The Shrinking - Part 2

Here is Part 1

Darkness. Silence. A sensation of being nowhere and everywhere at once.

Then—whispers.

At first, they were distant, floating in the void like echoes trapped in a vast, unseen chamber. Then they grew closer, curling around me like fingers reaching through the dark.

"You're one of us now."

The voice was layered—hundreds of voices speaking at once. Some were high and soft, like children. Others were guttural, broken, rasping with age. My breath came in short, panicked gasps. I tried to move, but my body—was it still my body?—felt weightless, suspended.

Then, light.

Not much, just a pale flicker, like candlelight seen through thick fog. Slowly, the void shifted, swirling into something else—walls stretching high into the shadows, too tall, too distant. The floor beneath me was warped wood, old and cold. Shapes moved in the corners, small figures darting between shadows.

I wasn’t alone.

I forced myself up, my limbs weak, trembling. My body was still tiny, doll-like, but I was no longer in my house. This place was different. Twisted. The walls were the same color, the furniture familiar—but everything was wrong. Warped, stretched, as if reality itself had been reshaped.

I turned a corner, my bare feet making no sound on the wooden floor. And then I saw them.

They stood in a line against the far wall. Children, or what used to be children. Some looked like they had been here for decades, their skin paper-thin, eyes hollow and sunken. Others looked newer, fresh in their terror, barely understanding what had happened to them.

And then I realized—they were my size.

All of them.

"We were like you," one of them whispered, a girl with long, matted hair and a dress that looked decades old. "We lived in the house. We shrank. And then... it took us."

I shook my head, stepping back. "No. No, I’m not staying here. There has to be a way out."

The others exchanged glances, their hollow eyes filled with something—pity? Fear?

“There is no out,” a boy murmured. His voice was dull, lifeless. “Only smaller.”

A slow, heavy creaking sound echoed through the space. The air turned thick, suffocating. A feeling of something massive shifting in the dark.

The thing was here.

The whispers stopped. The children pressed themselves against the walls, eyes wide, shoulders trembling. I felt it before I saw it—the air warping, the shadows moving unnaturally, like liquid.

Then, the grin. Wide. Jagged. Splitting the dark like a wound.

"You’re not quite done yet," it purred.

Something long and bony slithered from the darkness, reaching toward me.

I ran.

I didn’t know where I was going—there was no logic to this place, no doors, no windows—but I ran anyway, my tiny legs pumping as fast as they could. The walls groaned as if alive, stretching and twisting around me.

Behind me, the thing followed. Not in a rush. It didn’t need to hurry.

Because I was still shrinking.

I stumbled, falling to my knees. My hands—smaller than before. My breath came in short, frantic bursts.

The thing laughed, a deep, slithering sound.

"Just a little more."

I screamed, pushing myself forward, running again. And then—I saw it.

A mirror.

Not the one from my bathroom. This one was old, cracked, its surface rippling like water. But it was something. A way out.

I didn’t hesitate. I threw myself at it.

Cold. Silence. Darkness.

And then—

I woke up.

I was in my bed. My room. My house.

My hands shot up to my face, trembling. I was normal-sized. My heart slammed against my ribs. I turned, scrambling out of bed, running to the wall where I had marked my height.

5'11".

I let out a shaky breath, nearly collapsing. It was over. It had to be over.

But then—

The scratching started again.

Not in the walls.

Not in the attic.

This time, it was coming from the mirror.

And when I turned, I saw them.

The children.

All of them, staring at me from the other side of the glass.

Waiting.

Because it wasn’t done yet.