Grasping at the sides of his head in a somewhat feigned state of desperation, Matthew looks around the wide area of the campus laboratory.

Following the lead of the other lab assistant staff members, he does his best to appear concerned. It had been nearly an hour since the “experimental matter reduction device” was activated, and more than half of the graduate staff- as well as a number of students had disappeared.

It was as if their very bodies had been instantaneously dissolved in the burst of otherworldly light that radiated out like a screen projector from the front of the small machine. Those not directly impacted by the burst, were left variously stunned and partially blinded for the next few panicked moments as they assessed the situation.

For the first few minutes following the event, the remaining lab staff was in an uproar, unsure of what had even taken place. It didn’t take very long however for the second in command under the missing professor, a peer of Matthew’s named Tim, to suggest an idea to the group.

He openly surmised that the device had seemingly functioned as expected and the missing staff members must still be throughout the laboratory area, simply shrunken to roughly the size of small insects.

Matthew cringed internally as he heard his co-worker begin to easily put together the pieces. Gritting his teeth, he knew it was only a matter of time before he figured out that the device had been tampered with to alter its output levels and radius. Feeling a layer of cold sweat beginning to form on his forehead, he ducks beneath one of the nearby tables, acting as if he was still searching for the shrunken survivors while taking a moment to compose himself.

For the last hour or so, the thirty afflicted survivors of the shrinking device accident had wandered the now vast field of space within the laboratory room. Their inch high or less forms distributed atop and across the furniture they had been sitting on or leaning against.

At first, most found themselves separated by what seemed like miles within the sheer scale of the room spreading out around them while they shrank. The better part of the first half hour was spent just getting their bearings in their now massive surroundings.

Another half hour or so was spent fleeing in abject terror before the titanic forms of their peers and coworkers crashing through the area around them. More than once, the now insect sized survivors had to desperately sprint beneath the nearby furniture, or across the surface of the desks they found themselves stranded upon, to narrowly avoid the crashing form of an errant body part or huge object moved by the other lab staff while frantically they searched the room.

Over time, some of those stranded on the floor gathered together into small groups, in all they counted themselves and accounted for 10 people, almost half of those seemingly missing out of who was present during the device’s apparent malfunction.

Quickly, the newly united group starts to argue among themselves, suggesting vastly differing methods of salvation from their predicament. 

A group of students lead by a particularly charismatic upperclassman named Paul eventually tires of the debate and breaks dramatically from the others. Talking in his British laced accent to his peers- the blonde, confident and attractive young man assures his small group that if they work in unison to attract the attention of one of their larger peers there’s no way they can miss their combined noise.

4 of the other students, inspired by his speech, begin to follow him through the undersides of the tables lining the room. Their hastily made plan revolving around seeking help from the huge, seemingly aloof humans surrounding them.

The others, a now small group of 2 staff members and 3 students following the lead of a middle-aged physics teacher, Jerry, found it too dangerous and decided to flee towards the hallway and escape the area altogether.

The party lead by Paul now found themselves staring at the massive moving frame of Matthew’s body. His sneakers slam into the ground, stopping directly before their hiding spot under the laboratory tables. Their tiny forms freeze in place as his face comes into view, appearing to lean down beneath the desk- likely searching for them. They wave their hands furiously towards him, screaming his name. But watch in dismay as he simply stares past them, uninterested, or perhaps unable to even see their miniscule forms.

Matthew clenches his fist, feeling his forehead beneath his short, dark hair still becoming clammy. Straightening his glasses, he tries to fight back the urge to laugh, he could hardly believe it had worked himself. The modifications he made to the device while the others were celebrating its completion the night before- were even more effective than he had imagined. He had boosted its overall output, as well as fragmenting the lens that usually calibrated where it’s beam would be focused- making it highly erratic.

He had hoped to perhaps shrink an entire portion of the lab, or even the school area, but realized it would probably only effect nearby objects and people. Shrinking more than half of the lab’s population and remaining unscathed himself was quite the rush though. A rush he had never personally experienced before. His heart pounds in his chest while he reminds to actually peer throughout the area beneath the tables, eager to potentially spot one of his shrunken peers or coworkers.

Suddenly, his eyes focus in on the tiny wiggling figures beneath the desk, waving their limbs in his direction. His hands shake, trying his best to act as if he hadn’t noticed them, and not show his reaction on his face. Keeping his wits about him, he continues scanning his eyes past them. Breathing deeply, he sighs to himself somewhat relieved, realizing that as long as no one knows he’s behind the accident he’s still in the clear for now.

All he has to do is stay cool and get his hands on the device- whenever Tim gets back from the IT lab with it anyways. He doubts the workers there will be able to see through his changes to the device’s code or even really understand it’s overall structure and wiring. So long as everything goes well, all the would-be savior was doing by running off with it really, was wasting precious time.

Pulling himself back up, Matthew begins to make his way through the laboratory section past the other worried staff. Taking his time, he moves carefully- as if actually concerned for the shrunken victims that could be around him. Far below on the floor, the awestruck members of the Paul’s group beneath the desk can’t believe that Matthew was entirely unable to see them.

Having remained unharmed in the encounter, the shrunken individuals briefly argue amongst each other. Some of the group feeling intimidated by the close encounter with the man’s huge shoes slamming into the ground nearby begin to question the safety of their quest. However, Paul reassures them- saying that staying still on the floor is surely just as dangerous, especially if the others are unable to notice them easily due to their size.

Holding to their idea that making noise as a group nearby one of their huge peers is the best option they have, they decide to brave the vastness of the room itself. Breaking into a sprint, they chase after Matthew’s gigantic form in an attempt to catch up to him.

Desperate to find some way to gain the attention and perhaps the help of one of their giant peers they run alongside one another, balancing carefully as Matthew’s footfalls shudder the tile around them. In the distance beyond his mountainous body, a dark-haired, and tan skinned giantess becomes visible on the horizon, leaning against the wall beside the exit to the room.

Shouting to each other as they ran, the group reasons that one or another of these two should be the best chance they were going to have to be discovered for a while. Eager to regain their lost size and be done with the dusty, cold, and otherworldly desert-like tiled floor of the cyclopean room stretching around them, they push themselves. Worried about being lost forever or killed in some terrible way by one of their monstrously sized classmates, they strain their tiny limbs to keep pace with the slow, massive stepping motions of the boy walking ahead of them.

Matthew nods towards his coworker, another graduate lab assistant apparently taking a moment to herself beside the door leading into the more public classroom and the campus hall beyond. He tries his best to feign a look of concern matching her own stressed expression.

Standing with her thin bronze arms crossed, she doesn’t say anything directly to him as he passes by her, simply sighing to herself and tussling her dark hair anxiously. Shifting her flats against the ground, uneasily grinding them onto the tile, he catches her mumbling something indiscernible to herself as the door closes behind him.

Across the floor in his wake, the huge door swings closed in front of the tiny group running after his massive form before they can even reach the rise of its metallic base. Their tiny bodies now exhausted from trying to keep up with the giant, they screech to a halt, falling to the ground or doubling over as they try to catch their breaths. Their path now having lead them directly before the gigantic, nervously shifting flats of the laboratory’s T.A., a lithe framed Korean girl named Eve.

The dusty, darkly colored, and roughly building sized shapes of her shoes flex against the floor overshadowing them. The area beneath her shakes while she leans against the wall far above biting her the tips of her manicured nails. One of the group, an academic underachiever named Carl Wragen, is knocked to the floor by the rumbling caused by the giant girl and finds himself staring upwards towards the clearly visible forms of her muscular toes moving within the confines of the thin black canvas.

The tiny man gazes up the nylon covered surface of the massive legs rising above them. Looking back towards his friend, Paul, and the rest of the group. Pulling himself off the ground and speaks up to the others.

“Ow!- Hey uhh… guys- I don’t know if this was such a good idea-“ He can hardly be heard over the sound of Eve’s flat grinding across the floor towards him. The shrunken student has no time to react as the cruise ship sized shoe slides into his body with the force of a careening vehicle.

The others look on in shock, speechless as his body disappears beneath the towering mass of the nervously shifting girl’s flat.

Looking around, Matthew sees that the connecting classroom is entirely empty, leaving a clear route to the hallway and outwards to the rest of the campus. Taking a moment to himself, he inhales deeply, appreciating the momentary peace and opportunity to straighten himself more properly. His moment is short lived however, as the hallway door bursts open suddenly.

As the door opens and slams in the classroom beyond, Matthew glances over nervously- expecting to see Tim’s obnoxious grin greeting him with the device in hand, giving him his opportunity.

He’s greeted instead however with a familiar and unexpected face- the smiling and beautiful visage of his girlfriend, Axci. Running her fingers through her short plum colored hair she looks up towards him in the back portion of the room and stands somewhat timidly in the doorway. Moving her hands beneath the draping sleeves of her hoodie and adjusting her glasses she speaks- noticeably embarrassed.

“Whoops- uhm… sorry I uhh- didn’t actually mean to like- SLAM the door open like that- ANYWAYS! Heya, babe!”

Meanwhile, far below on the ground within the classroom area- Another group of shrunken survivors had just completed a long journey from the initial reduction incident in the adjoining room, making their way towards this seemingly abandoned room.

It had taken nearly an entire hour for the group of 8 shrunken lab workers, and the students accompanying them, to reach the classroom proper. Then almost another half an hour to make their way across the labyrinthian maze of desks and chair legs towards the hallway door.

After reaching the halfway point, the rather large group split into two smaller teams. Four of them, lead by an engineering student named James- a well-liked overachiever known around the campus by his last name “Fixer”, decide to try their luck by climbing the nearby furniture. Their idea being that they can potentially more easily attempt to gain the notice of some passerby from a higher vantage point.

Weary from their trek over the hard tiled plains of the two rooms, the remaining population of the group sat gathering themselves and recuperating near the exit doorway. For the moment having their tensions eased by the overseeing professor, as he attempts to convince the group of their assured rescue.

Talking amongst themselves and collecting what they could of their various shrunken belongings and few useful small items they had found along the way, they turn at the noise of the laboratory door to see Matthew enter the room. Chattering about the possibility of potential rescue from their giant fellow lab worker, they didn’t even notice the booming footsteps coming from the hallway beyond.

Closing the hallway door behind her as she enters the room Axci makes her way inside. Before Matthew can even say anything, still too confused and panic stricken to properly respond, she begins flirtatiously strutting past the desks towards him.

“I- Uh- Axci- wait- w-what are you even doing here?” He manages to stutter out poorly as she’s already standing in front of him, sheepishly running a finger down the front of his button up shirt and teasingly caressing him.

The group standing and conversing near the hallway door didn’t stand a chance as Axci’s titanic sandals suddenly burst through the opening doorway.

The movement of the door causes a burst of displaced air to sweep over the area, knocking the majority of the group to the ground or sending them flying, rolling across the hard tile of the classroom floor. Shouting towards each other in a last-ditch effort to organize their movements, most fall into an instinctual panic while the towering form of the bare legs and dark hoodie covered body of the young girl suddenly fills the horizon.

“Wait! Where are you going! We have to stay together- Please! Don’t panic- Just stay STILL-“ The screaming voice of the group’s leader, Dr. Belknap- the head professor and main inventor of the reduction device, rings out over the fleeing motion of the small crowd.

The 15 shrunken, frightened people hardly pay him any mind as they’re already beginning to nervously move in various directions. None of this was going as planned- Belknap had never meant for the shrinking device to be used on living creatures, never mind human beings of all things.

The Reduction Ray- as he had planned to call it- was meant to be a device to bring ease to an overcluttered and underorganized world. With its manipulation of molecular matter, it could make storing items and large-scale objects simple, or mass amounts of materials easily transportable. Looking around himself now at the fleeing forms of his students and coworkers, he could only view the results of his assistants and his own work as nothing short of a complete disaster.

Throwing up his hands and shouting towards the others to head back beneath the desks for shelter, his voice ringing over the noise of shuffling movement is suddenly cut short. Dr. Belknap goes entirely silent as the rough surface of Axci’s leather sandal sole crashes down over his ant sized body.

He’s compressed beneath her mountainous weight making a wet squelching sound. Her huge frame shifting and continuing her movement as his portly, middle aged body pops like a grape against the hard tile beneath her foot.