Tara had awoken with a piercing headache.  Yawning a little as she pushed herself up, she put her left palm over her eyes and forehead, trying to cope with the pain in her head.  Her body felt a little strained as she got up.  Her legs ached like she’d just run a marathon and her arms felt like she’d been handing from a pole for the fast few hours.  She rubbed on all four limbs as she took her hand away from her head, trying to ease the pain that was all over her body.

“Ouch…what happened?  I’m aching all over…”

Moving her palm back up to her forehead, she slowly slid her eyes open, staring down at the ground.  She took deep breaths as she adjusted to her conscious condition, along with all of the strain and pain she was experiencing.  She blinked a few times while staring down at the asphalt below her feet, adorned with golf ball-sized engravings.  Tara was a little dazed at the moment, not quite realizing that those engravings for so big.

Her eyes had started to slip closed again as fatigue was making it’s way through her body, the pain in her arms, legs, and head definitely not helping her wake up. She started holding her eyes shut for moments at a time, almost trying to go to sleep, rather than merely blinking.  The feeling swept through her for a good few minutes.  As she had held her eyes shut the longest, she was starting to nod off when he heard an incredibly loud sound coming from behind her.

She nearly screamed as her ears rang, almost hurting as she’d heard the sound.  Her head immediately jerked up, her eyes wide open, as she turned her head from side to side, trying to figure out what the noise was and where it had come from.  It had initially sounded, to her, like someone gasping or trying to scream, but it was much too loud.  There was a slight echo in the voice, so if it were someone gasping, they’d have to be speaking through a microphone or something of the sort.

As she looked around, her eyes began to focus.  To the back were what looked like mountains in the distance, but her vision was too blurred to be certain.  Before these mountains, however was some sort of wall that seems to come up from the end of the street.  It looked nearly as tall as she was and led to a huge, whitish plane, almost looked like concrete.  This was confusing Tara very much.  She tried to recall what she’d been doing as her vision focused further.

“I…remember…sitting on a bench, learning a new spell.  Then, I…I was fighting an Antlion?  Yes.  Yes, that’s what I was doing.  I was fighting an Antlion and then I…Oh, no!  T-That can’t be!”

Tara gasped and threw her hands over her mouth when she’d remembered the last thing she did before blacking out.  At the same time, her vision completed focusing, making the ‘mountains’ in front of her clear as day.  Her hands began to shake and she dropped to her knees, looking at those ‘mountains’ in disbelief.  Her pupils were quivering as she saw them.  However, they were not mountains at all.  They were houses.

Tara looked around, frantically, at everything that was around her.  The wall she’d seen had been the sidewalk, and the mountains were the houses next to the street.  She then began to think about the spell she’d tried to cast earlier.  The Size-Change spell had obviously worked, but not in the way she’d imagined.  She had tried to focus the energy on the Antlion, but she must have done something wrong.  Not seeing the Antlion nearby, her only guess was that she’d succeeded in casting the spell, but accidentally shrunk herself along with it.

“Oh, no…the spell must have backfired!   Everything…is huge!  I…I must be no bigger than a doll!”

 Tara was thoroughly amazed at the situation.  Seeing the world at a much larger scale was something that even she, a person knowledgeable in the Arte, could never have been prepared for.  She got chills down her spine at how gigantic everything was.  The sidewalk curb was almost as tall as she was.  Houses towered over like mountains, and who knows what everything else looked like from this perspective.

As she was caught in her amazement, her entire body stopped when she heard a crashing noise from behind her.  She slowly turned around as she heard the ever-so-familiar scream of an Antlion.  Fully turning around, she could see the Antlion getting itself to it’s feet, staring at her with it’s blood-red eyes.  As she looked at it, she felt chills and satisfaction at the same time.  She was a little afraid to see the beast with her being so weakened and vulnerable, but seeing that it had shrunk with her told her that the spell had worked and done what it was supposed to do.

Seeing the blood-red eyes of the Antlion had reminded Tara all too well of the beast’s magic-resistant ability.  Were she to try to keep fighting it, she would most certainly lose.  There was nothing around for her to use against it and she would almost certainly have to run.  The Antlion moved slow, so as she forced the chills out of her body, she tried to think of what she could do.  The beast had gotten itself to it’s feet by the time Tara thought of a plan.

“Oh, I know!  I’ll just use the spell to bring myself back to my original size!  Then I can just stomp this thing into the ground!”

Tara’s idea had seemed perfect.  In it’s diminished state, the Antlion was likely only about 12 inches long.  Were she to return to her original height, a quick stomp from her shoes would quickly break this thing apart, removing it’s threat from this situation.  Quickly taking a deep breath, she began to repeat the incantation, focusing on herself and thinking of her original height. 

Her body was straining as energy began to rip itself from her body.  She had even started to feel faint at one point of the incantation.  Her arms and legs were stinging with pain as a small orb of light appeared in front of her face.  Trying to finish the spell, the last ounce of strength had been ripped away.  As it did so, the orb quickly disappeared, and a massive wave of rebuttal was sent into Tara’s body.  This went straight to her head and caused a light-headed feeling, sending the sorceress to the ground, on her knees. 

She held her hand over her heart as it beat faster and faster.  Her energy was nearly spent and her head was quivering at what she’d realized.  In her studying of this spell, the book had specifically stated that it took a lot of energy to be able to cast this spell.  She was nearly worn out from the first casting of the spell, so she might have been able to cast it at all right then.  It was also possible that, at her size, it wouldn’t be possible to recast it, but she shrugged that thought off, not wanting to even think about it.

Her arms and legs shook as she heard the pounding of the Antlion’s steps.  As she looked up, it was nearly to her position, eyes focused on her.  She tried to push herself up and get away, but she just didn’t have the energy to do anything after the failed casting of the Size-Change spell.  She’d gotten to the point where she’d pushed herself partially off the ground, but she quickly fell back down, on her back.

The beast came closer and Tara feared for what was coming.  She knew that she didn’t have the strength to run or fight back.  She was a sitting duck, an open target for this beast.  Her head was quivering as she realized she was completely helpless.  Her pupils immediately quivered and she began to tear up.  Fear ran through her entire body as the beast approached.  ‘

Tara screamed as the Antlion nearly stood over her and let out it’s signature screech.  The sorceress looked up and saw the pincers about to come down and crush her when some unknown force had yanked her back, enveloping her entire sight in darkness…