Hello! This is my first time posting on these boards since I’ve discovered the site ️ I figured I’d add it here in case someone might enjoy it. Thanks for reading!
Part 1: Trial by Fire
Chapter 1
Evie
I feel like I’m sitting at the bottom of the ocean. My head is swimming. There’s a buzzing in my ears and a warmth filling up my body. My eyelids are heavy. Everything is so heavy. I just want to sleep… Maybe if I just…
No. No no no. Something’s wrong. I can’t let myself fall asleep. Come on. I have to force my eyelids open. Come on…
With monumental effort I manage to lift up my chin by just an inch or two. All I can muster is the barest of squints. I see light and shadows dancing in my vision until something solid comes into view. There’s someone in front of me… I make out a face. It’s familiar.
There had been a white room, a waiting room I think. A doctor’s office? And he was there. He was standing just behind the counter.
“Hi there! Are you Evie?” He had such a friendly smile. I remember it setting me at ease.
“Yes, that’s me.”
“Cool, I’m Aiden. It’s nice to meet you.”
I couldn’t keep my eyes off of him. A shock of dark hair, broad shoulders and strong posture, and yet fine, almost delicate facial features. I wasn’t even sure what his eye color was - light brown? Green? I finally decided on hazel.
His attractiveness started to set off all sorts of alarm bells in my mind. But he seemed so nice too, so warm and relaxed, and he looked about my age. That helped me calm back down.
“Hold on a sec,” he’d said, “Are you in Professor Hickory’s class? Biochem?”
“Oh. Yeah! I thought you looked familiar. You doing this for lab credit then?”
“Yup. The extra cash doesn’t hurt either.”
“I hear ya. So are you participating in the experiment, or…?”
“Kind of - I’m here as a technician. Well, first I’m here to get you checked in. Could you fill this out?”
How long has it been since I was in that white room? It feels like so long ago. But I don’t think it was. I remember completing some forms, chatting with the handsome boy behind the counter. What happened after that?
There’s an aching in my shoulders, I’m being held upright by straps that are digging into my skin. I have to keep my eyelids open. I try looking at something else, shift my gaze to the left. There’s a desk not too far from where I am. I focus on a red mug on its surface. I see flashes of broken red ceramic on a kitchen floor, hear the grating sounds of a woman yelling. I quickly push that memory away. It’s not helpful right now.
Wait… There’s someone else there, next to the desk. He’s standing further away, he’s harder to make out in my dizzied state. But then he glances up at me, his dark eyes meeting mine. Suddenly it’s like a bucket of ice fills my stomach. I feel inexplicable terror grip my throat at the odd, calm expression on his face.
I’m not sure why, though. He had been friendly too. Not quite as warm as Aiden, and a little distracted. Older, maybe in his late thirties or early forties. What was his name again? I think he’d introduced himself as I stepped into the lab, but I can’t fully remember…
“Evie, I take it?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Step right through here, please. Aiden will help you set up.”
When was this? I think this just happened recently. It was after the white waiting room… Yes, I think it was only minutes ago. I was led into a small chamber of sorts that was bolted to the floor in a corner of the room. Three metal walls like a narrow closet around me, a bench for me to sit on. Aiden helped buckle me into supportive straps attached to the wall as I tried not to blush from his close proximity. Then he closed the door on me, the fourth wall of the chamber, made entirely of glass. There was an odd, medicinal odor in the air. I can still smell it now…
My head slumps forward, too heavy to hold up. I try again, my neck straining at the effort of raising my chin. I can’t lift it high enough to see Aiden’s face anymore. I stare at his torso, at the white lab coat that’s covering it. I catch a glimpse of black fabric peeking through from underneath, where he’d missed doing up one of the buttons. Back in the waiting room the coat hadn’t been buttoned up at all…
“I like your shirt,” I had said as I gave him back his clipboard.
“Oh hey, thanks! Do you play?”
“I used to. I’m more into board games, but I like card games too.”
This scene in my head is interrupted as the fabric in front of me shifts. I’m seeing Aiden’s face again, he’s crouching down in front of the glass so that he can meet my wobbly gaze. I’m suddenly realizing his mouth is moving and I’m hearing his voice, and it’s not in my head this time from the fragments of memory, it’s here in the present, coming out of some kind of speaker in here as the glass is sealing him off from me.
“Evie? Can you hear me?” There’s a gentle look on his face, a wrinkle of concern in his brow.
I try to move my mouth. I have to let him know something’s wrong. But my body can only do so much at once. I manage to whisper something incomprehensible, but as a result I can’t keep my head up and slump forward again. I catch movement in my periphery as the figure in front of me stands back up.
“Sir, she’s still not responding.”
“That’s alright. She may be a little dizzy for the next few minutes, perfectly normal. That’s why we have her on those supports.”
No, these aren’t supports. They’re restraints. I try again and I find more success now, pushing my head up and letting out a quiet, desperate groan. I still can’t form words, though, and everything goes blurry for a second from the effort.
“But… are you sure we shouldn’t–”
The older man’s voice is a little sharper this time. “She’s fine. I have all her vitals pulled up here, everything’s in order. Pay attention to your own screen, Aiden, it should be almost ready.”
The fuzzy figure before me pauses for an extra beat before it shifts to the side, to my dismay. Every muscle in my neck and shoulders is trembling at this point, and I manage to lean back this time instead of forwards, my upper back resting against the metal wall of the chamber. I stare out through the glass, taking in the rest of the room, the mundane furniture littered with foreign machinery.
I can’t see him in front of me but I do hear Aiden’s voice. “We’re fully calibrated. Ready when you are.”
“Good. Solution’s nearly loaded. Remember to monitor that gauge until the sensor lights up. Then just keep an eye on her for me… Alright, let’s begin.”
Panic rises in me - I have no idea what they’re talking about, but somehow I know intrinsically, without a doubt, that something terrible is about to happen. My focus is on my arms and legs now as I try to push against the bindings, but it’s like my muscles are made of molasses. I might as well be trying to lift an eighteen wheeler.
I’m more and more alert as whatever drug was impairing my brain function has been slowly dissipating. Despite barely being able to move, I am all too aware of what happens next.
The odor in the room turns nauseatingly sweet and the air feels thick and warm. I’m hit with a wave of vertigo and I see it happening around me… I’m falling. I’m sitting firmly on the metal bench and yet I’m slowly falling anyway, the ceiling pulling up and my back sliding against the metal wall. My eyes widen in awe as the scene just beyond the glass wall begins transforming. It’s as if the glass has become a movie screen and I watch everything shift on it… slowly growing. Impossibly, my entire environment is increasing in size.
Surely I’m seeing things, a hallucination from whatever crazy drugs they’ve put me on. I can’t make sense of it. But even as I stare and try to tell myself that this isn’t real, the most convincing piece of evidence comes into view - Aiden’s stepping back in front of the glass. Only now he’s twice as tall as I am and getting bigger by the second. Something about seeing him makes me realize that it’s not my surroundings that are growing. I’m getting smaller.
His eyes are wide too, his look of awe mirroring mine. But while I’m looking at him with terror, he’s looking at me with a growing exhilaration.
“Whoa," he says, leaning in. He’s smiling widely. "Look at her go!”
No, no, this isn’t anything to smile about. I stare at him desperately, screaming at him with my eyes. Distractingly, I hear the more distant voice - I can’t see him now but the other man at his desk laughs lightly.
“Fascinating, isn’t it? Enjoy the show.”
This is a nightmare. How can I make them understand I’m not okay? I make another attempt to yank against my constraints and I’m surprised this time that my arms slip right out. I quickly realize this wasn’t because I’ve suddenly regained my strength, but it was bound to happen at any moment as I’m shrinking right out of the bindings. I slump forward and manage to catch myself, my hands hitting against the metal bench hard. It’s taking everything in me to hold myself up.
I notice my legs are starting to straighten out with the bench continuing to grow beneath me. My breathing is coming out shorter as panic builds. I look at Aiden again, who’s easily towering over me now, his frame dominating my own as I can’t be much bigger than his forearm at this point. Tears well up in my eyes from the fear and I push my vocal chords to grate out whatever I can.
“Stop,” I whimper, pathetically.
There’s no way that he heard that, even if the communication system is two-way - I could barely hear myself. But he can certainly tell from my expression that I’m not sharing in his enthusiasm. Aiden crouches down, leaning one knee on the floor, so that his head can still be level with mine. Except he still isn’t low enough - despite him kneeling on the ground I’m forced to look up at him. And he’s still growing, growing…
“Aww poor thing, she looks so freaked out," he says, like he’s observing a squirrel in a cage. He puts a hand up, gently tapping the glass with his fingertips as he addresses me, “Hey, it’s okay. Everything’s looking good, Evie, just hang in there. Should be done in just a minute.”
His reassurances are nothing short of infuriating. Why are they doing this? It wasn’t supposed to go this way. I can remember it now, this was just supposed to be some stupid extra credit for school. Something about testing oxygen levels in the air in response to different methods of respiration. It specifically stated in the brief that none of this should result in me passing out, that I would be attached to supports merely as an extra precaution. This should have been quick and simple as I hold my breath or purposely hyperventilate for the experiment. That’s all this was supposed to be.
Instead, I’m now surely no taller than the gargantuan hand that’s leaning up against the glass door. I glance down, catching sight of the floor of the chamber despite the edge of the bench stretching further away, and I’m dizzy at the realization of how high up I am. Reflexively I try to scoot backwards, away from the sheer drop of the cliff. I manage to shift a hair. Very slowly some of the strength in my muscles is returning. It does me no good, though.
Bringing my sights back to the giant beyond the glass, I can feel my heart trying to break out of my ribcage. He’s still growing. How small are they planning to make me? Is this going to go on indefinitely? Am I about to–
“Aaaand…” Aiden’s voice makes me jump, the speaker booming from somewhere above me. “There. All done.”
I yelp at the sudden sound of whooshing coming from every direction and my hair whips into my face. I squeeze my eyes shut, trying not to fall over from the sudden wind storm, leaning forward to brace myself on my hands.
And then everything goes very, very still. I don’t sense any more strange smells, in fact the air seems bizarrely sterile now. As is quickly becoming routine, I forcefully tense the muscles in my neck so that I can look upwards. Please, let this be some insane form of virtual reality. A hallucination. A dream. Something. There’s no way the world could have actually gotten this big. There’s no way I’m only a couple of inches tall to the man that’s smiling from beyond the glass. It’s not possible.
The speaker crackles to life with the far-off voice of the other, older person. “Vitals are normal, solution levels are stable. I’m unlocking the hatch.” A large, metallic thunk breaks the air. Every new sound makes me almost leap out of my skin, although in reality I’m doing little more than twitching.
“I think the halothane’s wearing off,” says Aiden, his too-large hazel eyes looking straight at my face. I stare at his mouth as he talks. Each subtle movement of his is unreal.
“That’s fine. The neuroblockers should also fully wear off in the next ten to fifteen minutes. It’ll be easier to get the measurements done within that time, go ahead and put her on the scale now while I finish the records.”
Every bit of me is trembling. The whole shrinking process took several minutes but at the same time, it all happened so quickly and my change in perspective is completely overwhelming. There’s no time to compose myself, though. My chest tightens as I watch the nearby giant rise up ever higher, impossibly so, reaching his full standing height within a second. He reaches outside of my line of sight for something, but I don’t even process what that is as I fixate on his hand that then extends in my direction.
“I’m coming in, Evie,” he says gently. As if a soothing tone is enough to compensate for the intensity of his presence.
He opens the door.