Katie started today like any other day. She got out of bed, showered, dressed, and made her way downstairs. She used to like listening to the radio as she prepared breakfast. But nowadays, the news only ever brings her down.
It all started about seven months ago when the Vitruva Corporation started experimenting on their quantum reassembly device (QRD). They had supposed that if a person could be broken down at a molecular level with the quantum interactions between each molecule preserved and recorded, it may even be able to unlock the gate for a variety of revolutionary technology. Transporters, cloning devices, anti-aging equipment and so much more could be in humanities grasps. They had made a major breakthrough with microbial bacteria and were delving into larger specimens. But then everything went wrong.
Over the next few days, key researchers had gone missing from the QRD project. Then other researchers on the same floor of the Vitruva building vanished. Then bystanders and visitors in the surrounding area started disappearing in broad daylight. Even with the project shut down and numerous government investigators on the case, the missing persons list grew. The disappearances soon spread across the entirety of Iowa. Now people going missing had just become a commonplace occurrence for Katie. People she had known for years would just vanish without a trace.
After breakfast, she hopped in her car and sped to work. Traffic was light that day. Usually, Katie would experience at least a few car crashes on her way to work caused by automobiles with no drivers, but it seemed now there weren’t even enough people left on the street to crash into. Evacuation plans had been enacted, then ended, then restarted again. It seems every time federal agents had gotten to the bottom of the problem and ended this eternal phantom over the state, the disappearances would just begin again. Katie had long given up on running, especially as cases started cropping up across state lines.
As Katie arrived at work, she saw a man with a billboard around his neck with the words “THE RAPTURE HAS ARRIVED” in bold letters scrawled across it. He was handing out pamphlets, no doubt with one of the numerous cults that had emerged around these unfortunate vanishings.
Work felt quieter every day. Fewer customers, fewer employees, and less need for earthly possessions left the store feeling desolate and empty. It was like the insides of the department store she worked at had been scooped out with nothing to replace it. Really, the whole world was starting to feel that way.
Katie looked around. The store was pretty clean, there were no customers, and what employees were even there were goofing off on their phones. Katie went to the cooler and grabbed a soda. Then, she slipped into a warehouse in the back to enjoy her spoils. Propping herself against a pretty soft bag of soil, she enjoyed her drink and slowly drifted back to sleep.
When she woke up, the bag of soil and drink was gone. The warehouse was gone. Everything and everybody she ever knew had disappeared and in its place was a world thoroughly alien to her. Large wooden artifices littered a field full of wait-high grey grass. Two steel pavilions the size of warehouses stacked one upon the other stood far in the distance. She seemed to be in an enclosed area surrounded by white walls. A window had been placed far out of any conceivable viewing range. It was then that Katie started piecing everything together.
What she was looking at was a room blown to extreme proportions. She looked around to see if there was any mark or indication to give her a clue to where she was or the owner of the room, but outside of the outlandish size, nothing stood out of place. The room was fairly plain, with no posters on the wall. There were a pair of dressers, a few desks, a number of smallish chairs, and a bunk bed. So she supposed that probably two people lived here, and that this may or may not be a college dorm, but other than that, not much could be gleaned.
As Katie took in her familiar yet alien surroundings, she saw something moving in the distance. Beneath one of the desks, she saw another woman her size. She called out across the expanse and made her way towards her as fast as she waded through the carpet fibers with as much haste as her tiny frame was capable of. Whoever it was noticed and seemed to be excited to see a friendly face. She rushed over to meet Katie shouting something that Katie couldn’t hear. They got closer and closer in the middle of the room. Just as they were about to make contact, a loud creak was heard from one of the doors. The other woman panicked and dashed back to her hiding place under the desk as fast as she could.
Ernest stepped out of the bathtub and wrapped a towel around his waist. Not only was showering a great way to relax after a long workout, but he wanted to look his best for when his new roommate arrived. Normally, he wouldn’t be as excited about having a new buddy in his dorm. He’d had seven in three years. The process would always be the same. His new dormmate would arrive, he would run them pretty ragged, then they would move out within the month. But this one felt special. He’d met Hanz at a club, and knew right away that he’d be the perfect roomie. He had a freaky quality that most of his other roomies hadn’t in a long while. He stepped out of the bathroom and made his way to the bed.
Katie stared up in awe. From the large door on the far side of the room emerged an absolutely gargantuan figure. His toned physique was that of an Olympian god. His damp muscles and chiseled features glistened in the light, blown to astronomical proportions. His more sensitive areas were covered only in a towel, which went from his hips down to his thighs. He was a sight to behold even standing still, but in motion, he was absolutely beyond reason. Katie couldn’t comprehend a figure the size of an apartment building moving with the speed he did. It didn’t even look like he was putting much effort into it.
The woman in the distance was running as fast as her legs could take her, but the carpet stifled her ability to pick up speed. The ground creaked and groaned as the giant approached where the two were standing. Katie froze as her brain shut down from fear. Her short-lived friend trudged faster, but her fate was already sealed. In one second, Katie was staring at her panicked ally, and the next she was looking at the side of the giant’s foot. She fell on her knees and curled into a ball as the mammoth passed her by, with nothing but a miniscule red spot on his foot to show for it.
Ernest flopped onto the bottom bunk of his bed and texted Hanz.
“When are you getting here? I’m bored.”
“Sorry, it’s taken me a while to get my stuff packed. I might have to wait until tomorrow.”
Ernest put on a scowl, not content having to wait another day for his new roomie. He turned to the side to see if there was anything to do, since he wasn’t in the mood to leave after a nice shower. That’s when he spotted the shifter that had been lounging around his house for the last month.
Shifters were a pretty new phenomenon. The humanoid insects had only really been discovered a few months ago. Though their origin is unknown, some researchers have noticed that signals with no apparent origin trigger the molecules in the air to form these creatures. Scientists have been doing research on them to see how these signals worked and what it could mean for humanity, but to most people, they really only ever served as a nuisance.
Ernest used to go out of his way to squash shifters, but they kept showing up, and it wasn’t like they really formed nests. Heck, it wasn’t even clear how they appeared in the first place. So he usually ignored them, and the shifters in turn stayed out of his way. Yet peculiarly, this one was just lounging around in the middle of the room where it could be stepped on.
“Hey bug! Go away. You wouldn’t want to get squished, would you?”
Katie, understanding this as the threat it was meant as, broke out of her trance and ran as fast as her little legs could carry her. Ernest wondered why this bug in particular was just standing around gawking at him. He knew he was sexy, but the shifter had always seemed habitually scared. It was only as it ran that he noticed this bug had blonde hair instead of red hair. It must be a different bug. Ernest wasn’t happy to have more bugs in his dorm, but didn’t really feel motivated to do anything about it, so he just let it go for now.
He briefly wondered where the red-haired shifter went, before getting bored again. He propped one leg over the other as he looked on his phone for something to watch. His left foot dangled as an almost imperceptible red splotch stained its underside. Ernest would never realize the tiny he was wondering about would be affixed to his body until tomorrow’s shower washed any evidence of it away.