The burly station manager stuck his head out of the store and snapped at his employee.
"Derrick, finish that cigarette and get back to work," Paul ordered in a loud voice.
The 22-year-old man rolled his eyes and took one final drag on the cigarette.
"All right, all right," Derrick said. After he inhaled one final puff of smoke, he casually flicked the cigarette butt toward the dirty, greasy asphalt at his feet.
The fleeting exchange between the two titanic men terrified the tiny man who remained unnoticed at their feet.
If their massive bodies and thunderous voices were not enough to instill fear, Derrick's actions directly imperiled the shrunken scientist.
The speck of a man shrieked as he saw the incoming missile headed toward him. The cigarette butt landed on the asphalt, still burning with a harsh, orange glow and producing copious amounts of thick, suffocating smoke. If the discarded cigarette butt had landed with slightly more precision, the tiny man would have been instantly crushed or burned to a cinder.
The thick smoke got into his eyes, blinding him. Choking and coughing, he stumbled across the pavement trying to distance himself from the smoldering paper-wrapped cylinder.
With his eyes blurred, he stopped and looked skyward at Derrick's enormous body. With the smoke still filling his lungs, tiny Bryan's attempt to shout for help ended with racking coughs.
Suddenly, Derrick lifted his sneaker before heading into the store.
"No! What are you doing?" Bryan screamed.
Then, realization dawned. The giant young man was preparing to grind out the discarded cigarette butt beneath the sole of his sneaker.
"Oh no!" The tiny man cried in shock. "I've got to get out of the way."
As the giant sneaker crashed toward him, the desperate shrunken man had only seconds to react.
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