A part of your mind screamed at you to run, to fight, to do something to escape Zara Reed's fingers as they came down to pluck you up. A scant few minutes ago, when you were at a meager inch tall, the odds would've been astronomically stacked against you... but not impossible. But now that you were 1/8th of an inch? Now it was impossible. Fingers that had once been the size of monoliths to you were now skyscrapers as they somehow managed to pluck your speck-sized body off the table and raise you before Zara Reed's beaming face.
"Now then, little guy--or should I say, littlest guy?" Zara asked, chuckling at her own joke. "It's time to run some tests. Normally I'd conduct them here or do some field research, but you must be a really special little guy because someone very important has asked to conduct your testing personally."
Someone wanted to run tests on you personally. You didn't bother asking who. Deep down, you already knew.
Penelope Graham.
You were left in such shock that you didn't even resist as Zoey's mother deposited you in her coat's breast pocket and left her lab with a spring in her step.
*****
Throughout the long drive, you tried to keep your spirits up. Tried to reassure yourself that you were going to find a way out of this nightmare, find a way to triumph over these seemingly impossible odds. You were Matthew Goddamn Jacobs after all, and you hadn't fought so hard to get so far in life, and survived a rogue's gallery of enemies, a society built on trampling people like you underfoot, as well as it seemed like the very embodiment of bad luck and fate itself, just to lose everything to a childhood bully who'd never grown up!
At least, that's what you wanted to tell yourself.
But by the time Zara Reed pulled you of her pocket and laid you on the vast mahogany desk in the Dean's office, the sight of your nemesis took away any meager confidence in yourself you'd managed to restore.
Thanks to the reduction Zara had forced on you, from your miniaturized perspective, even Penelope's slender, delicate, almost pixie-like frame became horrifyingly vast. Your old bully towered over you at heights never before possible. She sat on her chair as if it was a throne, and the smug, contented smile on her face made her look for all the world like a queen eager to pass down a sentence of execution on her lowliest subject.
"Here's everything we discussed, Ms. Graham," Zara said, as she passed Penelope a thin box.
"Thank you, Dr. Reed. You may go."
You and Penelope regarded each other in the silence that followed Zara's departure.
"Alone at last, huh, Mite?" Penelope asked, smiling in smug satisfaction. "No loving wife to protect you. No saintly sister or darling daughters. Not a single family or friend standing in the way of my fun. I'll be perfectly honest, I struggled with this decision a great deal. Not the decision to make you Dr. Reed's test subject, no, that was triflingly easy! I'm talking about the decision to conduct Dr. Reed's experiments on you myself. After all, I've come a long way since high school. I run one of the world's most prestigious universities, broker deals to restore the CTC to its former glory, and achieved the rank of Oakland councilwoman while intending to ascend even higher yet in politics. Isn't it, dare I say, childish for a woman of my stature to personally torture some pathetic mite that escaped me so long ago? Surely leaving things up to Dr. Reed's discretion would be the most mature thing to do."
Penelope's smile turned from smug to predatory as she bared her teeth.
"But what's the point of getting enough power to do whatever I want, if I don't indulge in life's... little pleasures from time to time?"
It took all of your composure to maintain a semblance of calm and stop yourself from trembling. Despite the feeling of overwhelming helplessness clutching your heart in a death-grip, you still didn't want to give Penelope the satisfaction of seeing you break down.
"When Jenna finds out what you did--"
"She'll be utterly powerless help you," Penelope stated casually. "We'll just tell her unforeseen consequences of the experiment resulted in your "disappearance." Acceptable risks were included in the NDA she signed, after all. And if she tries to publicly challenge us, my lawyer, Tonya Lewis, will eviscerate her in court and burn her Fucking Tiny Twat Foundation to the ground."
You had no rebuttal. That was exactly what would happen if Jenna fought back. Penelope giggled at your speechlessness.
"It pays to have friends in high places, doesn't it, Mite?" Penelope's vindictive look of satisfaction curdled like expired milk. "Of course, not all friends can be so reliable, can they? Even someone you considered your best friend can turn out to be another fraud."
It wasn't some grand mystery who Penelope was referring to.
Mari.
Impossible as it was to picture nowadays, soon after Mari first transferred to your middle school and started dating you, she quickly became best friends with Penelope Graham. The pair were practically inseparable growing up, with Penelope going to Mari's house nearly every day after school, and the two holding weekly sleepovers. Shopping, movies, dinner, homework, they did it all. And, as Mari's boyfriend and Penelope's favorite plaything, you were right there with them. Despite hating having to share Mari's attention with you, Penelope pretended to be your friend in public to disguise her true nature and had intimidated you into silence. Over the years, Penelope took advantage of her new best friend's poor memory to trick her into tormenting you countless times, giving you to Mari after shaping you into gum, insoles, socks, cushions, and any other object her wicked mind could conjure up. Until one day, Penelope overstepped. Mari caught her best friend in the middle of abusing you and your girlfriend's infamous temper flared up, bringing their friendship to a permanent end.
On the plus side, this meant your nemesis could no longer hurt you at will and you had Mari all to yourself. The downside was Penelope became even crueler, craftier and far more ruthless. Following the big fight, whenever you found yourself in your bully's clutches, Penelope made it clear she was no longer content with just humiliating you. Now she truly wanted to destroy you, as punishment for you and Mari both for her friend's "betrayal."
"I suppose I should be grateful to Mari," Penelope mused. "It was a lesson I needed to learn. Sometimes someone you think will always be there for you turns out to be another selfish bitch ready to plant a knife in your back."
"Don't you dare talk about my wife that way!" you shouted, getting to your feet in anger. "Mari is a saint! You betrayed her, and you're a pathetic moron if you think otherwise!"
Penelope's eyes widened a fraction. "And there it is. That damn spark of defiance that lingers in you no matter how many times I try to stamp it out. And look at what it's gotten you. A loving wife, beautiful children, your own house and even a successful business. I have no idea how something as weak and pathetic as you managed to survive for so long and come so far. Everyone else who's crossed me, I've had the pleasure of breaking beyond repair. I left my older sisters Georgia and Scarlett penniless and ruined. And as for that disgusting bug who called herself my sister, well..."
Penelope stood and lowered her indecently short skirt enough to show off the flesh-colored thong.
"Over twenty years later she's as comfortable as ever and quite insane. I've taken everything from her, even her name. And you must admit, her name fits my daughter just as divinely as this little bitch suits me."
Normally the sight of any tiny in such pain would sicken you, let alone the knowledge that their abuser was their own sister. But not this time.
You'd had the supreme misfortune to meet Penelope's sisters, and all three of them truly were as soulless as Penelope claimed. Georgia and Scarlett were twisted sadists who enjoyed torturing tinies for pleasure and disposing of them afterwards. The twins always competed with each other in every aspect of life, and tiny torture was no different, each of them trying to best the other by coming up with the most creative torment. And all their victims were procured for them by Persephone. The affected girl lured unsuspecting tinies to her home via feigned friendship or attraction on a daily basis, only to offer them up to Georgia and Scarlett. She'd then smile and laugh as she watched her unaffected sisters indulge in their depravities, even offering them suggestions at times.
It wasn't until long after Penelope and Mari's friendship was in tatters that you found out Penelope's sisters didn't just abuse tinies, they abused Penelope herself. For a long time after that you felt sympathy for her. Though your own life was rough thanks to Jenna's malicious "pranks" back before she'd redeemed herself, at the very least you had people in your life who loved you. Penelope hadn't even had that. But as she grew crueler and crueler over the years and hurt so many more innocent people by dooming affected and ripping apart families, all for the sake of her own power, you learned to reserve your pity for the girl that she was, not the monster she became. You have the following choice: 1. Continue |
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