CHAPTER 2:

Good News, and Worse News

I had to have regular doctor visits, to keep track of whatever virus I had contracted, the plus side to the whole thing was that it didn't seem to be contagious after a 24 hour period. Which was good news for my mom and sister, but it still left the question of what the virus was, and what it would do to my body, if it did anything at all. So far the only symptoms seemed to be a slight case of nausea, and a constant feeling of something being wrong, but not being able to figure out what.

I was allowed to drive myself to the doctor's office again, and needless to say I was ecstatic as I hated being dependent on my mother, and sister. Though the former seemed to have enjoyed her baby needing her again, even if it was for a short time. I wasn't able to tell if my sister minded it, or not most of the time she just took me without much complaint, or comment, while she didn't show it I think she was worried that they might discover that it was some sort of killer virus and that I wasn't going to have long to live.

The doctor's office isn't quite as impressive as the hospital section of things, it is relatively dull with a plain white wall. The floor is covered with black and white checkered tiles the smell of industrial strength cleaners assaulted my nostrils. A nurse entered the office first, she took my vitals, and then the strange thing happened, when she checked my height she announced that I was five foot seven inches. The problem with it is, I had always been five foot eight inches, but I figured she'd just miss measured and shrugged it off.

After she left I was alone in the doctor's office, this was the part I always hated the most, you spend a hour in the waiting room, then when they bring you back you sit for another hour. Then when the nurse finally shows up to take your vitals, you have to sit there for another hour before the doctor finally shows up to tell you that you're either sick, or not. Sometimes I wondered if a doctor ever took so long that he came into his office to realize that there was a patient that had otherwise been completely forgotten, or if they walked in and found them dead from boredom. Just when I thought I was going to go completely nuts from the lack of sensory stimulation, the doctor finally entered the room.

This doctor looked like he was six feet tall at the least, his hair was salt and pepper, he looked like a man in his late fifties. He was wearing wide aviator style glasses reading off of a chart, his wrinkled face was stern looking.

“Well Mr. Smith, everything looks good, the only thing that seems to be a little off is you seem to be experiencing some weight loss, but I think that could be because of the nausea,” he said with a deep voice.

“Yeah, but I've also been feeling a little off too, but I can't place my finger on what it is that is causing me to feel like something is different,” I replied to the doctor.

“It's hard to say the virus could be messing with your equilibrium, we'll draw a blood sample and run some tests to see if we can pinpoint any abnormal activity,” he said walking out of the room.

So I sat for another hour, or so it felt as the nurse then returned with a needle without a plunger and a vial to contain my blood. My heart raced in my chest as I stared at the needle, this was one thing I had hoped to avoid, as I was never a big fan of getting shots, or being within the general facility of a needle if I could avoid it. I breathed slowly in and out as I felt the cool alcohol rub against my skin drying it out a little, but also disinfecting it for the needle. I turned my head to the side so not to see the needle plunge into my arm. I winced as I felt the cold metal penetrate my skin, and then I felt the blood begin to leave my body.

To say I was ready to go home after all of this was an understatement, I had basically given up my entire morning. I was poked, and prodded, and even had blood drawn! I walked out of the building, and across the parking lot, once again I had that very strange sensation like something was of. It was like experiencing deja vu, you don't know how to explain it, but you feel like it's happened before. In my case though it was like deja vu, but with maybe a slight twinge of nausea. Yet I had no fever, and within a few seconds the sensation was gone just as quickly as it had occurred. I shrugged it off, hopped into my car and began the journey home.

The drive back home seemed much faster then it probably should, mostly because I still couldn't shake that sensation of being off. Thankfully it didn't impair my ability to drive, it was like a tingle you get in the back of your spine when you think you're about to come down with something, and since I knew I had already contracted a virus, I figured it was just my body fighting off the infection. I looked up to see mom's car was missing, I gave out another sigh as I knew she was at work, even though I was able to basically set her up so she would want for nothing if she would let me, she refused, and insisted that she earned her money herself.

A small smile curled on my lips as I just now realized where I got my stubbornness from. I was just about to head into the door when I hear a loud thumping noise. I turned to see Gwen running up the driveway in a pink sports bra and short, and matching spandex compression shorts. This was the first time I had actually taken any notice of her since I had gotten back, mostly being preoccupied with the doctor visits, and the lawyer interrogations.

As I've said before, she's about a head shorter than I am, five foot even if memory serves, where as mom is five foot two. Her hair is tied back into a tight ponytail, sweat glistening off of her exposed skin, she breathed slowly in and out as she turned her back to me showing off her large round rear end. I couldn't help, but suppress a laugh as I recalled all the teasing I would give her when I was a teenager about how she could be like the bumble from Rudolph if she ever fell off a cliff she could bounce right back up. Her hips are wide, her thighs thick and showing some small muscular definition. After she finally caught her breath she turned back to me, and even though I am her brother I couldn't help, but notice that her chest was way bigger than what I had thought my baby sister should have, those things have to be at least DD's!

“What are you staring at?” she asked curiously looking around to see if she could see what I saw.

“Oh nothing, just the Abominable Snow Monster returning from the gorge!” I shout laughing as I start running away.

“OH! You are so getting your ass kicked for that one!” she shouted chasing after me having caught her second wind.

I ran with all my might, in my younger days I could easily out strip her, but I hadn't really done much running, or cardio in general. So when she caught up to me while I was huffing and puffing after having only really just ran maybe twenty yards max. The grin on her face said it all, not only had she caught me, but I was winded from the small sprint and the teasing was about to begin.

“I might be the Abominable Snow Monster, but you're Slow Poke Rodriguez, holy shit I don't think I've seen a fat guy breath as heavy as you are,” she said teasingly.

“S-Shut up, I'm j-just a little out of shape,” I said breathing in through my nose and letting it out through my mouth.

“A little out of shape? Dave, seriously you're so far out of shape that you sound like a winded rhino after it just charged. You're more than welcome to join me in the mornings it'll be like old times,” she said cheerfully.

“I might take you up on that sis, but I'll need to wait until after I get my test results back before I start doing a training regiment, it could aggravate things,” I said smiling at her.

“Whatever you say bro, in the meantime I'm going to get a shower,” she said briskly as she skipped into the house to get a shower.

Two days passed without a word from the doctor, which as with most things, meant neither good, nor bad news. It just made me all the more impatient, I had taken to checking my phone almost every hour on the hour just encase I missed the call, but no new numbers ever flashed.

On the other end of the spectrum the lawsuit with VitaCorp was going smoothly over all, at least that's what the lawyer kept telling me. From what he told me, depending on the test results, I could gain a fairly substantial amount of money from this lawsuit. Something that I really had no interest in, but hey, if you can make it take it.

It was about mid day, four days after the accident, that I finally got a call from the doctor, however the news didn't seem to be too good, as they'd asked me to come back in that day. My sister wanted to tag along this time around, more for moral support I think, but the company was appreciated all the same.

After sitting in the waiting room for what felt like hours, the doctor surprisingly took no time to actually get to me, something I whispered to my sister had to be a record, which caused her to giggle. However the giggling teenager didn't seem to raise the spirits of the doctor as he stared at me sternly almost with a grim look as if he were about to announce my time of death.

“Well Mr. Smith the results have came back, and they're very concerning,” said the doctor.

“What do you mean doc? What is this virus doing to me?” I asked him feeling butterflies float around in my stomach.

“Well, we checked, and rechecked, and triple checked everything, and Mr. Smith it would appear that this, this virus, this bioweapon, whatever you want to call it, is actually causing all of the cells in your body to enter what I can only describe as human cellular plasmolysis,” said the doctor completely astounded.

“And what the hell does that mean?” I asked feeling the butterflies in my stomach starting to swell to the point that I thought my stomach was going to burst, or that my heart was going to break my rib cage.

“In a less scientific term, you're shrinking,” replied the doctor.

I stared at the doctor in silence for the longest time, my eyes glued to his, I could hear my own heart beat ramming in my chest. Then I burst out laughing as if he had just told me the most fantastic joke.

“Okay doc that was a good one,” I say feeling the tension ease from my body for a little while.

“Um....Dave, I don't think he's joking,” came my sister's voice to my right.

“I wish I could say I were, but the tests, don't lie, you're shrinking, albeit, very slowly,” he said beckoning for me to stand up.

I did as he wished and followed him over to those collapsible height charts, and asked me to stand straight up. I kicked off my shoes, walked over to where he told me to stand and I stood up as straight as I possibly could. He moved the slider that ran up and down the measuring stick and then asked me to step away.

“When we first examined you, you were five foot seven inches” the doctor informed me.

“Yeah, the nurse made a mistake, I'm five foot eight inches,” I said correcting the doctor.

Holding the bar where my head had been only seconds before he beckoned me forwards to look at the numbers written on the bar.

“S-Sixty-six inches, but....but that's impossible!” I say not believing my eyes.

“It looks like what every they did to develop the bioweapon has just made the impossible quite possible. The only question remains is, how small are you going to get?” said asked the doctor rhetorically.

“Is there any way you can tell?” I asked nervously.

“Not at this juncture, but with how rapidly your cells seem to be regressing, you could end up losing over half your height at the least inside a month,” said the doctor.

I sat there just staring at the doctor, as he got up and walked out of the room allowing me, and Gwen time to process all of this. There was silence for the longest time, the air so thick that you could have cut it with a butter knife. After a few more minutes I turned back to Gwen from the looks of her puffed face she was trying her hardest to keep from crying.

“Well, I guess you'll finally get to be taller then I am,” I said joking finally breaking the silence, and hoping to cheer her up, this earned me a light jab to my shoulder and a wet sounding laugh as she then reached over and hugged me tightly.