Eric had allowed himself to wander. No direction, even less so since he was a naturally bad navigator, and much less in the state he was in.
"Tom...oh, Tom!" he whined, still hugging himself.
He wanted his boyfriend. Normal and not huge. As hot and unbelievable as Tom was at this size, Eric wanted nothing more than a normal-sized Tom to comfort him and keep him safe. Shrinking wasn't at all what he expected. It made him feel alone...traumatized. Tom had been scarier than anything Eric had ever experienced. He had felt like a pet fish headed for the toilet. That wasn't right. Tom was a kind-hearted, normally gentle and thoughtful guy.
At this size, all he seemed like was a careless, dismissive monster.
Eric shuddered remembering the many times Tom had taken ugly bugs and spiders from their home. Often on his behest. He simply had no idea what they went through at Tom's massive hands and feet.
It could have been worse, Eric thought as he wandered. He could have encountered someone else and that thought frightened him more. Eric stumbled forward, clutching himself tighter and completely lost in distressed thought. Not for a moment did it occur to him that he might be jinxing himself. He heard a commotion that made him look to the skies. Spiny leaves and massive dandelion heads blocked most of his view, but he saw flitting shapes against the clear sky beyond. Flitting shapes that he quickly identified as flying insects. Small and large, some he knew immediately while others he didn't. They seemed to be vacating the area in a hurry.
Then came the land insects -- or monsters, as Eric saw them. Some ants quickly rushed passed. Eric shrieking loudly at each one as they utterly ignored his presence.
"Oh my God! Oh my God! Tom! Help me! Tooom!" he screamed to nothing.
All Eric could think about was the horrible realization that this already frightening jungle was populated by so many terrible creatures. That he had not even considered their presence, much less noticed it until now. Then he froze. His mind immediately forgetting the sporadic onslaught of rushing bugs.
Instead, he gaped upwards as the sky was obscured, light dimmed, and something huge lowered from the heavens.
Pillars was what he thought at first. Great, huge, massive columns that should be towering alongside cliffs or mountains. They pushed through the massive plants looming above, displacing the great stems and leaves with the ease of mother nature. Eric stumbled back as they nearly scrapped against the ground but instead wrapped their immense towers around one gigantic plant.
Then he knew. As the plant that outsized one of the campus buildings was crushed and pulled, Eric suddenly knew what he was seeing. Fingers. Just like earlier with Tom, but these were thicker, rougher, hairy, and lined with dirt.
Beneath his tiny feet the ground seemed to roar with deep, muffled anger. Cracks appeared in the soft dirt, quickly widening and rifting before pulling apart. Eric inexplicably realized it was the sound of massive roots snapping and breaking as they were uprooted. The calamity was seemingly violent enough to resembled a building being leveled. And by all means, it appeared as such to the minuscule scientist who could only stare wide-eyed as the building-sized monster of a weed was rended from the earth and lifted into the skies. Debris fell in the wake. Clods of dirt like boulders crashed down, huge log-sized twigs and rocks. Larger than a redwood came down a huge dandelion stalk and flower in the wake. It nearly demolished Eric who retreated from the gaping devastation left behind by the weed.
Looking up, he saw something that made his heart beat faster. A looming shape, revealed by the removal of the massive foliage and back-lit like something mythical by the sky beyond. It was a god, he thought. He was a rational person by any means, but Eric couldn't help but jump to conclusions. This had to be a god come to destroy the world and tiny Eric with it.
Then he remembered Tom and all that happened. Gaping upwards at the gargantuan figure, he realized one more thing. Gods didn't normally wear baseball caps and sunglasses. This was a man. Somebody Eric did not immediately recognize as he beheld the massive visage that seemed to hover high above his tiny world like an orbiting planet. The giant face was slightly turned, looking off to where he presumably was depositing that once mighty plant. With those massive sunglasses, Eric could only appreciate the behemoth's wide Roman nose framed by a broad, oblong jaw coated in dark stubble. This meeting wasn't like Tom at all. Eric was filled with a cocktail surge of emotion, most of which was awe. Large beads of sweat, mixed with dirt and oily, dotted the giant's face. They fell at random, some vanishing from view while some fell close enough that their impact was noticeable and their size comparable to Eric's.
With a slow motion, the face rotated and seemed to direct itself at the tiny man's general vicinity. Blue-ish hue and highly reflective, Eric couldn't discern anything in that massive polarized glare. A grace period seemed to set in for a moment: Eric staring upwards as if in religious adoration and the humongous man hunkered and looming, colossal and enigmatic.
That's when the shrunken scientist's eyes fell upon the lofty dome of the main's head. A logo was spread across the dirt, grimy surface of the cap and Eric immediately recognized it as belonging to a landscaping company. With sickening clarity, the pieces clicked together: this man was one of the gardener's contracted by the campus to care for the grounds. He was weeding. That tree-plant was just one of many weeds this gargantuan guy had torn from the ground. Light darkened again as that massive hand soared overhead. Eric screamed while air roared as the hand lowered in the distance, followed immediately by a similar sound of snapping, rumbling destruction. Panicked insects fled that horizon, buzzing over and away as chunks of dirt and debris fell and the mammoth appendage lifted into view with yet another huge weed.
That gigantic gaze followed, shifting slightly and informing Eric that this monstrosity of a gardener failed to even notice him. Eric probably looked like an ant, if not a chunk of dirt. Was it even possible to attract this titan's attention? Unlike Tom, it seemed unlikely despite the crouched proximity, this man likely glossed over any and all tiny, moving specks on the ground. Earbuds were evident in the man's massive ears, effectively obscuring the already impossibly chance that he would detect Eric's feeble shouts. Plus, would he even want to attract this behemoth's attention? Very unlike Tom, this man looked rough, swarthy, and listless. He seemed like a nice enough guy normally, but with his strong, grimly-set jaw and emotionless visage, he didn't exactly look like the type of guy to care about the welfare of any tiny bug.
With a thundering woosh, the man's massive hand swept through the air before his large face to remove the pesky presence of a few teeny, buzzing, and displaced insects.
In fact, he seemed like the type of guy Eric did NOT want to meet as a bug -- noticed or unnoticed. This dude was just doing his job, not keeping an eye out for stupid bugs that got in his way.
Tom had not only almost killed him after "saving" Eric, but he dropped him into a world that was effectively about to be destroyed.
"I've got to get out of here before I get crushed or buried!" Eric said, running towards the nearest cover.
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