It was nearing closing time at the Titan station animal boutique, and the clerk behind the counter was just beginning to close up shop. The only customers left were a group of three teenaged girls who were there on a field trip with their school. The three of them were looking at the shelf of humans and playing around, as teenagers do. 

“Are you going to buy one of these Lita?” Asked tallest of the three, who had waist-length black hair and dark brown eyes. She picked up one of the cylinders in her slender hand and wiped away the condensation on the window with her pale fingers. “I’ve got one at home, they’re kind of fun.” She handed the unit to Lita. 

Lita was a few inches shorter than both of her friends, but a bit curvier. With her golden tanned skin, it was obvious that she was a sun worshipper. She took the unit in one hand and brushed her tangle of curly blonde hair out of her eyes with the other. Raising the unit to her face she peered inside with her sparkling green eyes, an amused smile on her lips. 

“Maybe I will, Nonik, if I can find one that looks like Jaks.” Lita leered and cocked her eyebrow mischievously. 

“You mean that guy you like?” Asked the third, a slender girl of medium height with dark brown skin and silver hair. “Why would that… Oh, eww! You’re sick Lita!” her grey eyes closed in disgust. 

“Oh don’t be such a dud, Uyli.” Lita laughed, running her finger suggestively down the metal cylinder in her hand. “Everybody knows that’s what people do with humans. It’s sort of the unspoken rule.”

“Yeah well, not me.” Uyli muttered, backing away slightly. “Truth is, humans weird me out. They just… look too much like us. It’s unnatural. There’s no way I could do… that… with one. Ew.” 

“Ooh, I definitely could ‘do that’ with one… if he looked like Jaks.” Lita grinned, sliding the containment unit along the cleavage line of her generous bosom and up the side of her neck. “I would be like ‘ooh Jaks, let me be your love goddess.’ And then I’d…“ She pushed the container through her plump lips and began to fellate it. 

“Oh wow, Lita. Way to have a little decorum.” Nonik rolled her eyes, a rueful smile on her face. 

“Don’t be jealous.” Lita spoke around the tube in her mouth. “Just because you’re no fun doesn’t mean…” Her voice trailed off and she got a surprised look on her face. Suddenly she jerked the unit out of her mouth, and began coughing violently, white colored mist leaking out of the corner of her mouth. 

“Lita what did you do?!” Uyli gasped, slapping her coughing friend on the back. 

“I… I don’t know, this thing just popped open and a bunch of… steam or something shot out.” 

“Yeah well, that’s what you get for being a fool in public.” She jerked the device out of Lita’s hand and threw it forcefully back on to the shelf. “Come on, let’s get out of here before the clerk notices you broke it and tries to charge you for it.” The three girls hastily made their exit from the store. Fortunately for them, the clerk had stepped in to the back room and wasn’t aware of the commotion. 

“You had better hope that stuff isn’t poisonous, Lita!” Uyli chastised as they exited the store with Lita still in the middle of a coughing fit.

Meanwhile, the container had been thrown back on the shelf with such force that it bounced off the backboard and began rolling along the edge, teetering precariously close to falling to the floor. After a second of balancing, gravity won out and the container plummeted to the ground, rolling back underneath the shelf and out of sight, save for one end peeking out slightly. 

A few minutes later, the store clerk had finished her business in the back and, seeing that all the customers had left her store, began to close up shop. 

With a groan, the tiny occupant of the device sat up and rubbed his aching skull. The little creature opened his eyes and took stock of his situation. 

His name was Luke, and the last thing he could remember was his car breaking down on one of the most back country roads in the state… he had just stepped out of his vehicle to take a look at the engine and then… What? There wasn’t anything after that. After that he found himself… wherever he was. 

And just where was he? He looked around him in astonishment. At first he thought he’d awoken in some sort of cave, but the ceiling was made of wood, and he was standing on a tile floor… but each tile was about twelve foot square. The whole place was covered in dust too… as if no one had been there in a very long time. 

He turned his attention to the weird coffin-thing he’d climbed out of. It was about seven or eight feet long, made of glass and some sort of metal, and mostly cylindrical. There weren’t any markings on it to indicate a manufacturer. There was a button on one side of it, but it was almost comically large. It was big enough that it would take both of his hands to push. Nothing made any sense. 

“Maybe I hit my head.” Luke muttered to himself. He bent to inspect himself on a piece of the device that was metallic enough to serve as a mirror. He examined his mocha-colored skin, but didn’t see any cuts or bruises and his brown eyes weren’t bloodshot or dilated. He didn’t appear to be injured at all. “Of course, if I am hallucinating, then I’m hardly the right person to make such a judgment.” 

Luke felt a small tremor run through the ground, then another. After a moment he realized that each tremor was accompanied by a heavy thud, each was successively getting louder… and closer. Hesitantly he stepped out of the shadow of the enclosure he was in. After his eyes adjusted to the suddenly bright light, he was finally able to look around. 
At first he didn’t know what to make of his surroundings. On every side we massive wooden and metal structures that rose up into the air above him. It looked like he’d stepped into the middle of a down town street, minus the traffic. But then, as he took a closer look, things became all the more bizarre. 

The skyscrapers around him weren’t buildings, they were shelves. Shelves with massive glass boxes filled with wildlife, like some sort of strange horizontal zoo. And far, far above him was not the sky, but a ceiling. He was inside a room. A room more massive than any sports stadium or cathedral he could recall. 

“What the f…” He was interrupted by another tremor, this one the biggest by far. He looked to his left and saw, down at the end of the row of shelves, a massive woman coming around the corner. She was only slightly shorter than the shelves she seemed to be inspecting. 

Except for her extraordinary size, the woman herself was rather plain looking. She was wearing a plain red shirt and a tan ankle-length skirt, with a pair of utilitarian brown leather sandals on her feet. Her hair was very curly, chocolate brown and cut just below her shoulders. Her skin was pale ivory colored and she looked like she spent a lot of time indoors. She was, if the expression can be used without irony, mousy looking. She wasn’t unattractive by any means; but, if she were of a less awe-inspiring stature, would probably be the kind of person who fades unobtrusively into the background. 

However, her scale did much to command attention, as Luke was quickly reminded when she turned and began thundering her way in his direction. At first he was frozen with fear as he watched those sandal clad feet, each roughly the size of a minivan, plod casually down the aisle towards him. After a moment he snapped out of his daze and realized that he probably did not want to be found. Who knows what the building sized woman would do to him if he found himself in her possession?

So he quickly slid back into the shadow of the shelf and ducked behind the column-like leg of the structure. He hoped that he could remain hidden even if she did happen to look underneath the shelf.

The tremors continued sporadically and after a moment the right foot of the giantess (adorned with a sparkly silver anklet) landed within his view, followed quickly by the left. The two appendages remained still for a moment, but Luke was at a loss as to the reason why. 

The shadow cast on the ground by the overhead lighting deepened and the lady’s right hand, decorated by four rings and two bracelets, appeared and grasped the protruding edge of the coffin-thing between its finger and thumb. It then rose back into the air, taking the odd device with it. 

“Oh no.” Luke heard the giantess mutter to herself. “One of them has gone missing. I wonder if those kids took it?” There was a scraping sound as the feet shuffled back, followed by a dull thud as the giantess lowered herself on to her knees. 

Luke didn’t watch the rest of the spectacle as the giantess continued to lower herself to the floor. Instead he concealed himself completely behind the shelf-leg, knowing that even as much as a toe being visible might be enough to give him away to the colossus. 

With massive eyes the color of polished amber, the giantess peered into the dusty shadows beneath the shelf. There was a scraping sound of her jewelry dragging across the ground as she swept her arm underneath, seeking any sign of the missing human. 

Without really thinking about it, Luke scrambled up the column he was hiding behind, using rough patches and splinters in the woodwork for purchase. It was a good thing too, because no sooner had he done so than the woman’s hand- which was as wide as he was tall, twice as long and adorned with three foot long talons that were painted a deep burgundy- slid to his side of the shelf and wrapped itself around the table leg where he’d been standing moments before. As it was, the woman’s fingers were mere centimeters below his feet and close enough that he could smell the perfume anointed on her wrist. 

For a few tense seconds they stayed that way, as he clung desperately to the wood and tried not to slip, despite his sweating palms. After what seemed an eternity, an irritated sigh escaped the giant lips (sending up a small dust cloud in the process) and the hand retreated back into the light, followed by the rest of the gigantic form rising out of sight. 
Luke slid gratefully back to the floor, certain that had the giantess stayed that way another moment, he would have (literally) slipped right into her grasp. 

“Well,” The giantess grumbled resignedly, “I guess there’s nothing else to do but set out the live traps and hope the little thing stumbles in to one. Assuming it’s still in the shop, of course.” 

There was another series of rumbling tremors as the titanic woman retreated to the back room of the store. Luke knew better than to celebrate though. He’d managed to dodge the bullet this time, but he knew whatever nightmare he’d now found himself in was just beginning.