Johan is an average looking guy, with an average life. He never had anything to really look forward to except his weekends off from the firm, which he only used to watch bad movies and reruns of television shows. However Johan did look forward to a particular event, an event that did not happen often, but one he still Cherished and that was when he was able to visit his only niece Emi.
Emi was 13 years old and would be 14 in a week, but unfortunately he would be too busy to celebrate with her, so he decided to get her a few gifts at this time to make up for missing her upcoming birthday. He didn't know what he should get her, despite caring for his precious niece he didn't know anything about young girls.
After acquiring what the gifts, he made his way to his brother Greg's house. Greg was throwing a party for a few rich and influential clients who sponsored him to further his experiments, whatever they may be. The whole thing seemed fishy to Johan, but he figured that because his lack of respect for his older brother, that he would naturally expect the worst from him.
Johan never forgave Greg for how he treated his late wife, he was not abusive to her, but he was neglectful. Greg only ever thought about his work and nothing for poor Emi or her mother, who passed away, of what some believe the cause was a broken heart. Emi is okay with her living situation and gets along mildly well with her father.
Johan finally makes it to the doorstep of his brothers large, elegant house. Johan could see that Greg was fairing very well, he was a bit envious at the large illustrious house before him, Johan always felt that Greg would do wrong and unfairly be rewarded for his actions. He rang the bell and almost instantly the door was opened by a little girl with lime colored eyes and brunet hair in a pony tail. Johan instantly recognized the little girl, it was his niece Emi.
"Uncle Johan!" Emi said as she jumped into his arms.
"Look how much you have grown. I can't believe that you are going to be in high school soon."
"Yup! I am going to be an adult just like you soon."
"Speaking of being an adult soon I got you some things for your birthday and one of them is pretty grown up."
Emi's face was painted with a smile as she saw her uncle reach into a bag to pull out her gift.
"Here, it's a French tip nail kit. I know girls in high school do their nails and stuff like that so with this you can practice."
Emi then started to pout and the sight of the gift.
"I can't paint my nails... At least not my toe nails."
Emi sat down on the ground and slipped her right foot from her pink slipper. She raised her barefoot presenting it to Johan.
"Everyone at school makes fun of me because my feet are big. I can't show my feet, I will just be made fun of."
Johan was surprised by his nieces foot. Despite her age she had mature looking feet, the toes were long and slender, her arches were high and her toe nails were long and shaped nicely. her feet were completely unlike the stubby feet you would expect of a girl her age and size, but her feet were big and matured. Emi's feet reminded completely reminded him of her mother's feet.
"Listen, you don't have to feel bad. You have the same feet as your mother. Many said she had the feet of a model and when you get older people will say your feet are nice instead of making fun of them."
Emi was happy to hear that she shared something similar with the mother that she loved; Even though she shared similar things with her mom already, such as her lengthy brunet hair and lime colored eyes, she felt happy to have more things in common with her especially something that her mom was complimented on.
"Alrighty then! I love it now, I am going to paint and show off my nails and no matter what anyone thinks I am going to show them off."
"Good for you! I also got you something else."
Johan pulled out pajamas, the bottom half was striped pink and white and it came with an all white t-shirt with a pink heart on the center. Emi was happy to see the pajamas, that she considered cute. All of a sudden, a scruffy lanky man in a white lab coat walked to the door way. The wind blew his wavy salt and pepper hair and he did nothing more than smirk at Johan.
"Johan! My brother, my baby brother, this guy is sure glad your ass is here today."
"Happy to see you to -"
"Enough introductions, come in, come in. Emi you go up stairs and play with your gifts, the grownups will be here soon and you are not going to want to be around for something so boring, when everyone is gone you can come down and do whatever you want."
"Okay daddy, I will go and Uncle Johan I am going to paint my nails, will you look at them later?"
"Sure! Make sure to have fun with painting okay, I can't wait to see when they are done."
Emi was happy to hear her uncle's praise and quickly ran up the stairs to her room, where she planned to work on painting her nails perfectly.
"That daughter of mine is one obedient kid, her mom taught her good manners and how to respect her elders."
"Of course her mother taught her that, god knows that you didn't."
Johan swallowed deeply, knowing that he accidently let out some of hidden disdain for his brother out in the open and straight to his face. Greg smirked and started to lightly chuckle.
"Your right! I am good for nothing aren't I, but what can I say? I am a man who only lives for his work. However I had finally reached my goal and will reveal it today during the party. These guys who sponsor me are a weird bunch, they want me to actually complete my experiments, which I can admit are quite dangerous and farfetched."
"So this is why you are having a party, to show off the fruits of your labor? I am glad that you've finished something you had been working hard on, maybe you can give your experiments a rest and well relax a bit and personally I... Well I am not sure your sponsors are good people."
"They are the worst, I can tell you that. Who knows what they will do with my genius, how will they abuse what I have created? However I don't care about such things, I am tired of life anyway, now that my experiment has been completed I can die with no regrets."
Johan was in shock to hear what had come out of his brothers mouth. He didn't care how his experiment will be used or about his life and he clearly didn't care for Emi's life. He wanted to give his brother a tongue lashing, but knew that he was too far gone for any words to reach him. He stood silent and just waited in silence for the party to start.
A few hours after Johan and Greg's talk the party had started. The house was bustling with the chatter and screaming of the drunk guest. Despite the incredible amount of noise, there was no complaints from the neighbors, or from Emi who was sound asleep in her room.
Johan looked at the crowd of obviously rich individuals, which was noticeable by their apparel and the nature of their convocations. He also noticed that they all seem to be wearing a black and gold pin which resembled a withered tree somewhere on their person. Johan couldn't shake the feeling that something was off about the large group of people around him. Johan looked toward the middle of the living room at a stumbling blond beauty, she looked as if she was about to collapse, so he quickly approached her, so that he may help her to a chair before she would eventually fell.
Johan made it to the stumbling woman in time catching her before she would collapse. "Miss are you okay?"
"M-my name... My name is B-Beth and I-"
Unexpectedly the woman stared to gag and spit a glob of wet, pink chewing gum on the hardwood floor. Johan ignored it and walked the drunk girl to a chair. Suddenly the piercing sound of a spoon tapping a wine glass was heard by all who attended the party. It seems that Greg was trying to get the attention of everyone in his home, it's was most likely to unveil his experiment.
"Welcome everyone! It is time to finally show off my finished invention and I must say that this was possible thanks to all of your contributions. Everyone the shrinking device that you have all paid for is complete and I will demonstrate it to you all!"
The crowed applauded at news they were presented them. Johan was surprised to hear that Greg had made a shrink device, but he did not buy it. Yet he did worry about if this shrink device was real and functional, Greg and the guest can potentially rule the world if they were to use it the wrong way.
"I will ignore the boring details and will get down to the juicy stuff. Now everyone of you backwards fools, who wanted to use me and this brilliance of mine for your own selfishness, here is what you wanted. We all will shrink and never return to our normal lives, I hope you guys like crumbs, because that is all that you will be able to eat from now on."
The guest gasped at Greg's statement. some creamed insults at him and called him things like traitor and fool, some even charged at him, to prevent him from putting his plan into action. Johan was at a complete loss, he had no idea what was happening around him.
"Don't worry I will shrink with you, but don't think you can catch me. We will be shrunk in different areas of this floor, it has to do with the dispersing of our molecules and other boring stuff like that."
Greg pulled out a tablet from his jacket and quickly pressed some things on the screen, suddenly the first floor, glowed a bright neon green. Everyone was blinded and stunned by the light, Johan was hoping that this light was just for show and would not really shrink him or the other guest, but his hopes were to be dashed.
Johan was passed out for about an hour, he was slowly regaining consciousness. He slowly opened his eyes and began to rise to his feet. Johan's memory was as fuzzy as his sight, but slowly he started to gain his bearings and remember the events that led up to him being passed out on the floor. Johan's stomach began to turn violently, his insides were clearly affected by the shrinking process.
"Shrunk... Was I really shrunk?"
He looked around and to his dismay, he had realized that he was in Greg's living room, but everything was in a much larger scale. He franticly surveyed the large living room and fell to his knees in shock of the realization of his size. Upon observation he guessed that he was about only one millimeter tall, at this size even an ant can be considered a monster.
"That... That bastard really did it."
He looked in the distance and noticed a few of the guest a large distance away, he could hear them screaming and cursing. There were even a few screams coming from the glass coffee table above him. He couldn't believe that everyone was stuck in such a horrifying situation, he then realized something that made his heart stop, he suddenly felt ill thinking about what poor Emi was going through.
"Emi.. Emi! She must be scared, shrunk in her bed and here I am useless! I need to help her I need to help get her back to normal, along with everyone else here. I-I need to find Greg, I am sure he can undo this mess."
"IT'S SO QUIET DOWN THERE, I GUESS THAT MEANS THE PARTY IS OVER. LET ME SEE FOR MYSELF. I HOPE IT'S OVER SO I CAN GET SOME SNACKS."
Johan was in shock to hear the booming voice of a young female , he then heard large thumps coming down the stairs.
"It can't be... Could she have really not -"
"That is correct baby brother."
Johan turned around fast and looked at his brother sitting behind him. Johan ran and tackled Greg to the ground.
"What the hell?"
"It seems that the shrink device can shrink things over a large area, but it has a limit of how high up it can reach. The second floor was not reached and it seems that Emi was spared. A huge miscalculation on my part, but this will play out better than I expected. I was just planning on everyone eventually dying of starvation and maybe even an unexpected pest, but Emi might end things faster and her presence will be sure to be very entertaining."
"Why did you shrink us?"
"Everyone here deserves to die, well not you and Emi, but you are a sorry excuse for a human with a sorry and boring life. I am doing you a favor, by having you die early and Emi would not be able to survive without me anyway, so why not have her die as well?"
"You're sick Greg, I want you to stop this at once! If you are so miserable and want to die then just kill yourself, but leave me and Emi out of it."
"Look in the distance little brother, the show is about to begin. let's see if my little girl can make me proud?"
Johan abandoned his attack on his brother and began to move under the gigantic sofa behind him along with Greg, it was one of the only places that he thought would be safe. Unfortunately the other guest had nowhere to hide only Johan and Greg were near a safe place, as if Greg planned where him and his brother would end up when shrunk.
The sound of Emi's thunderous foot falls were getting louder and felt like they were getting closer. Every time her foot made contact with the floor, it was like cracking thunder, the guest ran around franticly, knowing that a giant was going to appear from the stair case soon, then suddenly everybody stopped moving. Everyone looked up in awe and paralyzing fear of the young giantess who walked into the living room.