My name is Dusty, it's May of 2014 and I just turned twenty. I can't believe I beat it. I'm like M.C. Hammer compared to the IMD, it can't touch this. Instantaneous Miniaturization Disease is said to have infected everyone. It's a condition that only affects men, though can be carried by women, and has been labeled as a plague by the religious.

     The world's male population has been greatly reduced, women now out numbering men over 100 to 1. While we're all better prepared now-a-days than we were when it first hit on a massive scale in the year 2000, it's still very scary. After puberty, a male is subject to shrink at any time, any where, instantaneously. The shrinking range is generally from 3 to 6 inches, with the 'biggest' record reaching almost 9 inches tall and the smallest being microscopic. Both of those, of course, were extreme rarities. However, a handful of men never shrink at all. To put things in perspective, I graduated from High School with 4 other guys and one hundred thirteen girls. Of those guys, only two of us were normal, with the other two being shrinkees.

Boys aren't required to go to school any more, as the government believes it a waste to educate people who aren't going to be able to contribute to society in the long run. Most, given the choice, opt out, especially do the the overwhelming predatory nature women in general have developed. There are no missing peoples reports and there are now laws protecting shrinkees, not really anyways. Still, some of us wanted an education, such as myself; however, I never would have came back to class had I ever had a positive result for the IMD test.

     Every year from the age twelve to nineteen, guys are required to take an IMD test. While it's not one hundred percent accurate, it basically tells you if you'll be shrinking in the near future. Additionally, boys are required every month to make a donation of.. Well, let's just say that the world isn't going to repopulate itself on it's own. It's incredibly awkward to have to fill a cup every month, but it the government mandate did lower the rate of women-on-men crime. Rape became a big issue for a while. While I'm fairly strong, I doubt I'd be able to fend off ten women coming at me. Fortunately, I've never had to confirm that.

     I still live at home with my mom, Betty, and sister, Kelly. Well, step mom and step sister, but I've been with them since I was three. Men aren't allowed to own nor rent property, as they're likely to shrink and be unable to pay rent, which is why I'll forever live at home. Well, hopefully not forever.  The same restrictions apply to operating motor vehicles, as we're likely to cause accidents. Case in point, I lost my father in a car accident, due to the IMD, when I was five and my birth mother three years before that to cancer. I wish I could say that my relationship with my family was great, but they're both very emotionally distant. Which makes sense, I guess, considering I could have been taken from their lives at any moment. Why get attached? I mean, it's not like I'm mistreated. We just kind of co-exist. Well, that's how it is with my mom anyways. She still does things for me, but she's always distracted by her work. My sister, on the other hand, believes that men are too coddled. She's anti-shrinkee, which just means that she hates that many of them are taken care of by government welfare systems.

     The welfare works likes this. At puberty, a male is forced to sign a will. That will establishes who his belongings will go to, financial and otherwise, and who will be assigned to take care of them when/if the IMD hits. You can change this at any time, which I have twice. For taking care of a shrinkee, the Guardian is rewarded a one-time deposit of ten thousand dollars. In comparison to a human life, it doesn't sound so much, but it does persuade people to take care of others, even if they're strangers.

     Simultaneously, there are welfare queens who are out there to trick shrinkees into signing up with them, then they get rid of them. Again, there aren't any further laws protecting us, so you have to be careful who you sign up with. I changed mine to Mandy Green about two months ago.

     In today's world, guys don't get jobs. We're unreliable for obvious reasons. So, I spend most of my time on World of Warcraft. The game is obviously dominated by women, but it's pretty cool that I basically get anything and everything I want just because I'm a guy. Of course, I also have to use voice speech to prove it, and even more, I'm generally harassed by the other players. Guys don't play WoW. Hey, don't invite him to your raid, he'll shrink and you'll be screwed. Yeah, right. How insensitive is that? If I -did- shrink during a raid, -I- would be the one being screwed, right?

     Anyways, Mandy is my girlfriend. I met her online in WoW, when I joined her sister Cindy's guild. They both look about the same, pale skin, black hair, but Cindy is seventeen and Mandy is twenty five. I've always been too intimidated to date local girls, so I kept my relationship over the internet. We've been dating for two years now. I even flew down to see them twice before, though never for longer than a weekend. They're awesome people still living with their mom, Diane. It was a big step making Mandy my Guardian, but I love her and she loves me back. Cindy, on the other hand, is probably my best friend in the world. She's a strict raid leader, but she has a wicked sense of humor. It's pretty obvious that she has feelings for me, heck, most girls in our guild do because I'm the only guy. My heart lies with Mandy though. She's always online doing favors for me or talking to me on the phone. It's pretty awesome.


     I still can't believe that I finally made it to twenty. There have been zero reports of anyone shrinking beyond age 19. To be fair, there have been less than a hundred cases of guys shrinking after 18, and that's out of millions. I'm in the safe zone now and for the rest of my life.