title: Cyclical aliases: [] tags: [FA] author: [ArgentVZ] id: [35205474] date: 星期五, 八月 26日 2022, 10:48:43 上午 modified: 星期三, 八月 31日 2022, 12:39:34 下午
[TOC]
Cyclical
One moment, Aiden had simply been minding his own business, idly chatting with a few other similarly shrunken people. In the next, over half of their number were simply erased by the colossal, navy-toned paw that descended from the heavens like a living meteor.
However, calling the dragon’s foot a “meteor” implied an object impacting with incredible velocity; Cal’s step was anything but. It was nothing more than one of the usual, casual strides he took when pacing around his home. What was different was the fact that he was looking for something—or rather, someone. And as his emerald-tinted eyes squinted to study the tiny contrasting dots sent scattering from the force of his paw’s impact, he seemed to find who he was seeking.
Aiden and the dozen-or-so people around him were sent tumbling away from the scaly foot as it boomed down in their midst, both from the air displaced by the titan’s paw and the incredible jolt that its impact shot through the floor. When the human’s slide finally ended, he found himself bruised and battered—but very much alive. However, as he turned his eyes upward, he couldn’t be sure as to how long he’d remain that way.
The expression cast across the face of the living mountain looming over Aiden’s head made the human’s next breath catch deep within his chest. He didn’t know how the dragon had seen him; yet, there he was, focusing his gaze down upon his speck-sized “pet,” his jaw rigidly set as if he scales were made of solid steel.
Calling Cal “colossal” almost seemed like an understatement—although, more accurately, Aiden was the unnaturally sized one. His reptilian master had simply shrunken him, as well as a few others, to a more “manageable” size. Many, many others had done the same—leading to the massive population of both “free” and “owned” micros. Being in the latter group didn’t make Aiden feel any better as the sharp-eyed titan above spoke, his voice rolling over the clusters of specks in waves nearly as strong as his footfall.
“Oh. So that’s where you got off to.”
His tone was passive, yet had a faint edge that sent a minute shiver down Aiden’s spine. He’d been under the dragon’s “care” for long enough to recognize the subtle nuances in his sky-rending voice. The human thought he knew them all: pleased or dissatisfied, gentle or rough, playful or ruthless, and so many more. However, Cal had managed to occupy territory that the human had little experience with.
The realization terrified him. He didn’t know what to expect from the dragon.
“W-wait, I-I-I can explain!” Aiden stammered, forgetting about those around him and pretending as though the godlike being above could actually hear him. Sometimes, it seemed as though Cal could. Unfortunately for him, now was clearly not one of those times.
The dragon’s impartial, firm glare studied the little group of “ants” with a similar expression to what he’d use looking at those actual insects. Under it, many of still living froze, as if their legs had withered away into nothingness. Several did manage to gather their wits enough to start running.
But they didn’t make it far. Without any fanfare or warning, the colossus lifted his paw, only to calmly set it down atop the little mites a moment later.
Cal felt nothing but smooth, hardwood floor beneath his sole as his scales pressed down. The dragon let his weight settle, and then slowly drew his paw up from the floor. Having caught the faint flicker of more fleeing specks against the brown-toned surface, he lowered his foot a second time.
The titan’s paw eased down with the creeping inevitability of a steamroller, squeezing those beneath its weight into nothing more than minute smears on his mostly spotless soles. Bits of dust clung to his elegant feet; but, like the bloody stains now dotting his vast sole, they were nearly invisible to the naked eye.
With no more movement from around his feet, the dragon let his toes curl with the faint satisfaction of knowing what he’d done—and how effortlessly he’d done it. Only then did he casually pad away towards his desk to directly deal with his disobedient pet.
While Cal’s steps had been calm and simple from above, they were utterly catastrophic to the minute creatures below him. Aiden didn’t even try to flee as the dragon’s paw rose into the sky above him. It was a sight he was disturbingly familiar with, and only felt a frigid emptiness in his gut as he realized he was going to have to experience dying yet again. The only faint glimmer of hope he felt was that he was valuable enough to the dragon to be revived…
…and that his death would be swift enough to rob him of feeling anything as Cal’s foot lowered onto him.
Aiden woke up almost instantly, the sensation of his dilating lungs and pounding heart returning to his minute body almost simultaneously. He gasped as his body reflexively twitched in the common motion of the recently resurrected.
The human’s attention was quickly drawn to his new surroundings, however. Rather than the endless miles of floor from before, he now found himself in a much more “populated” area. Familiar desk equipment—a computer monitor, keyboard, lamp, and pair of discarded headphones—loomed disconcertingly in front of him, with a small collection of looser items resting to the human’s rear. A phone, some coins, and a wallet—all on a scale far surpassing his own.
They were all familiar sights, as well as—in some strange way—calming ones. It meant that he was back in reality, alive. Cal had revived him yet again. What was less soothing was the staccato clackclack-clack-clack reverberating from behind and above him. Each repetition filled his ears and shook the wood laminate beneath him.
He’d only known what lay atop his master’s desk from previous experience. Most of it was currently blocked by the looming arch the dragon’s hand formed. Aiden found himself just outside of Cal’s palm’s shadow, in the “V” formed by it and his protruding thumb. The rattling was from his fingers’ motions, performing a rhythmic drumbeat of a gesture whose few meanings heralded nothing good for the human’s immediate future.
Aiden could hardly see the dragon’s face from over the quite-literal wall of his thumb, but read enough from his hand’s movement to know that his owner was less than pleased.
He thought about repeating his earlier plea—but was cut off by Cal’s own voice; it was loud as a thunderclap compared to the cricket-chirp of the human’s.
“I told you to stay put.” His tone had hardly changed from before. Aiden swallowed hard. He knew he’d made a grave mistake. The human tried to open his mouth again, but wasn’t given a chance to reply.
“I expect you to be obedient.” The dragon’s hand scraped backwards across the desk, finally revealing his head. Much like before, Cal’s expression was hard-edged and unwavering. However, Aiden could now make out another facet of the dragon’s appearance in his eyes. His master was…disappointed.
“And hopefully you’ll learn you lesson.” Aiden looked up, and felt his heart skip a beat as he watched the dragon’s index finger unfold above him. It hovered there for a second until it, like the dragon’s paw before it, lowered onto him. This time, the human threw up his hands; it only allowed him to feel his owner’s warm scales for the briefest instant before they ground him into a fine paste.
Cal pressed his finger into his desk, faintly feeling the brittle crinkle of the human’s body as it gave way beneath his digit. He scowled—the dragon didn’t enjoy punishing his pets. He preferred that they be obedient and loyal. But, frustratingly, they never seemed to want to cooperate for long.
The little things had to consistently be reminded of their place. And, as the dragon calmly turned his finger over to study the faint, crimson splotch against its tip, he shifted himself to do just that.
Again, Aiden’s body spasmed as he jolted awake. His little chest shuddered as his heartbeat resumed, and after a few heaving breaths his lungs returned to normal as well. The human shifted up onto his hands, and craned his neck back—only to drop his jaw as he realized what was hovering over him.
From many up-close encounters, the human was intimately familiar with Cal’s feet. That knowledge allowed him to immediately recognize the dragon’s quartet of thick, claw-tipped toes. They hung high in the air, with the one directly over his head feeling like the ready-and-waiting blade of a guillotine. Except that instead of a clean cut, it’d merely smear him out of existence like a rubber eraser against an errant streak of graphite.
Cal seemed to know when his pet had reawakened—as he always did—and gave Aiden just enough time to realize where he was before the massive digit flexed downwards. The tiny human involuntarily put up his hands yet again, but in an even more futile gesture than before. Cal’s toes and paw had far more weight behind them than one finger.
The dragon’s toes hit the floor with a heavy thump, but didn’t savor the feeling of the cool surface for long. Almost immediately, they reversed course as Cal eased his ankle back to lift them back to where they’d started. The dragon watched from above, mildly concentrating as he worked to resurrect his servant in the exact same place as before.
Aiden writhed through his third revival of the day; it began just as uncomfortably and abruptly as the previous two. As his involuntarily spasming ceased, the human noticed that something felt…different. However, his owner seemed totally unwilling to give him any time to mull over the nagging feeling, as within seconds of being resurrected the dragon’s toes descended once more.
The human glanced upwards just in time to watch Cal’s toes whump down atop him, smearing his minute body to a nearly-unnoticeable splotch of gore on the dragon’s heavy digit.
Cal sighed as he lifted his toes back into the air. There was no need to check if he’d flattened the little human; at the speck’s current size, missing him was nearly impossible. He focused again to revive his pet, but this time gave Aiden hardly a second to reacquaint himself with the land of the living before the dragon’s paw rolled forward yet again. The tiny thing ended up squashed beneath Cal’s toes for the third time—and it certainly wasn’t to be the last.
Over and over, Cal repeated the cycle. His toes lifted and lowered, lifted and lowered; all the while leaving Aiden beneath them in his own repeated cycle of death and “rebirth.” He was flattened beneath the dragon’s toes and revived as they lifted, only to die yet again as they plunged down onto him. The uncertainty from before disappeared as his world became Cal’s colossal toes, which seemed to grow larger and larger with each successive cycle.
It was just the opposite, however—he was shrinking. His mind was simply too shattered from being endlessly crushed and revived to notice the signs. The wood grain beneath him turned from a roughed texture to uncomfortable ripples, from those grooves to painful deformations, and finally from those ridges into depressions just a hair’s width too shallow to save him from Cal’s world-ending sole.
The dragon’s toe underwent its own transformation in perception as well. The soft scales adorning Cal’s feet became an overlapping surface of keratin plates, losing its smooth, faintly textured appearance. Those scales grew in size as Aiden dwindled, with fewer and fewer able to fill his vision. Double-digits because a dozen, a dozen became ten, ten became five, five became three, and after a mind-numbing amount of repetitions Cal as a whole became something well beyond his ability to perceive. Aiden could only see and feel a single roughened, blue plate. It was all he knew of his master. One wide, textured scale constantly mashing him into the floor, over, and over, and over again, its thooming impacts the idle rhythm of his endless demise…
The final time Aiden awoke was in a cold sweat, his mind addled from what seemed like an eternity of punishment beneath his master’s foot. The past minutes, hours, or days—Aiden couldn’t fathom a single guess as to how long it had truly been—had been overwhelming in every possible sense.
Cal’s feet had become everything he knew. He’d ceased to exist, his body and mind flattened and crushed into a minute stain dozens if not hundreds of times…and as with every other time Cal “punished” his pet, it’d changed him.
The human reached out and managed to claw his way back into reality, the endless cycle of instant death and painful resurrection slowly fading into an uncomfortable, yet sickening, memory. Aiden’s body trembled as the subtle heat emanating from beneath his back warmed his bones. Smoothedged etchings, carved into the faintly yielding surface, scraped against his hands as he rolled onto his front, gasping as his bruised, aching muscles burned from the effort.
And there was the pulsing. Faint to the point of being barely perceptible, it felt akin to the distant, bassy pounding of a massive soundsystem.
It, of course, was one of Cal’s feet—his upturned sole, to be precise. Aiden wasn’t surprised to find himself atop it. The dragon did take immense satisfaction from keeping his pet in very close proximity to them. Aiden figured that the dragon must’ve gently deposited him atop it following his many, many executions. The human shuddered as he briefly fell back into that gut-churning, cyclical thudding that shook him to his very soul…
But just as quickly, he returned to his reality as Cal’s toes idly flexed in his quiet slumber. The rest of his vast sole rippled and shifted in time with the motion, and created little ridges across it— perfect in size for Aiden to nuzzle into under most other circumstances. Now, however, it was a gentle reminder of his master’s softer, more caring side. Even though to any “normal” person Aiden’s position was strange and disgusting, to him it was like a warm, familiar blanket to snuggle into. Its soft texture, comforting warmth, gentle scent—and faintly bitter taste—all combined to remind him of his place.
As well as how much he loved being there.
Aiden planted a soft, thankful kiss on his master’s scales. He doubted the dragon could feel it while soundly asleep; but hoped that in some way, somehow, it’d help Cal to forgive him for his mistake. He was truly thankful to his owner, after all. The dragon could’ve simply left him as a minute fleck of crimson on his blue scales, only a single rung above nonexistence on the tall ladder of life. The fact that he hadn’t meant that Aiden had value.
With this comforting thought, the human curled up on Cal’s smooth sole and fell asleep, pushing his arduous trial into the back of his mind. While it wasn’t the first time he’d been rebroken—and more than likely wouldn’t be the last—he felt more bonded to the dragon after each than ever before.
Just as Cal intended.