Humans and Tinies were once all humans. When scientists invented shrinking technology to face climate changes by reducing items so they could be shipped only on one boat instead of hundreds, they forgot to think about dumb people. And one day, a human being, let’s call him “the dumbest of them all” decided to try the technology on himself to see if he would shrink. He was very disappointed to see that he was not shrinking and just walked away. However, the cells in his body mutated and reacted by creating antibodies and those suddenly started multiplying and trying to defend his body from the constant now indestructible shrinking gene that mutated. Not only the man started to shrink slowly, all of this mutated cells started to become highly contagious, attacking and contaminating all non RH blood types leading to the well-known worldwide pandemic that shrunk about 20% of global population in 1 year only. These people, who started to shrink down to incredibly small sizes, were deemed unsavable, a lost cause.
That was many years ago.
Now, the Tinies are almost extinct. Few of them survived as they got exposed to nature’s wrath, animals, insects, and of course real sized humans who just never really acknowledged the Tinies as humans anymore, stripping them of all rights. Where tinies managed to survive against all odds, they got killed by humans for fun or for other popular reasons like the need to eradicate them for they were weak. Some humans enjoyed torturing Tinies before killing them. Some just crushed them underfoot or smashed them into pulp with tissue paper before discarding them in the trash bin or toilet. Rule number one of being a Tiny: never let a real human see you. It was seen like natural selection by most and no human in their right mind would actually help or defend Tinies. They all feared to be infected by the mutation and preferred to just kill any tinies right away when encountering them. Some “tinies rights” activists tried to change that social behavior, but they remained a very marginalized minority of people seen as crazy and mostly delusional.
Small communities of tinies managed to build sturdy outposts in wilderness or hidden places. Villages made of debris and clutter. Most tinies are merely half an inch tall, not really shrinking any smaller. Some of them were shrinking slower meaning their shrinking process would keep on going but they still would not stand taller than 3 or 4 inches and time would eventually get them to reach smaller sizes. Regular unshrunk Rh negative humans are extinct. The last of them being infected a few years ago.
Now let’s look a bit at Jake. He is a 18 years old Tiny, born Tiny. He spent all his life like this, and he learned the hard way to survive and avoid real sized humans. He learned how to fight spiders and other wretched insects that were double his size. He learned how to hide, how to search for food or craft weapons made of toothpicks. For him, and all of his generation of Tinies, that was life. He never knew what it was to be a real human since he was born after, from tiny parents. Jake was a good coming of age tiny man, filled with hope that one day, a cure would be found to grow back all Tinies to normal size, and become human again. That hope kept him alive.
His little village, where he was born, was hidden in an air duct of a crowded apartment building. His community managed to survive by gathering essential resources and they built defenses and walls and homes. Some braver than others would spend their days sneaking out and trying to bring back food or equipment like bread crumbles or paper clips. Everything not too heavy for them could be salvaged into something useful and that’s how that little community managed to survive. Jake was a very courageous Tiny, and he wanted to do his best to keep his family and community alive and he often sneaked out, adventuring into the real human world of the apartment building and its surroundings, trying to avoid humans and insects and cats and other death threats only to bring back whatever he could. Living the Tiny life was hard, very hard.
But one day, something wonderful happened in Jake’s life. One tiny that lived in his community was an old professor and that old man never stopped believing in a chemical formula that would revert the shrinking process and he finally cracked the formula. Hope for a full normal sized life was reignited, but there was a catch. To make sure the formula could work on a great scale, one would have to try it first and drink a dose of the medicine, and then, once fully grown to normal size keep taking the so-called “medicine” in sufficient dosage to actually stay that way. In other words, the human body wouldn’t absorb the medicine fully, preventing this to be a permanent solution. To stay normal, a tiny would have to take the medicine and never skip a dose, because the shrinking would resume. That posed a real problem because Tinies didn’t have enough of the medicine to administer every tiny in the community, it was unthinkable that they could actually mass replicate it and save all the Tinies of the world. The only way to achieve this ultimate goal was to select one person who would grow up to normal size, find a way to mass produce the medicine in some sort of laboratory and then make the dream come true and save all Tinies.
The professor was too old to fulfill that mission. After a long debate, it was convened that Jake would be the one. He was cunning, fast, brilliant, and was the best candidate to go up there and fulfill the mission. The night before Jake would take the medicine, the community gathered and celebrated this new hope for Tinies around the world as soon, Jake would be a full-size human and would find a way to save his kin.
“Jake, are you alright?” said Livia, his childhood friend. She looked stressed. Hope in her eyes betrayed the resigned overall look on her face.
“Don’t worry Liv, I am alright. I can do this.” Jake said, confident while other Tinies of his community were strapping him on a makeshift table with pieces of tread.
“I know you can.” She said, patting his forehead and smiling at him. Deep down, she know it could be the last time she would see him. “I love you Jake.”
“I love you too Liv.” He said back. They kissed. Both savored the moment, until the professor walked.
“Alright Jake, this is it. Once you take this medicine you will start to grow back to normal size. You’ll have about 2 hours to get used to your new size. Our scouts confirm apartment 2B will be empty as the humans living there will be gone to work. They have clothes that should fit your size, grab some and put them on. Once you’re up there we won’t be able to help you. Have you memorized the formula?” he asked.
“Yes, sir. I did.”
“Recite it to me.” Asked the professor. Jake recited the formula from the top of his mind having fully memorized it. “Good good, up there, the second thing you need to do, is write it down. Find a pen and paper and write it down and keep it safe. You’ll have approximately 12 hours to find a pharmacy, they are stores down in the streets. There you fill find all the necessary medication to replicate the medicine, now you’ll have to craft it and make sure you add ingredients tenfold. Remember, you’ll be full size, so you need a lot more of it than right now.”
“Yes, I will do my best professor.” Said Jake, confident.
“There is human money in the apartment in the main bedroom between the mattresses. Take it all and use it to buy the ingredients at the pharmacy. Do not engage human beings. Do not talk to them. Go straight outside to the pharmacy and then replicate the medicine. Once it is done, you need to come back and place the medicine you crafted near the duct entrance on the second floor for us to get it and join you. As soon as we are all grown to normal size, we’ll help you craft more, and we can claim our existence back.” Explained the professor. Jake nodded. They placed a small piece of cloth in his mouth. Liv was standing next to him.
“Alright. Let’s begin.” The professor said. With that, he walked closer holding a sharp piece of needle and he poked at Jake’s forearm before dropping a precise quantity of a strange black liquid on the wound. Jake started to trash and bit the cloth hard. His eyes bulged out, his skin started to show his veins, he wanted to scream but he was muffled. The straps were holding him in place, then he blacked out and became very numb. “Unstrap him, quick, bring him up in the room.” Said the professor, noticing Jake’s body was already starting to grow. Four people were needed to drag him up there as he was getting heavier and heavier and bigger by the minute. He was growing, as planned, and soon, they left him on the floor of the bedroom and went back into hiding, hoping that their friend Jake would accomplish his mission.