The Betrayal

WARNING: This chapter is particularly harsh and dark. Its content may be disturbing to some particularly sensitive readers. If this is your case, it may be best for you to skip it

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During the following days the same dynamic continued, although in a very variable way. Axel would meet up with Justin every day to play video games, watch TV or chat, while I hung around. Some days the giants would completely ignore me and others they would humiliate me, sometimes in a fun and harmless way and sometimes more cruelly. Justin made sure each time, though, that Axel took the intercom out of his ear, so I couldn't protest anything they did to me.

Despite their threats, I tried to talk to my father to intervene in the situation, but he, always affable and well thought out, took the matter down a notch, told me that they were probably just teasing me and having fun, and that I should not give it any importance. You know how hard it is for a father to think badly of his children. I was furious, but he continued not to take it seriously and encouraged me by reminding me that there were only a few days left until I was big again.

Indeed, there were only three days left before I could reverse the shrinking and I was tremendously excited by the prospect, when that afternoon, while my brother and his friend were playing video games, with me at the table near them, Justin looked at me thoughtfully and said to Axel some terrible words that chilled the blood in my veins:

-You should get rid of him.

-What are you talking about? -Axel asked.

-Your brother, the worm. You should end his miserable life. That way you'd get your father's entire inheritance.

-But how could I do that? -said my brother, horrified.

-Well, man, you couldn't have it any easier now. You lift your foot and... boom, squashed with a stomp. Quick and completely clean.

-Are you out of your mind? What would my dad say when he found out?

-He wouldn't have to find out. You could tell him that you'd left the room for a moment and when you came back he was gone, that maybe a bird had eaten him, since the window was open. In fact, you could say that he had disappeared when you had gone to open the door for me and I could corroborate that, not finding him, we had searched desperately everywhere for him... something like that. Anyway, he could never blame you. There would be no corpse, just a stain on your foot that would be easy to clean. If we stick to our story, your father would eventually have to believe it.

-But... I'm not a murderer -Axel replied, still shocked.

-A murderer! You think you'd be committing murder? You'd be stepping on a bug, squashing a filthy bug, that's all. That's what the little prick is right now, even legally, you know. No one can be charged in any way for hurting a shrunken one. Anyway, if you're not capable of that, I can do what I told him: take him away and feed him to Fluffy. There would still be less evidence left.

-I don't know, man, I think you are out of your mind...

Justin didn't insist and the evening went on. You can imagine how I was feeling while listening to that. I knew Justin hated me, but I would never have thought that he could be so ruthless and inhuman. And, on the other hand, would my brother be capable of such a thing? I didn't believe it, but, tremendously shaken, the next morning I spoke to my dad. He, of course, did not believe me and even got angry with me for saying such a thing. Even when, in desperation, I insisted, he irritably took off his intercom and locked me in the cage, as if he were punishing a child's tantrum. I felt so insignificant and helpless that I wanted to die.

The next day things got worse. Justin came back to the subject and said to my brother:

-Listen, as I understand that it's hard for you to get rid of this insect, I've been doing some research and I've come up with another solution. There are clandestine places that buy small ones of these, and then rent them to clients... a kind of prostitution of these little dolls. They pay really well. You'd get rid of him, the inheritance would be all yours and we'd make a lot of money with it. It'd give us enough for a few treats, even a new car. What do you think?

-I don't know, Justin, he's my brother...

-Your brother! Can you really still see this pathetic, useless critter as your brother? Look at him! Smaller than your finger! Smaller than your dick!

Axel kept objecting, but I could tell that his resolve was getting weaker and weaker and I began to see it as very likely that he would eventually give in to his demon of a friend. That night I did not sleep, terrified. And the worst thing is that, when the next day I wanted to talk to my father again, he cut me off, told me that he had had enough of inventing slander against my brother and took off the intercom again, ending the conversation. Axel didn't put the intercom back on either, so I couldn't influence him in the slightest. I cried helplessly for a long time, fearing the worst.

Indeed, that afternoon Justin played his last trick on my brother. I would never have thought that his hatred and contempt for me could reach such extremes:

-Axel, this is your last chance, if you don't do it, tomorrow your brother will be a normal man again and you will have lost the chance of a lifetime. I know one of the places I told you about. All you have to do is tell me, I'll take him and we'll get the money from his sale. You will never see him again.

My brother was thoughtful. He looked at me with regret. I couldn't believe he was willing to do that! I started screaming at him with all my might, desperate, begging him to save me, even though I knew he couldn't hear me, but Justin then closed his huge hand over me, drowning out my pleas (only my eyes were barely outside his fist) and urged him on:

-Come on, Axel, decide! Are you going to have a pair of balls and do what you have to do?

My brother couldn't make up his mind. I guess, even if we weren't close, he still had a trace of decency and humanity left in him. Justin insisted one last time:

-Tell me, shall I take him? Come on Axel, take the chance. You'll never have another opportunity like this. Look, let's do one thing. If you don't say otherwise, I'll take him right now, okay?

And then my brother, breaking my heart into a thousand pieces, just looked away and made a slight nod. Justin needed no more and immediately walked out the door, taking me in his giant, meaty hand.

It is not easy to recount what my life was like for the next few weeks. I was handed over by Justin, in exchange for a good amount of money, to a guy whose appearance alone was already nightmarish. He looked like one of the evil characters from a Charles Dickens novel. Old, wiry, one-eyed and toothless, he ran a miserable club, located in a basement, where the worst people in the city gathered. There he had set up a thriving clandestine business of renting out tiny men and women. The unfortunate ones of us were exposed in a large cage and the clients of the place would choose one of us to take with them for a few hours or a few days. The only condition was that we were returned alive to the establishment. Whether we returned whole or not... that mattered less.

There I learned firsthand how far human cruelty can go. In the den they organized bets based on terrifying games with the shrunken ones. For example, they would leave us on the floor and release a few starving mice, or huge spiders, and once they even did it with a cat. The giants would bet to see how many of us would survive the attack of the monstrous animals, or who would be eaten first. In these club games it didn't make any difference whether we died or not. Sometimes they were even crueler and would release us into a large tub, which they would then fill with fish or crabs equally ready to devour us while we frantically swam for our lives. Many times they didn't even need animals. They themselves would set up competitions to crush us under their huge feet and see who was the first to get it. You can't imagine how much fun those giant monsters could have with those games.

In those days I did establish contact with several fellow sufferers, as we were all in common cages. We all had some terrible story to tell, most of us an infamous betrayal by a friend or family member, someone we thought loved us. Others had been kidnapped, in an oversight by their owners in some public place. Fortunately I never became intimate with any of those unfortunates, for our friendship would have been short-lived. Each night the number of us was dramatically reduced in the dreadful gambling games, until new shrunken people were bought and incorporated into that terrible slaughterhouse.

Things were no better when you was rented to a client and he took you to his house. The string of perversions I knew then is hard to relate. I remember one guy who only got aroused by using the little guys as toilet paper. He would cum wildly as he ran me repeatedly over his dirty ass. Another one hung me from a hook over his desk and, as he read, kept giving me small bumps with his hand, over and over again. I thought it would cause serious brain damage. And I was still lucky, others were hung over a lit candle or over a container with acid or lye. There were also people who put you in their underpants or their shoes, and there they kept you all day forcing you to caress or massage them, while they went about their normal lives, all the time aroused, of course, to know that they were carrying a tiny man serving them. Many of the little ones ended up crushed or suffocated, but the only consequence was that the customer had to compensate the club financially, or else get them another little one, which also led to an active network of kidnapping of poor shrunken human beings. These were the consequences of a program born, in theory, to help poor people reduce expenses. Such is human nature.

I miraculously escaped death for many days, although my body was full of bruises and wounds made during the dreadful competitions or by the giants who were renting me out. In addition, I felt tremendously weak, as we were barely given a few crumbs from time to time to eat. And, of course, it was not only my body. My soul, already broken by the betrayals of my boyfriend and my brother, was shattered by the extreme cruelty. I hardly felt or thought anything anymore, I really felt and behaved like an object, like a plaything. And there came a time when I just wanted to die, and I was willing to let myself be killed first in the next deadly game in which I was forced to participate.

One night a client took me to his house. It was a toothless, smelly old man who had just rented me. He was quite drunk, so he put me in a tiny cage, in which I barely fit and, after telling me that in the morning he would take care of me, he went to sleep. Then a woman crept in, also older and disheveled, though a little less so than that guy. She approached my cage and said:

-Poor thing. You're so cute! I don't know how you got into this situation, but I want to help you. I don't want my brother to hurt you. He's a real monster. You know he does terrible things to the little ones he buys and then, while they're still alive, he dissects them? I wouldn't want that to happen to you.

So that was my captor's sister. It was like a Dickens novel again. I was touched to find someone who at least felt a little pity for me, but by then I had almost no feelings left. The giantess took me out of the cage, brought me close to her huge face and asked me:

-Tell me, little one, do you have someone I can take you to, a friend, a relative...?

I began to speak. Naturally she did not hear me. At last, getting very close to her ear and shouting at the top of my voice, I was able to give her my father's name and address. Then she returned me to the cage saying:

-Tomorrow, before my brother gets up, I will come for you. Try to rest.

I dropped into the cage, exhausted by the effort and, truth be told, without any hope anymore. That would probably be part of another ruthless game. This time, however, I was wrong. With the first light of day the giantess did indeed come to my cage, took me in her giant hand and put me in a small purse, dirty and tatty. A long time passed, during which I was tossed to and fro in that smelly bag, and bumping into the objects in it, which made me terribly dizzy. When I thought I was going to faint, suddenly the purse opened, the giantess' hand grabbed me again and, as if in deja vu... I saw the huge figure of my father in front of me!

I can't explain the happiness I felt. I thought I was dreaming. The giantess, without saying a single word, left me in the titanic hand of my progenitor and left quickly, without even allowing us to thank her. It was clear that she did not want to be identified. To this day, I still look for her to thank her for saving me. My dad, on the other hand, who could not believe his eyes either, began to kiss me frantically as tears ran down his cheeks and he said over and over again:

-Artie! My son!... You're alive!... My God!... You're alive!

He took me inside and looked for the intercom, which, fortunately, he had kept despite having left me for dead, probably prompted by the story Axel and Justin had told him. Then he put it on me and asked me what had happened. I only had time to tell him very succinctly what had happened before, completely exhausted and shattered, I lost consciousness in his huge hand...

To be continued...