“Really!?” exclaimed Dylan, blinking at the deep purple smoothie that his coworker Hailey was handing him. “For me? Haha Hailey…you didn’t need to do that!”

“Oh no, no, I insist!” Hailey responded, giving Dylan a bright smile. “I make this every morning for myself, and whenever a new hire comes in, I always give them a sample!”

“Well this is…very nice of you,” Dylan chuckled, accepting the cold glass from her. Recently employed as a marketing technologies intern at Fizzy Pop, Inc, Dylan was fresh out of college, and, with a degree under his belt, he was eager to jump into the business world and get some good experience. Hailey was one of the first people he had been introduced to on the job, and, as a marketing technologies specialist, she had been tasked with helping him transition smoothly into his new role. Dylan hadn’t been thinking much about potential coworkers when he had taken the job at Fizzy Pop, but now, in his first day on the job, he was privately congratulating himself for apparently picking the right company. Hailey was around his age – maybe only a year or two older – and she was very attractive to say the least. She wasn’t the only one…there seemed to be no shortage of sexy young women working in this particular company, to the point where Dylan subconsciously wondered what was going on. He could have sworn, just half an hour before, that he had seen an alluring blond in a tight red dress stride around the corner, who couldn’t have been shorter than 7’0. At 6’0 even, Dylan had never seen someone tower over him like that before.

But it had only been a couple seconds, and she was gone. Surely it was just first-day nerves; surely he had been seeing things. No woman was actually that tall. Yes, Fizzy Pop apparently employed a lot of young women, and yes, a lot of them were rather tall and curvy, but that didn’t mean that he had to lose his head. No, he would just play it cool and be happy that he wasn’t working in some stuffy cubicle. His new company occupied the upper floors of a skyscraper in the middle of the city, and all the offices and break rooms were warm, sunlit, and inviting. And he had a hot, bubbly coworker making smoothies for him!

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything so…purple…in my life!” laughed Dylan, examining the smoothie in the glass. “What did you put in this to get the color!?”

“Oh…a lot of stuff,” sighed Hailey airily, counting on her fingers. “Blueberries, acai berries, elderberries, passion fruit…those all give it the color, and of course they’re a quadruple antioxidant bomb…plus some fresh ginger, wheatgrass, powdered greens, some lemon juice, a little pinch of cinnamon, little pinch of nutmeg…” Her mouth curved upward into a slight smirk. “And a few other things…”

“A few other things, huh?” chuckled Dylan. “Wow, Hailey…I…I don’t think I’ve done enough to deserve this!”

“Nonsense!” Hailey laughed. “You’re a new member of the team! It’s MY job to make sure that you learn how we do things around here.”

“Well I guess I lucked out, then,” Dylan smiled, and he tipped the glass to his lips. Hailey watched him closely, that same slight smirk on her face. Dylan might have been imagining it, but he thought he saw a strange gleam in her eye, like she was watching a practical joke in progress. A sudden thought popped into his head – ‘She’s dosed this with something!’ But again, Dylan quickly dismissed the idea. This wasn’t college anymore; this was a professional company! Everyone wore suits to work, even the women! The sooner he overcame all these nerves, the better. And so he raised the glass up and drank deeply as Hailey watched him.

“Verdict?” she ventured, leaning forward slightly. With her 2-inch pumps, she was just about as tall as Dylan.

“Oh my god…” Dylan answered, smacking his lips, “Hailey…that was delicious!”

“Mmmm, you liked it?” she grinned.

“Liked isn’t a strong enough word!” Dylan replied enthusiastically, drinking down the rest of the smoothie. “Haha, I’m not even kidding, that was probably the best smoothie I’ve ever tasted!”

“Well good!” laughed Hailey, her cheeks reddening slightly. “I’m so glad you liked it!”

“I mean, with all those amazing ingredients,” Dylan added, “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.” He paused, giving his coworker the side-eye. “You’re not gonna tell me those last few “secret ingredients,” are you?”

“No way!” Hailey responded immediately, shaking her head. “Someone once said that it’s wise not to seek a secret, and honest not to reveal one.”

“I will definitely take your word for it,” chuckled Dylan, not quite wrapping his head around what Hailey had just said, but not really caring because the smoothie was so good…and also because there was a brightness in her eyes that made him feel good.

“Haha all right, so now that I’ve got you all fueled up,” Hailey said, clapping her hands once and holding them together, “I’ve gotta pop down the hall to Clare’s office for a second. Just wash off that glass in the sink and sit tight for me here. We’ll go back to my office in a couple minutes and I’ll give you the lowdown on how things work around here. Sound good?”

“Great!” nodded Dylan, and then turned toward the sink as Hailey left him alone in the break room. He heard the door shut, and again…maybe his mind was playing tricks on him…but he thought he heard a key turn in the lock. Had she just…locked him in!? He shook his head, chuckling to himself as he turned on the faucet.

‘You really just can’t accept that you’ve landed a good job with friendly coworkers, can you?’ he laughed to himself. ‘There doesn’t have to be a catch to everything – quit being so nervous and just be chill.’

He washed the glass off, putting it down in the sink, and then dried his hands off with a paper towel. But when he turned to throw it in the trash, he started to feel very dizzy. His brow creasing, he dropped the paper towel on the floor and stumbled into the break room table. His head was spinning. Mentally, he started to panic. There HAD been something in that smoothie! What had she done to him!? But a moment later, he couldn’t even form coherent thoughts anymore, because one sensation was overwhelming everything else in his mind. He was shrinking! And fast!!

Dylan uttered a panicked cry, but he had already shrunk down so much that it hardly sounded out at all into the room. He had fallen into the table, and now, he had shrunk down so much that he was actually lying on the table…and still he shrank! Getting smaller and smaller and smaller…until, no more than 30 seconds after it had first begun, he found himself lying on the break room table, still fully clothed in his shrunken suit, his body diminished all the way down to 6 inches.

After lying there stunned for a minute, his chest rapidly rising and falling, Dylan struggled to his feet. The break room looked gigantic all around him, and he was essentially stuck on the table, with no conceivable way to get down. Before he could develop a concrete thought, he heard the key turn in the lock again…there was no doubt now that he HAD been locked in…and the door opened. Hailey strode quickly in, her eyes focused and darting all around the room, taking care to focus first on the floor in front of her before sweeping around the rest of the space. It only took her another second to spot Dylan on the table. A slow, wide grin spread across her face, a powerful, knowing smirk that made Dylan’s blood run cold. She stepped slowly up to the table, staring down at him silently, her smirk unchanging, as she drank in the sight of her shrunken new coworker.

“Hailey!” cried Dylan, his high-pitched voice only making her grin grow wider. “Wh-what happened to me!? What did you give me!?”

But she didn’t answer. She just stood there, soaking up the sight of him. After another few silent moments, Dylan asked, in a voice quivering with fear:

“What’re you going to do to me?”

“Oh I already told you, Dylan,” Hailey hummed, stretching her hand out toward him. “I’m gonna take you to my office…and give you the lowdown…on how things work around here.”