Untouched, rolling hillsides spread out before us for miles. In the distance there were hints of little roads and other tiny farmhouses like the one at our feet. It was a beautiful world, and nothing compared to the feelings of peace and contentment I got when I visited here.
“Princess Laura!” the three members of the little family called out to me as they poured out of their home. Their warm, welcoming smiles always brightened my world, though today I flushed a little and quickly looked to Charlotte to explain.
“I’ve been coming here since I was a kid. I told the Ericssons that I was a princess, and they haven’t been able to let it go since.”
Charlotte seemed almost not to hear me, but I could see her brilliant grin, and that made it easy to understand her distraction. I tried to remember the first day I passed through that hidden doorway and discovered this incredible world filled with people the size of my pinkie, and I could only imagine the wonder she was experiencing.
“You’ve never brought a friend before,” Helena, the Ericssons’ daughter observed. It was true, though Charlotte wasn’t exactly a friend. We’d been paired up in writing class, and she’d been fascinated by my stories about this place. She’d had so many questions, and we talked about it all through class and for hours after school, too.
I crouched down, smiling at the familiar little faces. “This is Princess Charlotte,” I began my introduction, but the warmth drained from the Ericssons’ faces, and Helena’s little voice broke into a horrid scream.
Charlotte was always in fashion, elegantly dressed in designer styles. She wore these exquisite black leather boots that I’d always admired but never could wear myself, and suddenly one of those boots was hovering over the Ericssons’ farmhouse.
I thought my scream was joining Helena’s, that I’d stop this insane act before it went any further, but instead I heard the wood creaking, beams snapping like brittle twigs, and soon there was only the Ericssons’ shocked, pained gasps and the subtle crunching of their pulverized home beneath that slowly twisting boot.
“Queen Charlotte,” she declared, correcting me with a devilish grin.
I couldn’t speak. I could barely move, dumbstruck and paralyzed by my new friend’s casual, effortless cruelty. Marcus, the tall and strong patriarch of the family, was not so silent.
“Why would you do this?” he bellowed, and I found myself still crouched to the ground, staring up at Charlotte and wondering the same. “Are you mad? Blind? What’s wrong with you?”
Charlotte didn’t say a word, letting an eye roll and derisive snort be her only reply. Her tremendous boot slid towards the gathered family, its heel gouging through the pristine farmland and scattering smashed bits of their home in its wake.
Now it was my turn to gasp as I watched the family try to turn and flee the monolith of black leather that barreled towards them, slowly to my eye but faster than their tiny forms could react. A little whimper escaped my grimacing lips as they were sent tumbling in every direction.
“You seriously shouldn’t speak to me like that,” Charlotte reprimanded the tiny family as they groaned and nursed their bruises and cuts.
“Laura!” Marcus cried, his voice filled with fear and confusion that I realized I was feeling myself. “What are you doing? Why did you bring this monster here?”
I looked up at Charlotte, at her radiant smile and intense eyes that paid me no mind and remained focused on the ground. Being with her, sharing these wonders and fantasies was incredible, but this wasn’t what I’d planned. These were good people that had been kind to me for years…
The Ericssons were screaming again, and this time when I looked to them, Charlotte’s boot was raised over Marcus’s tiny form. My mouth popped open to protest, but the only sound I could manage was a sort of wordless groan.
Time slowed to a crawl as her boot lowered to the ground. Marcus quickly disappeared from my sight, and I don’t know if it was imagined but I know I felt the thud of her sole striking the earth.
I know I heard the crunch, the subtle squelch of Marcus’s tiny body being smashed. I stared unblinking at her boot, watching it sink further into the yielding ground--watching her toes settle and shift and twist, cruelly grinding Marcus to a pulp under her foot.
“Why?” I finally managed to stammer—a far cry from the harsh rebuke I thought I was going to shout. Charlotte didn’t answer me right away. She stood where she was, towering over the Ericssons, towering over me and grinning wildly.
“I definitely don’t like the way they speak to us,” she quipped—so casual, so dismissive. “Maybe they shouldn’t speak at all.”
I blinked slowly. I shook my head and eventually stood back up, though I didn’t really remember doing it. “You killed him,” I whispered, trying to understand—trying to see some sort of feeling or remorse in her face.
“No, you kill people.” Her smile was as bright as it had ever been. “He’s just a tiny thing. I stepped on him and I crushed him.”
She sounded like she enjoyed it. Not only smashing Marcus like an insect, but just saying the cruel words, enunciating “thing” and “crushed” with this vicious passion…
My stomach twisted in on itself. My mouth was dry and this horrid, oppressive heat seemed like it was swallowing me up. Still, I couldn’t find the strength to confront her, to stop her or even begin to argue.
The suddenly widowed Mrs. Ericsson had collapsed completely, her tiny chest heaving as she sobbed and wept. “Aww, you’re crying?” Charlotte taunted with a brief laugh.
Melanie looked up at my friend, her agony and tears still flowing freely.
“Stop,” Charlotte snapped, though her smirk remained despite the irritation in her voice. “You’re hideous when you cry.”
It was like I was someone else, or I wasn’t even there. I watched her boot rise again from the ground and saw the grotesque ruin of Marcus smeared into the dirt. I saw Charlotte take her time moving her foot through the air, casting Melanie in its shadow and letting her stay there, staring upwards at the stains her husband had left behind on her sole.
She screamed, and her daughter cried out with her. Charlotte let her boot hang over them, laughing as she drank in all the fear and terror from the tiny creatures trembling at her feet.
Her merciless boot slowly moved towards the ground, towards crushing the life out of another helpless person. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from Charlotte. I’d never known a person could be so vicious, so cruel.
Hot tears stung my cheeks, and I was more dizzy and faint by the moment. I continued watching my friend casually snuff Melanie out beneath her toes, and slowly I saw something more.
I’d never seen someone so powerful-—so beautiful, so unstoppable. I heard the squelch of her toes meeting the ground and felt an agonizing emptiness in my gut while I watched her twist and grind Melanie to nothing.
There was something more, though, and I felt it all through my being. The hammering in my chest, the quickness of my breath, the trembling in my thighs.
“Ooh, something upsetting you?” Charlotte cooed as Helena, my little friend Helena wailed and rushed towards the boot that had easily pulverized her parents. Soft laughter filled the air as tiny fists hammered her leather-wrapped foot, and I could see how laughable it was.
Charlotte lifted her toes and bowled her over with no effort at all. She was so tiny, so ridiculously helpless.
“Pathetic,” Charlotte declared, and the derision in her voice sent this eager shiver through me. Helena lay crumpled on the ground, too broken to rise again. She sobbed silently. All that was left was for Charlotte’s beautiful boot to settle on her tiny body and obliterate her, to erase her from existence with a crunch and a twist…
“You never told me how fun this was,” I heard her say, and a few seconds later I realized Charlotte was speaking to me. My head snapped around and I met her gaze, blood freezing in my veins. It was like I’d been caught watching something shameful. I’d been in my own world, shocked and enthralled, but we were both here, and she was talking to me.
“Crushing them’s just like I dreamed. Why didn’t we ever talk about that?”
My lips parted. I swallowed and looked for words, but ended up just shaking my head.
“Oh my god,” she exclaimed with a grin. “You’ve never done it.”
I didn’t get far in my stammering before Charlotte stopped me and made a decision. “Come on, you can do the girl.”
I could feel my head shaking even more. My eyes dropped to Helena, sweet little Helena, watching her clutch her pretty face and sob hysterically at my feet. “But she’s my friend,” I weakly admitted.
“I’m your friend,” Charlotte countered. “She’s a speck.”
I made myself nod. I tried to agree, but I still couldn’t do it. I looked to Charlotte and she saw my helplessness right away.
“Jesus, alright, the speck’s your friend.” The annoyance in Charlotte’s voice hurt, but as she started her explanation she still wore a smile, and that gave me comfort.
“Do you think you’re doing her any favors leaving her like this? A traumatized, homeless orphan?”
I looked to the girl on the ground, and it was true. I didn’t see my Helena, the friend I’d talk with for hours and take on adventures around her tiny world. The girl on the ground was disheveled, broken—ruined.
It was my fault, and I was breaking inside, too, but that didn’t matter right now. Right now I had to do what I had to do.
Helena’s eyes finally opened as my worn sneaker was rising from the ground. She stared up at me and called out my name, but I could barely hear it over the buzzing in my ears. I mouthed the words “I’m sorry,” and then Helena disappeared beneath my shoe.
I didn’t think I’d feel her, but there she was, a little lump under my sneaker’s thin sole. I wanted to crush her quickly so she wouldn’t suffer, but I didn’t have that in me.
I felt Charlotte’s hands on me. “Incredible, isn’t it?” she whispered. “You control her. You own her. Her entire life beneath your foot, so easy to erase…”
I didn’t feel it like Charlotte did, but there was something there, something taking my breath away. All the power and beauty and pleasure she had enjoyed…
I felt a crunch and gasped. There were more, Helena’s tiny bones snapping and smashing beneath my shoe, and once it started I knew I had to step down and finish the job. My sneaker sank into the soft earth as I shifted and stepped down as hard as I could, and I knew Helena was gone, flattened and crushed into the dirt.
“I like to twist,” Charlotte murmured in my ear, coaching me as her arms slipped further around me. I’d watched, enchanted by her elegant boot grinding back and forth, and before she even continued my own shoe was slowly twisting into whatever was left of my tiny friend.
“Make sure the little shits are totally smeared,” she breathed on my neck, and I shivered in her wonderful embrace.
Then, her breath, her warmth, her touch was gone. I turned my head and watched her step back, immediately empty without her next to me.
“Alright, I’m going to be late for practice.” She reached out and took me by the hand, and her smile erased my concerns. I couldn’t stop myself from looking down as I lifted my foot, and the shredded bits of a bright green dress smashed into the ground filled me with a stabbing shame and remorse.
I squeezed Charlotte’s hand and she looked at me, smiling as she squeezed back. All the pain went away.
It went away until I was alone, without her exquisite boots and brilliant eyes and heavenly smile to distract me from the things that I’d done--the family I’d destroyed, the friend that I’d killed.
“Crushed,” I made myself say. I squeezed my eyes shut and made Charlotte’s beautiful form appear, trying to force everything else away and make myself sleep--to make the world and the guilt go away until I could be with her again.