-ditch effort he knew wouldn’t hold.
“For their whole lives? Is that really any better? Plus, someone would find them eventually. No, there’s only one way to end this with absolutely no trace.”
Dave opened his mouth to speak, but there was nothing left he could say.
“You’re nice,” Rachel told him with a faint smile. “You can’t do this.” Her smile faded. “But I can.” She turned back to the tiny, wriggling in her hand.
“Goodbye, Sarah.”
Rachel opened her mouth and brought the girl towards it. The tiny teen’s eyes went wide as her view was gradually overtaken by the red, shadowed cave; glistening and stretching as it reached out to engulf her. As Rachel released her grip, briefly freeing up Sarah’s mouth, the teen cried out her last words:
“Rachel! You little-!” *clack*
Rachel sealed her mouth shut, cutting off Sarah’s words with the snap of her teeth as the tiny girl cleared them on the inside. Dave watched, unable to look away. He felt helpless, yet empowered; fearful, yet secure. He found himself wishing that Rachel would just spit the girl out, yet also itching for her to finish the job and end it.
He saw Rachel close her eyes. She moved her jaws slightly. No big show, no ‘playing with her food’ the way he remembered her doing. He saw her face twitch in discomfort. She had always said she liked the feeling of a tiny in her mouth, that she enjoyed the taste. But she wasn’t enjoying anything now.
In the silence of the night, Dave could hear the distant, muffled screams of anger and distress escaping from Rachel’s cheeks. And he could just hear the faint sloshing of saliva as she let it build up inside her mouth.
“Stop!” came the voice of Sarah’s father. But Rachel ignored it, she didn’t even spare him a glance. There was only one thing she was focused on. She could feel the little form of Sarah’s body, pounding its tiny fists against her tongue as her drool rose to cover the mouthful. The girl was flailing in vain, they both knew there was no escape.
When they had first met, Rachel could never have even begun to imagine that it would end like this. Even after the two of them started sharing tinies, they had always thought of the little things as ‘something else’; they weren’t people, they were food. Now her best friend was one of them. Only she wasn’t her best friend anymore. And in another moment, just like the rest of them, she wouldn’t be a person anymore either.
Dave saw it first. He had watched it happen too many times not to recognize it. A twitch of Rachel’s cheeks, of her jaw, of her lips. He knew just as well as she did the precarious position where Sarah had just been placed. Rachel could feel her, a writhing, salty bundle of limbs pressed tightly at the back of her throat. She took a shaky breath in through her nose.
*gulp*
The slimy swallow sounded deafeningly loud in the silence of the hour, or maybe that was just for Dave, who had been dreading it, anticipating it, ever since the beginning. Rachel’s throat twitched; a slight, inconspicuous movement as the tiny body of her former friend slipped smoothly over the edge of her tongue and down through her neck. Rachel kept her eyes closed as the little lump descended into her chest, and didn’t open them until she felt the familiar sensation of her latest meal settling distinctly into the deep confines of her stomach.
“You monster,” spat the voice of the tiny man in the box. Rachel looked down at him.
“And what does that make you?” she asked rhetorically in a calm, cold voice. “You were the one that dragged her into this after all. All of this was because of you, you and your messed-up business.”
“Says one of my best customers.”
Rachel didn’t know if that was true, but it stung just the same. She scowled for a moment, but then refocused herself.
“I guess I should thank you for all those tinies you had her send me. How about I swallow you quickly so you have a chance to say goodbye to your daughter.”
Rachel reached down. The man tried to run, but there was nowhere to go, and he didn’t get very far anyhow. She grabbed him and he began to struggle vehemently, but he didn’t say another word, just glared up at her with a heated gaze.
She looked the man over briefly as she held him to her face. She felt maybe she should say something, put in one last word, but really she hardly knew him and she had already spoken her mind. Now she just wanted it to end.
She opened her mouth and tossed him inside. The heavier man landed with a dull splat against her tongue, just audible in the quiet room before she sealed her lips around him. She felt him shift around instantly, undoubtably trying to find the most comfortable position amongst the squishy, undulating confines of her mouth. She waited for the predictable thrashing and flailing that usually came next, but instead he seemed to go mostly still.
Only for a moment, though. After a second or two, she felt him begin to move again. It was a somewhat frantic movement, but it wasn’t struggling. It was a smaller, almost rhythmic shaking; deliberate and fast-paced.
She considered the sensation idly as she felt her mouth quickly filling with saliva, her body clearly primed for another meal. After a few seconds, she felt the man turn himself over- definitely strange- and then suddenly she felt something new. It felt like he was rubbing himself against her tongue. Was he trying to guilt-trip her by making sure she got a good taste? Grinding against her-
Rachel’s eyes went wide and her face contorted with disgust as it finally hit her. Her brow tightened in anger. She jerked her tongue sharply, throwing him off it and onto her molars. In that instant, she felt a powerful urge to bite down and end him right there. Her jaws quivered, but she restrained herself. The man had gone deathly still, seemingly paralyzed with fear as he realized the position he was now in.
If I crush him, I might not be able to keep Sarah down, she reasoned, trying not to think of what that might feel like. Besides, a slow end in my stomach is a better punishment anyway.
Rachel scooped him up in her tongue once again and immediately crammed him roughly into the back of her throat. She heard him grunt loudly in protest. She collected all the spit she could and dumped it on top of him, and then she swallowed hard.
*GULP*
As she felt him leave her mouth and slip into her chest, she scowled one last time.
“Have fun explaining your boner to your daughter when you get down there,” she muttered.
She took a few breaths to calm herself, and then looked down at Dave. She had been deliberately avoiding his gaze the entire time, but now she looked him in the eyes. His face was predominantly angry, but revealed a begrudging acceptance, along with a bit of sympathy.
“You really did it…” he said. A short silence followed, ringing deafeningly in their ears as they felt the tension in the otherwise calm air.
“I… I just wanted us both to be safe,” she replied quietly, letting her gaze fall away. “It’s not like the other times… I didn’t do it to feel good, I just-” She stopped when she heard Dave take a deep breath.
“It’s okay…” he said a bit reluctantly, “I understand… At least it was for a good reason…”
Rachel looked him in the eyes again.
“They’re the last ones,” she said emphatically. “I promise. No more.”
Dave forced a smile and nodded approvingly. Rachel forced a smile back.
“Come on, let’s get you back to the basement,” she said. She closed the empty box and hid it back under her bed, then she reached out and took Dave’s shrunken body into her arms, picking up the boxes of cereal they had brought.
As she stood up and made for the door, Dave realized that in all the commotion he had forgotten to eat. Pressed up against Rachel’s chest as she carried him, he heard a loud gurgle from inside, along with what he thought might have been a shout. On second thought, he didn’t feel that hungry.
…
“Dave? …Dave?” came a gentle voice. The man’s eyelids fluttered as he was disturbed from his rest. He grunted quietly and then slowly opened them as he awoke.
“Aaaaaaah,” droned the voice in an irritating tone. He felt a humid warmth against his face. His eyes focused, and then went wide.
A gaping maw stared down at him: white teeth, pink lips and a wriggling tongue. It loomed inches from his face, strands of saliva glistening as they dangled from between the menacing jaws. He gasped sharply, his heart skipping a beat, unable to move with his body half asleep and half paralyzed in fear. As terror began to overtake him, the entire sight suddenly disappeared.
The sound of stifled giggling reached his ears. He blinked a couple times, finding himself now staring up at the ceiling. A moment later, he let himself breathe again. He put a hand to his chest, and then turned his head to the side. There was Rachel, standing over him with one hand covering her mouth, failing miserably at an attempt to hold in her laughter. She looked back down at him, noting his half-terrified, half frustrated expression.
“Too soon?” she asked, still chuckling.
Dave grunted in reply, clearly not amused.
“Sorry. Really. It’s just, I couldn’t joke like that when you were still tiny, but now that you’re pretty much back to normal, I couldn’t resist.”
Dave sat up, his point of view rising a couple feet off the floor. After so many days as a tiny, it was a little strange to be tall again.
“You think I’m actually done growing?” he asked.
“You tell me,” she replied.
Taking her cue, Dave pushed himself out of his sleeping bag and stood up. His head soared upwards, easily overshooting Rachel’s height. He looked down at her, which felt odd, then down at his hands, and then at the floor.
“Seems about right to me, plus you’re not starving anymore,” Rachel assessed.
Dave looked himself over for another moment.
“So… then it’s really over…” he said.
“Yeah.”
“I can finally go home…”
Rachel’s smile suddenly faded, something Dave quickly noticed.
“What?” he asked.
“Home… or anywhere else…” she added, glancing away.
“So?” Dave watched her for a reply, he could see the emotions building up inside her.
“So: you’re not my prisoner anymore; you’re free now! Don’t act like you don’t know what that means! Nothing’s stopping you from going right to the police, or my mom, or just punching me out right here.”
“Rachel…” he muttered.
She looked him straight in the eyes, anger and guilt now streaked across her face.
“You said yourself that I deserved what Sarah tried to do to me, but I got off easy. So now’s your chance! Just get it over with already!”
Dave stepped toward her and Rachel shut her eyes tight. She listened to him approach and stop right in front of her. Her breath became quick and ragged in anticipation. She clenched her fists, bracing herself.
And then she felt it. Two arms, wrapped around her back, pulling her in tight.
“I also said you were a good kid,” he said softly. “I never would have gotten through this without you, Rachel, don’t forget that.”
There was a long moment of silence- beautiful, heart-melting silence- that was only finally broken by a series of light sobs. Dave released her and pulled away a bit, only to see tears rolling down her cheeks.
*sniff* *sniff* “You know, I think I might actually miss you when you’re gone,” she sobbed. Dave smiled.
“Yeah, me too,” he admitted, despite how crazy it sounded.
“Are you really not gonna tell anyone?” she asked. Dave thought for a moment.
“You promise you’re done with tinies?”
She looked him straight in the eyes and nodded vigorously, wiping an arm across her face.
“Well then what would be the point of getting you in trouble if you’ve already learned your lesson?”
Rachel smiled wide, still sobbing. An idea entered Dave’s mind, causing him to smirk.
“Just to be safe, though, I think I’ll have to make sure,” he said.
Rachel looked confused for a moment.
“Once I get outside, I’ll see your address; I’ll know where you live. I might just have to come back once in a while to check up on you; make sure you’re keeping your word.”
A few giggles escaped from Rachel’s throat along with the last of her sobs as she realized what he meant.
“That’d be nice,” she said with a smile.