\"Writing.Com
*Magnify*
Path to this Chapter:
  1. An Ugly Start
  2. Devil in the Details
SPONSORED LINKS
Printed from https://writing.com/main/interactive-story/item_id/2316789-Surviving-on-Short-Notice/cid/WQNWV483C-An-Ugly-Start
Image Protector
Rated: 18+ · Interactive · Action/Adventure · #2316789
A shrunken fight for survival against blissful humans, animals and one vengeful scientist!
This choice: Drop it into the trash bin  •  Go Back...
Chapter #2

An Ugly Start

    by: Unaccustomed Cucumber Author IconMail Icon
With a wrinkled nose, Dr. Wright tossed the vial in its entirety into the trash bin and hastily walked back home. With all the evidence taken care of, she could study her results and begin the search for a new subject...


For a brief moment you were floating, weightless midair as the vial was dropped from two gargantuan hands down into a dark chasm. Then, without warning, the vial collided with a fast food container, popping the rubber stopper off the top and bouncing the rest of the vial deeper until it splashed down into a mysterious liquid at the bottom of the bag. Down here the smell was truly putrid, weeks of pilled up trash had been left to ferment and the ensuing odor seems to have kept any garbagemen at bay. Choking on the sudden influx of air, you made your way to the tip of the vial, avoiding any droplets of liquid that found their way inside and you peered down at the sea beneath you. Large chunks of uneaten fries and burgers floated atop a vile sea of old soda and beer. Looking up, you could see the odd-textured mountain of waste rising to the top of the bin. With any luck, you could probably scale its convenient ridges up to the surface. Holding your breath you dove into the trash sea, the liquid was lukewarm and slightly sticky as you fought to stay afloat and swim to the base of the trash mountain.

After what felt like an hour, you hand reached the relatively dry cardboard of a Big Mac box. You climbed to safety and immediately threw up whatever liquid had gotten into your mouth. Further above you, you could hear the all too familiar buzzing noise of flies no doubt thriving in the filth. You look around for the next step up when you spot the stopper leaned on its side nearby. As you crawl your way over to it, you notice small nozzles imbedded in the sides of the stopper, whatever gas they had expelled earlier didn't seem to do much, whether it was meant to kill you or something else. You run your fingers along on of them collecting the now condense chemical residue. the gunk immediately began to react with your skin and an immediate burning sensation covered your hand. You flung the gunk off, but your hand still felt like it was on fire. After a few minutes, nausea set in coupled with a dread sense of déjà vu. Your mind went black and when you awoke you were considerably smaller, now no larger than a millimeter in height. Your heart sank, scaling this mountain was near impossible now.

Just then a noise the sound of a hurricane rang through the air above you, desperate to escape it, you snuck into the Big Mac box and low and behold the remnants of a moldy burger lay ominously towards the back of the box. The sound outside behind you grew louder and louder until you heard a colossal crash on the roof of the box, followed by smaller crashes approaching the box entrance. Your mind went into panic as you quickly scrambled to your feet and sprinted further and further towards the Big Mac for safety. You were about half-way into the box when the beast ravaged its way through the entrance. A fly, now the size of a building had sensed food and began to crawl its way deeper into the box. Luckily, you weren't its target, could it even see you? You were small enough now that this fly might just crush you without noticing, you couldn't imagine a more pathetic way to go: "stepped on by a bug". Determined to avoid this reality, you continue to sprint towards safety. As soon as you hand made contact with the greenish bread at the base of the burger, one of the flies' many legs slammed onto the ground next to you. Your eyes followed the hairy appendage up to the flies' giant red eyes an shiny proboscis as it began to regurgitate a disgusting thick liquid onto the meat of the burger. You slowly crawled back towards the flies hind legs, forced to listen as the insect swallowed the liquid and some partially dissolved meat. You noticed that the thick leg hairs of the fly seemed sturdy enough to support your wait, and with no time to really consider what you were about to do, you jumped onto its leg and fastened yourself between two hairs. The goal was to stealthily ride the fly out of the trash bin but as soon as you made contact with the leg, the fly went berserk, perhaps you weren't too small after all! Safely adhered to its leg, you remained in place as the fly torn its way out of the box and up to a higher part of the bin.

It's next destination would not be any better, however, as the fly returned to the rest of its swarm atop a freshly placed bag of dog waste. As it landed, the legs of the fly sank into the plastic covering an impossibly large dog turd. Your eyes watered from the potent odor made all the more apparent from the constant gnawing of flies. You jumped down onto the squishy plastic and slowly you navigated the hoard of unaware flies covering the bag. Unfortunately for you, just as Dr. Wright predicted, foot traffic would forever be your greatest weakness as the constant stomping and maneuvering of fly feet created a mine field where any wrong turn could spell your demise. After narrowly avoiding a particularly fat flies' hind leg, you spotted an easy sloped path up and out of the bin. You got ready to run for it but in your haste, your leg smack back into the fly causing an uproar in the swarm. The giant fly leg kicked back and knocked you into the air only to collide with the eye of a second fly whose panic knocked it into a third and so on. You were battered and bruised, knocked from one flies' back, onto another's' buzzing wing, onto another's eye until finally you were sent flying away from the bag and straight into an off-white chewed piece of gum stuck to the top of the bin.

Expecting several broken bones, you were surprised to find only a few scratches, whatever supplements you had taken seem to have made you much more durable. You feel the white landscape around you mostly hardened and easy to climb up. After another hour of climbing you finally reach the surface of the bin and some desperately needed fresh air. After almost a day spent inside a trash bag, swimming in trash water, climbing a mountain, and fighting off monstrous flies, you collapse on the grimy plastic and look out at your surroundings. The bus stop had a well used bench which at the moment held only one person. The man looked to be in his late 30's and was incomprehensibly massive. You had no hope of reaching his eyes or ears before the next bus came but maybe you could hitch a ride with home and slowly make your way back home. Alternatively, there looks to be a Walmart up the road, the journey would be tough, but you were going to need some food and supplies sooner or later. Lastly you considered camping out on the trash can, it was familiar, contained "food" if you absolutely needed it and you could get the attention of anyone throwing something away or any garbagemen. Ultimately you decided too...
*Noteb* indicates the next chapter needs to be written.
Members who added to this interactive
story also contributed to these:

<<-- Previous · Outline  Open in new Window. · Recent Additions

© Copyright 2024 Unaccustomed Cucumber (UN: ucucumber at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
Unaccustomed Cucumber has granted Writing.Com, its affiliates and syndicates non-exclusive rights to display this work within this interactive story. Poster accepts all responsibility, legal and otherwise, for the content uploaded, submitted to and posted on Writing.Com.
Printed from https://writing.com/main/interactive-story/item_id/2316789-Surviving-on-Short-Notice/cid/WQNWV483C-An-Ugly-Start