Chapter 6…Revelations pt. 2
Mike had the lower part of her hair between his fingers as a he used a doll toy brush to comb it. He admired her small little frame as she sat on the bed. Katie’s skin was still a little moist from her sink bath as she sat still for him. “You know, you’re a little prettier since I shrunk you” Mike said softly. “Haha, maybe because of the nice clothes” she said admiring the silk robe that barely clung to her body. “No, your skin is a lot clearer, hair shinier, and I do like a girl that shaves down there” he said. “I figured that you didn’t want to go down on a tumbleweed” she said smirking. Mike put down the comb and used his finger to turn her head. Both shared a sweet kiss before Mike broke it off. “There’s time to eat my little pussy again before bed” she winked. “Not tonight sweetie. Have to run a late errand in New York” he said. “That involves the Coin?” she whispered. “…yes” he replied. “Necessary?” she asked. “Unfortunately, yes. I decided to take your advice and learn more about this thing” he said. Katie knew she couldn’t talk him out of going. She knew there would be more to what he said. “Alright. Just…be careful” she sighed. “I will. Don’t wait up for me” he said before another kiss.
Mike had given this some thought. Clearly he needed someone that knew ancient Thai or at least an older dialect than modern. Logic said to choose someone Thai. Now it wasn’t as if he could just flag down a random Thai person on the street and hope for the best. Mike decided to go to where some of the oldest Thai districts there was. As one would say, if you want an old tree, go to the forest. Through the magic of Google, he learned that New York City had the largest population of Thai on the east coast. Thai Town in Elmhurst to be exact. So Mike got in his car and headed there. As he drove, he thought about what he had discovered in the attic. Ring boxes for caskets to inter or memorialize the shrunken women his grandfather loved. Every woman he shrunk and loved ended up dead. Every single one. Couldn’t be a coincidence. Worse yet, after seeing Jennifer’s fate on the video, his grandfather wasn’t even that shocked. As if he expected it. Having said that, Mike realized something. “He didn’t kill mom or grandma. But did he ever shrink them?” he wondered. The truth of the matter, he knew very little about his grandmother. What he was told by his grandfather and mother was her name was Sky and met grandpa in the autumn of 1975. She came from an old hippie commune in the northern part of New York and stayed with him for a while. During that time, he got her pregnant and not long after his mother was born, she left leaving her baby behind. But was there more to the story?
Mike did know one thing for certain. The urge to kill Katie was growing by the day. Even tonight as he turned her head, the thought of turning it till her neck snapped entered his mind. Just her scent was causing trouble. That sweet sweaty musky smell after playtime made his mouth water…and his stomach growl. Mike got to his destination even more determined to learn more about the enchanted Coin. It was almost past 10pm as he parked the car and began walking through Thai Town. Various shops like, bakeries, convenience stores, furniture, laundries, take outs, and nail salons, littered the street. It would seem like he was looking for a needle in a pile of needles. Mike paused. He felt it. Barely turning his head, he noticed an old woman staring dead at him. Some would dismiss it as paranoia or imagination but not Mike. His tour in Afghanistan taught him how to sense when someone took too much an interest in him. Mike ducked around into an alleyway. As he guessed, the old woman looked down the alley. She couldn’t see him. Mike waited until she walked off and now the watcher was the one being watched.
Carefully, he shadowed the old woman right to a restaurant with the name “Ayanda” on it. Moments after she walked in, so did he. “Closed! YOU MUST GO!” the old woman shouted. “I don’t think so. You were following me” Mike said. “Was not! WAS NOT! You must go!” she yelled. Mike felt the Coin vibrate. Somehow, he knew this was the right place. Mike locked the door and flipped the sign to closed. Mike walked back to her and pulled the Coin out of his pocket. “Tell me what this is. Tell me what’s written on it and I’ll leave” he said. The old woman looked at the Coin in horror. She started screaming in Thai. Two women and a young man came from the back of the restaurant. “Grandma? What…you! What did you say to her?! Get out before I call the cops” the younger of the two women yelled. Mike looked at the young woman. 20, maybe 22 years old with bigger tits than one would expect. Slender wearing a waitress uniform. Purple streaks in her hair. “Pretty” Mike thought as he grinned. The older woman, probably the first girl’s mother was in her late 40’s and even with her age wasn’t that bad looking. “She told you to get out!” the young man in his early 20’s yelled putting his hand on Mike’s shoulder. With barely a glance, Mike used the coin to shrink him. The shock knocked him out as he dwindled to a half inch in height. The younger woman screamed. “Shut the fuck up or you’re next!” he yelled. Mike bent down and plucked he young man up.
“Now, you’re going to tell me what I want to know, or it’s going to get very bad for those two bitches. And to show you I’m not fucking around…” he said walking over to a fish tank. He callously dropped the young waiter into the water. “Aat!” the older woman screamed. She rushed over. “Ah ah ah!” Mike warned holding the Coin. The shock of cold water woke Aat, he found himself inside some kind of enclosure bigger than an Olympic swimming pool. It took him a moment to realize he was inside the fish tank he cleaned every other day. As he realized that, something else came to mind. The fish. When dropped, his body created tiny ripples that to the simple-minded fish meant fish food. A fat little goldfish determined to eat swam at full speed to Aat. Aat could see the golden monster underneath the surface coming right at him. The fish latched onto his leg and yanked him down. For a brief moment, Aat still had some luck left as the goldfish only got his shoe. Then that luck ran out as the goldfish inhaled the water sucking the shrunken young man into its mouth swallowing him whole. Satisfied, the goldfish dived back to his little play castle at the bottom of the tank not caring about the struggling meal in its belly. “That was kinda entertaining actually” Mike said. He turned his attention back to the old woman.
“Please…please I know nothing!” the old woman begged. “Really? You’re going to gamble their lives with a lie?” Mike asked looking at the mother. With just a thought, he shrunk the mother down to a manageable four inches. Mike picked her up. The daughter tried to attack Mike and found herself shrunk as well. Mike picked her up and dumped her into an empty glass. “I’ll get to her later. Now where were we? Oh yes, you lied to me” Mike said tearing off the mother’s clothing. His fingers played with her slightly sagging tits. Mike sighed slightly bored with her slightly pudgy frame. Looking dead at the old woman, Mike gripped the mother by both ankles and flipped her upside down. She was still unconscious but not for long. With an ankle trapped between fingers, Mike pulled her legs apart “I hate liars” he hissed as he pulled harder and harder until there was a tiny pop. The mother’s eyes shot wide open as she screamed. That little pop was her leg dislocating from her hip. The muscle tear accompanying that didn’t help. Now, I’m going to ask the question again and if you don’t answer, your daughter here is going to become a human wishbone" he said coldly.
“Now, let’s start from the top. Why were you following me? Plenty of white guys stroll through here so what set me apart?” he asked. “…your aura. You have a cursed aura” she repelled softly in tears. “Cursed? Cursed how?” he asked. “I don’t know” she replied. Mike pulled again making the woman screech. “I truly don’t know! I can just…sense it there” she replied. “And the Coin? You recoiled in horror seeing it” he said. “It reeks of evil and malice. It is the source of your curse, and this wicked power to shrink people” she replied. “I already know the power comes from it. What I want to know is what’s behind that power. What does it say on the Coin?” he asked. Mike let go of the mother’s leg, which dangled lifelessly, to hold the Coin in his hand. The woman cringed as it got close. “I cannot make all of it out. It’s in an old dialect” she said. “All of it? So you can make some of it out?” he asked. “Yaksha…prison…and…” She was saying before she broke out in a cold sweat. “I can’t make out the last part. Bring it closer” she said. Mike did and she snatched the Coin from him. “Taste your own power!” she yelled holding the Coin. Nothing happened. “But…but the power is…” she muttered before Mike’s eyes briefly glowed red. The Coin magically returned to his hand. “That will cost you dearly” he said before placing the mother in his mouth and swallowing. The old woman watched her daughter disappear down his throat.
“I know that this Coin is bound to me and me only. It’ll never work for you or anyone else. You got a granddaughter left. She’s next if you fuck with me one more time. Now what did you see?” he said with a tone that could cower the devil. “Ashura” she replied. “That’s the word that been rattling around in my head! Asu…something. It was asura” Mike thought. The Coin pulsed at the name. “What is an asura?” he asked. “In your terms a demon but they’re far more than just that. My grandmother passed down not just her gift to sense evil but the legends behind them. Legend says the asura were demons that were opposite of the gods. Beings of malice, darkness, lust, and violence. Constantly at war with the gods and their servants the Yaksha. Asura are virtually immortal and cannot be slain so they had to be sealed away. Depending on how powerful they were, so went their prison. Some mountains, others caves. The lesser ones physical vessels such as amulets, statutes, even pottery. That Coin is one of those vessels” she told him. “Okay but how is it bound to me? If it’s so evil, why not work for anyone?” he asked. The woman laughed.
“That is not their way. They bind themselves only to those that can reap the most evil using their power. They enter a blood contract with them first” she said. “That explains why the thing pricked my finger and absorbed my blood” Mike thought. “I thought my gift could temporarily bind the asura to my will” she muttered. “You thought wrong and since we’re on the subject, your daughter stopped moving in my stomach. Guess she suffocated or passed out from the pain of being digested” he said. She spat at his feet. “What about the curse? I’m assuming it’s my soul” he said. “Feeble minded westerner. What would an asura want with your measly soul? Asura reap pain, death and misery. You are nothing but a shepherd and every kill you make is a lamb to the slaughter. And if the Asura goes hungry…it will make you feed him” she said coldly. “You telling me if I don’t shrink and kill people, it will make me kill someone? It will control me?” he asked. “It feeds the best when the victim is one the avatar of his power loves the most” she laughed. Mike was furious. Not just her laughing at him but the grim truth of what was upon him. The ring boxes of his grandfather, the dark thoughts about Katie. “The more you love them! The worse it will get! You can try to keep it at bay by killing but the craving will only grow. As long as the curse is upon you, you’ll never be able to love someone without killing them!” she laughed louder. “But I can satisfy it. Quantity over quality right?” he asked with a grin. “You cannot bargain with an asura fool. Sooner or later, it won’t matter how many you kill. It will demand the sweet taste of your grief and the grief and pain of the one your love most” she said. “Then I have a lot of work coming my way. And I just know where to start” he said snatching the granddaughter out of the glass and stuffing her into his pocket. “No please! I did as you asked! At least leave me with her…” the old woman begged. “Don’t worry, you won’t suffer long” Mike said before shrinking her with the Coin.
Anyone watching would think she simply disappeared. In reality, Mike shrunk her so small you couldn’t see her with the naked eye. Mike would leave letting nature take its course. The old woman awoke to a place so strange she briefly thought she was on another planet. Then she remembered the glowing Coin. She realized she had been shrunk to an extremely small size. How small? She didn’t know but it was less than 1/100 of an inch. Small enough the fibers in her seat cushion looked like rolling hills. The light the Mike turned off made it look like day turned to starless night. Distant thunder in the skies. Thunder caused by the very low hum of the fish aquarium pump. And another sound…a weird skittering sound. She didn’t know what it was and maybe that was the cruellest thing about it. Not knowing what was coming. Knowing, seeing what was coming could’ve gave her a heart attack. That would’ve been more merciful than what was coming. She took off running in the dark, but the skittering was coming from all directions. Something jumped on her face, something sharp bit her ankle, many things began to swarm her. She did not last long as whatever it was devoured her and stripped her down to her old brittle bones. Dust mites. The most common, and numerous pest in a household that feeds on human skin cells found something else to dine on that night. And with an average of over 1 million of them in a single room, she never had a chance.
Mike drove home with his newest catch and when he got home told Katie he would talk in the morning. Katie could tell Mike was very on edge that night and didn’t bother him with details. He readied an old hamster cage he found in the attic for his new guest, a guest now awake. He ignored her struggling and screaming as he threw her inside and locked the door. “I’ll introduce you to my girlfriend tomorrow. In the meantime, I suggest you get some rest. Tomorrow is going to be a busy day for you” Mike laughed leaving her. The young woman slumped to the floor of wood shavings and chips. The day has started normal for her. Helping out at the family restaurant. Taking orders, flirting with customers for bigger tips. And now ended with her shrunk, caged, and her future very much in question.