The sun began to set below the hazy, gray clouds, casting a red glow tinted gold against the sky. The driver of the car stopped in front of John’s house and we stepped out into the cold, frigid, November air. Snowflakes gently fell upon us as we walked up the steps and John unlocked the door to his house. I brushed the white powder off of my coat before stepping into the warm entryway of the home. John took off his coat and hung it on the coat rack next to the door. I did the same and followed him into the kitchen where the cook had prepared a meal for us. It was one of John’s favorites: Italian angel hair pasta covered in a cheesy, tomato sauce with garlic bread on the side. We sat down at the table, but John barely touched his food. Again, he sat there staring blankly, taking a bite of the pasta here and there. I could just imagine the cold blanket of grief that was engulfing his mind right now, but he seemed a little better than from the funeral. When dinner was over, Herald, John’s favorite butler, came and cleared the table. John pulled Herald aside and talked to him. “Will you tell the other workers that they can have tomorrow off?” John asked. “I want to have some alone time with Melissa so we can go through the house. Just for one day.”
“Of course, Master John,” Herald replied. “I will make sure it’s taken care of.”
“Thanks, Herald.”
John walked up to me and smiled. I could still see the sadness in his eyes, but he was definitely getting better.
“And you’re sure it’s ok with your parents that you stay here for awhile?” he asked me.
I nodded. “Yeah, it’s fine.”
“Ok, well you can sleep wherever you want. Do you need to go to your house and pick up anything?”
“No, I have everything I need already. I’ll just sleep in your little sister’s room.” John flinched when I said that, but he nodded in response.
“I’m going to go to bed early,” he said.
“Good, you need your rest. I’ll probably go to bed soon then, too.”
“Ok then, good night.”
“Good night.” I leaned over and gave him a kiss on the cheek. He gave a genuine smile before turning around and walking up the stairs to his room. I grabbed my bag from in front of the door with all my stuff in it and followed John up the stairs. His door was already closed with only a little crack open. I could hear his deep breathing as he slept and I realized that he probably hadn’t even changed before crashing. With a smile I turned and opened the door to Jenny’s old room, or John’s little sister. A dark mass immediately jumped on me, knocking me to the ground. A wet substance bombarded my face as I struggled to get the object off of me.
“Marco! Get off me you stupid dog!” I hissed. I pushed the black Labrador off of my chest and sat up, wiping the slobber from my face. They must have locked him in Jenny’s room. He was her dog after all. I pushed the dog away with my foot and picked up my bag from the floor, walking back into the room. Jenny’s room was a pale blue with butterflies painted on the wall and posters of puppies and kittens hanging over her bed and dresser. Her bed was piled with a variety of stuffed animals, concealing the SpongeBob mattress cover she had. Unlike my room at home, Jenny had always kept hers nice and organized. There were no clothes on the floor and no garbage littering the carpet. Her dresser had all her makeup in one part, her hair stuff in another, and all her jewelry was in the jewelry box. All her shoes were in her closet except for a pair of slippers by her bed.
It was so eerie to see everything in the exact place that Jenny had left them. It was almost like she was coming back, but she wasn’t. I shook the disturbing thought from my mind and dropped my bag on the floor near the foot of the bed. Before I could change and get ready for bed, Marco decided to sneak his way into the room and try to convince me to play with him. I grabbed the dog by the collar and dragged him out of the room and into John’s parents’ room, closing the door. That took care of that. But as I turned back to Jenny’s room, a wave of nausea suddenly hit me. I stopped, clutching my stomach as pain welled up in my abdomen. I expected it to go away, but it didn’t. Instead, it spread to my legs and chest until my whole body was in pain. I fell to my knees, groaning at the pain, but somehow unable to cry out for help. My vision blurred into a thousand colors and then went black. I didn’t feel myself hit the floor.
There was a dull throb in my head as I finally came to. I was lying on something extremely soft, but I didn’t open my eyes. I let the headache I had fade away as I tried to remember what had happened. Why had I passed out? It had come totally unexpectedly. Slowly, I pushed myself up into a sitting position and I looked down at what I was lying on. It looked like long white stalks of grass had been twisted together to form little tubes, but as I looked closer I saw that it was more of a type of fabric made up of thin, wiry strands of silver-white thread. I stood up, still looking at the ground and my feet sunk into the strange, soft substance so that it came up to halfway up my calf. Confusion whirled around in my brain. What was this stuff? And then I looked up.
Oh. My. Gosh…
Above me was the towering wall of fabric with jellyfish and flowers against a blue backdrop. I recognized it as the mattress cover of the bed. Even higher above that was the pale blue ceiling of Jenny’s room, but it seemed like a mile away. My heart thumped violently as I slowly turned around, looking at the rest of my surroundings. There were Jenny’s slippers, the size of a semi trailer each. Her dresser was a football field’s length away with its drawers rising into the air like a mountain. The soft substance I was standing on was the carpet in Jenny’s room. Everything around me had somehow grown to become immensely huge, and then the realization hit me. Nothing had grown; I had shrunk.
I sucked in a breath and tried to keep myself from panicking. Oh, gosh, how did this happen? It must have been something to do with what caused me to pass out. I had to think. What was I going to do? I had to get John’s help, but how? I couldn't be more than four inches tall, judging from the size of the slippers over there. But I had to make a decision.
~Torch~
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