Marisol was sitting in class perfectly keen and aware of all her surroundings as the docile student should be in the middle of class, not talking, books, textbooks, etc. all ready in proper place. A stark contrast to the rest of the students who were chatting away with each other until the teacher arrived, especially considering it was 1:00 p.m. the last class of the day on a Friday, so everyone was ready to start their weekend already. Marisol was the role-model student to the smallest detail, never late, near straight A's in all classes in Freshmen and Sophomore year until now where the Biology class she was in attendance she could only make a B + at her best effort on her last report card. That 92 haunting her so often where she needed 1 simple point to get an A.

Finally the teacher Ms. Linley walked into the classroom, she was one of the more popular teachers at the school and not for her rather attractive good looks with consisted of short, shoulder length blonde hair that slightly framed her face, sparkly blue eyes, and fairly large bust, but she was legitimately a very good teacher to where hardly any students could question her teaching methods.

" Good afternoon." Marisol sported one of her award-winning smiles, she had a habit of always greeting all of her teachers out of courtesy and respect, and the other students simply stopped chatting and turned to pay attention.

" Good afternoon class, since I know most of you are looking forward to Spring Break I decided to be a jackass and make today the day where I assign the teams for your collaborative scientific research presentation so you wouldn't skip class today." She joked which prompted a few chuckles from a couple of students. Before Ms. Linley continued Marisol raised her hand, and she acknowledged her student to ask her question.

" About that, do you mind if I could work alone?" Marisol, wasn't particularly keen on team assignments, she usually preferred to work on all her assignments alone and found working with a group of people to slow her down and be a pure nuisance if she was paired with a slacker who couldn't keep up and pull their own weight. That remark also provoked the responses of a few students sucking their teeth at Marisol's uppity behavior.

It's not that Marisol was an unpopular student, she was pretty well-received by nearly all her peers she was always bubbly, perky, and happy to be alive. Always dressed in vibrant and bright clothing with a cross necklace worn around her neck. She was born into a very religious Christian family and she made her number one priority to act accordingly, despite the temptations of peer pressure and every act that a good lot of high school students commit that would be considered sinful, ranging from partying, promiscuous behavior, lying, etc. All these factors made it difficult for other students to get very close to her without her going into some sort of moralistic speech, which gets very overbearing. A definite shame to guys as well who tried to make moves on her since many found Marisol quite attractive with long, flowing bright brown hair, near glowing hazel eyes, slim body, and lovely C-Cup breasts.

" No, Marisol in a professional environment you're going to have to get accustomed to working with a wide variety of people and managing your schedules appropriately. Be happy it's only one other student rather than 3-4." Ms. Linley put an end to that ambition and now Marisol would have to cope with whoever she was put with.

" Yes mam." She responded, even she couldn't mask the minor tone of irritation.

" Now without further ado, I'll display the teams. When you've located your partner please move together, then for the rest of the class you can coordinate who will do what. Once you feel comfortable enough you are dismissed." Linley instructed, and walked to press a button on a touchscreen mounted on the back wall then the projector came down with a full list of each student and their partner.

In a matter of seconds all the students began to shuffle about and started talking with their partners while Marisol was still searching for her and partner, but temporarily breaking her focus the classroom door opened and another student came in.

" You're late Van, this is the fourth consecutive time this week you may stay after school for detention." Ms. Linley instructed at Van who merely raised an eyebrow at her.

" Oh really? Here I thought you'd be impressed that I even showed up at all, well if it wasn't for this project I probably wouldn't." He shrugged before looking at the monitor. Van Fischer was a notorious student who transferred this school year, he stood 5'10 and wearing a gray plaid shirt and black jeans to match, with a beanie covering his short dark brown hair.

Marisol lost her focus entirely and couldn't keep her eyes off of Van or better known as his last name Fischer, seeing him waltz in several minutes after class started, making smart-alec remarks to the teacher, and wearing a hat inside the school.

" The nerve of some people." She huffed under her breath. Marisol had heard several stories about Fischer and while she wasn't quick to buy into rumors put out she can verify several of the stories put out. Fischer was constantly late to class, skipped , hung around school after hours, smoked , and even had sex on school ground. It's bad enough that premarital intercourse was against her religion but on school ground as well was a total desecration in her book.

" Huh, oh wonderful I would get paired with little miss sunshine." Fischer sarcastically remarked, and Marisol came back to Earth to check the screen to see what he was talking about. In an instantaneous reaction her jaw dropped.

" What . .why am I paired with Van!!? He's so . . . so . . so!" Marisol was at a loss for words and got out of her seat to protest the teacher's partner pairing.

" Maybe you should form a hypothesis on your inability to complete sentences. ? " Fischer chimed in and Marisol could feel her blood starting to boil, whether it's intentional or not Fischer gets under people's skin big time, with his indifferent attitude, non-stop sarcasm, rude behavior, and flat out coldness to fellow students without a second thought. But Marisol had a particular loathing towards him, he especially gets under her skin, through her blood, and right into the bone marrow.

" Come on now, Van has an A+ and you have a pretty high grade in this class too. Perhaps you two can learn something from one another." Ms. Linley suggested, Fischer remained silent and Marisol sighed and responded with a simple " I know . . ."

That was mainly to the part of Fischer having an A+ in the class, for all of his negatively received tendencies you would think he'd have grades to reflect it, but no. If we're talking grades alone he was good, excellent actually even receiving higher grades than Marisol by the slimmest of margins and earning an A in the one class Marisol earned a B. Ever since Fischer transferred by a stroke of misfortune in Marisol's mind, he found his way into all her classes and managed to perform better on every homework assignment, test, anything.

" Anyways, I'll find you after class or something later." Fischer spoke to Marisol who was still too flustered to speak and walked right out of the classroom. To say she was irritated would be too kind, she hated being treated like some sort of nuisance.

In response Marisol just slumped right back in chair her chair and lifted up her cross necklace and leaned, pressing her forehead onto it. " God please tell me, why me?"

A majority of the class already left after making arrangements with their partners, except for Marisol who usually made use of all of her designated class time to whatever work possible. That and today she was still frustrated as getting someone as difficult as Van Fischer as her partner. After the last bell Marisol slowly packed her things and contemplated if she would even try to communicate with Van Fischer at all. " Maybe I should just do it by myself and tell her he wouldn't cooperate." She thought to herself.

" Keep in mind Marisol this is an effort from both of you, you'll both get a zero if you two do your own thing separately." Ms. Linley reminded Marisol who simply nodded in return.

" Yes mam, have a nice Spring Break." Marisol said leaving the classroom.

" I guess I don't have a choice." Marisol said out loud, knowing she'd have to work with him or receive a failing grade on a project. Marisol began to look for Fischer, a difficult task since she hardly knew anything about him let alone where to find him. She was able to navigate fairly quickly since most of the students were already going home.

" Oh! What am I doing going around looking for him!? If anything he's the one who left so rudely, he should be trying to find me!" Marisol was clearly unhappy with her one item scavenger hunt and turned to make her way towards the back exit of the school where the parking lot for students was.

" Certainly Ms. Linley will have to understand I couldn't find him, out of all thepeople I could have worked with." Marisol huffed, starting a new search to for her car. She worked pretty hard to get her drivers license and after several attempts at pleading with her parents they finally got her a car for her 17th birthday.

" As if you were my first choice to work with either." Marisol turned to look who said that, and surely enough it was Fischer sitting on a bench with a lit cigarette in his mouth, taking it out a few times to blow out smoke.

" What in the world are you doing?!"

" What's it look like, I needed a smoke." Fischer responded not even looking Marisol in the eyes.

" You don't say!? First of all why are you smoking on school ground, better yet why are you smoking period, it's bad for you!" Marisol walked immediately and tried to grab to knock the cigarette out of Fischer's mouth, but he simply extended his arm out forward to avoid the grabby arms at him.

" God dammit, give it rest. Christ you're a pain in the ass." Fischer's sighed taking another puff.

" Wh-what! Stop using the lords name in vain, that's blasphemy and do not use language like that!" Marisol was becoming more agitated at the moment and didn't seem it was possible for Fischer to give any less of a damn.

" Right, I'll be sure to apologize when I'm at the gates of Heaven.'" Fischer was clearly being his mocking self towards Marisol's beliefs and Marisol has heard enough.

" You know what, you are such a-"

" Move aside powder-puff." A new voice casually remarked as she brushed right past Marisol who nearly lost her balance.

Marisol wanted to faint at what she was seeing, another girl standing next to her with a wardrobe that screamed not to fuck with her. Long hair that seemed to be dyed black, spiked wristbands, black eye-liner, skirt, fishnet leggings, and a paganistic necklace around her neck. It looked like she could smile while drowning puppies in a lake and the sunny sky turned into a thunderstorm when she walked out of the house. Standing at her estimate of 5'8 she was a few inches taller than herself, making this new visitor quite an intimidating presence.

" Took me long enough to find your fucking ass, now I'm going to pretend your dumbass came back to your senses and didn't mean to break up with me earlier this week." The girl said crossing her arms and awaiting an answer.

" And now I'm going to pretend you're not a delusional bitch Roxanne and understand what I said, I-do-not-want-to-be-together-anymore. Sure, fighting and arguing is fun every now and again, but you're completely impossible and ready to go off the rails at any second." Fischer was starting to become fairly irritated by first Marisol and now his ex-girlfriend Roxanne arriving on the scene.

" Don't bullshit me, we've broken up several times but each every time we got back together now quick with the whole apathetic act and get back together with me." Roxanne began tapping her foot awaiting some sort of response to Fischer who was wishing she'd go away.

By this time Marisol has seen enough and took matters into her own hands. " WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU BOTH! SUCH . .SUCH . . . .HORRIBLE LANGUAGE . . .AND YOU TWO ARE A COUPLE!? AND MISS . .ROXANNE . YOUR ATTIRE . . . .DID YOU KNOW THERE'S LIKE DIFFERENT COLORS OTHER THAN BLACK . . . AND WHAT'S THAT THING AROUND YOUR NECK, THAT'S A SIN!"

" Who's this annoying fucker?" Roxanne immediately dismissed Marisol's entire rant to ask who she was.

" Some girl I got paired with, pay no mind to her or me for that matter and find the hole you crawled out of alright?" Needless to say Marisol and Roxanne were both getting increasingly angry for Fischer's callous remarks.

" Tch! You know what? Screw this, you'll be back to me mark my words, I guarantee it. Later shit-heads." Roxanne stormed away, her shoulder bumping into Marisol's in the process.

" Look Fischer I know you don't like me and I don't like you but, we need to do our best to work together so we can both do well on this assignment. The school library is open on weekends so how about we both meet up tomorrow at noon." Marisol finally churned an effort to make a compromise after all it's only one assignment and hopefully afterward they'd never have to speak with each other again.

" Heh, here I thought you were supposed to love me."

" Wha-what! Why would I love you?" Marisol's face nearly erupted in a blush at Fischer's sudden sentiment.

" You know, what's that whole thing uuh loving everybody, loving your enemies, and whatever else in your holy fairy tale book." Fischer finished his sentiment and Marisol realized it was yet another one of his jabs to mock her beliefs.

" Oh, whatever! Just show up tomorrow!" Marisol then stormed in a manner similar to Roxanne did moments ago and made her merry way to her car to drive home. Being that she was so riled up she had to be sure to contain her emotions behind the steering wheel to avoid legal repercussions of reckless driving, road rage, etc. Despite the effort it took Marisol managed to get home with her sanity and vehicle in tact.

Neither one of her parents were home, her mother was a business department chairman at a college in the area and her line of work sometimes required her to leave out of town for meetings and discussions such as today so she could skip formalities to head straight up into her room.

After shutting the door Marisol went to her bedroom nightstand where she kept her crucifix to pray every night and got onto her knees with her hands clenched together.

" God, I know I'm supposed to love everybody . .but . . Van Fischer is plain impossible beyond words. I wish . . . I wish there was some way for me to put him in his place and save him like you want . .please answer my pray amen." Marisol finished her pray and now all that was left is to hope for the best. Marisol knew she would need all the strength she could get to survive tomorrow.

The rest of Marisol's day at least ended well, but she knew her moment of truth was coming tomorrow as she went to bed and she would have to find some way to put up with Fischer long enough to complete their project. Once Saturday arrived Marisol was in no hurry to start moving but she deduced it's better to get it over with so she began to freshen up and put on her brightest, vibrant outfit before getting going to the library.

She arrived a good hour early and needless to say because of Spring Break there was hardly anyone in the library, it would be closing early at 2 o clock and be closed throughout next week. It was deathly quiet with only the sound of the air-conditioning unit and Ms. Ross the old librarian who was entirely consumed in typing away on the computer's keyboard to pay attention to who was entering and leaving.

" Guess I'll just start brain-storming some ideas." Marisol whispered to herself as she set her book-bag and purse on a table and started to put pen and paper for ideas for what their collaborative research paper to be about.

Marisol jotted away at her paper for a good hour and once twelve o clock finally hit, she was surprised to know, Fischer has not yet arrived. She attempted to give him the benefit of the doubt, but all in vain as well because there was no sign of him 30 minutes later and it didn't take a psychologist to tell that Marisol was angry about it.

" I should’ve known he'd stand me up, why in the world did I ever believe he'd come?" Marisol scolded herself for being so naive and began to get up. " Guess I'll go home"

" Don't bother I'm here." Marisol jumped in surprise especially since she was ready to pack up her belongings, however in the niche of time Fischer arrived albeit Marisol noticed that he didn't look very well, slightly pale and like he didn't sleep very well the previous night.

" So glad of you to join me, anyways I've been doing some brainstorming some ideas that we can do for our proposal and some potential issues we can discuss." Marisol greeted him with a snark in her tone, and sat back down since her partner arrived, and handed him a list of issues to write about.

Fischer took the paper and took a brief look at it, before moving his head to cough several times and even Marisol had a quick look of concern since Fischer was obviously sick. " Feeling a bit under the weather today?" Marisol asked, averting her eyes, Fischer was indeed her least favorite person in the school arguably, but she didn't want him to know that she was even the slightest bit worried.

" Nope, perfectly fine. And these topics suck." Fischer bluntly stated and the iota of care Marisol did have disappeared after that statement.

" What do you mean they suck, they're great!"

" Eh, all these have to do with natural selection, our ancestry to apes, and stupidly trying to disprove the big bang theory, pretty cut, dry, and lame in my opinion." Fischer shrugged as he continued to look after her other ideas.

" Really now, and like you have anything better in mind?" Marisol asked, for him to be bashing her ideas she definitely wants to see if he has anything better.

" Hmm, not right now, but give me a moment to think and I will." Fischer replied, handing his partner her papers back. " Don't get me wrong it's 'okay' material, but not 'A' material."

" You don't say?" Marisol lowly said, and put the side of her face in her palm, she'd like to make some sort of rebuttal but she knew he had a higher grade than her. Making any sort of argument she'd have little ground to talk.

" I do say, after all I do have an A in the class." Despite the amount of sarcasm he used, Fischer was entirely to focused on thinking of a matter to detect Marisol's own sarcasm, which was adding gasoline on her fire.

" Thanks for reminding me, I wonder how many times I'm going to be reinformed of that!" Marisol blurted out, before clearing her throat to remember to keep her voice down in a library. Her mini-rant ignored as Fischer had his back turned, he appeared to be breathing heavily, and Marisol's concern starting to rush back partially.

" Are you uh, sure you're okay?" Marisol made sure to sound as callous as possible, luckily Fischer's back was turned so he couldn't see her trying to take a peek at him with her eyes filled with visible concern.

" Y-yeah, I'll be right back, I need a drink of water." Fischer, stuttered a bit and got up to walk away. He may be a pain in the ass to her, but she did hope he could pull himself together.

He navigated his way towards the water fountain near the bathrooms and pressed the button for a stream of water to start spraying out. He took a brief drink and collected some water in his left palm for a second and splashed it in his face.

" Fuck, what the hell is wrong with me today?" He asked himself, he felt perfectly fine all of yesterday and even going to bed last night, nothing that would give him indication he was coming down with a cold. Meanwhile, Marisol was steady in place waiting albeit slightly worried over Fischer's well-being.

" Wait a second, what's wrong with me he's an annoying jerk, I shouldn't care at all." Marisol tried to convince herself that she was not wary of how Fischer felt, but kept twiddling her fingers for him to come back. . . " Oh, forget it, I'll just check on him . to uh . .make sure he didn't ditch me." Marisol lied to herself to give a legit reason to go check on him.

She got up taking only her purse with her and walked through several shelves of books into the back of the library where she saw Fischer, with his head hung down, both hands on the side of the water fountain to keep himself from falling to the floor.

" Hey, are you alright!" Marisol couldn't hide it any longer, he looked like he was about to die and she ran over to him to put a hand on his back, he was burning up.

" . . .What . the . .hell . .are . .you doing . .I'm fine. ." Fischer was struggling to speak and his voice sounded raspy.

" Are you kidding me?! You can barely stand right now and you're telling me you're alright!" It didn't take a medical degree for Marisol to see through Fischer's facade.

" My goodness, you know it's a sin to lie, so if you're not feeling so well, just say so! I guess you can't help being a sinner, but you should make more of an effort to live a more virtuous life!" Marisol was off, despite her worry for Fischer that quickly took the backseat for her to start preaching to him.

All of her words were falling on deaf ears for Fischer now fell flat onto the ground, he felt completely light-headed and his vision was going in and out. This helped Marisol come back to her senses and exited her monologue. " Goodness, Fischer." She leaned down to him unsure of what to do to help, things went from bad to worse as Fischer started to writhe on the ground back and forth like he was in immense discomfort. " Come on Van, please hang in there!"

Marisol tried offering any kind of verbal support she could, but ultimately fell silent to what she began to witness. At first she thought it was her eyes playing tricks on her yet she swore she was seeing Fischer's body shriveling, not shriveling more like . .compressing? His clothes were gradually beginning to look baggier on him, at that moment Marisol couldn't believe what she was seeing, he looked smaller and without a shadow of a doubt he was shrinking.

" Oh my gosh, please stop, please stop!" Never in her wildest dream did she ever imagine or expect to witness something like this and only kept hoping for the shrinking to stop. All in vain as she hopelessly watched him continue to get smaller until he eventually was out of sight and buried inside his shirt.


" . . . " Marisol, sat in place too afraid to look inside the shirt now and see what was left if anything of Fischer. She wouldn't have to though, as she saw a slight bulge in his shirt and saw it move upwards, towards the collar and through the head.

" . !" Marisol covered her mouth to stifle her scream, both of them were shocked out of their lives from what they were seeing. Fischer seeing a giant Marisol staring at him, and Marisol seeing a shrunken 3-inch tall Fischer.

" . . Holy shit! What the fuck just happened!?!?!" Fischer for once lost his normal demeanor in a state of shock from his new perspective, he frantically looked all around him, to see the ceiling that appeared several miles above his head, the floor which looked like a vast ocean that expanded forever, the bookshelves of the library now looked like ancient monoliths, and most startling was looking right up to another breathing, living human, who was a bonafide giant.


" . .I don't know . you shrunk!" Marisol yelped, clearly as surprised as Fischer is at the moment.


" Obviously ! This is freaking insane, how is this even physically possible!? " Fischer was pacing around in a circle with his head on his forehead. Marisol only watched in a frightened fascination, like Fischer she couldn't fathom what happened, so she crouched down to her knees to get a better view of him, not for the sake of her sight, but to convince herself that this was real/


It took a few moments for Fischer to panic himself out, but still was mentally baffled and knew this was beyond his control now. " Marisol I need your help !" He shrieked up to his colossal sized partner,

“ What do you expect me to do ?! “ Marisol exclaimed, with that outburst the librarian responded.


“ Excuse me ! Whoever is in the back please keep it down ! “ The librarian said with her shrill voice, that startled Marisol.


She couldn't afford to have her or someone else walking nearby and see her talking to a 3-inch person, there's no way she would ever play that off, so without thinking she roughly scooped the miniaturized sized Fischer and ran into the girls bathroom. Once inside, she opened up her hands nearby the bathroom sink, placed her purse on the edge, and Fischer took no time to to jump off and stand on the flat faucet.

“ Geez! Could you give me some warning if you're going to pick me up like that !?! “ Fischer was clearly displeased with how recklessly Marisol handled him just now.


“ Well I couldn't have someone walk by and see me talking to a shrunken person, I panicked! At least here I can hear if someone is coming in and hide you !” Marisol was still in a shell-shocked frame of mind, and trying to get a hold of herself.


“ Yeah, you operate so well under pressure!” Fischer responded in his sarcastic ways. “ Look we need to go get me some help, a doctor, a scientist, a teacher, a freaking janitor, anyone!”


“ Who would know anything about someone inexplicably shrinking like this ?!” Marisol rebutted.


“ So?! It's not like there's any alternatives here !”


“ Okay, okay! Lets calm down! Ma-maybe there's a reason all of this is happening !” Marisol said, she was having a hard time believing this was all real.


“ A reason?! What the fuck is that supposed to mean? Oh, don't tell me! This is some sort of divine intervention, and God did this!” Fischer has grown tired of Marisol's indecisive attitude towards his predicament and went off ranting at Marisol who was staring away at him in a gaze where she was lost in her own thoughts.


Was this some kind of scientific phenomena ? Some new kind of disease ? A work of God ? Does any of that really matter? Here was her partner Van Fischer the chronic thorn in her side, smaller than a doll, and in desperate need of her help. . .


“ My prayer. . ” Marisol mouthed out, with a slight whisper of her voice being heard, she was still staring blankly at Fischer who finished ranting and was staring at her with a confused look in his eye. “ This is my chance.”


“ Hello! Are you even listening, god damn you're difficult!” Fischer sounded off again, it's baffling to him that Marisol isn't comprehending the weight of his peril, but little did he know the gears were turning in Marisol's mind and she has already came to a consensus.


“ For fucks sake, Mariso-” Fischer was about to lose it, and Marisol finally took action while Fischer was in mid-sentence, and scooped him into her hands again, placing him inside her purse, then zipping it closed completely.


Marisol heard Fischer sounding off from inside her purse, probably screaming out for help or something, but at that size the odds anyone would hear him are abysmal. Marisol put her purse back around her shoulder, being a little bit more ginger now that a tiny person was inside. She still had a hard time grasping that someone shrunk down to smaller than a pencil! Nonetheless, she was positive this was God answering her request and she could set Fischer on the right path once and for all, so she went back outside and folded up Fischer's clothes that he worn prior to shrinking and held them by the pit of her arms.


Afterward, she headed back to where they both were sitting and lugged her own book-bag and Fischer's small bag onto her back, it was fairly difficult for her to lug around all these objects , but she managed with a sense of urgency. Despite the library being virtually empty, knowing there was an actual living, breathing, person in her purse gave her a weird feeling of anxiety.


Fortunately for her the librarian didn't see Marisol leave, since she looked comically suspicious, as she walked like a robot out the door and to her car. At least by then she felt like she was in the clear, and put all her luggage in the passenger's seat, and began to drive home.


The whole drive Marisol was contemplating all the possibilities she could do to Fischer, whatever it took for him to change his ways. The more she plotted, the more she began to realize what a powerful position she was in. At his current size there was nothing he could possibly do to resist her message or fight back any longer. She didn't know if this was a temporary condition or if Fischer would have to be this way for the rest of his life so she was going to make sure every moment counted.


Marisol wasted no time situating her car and putting Fischer's belongings in the trunk to avoid potential misunderstandings in the event her mother came home. On the way upstairs to her room, Marisol mentally prepared herself to appear as confident and firm as possible, there was now way she could let Fischer get inside her head if she wanted this to work.


Now it was the moment of truth as Marisol put her purse down on top of the desk she used to do school work She took a couple of deep breaths and slowly unzipped her purse, then stuck her hand in carefully to fish around for her shrunken companion. She was careful not to be too rough and plucked him out of her purse with two fingers by his sides, then placed him on the desk.


“ What the hell was that all about!??!? Where are we!? Have you gone off the deep e- “


“ HUSH! “ Marisol boomed, Fischer was caught completely off guard and jumped at the ferocity of her voice, even having to cover his ears for a moment.


“ It's about time we had a little talk.” Marisol said crossing her arms.