Thomas-Crumb, DeviantArt. Chase Tinys. https://www.deviantart.com/thomas-crumb/art/Chase-Tinys-641499351.

Content warning;
violence

It's the little people.

I know they exist. I know they run and hide when they see me. I know they live in the bottom section of the metal cupboards in my living room. Whenever a little person scurries past, I always pretend not to see them. I'll avert my gaze to a different object, or change what I'm doing so it seems they go unnoticed.

And having little people around my apartment wouldn't be so bad if they weren't such pests.

Foods have gone stale because they tear holes in the packaging, ingredients I use for cooking are rearranged or missing, and clothing and other cloths have bits torn off and removed. Sometimes I even see them spying on me from various spots, but because I pretend not to see them they're all pretty bad at hiding.

Until one day it changed.

I start my days off with a cup of coffee each and every morning. When I make my way to the kitchen, I find that the bag of coffee beans I stored away has been torn open. My fingers find a bean in the bag and I can tell immediately they've gone stale. Great. The hole in the bag is just like every other hole I find; a few punctures with a sewing needle (also stolen) and then cut along to make a gap that can be pulled apart, about as wide as my finger or conveniently the size of one of the little people.

Deciding coffee is no longer an option, I sigh and turn around to go back to my bedroom through the living room when I spot a little person moving along the floor, a single coffee bean clutched in his hands. He turns around and looks at me, freezing in the middle of the walkway between the rooms. I roll my eyes internally and avert my gaze as I start to walk back to my bedroom. Within only three steps, I'm already right beside the little man.

My shadow looms over the lone individual and he drops the bean with an audible yelp. I lift my right foot, and I'm about to step past him when a new feeling comes over me; a feeling I've always wanted to try. My foot shifts from beside the little man to directly over him, and I lower it to the floor without crushing him. I feel him wiggling and beating against the ball of my foot and, as I close my eyes, I push my foot into the floor and feel a warm splatter across the sole of my foot. Slowly, I twist my foot from side to side and grind the little man's remains into the ground. Once I remove my foot, a single red stain on the floor marks the end of his life.

The feeling washes over me again and I realise it's not a dawning of dread, but a dawning of power.

Eager to experience the power once again, I enter the living room and my eyes snap over to the metal cupboards against the far wall and my gaze settles on the bottom compartment.