Content
“Getting around as a tiny is such a pain!” Rachel complained, though she made a conscious effort to keep her voice down. Even at her current size, sound tended to carry through the open, empty chambers of the shrinking facility. “This room is enormous! We’ve been walking for ten minutes and we’re only halfway across!”
“It’s been about thirty seconds, but you have a point,” Dave replied. “At least we were small enough to fit under the door- and find the right room.”
“Yeah, I guess things could always be worse,” she scoffed. “That ‘QX6’ stuff better be at the bottom of the cabinet or else we’ll never reach it.”
Rachel hadn’t exactly been in a good mood the last couple days, but after being shrunken, eaten and shit out, that was to be expected. Dave sort of envied his former captor in a way: she was too busy being annoyed and angry to be scared. While he listened to her grumblings, his mind continued to contemplate the knowledge that any slightest mistake or setback at this point could cost them what little chance at life they had left.
Honestly, though, for how unlucky the two of them were, it had been pretty fortunate that Sarah had put her backpack down just outside the room where the tinies were kept. It had made it pretty easy for them to sneak into the next room over, where they had been told they would find their cure- well, Rachel’s cure anyway.
“Finally!” the girl exclaimed, having arrived at the conspicuous cabinet sitting against the far wall. She stuck her tiny arms into the crack between the doors. “Come on! On three.”
Dave walked up next to her and grabbed on as well.
“One. Two. Three!”
The two tinies pulled with all their strength. Fortunately, the cabinet wasn’t actually that big and the hinges were well oiled. They felt the door begin to open, inching slowly and silently as they strained.
“There it is!” Dave said, as a bit of light illuminated the contents. Sitting inside, right in front of them, were two plastic trays and one of them was clearly imprinted with the label “QX6”.
Rachel immediately abandoned the door and pulled herself up onto the cabinet floor, followed quickly by Dave, after he made sure that the door wouldn’t close on them.
“This is it,” she said. The plastic tray had a series of dimples in it, each one containing a tiny plastic capsule filled with blue liquid.
“How are you supposed to take those?” Dave asked. While they were considerably smaller than your average pill, they were still almost a third her size.
“Erm…” she hopped up onto the tray and walked to the nearest pill, examining it closely. Her eyes were caught by the area where the two halves of the capsule overlapped. “Maybe I could…”
She crouched down and put her fingers against the surface, feeling the lip, and tried to dig in. She could feel the plastic deform a bit as she pushed, leaving just enough room for her digits to start to slip inside.
“Ugh… er… almost… Got it!” She had made a tiny hole in the shell, and little drops of the substance inside immediately started dripping through. She quickly hunched over and put her mouth under the opening.
“…BLECH!! Oh, that’s so gross!” she gagged. She shook her head as if trying to fight off the taste but then swallowed reluctantly. After almost tearing up at the sensation of it slipping down her throat, she quickly stuck her head back under for another dose, showing clearly that she was much more eager to get back to normal than she was put off by the flavor. This repeated, over and over for a number of minutes, until Dave finally spoke up.
“That’s probably enough,” he said. “If that little pill is a normal amount for a full-sized person, you probably only need a few drops at your size.”
“Not taking any chances,” she said between gags as she prepared for another mouthful.
Dave shrugged and let his gaze drift, first over the other tablets, and then over the other tray. That’s when he noticed the pills in that tray were different; they were a different color and shape- plus they seemed solid. He peered through the limited light.
“DE13?” he read off the tray.
“Huh?”
“Those other pills aren’t the same. They say DE13.”
“So?”
“Well these two trays are the only things in this cabinet, and we know the QX6 pills are supposed to reverse recent shrinking. Maybe these other ones have something to do with the other cure that guy mentioned. The one that could help me get back to normal.”
“Yeah, could be- blech- you wanna try taking one?” Rachel asked between drips.
“Not sure how I could, these things are way too big- and they look solid as a rock,” he said walking over to them. “Plus the guy said getting me back to normal would be more ‘involved’. Just taking a pill seems pretty straight forward.”
“Are they heavy?” she asked. Dave tried to lift one up; to his surprise it was fairly light, if a bit bulky.
“No,” he replied, setting it back down.
“Then let’s take one with us just in case. Maybe we can find something to chip it with later and you can swallow a tiny piece.”
“Good idea.” He looked away from the pill and back at Rachel, quickly noticing the expression on her face. “I really think you should stop,” he said. “That stuff won’t do you any good if you end up puking it back up.” Rachel glanced at him sideways, clearly a bit sick, and felt a wave of nausea come over her.
“Yeah… ugh… that’s probably a good idea too.” She backed away from the pill, struggling for a moment to keep her stomach contents down. “Well, grab that thing already. We need to get back to the bag before Sarah leaves.”
…
“You sure you know what you’re doing?” Dave asked.
“Oh yeah, I know this school like the back of my hand. There are a million places we could hide.” Rachel motioned with said hand as she walked quickly down the empty hall. With classes having started, there was no one in sight.
Dave began to follow behind, clutching the DE13 pill in his arms. He had felt exposed from the second they had left the backpack. He glanced nervously at the doors as they passed by, worried that someone might open one and see them… and that that someone might be a hungry kid. After all this was the school that Rachel and Sarah went to, for all he knew there could be dozens of kids like them.
“Can we hurry up and get to one of those hiding places, then?”
“Don’t worry I have just the place in mind…”
Dave followed her through the many hallways, around bends and under doors, over a number of different types of floors, until she led him underneath one final door and into a secluded room lined with shelves.
“Is this… is this a pantry?” Dave asked.
“Yup, this is where the school stores a bunch of its food,” Rachel replied proudly as they stood before the looming towers of shelved provisions. She had seen the staff go in and out many times and had always wondered what it looked like inside. She’d considered sneaking in a few times, but never like this.
“But won’t people keep coming in here? Isn’t there anywhere more private we could hide?” Dave asked.
“Well, yeah, but aren’t you kinda hungry?”
“Uh… a little bit I guess.”
“Well I’m starving,” Rachel replied. She started towards the closest box she could find; some kind of cereal by the look of it.
“But what about people coming in and seeing us?”
“At our size we can hide in here no problem, don’t worry about it. Just help me get this box open.”
…
Somewhere in a dark, secluded corner of the pantry, Rachel lay asleep, a huge, satisfied grin on her face, dreaming happily of tasty treats as she basked in the feeling of a stuffed belly. She had passed out after gorging herself on just about everything she could fit into her tiny body, now content to let the hours drift by as she rested.
That is until she was suddenly startled awake. She opened her eyes quickly and immediately became aware of the movement against her belly; something was frantically pushing and shoving, trying to move her from her otherwise comfortable position. A moment later and she realized that she was laying face-down, which quickly led to the realization that she was laying on top of something. She let herself roll over and then looked to the side to see what had been under her.
“…Dave?” she asked, rubbing her eyes.
“Maybe I need to be a little more careful when I wake you up,” he muttered, catching his breath.
“But… why are you…” Rachel muttered back. She sat up, still a bit hazy from her nap. “Wait… It’s working!” she exclaimed. A smile crept onto her face.
“It’s working alright,” Dave replied.
Rachel looked at him for a moment as he got back to his feet. The last time she had seen him he had been taller than her, now she was almost twice his size.
“That’s what I wanted to tell you; you’re growing so much that you’re tearing right out of the doll clothes. I was worried they might start hurting or something.”
Rachel looked down at herself. The miniature shirt and pants she had been wearing had numerous large tears and the stronger parts of the clothing were digging into her skin, causing sizable indents which, now that she had noticed them, were very uncomfortable. She reached out and tugged gently at one of the tightest parts, trying to alleviate the pressure, but ended up snapping the taut fabric like an old rubber band. Shrugging, she proceeded to rip off the rest of the painfully small clothes. Just as she was finishing, she felt a distinct shift in her belly, accompanied by a loud rumble.
*gurgle*
“Geeze, I’m starving,” she said, getting onto her feet. She could now just barely stand under the shelf where she had fallen asleep.
“You’re still hungry? But you ate so much!” Dave replied.
“Yeah, it’s weird; tinies never eat this much, but-” *gurgle* “Yeah, I’m really hungry.” Rachel walked out from under the shelf and took a quick look around the room. She spied a loaf of bread, nearby at her level, and immediately grabbed it, ripping open the plastic and taking a large bite out of the first slice.
“Mmmmm,” she hummed as she chewed. Then she quickly swallowed and took another bite. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt this hungry before,” she mumbled over the food in her mouth.
*gulp*
“Oh, the tiny raisins in those little boxes would really hit the spot right now. Think you could grab me some?”
“Um… sure, Rachel,” Dave replied uneasily.
…
“No really, I think I figured it out,” Dave said, rolling another orange to Rachel’s feet.
“What this time?” she sputtered between mouthfuls.
“When you were shrinking you were unconscious for like a week, and you didn’t eat a thing- but you didn’t starve to death. So maybe your body was, I don’t know, eating itself or something as you shrank. Now that you’re growing, you must need a ton of food to build yourself back up.”
“Well, it makes more sense than your last idea,” she replied, stuffing a handful of chips into her mouth.
“And yours,” Dave countered. Rachel seemed too busy inhaling all the food around her to bother with a reply.
For the last two and a half days, they had spent most of their time in that room. With Rachel alternately gorging herself and then passing out to grow another few inches. She was the size of a young child now, though with all the coordination of her actual age. She wasn’t able to crawl under doors anymore, but she was just tall enough now to reach the handles by jumping, which was good, because all this eating meant frequent trips to the girl’s room.
They’d had a couple close calls, narrowly avoiding a few others in the hallways and nearly getting caught when someone opened the pantry to get a few supplies, but so far, they had been reasonably lucky. And with the day’s classes having ended hours ago, they were well past the point of danger for that day.
Knowing this, Rachel was making no effort to avoid a mess as she continued to stuff her face. She moved frantically, grabbing items off shelves, tearing open bags and boxes. Only the food in cans was safe- and that wasn’t for lack of trying.
Poor Dave had been relegated to a sort of waiter, pushing various items into the growing girl’s reach as she devoured everything in sight. An apple from over there, a bottle of water from over here. As Rachel grew taller, she started gaining access to higher shelves, but Dave, at his size, could still climb without fear of falling, so when Rachel wanted something from high up, she practically begged him for it. Dave had been reduced to the point where he didn’t even resist anymore. After all, the faster she ate, the faster she fell asleep so he could have a break. Not to mention the faster she grew, the sooner they’d be able to leave.
Rachel snatched the orange from the ground, unwittingly knocking Dave over in the process. She shoved the fruit into her mouth and bit down, not even bothering to peel it.
“Sorry,” he thought he heard her say through the mouthful, but if she had apologized, she hadn’t even bothered to look in his direction.
This is crazy, he thought, she’s like an eating machine!
Within a few seconds, the orange was gone, and she had snatched up another box of raisins- hardly even looking at where her hands were going. She tore it open and dumped the contents into her mouth.
*gurgle* *glorp*
*nom* *nom* *gulp*
In truth, all Rachel could think about was filling the ever-present hole in her gut. It felt like she was dumping each mouthful into a bottomless abyss, hardly able to take the next bite before she felt the last one dissolve into nothing. All her attention went to chewing as fast as possible while her hands vaguely searched for and picked up the next bit of food.
In the back of her mind she did feel bad for all the work she was putting Dave through, but she rationalized that it was a small price to pay for their freedom. And it’s not like it would kill him.
“Hey!” she heard him yelp as she felt the back of her hand knock against something solid while taking hold of her next snack. She felt an internal pang of guilt, realizing that she had probably just knocked him over again for the umpteenth time. But once again her urge to fill her aching belly outweighed her urge to apologize. So instead of speaking she just stuck the next food item into her mouth, sucking it deep inside as her hand withdrew.
She froze when she felt it wriggle.
Rachel looked down at her mouth to see a pair of legs flailing from between her lips, a familiar form pounding against her tongue. Her eyes widened.
Immediately, she brought her hand up and tore Dave out of her mouth, probably a bit more roughly than necessary. Emotion flooded her face: fear, remorse, embarrassment. She stared down at him, clenched in her fist as he wiped the drool from his face.
*gurgle* went her stomach. A thought went through her head: the thought that she could have easily just sent him down there, that she would have enjoyed it if she had. She felt a pang of self-hatred and mentally cursed at her gluttonous belly.
“I thought you were really gonna swallow me again for a second,” Dave said, settling his nerves.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it, I swear!” Rachel blurted out.
“Relax, I’m just happy you didn’t.”
*gurgle*
“It’s okay, you can keep eating, I’ll just stay out of your way.”
“Actually… I… I think I’m gonna try and sleep some of this off,” she replied.
*glorp*
Shut it, stomach! she scolded internally.
“Oh, alright… think you could put me down?”
“Right! Sorry!” she said, quickly releasing him as carefully as she could. She turned away from him and shuffled off to a distant corner, hoping that she could ignore her belly long enough to actually fall asleep.