In a certain way, I wasn´t even surprised at all that all this happened. Not in the least bit. In fact, it was quite typical that something like that would happen to me, as it seems to be the way of things when it comes to events concerning my very person. And yet I would have honestly never expected THIS to happen...that I would shrink down to a most pitiful size and go on an adventure I could have never dreamed of...
Jon and I have been friends for what seems like an eternity, and I´d even go as far as calling him my very best friend. We always got along wonderfully, like friends are supposed to, and we never even had any major arguments, mainly because of his great personality. And yet we were so different, he and me. For example, Jon was the lucky one when it came to women, and I have given up counting his girlfriends. Well, maybe no one has been worthy of being his girlfriend yet. As for me, I was and still am more the shy and calm type, with Jon being more outgoing at times, but mostly cool and properly behaving. And my shyness was especially visible when it came to women. My admiration for some of them as well as my own humbleness sometimes made me lack the courage to to talk to them, or at least not to get excited while talking to them (I had the bad habit of beginning to stutter while talking to an extremely beautiful girl, for example). Besides, I always wanted to wait for the girl of my dreams, the perfect partner. And at that time my unbelievable story took place, it seemed like my wishes had been fulfilled, as I finally found my first girlfriend, an extremely cute and incredibly kind woman of Japanese origin: Kokoro, a co worker of Jon. Both of them had been good colleagues, yet never romantically involved, and it was merely by chance that I met her one day. Thanks to Jon´s encouragement ("She´s all yours, tiger!"), I managed to talk to her, and the two of us revealed our feelings. And somehow, it happened: we fell in love. All this thanks to Jon. Those words he spoke might have been kinda semi-cool, but that´s just typical for him. Far more self confident than me, and such a great guy. I could not possibly have a greater best friend than him.
And since he and me were best friends - and still are - he was of course the first person I wanted to show the new invention of "Doc". "Doc" was some strange scientist, living somewhere outside our town. Really an odd person, but he was quite a good friend of mine. And as he was somehow a carbon copy of Doc Emmet Brown (not just in terms of looks), he indeed had invented something that gained my interest. Not some fancy machine, no, it was a...pill. A plain looking pill, although it was not an ordinary pill, though. It might have looked like some Aspirin, but in truth, it was a pill that would provide the one to use it with some incredible power...the ability to shrink down in size considerably. At least that´s what the old man claimed. Of course I told him that I found his words...strange, to say the least, but he just smiled and convinced me to give it a try. Like a fortune teller, he promised me that I would have the adventure of a lifetime, and that I would discover the pill´s ability to protect me on my possible adventures.
Fine. Whatever he said. So I was calling Jon, telling him that I had found something interesting and that I would wait in his apartment for his return from work. As a matter of fact, he even had given me a copy of his keys, as he really trusted me, and they came in handy in case of need (i.e. in case he would lock himself out of his own apartment...). Unfortunately, Jon also had a bad habit: he would sometimes forget about some trivial things he has been told (when they don´t have anything to do with his work, for example), and it would be just the same this time, to my great dismay.
Anyway, as I entered his clean and nice looking apartment, I immediately went to the living room and sat down on his cozy couch, eagerly awaiting his return. In fact, I was waiting there for about an hour, and I began to realize that maybe I should have spent the evening with Kokoro instead. But as I´ve already been waiting that long, I decided to overcome the last remaining minutes before his ultimate return as well.
That was when a strange - and in the end stupid - idea entered my mind. Why not try the pill now? Of course, the stupid thing would not work, anyway, but in the unlikely case it would...why not surprise Jon once he got home? Shouting something like "Hey, down there, pal!" while he would be wondering where I was. In case the pill would work, there was one problem, though. "Doc" mentioned that the effects of the pill wold not just be temporary, they would last forever. So I would be doomed to stay tiny forever, unless I would go see "Doc" in order to use his reverse device. He only told me that "it" was still under development, but soon to be completed. I had no idea what it could have been, maybe a machine, a nano-sized pill, or something completely different. But I trust both Jon and "Doc", and I was sure that Jon would help me out and bring me over to "Doc" in case I would really shrink.
"Here goes nothing." I said, taking the pill out of my pocket and popping it into my mouth. I swallowed the small, red chemical thing down quickly, and I stood up from Jon´s couch and looked down my body. Nothing happened at all yet, only that damn taste of of the pill penetrating my nerves. So I was waiting a few minutes, until I realized in disappointment that the pill would not work.
"Just as I thought..." I whispered, and I hoped that Jon would not be mad at me because of all the fuz I made being meaningless in the end.In case he did not forget I was here, that is. And besides, I knew him well enough to tell that he would be mad at me that easily. We were best friends, after all.
But then. Then everything happened so fast that I could barely perceive what was really going on. I suddenly felt in my body, seeming to be everywhere in there, and it caused me to fall on my knees, huffing and puffing. I did not expect this sudden event at all, so the bad surprise of this pain was even more painful to me. I wanted to curse "Doc" for giving me such a dangerous, maybe even lethal thing, but to my surprise, everything around me started to change, making me forget my anger. I felt so dizzy in my head as I slowly perceived this change. Everything around me seemed to be getting bigger and bigger with each passing moment: the couch, the TV-set, the door to Jon´s kitchen, everything. Despite my surprise, I realized that it was not all those things that were changing, it was I who was undergoing a most peculiar change: I was shrinking down, fast and considerably. The proof that "Doc´s" masterpiece and nobel-prize worthy invention was working. That would have been cool per say, but the fact that I was getting smaller and smaller to a degree that made me seem minuscule worried me an awful lot. At long last, I stopped to change size. It might have taken merely a few seconds for the shrinking procedure, but to me, it seemed like time stood still during my fateful alteration. Trembling, I looked around in Jon´s living room, and my face turned pale quickly. The furniture was no longer recognizable as such, instead, his couch, for example, looked like some strange, modern-art like mass that was easily bigger than anything mankind could have created, surpassing even the highest mountains compared to me. Although there were no such things in order to compare, I concluded that I must have been of the size of a mere piece of dust by now. Insignificant, and probably only visible when the light was shining directly on me.
Talk about a plan that backfired...Jon would never be able to see me like that! He would stomp on me without even noticing my presence! My sole slight hope was the fact that his apartment was so clean that it lacked any dust in there, so maybe he would be able to recognize my presence and even my human shape. That, or a miracle were required to solve this desperate situation.
When I heard a thunderous sound coming from Jon´s door, I knew he was returning home. Time of truth. At first, I was in unadulterated shock as the door opened and my best friend "stomped" into his own apartment, looking annoyed because of his job (I was glad that I was still at school, being about 4 years younger than him).
That...was Jon? My best friend? No. That thing...was monstrous! Planet sized! Defying the laws of nature with its sheer size! There could never be a living thing of that unbelievable size! Just looking at his figure made me think that I must have been smaller than one of his pores, according to my surprise and shock concerning my best friend´s size. Man...he could have easily crushed me, swallowed me, inhaled me...anything without him even noticing me.
As I expected, Jon didn´t even raise his voice in order to yell my name, indicating that he simply forgot about our meeting here. So he truly had no idea that I was here. That made my situation even worse, because with Jon having forgotten my presence and most likely the fact that I told him about a shrink-pill (he sounded so groggy on the phone when I called him, so that´s no surprise. Happens from time to time).
He remained at the door for a while, looking around in his room. Damn it...I was doomed for sure! And scared as well, as his stomach began to rumble loudly, indicating that his body was yearning for nourishment. Thunderous and intimidating, that loud rumbling of his belly left a mark of fear for sure, with me thinking about the possibility of ending up as a part of this nourishment, and beyond that, of ending up inside my friend´s body by accident...that would have been the icing on the cake of bad luck for me.
My real problems were yet to come, as Jon began to walk into my direction, with the sound of him taking steps echoing in the entire apartment like some thunder. The impact of his shoes on the ground caused my environment to shake violently and me to being lifted up from the ground slightly and falling back onto the wooden floor again. The nearer he came, the more violent the shaking became, and I also began to realize that Jon was even bigger than I thought. Anyway, I decided to make a futile attempt: using the power of the impact of his shoes on me and hence the fact that I was being lifted up because of that, trying to get his attention somehow. So, accompanied by the shaking of the ground, I jumped up in order to get even higher up into the air (although Jon wouldn´t have even realized this slight change of my position, as I knew deep down somehow), yelling and waving with my arms. To my joy, he even looked down, staring at me as he walked, and I thought I was saved. At least so I thought for a single second. Unfortunately, he apparently thought that I was just a mere speck of dust as he did no longer bother to look down at me, his minuscule friend. Instead, he just walked over me (yet did not stomp on me, fortunately), but in the process, the shaking of the ground became so powerful that I felt myself being lifted really high up into the air, with my fate being sealed as I knew what would happen if I fell down again. There was no way I could resist the power of the impact of his shoes, but it also had a positive aspect: I found myself flying toward the left side of his trousers, heading directly toward his left trouser leg. I used that opportunity as I grabbed the fabric of his trousers (only the fabric, so he didn´t even feel anything), hanging on his left trouser leg now, with him heading toward the kitchen in order to satisfy his hunger...what was gonna happen to me? Would he ever be able to find me?