You stepped out of the laboratory, wearing a smug expression that spoke volumes. Three hundred dollars in cold, hard cash to swallow five pills over a week? It seemed like a windfall, enough to cover your groceries for the week, perhaps even a few luxuries. As you returned to your apartment, you sank into the chair at your desk, stuffing the money into your wallet before pulling out one of the pills. It was a peculiar sight, unlike anything you had encountered before. The clear underside revealed asymmetrical machinery suspended in a glowing green base. Despite your reservations about its safety, the confidence of Dr. Wright in her work dissipated your doubts. Reluctantly, you swallowed the pill and carried on with your day.
Over the ensuing week, you began noticing subtle yet exhilarating changes in your body. Your senses sharpened to an extraordinary degree; you were constantly on high alert. The faintest shifts in the air, the smallest nuances in taste, and even conversations from three doors down became vivid to you. You felt akin to a superhero, or perhaps someone under the influence of powerful psychedelics. Regardless, you returned to Dr. Wright to discuss what lay ahead. She appeared thrilled by your experience and explained that these supplements were designed to induce significant physical transformations. Though it necessitated a week off work, it seemed a trifling price to pay. Following some awkward phone calls with your boss and coworkers, you found yourself led by Dr. Wright into a vast mechanical chamber housing an alien-looking contraption the size of a car. The request to remove your clothing for enhanced accuracy was unsettling, but you complied nonetheless.
Dr. Wright flicked a switch, and the machine whirred to life, scanning your body with meticulous precision, making countless micro-calculations until fully calibrated. Anticipation bubbled within you; you were on the cusp of becoming a real-life amalgamation of Wonder Woman, Superman, and Spiderman. Suddenly, a brilliant green beam erupted from the device's barrel, piercing your chest. Instantly, waves of nausea, heartburn, and an overwhelming urge to vomit engulfed you. It was all too much, and darkness consumed your vision.
When you awoke, you found yourself encased within a colossal glass cylinder, obscured by a black rubber dome. Outside, a vast expanse of white stretched out, punctuated by blurry monoliths in the distance. Despite your expectations, you didn't feel like a superhero; instead, an unsettling sense of normalcy settled over you, as if the pills had ceased their enchantment. This left only one burning question: where were you?
Before you could ponder the possibilities, the ground trembled violently, echoing with the force of a subducting earthquake. Struggling to maintain your balance, you witnessed the colossal figure of Dr. Wright looming in the distance against the stark white backdrop. The nauseating sensation returned with a vengeance, and this time, you couldn't hold back the torrent of vomit. You realized, with a sinking feeling, that you had been deceived. Instead of becoming a hero, you found yourself reduced to the size of an small ant, confined to a claustrophobic glass vial, and at the mercy of a deceitful scientist.
Your life was a waking nightmare. Each morning subjected you to task after task, each more mundane than the last. Stacking blocks, solving grade school math problems, running back and forth the length of a ruler—these were your daily trials. And after enduring all that, your sole reward was a meager offering of micro vitamins, a cap of water, and a cold glass cylinder to call home. Such had been your daily existence for weeks on end, though it could have been much longer. The glaring fluorescent light above the table never dimmed, and sleep became a distant dream. You seethed with frustration. Not only had this devil of a scientist lied to you, but your dreams of grad school seemed dashed, and your family and friends might soon consider you dead. All the while, you were powerless to escape, alone with your thoughts and the unempathetic gaze of the many monolithic scientists passing by the table. You could only imagine the day when you might finally break free from this hell hole.
You awoke to the usual soreness in your eyes from the terrible light illuminating the room. Your back ached from a rather awkward sleep position akin to the curved bottom of the vial. Dr. Wright had yet to make her morning appearance, affording you some time to examine the country-sized room around you. The walls were windowless and made of grey cinderblock, with the only exit being an airtight steel door strategically placed on the opposite side of the room, likely to ensure that even if you did escape, you would not survive the near-constant foot traffic. Your gaze turned to the giant machine that had shrunk you. The control panel on its side very clearly read shrinking parameters followed by your weight, height, shrinking height, and the lowest option reading "durability". As far as you could tell, there was no "regrow" option present, leaving you helpless and tiny, possibly forever. The reflective metal from the machine bounced light back to the table and off some recently placed mechanical clamps, weights, and knives. They looked scary enough, but coupled with the "durability" setting on the machine, you put two and two together.
The massive metal door swung open without warning, the sound of squeaking metal and rush of air nearly deafening to your tiny ears. Dr. Wright walked into the room with a wide grin on her face. "Good morning 015! Today is rather exciting for me as we'll finally get to see if those supplements have done their job. In case you still don't understand, you'll either withstand these tests just fine or pop like a bug. Either way, I get results!"
You were in shock. You could believe a well-funded institution going corrupt with this kind of research, but to so casually put human life on the line made you think these "tests" had been done before. The woman strapped on dark rubber gloves and wrapped her fingers around the vial. The movement was slow and methodical, but you could still hear the glass straining from the force of her fingers, shuddering to think how easily they could crush you between them. The rubber stopper was then lifted out of the vial, and slowly the glass was tilted sideways, sending you tumbling out onto the slick surface of the table. Groaning as you rose to your feet, you watched in horror as the woman now held a massive metal weight above you. Looking more closely at it, you could make out small red smears scattered across its underbelly. Ready to accept your fate, you closed your eyes. But fate, it seemed, still had plans for you. Just as Dr. Wright went to drop the weight, the door burst open, catching you both by surprise. In walked an older man who appeared dressed in similar laboratory attire and panting heavily. In between gasping breaths, he informed her that "code red was in full swing and that disposable projects would need to be taken care of". He trailed off the remark by gesturing towards you and then dashed back out of the room and into darkness. Dr. Wright's eyes widened, and she quickly set the weight down and with a colossal finger, not so carefully knocked you back into the vial and sealed it with the stopper. Then she lifted the container up to her waist and plopped it into the pocket of her lab coat. For minutes on end, you were encased in fuzzy darkness, battered from her finger and the jostling of the pocket, you could barely keep still. As the woman scoured the laboratory for any documents and equipment worth keeping, you could make out the voices of her coworkers. "Shit's real this time! Police outside and ready to march in!" You couldn't contain your excitement; finally, these assholes were going to get what they deserved, and you'd be set free! You felt a rush of fresh air and sunlight flooding in between the fibers of Dr. Wright's coat, embracing the sweet sound of police sirens you anxiously waited for her to start talking, for anyone to start talking really. But the sirens soon grew quieter and quieter, and you soon realized she had sneakily escaped through a back door and out of police view. You pounded your fist on the hard walls of the vial and collapsed onto the floor. Your waking nightmare was just beginning, now fully in the clutches of one dastardly scientist! Dr. Wright slowed her pace as she approached a bus stop. Certain she wasn't being followed, she pulled the vial out of her pocket and contemplated the safest way to dispose of it. The miniature person inside wouldn't survive long outside of it, but was just large enough to be spotted by any keen eyes. Luckily, she had a backup for the disposal process. Turning a knob on the stopper, it suddenly released a flash of greenish gas into the vial. With any luck, the specialized gas should react with the supplements they had taken, and over the next day or two, they would shrink smaller and smaller into oblivion. Now all that was left was to find a proper resting place for the individual. To her right, she could see a particularly filthy trash bin at the bus stop; across the way was an equally decrepit gas station with a crackhead posted outside. She could also take the vial home and dispose of it there. After careful consideration, she decided she would...
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