The Shrinking

It had started with my shoes.

One morning, they felt loose, my feet slipping inside them. I brushed it off-maybe they had stretched out, or maybe I was just tired.

But the following morning, I found my clothes loose. Sleeves hung just too long; my jeans did drag on the floor. And so I just pulled my belt to the longest limit and all that barely made it stay upon me.

Then, of course, the mirror came next.

My reflection was.off. My head didn't reach the same height on the bathroom mirror. My arms seemed thinner, my fingers more delicate. I wasn't just losing weight. I was losing size. 

I measured myself against the wall—5'11", like always. I made a new mark.  

The next morning, I checked again.  

5'9"

My stomach dropped; I knew I had stood taller yesterday. I pressed my back against the wall again, standing as straight as possible. 5'8".

I was shrinking.

I called my doctor, but how do you even explain something like that? "I think I'm getting smaller" sounded ridiculous, even to me saying it. He told me to come in for tests.

But at the time of my appointment, I couldn't reach the steering wheel.

I was four feet tall.

My house had turned into a horror. My furniture towered over me; the ceilings stretched high towards the impossible. Getting into my bed meant scaling a mountain. My phone, once light, now felt like a heavy brick in my little hands.

The worst was the house began to creak.

Scratches in the air vents. Quick, methodical knocking in the walls. Creaking like something in the attic had adjusted its weight-something there which never should have been there in the first place.

I just lay there with the lights off, shuddering under my overlarge coverlet.

And on that fourth night as I lay buried beneath my yards of sheets and covers, I heard it:

Breathing.

Not mine.

It came from beneath the bed. A slow, wet inhale. A hungry exhale.

I froze. My body, now barely three feet tall, felt like a fragile doll. I didn't want to look. But I had to.

I slid off the bed, my tiny feet touching the cold floor. Slowly, I hunched down, peering into the darkness beneath.

Two enormous, shining eyes stared back.

A wide, jagged grin spread open.

A voice whispered, "Almost small enough now."

I screamed and fell backward. The thing under the bed let out a low, gurgling laugh.

The next morning, I was two feet tall.

I tried to leave. I tried to open the door, but the handle was above my head. I stacked books, pillows—anything I could find—but my hands were too weak to grip and turn the knob.

I was trapped.

And then.I heard footsteps.

Not mine. Not human.

They scuttled inside the walls, behind the vents, above the ceiling. Whatever lived in this house had been waiting for me to be small enough.

The last night, I was no taller than a doll.

I lay on the cold wooden floor, unable to climb onto the bed, unable to run. The walls seemed to pulse, the shadows deepening, stretching.

The voice came again, a wet hiss from all around me.

"Now, you're just right."

A hand—long, bony, covered in slick, blackened skin—reached out from the darkness.

And pulled me in.

Then—nothing.

No record of me. No sign I ever lived here. The house stood empty, waiting, as it always had.

Waiting for the next person to shrink.