The next thin flake on Pedro's foot peeled off, fluttering - revealing yet more rawness beneath. His sanity peeled away with each one.

Tessay's choking spasms and grasps brought him another fraction of a nanometer to the south, before another strain of bacterium pulled him back.

Bello thought she saw a rib peeking out, and she didn't know if it was hers or Hadi's. Hadi herself felt as if her brain was barely hanging on by a few tendrils, but with each snapping transformation she found a new spot on Bello that throbbed and bubbled.

Anderson rested in a mess of gnarled limbs that were once his, feeling as if needles rushed through his regrowing joints.

Liu was alone, a pile of nothing in broken walls.

"Kill me..." Among the mess of unvoiced, chaotic thoughts in the blackened depths of their collective subconscious, these two words kept returning.

The very faintest shifts in atmosphere once brought some hope for escape; now they only brought despair. What would the world be like outside, at this scale? Without Fran's cold, uncaring mercy, what kind of lives would they have... or what kind of deaths? As the hour came closer, more fears arose - and the once-shocking mansion's experiment room seemed to numb their pain, with its banal order. Would they even survive the trip home? Would there even be a trip home - or would they be left to live among carnivorous insects? Could they even still use these twisted mockeries of legs?

And... when?

Their reaction when Fran's steps approached once more was delayed by anywhere between thirty seconds to a full minute. None of them even had the energy to be terrified anymore. With each of their bodies and hopes having been plucked away in turn, they could only wait.

"Well..." Her voice remained as calm, careful, and curious as when they first entered. "We've reached the end of the week. The time I allotted for rehabilitation... The moments we've spent together... Over." She showed a clipboard with incomprehensible graphs, as a child might show a finger painting to a parent. "There's so much interesting data I've collected throughout! The power of olfactory functions on the mind, the exact patterns of hydrogen molecules through milk, the ways new organs can be accepted with open, microscopic arms..."

The only answers were agonized moans and vague begging.

"In fact, these readings merit further investigation. I believe that the field of microbiology could greatly benefit from continued testing." Fran rubbed the back of her hair, like always. "As well, it would be just mean of me to rip all our friendships apart so quickly! So you'll be happy to know, after much deliberation... I've decided to continue this shrinking experiment."

The life support machine let out a dissonant CLUNK.

"Indefinitely."

Everyone who had cheated death died once more inside.

"Someday, we might have miniaturized surgeons noninvasively helping patients in need... So your bodies and interests will be used for the benefit of mankind. Please look forward to it."

The final steps from the room echoed through their chambers, like a rocking boat.

"Aaa... Others?" Bello murmured.
"No one else... Nobody else should..." Hadi's mouths struggled.
"Can't... Not one more... minute!" Pedro choked.
"No way... no way... out..." Tessay's voice didn't penetrate the lingering milk puddle.
"Pain, it's the only thing real now..." Anderson lay back in defeat.

"Veronica..."

The blood from Liu's cell leaked through the crack. A crimson droplet, with only a few minuscule cells. It traced its way down, from her few remaining senses of touch, towards the flooring.

The others noticed. Slowly, in voiceless accord, their bodies shifted painfully to the north of their tanks. Like redistributing weight on a boat.

The blood drop crawled, growing smaller and smaller as it irrigated the floor tiles.

Towards a wire.

A wire on the life support machine.

It reached out...

*Krrrt... bzzz...*

Upon contact with the liquid, the carefully-controlled currents shorted. Exacerbated by the room's controlled temperature and lingering fumes, an electrical fire broke out. It burned away. Flames ate at the device, swallowing them.

*FWOOOSH.*

At last, they'd be able to rest.

*pssss...*

The infernal machine that barely kept them together exploded. No more random movements from helpless bodies. Their remaining consciousnesses faded in the cooling floods of automated sprinklers.

No more...

***

"HOLY SHIT."
"Hah... F..."
"Did I... Did I just..."
"OW OW OW."
"My nose..."
"Was that... real?"

Panting.

Awakening.

Pissing.

There were no more glass cells holding them. No giant feet. No liquids. They were on hospital stretchers, looking at an unfamiliar ceiling - an uncomfortably close, low ceiling. The walls weren't kilometers away.

Hadi and Bello looked below their blankets, to find normal, healthy torsos. They peered up to find themselves in separate beds. Nothing of flesh joining them.

Anderson no longer felt raw in his arms - a bit of numbness, but they were recognizably his.

Liu could actually move, actually feel her fingers... And brush them across a small scar around her stomach. "Oof. What was..."

Every other patient had similar scars, at their chests, limbs, some on their backs.

Besides that, it was as if nothing had changed for the patients. It wasn't comfortable, by any means. They had rashes. Their legs had fallen asleep. The continual droning beeps from machinery irritated their ears. And strange domes rested on their heads.

But they were halfway normal.

*Creeeeaaakk*

"Ah, no! This isn't what was meant to happen! Such a traa~aagedy..."

At the sound of a door opening, and at Fran's voice, they all froze once more. But she entered through a normal-sized door, at a normal scale. Her wobbling form was shorter than most of them. Veronica and Okita followed cautiously, with similar looks of shock.

"What?" Anderson coughed. "Was that... a dream?"

Liu shook at the sight of the younger sister.

Fran held her forehead in agony. "It was real. It was going to be such a boon... If the brainwave reading system didn't short out."

They stared.

"Brainwaves?" Tessay blinked in confusion.

Pedro lunged for her, grabbing Fran's collar. "Explain! Explain, you bitch- what the hell did you do to us?"

Veronica reached for her blade, until Okita calmed her by petting her leg.

With a disappointed sigh, the doctor bowed her head in shame. "Many body parts work effectively at miniaturized sizes. I was able to take out and recreate most of the organs from samples." She pointed to the scar across his chest. "And I had no issues manually connecting and configuring them into functioning, smaller replicas of your original bodies. Except for one mystery... The brain. I can't reliably place the lobes in such a small space and have them work correctly. The Professor definitely could, thooooough~"

She then moved that index finger to the dome around Pedro's head, which connected through wires in a wall to a terminal. "So, I simply had this machine transfer your brainwaves into the miniature, brainless bodies I made. From there, they could communicate senses of sight, smell, touch, taste, and hearing back - and receive instructions. It was a temporary measure while I researched how to miniaturize your brains... Which I couldn't manage to do with the time I'd given myself. I tried, but everything that came out was too volatile, too big, or too simplistic to hold your unique personalities and tastes."

Fran clasped her hands, looking at them in dismay, before continuing her monologue. "That's why you had out-of-body experiences; why you could survive so many extreme conditions; and why I kept leaving you without supervision. I lii~ied. I told a little fib. It was necessary for the experiment, to make sure there were no biases in the brainwave data I read. Sooorrryyy~ I was very mean to you."

She tilted her head, with a bright smile.

As Pedro dropped her, unable to control his old arms, Veronica rushed in - now taking her turn to grab Fran's neck. "Sis, what the heck? You could've told me!" Her artificial teeth grit. "That would've saved me - that would've saved a lot of worrying!" She shook the medical smock quickly, glaring in her eyes.

Fran shrugged. "You seemed to dislike these patients. I wanted to make sure you calmed down on them first, before you could do anything rash to these full-sized bodies. Especially since, if I managed to get the brains shrunken, I planned to give their spare parts to Adorea... There was no reason to expect they'd use these larger bodies again."

Bello clutched to her body in defense, to make sure nothing major was missing. Hadi, too, looked over Bello for anything taken out.

With her face still boiling, but her concern stronger, Veronica turned her head towards a confused, uncomfortable groan from Liu. She carefully stepped over, not daring to put her bandaged hands on the resting shape. "It's... It's really you, is it?"

"No, I..." She swallowed, rubbing her head, and the mark on her body. "I feel... t-totally different. That... that changed me. But if you're okay..."

Veronica shook her head. "I... I don't know. I might need some time. When I look at you, I keep thinking... I keep thinking about it... And I can't live with myself..."

Springing up suddenly, Liu peered directly into her blue eyes. "Please, no. If I'm hurting you, then I'll leave." She whispered. "The more we try and protect each other, the more we hurt each other..."

"You're not... hurting me." The dark-cloaked girl bit her lip, and blinked to the other faces staring in on them. "It might take a while. Maybe we can meet again sometime... When there aren't so many damn pervs peeping in on us."

Liu smiled, despite herself.

"Ah!" Fran clapped her hands, breaking a silent moment. "Right, right. Since this experiment's over... Please fill out these questionnaires on your experience. I'd still like all the details before you leave. Thank you for your contribuu~uutions~"

***

The mansion looked small as they left.

It was raining again. Pouring, even.

Aliev and Laghari greeted them as they crossed past the gates, into the night.

"Tch... The hotels here are not comfortable. Spaces are so tight." They crossed their arms.

"I'm just lucky I found some friends to lodge with. We got to talking, and talking... Great to be with pals, huh?" He grinned into the distance.

"You should thank us for arranging a return trip."

"Hm? So come on, what did we miss? Did you get cold feet?"

"I would not have chickened out so easily."

Though the two fetishists kept speaking around them, they got no response. The patients simply held their heads to the road, rubbing the permanent scars on their chests, and peeking back to make sure that nobody was following. Dark rainclouds floated above them. The rain was piercing.

Bello held an arm over Hadi. "It... It might be time for a break... from the community. I'm thinking... Of how I'll announce it."
Hadi clutched to her. "S-sure, but... Give me your SFW profile. All I have is you, and this kink... And I... I don't even know if I have this kink anymore."

Pedro kept kicking dirt around him. "If it weren't for their security... For my body still recovering... Fuck them. I'm going to sue those shits for everything." He flung a middle finger back at the old mansion.

Anderson laughed grimly. "If that makes you feel better. If yelling in a court about what a pervert you are will help you get over this, go do it. I don't think..." He hid in his sleeve. "I don't think that'll work for me. Doesn't... Does't she care about our feelings? All that insanity, just... Just so she could have a test run for some experimental doctor procedure?"

"No." Liu looked over her hands. "I think doctor Fran was trying to tell us... Our lives don't have test runs."

Again and again, the events repeated in their heads. The pleasures that had been so long out of reach now felt disgusting, and made their hands reel back. The broken glass remained trapped in their brains - and the most painful part was the reflections of themselves and their desires that bounced off it.

And yet, despite the blinding clarity, questions remained.

Liu looked around the hunched backs surrounding her. "Hey... Didn't... Tessay come out with us?"

An alarm sounded in the manor they left behind.

"INTRUDER - ALL STAFF TO LOCK DOORS - VERONICA REQUESTED IN ROOM 11 -"

Tessay pushed and ripped past beasts towering over him. His legs were still numb, and he didn't feel any of the scratches or bumps as he sprinted back to the room.

The boy panted, looking around. "Please, pleaseplease, I can't live like this... I need to go back! Life as a human --- I don't deserve it! Put me back in that shrunken body. I don't care if it's fake, just take me back! I was - so close! So close...!"

Knocking Okita away, and stumbling around a butler with the face of a basset hound, he opened the door to the room with the brain-reading device once more. Placing the dome on his head, he hit buttons at random, and lay back, gasping.

***

When he opened his eyes again, Fran entered the room, and calmly removed the dome from his head. A sci-fi ray gun rested in her left hand - which she shot at him. Slowly, from the beam's effects, he shrunk before her - watching in awe, as she once more become the beautiful giantess he remembered. No, even more stunning. He felt the hospital bed below quake and rumble from her incoming, booming steps.

"What is it those doctors on TV say? Things like, 'you have six months to live'..." She turned around, showing her generous backside - twin cheeks casting a shadow above. "Tessay, you have ten seconds left~"

It SLAMMED upon him, compressing him into the sheets below the mass of juicy flesh.

***

Tessay opened his eyes again. He was laying in a soft, pillowy - with fingers lifting like heavenly pillars on either side. Past the palm, Veronica's enormous, stitched face stared at him in disgust.

A city below - his size. A crowd of cockroaches cheered her on, raising their legs in jubilation.

"That's him!"
"The menace to bugkind!"
"Show him no mercy!"

Veronica stared blankly at him. "For all the bugs you crushed... Payback time." She closed her hand into a fist - covering him in overwhelming darkness and touching him on every end.

***

When the darkness subsided, Tessay was in old, white cloths, wrapped in a cocoon. Adorea was looking down upon him. He could almost make out a shy smile past the bandages covering her face; very nearly see a beautiful eye peeking out. They lay together on a bed with pink curtains.

Slowly, sensually, she stripped the cloaking paper from her waist down. A sweet smell emerged, fluttering into the air, pulling him in. He was naturally drawn in towards the meaty, pink pocket that opened on her groin, swallowing him...

***

It was light again. The fluorescent lights of the experiment room were glaring on Tessay. He couldn't see any of the other containers...

...But he could feel something approaching, galloping quickly on all fours. Gavrill, the wolf. Her hair curled around her ravenous grin, as she fished into his tank, licking her fangs.

"Hah! Thought I could smell your fucking jizz. Reeks the same as at your parents' shithole basement. So, can't help from whacking off even here, huh, you sack of shit?" Lifting him before her snapping jaws, she let out a dry, spiteful laugh. "Well, a shitty snack's still a snack - so in ya go, fucko!"

And he dropped into the open, musty chasm that was her throat...

***

...He landed on a floor. Heels, everywhere. Looking up, police uniforms. All identical. All women with a short cut wearing glasses. Officer Rumiko Kuhou - dozens of her - stomping on him in unison, listing every petty crime he'd committed in private, as his life left...

***

...Between the bountiful breasts of Shelly, still in her habits. He could vaguely hear the chants behind the titflesh, whispering, "mea maxima culpa", as she squeezed them in...

***

...Flashes from the camera of Injuuin the journalist, capturing Tessay's confused face against her foot, immortalizing it - and exposing his online handle...

***

...The Madarakis' hands, silently scraping through his city...

***

...Becoming next to nothing on an endless plane of flesh he didn't recognize, hearing a voice too loud and booming to understand, as a planetary hand lowered to swat him...

***

"Hm. Tessay seems to be in a coma. I'm not sure if the brainwave device induced it, when he activated it incorrectly... Or if that's a defence mechanism he entered naturally."

In reality, Fran, Veronica, and Okita gathered around the mansion's experiment room. Tessay lay in the stretcher, dome around his head, jaw hanging open. His arms didn't respond to poking or prodding.

Veronica looked over him. She held to her doll, clad in the tiny pink-stained dress. "Rushing in like that... What was thinking?"

Okita observed a stain at his groin. "Looks like he's thinking happy thoughts." He licked the back of his paw. "Guess that dude really did end up shutting away reality for a fantasy."

Veronica peeked to a window, watching the other patients leave into the rainstorm - like dejected children who'd squandered their Golden Tickets to a chocolate factory. "And they're gonna have to live with their realities. Wonder who has it worse here..."

"In any case." Fran patted his limp cheek gently with the back of her hand, some drool falling on it. "We should enact his last request. He asked to play this song at his funeral."

She pulled out an old cassette player, and deposited it by the comatose patient. After she pressed the play button, the Madaraki family walked away to the beat of the beeping, funky synth music:


I finally made it through med school
Somehow I made it through
I'm just an intern
I still make a mistake or two
I was last in my class
Barely passed at the institute
Now I'm trying to avoid, yeah I'm tryy~yying to avoid
A malpractice suit

Hey! Like a surgeon!
-"Weird Al" Yankovic, Like a Surgeon