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🕑 Added 2023-03-31 20:42:31 +0000 UTCA coppery taste filled Charlie’s mouth as blood trickled down her throat. At least her nose wasn’t bleeding anymore, she thought to herself, unable to ignore how little it mattered in her current situation. Today had gone terribly wrong in spectacular ways.
Charlotte Ross was a brilliant investment banker, inspiring both awe and fear in anyone who worked with her. Her ruthlessness in business had made her one of the hottest commodities on the market. She simply saw things that others would miss - the right details, weaknesses… Anything she could use to gain leverage, she did without thinking twice, resulting in an efficiency few could boast having.
Today was just another day at work for Charlie. She should have worked from home as she usually did on Tuesdays, but with the deadline for an important foreign investment approaching dangerously close, she decided otherwise, and traveled to the office for a more productive day. She looked out the window on the 56th floor. The sun shone brightly this morning. By the time she looked out again, night was already setting down on the busy skyline outside the glass and steel. She wasn’t done, but it would do for today. There were only so many slides a person could stare in one sitting. Her stomach growled. She’d forgotten to eat again. She grabbed her bag, carefully placed her laptop inside it and left.
Darkness. Pain. The pounding in her skull wouldn’t stop. Charlotte had taken the service exit, opening on a backstreet a couple blocks away from a salad bar she enjoyed on busy days. The metallic sound of the emergency door mechanism had rung twice. The taste of blood, the stars. It wasn’t the door. The voices? She had no idea who they belonged to. What could have knocked her out so coldly? She could feel her own breath blowing against her face. Her sight was nothing but a blur. Silent tears of pain rolled down her cheeks as she tried to make sense of what was happening. Darkness. Again.
Charlie didn’t recognize where she was. Someone had brutally removed the fabric that covered her face while she was moved. Amidst the dizziness, the sound of an electronic lock reached her ear.
“What the fuck…” Charlotte barely managed to speak. The top of her head hurt as bright light flooded her retinas. A blurry silhouette stood in front of her. A woman. She had never seen her before. Her right hand fiddled with the lock-like device. Her left held an old Colt 1911. The metallic sound she had heard earlier echoed in her mind once again. The bottom of that grip had hit her skull. Adrenaline flowed through Charlotte’s body at the realization. “Where the fuck am I?” she mumbled, trying her best to lift herself off the cold floor.
“Try not to speak, Ms Ross. After a head trauma like the one you’ve suffered, it can only cause more pain.” the woman replied, never looking away from the buttons she was toying with.
Charlotte decided she didn’t give a damn about this stranger’s advice and painfully stood up to meet her uncaring gaze. The walls felt close to each other. She was trapped in a box. A cabin with a glass door. Her instincts took over. Charlie composed herself the best she could and continued: “I said, where the fuck am I?”
The woman paused. Pressing one final button, she finally rose back up to stand at her full height and meet Charlotte at eye level. She seemed graceful in every action she undertook. She stepped to the side to place her handgun somewhere Charlie couldn’t see, before returning to the cabin.
“I apologize for the treatment you’ve suffered, Ms Ross. It usually isn’t my method to use such brutality when handling a case like yours. However, you’re a very busy woman and I couldn’t let this opportunity to intercept you pass me by.” the woman spoke with an eerie serenity. Anger flooded Charlie’s mind as she listened to her captor discuss her kidnapping so calmly, but she knew she had to stay leveled with her if she hoped to have any chance of escaping this mess.
“Look, you don’t seem to know me really well, which would explain your mistake of kidnapping me. So how about we skip ourselves the trouble of explaining why this was all a big fuck up and we all go home forgetting this ever happened?” Charlie tried her best to remain composed as she delivered her best hope to intimidate her kidnapper into freeing her. Her heart raced as she realized the bitch was unphased.
“I’m sorry, Ms Ross, but I’m afraid there’s absolutely no mistake or misunderstanding here. You’re Charlotte Ross. Born July 17th 1989 in Merriam, Kansas. Your mother is Jane Ross, formerly Jane Wilson, and your father is Frank Ross. You had two cats growing up, Mathilda, named after your favorite childhood book, and Tigger. The loss of Mathilda due to your neighbor’s inattentive driving when you were just 7 scarred you permanently. To this day, you refuse to own pets for this very reason. You barely graduated Yale and aimed to prove everyone wrong by becoming one of Wall Street’s most effective bankers. You’ve earned 2.4 million dollars last year, three quarters of which the state and federal governments don’t know anything about as it lives on an offshore account in the Bermudas. Shall I continue, Ms Ross?” the woman told Charlotte her own life as if she had lived it herself. Secrets even she preferred to forget. This was no mistake. She had to change her strategy.
“What do you want?” Charlie asked slowly, trying her best not to show the fear her interlocutor’s little speech had instilled in her.
“Nothing at all, Ms Ross. Your presence here is all I require.” the woman replied just as calmly and politely as before.
“There has to be something you people want. I’d be dead otherwise, not in this fucking box.” Charlie replied, aiming to challenge her captor’s control over the situation.
“It is a valid observation. Though your conclusion is slightly off. Tell me, what do you know of Fragment, Ms Ross?” the woman asked. Charlie knew the name. She’d been a client before.
“The clubs? Pretty select places. Understandably. They toe the line on legality for their operations. Using shrunken people as expandable entertainment isn’t exactly moral, though it’s still legal thanks to a hole in the regulation around resized individuals’ status. Why? You’re looking to invest?” Charlie replied snarkily. She hated being led in the dark like this.
“Oh no, of course not. See, Fragment as an organization has two sides. The one you know, the clubs serving overpriced shots of vodka sprinkled with speck-sized people for superficial socialites. And then there’s the other. The one which, despite your sizable fortune, you can’t afford to know. The part I work for. See, Ms Ross, it turns out people are ready to spend a lot of money to see their problems… dwindle away. We just happen to own the solution. Not just that, but also an army of customers more than willing to pay us to dispose of any undesirable evidence on lavish nights. Sure, most of our products are willing freaks and a few undesirables here and there. But amidst them, every now and then, there’s someone like you, Ms Ross. Someone who had someone like me assigned to them.” Charlie was too shocked to reply immediately. There was no way this could possibly be a thing.
“Fuck. You.” Charlotte finally let out before striking the glass door with her fists and foot as hard as she could. It did not budge.
“It’s completely understandable for you to feel this way, Ms Ross. Most people have a similar rea-” the woman started to speak again before being interrupted.
“How much do you want? Five? Ten millions? How much is the contract on me? I’ll buy it.” Charlie asked, trying her best to remain composed despite feeling herself starting to shake. She wanted to puke.
“I'm sorry, Ms Ross, but I’m afraid there's nothing you can offer me that would change or improve the situation you're in. I assure you, it is nothing personal on my behalf. I’m simply conducting the execution of a contract. A worker bee like many others. And I am not privy to the sum placed on your head. Even if I was, I wouldn’t be in a place to reveal it to you.” the woman replied matter-of-factly. Charlotte could feel every string of potential leverage she had snap as she tried to pull on them. She was running out of options.
“You listen to me, and you listen to me good you stuck up bitch. I’m gonna get out of that fucking box you put me in and I’m gonna break every bone in your body if you don’t start being a little more cooperative.” Charlie spat, her last resort out of the bag - threats she didn’t believe in.
“Ah, I see you’ve made it to unfounded threats quite quickly. Unfortunately, when you will get out of this “box”, you will be about this big..” the woman pinched her fingers, leaving a gap barely half an inch tall between them. Charlie’s blood ran cold. Tears ran down her face as she hit the door once again. “You probably shouldn’t threaten to break the bones of the person who will hold your entire being in a pinch just minutes from now, Ms Ross. It might give them… ideas.” the woman suddenly closed the gap between her delicate fingers, rubbing them ever so slightly to make sure she got her point across.
“You fucking enjoy this, don’t you? You play nice and cute but that’s just a facade, huh? Do you get all wet under that pretty dress of yours? Touch yourself at night thinking about people begging, freak?” Charlie’s brain was entering survival mode. She could feel her rationality leave as the thought of losing everything overwhelmed her. She hit every wall of her prison, hoping to find just one weakness that would allow her to get free.
“I assure you, Ms Ross. This truly isn’t necessary. It’ll just be a minute now. Initialization is almost done.” the woman spoke, but Charlie didn’t care. She could already see herself being minuscule, at the mercy of this woman or anybody else that could lay their hands on her. Would she be used in one of Fragment’s clubs as a vulgar shot garnish? Would the person who paid for her contract get her? She was going to lose it all. Everything she’d ever done, the woman she’d become, erased in an instant. “It’s time, Ms Ross.” Charlie’s panicked daydreaming was interrupted as the woman raised her hand to press something on the door’s mechanism.
“No, no, no… Please don’t…” Charlotte fell to her knees, her darkened tears crashing on the pristine floor of the chamber. Through the tearful veil covering her eyes, Charlie watched as the woman paused, before seeing her hand gently disappear under the bottom of her dress, searching for a second before reappearing. Her captor looked attentively at her index, before rubbing it slowly across the glass door, leaving a trail of clear viscous fluid behind it.
“Thank you, Charlotte. I’ll be sure to remember this tonight…” she whispered, before the press of a button echoed in the cabin.
A blinding flash. Then nothing.
It's always a worrying moment for me to upload a size piece that doesn't visually depict size difference. However, I do firmly believe that size is far more than just "tiny person meets big person" and I hope I can convey this feeling through pieces like this one or Deal.
I'm pretty happy with how this one came out. Trying to capture the perfect expression for people affected by size change in my content is always an exciting challenge. As always, I hope you'll enjoy it! Let me know if you do :)
