Shrinking at the night of Rosca De Reyes

In a strange day of Smallville where strange things happen for no reason, you go to the market to get some milk but something strange happens to you as you feel dizzy and pass out in one of the counters. You wake up and see everything around you huge and wonder what’s going as it seems that you have been shrunk down to a doll size. You see this giantess woman in the counter putting her items into the conveyor belt. Not wanting to stick around on the floor where she might step on you, you started to climb her leg and maybe get her or someone else attention that could help you in this situation. This lady was not paying any mind of her surroundings as you started to climb she barely notice your movement. Deciding that you've had enough of this gigantic woman, you decide to disembark onto one of the many checkout stations at the supermarket. You boldly leap from her jeans and briefly soar through the air before rolling painfully to a halt atop the checkout station's conveyor belt. A cashier stands at the opposite end of the long conveyor belt path, a young woman in his early 20s, clad in a black and green supermarket uniform. She's slim-ish, and bears a beautiful face with long length brown hair. She seems particularly bored at the moment.

Before you can contemplate whether or not you should get her attention, a shadow descends upon your tiny form. You see something descending upon you and instinctively flee from it before you can see what it is. KTHOOOM. You narrowly manage to avoid getting crushed. Landing on your back, you gaze up to see a humongous yellow-furred cat towering above you. You brace yourself for an encounter and looking up at the titanic feline, yet the cat doesn't budge an inch. KTHOOOM. Another cat descends into view, two feline foes towering over you.

Why would these cats even be inside a grocery store? As you brandish your blade at the predators, you soon come to an embarrassing revelation. These are not cats; they're pictures of cats adorning the front of a tub of kitty litter mix and a bag of cat food respectively. You feel silly. As you laugh at your own misunderstanding you turn to see the person who set the feline products down. You eye a heavyset Caucasian woman in her 60s, clad in a simple red dress. A fancy stone necklace hangs from her neck, in front of her impressive bosom. One of her hands is currently resting against the checkout station in all its plump glory, her red fingernails and her jewel studded wedding ring seeming particularly impressive to you.

As you focus on her hand, you see her reach into her shopping kart and pull out an enormous milk bottle. She slams it down right in front of you, cutting her gargantuan form out of her line of sight. As you consider your next course of action you just barely manage to catch a glimpse of a descending carton of Half & Half headed your way! You rush away from it, but the conveyor belt quickly becomes a warzone as the woman sets item after item upon it. You briefly take shelter beneath the curved side of a mango, but as the woman mashes a bag of chips down against it, it begins rolling right towards you. You sprint away from the mango and realize that there's no use in hiding beside items if they'll just wind up getting nudged on top of you.

As you run away from the mango, the conveyor belt shifts into motion. You frantically run about the moving platform, dodging even more items, the moving conveyor complicating your dodges. As the woman's shopping kart nears empty, she reaches down and grabs a huge pack of soda cans. The woman sends it zooming right over towards you. You begin trying to run away from it, only to find that the motion of the conveyor belt is erasing any headway you have. In a split second decision, you run along the course of the conveyor belts motion and just narrowly avoid getting crushed under it.

The woman eventually stops setting items down, leaving quite an impressive array of items on the cash register. You're left panting in and out, having just gotten through the workout of your life. You lost count of the times you narrowly avoided getting crushed under one of these items after the fifth impact. You look around at the items as the conveyor belt begins to slow to a halt and the cashier prepares to check them out

A few of them seem like they'd make for potentially worthwhile hiding spots, some of which would require a big of machete work to get into:

A bag of delicious looking strawberries
The bag of cat food from earlier
A birthday card and envelope. Judging by the woman's cashier it seems to be for a one year old grandson.
A microwaveable meal
a pack of Depends.

For now you have a call to make...whether to hide among the items (and thus hitch a ride home with the woman) or avoid entering any of the items (and thus probably get seen by the cashier)

The cashier begins to inspect the items, lifting them one by one, the conveyor belt gradually becoming less cluttered. As she lifts them up you begin to wonder if either of the two giants would spot you. Well, you can probably rule out the older woman finding you. She's not paying the counter any heed, instead chitchatting with the young woman.

"You know, sometimes I wonder what the world is coming to these days. One day I was checking my jewel box and I found that my earrings were missing." "Oh no." “My daughter thought I had lost them and for the longest time I did too, but I've been reading in the paper about how apparently there's been a spree of these!” Oh?" "Stolen without a trace. If I caught one of those jewel thieves breaking into my house, I'd show him a thing or two, you can be sure of that! Why can't people just earn their money the right way? Like you. You know, when I was your age, I worked as a cashier, too." "You did?" The woman dominates the conversation, the cashier only offering modest attempts to let the woman know she is paying attention as she focuses on scanning and bagging the items. She's gradually clearing the surface of the station of hiding spots...but also freeing you up to move around unobstructed by the groceries. Soon, the conveyor belt is entirely devoid of safe spots, leaving you wide open to get detected.

The woman slams her purse down onto the conveyor belts edge with a mighty THUD and digs through it as she reaches for her wallet. You tense up as you realize that you're likely in her peripheral vision. She could well spot you. She rummages through her purse before finally pulling out her card and handing it to the woman, who tries out the card's chip three times, muttering every time the machine fails to read the card, before resorting to a swipe. As she's processing her card, you notice there appears to be a shelf of magazines directly connected to the checkout station. You could likely hide behind one of them.

Finally the payment goes through. She finishes bagging her goods and returns them to her shopping kart, bidding the woman farewell. The woman leaves, leaving the woman alone for the time being. Well, less alone than he thinks. You now face a decision...should you remain on the conveyor belt; you may well get seen by the young woman. This could come with its own benefits now that you think about it. She seems reasonable enough. On the other hand, she could mistake you for a bug or worse. Alternatively, you could hide among the magazines, something that may give you temporary cover, but also means you may eventually get spotted by a random customer, or even crushed by an unknowing hand!

You briefly look at the magazine shelves before realizing that hiding among them might not be the best of ideas. The moment someone picks one of them up you could wind up getting crushed by the unknowing customer's hand, or at the very least tumbling down onto the conveyor belt once more and probably getting detected in the process. At least with the cashier, you have a vague idea of who you would be dealing with. A 20-something year old who is a reliable worker who looks reasonably well attractive.

It doesn't take long for the cashier to spot you. With the press of a button she activates the conveyor belt, drawing you towards him. You briefly attempt to run against the flow of the belt, but realize you are making little headway and are losing stamina fast. What's more, she could always just walk around the station to come pick you up. You decide to stop wasting your precious stamina and allow the conveyor belt to draw you closer to the cashier. Once you are lined up directly in front of her, the gigantic young woman allows the conveyor belt to come to a halt. You look up at her, uncertain of what to do or what to say. "What is this?" she asks to himself, uncertain she swiftly pinches you up between her fingertips, holding your little body surprisingly gently, but it's not enough to keep you from being terrified of the power this giant young worker holds over you. She scratches her chin as she examines your little body, not sure of what to make of you.

After a moment of investigation, she sets you onto the palm of her hand to better observe your movements. You stagger to a halt atop the nearly flat surface, glad to no longer be in a pincer grip. She looks at you with her mouth very slightly agape, a nearly neutral expression that nevertheless conveys her curiosity and intrigue over this new little thing she's found. She gives your body a few tentative prods with her spare hand's fingertip to see how you respond. You stumble onto your side with every prod, getting agitated by this needlessly rough handling. Despite this, you can at least be thankful that she's still treating you relatively gently. It's fully in her power to kill you with a single clap of her hands right now, after all. After a while, the woman speaks up.

"How do you turn this thing off?" The cashier mutters. Evidently she hasn't yet realized you're alive, as opposed to being some sort of highly advance toy. You can't exactly blame her, as you haven't spoken a word to her yet. Before you can speak she seizes her fingertips firmly around your body and begins mashing them roughly around you. Her huge digits drag along your tiny form as she fruitlessly searches for some way to "turn you off." As she mashing continues unabated you begin to thrash about in her clutches, agitating the woman. "Come on, there has to be a switch somewhere!" She replies, irked by your increased struggles. She presses his digits around your upper body particularly forcefully, wondering if she can turn this curious plaything off by squeezing it. Your struggles begin to slow to a halt, but the woman's grip around your body doesn't abate. Between her firm grip and the fact that half the time her finger are mashing around your head, you have no way to breathe. After about two minutes of this, you pass out.

The cashier finally relents her grip on the tiny plaything and realizes that it has stopped moving. She feels a nagging concern about what she just did. Is it possible that this was a live human being that she just killed? No, it couldn't possibly be. Shrinking is impossible. It must be some sort of toy. Besides, the little thing didn't make any real attempt at communicating with her. Even if it were a person, she doubts that what he just did would have killed it. It would be enough to knock a man unconscious, sure, but not enough to kill. She silently weighs her options. She can't just keep it indefinitely, nor can she just crush it flat. It could belong to the store and she would rather not mishandle store goods. She also has a lingering concern that this may well be a tiny human being. After a few minutes of pondering she comes to a conclusion. She knows exactly what to do with this little toy.

You wake up from this nightmare with a start, panting in and out frantically, desperate for air. To your relief you find that you can once more breathe air. Precious, precious air. What a horrifying dream...reducing yourself to the size of a bug, abandoning your normal life, and ultimately getting suffocated between a pair of fingertips. You breathe a sigh of relief knowing that it was all that...just a dream. Or you think it was. As you slowly regain your waking composure and your mind gradually recovers from the fog of being half asleep, it dawns on you that not all of that was a dream. Actually, only the 'suffocated' part was false. You get to your feet and fearfully search your new surroundings. You can see transparent walls in front of you, beneath you, above you, and to your left and right. Curiously, the transparent ceiling overhead bares a hole roughly the size of your head, though you have no viable way of reaching it even if you were small enough to slip through a hole. In stark contrast to the transparent walls all around you, the wall behind you is opaque, and quite colorful at that.

As you adjust to your surroundings you catch a glimpse of the world outside of your cell.....and realize that you are inside of a toy package high off of the ground at the supermarket. But why...

Oh no. Oh NO. You've just been placed on sale! You begin swearing and smacking at the walls around you, yet they don't budge. You sigh and begin closely examining your surroundings to get a better idea for where you are.

Hmm, many similar blister packs of unknown contents hang from similar racks across the way from you, but lower shelves hold bowls, and wooden spoons and whisks are on display as well. Is this a cooking aisle? Or are you displayed as a toy opposite the cooking aisle? Some stores do sprinkle little areas of toys near the more 'adult' sections do distract kids into impulse buying, so maybe that's the case with you.

Several giants are not drawn in by you, men, women and children, alone and in groups, with trolleys and with baskets, stomp past you in all their majesty. Trapped as you are, every moment in the presence of these gods is nerve-wracking, the slightest pause in their pace to examine or pick up an item leaving you wondering if you'll be next!

The tense minutes pass until one titan stomps to a stop right in front of you, filling your view as she stoops to bring her face opposite you. Maybe a year or two either side of forty, the woman's tan face is framed by shoulder-length curly hair. As her eyes lock onto you, a charming smile lights up her radiant face.

"That's perfect!" she says, voice booming around you. Her hand reaches forward, and her features are blocked out by the pad of her thumb. Bigger than your entire body, it slams into the plastic front of your cell, shaking you about. You look at the intricate, whorled surface of her skin as it presses down, paling at the pressure it is exerting.

A second later, you are thrown backward as the hand effortlessly pulls the blister pack from its hook. The woman flips it around to read the back, tumbling you carelessly about. The grunt that she emits is one of positivity - and intensely scary for someone only three-quarters of an inch tall! - And it's no surprise therefore when she chooses to purchase you.

Seeing you simply as a toy, she shows no care when she tosses you into her trolley, soaring through the air weightless before crashing down amongst heaps of bags and boxes. Flour, sugar and eggs are a few of the items you can make out, but with dizziness and bruises competing for your attention, you sink down and do your best to rest.

It's difficult, what with the woman pushing the vehicle along with her great strength, the creaking of its wheels and thuds of her heavy steps echoing hollowly. More shopping items are dropped in with you, each piece shuddering the metal frame and threatening to topple mountains onto you.

Eventually everything is processed through the till, although you don't if the giant fingers that pass you across the barcode scanner belong to the man that imprisoned you or someone else; it's done quickly before you are slid down to the packing area, where the woman - now officially your owner - lifts you into a carrier bag.

She cares enough to leave you on the top, where no weights can press down on you, but all you can see is the sky above, and there has been no letting up in the walls around you. No give, no way to escape. Thank God for the air hole; you just need to cling on here until freed, and you may be able to attempt to continue your tiny survival expedition.

An interminable car journey later, your bag is hefted free and carried inside a building. It smashes down onto a table, and you can hear the giantess going about her business, unpacking her grocery shopping. You are lifted free and placed onto a counter, where you can see the woman display her full form, powerful and fearsome. She lift bags the size of buildings, opening cupboards and refrigerators to place things away and then pads out of sight.

Time passes, and again you risk a chance at breaking free only to confirm that impossibility. Bummer.

The woman eventually returns, and if you thought that she had made her dominance obvious already, you are impressed further by the actions she proceeds to take.

Bowls, spoons and trays, bags and jars and boxes, all are assembled with contemptuous ease. Then, her gargantuan strength becomes devoted to baking.

She pours and stirs, cracking eggs and whipping bowl contents. Eventually, she slams a doughy mass onto a board right before you, rolling up her sleeves before kneading it. Her massive hands exert all their power into pressing and crushing lifting and dropping, pressing the dough into submission.

Slapping her hands together to scatter flour, she pads from the room again, leaving you sweating and wondering what your place in all this is meant to be. She returns to add more to the mix, before squeezing and folding to form a doughnut-like ring shape from the mass, mainly out of your line of sight. But you can see all too clearly how she lifts the whole lot upwards to be slid into an oven to cook.

Then she turns her attention to you.

Slowly, she reaches out, her fingers gripping at the edges either side of you. "While that bakes, let's take a look at you," she whispers.

The merest expression of her strength bends and tears away the cardboard at your back and you are tipped into her warm, expansive palm. Fingers dive in again, pinching around your legs. You are lifted upside down, but quickly flipped right way up before her gaze. "Hmm," she ponders, "you're a lot more fragile than you look."

"You do look pretty cute though," she giggles, and begins moving her wrist to 'swoop' you through the air like a toy airplane. She follows this up with a graceful twirl as she begins to dance back and forth across the space of the kitchen. For a moment it's like dancing with a goddess, until you realize that to her you're just an inanimate object that she just happens to be holding while she passes time.

"What are you doing, mama?"

The woman comes to a stop, bringing both hands together in front of her chest, clasping you between them. While you are held motionless by her truck-sized fingers, you can at least see the newcomer: a girl, whose youthful features bear a striking resemblance to the giantess. Obviously, her daughter.

"Oh, I am merely passing time while the cake cooks, dear."

"Dancing with a little doll?"

"This? Do you know nothing, girl? Oh, what a child I have raised, to not know what this is! Have I been so lax as to not explain it to you before?"

The girl crosses her arms and rolls her eyes. "I'm sure I'm going to learn all about it pretty soon."

"Yes!" the woman retorts, stepping forward. She brings you upward, using you to gesture with each word she speaks. "You are going to learn right now!"

Every snap back or forth of the wrist rocks your head on your neck, and you're very close to being sick, only prevented by your empty stomach. As the world settles, you find yourself staring up at the unimpressed face of the young woman.

"And?"

"This is the king, an essential part of the Rosca de Reyes! Once the cake is baked, I will insert him into it!"

"Does he taste good?" the younger lady snaps, her teeth smashing together scarily close to you, a terrifying reminder of how easy it would be for any of these giants to devour you, chopping you apart in their mouth or even swallowing you whole.

"No!" the mother gasps, dragging you back to her before hefting you aloft in glory. "One does not eat the king!" Well, that's one plus. "No! Whoever finds him in their slice of cake is the one to cook the Rosca de Reyes for next year!"

"Oh! That's cool! Maybe it'll be me, huh, mama?"

"Maybe, baby! Now, hold him for me while I tend to the oven."

One giant hand is thrust toward another, and while the daughter's fingers are smaller than he mother's, they are still powerful enough to leave you with a feeling of potential annihilation at every moment. She looks down at you absently, seeing you as a toy just as much as her mother.

"He reminds me of your father, don't you think?"

Now she looks at you closer, trying to find what her mother sees in you.

Trapped in the kitchen of giants - it's like something from a fairy tale. Is it too much to wish for a beautiful princess to come and rescue you? Right now, the nearest equivalent in this macro-world is frowning as she tries to discern the facial features on your three-quarter inch tall form.

"Hmm," she says, blasting you with an exhalation. "I don't see it, mama. Papa was not quite so handsome."

She twists you around to show to her mother, who is currently placing the cake onto a tray to cool. The older woman smiles sadly. "Ah, then clearly you do not remember him as well as I. When I saw that thing -" ouch! "- in the store I could not resist it. A chance for your father to be part of the family traditions again, even if only in a small way."

The mother sniffs, and the daughter steps forward for comfort. The two giantesses collide with seismic force, a weeping head resting on a stoic shoulder. The daughter brings her arms around to pat and rub a back with comforting hands, keeping you pinched at the same time. Repeated impacts, sudden movements, and the great, shuddering motion of the older woman, all shaking you in place, fearful that each moment may be the last.

They part in time, exchanging smiles. The daughter brings you back up before her face again, a massive grin as she checks you out. "I see it now, mama. It is as if papa has been returned to us in miniature form!"

"Oh, nothing about your father was ever miniature!" the mother laughs.

"Oh, mama!" The daughter bats her empty hand in protest, but joins in the laughter. You are once more along for the ride, trying to rack your brain for a way to escape this. All you need is to be let go of for a moment, and you can run away, get back to the business of tiny survival.

But no, these two have big plans for you. "Well," the daughter says, brandishing you before her mother's face, "any words for papa before I place him?"

The mother wipes away a tear with the back of her hand, smiling sadly as she focuses her entire attention on you, putting you directly before the majesty of a goddess.

"I will never stop loving you," she says, ducking forward to pucker her lips and place a kiss upon your forehead. With those lips each being bigger than your entire body, it is quite the experience, this light contact still holding all the power of this titanic woman. She withdraws with one final look for this homunculus of her husband, before switching over to her still-living daughter. "Careful now - it may still be hot."

She lifts the cake again, holding it up to present the spongy underside. "Once he is inside, would you like to help with the decorations?"

"Mama, I would be honored."

The hand of the daughter presses upward relentlessly, and whiles the cake's mass resists, your head is driven in further and further, until she lets go of your body and is soon pressing your feet to drive you deeper. When she finally fully lets go, the cake is placed back upon a surface, the weight of it all around you, along with the cooling heat and the freshly-baked scent.

Try as you might, you are unable to force your limbs to dig through the thick material. Trapped again! Still, it does smell delicious, and your mouth still works. You chomp a few mouthfuls of the oppressive substance, and the orange-y flavor is refreshing, comforting and memorable, sustenance for a starved and battered body. It's not much, but in the dark of this prison you'll take all you can get. If you do die here, it won't be from lack of food!

Still, you need to be prepared to make an escape at the first chance you get. You don't know when this cake will be eaten, but it can't be too far away now. You need to gain strength by resting and recovering, as you will have an entire party of giants to outwit when the time comes

You pass the time munching at the cooling cake, and flexing your muscles to see that your recent manhandling hasn't caused any permanent damage. From the former, you learn that the cake is delicious, and from the latter that you're in miraculously good shape, merely a little bruised. The giants have spared you the worst of their wrath!

Eventually comes the inevitable cutting of the cake, shudders through the mass followed by the guillotine-like clack of the knife hitting plate. You scrunch yourself small to make as little a target as possible, and are rewarded when you live long enough to feel the immense chunk in which you are buried hefted into the air, dropping down onto its own plate.

This mercy does not last long, and the slice rumbles with repeated impacts, as if a vicious, hungry monster were tearing into it. You begin to panic, and your mood does not stabilize as a wall of gleaming white teeth chops downward directly by you, ripping away your surroundings directly ahead. You watch as the mouth withdraws, lips working up and down as the jaws of the gargantuan woman crush and destroy the mouthful she has taken - a mouthful bigger than a house.

This is your chance! You work your neck side to side, and flex the fingers of each hand. A moment more, and you should be able to drop out of here, run for cover and escape!

The giantess flexes her own hand, and fingers smash down in front of you, tips digging into the sheer wall of cake, raining crumbs down as she pries you free, once more capturing you in the grip of an unassailable goddess. She swallows down her previous taste of cake as she lifts you aloft, whipping you back and forth with enough force to jar every bone and organ within you! Through the elevated vertigo and motion you can make out a vast collection of giants, all gathered here to celebrate and enjoy the cake. A real party!

There is a cheer, roared from monstrous throats, and numerous titans close to offer congratulations on finding the king within the cake. What will happen to that little person in the midst of such a scrum?

You pass the time munching at the cooling cake, and flexing your muscles to see that your recent manhandling hasn't caused any permanent damage. From the former, you learn that the cake is delicious, and from the latter that you're in miraculously good shape, merely a little bruised. The giants have spared you the worst of their wrath!

Eventually comes the inevitable cutting of the cake, shudders through the mass followed by the guillotine-like clack of the knife hitting plate. You scrunch yourself small to make as little a target as possible, and are rewarded when you live long enough to feel the immense chunk in which you are buried hefted into the air, dropping down onto its own plate.

This mercy does not last long, and the slice rumbles with repeated impacts, as if a vicious, hungry monster were tearing into it. You begin to panic, and your mood does not stabilize as a wall of gleaming white teeth chops downward directly by you, ripping away your surroundings directly ahead. You watch as the mouth withdraws, lips working up and down as the jaws of the gargantuan woman crush and destroy the mouthful she has taken - a mouthful bigger than a house.

This is your chance! You work your neck side to side, and flex the fingers of each hand. A moment more, and you should be able to drop out of here, run for cover and escape!

The giantess flexes her own hand, and fingers smash down in front of you, tips digging into the sheer wall of cake, raining crumbs down as she pries you free, once more capturing you in the grip of an unassailable goddess. She swallows down her previous taste of cake as she lifts you aloft, whipping you back and forth with enough force to jar every bone and organ within you! Through the elevated vertigo and motion you can make out a vast collection of giants, all gathered here to celebrate and enjoy the cake. A real party!

There is a cheer, roared from monstrous throats, and numerous titans close to offer congratulations on finding the king within the cake. What will happen to that little person in the midst of such a scrum?

As the woman begins to crease the napkin, you quickly catch on that something awful is going to happen to you if you just hold still. This woman is getting to clean you, and that will naturally involve her mashing your fingers grinding the napkin into your body with potentially lethal force. You stagger to your feet, only to slip and fall onto your back, jostled by the motions of the enormous napkin. Looking up you can see the white walls around you converge and form a ceiling over you. You don't have long!

You flip onto your chest and begin to crawl along the surface of the napkin, advancing just in time to hear a dull thud behind you. You've just barely managed to avoid getting crushed. Between her fingertips, but you're still completely at her mercy. Or almost completely, but that 'almost' is enough to give you a fighting chance. As you scramble away from her fingers you feel the world shift around you. The woman quickly angles the napkin such that the cloth walls are nearly vertical, her pinched-together fingers resting beneath you, waiting to catch your fall. Thankfully you manage to cling tight to the cloth and slowly climb up.

As you ascend, you hear a bone chilling giggle. The woman seems amused at how difficult the little thing can be to clean. If only she followed that train of thought to its logical conclusion and realized that you're alive! But alas she does not. As her giggle fades, she holds the napkin in place. You can the silhouette of one of her spare hand's fingers headed your way. You quickly drop down, landing atop her already pinched fingers just in time to avoid getting mashed. You've managed to evade getting mashed flat between her fingers not once, but twice.

And she has you right where she wants you.

With minimal effort, the woman begins to twist the napkin around you. You let out a scream as your prison tightens more and more firmly around your body until you cannot budge. The woman's fingers begin to work around the napkin, not directly clamping around you, but instead shifting you about. Soon enough the napkin is fully compressed around your body, her fingers clamping tight around the cloth just beneath you to ensure that you have absolutely no wiggle room. Now you can barely even breathe. Your heart pounds like wild as you realize that it would just take a modicum of effort for the woman to kill you now.

Yet she has other ideas in mind. You hear a frightful clinking noise off in the distance, and you can't be sure why. "What are you doing?" one of the women asks. The giantess holding you turns her head to the other, holding an ice cube in her hand. "It was covered in crumbs. We ought to clean it before we pass it around."

Suddenly you are subjected to an intense cold as the woman pushes the hunk of ice right on top of you. Fully compressed by the cloth, all you can do is let out muffled screams and wiggle about. The ice cube chills you to the core, your tiny body scarcely equipped to handle such a chill. The ice cube begins to leak, droplets of still-cold newly melted water soaking into the cloth, only to leak out your mouth. The chilling water forces more than a few gags out of you. You're scarcely able to breathe and what little breathes you can take serve little to shake off the sensation that you're drowning. All the while, the woman drags the ice cube back and forth against the towel...not with the same ferocity that she might drag her fingers around you, but painfully rough all the same.

The lady might not think anything of this, but to you this is brutal, cold-blooded torture. You can't last much longer. Your body is on the brink of passing out. Just when you think death will claim you, the woman lifts the cube off of you, gives you a very gentle (but still painful) pat-down with the napkin, and then empties you onto the palm of her hand.

Her fingers seize around you once more, lifting you up to eye level. She smiles at you, her teeth forming a toothy grin that leaves you feeling ill at ease and even more humiliated. "Ha. There we go. All good and clean~ Goodness. It's not shaped like a baby. It looks like a man, and he's kind of cute in a weird way, too?" She suggests. The woman to her side leans forward to get a better look at you before gesturing to get a turn at you. For all the effort your current captor took to clean you, the lady surrenders you with nary a word. You're dumped onto the palm of a woman of Asian complexion, also in her thirties, who happens to be holding a glass of cocktail in her spare hand. She is clad in a purple green and yellow sequined dress, no doubt to fit the tone of the event, and has her hair done into a bun.

She observes you with silent curiosity, sipping from the cocktail glass, thankfully not using one of her impressively manicured fingers to grip around you like the last lady did. As she observes you, though, she begins to set the cocktail glass down, perhaps getting ready to manhandle you with her spare hand. It seems you'll have to think fast once more.

Rather than risk throwing the entire party into chaos, you elect to lie down in place atop the Asian giantess's palm, hoping she won't show too much curiosity about the plaything that's been passed into her hand. Your tiny heart pounds and you do your best to filter out the booming voices of the various giant ladies as you look up at her face, at those lipstick- painted lips of hers and her curious eyes. Her all too curious eyes. "Hmm...It sure doesn't look like a baby...it looks more like a man..." She muses to herself, her. Her other hand quickly shifts into your field of vision, a pair of fingers parted in an ominous pinching posture, immaculate purple-painted fingernails drawing closer and closer to you.

Before you can reconsider your decision to lie there like a toy, her fingernails seize around your right arm and lifts you off of her palm, your body dangling limp in her grip. "Curious.... she mumbles, quickly seizing around your legs with her other hand's fingertips.”Huh. It looks like you can move this thing's arms and legs." She says, turning to the lady who passed you over, then over at the lady who discovered you from the cake, then finally the lady who presented the cake. "Where did you get this?" She asks. "Ah. Bought it at the groceries just a few blocks away. It was the last in stock... “Your current captor frowns just a tad at the revelation, but seems more intrigued than upset. She begins to rotate your arm around painfully, but not badly enough to break. "Do you have the box? I'd like to know what brand it is. This looks like the kind of toy Takeda would enjoy playing with..." She says, amazed at just how flexible you are. Another woman laughs. "If you hand it over to him, the little thing might just get the microwave."

Not a reassuring thought. This woman's tentative toying is bad enough!

"Sorry...I threw the box away...hmm....actually. I might be able to get it from the trash. I'll do it for you, Sumi. One moment ““really? Over a toy?" "This is more lifelike than any toy I've ever seen..."The host gets off of her chair and heads over to the trash, evidently willing enough to look for the package. The Asian giantess shifts her hold on you as the woman goes to get the package, gripping around your arm and easing up on your legs for a moment before applying a gentle twist. At least, a gentle twist to her. It's all you can do to keep from screaming in pain! Thank goodness she stopped just short of breaking it, but there's no guarantee she won't push further. Sumi continues to toy with you, applying a gentle tug to both your leg and your arm. "This thing is very well made..."She says to herself, keeping your body stretched near to the breaking point.

Just when it feels like you're about to get split asunder, the host returns with your package in hand, setting it down on the countertop. "Hmm...That’s odd...it has a generic name...no trademark... ““Let me see that..."Sumi leaves you dangling by your ankles and uses her spare hand to manipulate the box. "Hmmm...Strange.... “She brings you before her face once and examines you closely, once more seizing both of her hands around your boy.”Maybe it's a prototype. Or they just put some lost toy in a box and sold it..."She says before gripping around your left arm, no doubt getting ready to twist it I a way that might break it permanently, or tear it off outright...


You have to think fast. Do you hold still and hope she doesn't twist too hard, do you struggle to break free, or do you try to call out to her and get her attention?

With fingers the size of tree trunks pinching around your arm and your tiny body trapped just inches away from the peering eyes of an alcohol-buzzed giantess, you're just one gentle tug away from losing your arm. Given the festive and casual nature of the occasion, at least from the perspective of the gigantic women partaking in this party, you get the feeling that that gentle tug is moments away. You do your best to avoid exciting the woman with a sudden movement, but as the seconds tick on with her showing no signs of parting her fingers, it becomes harder and harder to resist the temptation of trying to break yourself free from her hold.

You catch a glimpse of her lips curling up into a smile, and feel the gentlest of tugs on your arm. You can't hold yourself back any more. You begin to struggle to free your arm from her clutches. You earn an immediate a mighty squeeze around your chest as she reacts with unexpected mild surprise. "Huh...did this thing just...move?" She asks, paying close attention to you and, more importantly, not letting you go. She releases her hold on your arm and you immediately push it down against one of the fingers pinching tight around your chest, fully committing yourself now to your escape attempt.

You make little headway. The giggle from the gigantic woman observing you is all you need to hear to realize that you've only made the situation worse.

"Curious" She ponders as she look at her tiny form, the two adjacent women observing you as well. "Wonder how this thing even works..." She ponders out loud. "Do you think you hit a switch on it?" "It sure is moving..." The two adjacent ladies observe you with childlike wonder. Sumi respond to your struggles by lifting up your right arm with one of her fingernails, then promptly clamping the other down against it. "It's almost like it's trying to break free, but it's not doing a very good job of it. Hm. I wonder what would happen if I..."She proceeds to twist your right arm. This time, there is no breaking free from her grip. You let out a tiny scream as she twists your arm into uselessness and parts her fingers, smirking as she watches you flail about, now no longer able to even try to pull yourself free from the fingers clutching around your body.

"Hey girls. I think I figured out what this thing is. It wasn't meant to be a King Cake Baby...doesn't look like it's made of the same stuff anyway ““OH my goodness! Thank goodness we didn't bake it with the cake!" "You didn't bake it in? You know they make the babies to be able to take the heat right?" "You don't know what some of them are made of, though..." "Yeah...good thing you didn't. Anyway...you know what I think this thing is? It's a stress reliever toy. "Oh! I think you're right."

A brief, casual conversation seals your fate. The women proceed to pass you around and toy with you with no mercy. Sumi twists at your other arm ,crippling it as well, and pinches brutally around your legs until she hears a crunch , then starts then passes you counterclockwise.

The next woman grips at your wrists between one pair of fingers and your ankles with another and begins to stretch your body, subjecting you to an experience not too different from that of a victim of a medieval stretching rack. Stopping short of breaking you in half, she instead does her best to fold your body like one might a towel, nearly breaking you in two. Another counterclockwise pass.

The next woman sets your crippled body atop the table an begins to flick you about with her fingernail, even managing to 'kick ' you into her waiting palm as if you were some sort of soccer ball . Any effort at crawling away you make is laughably inadequate, and is met by another flick. Your efforts earn nothing but a snicker from the giantess, who eventually passes your bruised and broken body counterclockwise.

The women begin to discuss upcoming films.

The next woman sets you down on the tabletop as well, but instead make a game out of mashing you beneath the palm of her hand and rolling around, closing her eyes and basking in the sensation of your tiny form struggling beneath her hand. Not content with feeling your struggles, she lifts her hand and instead pins you under a fingertip, pressing so hard you nearly burst, only to ease up and allow you to crawl away. Her finger crashes down onto you again and mashes hard, then lifts up once more. She repeats the process in a cruel game of cat and mouse, allowing you the illusion of being able to try to flee, only to snuff it out by trapping you with a simple finger press moments later. The girl counterclockwise from her urges her to pass you over, and she reluctantly obliges.

The next woman gracefully ties a string tight around your neck and lifts you up. Broken though your arms may be, you manage to salvage just enough use at them to try to tug at the string, giving you just enough freedom to avoid getting strangled by what amounts to a makeshift noose. Not content just to watch you suffer in place, she proceeds to flick at you, and then turns your world into a hellish blur as she twirls the string around again and again, the air beating at your tiny form as you begin to fade from consciousness. After several of these twirls she smashes you against the tabletop so hard that everything fades to black.

You don't wake up.

You are passed counterclockwise once more, but by then it is too late. The toy will never move again. . Disappointed at your lack of motion, the partygoer hands you over to the host, who averts her gaze as she passes you over to the woman who plucked you out of the cake just moments ago. The women quickly turn their attention away from the stress reliever, leaving its defeated form to lie atop the tabletop. When it's finally time for the guests to leave, you are casually tossed into a trash bag, landing atop a discarded coffee filter. A napkin soon follows.