A New Day

John awoke feeling like he’d been run over by a garbage truck. Daylight, muted by the single small frosted glass window, filtered into the room. Opening bleary eyes, it took him a moment to process the information his eyes were delivering to his brain. For all intents and purposes, the room resembled a bathroom, but was positively cavernous, like the inside of some domed sports area. He was lying on a plush mat beneath a sink attached high up on the wall above his head. There was a porcelain toilet of megalithic proportions near the wall with the window and an old fashioned enamel coated bath tub sitting on four clawed feet.

“What the fuck?” John mumbled sitting up. Scrubbing his eyes with his knuckles, he looked again. He laughed, shaking his head in disbelief. Climbing to his feet, he was a little surprised to find himself naked, but otherwise uninjured. Looking around he didn’t see any sign of the others.

“This is bizarre,” he commented, walking toward the open door of the bathroom. Peering out into the hallway, he didn’t see anyone so he ventured out, walking on the polished wood near the baseboard until he came to another open door. Craning his head to look inside, it looked like a bedroom, with bed, dressers, and closet cabinet. He saw the tiny form of Blake in the room, hands on hips, staring up at the surroundings.

Entering the room, “Blake!” John called.

Blake jumped and swiveled quickly. A look of relief washing over his face. Like John, he too was naked. Rushing over, he said, “Dude, like what’s the deal here?”

John shook his head. “I woke up on the bathroom floor,” he said, “Like this,” he extended his arms wide.

“This doesn’t make any sense,” Blake said. “How come everything is so goddamn big?”

“Or we’re really small, can’t be more than a couple of inches compared to everything here in the room,” John replied.

“That’s not fucking possible,” chuckled Blake nervously.

“Yet here we are,” John said.

“You seen Charlie of Dustin?” Blake inquired.

John shook his head. “Just you so far.”

“Fuck I feel like crap,” Blake said.

John nodded, “Maybe it was the old lady’s tea?” he said.

“Ugh, that was foul, but c’mon, tea that shrinks you?” Blake quipped.

“Something did. I’m guessing we’re still in the old lady’s house, but I think we’re upstairs, the décor seems pretty much the same as we saw downstairs,” John informed.

Blake’s eyes grew wide. “That old biddy is a witch!”

“Please,” John said snidely.

“No, think about it. How else would you explain it?”

John turned to Blake, an angered expression on his face. “You know what? I can’t fucking explain it. I fall asleep in an old creepy house and wake up the size of a mouse on a bath mat in some stranger’s bathroom. There was no note there, saying ‘Oh by the way, I’ve miniaturized you and your friends.’”

“Geez,” said Blake, “I’m just trying to figure out what’s going on,” he added.

John chuckled. “Dude, I get it. Either we are having the trip of a lifetime off of nonna’s brew, or we are in the twilight zone, because in the rational world people don’t just shrink.”

Blake nodded. “It could be witchcraft, that’s all I’m saying.”

John shook his head, “Sure, why not? That’s as good as explanation as any at the moment,” he conceded.

“I wonder where Simone and her grandmother are at?” Blake stated, looking around.

“Given that we’ve already agreed that theoretically it could be possible that we were victims of witchcraft, you now wonder where the witch and her smoking hot granddaughter are. Really? Personally, I think until we get some of this shit figured out, probably best to avoid them.”

Blake scowled.

John shook his head, “We got to find the others, I’m sure they are just as messed up as we are,” he said. Blake nodded as they left the room.

Charles and Dustin

Charles rolled over onto his side, the cold hard surface of whatever he was lying on rousing him from sleep. He opened his eyes and blinked a couple of times, then frowned. Although it was light out, everything was slightly out of focus. He reached up and touched his face, his glasses were nowhere to be found.

Squinting, he pushed himself up off the polished wood. Although out of focus, he could still see somewhat, finer details lost though. His mouth hung agape as he surveyed his surroundings. He was still in the parlor of the old house, except now the whole house was gigantic.

He wandered around some of the pieces of furniture in disbelief.

“John? Blake?” he heard from near the open doorway, it sounded like Dustin. “Charles?” called the same voice again.

“Over here,” Charles said from the concealment of skirting fabric of a chair near the portal.

“Thank Christ,” said Dustin trotting over. “This is completely messed,” he said, leaning forward and putting hands on knees as he caught his breath.

“I haven’t got my glasses, I can barely see,” Charles said.

Dustin nodded. “We are still in the old lady’s house,” he said. “I woke up on the carpet in the hall by the Primavera painting.”

Charles nodded. “I woke up here. I haven’t seen or heard from either John or Blake.”

“Me neither, but they’re probably here somewhere,” rationalized Dustin.

“How could we be shrunk down like this?” asked Charles, a touch of emotion in his voice.

Dustin shook his head. “I don’t know, but there is certainly some mysteriousness afoot,” he replied.

“I knew we shouldn’t have come here,” Charles said, voice almost breaking.

“But we are here, getting all emotional isn’t going to help us at this juncture, okay? Let’s get it together and see if we can’t find John and Blake. What do you say?” Dustin said, trying to be sympathetic.

Emotions reigned in, Charles nodded. “Okay. Where should we started looking?”

“Not sure. We will have to search the downstairs, there’s no way we can get upstairs even with you standing on my shoulders we wouldn’t be able to get up the stairs. We should look in the kitchen, maybe,” he suggested.

Charles nodded. “What if they’re in the cellar?”

Dustin paused a moment. “I hope not, spiders down there would almost be as big as we are,” he said with an involuntary shudder.

Charles shook his head vigorously from side to side. “We are not going to the basement.”

Without his glasses, Charles was still able enough to see to navigate without Dustin having to help. Back in the hallway with the narrow red carpet, Dustin paused in front of the painting.

“What is it?” Charles asked.

“I have a theory,” Dustin said. “I think Simone might be Simonetta.”

“What do you mean, like a vampire who never ages or something?” Charles asked.

“I don’t know,” he replied. “Her accent sound slightly Italian and the resemblance is uncanny.”

Charles shook his head. “Oh man, I knew something bad was going to happen, I just knew it,” he lamented.

“C’mon let’s see the others are in the kitchen.

Moving along the baseboard in the hall, they came to the opening of the kitchen, the vast space sprawling out before them, the only sound the hum of the old refrigerator. Aside from the door they were standing in, there were four other doors in the room, one leading to the cellar, a narrow set of stairs leading up, one to a larder, and one leading into some type of enclosed porch or mudroom.

Scanning the room, Dustin frowned, “I don’t see them, you?”

“Half blind, remember?” Charles replied.

“There’s cup and saucer on the floor over on the other side of the kitchen,” Dustin said.

Walking across the kitchen, they came to stand beside the cup, similar in patterning to the ones from the night previous.

“Milk and cookie,” Dustin said, looking down at a single chocolate chip cookie as wide as he was tall on the saucer, and a quarter cup of milk.

“It could be poisoned,” cautioned Charles, clutching Dustin’s arm.

Dustin frowned and shook his head, sighing. “Here, I’ll test it just to be sure,” he said, crumbling off a piece of cookie and taking a bite. His eyes grew wide as he dropped the cookie fragment and clutched at his throat, gagging and choking.

“Dustin!” yelled Charles, trying to circle in around behind Dustin.

Dustin stopped and pushed him back, “Dude you’re naked, no way do I want you trying to Heimlich me when you’re naked,” he said.

“Fucking asshole, I thought you were choking,” admonished Charles, relieved, angry, and frightened all at the same time.

“Eat some cookie,” it’ll help with the headache to get some carbohydrates in your system,” Dustin said, breaking off another portion of cookie and handing it to Charles.

Charles took it and grumbled.