After prodding him several times Grace decided on a less subtle method and shook Neil’s shoulders until he awoke with enough force to fall backwards out of the computer chair and onto the floor. The fact that he was completely unscathed and at regular size hadn't registered in his mind as he scampered backwards against the wall.

“Where is she!?”

“Neil!” Grace followed him to the wall and put her hands back on his shoulders to calm him down.

“Where did she go!?” He continued, his head on a swivel trying to peer past his friend to find where Angel was lurking.

“Neil!”

“Did you see-”

“Dude, get a grip!” With no other options to shut him up, Grace flung her open hand across Neil’s cheek to snap him out of his belligerence. The stinging pain from her slap initially startled him, but succeeded in jolting him into a coherent state. Able to think clearly now, Neil looked down at his chest taking into account that was he was unharmed. The déjà vu was all too real after having thought twice over that he was at death’s door only to wake up like nothing happened.

Neil looked upwards at the nearest window, it was still pitch black outside. “What time is it?”

“3:00 a.m. give or take. Thanks for scaring me half to death by the way. You sounded like someone was trying to kill you over the phone. I tried texting and calling a hundred times before I went to look for you around campus, come to find out you were here doing some last minute homework.”

“I didn’t come here; I was brought here!” He corrected. “Angel showed up at my job and forced her drugs on me again. After I shrunk she brought me here.”

“Angel again?” She inquired.

Though she was trying to mask it, Neil picked up on a heavy underlying tone of skepticism in her voice, she entertained the topic once before and for him to bring it up again he knew he needed to provide some definitive proof this time. “Yes, when you called me! She spoke to you on the phone.”

Grace thought back to the conversation they had. “I remember hearing bits of what you said, but you were talking very quietly.”

“It’s because I was shrunk during that time and then Angel took the phone from me and talked to you for a couple of seconds.”

Grace again tried to recall if she heard anyone else during that phone call, but could neither confirm nor deny it. “The call just cut out after I asked you to repeat where you were. You know the signal on campus sucks sometimes.”

“Grace c’mon, you have to believe me… Hold on, come to the computer.” Though frustrated Neil could understand her hesitance to believe him. If it were someone coming up to him about a psycho chick giving them magic shrinking pills he’d probably write them off as a nutcase. He appreciated Grace hearing him out for this long, but it was evident he needed something concrete to support his claims.

Picking up the fallen chair, Neil sat down and logged back into the locked computer.

“What are we going to look at?”

“A video from the party.” He explained, though the browser was closed he was easily able to locate the page in the search history. It appeared like the page was going to open, however after a couple of seconds the page redirected to a message reading, “Video Removed for Violation of Website Guidelines.”

“Oh come on!” He pleaded with the website, repeatedly clicking on the refresh key hoping by some absurd miracle the video would come up. “Come on, come on, come on!”
“Would you relax!” Grace intervened, rotating the chair so that Neil faced her.

Confused, Neil stared up to his monumental friend.

With a toothy grin etched into her face Grace leaned her billboard sized face closer to the tiny boy who hardly took up a square inch of the chair seat. “What difference does it make? I was there and saw exactly how puny you were.” She illustrated her point bringing together her thumb and index finger close to Neil, leaving just enough space between them to give a rough visual representation of his size. “You were about thaaat big.”

Neil rubbed his eyes. “Huh?”

“I said, it was probably taken down because you were… nude.” Grace reluctantly repeated. “Besides, I was there and like I said you were normal size.”

“R-right.” Neil stuttered.

Grace delivered a stern glare to Neil. Though he was looking at her there was a hazy faraway gaze in his eyes that signaled that he wasn't totally together and it made her wish he heeded her words earlier. “I told you not to go to work today. You barely slept last night and now you’re pulling all-nighters here? You need to get some rest.”

“…That’s true.” For the sake of avoiding an argument Neil agreed, but he refused to believe the gravity of what was going on was caused by mere sleep deprivation; granted exhaustion wasn't helping his mental capacities. Now that his heart rate settled down from his initial panic the adrenaline dump made fatigue hit him at full force. Just trying to keeping himself upright in the chair was an arduous task that required him to keep his active attention on staying balanced unless he wanted to collapse.

Neil looked up again, unable to move a muscle while Grace’s monumental hand clenched him into her fist. “Time to go to bed dork.” Without a care in the world she let her hands sway at her sides while she casually strolled letting her friend in her clutches reap all the disorientation of her arms winging back and forth.

After Grace stopped at the door steps of his dorm building Neil managed to get his wits about him enough to notice her holding his hand, assuming she was probably doing so the whole way.
“... You didn't have to do all this... I could've managed.” Shyly Neil freed his hand.

“Yeah, you would've managed to fall face-first into the ground.” She rephrased. “Neil promise me you'll let this Angel thing go and get some rest.”

“I promise.” He nodded in agreement and turned to face the now 50-foot-tall door obstructing his path. It would've been an impossible obstacle for him to get through, thank heavens Grace was nearby to turn the handle and open it for him.

“Good, because if you don't I'm going to squash your little ass.” She said stomping her sneaker only centimeters away from his body for a not so subtle indication for him to go inside and to keep his word.

“Goodnight Neil.” Grace waved at him, wearing a supportive yet concerned smile on her face.

“Y-yeah, goodnight.”

“Left foot, right foot.” He kept repeating to himself, his coordination at the moment was on par with an infant learning to stand on their own for the first time and he came very close to falling on the ground. Through sheer willpower and using the wall for support did he finally manage to reach his room. Never in his life has his bed looked so inviting, without giving it a thought he let his body collapse onto the mattress.

His body felt heavy and weary enough to where he thought he'd instantly fall into a deep slumber, but instead he hovered in a strange purgatory between conscious and unconsciousness. Whenever he came close to crossing the line into a complete sleep, he found himself dreaming hazily of himself being flat on his back looking up to a gigantic and unrecognizable blurry form. Neil could only discern the bare minimum of their shape to decipher that it was at the very least a giant human standing above him. Paying close attention again he managed to pick up on the motions that the giant was making with their mouth, but his ears didn't register any sounds being made nor his eyes the exact formations being made. It was a slow process as his vision focused and he was able to process more details about the giant. Based on the curvature of their body and length of hair, it was safe to say it was a woman. Her lips moved again and he could roughly hear a low murmuring distortion of what her actual voice probably sounded like. “teɪk ay pɪl”

Being concerned with trying to read her lips he didn’t notice when she lifted her hand, there was a small object in it, that she tilted back and forth. Each time the contents inside the object rattled, the picture came into further focus. Gasping in a paralyzed shock once his sight was clear, he finally comprehended the sight of Angel tilting her pill container over his body. “Take one.” She smiled and turned the bottle over completely and boulder sized pill plummeted downward.

Neil scrambled off his mattress in a cold sweat. “Angel!” He screamed, waiting for what he thought was the inevitable moment where she was going to appear again to mess with him. He surveyed his room, trying to spot something out of the ordinary; although messy, nothing struck him as unusual. He thought his bizarre dream only lasted for a couple of minutes, staring at the clock though it was already 11:30 a.m. and he needed to get ready for his English exam.

Neil had a hard time looking at himself in the mirror and seeing his glassy and droopy eyed reflection staring back at him. “Fuck…maybe Grace is right.” He thought to himself. The amount of paranoia he’s experienced the past two days was already taking its toll and worrying about Angel looming at every corner would only stress him out further. Putting his best foot forward, Neil steeled his resolve to make this a regular day as he showered and dressed himself. Putting his bag over his shoulder, he turned off the lamp on his desk in preparation to leave and stopped right in his tracks.

Drawn to it like metal to a magnet, Neil stared mesmerized by the pill container on his desk… Was that always there? He wasn’t paying enough attention beforehand to notice. Now that he thought about it, he never accepted them back when Angel tried to give it to him at work. Did she at some point plant them in his roo- “No, no, no…” At this point he thought better of trying to theorize how the pills arrived where they did.

“Not this time.” Neil said, taking the bottle into his hand he walked over to his trashcan and pressed down on the bottom lever that opened the lid. He held the bottle over the can to drop the container inside. He simply had to let his grip go loose for the container to fall inside. Just let his hand go limp and they’ll be gone… All he had to do was let go… 
For what was the longest few minutes of his life Neil simply stared at the black trash bag while his hand hovered in the air. What was wrong with him… “Just throw them away!” He yelled out loud to himself. His nerves were crawling all over his skin and the intense paranoia seemed to have physically manifested with claws that were closing in on his neck from behind. She was watching him... she must be... she was lurking waiting to show up and cause havoc again. Not this time... 

Deciding against it, Neil tossed the bottle in his pocket and began making his way towards class. Despite it being a beautiful sunny day with a gentle breeze accompanying the air and the students outside enjoying the delightful weather, everything around him were background props and noises. The only thing he was focused on was the container in his pocket and the only noise he heard was the subtle rattle of each individual pill as he moved.

When he arrived to class, most of the students were already getting their materials ready and doing some last minute studying. One of the students who weren’t that caught Neil’s attention was off to the window, holding her phone up trying to angle her camera to ensure she’d get the best selfie. It wasn’t her behavior alone though that kept his attention, but now seeing her curly brown hair and amber eyes in a fully lit classroom his brain made the connection he didn’t realize at the dark party that she was the one who recorded and uploaded the video last night!
Hazel was a classmate who many of her critics would refer to as being fame hungry and unlike the rest of the people majoring in the department who aspired to be journalists, videographers, etc. Hazel made no qualms about hiding her desires to be famous on Instagram, or Insta-Famous in her own words. She wasn’t exactly the type of person who Neil would go out of his way to acquaint himself with, but there wasn’t a doubt in his mind that she still had the recorded video on her phone that contained definitive proof of the bizarre turns of events occurring in his life.

“Hey… Hazel.”

The curvaceous woman flinched, having been startled out of her posturing and looked away from her phone, irritated that her near perfect selfie was ruined. “What the F? Can’t a bitch take a selfie without being crept up on?”

“Er, sorry. It’s just-” While he began to attempt explaining himself, Hazel squinted her eyes having a similar epiphany of trying to work out where she’s seen Neil. Her face brightened up once she drew the connection.

“Oh! If it isn’t the star himself. You got me a whole lot of new Hazelnuts on my Instagram y’know.”

“…Hazelnuts?”

“My followers, get with it! I just wish Instagram didn’t delete f’n the video. I should rant about that on Twitter, maybe I can get it trending.” She mused and started to tap away on her phone, trying to brainstorm of a catchy hashtag.

“Never mind all that, I need to talk to you about the video.” 

“What about it?”

“I need to check something…” It was easier to tell Grace who he knew and trusted with all the details about what he experienced that night. Hazel however was an uncertain wild card, so he wanted to keep his explanation to a minimum.

Sucking her teeth Hazel believed she had it figured out. “As if, I show you the video and you’re going to what? Conveniently try to delete it from my phone? Not gonna happen.” She denied.

Clenching his fist, Neil began losing his patience. “Hazel come on, this is serious!”

“Look, unless you're going to give me an encore performance of the party, I got nothing to say to you, buh-bye now.” Hazel said resuming business on her phone, not even acknowledging Neil as she waved him off.

“Alright students take a seat, it’s time for the exam…” Said the monotone voice of Professor Brooks. Her half opened eyelids screamed of total disinterest and she rummaged her hand through her messy raven colored hair appearing to still be waking up. Given the bags in her eyes and the slight stumble in her step Neil wondered if she was fresh off a hangover from a night of drinking. Once she was fired from her columnist position of a political news site after some controversial tweets she made a few years ago surfaced, the 29-year-old found herself black-balled and as Neil has heard her say while passing her office ‘lowered to teaching a low rung English course to a bunch of millennial brats.’ With her untimely arrival Neil had no choice but to take a seat and wait as Ms. Brooks apathetically began passing around her stack of tests around the class. 

“Phones off during the test, eyes on your own paper, there will be two parts of the exam. The first part will consist of fill in the blank, reading, grammar comprehension, and multiple choice sections. The second part will be an active listening portion. You have 30 minutes to complete part one.” Ms. Brook’s explained, struggling to keep even herself interested as she explained the instructions.

Neil scrambled through his bag until he found a pencil, for now he decided that he'll have to make do and perform his best on the exam and maybe he can try to convince Hazel again to show him the video. Once the paper arrived face down, he flipped it over to begin.

Part 1, Section 1: Grammar Comprehension. Read the following statements below and circle yes or no if the word 'effect' or 'affect' was used correctly.
Scott went to the local pharmacy to pick up some prescription pills. The disclaimer tag stated the pills could induce side effects such as headaches, vomiting, shrinking, nausea, and light headedness.

“…” Apprehensively Neil look at the question once more to determine if he read the statement correctly.

Scott reached into his pocket for mysterious pills given to him by a stranger. The disclaimer tag stated the pills could induce side effects such as, vomiting, shrinking- Stopping again, Neil rubbed his eyes at the eerie similarity that the sentence reflected in reality. There was no possible way, it had to be his mind playing tricks with him, he didn’t even take a pill this time. “Just focus Neil… focus.” He told himself and prepared to read the question one last time.

Neil reached into his pocket to take a pill that caused a side effect of shr-

Ceasing at once, he refused to read the rest of the statement. “…Maybe I should work on another section first.” He decided once he got his mind on straight after completing a different portion of the test he'll come back to the beginning.

Section II Multiple Choice, Choose the Pill. 

Beads of sweat formed on Neil's skin as he skimmed through the wording of the rest of the exam, pill this, pill that, pills, pills, pills, pills. Breathing heavily it became near impossible for him to focus in this state and the only thought that plagued his mind were the pills in his pocket. Without the chattering of the students or the professor lecturing, the only audible in the room was the second hand of the clock, something that everyone associated with a tick-tock sound. Neil? Only heard the clacking of a pill against the surface of the container. Ringing in his ears… louder…louder…and LOUDER. 

Without thinking Neil raised his hand in a panic. “Ms. Brooks!”

Her eyes opening to full width briefly as he disturbed her from her mid-exam nap Ms Brook's looked his way.

“May I get some water please?” Neil barely managed to ask that question coherently considering his mouth was forming words at a mile per minute, thankfully Ms. Brooks managed to comprehend the question.

“Make it quick.” She responded, rolling her eyes before nodding off again.

Without further ado Neil left the classroom and headed right for the water fountain a couple of feet away. He didn't know how they got back to him, but now that they were in his possession he resolved himself to do what he should've from the start. With labored breaths he retrieved the pill container from his pocket and unscrewed the cap. 

“Good riddance, I hope I never see you again.” He spat, the only thing he regretted was not doing it sooner as he tilted his hand to rid himself of he pills once and for all. Before he could achieve the complete angle needed to make them fall out he saw a hand grab onto his wrist and the next thing he knew his head was pushed against the wall.

“Ooof!” He yelped at the ringing pain in his skull.

“I wouldn’t recommend that.” Said his displeased assailant.

“A-Angel!” He shouted, despite not being able to see or face her at the moment, her voice had a permanent residence in his mind that he could distinguish after thinking about everything she's said and did to him more times than he would like to admit.

“Get off!” Neil barked and tried to writhe free from her grasp to which Angel didn’t budge or appear to be straining herself at all in maintaining her tight hold on his wrist and head. By no means did he consider himself an especially strong individual, but it had to have been physically impossible for someone of Angel’s height and build to be so disproportionately strong compared to him. 

“Are you going to throw them away?” She asked increasing the strength of her grip, sending a shooting pain throughout Neil’s arm that made him drop the container to the ground.

“N-no, I won’t!” He squealed under the impending threat of his wrist being broken. 

“Good boy.” Angel’s tone softened and let him go free.

“What do you want no-” Neil turned around to face her and the words he was going to speak left his brain to give way for total silence as he stared up at Angel... all 7 feet of her.

“Something the matter little boy?” She patronized, giving him a knowing smirk as if there was an inside joke that he wasn't privy to.

Neil took a brief reference of his surroundings to ensure everything was on proper scale and concluded that he definitely had not shrunk again, meaning there was no way Angel should be so much taller than him. They were the same height when he was regular sized, yet now his eyes were level with her chest?! 

“Go ahead, I'll wait.” Angel laughed and leaving Neil even more confused.

“W-wha?” He stammered still unable to form a competent sentence.

“Oh come on, you know what I mean. I'm waiting for your usual 'Oh my god! Why are you so big Angel, this can't be real, my mind is playing tricks on me!' routine.” She mimicked with an exaggerated hand motions and mocking his voice.

Even though he knew the question was playing right into her hand he asked anyway. “But... how are you so big... we were the same height.”He weakly asked, fearing for the response she'd provide in wake of this disturbing development.

Humoring him, Angel tapped a finger on her chin as if she were musing for an answer. “Hmm, really? I'm pretty sure that isn't right.” She giggled cupping the top of his head in her hand and jostling his skull around for a few seconds. “Why would we be the same height, you're the scared little boy after all, it's only logical that I'm bigger than you.” Leaning over she picked up the container of pills that he dropped. 

Neil didn't have it in him to argue anymore, the only thing he wanted was an explanation and at this point had to accept Angel was the only one who could provide it. “Angel please... just tell me what you want. Is it just to screw with me? Do you want something from me? Money? What-”

Putting her palm over Neil’s mouth, Angel put a silence to his pleading. “Just take one, it's going to be over soon.”

Groaning in protest, Neil shook his head over and over. At this point he was willing to do anything to get an answer from her, but not that. Nothing good has occurred from those pills and he doubted that would change now.

“Come on little boy, there's only two left.” She explained, holding the container closer to his face for him to see. “Take one now, then the other later, and you won't have to worry anymore. I'll explain everything.” 

Though he was still unconvinced by her words, he was rather baffled. He could've sworn there was at least a half dozen pills left in the container. Yet as she held the container in front of him, there were only two like she said. Unfortunately they were looking all the more tempting as she dangled them in front of him like a carrot on a stick.

“You know you want one.” She continued waving them back and forth, Neil's eyes responded in kind. “You can't focus on anything else, it's been keeping you up at night, it's been haunting your dreams. Admit it Neil, it's all you can think about.” She leaned closer to his ear and whispered. “I'm all you can think about.” 

His body shaking Neil caved and reached forward for the pill bottle and Angel swiftly responded and held it far above his head. “Not so fast.”

“Give me one! Please, give me one!” He panted jumping up several times to try and retrieve it.

“Tell me you want it.” Angel instructed.

“I want it! I want it!” A depraved Neil pleaded still holding up his arms and jumping trying to grab them from 7 foot amazon... well he thought she was 7 feet tall. Maybe he misjudged her height.

“Tell me you need it.” Angel instructed again.

Willing to do anything to get one he obliged a gain “I need it! Please, I need it!” Again Neil jumped up to try for the container, and oddly it seemed that they were rising further out of his proximity and into the air. When he stopped his springing the blood drained right from his face as he visually scaled up Angel's body again with his sights level with her navel.

Without a word he made eye contact with Angel who was staring down at him in total seriousness. “Tell me you're small.” She instructed.

There was a noticeable delay in his willingness to respond to that question, but every second he waited the sound of her question echoed throughout his mind, combining with the all too familiar sound of the pills rattling. He needed one... he needed one now! “I'm small-” 

It happened in a flash, a flash so fast that he could not fully process it. However in the span of what had to have been millisecond from when he complied there was no mistaken that he probably saw Angel shoot up about another three feet in height and as quickly as he blinked she was gone. He barely even recalled swallowing the pill, but he must have. The insatiable craving that was tearing his psyche apart by the seams had finally dissipated... at the cost of being shrunken again at 3 inches tall. Neil wanted nothing more than to fall to his knees and lament how weak he was at such a pivotal time, however he had bigger problems. Angel was not in front of him anymore... instead now he stood in the enormous shadow of Ms. Brook's and knew his troubles were only beginning as she knelt down to grab him.

“There you are you brat.”