Many days, I ask myself the same question: Is my life worth living? Why do I exist and what has this cruel fate become of me. OK, I guess I have to explain myself. My name is Charlie. I was an ordinary high school kid. However, I suffered from some minor depression and a bit of Aspergers syndrome. If you don’t know, Asperger’s is a mild form of autism. Basically it means I am not very sociable. With the exception of my closest friends and family, I don’t really like talking to people a lot. It’s because I don’t know what to say or I might do something stupid.

It also can mean that I can get really nervous. I can sometimes get really stressed out over really little things, like bad grades, getting a bunch of cavities, embarrassing myself, something in my routine get’s radically altered, etc. This can give me an anxiety attack where everything about myself comes back at me in a negative way and make me feel like a complete failure.  It can sometimes get to the point where I ponder suicide. In fact, I even attempted it once, but I chickened out at the last minute.  It was one of the most traumatizing moments in my life.

But it wasn’t all bad. I loved movies and video games, I was pretty good at using graphics editing tools, and my friends were all really nice and appreciated me. And then there was Bridgette. Bridgette was my high school crush. She had the prettiest face, beautiful brunette hair, and a very well fit body that was to die for.  However, I was way too nervous to even talk to her.  I mean, we talked occasionally, but it was only really quick Hi, Bye talking. I always got really nervous around her and couldn’t stop looking over at her with a few second glanced making sure she never saw me. However, little would I know she would help me through the most difficult periods in my life.

What happened to me is still I little unclear, but here’s what happened on that day. I was a science department aid at my school on some days where I would have to do some odd jobs for the science teachers to pass the time.  One of the chemistry teachers came up to me and said:

“Charlie, could you go into the storage rooms and pick up some things I need in there?”

“Sure thing.” I replied back to here.

I took the key and went into the storage rooms. After I had collected all of the neccicary boxes, I noticed one of them had some really weird Labels on them. One said, “Property of Theresa Moruchak”, the other said “WARNING! Do not come in contact with liquid!” Out of curiosity, I decided to open it up and see what was inside. What was inside was a bottle of some bluish liquid. Stupidly, I opened it up and closely inspected it. But unfortunately I spilled some of it on me, my hoodie, pants, and shoes. I quickly put it away and tried my best to clean the stuff off. I cleaned myself off pretty well, and I left the storage room and went back into the room where my supervising teacher was working.

“Good work Charlie,” she said “I have to go substitute another class right now, but you’re free to hang out in this class room for another hour until the bell rings.”

“OK, thank you!” I reply back.

However, only a few minutes after she left and me sitting on one of the science tables, I started to feel something weird. I felt like my body was being pushed in on itself. I started feeling really dizzy and tired, so I decided to go to sleep for a little while…….

I wake up after a few minutes on some sort of cold hard surface. I check my surroundings for a second and realized that the room I was in just got bigger. And then I looked down on the ground to realize that I was standing of the vary table I fell asleep on earlier. All that meant that, I had shrunk! I really started to panic. I was shrunk. Only a few inches tall. No bigger than a bug. I started to cry a little bit.

I had been struggling to try and find a purpose in life. What I want to do after high school. Being a High School senior, I hadn’t even picked a college to go to yet. I didn’t know what I wanted to be, but I knew I wanted to be something. But what could I be when I was this size? I felt tiny, alone, sad, cold, and helpless. This was again, one of the times I pondered suicide. I had nothing to live for anymore.  

I walked over to the edge of the table and looked at what was, to me, a massive drop. A fall like that could easily kill someone. It was perfect. However, I was incredibly terrified of heights. I kept looking over the sides and pondering and pondering whether this was a good idea and if I just stayed put, someone might be able to find be and help me. However, there were enough creeps in this school that could just as easily abuse me and hurt me that would make the rest of my miserable life even worse. I didn’t want to take that risk.

Finally, after some time thinking about it, I decided I would do it. I took one last look over the edge, said a quick prayer, and jumped over the side. I screamed like mad as I was falling. It felt like it was an eternity while falling. The fall was really exhilarating, but also terrifying as I was about to die the moment I hit the ground.  I had no immediate second thoughts. I was about to put my sad and miserable life to rest and be rid of this cruel world.

CRASH!

I hit the ground pretty hard. I expected to be out cold, or dead from the impact. But surprisingly, I was still alive. The fall hurt like hell, but I didn’t have any broken bones. My entire body just stung and hurt to move for a little while. But the same question came to me: Why wasn’t I dead? Was I not ready to die? Was it because when I shrunk I became less prone to injury? I didn’t know. I felt a little sad and a little relieved to know that I was still alive.

But the real problem was that I was on the ground now. There was no way to get back up onto the table, and I could easily be crushed if I stayed here when the next class came. However, If I survived a massive fall, will I be able to survive being crushed? I didn’t know, and didn’t care at the time. My thoughts changed to survival for the time being. I needed an idea I needed to do something quick.

I turned around and the idea immediately came to me. MY BACKPACK! And it was Huge! And then I saw that one of my pockets was opened. That pocked had my cell phone! Of Course! I could be able to call for help and be able to hide out for a while. I quickly tried to scale the massive pack and into the open pocket. Inside I had to push through my giant wallet, keys, a USB stick, and finally my cell phone.  However, I quicky ran into a problem. My cell phone was one of the older cell phones where you had to flip it open. I tired my hardest to get the phone to flip open, but It was just too heavy for me to lift on my own. My heart sank. But at least I was able to hide out in here for a little while and maybe be lucky and be found by someone.

After a long time of waiting, I finally felt the thunderous stampede of students walking into the classroom. I head some people talking and finally:

“Hey, whose backpack is that?”

“It was probably one of my aids who left it there”

“I’ll take it to the office for you.”

Then I saw the zipper shut and felt the entire backpack shake and slide around trying to find a place to hold on to. After a little while, the feeling stopped and felt that the back pack was back on the ground again. Then I heard the russling of the zippers on my back pack. Someone was going through my backpack! And then finally somebody opened the one I was in. The light blinded me for a second, but I saw a face come into view and…….

The face I saw outside the pocket was Bridgette’s. I got incredibly nervous and unsure of what to think. Should I be excited about what was going to happen, or should I be scared at what she may do when she finds me? Well, I didn’t have much of a choice, as she grabbed pretty much everything that was in the backpack slot I was in.

“Let’s see if I can find out who you belong to…” she was saying to herself.

I yelled up to her “Bridgette, It’s me Charlie!”

It startled her and she dropped everything that was in her hands, including me. I was once again falling, but it was a much shorter fall and I knew that falls wouldn’t kill me now. I hit the ground, but it didn’t really much as I landed on my wallet. After I got myself standing up again and balanced, I turned around to see one of the most intimidating sights I have ever seen. What I saw was the massive form that was Bridgette. Although she was only kneeling down right now, she looked about 90-100 feet tall. I’d only imagine how tall she would be when standing up.

“Oh my god, Charlie, is that really you?” she said in a little shock.

“Y-yeah it’s me.” I nervously whispered.

“Wha-What happened? You’re so tiny now.”

“I-I r-really don’t know”

I really started to sweat out of fear and embarrassment. My clothes were all hot and sticky.

“Wow, you must be absolutely terrified being that small.”

I nodded.

I really didn’t know what to say. This was probably the longest conversation I had ever had with a girl I really liked. I just stood there like an idiot nervously eyeing Bridgette down. She could see that I was incredibly nervous and lay her hand down to see if I wanted to be picked up. I nodded and walked on to her hand. She raised me up to her beautiful face.

“It’s OK Charlie.” She said comfortingly, “I’m not going to hurt you. I only want to help you. Now, can you remember what you were doing last before this happened to you?”

I tried to remember what I was doing before this happened. I was doing work in the science department. I was getting boxes out of the storage room, I opened one of the boxes up, it had this strange liquid that I spilled on myself….

“The liquid!” I yelled out.

“Liquid? What liquid?”

I explained to Bridgette about the liquid that I opened up in the science storage room and how it was the property of a Theresa Mourchek.

“Hmm,” Bridgette thought, “Who could that be…… Ms Moe!”

“Wait, Ms. Moe?” I asked surprisingly.

“Yeah, Ms.Moe, our old Chemistry teacher! People just call her that because her real name is too long. If she created the liquid, maybe she knows a way to return you to normal size!”

“You’re right!” I replied “When can we see her?”

“I think she has a class right now, but I think we can talk to her next period.”

“Perfect.”

I waited in the office with Bridgette hiding me from view of anyone spotting me for the time being. And then when the bell rang, she took me and my stuff with her upstairs and into the chemistry room, where Ms. Moe was working.

“Bridgette!” She called “How have you been?”

“I’m great” She replied.”I just need to ask you a big question.”

“Anything darling.” She said with a smile.

“Do you know anything about a blue liquid in the storage room?”

Her smile quickly faded into a more nervous look.

“I… uhh, don’t know.” She said with a really bad poker face. “Why do you ask?”

“Well….” Bridgette started as she brought me out and showed me to Ms. Moe. Ms Moe gasped and took a step back.

“Oh no. It’s happened again!”

“What?” Birdgette and I said at the same time.

“OK, I guess I’d better explain myself” She started, “ When I was a chemistry student, I created this little mixture as an assignment for a class, when I presented it to my teacher, I accidently spilled some of it on him. Nothing happened immediately, as he cleaned it off of himself pretty easily. But then, after a few minutes, he started to shrink. Everyone huddled around his tiny body and… and….”

She started to tear up.

“..and one kid went and stomped on him! Now while it did take a lot of stomps for it to work, he was stomped into the dust.  My teacher was dead! And it was all my fault!”

Ms Moe was bawwing out right now.

“I’m so sorry,” Bridgette said consolingly, “But is there any way to reverse the effect”

“I’m afraid not,” Ms Moe said still sniffling, “ After the event, I locked my mixture away and never touched it again. I would have to experiment a long time to get it to work, but as of right now, I sorry Charlie, but you’re going to be that size forever.”

“For-For-Forever?”

Then I started bawwing to. I couldn’t believe it. I was going to be tiny, a weakling, a bug, a toy, forever. Bridgette tried her best to calm me down.

“Shh, Shh, It’s OK, I’m not going to let you get hurt. You can stay with me if you’d like. I’ll keep you safe and protect you.”

I nodded back to her. I was to depressed and confused right now to fully comprehend the situation. I was going to the home of the one woman a truly liked. After a while, the stress tired me out, and Bridgette put me in her shirt pocket and took me to her home……..