Thought I might just write little more than just a little gem. No rhyme or reason, just a really good macro squash scene. Anyway, onto the story. Enjoy. ~Siclary Squish Simplicity He was lost in an unknown wood. He’d been following a path all day, hoping to find his way out. The path presently though had brought him to a golf-course-sized clearing. He was exhausted from his day’s walk, his legs hurt and his stomach was empty. He decided to camp here in this clearing for the night then. He needed rest. Aside from that, he’d never be able to find his way out of these woods at night. Twilight was already encroaching from the west. He made himself a bed then of pine needles and leaves. He made his bed next to the thickest tree at the edge of the clearing. He made his bed extra thick too. He planned on sleeping inside the bed, instead of on it like a mat. He secreted himself into his bed and was soon fast asleep, utterly exhausted, his body and his mind numbed from the days trek, and some very disturbing discoveries that he had made too. During his sleep he dreamed of the unusual and disturbing depressions that he’d discovered during his trek that day. They were pawprints, or so they looked. It was impossible that they were, but they were. Each one was well over twenty feet wide and well more than two feet deep. They were unmistakable. In the depressions even, was the impression of ridges, the ridges that normally exist on the bottom of a foot. There were the claw depressions too. From the general shapes of the tracks, they were made by a wolf, or wolves. But how could any wolf be so huge? It would be a skyscraper of an animal! One or more of them though, nevertheless evidently existed. This was why he’d chosen to make his bed next to this tree and the inside of his mat of pine needles and leaves. He feared being found in his sleep, discovered by one of these marauding wolves and eaten. The tree was chosen to lessen his chances being accidentally stepped on too; being eaten wasn’t the only danger with wolves so huge. The next morning found him holding completely still. He had awakened to a soft but nonetheless deep thud and the sound of earth compressing under what sounded like a giant’s tread. He slowly lifted his veil of leaves and looked out. He gasped. Not ten feet from his bed was one of the pawprints! He’d nearly been trodden on as he was just waking up! What’s more, the maker of the track was standing not fifty yards away! Just then his bed fell away from his head and shoulders with a leafy rattle. He froze. The maker of the tracks did too. The creature was massive! Moreover, it was a wolf, but it wasn’t a wolf either! It stood like a man. It was nevertheless a wolf! It had a wolf’s head, a wolf’s fur, their distinctive gray markings, and even their bushy tail! Moreover, its feet were paws, but huge paws! It stood erect on digitigrade legs. Its legs were shaped like the back legs of a wolf. This creature nevertheless stood upright, like a man. Aside from the utter impossibility of its existence, this creature was a fantastic nightmare. It stood naturally, its pose relaxed if alert, but it stood! What manner of evolution could this be? Or more appropriately, what freak of nature has spawned this entity? The creature’s right ear canted slowly back and its tail froze in place. The little man in his bed of leaves began to tricklishly piss himself. The wolf slowly turned its massive head around, and then it turned around. The ground shuddered under the creature’s turning feet, and their eyes met! The man froze in abject horror, hoping beyond hope that the wolf-thing was looking at something else! Those eyes, yellow with dark pupils, horrifying. Their fixation upon him was horrifying enough. What was even more horrifying than its eyes or the fact that it had spotted him, but that they were filling with an unmistable glee! The man hoped beyond hope that the wolf was looking at anything other than him! The wolf-thing wasn’t though! It started towards him! The man looked at those feet. Each one lifted then settled back down. Its toes spread and the foot sank two feet into the ground! And the creature had a yards-eating stride! It was walking right towards him! He was nevertheless frozen, his fear making him utterly unable to move! He knew too in his terror that he’d never be able to out-distance this creature! It could simply push aside trees too if he chose to run into the woods! The man was doomed. The looks in those eyes spelled it! Just then the wolf-thing was over him. What’s more, it was grinning doggishly down at his tiny self, wolf ears pinned forward and its mouth open grinningly and its tongue panting out. Those eyes, they were smoky with its terrifying glee. The creature towered goliathly over the stricken man, grinning down at him with its delicious discovery of him. This was a dog that has found a plaything, not one about to eat something. Was he to not be eaten then? What then, a chew toy? Or what else? Those eyes suggested an intelligence within, if a malicious intelligence. He was to be used then, for the creature's pleasure? But what for? There was little that a man his size could be used for! It was a killing intelligence then! The creature meant to kill him! And then, the wolf-thing began making its intentions clear. It was going to kill him by stepping on him! It lifted its massive right foot, its towering, huge body swayed then all the world and its eyes were blotted out by the bottom of its great foot! The toepads, each were four times as large as his head! The center greatpad, it was utterly expansive to him! The fur in between the toes and framing the great foot, the roughness of its sole, its sheer size, the reality of it… the foot was huge! The man lied and whimpered and uttered the word, “No…” The foot drew near, eclipsing everything including its murderous owner. The man smelled the overwhelming scent of lupine, felt the presence; the presence was palpable. All became the bottom of this creature’s foot then. The omnipresent scent of wolf, the palpable nearness of its sole, then it touched down over him, and began to press him down into his bed of pine needles and leaves. The bowls of the undersides of the toes pressed down into the soil. Light was soon squeezed out; darkness prevailed, and along with it, the feel of the bottom of the killer's foot. The sole of it was moist and forest-cool. It was also rough. The man found himself turning his head to the side, and the sole of the greatpad pressing its ridged self down against his cheek, pressing the rest of his body down beneath it too. From over the oppressive foot, the man heard a muffled but excited growl, and then everything became utterly and staggeringly intense! The murderous wolf began to press down! The man felt his chest begin to compress, felt the cool loam of the forest floor push up into his other cheek. He was going to be crushed! He uttered with a barely audible squeal, “Mommeeee!” Right after that, the hard, nearly unsupple, black and leathery undersurface of the foot bent over his staggeringly fragile frame, and then he felt himself begin to break. “Oh God no!” flashed through the man’s brain the instant before he felt his guts squirrel out from in between his legs, and he felt his body flatten. In the hell of the mind-numbing pain of being rhuthlessly squashed like a bug, the man heard the ground begin to compress under and all around him under this giant as its foot took all of its murderous and tremendous weight. He heard a muffled howl of triumph, and then his consciousness faded away. He was crushed into the deep track of this malicious and sadistically cruel wolf-like-thing, crushed like an insect for the pleasure of this thing. -END