Laurel is Dead

Why was she having to give up everything she'd worked for? What sense did it make for her to be the one who had to run, who had to disappear and give up her home and her job and maybe even more? What about the people who'd put her in this position? What about the people who'd stood by and done nothing? Didn't they deserve to pay some sort of price?

Fuck, of course they did, and she had the power to make them pay. She had so much power, and she needed to use it. A tap on her phone brought the voice commands up, and she started in on her plan. "New e-mail, Mom. Subject: Can you help? Blind carbon copy all contacts."

*****

Laurel shut and bolted the door of her apartment behind her and promptly flopped on her couch, letting out a long sigh with the impact of her body on the overstuffed cushions. Day after day she'd done the same thing, trying to forget the last several hours of office politics and workplace demands, and today she tried the same thing but there wasn't the first chance of forgetting a thing.

After another moment she dug through the box at her side and pulled out the MARTI, setting it in her lap and examining the incredible machine. She'd seen enough memos about the codenamed project to be vaguely familiar with expectations surrounding the device, and as she looked over the buttons and readings, it really was apparent that it had been designed for the working man. Such a simple object that could do such incredible things...

The doorbell rang and Laurel bolted upright immediately. She didn't expect anyone so quickly, but all the same, it was time for action. She hopped over the coffee table in haste, snatched up the MARTI and started adjusting and preparing it for use. "Who is it?" she nervously called out, her voice breaking unexpectedly in the middle of her mundane inquiry.

"It's your mother, dear," the voice on the other side called back, and as Laurel opened the door she saw her standing there, wringing her hands and looking back at her with all the earnest concern she could muster.

"Hi, Mom," Laurel flatly replied. She hadn't been sure she'd be able to go through with it, but it was so easy to poke a few buttons and flip a switch.

"Honey, are you alright?" Laurel's mother asked as she took a step inside. It took a moment for the MARTI to really rev itself up, long enough for Laurel to step forward and push the door closed at least.

"No, Mom," Laurel softly murmured as the familiar bluish light spread from the MARTI and started to envelop the woman's body. "I'm not alright, not even close to it," she continued while watching that glow start to dissipate, and when it was gone so was her mother. All that was left in her place was this tiny, wonderful shrieking thing for her to play with, and seeing it staring upwards and squealing in shock and terror brought that hot exhilarating rush flooding back through Laurel's body.

She started to break into that weird, giddy grin as she watched her tiny mother flailing in protest at her feet. It was all too easy to ignore everything she had to say, but Laurel wanted to shut her up all the same. Her boot shifted forward and smacked into the tiny woman, sending her sprawling across the floor. "You're going to help me feel better, though, Mom. You and everyone else." Laurel could still hear her mother's voice, possibly only because it was so familiar to her. She bent at the knees, crouching down to hear what she had to say.

"...wrong with you? What did you do? You can't do this, Laurel, you just can't! I don't, I don't even..."

Laurel plucked her up from the ground, taking her entire little body up between her fingers. It was magnificently easy, holding her own mother in her hand, and she could just as easily do whatever else she wanted. "Look, Mom, I absolutely can. I can do anything I want to you, don't you see that?"

Her fingers curled around the woman in her hand, squeezing her a little more tightly. "See, you're little. You're so stupidly little, Mom, and that makes you powerless. You're totally helpless, don't you see that? It's not your fault, nothing you could have done could change where you are now. That's just how it is."

She pulled her mother further into the air, holding her right before her eyes so she could really relish watching her squirm. "Yeah, I have all the power. I could squeeze you 'til you popped, Mom. I could drop you on the ground, cover you with my foot and just smash you to paste. That worked pretty well before."

"You... killed someone?" For some reason this seemed to horrify her more than all the thinly veiled threats of her violent demise.

"Yeah, Mom, I did. I shrunk my boss and crushed him like a bug, and I'm going to do the absolute same thing to you and everyone else that shows up." She hadn't really thought about what she'd done as killing, but suddenly and unexpectedly the thought of it seemed even more appealing. "What do you think about that, huh?"

Laurel felt a little awkward talking to her own mother like this, but every time she squirmed a little and wailed in her grasp it helped build her confidence. Watching her shake her head in disbelief and shudder in horror...

The doorbell brought Laurel out of her deepening desire for tormenting her tiny mother. "Oh, hey, someone else is here! C'mon, Mom. Let's see who's going to join you." She popped up, grabbed the MARTI and bounded towards the door, calling out once again, "Who is it?"

"It's James," her brother answered back from the other side, and Laurel broke into a devious grin. "You said to come as quick as I could, is everything okay?"

"Come in," Laurel murmured while charging the MARTI and opening the door. In the next minute, her collection of tiny people had doubled, and it if things continued to go well she expected it to keep on growing over the next hour.

*****

Laurel bounded back through the hallway to the bedroom she shared with her fiance Ryan, her head buzzing and her skin tingling with such a raw, intense energy that it overwhelmed every other thought and sense. No less than seventeen tiny people, people that until recently she thought of as friends, neighbors and family, tumbled about at the bottom of a little cardboard box she carried.

Now they were hers. Absolutely and completely, their little lives belonged to her. She peeked down into the box as she opened her bedroom door, grinning with mad eagerness as she enjoyed watching them all struggle to stay upright while her body shifted and turned. "Don't worry, guys. I'll let you out to play soon enough," she declared with a wicked smirk.

"Laurel!" one of the tiny voices shouted out, rising above the dull tones of the others. She scanned the minuscule forms until she found her father staring up at her. "What have you done? Laurel, what's happened to you? You have to stop this, you have to..."

A fit of shrill, piercing giggles cut him off from his earnest plea. Laurel shook her head a few times, spirals of her dark hair bouncing and whirling through the air as she struggled to get her manic laughter back under control. Once she'd calmed herself, though, she didn't immediately reply. Instead, she settled down on the edge of her bed, bit her lower lip and carefully reached into the box, her comparatively massive fingers bowling over little things and shoving them out of the way as she grasped for her father, and just that quickly she pinched his tiny body between her fingers and dragged him up away from the rest of her little family and friends.

"Dad, don't you see that I don't have to do anything?" He had once been so tall, so imposing, so strong. Now, he twisted and thrashed between her fingertips like a captured worm. "Nothing you say matters, Dad. Nothing you ever said mattered at all." She set the box down beside her on the bed, though her shrunken playthings still had a fair enough view of their little cohort. Laurel dropped her father into the palm of her hand and leaned in a little closer, watching the fear and disbelief build in the little man she held.

"I don't have to stop and I'm so not going to," she murmured softly, though her voice was still like a slow rolling thunder washing over the tiny man. "Just like I don't have to keep my head down and work hard. Just like I don't have to 'carry myself like a lady.' Just like I don't have to look over my shoulder in the city or agonize over how every little thing I do is going to affect someone else's feelings or the way they see me. Just like I don't have to lay awake at night racking my brain trying to figure out how I'm ever going to have a fucking future in this shit world of yours."

He had pulled himself up to his hands and knees now, but it didn't look like he could go any further. He probably wanted to stand, but Laurel's hand just wasn't steady enough. Still, she liked seeing him on all fours. She liked the way his little body was trembling in terror, and especially liked the quivering in his voice when he tried to speak.

"Laurel, please..." he struggled to say, mouth parted and tears gathering in his tiny eyes as he desperately sought the words that would bring his daughter out of this... madness. "Sweetie, please, whatever it is that's done this to you, I can help."

Laurel frowned faintly at that idea, and her eyes narrowed as she watched the little man do his best to verbally writhe his way out of his precarious predicament.

"We... we love you," he cried out, one hand stretching out before him and reaching for something, for anything that was in his little girl that might see what she was doing, but in the next moment the fleshy floor beneath him started to shift, started to tilt.

Laurel's voice and words were as dark and icy as they could be, each one its own flat declaration of disdain. She watched as the tiny thing that used to call itself her dad started to slide from her hand, and as he scrabbled for anything to hold on to, anything to keep him from plummeting the unimaginable distance to the floor, the words echoed and rained down around him.

"Nobody."

"Gives."

"A."

"Fuck."

The people in the box had been largely stunned into silence, but as they watched Laurel's father tumble from her hand and swiftly vanish from view, a collective gasp and a few faint wails rose from them. Laurel liked that. She liked that they'd all seen her dump him onto the ground, almost as much as she liked watching his little limbs flail through the air until he smacked into the carpeted floor and bounced once.

For a moment she just sat there, staring at him down on the ground and just grinning. It was just so easy and so incredibly thrilling, even if she hadn't pinned down precisely what was stirring all of this exquisite excitement inside her.

Laurel bent down and started to unzip her boots, though her eyes stayed on her father's little broken body throughout. He was still moving, and again she found herself all the more excited to know there was still something left of him to enjoy. She wrapped her hand around the heel of her boot and slowly pulled it free, and as she dropped it to the floor with a heavy thud, her father managed to push himself onto his side and meet his daughter's lust-driven, predatory gaze.

He stared up at her unblinking, and their eyes remained locked until Laurel's immense toes gradually slid forward and blocked her from view. There wasn't the faintest bit of hesitation in her movements, and he knew instantly that she wanted to crush him and had no reservations about doing it. He could feel the surprising heat from her freshly freed foot radiating down on him, and as it lowered towards him, slowly cutting off light and sound and anything else from the world outside of his daughter's stark black nylon-wrapped sole, fearful screams ripped from deep in his throat, rising from some unknown reserve he thought long exhausted.

This time Laurel wasn't distracted by driving rage or any other sort of overwhelming emotion. Now, in the comfort of her own home, in complete control of the situation, she could take her time and relish the deeply satisfying sensations of ending a little man's life. She held him totally beneath her, completely trapped and overwhelmed by her sole, and as her toes started to spread the faintest bit, as her heel rose and she started to push and press, that thought was actually almost as satisfying as the slow creak and snap of his fragile little bones.

He didn't matter. None of them did, and nothing they'd ever said or done mattered nearly as much as how exquisite controlling and destroying them could be. Laurel's toes pressed forward, and her father's body reached its breaking point. She could feel the warm, spreading wetness signifying the transformation from man to flattened mess, and the sensations and the total awareness of her own incredible power brought forth such a long, low, soft moan. It was still incredible, unbelievable that she could just squish someone, anyone, even her tall, strong, imposing father, and as those thoughts ran through her head Laurel's moaning evolved into a dark and satisfied purr. She twisted her foot slowly and deliberately, grinding her father's pulverized remains into the carpet and letting them soak further into her stocking's sole.

It was only after the rush of blood pounding in her ears settled that she notices the numerous little shouts and shrieks coming from the box beside her on the bed. Her mother's voice was most distinctive, but she didn't seem to be forming any sort of words at the moment. Instead, she was more wailing and squealing, so Laurel instead decided to focus on her sister as she leaned over the box and brought her immense, faintly flushed and grinning face into view of the dozen or so odd people inside.

"What the fuck is wrong with you, Laurel?" Abby screamed with all the force she could manage. She was wearing some sort of designer sun dress, something her rich-ass philandering husband probably bought her to keep her quiet and content. For whatever reason, all of her impotent rage only served to broaden Laurel's grin just the faintest bit more.

"What did you do with Dad?" Abby continued. "We saw him fall out of your hand, Laurel, what the fuck did you do with Dad?"

Laurel had to bite back a lusty chuckle as she continued to think about her father's recent demise. She flexed her toes a little, relishing the way that warm, wet spot on her nylon sole clung to her foot. A moment later, though, her mother's voice, far more earnest and soft, interrupted her thoughts.

"Laurel, please... tell us he's alright." She looked up through tear-blurred eyes at the immense, looming countenance of her crazed daughter, pleading with the girl she remembered and prayed was still inside this colossal monster somewhere. "Please, sweetie. Where is your father?"

Laurel only seemed to grin all the more, and in the next moment she pushed herself back, disappearing from view for all the tiny friends and family gathered in the box on her bed. They stood where they were, staring upwards and filled with fear and uncertainty. One or two still tried to call out to her, but their voices were swiftly silenced by the massive, dark nylon-wrapped toes slowly sliding over the edge of the box, leaving more and more of them trembling in the shadow of her foot.

The chorus of screams told Laurel exactly when the messy wet spot on her sole came into view. Her whole body shuddered with the exhilarating rush of knowing that all of those tiny people were seeing what was left of her father smeared into the nylon plastered to the bottom of her foot. Now they would start to understand. Now they grasped her incredible, undeniable power. Let them scream and cower and wail and retch, she was God compared to them, and each of those little people had failed Her.

Laurel's heel brushed the edge of the box just a bit as she brought the entirety of her sole into view for the tiny failures inside, and without hesitation she began to lower her foot into the box, not even leaning forward to look and see who would end up trapped beneath and who would dive to safety. Her head rolled back on her shoulders and she let out a long, slow breath as the screams grew more intense and her toes settled on the cardboard. She could feel bodies writhing beneath her sole, tiny hands desperately tugging and grasping at her stocking as they struggled impotently beneath her, knowing they had to be no more than a split second from being crushed to paste.

Nothing could have prepared Laurel for the experience of having a half-dozen tiny friends and family members struggling for their lives beneath her foot. Nobody could ever have felt as amazingly powerful as she did in this moment... nobody had ever been this powerful. She could crush the life from each of them with just an ounce of effort, just press down and smash them all to an ugly jelly. Laurel's foot slid forward and back the faintest bit, her gore-stained stocking sliding over all those tiny bodies as she savored the feel of them beneath her while her fingers delicately brushed aside the folds of her skirt.

Jesus, she was hot. She was so fucking hot right now and her body was begging to be touched. Her fingertips teased along the upper reaches of her inner thighs, but her fiance would be home any minute and she wanted him to be the one to push her over the edge. She took a deep breath and leaned back, reaching over to grab her phone.

I hope you're almost home, because when you get here I want you to strip down, come back to the bedroom and satisfy me.

It wasn't the raciest thing, but they'd never been the most sexual couple. Lovemaking was wonderful between them, sure, but it was usually a quiet and sweet affair. Laurel had never felt so passionate, never had so much desire and so much immediate and desperate need.

The struggles beneath her foot were fading, and suddenly Laurel decided she didn't want to kill them all, at least not yet. Much as she'd enjoy mashing whoever was beneath her heel to a pulp or just letting the lot of them slowly smother under her stockinged foot, she wanted to watch them up close. She wanted to see them give in, submit, and obey.

Her foot slowly lifted from the box, and the wailing within slowed to a few sobs and a collective sigh of relief. All of that was short-lived, though, as the many people inside suddenly found themselves tottering and tumbling as the cardboard beneath them shifted and rose into the air. The world around them spun and twisted and tilted, and when it had more or less come to a stop, they lot of them stared upwards at the dark and devilishly grinning face of their once sweet daughter, friend or sister looming above.

"Ryan's going to be home any minute," Laurel casually announced to her little prisoners. "You're going to get me ready for him." She enjoyed how they stared up at her, how they sat in stunned silence and fear in their little box. She had stretched out on her bed, propping her head up on a pile of pillows so she could keep an eye on her playthings, and now she was ready for them to get to work. Another chorus of screams rose to her ears as she started to tilt the box, and Laurel couldn't help but softly laugh as the tiny people squealed and fell through the air and landed among the silky folds of her blouse, some grabbing hold where they fell and others tumbling down until they came to rest on her stomach.

"Well?" Laurel demanded of her disorganized pile of minuscule servants as they lay where they fell, stunned from the variety of traumas they'd endured over the last moments. "Get me out of these clothes, it's not like you've never seen buttons before. I swear to god you'll regret it if Ryan walks in to find me half-dressed."

A few of them did seem to get the message and start climbing towards the fastenings keeping her blouse and skirt on, but Laurel wasn't satisfied. Truthfully, she probably wouldn't have been satisfied by anything they did besides the beautiful way they suffered and broke with the faintest bit of effort from her. She grinned a little more as she reached down and plucked up her sobbing younger sister between her fingers.