Millie’s Collection
A Flash Fiction
By Dann
The air was stale and warm and stuck to the skin like an unwelcome embrace. Lucas couldn't remember how long he had been stuck in the thick cellophane prison Millie had placed him in, but it was long enough that he'd stopped sweating and no longer had the energy or the will to fight.
He felt cold now, cold and tired. He knew that was probably a very bad thing, but the haze choking his mind didn't allow concern or fear to seep through.
Millie was Veronica's bestie and had been for as long as either could remember. Striking raven black hair, thick red lips like fire, thin angular eyebrows and an almost permanent grin painted on a confident, sharp, elegant face. All of this, packed into a petite, willowy frame. She carried herself with a confidence bordering on arrogance, each step she took a subtle display of power and poise.
Veronica, in contrast, was bright, with eyes radiating brilliance and kindness. Light brown, wavy hair and eyes green like emeralds.
Lucas never meant to hurt her. He wanted the breakup to be amiable, but they rarely were. Time had worked to their disadvantage, taking a strong, passionate love and withering it away to a dry husk. Neither of them had felt that spark of excitement for months.
He'd thought he was doing her a favor, setting her free, rather than keeping her tied down to a dying relationship.
Veronica hadn't seen it that way, neither had Millie.
He had tried to worm his way to the top of the card sleeve, one of many compartments on a vast sheet of clear translucent plastic designed to hold a collection of cards, the only exit at the top. His own sweat had worked to his advantage, and for a while he was making decent progress.
Progress stifled that is, by Millie. She'd caught him after what had to be hours of monotonous squirming and wiggling, and with a single manicured, glossy blue painted nail guided his slick, wet body back down to the bottom, tapping an enormous forefinger against the outside of his cell, then stood the binder housing his prison up vertical, and that was the end of that.
It had been a while since she'd come to check on him.
His mouth was dry, his face stuck to the cellophane, as the pressure of pages and pages of card sleeves pressed against him on both sides.
The still, stale silence was deafening, with only the odd muffled hints of life from the outside world to break the maddening solitude.
He thought about Veronica, when last they'd spoken, she had already erased any evidence of his existence from her social media. He tried to convince himself they could remain friends, but Ronnie wasn't even willing to acknowledge his status as a human being, let alone any trace of a doomed friendship.
Mille had never really been standoffish. Sure, when they first started dating, she kept Lucas at a safe distance, but eventually they'd really connected and for a while he'd actually felt like he fit in with Ronnie's inner circle. She'd never played the cold, ruthless best friend card, never threatened to ‘ruin him’ if he hurt her. None of that.
So, when he woke up, the size of a bug, her brilliant grey eyes staring down at him, a grin of superiority painted on her crimson lips, he was shocked to say the least.
He tried to beg, plead, bargain even. If he could just get her to see things his way. He wasn't hurting Veronica, he was setting her free. They were miserable together, clearly she could see that? As Ronnie's best friend, it was her duty to want the best for her bestie, this was for the best.
But she didn't care, she didn't waste breath on conversation, and she didn't falter no matter how much he begged.
Maybe she snuck the tincture into a dink of his, maybe she'd paid somebody to do it? Maybe it was via injection, it didn't matter. She had given him a large enough dose to reduce him to a fraction of his former size, likely as small as a quarter of an inch at most.
He'd thought maybe people would come looking for him, notice his parked car or a build up of mail in his mailbox? Maybe they would even consider his recent breakup and track him to Millie.
No such luck.
Anger lead to despair, despair lead to panic, panic lead to hope, and hope faded away to apathy.
He'd given up screaming, his voice was raw and hoarse.
He'd stopped trying to poke a hole through the indestructible plastic, his fingers were sore and bloody.
He'd stopped trying to climb, his limbs were spent, noodley and weak.
He was ready to close his eyes and surrender to the welcoming void, when the thunder and quake of Millie’s approach brought life to his sunken eyes.
Chaos, sickening movement, then blinding light shocked him awake, as Millie held the binder before her, looking down at her prize with a smug, victorious grin.
“And how's my little Peanut? Surprised to see you still kicking. That's almost admirable.” Her normally shrill, high, nasally voice was now slow, loud and deeply bass. There had to be some sort of time dilation causing all her movements words to come across as slow and sluggish.
Size alone explained the tone and volume.
“Please…” Lucas tried to speak, his words sticking to the cotton texture of his throat and mouth.
Mille reached toward him with a finger longer and thicker than he could ever imagine, and with the pad of a well manicured finger, tapped on the outer layer of plastic directly over him. The force felt like he had been tackled by a professional rugby star, leaving him breathless and sore.
Three taps, each as painful as the one before, then her hand pulled away, blurring until it too was gone, removed from his line of sight, removed from his world.
“I don't normally get the pleasure of enjoying my victims so wholly and completely, so thank you for that, Lucas.” Millie’s thick red lips curled into an almost appreciative smile, eyes closing momentarily as she nodded.
He hated her so much, he managed to ball a weak hand into a limp fist, but lacked the strength to hold it together.
“That bitch Amber, you remember, the abusive supervisor that wouldn't ever approve Ronnie's time off, she only lasted three days.” Millie mused, standing to her full height, her features blurring as she moved further out of Luca's world.
“Jack, her last rotten boyfriend made it almost a week. I guess all those ‘sick gains’ weren't enough for her gym bro to break through my collection?”
Luca was starting to understand, there had been clues, in retrospect, but he had been too oblivious to connect the dots.
“After Alex, you remember her deadbeat stepfather right? You'll be the longest. That's almost enough to buy my respect…if you weren't such a skumbag to begin with, I mean.” She laughed, he remembered this laugh, shrill and sharp. It sounded so much different now, slow, dreadful, with a sense of finality.
“I'm sorry…please…” like a dying fish, Lucas mouth opened and closed with very little sound escaping and definitely not loud enough to penetrate his confines.
“All held on to hope, but I bet you all regret hurting my Ronnie! Remember, nobody crosses my bestie, not on my watch.” Millie’s final words dripped out a drop of tar-pitch, hanging in the air long after she'd finished. “You're a welcomed addition to my little collection, you'll dry out nicely.”
Lucas felt the last remnant of hope fizzle into the aether, before his view of Millie’s arrogant face faded and the binder housing the skeletal remains of countless victims closed, returning him to the all consuming darkness.
***
Millie ran a thin, dainty hand across the velvety black cover of her binder, red letters standing out boldly with the words, “Millie’s Book”. Her eyes lazily scanned over the cover as her phone buzzed beside her, drawing her attention.
A text from Veronica read, “I really miss him…why do men suck so much, Mil?”
Millie exhaled slowly, savoring the velvity cover of her binder before sliding her hand across the cover, long painted nails scratching the textured surface. She took up her phone, quickly typing on her reply before setting the phone aside and letting out a soft sigh. “I'm sorry, sweetie. Want to get coffee and talk about it? I'm here for you, always.”
It was a solid minute before her phone buzzed once more, a frown growing in her crimson lips.
“Can't, boss wouldn't give me the week off. I have to work. Sorry.”
Millie balled her hand into a white knuckled grip, and mumbled softly, “Is that so...huh, we'll see about that..."