Contest Winner: "Special Feeture: Reductive Phantasm" by @GlassesSwirly

The short story contest Winner:
"Special Feeture: Reductive Phantasm" by @GlassesSwirly

It is late in the afternoon and we find Marissa on her way back to one of her classrooms at school, having forgotten her term paper on plot Mcguffins. As she goes into the seemingly empty classroom she hears the door slam behind her. Standing in front of the door is Lis.
"Hello there 'Mar Mar'..." Her voice was as smooth as silk, but her face had the same uncaring expression as always.


"Lis but your-"

Before Marissa could finish, Lis cuts off Marissa's sentence with a condescending rebuttal.


"standing right here mar mar"


Marissa, usually able to handle most things, is taken aback by Lisandra’s current demeanor and calm attitude. With a slight look of worry, Marissa continues

"...I... still don't understand how you can be here right now"


Without missing a beat, Lis replies back with a calmness, as if she had been preparing for this.

"ah mar mar... you never did really understand did you?"

She pauses and slowly walks toward Marissa

"me on the other hand..."


Marissa now had a feeling in her stomach that she couldn't shake, an unsettling one, one that told her she should probably just push out her chest with intimidation and leave, or to remove herself and get as far away as possible. However, she couldn't seem to move at the moment, something about Lis and her current aura of pure assurance and confidence had frozen her in place.


As Lis got closer to Marissa she leaned over and whispered in her ear

"I understand so much more... especially about YOU~"


Something about those words, their utterance struck a specific spot in Marissa, one of fear, one of embarassment, one of impossibilities.

Marissa felt it, like a pit in her stomach, those words where resonating through her body and she knew she was about to shrink.

"No damn it!" She said with a wince


Lis looked on, anticipation behind the cold stare.

With a grunt of struggle, marrissa begins to shrink down, however she manages to shrink down to only 3/4 her height.


"It seems your ability to resist shrinking yourself has improved mar mar~" Lis said with a tone of intrigue.


“No! Not again!”
Marissa manages to break free of her current paralysis of movement and tries to get away to somewhere safe. She runs to the door but finds that, even giving it all her strength, it won't budge.


Upon turning around she is face to chest with Lis who is looking down on her, both metaphorically and literally, with a smug grin.

"It's already too late for you mar mar" The smoothness of her voice echoing through Marissa's head.


The sheer intimidation of Lis at this point was enough to make her start shrinking again. As she was diminishing, Lis put her hand on top of Marissa's head and added a bit of pressure. Although a simple gesture, it was enough to add to Marissa's humiliation and already shrinking state.

Marissa closes her eyes and begins to shake her head.

"no... this isn't right... this can't be happening... you shouldn't be here!!"


She opened her eyes to find she was at Lisandra’s knees now and upon looking up sees Lis bending over, her face getting uncomfortably close to Marissa’s.
“don't fight it. I know all of your secrets, everything about you now. I know what you fear most..."


Marissa knew her words didn't even make sense to her at this point, but somehow the tone hit again and she decided to try and run once more, knowing full well there was nowhere to go.

Lis, tired of her running around, casually and slowly walks after Marissa, cornering her.

She takes off one of her shoes and sock and looks down at the now doll sized Marissa in the corner.


"Your running is a bother."

She raises her foot and pins Marissa to the floor so she can continue.

As if being insulted by Lis wasn't enough, being pinned under her foot made Marissa lose concentration in her attempts to slow the shrinking process.


"I know you like this kind of thing... you have a fetish for it..."


Marissa, slowly shrinking beneath Lis' foot, feels a hot flash come over her, embarrassed at the accusation.

"Ah, yes... you do... I can feel your little diminishing heart rate"


Marissa disappears from view of Lisandra’s face.

All Marissa can think of is the end, just waiting for it to come, as a mix of fear, confusion and anticipation culminate together.


However Lis wishing to be even more cruel, reaches down and picks up Marissa and brings her up to face level.

"I was just going to squish you... however, your drawn out suffering gave me time to think... of a 'safe' place you seemed to want..."


Lis then closes her hand around Marissa, causing the light to fade


In what seemed like a few seconds, clarity of space rushed back in as Lis removed her hand.

Marissa confused and dazed could see they were outside, at a house in fact...


"wait how... where..."

At that moment she noticed where they were. In front of Marissa's home.

A slight noise behind her, that could only be described as a smug chuckle from Lis, made Marissa shrink a centimeter or two. There was this nagging feeling in her head amongst all the chaos... something was wrong with all this... even more so than before.


The confusion mounts in Marissa's mind as Lis casually opens the door to her home, as if she didn't need a key.

"how could you possibly-"
Lis once again cuts off the miniscule marissa


"I told you, I know EVERYTHING about you"


Lis bends over and places Marissa on the floor before heading back towards the door and looking back one last time to show a smug smirk.

"Good luck being safe" Lis says before closing the door without another word.


Marissa's confusion quickly fades into panic as she remembers where she is. In a rush she tries to find the safest place nearby, a place where she could hide out and calm herself until she can get back to normal size.


Not long after being placed down, and only being able to run a few inches, she hears the slapping of footsteps on the floor behind her.


"no... please gods no!" she says to herself

Her heart sinks as the noise gets closer and closer, stopping just behind her.

Like in a horror movie, everything stopped for her, except her heart that was nearly beating out of her chest. She didn't want to look back but she had no choice.

As she turned around she saw two massive feet in front of her, toes wiggling impatiently. When she looked up she could feel nothing but terror, as staring down at her was her very own mother, Cynthia.

Cynthia lets out a sigh. "another pest..."


Her mother lifts her foot and slowly begins to bring it down.

The pure intimidation of the situation, seeing her mother massive before her, and knowing that she herself is nothing more than a bug, causes Marissa to shrink a few more centimeters.


In a tired and annoyed tone, Cynthia says "shrinking smaller won't do you any good bug..."


Marissa begins to run, but feels like she isn't moving or getting anywhere, she knows it's futile but fight or flight instinctively is telling her to run.

Her legs lock up and she falls to the ground, only able to turn on her back and see the massive sole of her mother descending upon her.

"NO MOTHER, PLEASE!!"


Marissa's pleas are drown out as the soft sole presses down onto her.

Cynthia lets out a sigh once more "usually this is a little easier..."

She begins to grind her food back and forth on Marissa's still conscious and intact body twisting it around.

Eventually the pressure and weight grows more and more until-

------

Marissa is thrashing around violently in her bed exclaiming light exasperated "no, please noooo" when finally she shoots up, drenched in sweat and tangled up uncomfortably tight head to toe in her blankets. She quickly tears them off, still afraid, still confused, but now at least able to breath. Slowly everything around her comes into a hazy view.

She looks around frantically for her glasses to make sense of her surroundings. She is in her bed, in her room, and nearly falling out of bed, but at her regular size.


Her clock read 3AM and most importantly on Saturday.

She takes a few deep breaths and sighs of relief then goes to splash some water on her face.

"just another nightmare Marissa... that's all...."


As she sits back on her bed she grabs her phone from the nightstand and sends a quick text to Sanjana.


"Hey sanj, you up?"

"Girl, it is three in the damn morning..... but yes..."

"Gonna sound weird but, do you remember the last place you put Lisandra?"

"Sure taped right in my sisters flip flop this weekend, why?"

"lets just say i have to stop staying up late and writing papers..."