Lilliana's Gift (Chapter 6)

“H-Haley … please…” David’s voice whimpered in Haley’s head one final time, as gurgling overtook his tone. The sweat tide and toejam sludge-fest ascended frothily around him, despite the giantess’s best intentions. “W-Why didn’t you… s-save me? You’re k-killing m…”

“David? DAVID! DON’T GO!” Haley wailed, overcome and verging on the loss of her sanity.

Her scream trailed off through the void of her disturbed sleep, her nocturnal visions giving way to the darkness of her bedroom. Even once she’d awakened, though, Haley kept on yelling and weeping herself hoarse, until at last she lay still to slow her breath and process the absurdity of her nightmare. It was only a dream. Obviously. And like so many frightful imaginary things conceived in sleep, it should’ve seemed impossible and even silly at the time, yet only upon rousing did she realize everything was okay. She hadn’t accidentally killed David in a flood of her murky foot sweat after first pile-driving him between rubbery toe flanks and gas-bombing him with the endless hazy odor so squalid and unrelenting in its crusty-creamy-vinegary nastiness that the smell too probably could’ve done him in by itself, shriveling his lungs and whole tiny body from the inside-out, if the biblical disaster of her foot sweat hadn’t assassinated him first.

This, Haley supposed, was what came of worrying about her friend’s whereabouts after having skipped her usual evening shower. In fact, after tossing and turning half the night under blankets, she’d only encouraged the mustiness, and wrinkled her nose upon noticing she could detect the whiff of her own feet even without leaning down, the air like a stale cocktail of alkali and corn chips. Checking her phone, she found David hadn’t bothered to answer, even after she’d tried calling him and texting back for an explanation about his vanishing from the parade. Though she felt foolish doing so, Haley knew she’d have an easier time getting back to sleep if she just assured herself that her toes had not really become a prison for her friend.

At the end of a bed, squeezed in his own private pocket-universe of fetid humidity, sweat-frosting, and foot flesh crags, David was awakened from equally turbulent sleep at the realization that the pale silken canyon walls on either side of him were twitching to splay. While his slumber had come only as a defense mechanism against terrifying reality, it was just as well that he regained consciousness, as his rest was beleaguered by night terrors, imagining Haley discovering he was inside her boot, yet unable to extract him, no matter how hard she tried, until he expired due to a combination of smoky stomach-churning redolence and bubbling sweat moats filling between her toes.

The shadows abruptly gave way to blinding light so white that David could see no better against the glare than he could in total blackness clenched amidst the sleepy oiled-up obelisks of her stubby digits. The shrunken curse-bearer squinted toward the glow, briefly wondering if this was simply the light at the end of the tunnel as his nightmares came true and Lilliana led him to the smelliest circle of hell.

Was he dying? And was that really the worst thing, compared to a lifetime here?

Once his eyes adjusted, however, David’s heart stopped, stricken with hope and dizzy ecstasy, to see that Haley had not only using a finger to pry apart her monstrous toes, but was pointing her phone flashlight to peer specifically into this flesh groove, right where her friend had been placed on a life sentence to sniff and soak up the grunge of her pretty peds until the day they both died. Not only this, but she was actively searching the narrow nook, with her gaze shifting over every atomic furrow and skin-pock that made up the buoyant twin spans of toe beef which had become David’s stinky tomb.

It seemed too good to be true. A miracle. She must have felt him, or otherwise noticed something was wrong. Nothing else could explain the fact that Haley had now inspected the delicate bend of her two smallest digits for close to a full minute. Perhaps Lilliana wasn’t quite the Alpha and Omega that David assumed her to be, because at this moment, his best friend was beginning to see through the enchanted ruse. Though too overjoyed at first to even move his lips, David felt a rush of courage and gratitude for whatever benevolent forces of the universe had allowed his friendship with Haley to prevail over evil, and of course to the oblivious yet sweet-natured giantess herself. Then he cried out, with all his tiny might:

“HALEY! I’M HERE! GET ME OUT!”

David couldn’t help but laugh with sheer happiness as he bellowed. Though afraid his voice wouldn’t be heard, the room was otherwise silent, and Haley was leaning as deeply as possible over her foot, scrutinizing every pleat and dimple in her skin, close enough that the little guy saw her sneering in response to her own spiraling pollution of her toxic toejammy vapors. Best of all, the outpouring of sweat through the night had managed to wash away most of the thicker sock-dreck, making David the most obvious piece of ornamentation adhered to her ticklish skin. Any second now, he knew, she would take notice. Taking a deep breath, he repeated his call, singing out her name, even managing to keep his volume up despite his gag reflex attempting to save him from inhaling too hard in these conditions.

“What a relief,” Haley sighed. A serene grin crossed her lips, and she shook her head, rolling her eyes at her own childish paranoia, and then her gaze settled unknowingly but squarely onto her shrunken friend, as exacting as a sniper’s scope. “Yep, just me and my toes. God, what a crazy dream…”

“W-What?” David mewled. He couldn’t believe what was happening; she had a literal spotlight shone across him, her pupils zeroed to his shape, and still she didn’t gasp at his discovery. “Haley! C-Can’t you see me? I’m… right here! You’re looking straight at me!”

“What the heck was so important, anyway?” Haley pondered aloud. “We planned to be there together all year, and then you just bail? Without saying goodbye? Really, really weird. Seriously, dude, you have a lot of making up to do. And you still haven’t texted back? What is up with you, David?”

“I’M… IN… HERE!” he rasped one last time, as his vocal cords verged on collapse. But even if he had more screaming in him, David’s bravado was sapped quickly as his energy and oxygen amid this inhospitably boggy cavern of toe mush. For all his aspirations, the truth had become clear. Even if he shouted his heart out, and even if Haley was staring directly at him, Lilliana had ensured she would never find him. It was likely the goddess had even twisted kismet into this exact moment, giving both friends the same nightmare, to demonstrate to David once and for all that there was no place here for hope or faith in salvation from Haley. The only thing he could believe in was the astronomic giantess’s toe alcove, for the world outside this pungent ecosystem had become irrelevant to his worthless life. On his next full breath, as the stench seeped back into David’s airways, it penetrated his consciousness too, cursing and melting away what remained of his mind like fragrant acid through play-doh.

In stark contrast, a satisfied and relieved Haley switched off the light and laid back against her pillow while curling her toes back together, resolving to go straight to David’s house first thing in the morning for an explanation, as she yawned her way to pleasanter dreams.

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THE END