He could still hear it. Hear everything.

            The deathly wail of rubber skidding across concrete, as if his vehicle had already known how futile a gesture slamming his foot against the brake pedal had been. The unearthly howl of metal against metal as his car plowed into her's. The crisp shattering of glass as his windshield fell apart. And then the horrific sound of her car tumbling away, top over bottom, down the slope of that hill, marking the earth as it went.

            Corey Lindon put one foot in front of the other, feeling every bit a dead man walking as the bailiff gently guided him to his holding cell for one last stop at his temporary prison. The feeling of numbness was nothing new. It had persisted since that night, well over the course of his brief stay in an infirmary and throughout his meetings with his family and his lawyer as a criminal case had been brought against him. The sounds, too, had persisted.

            It was there again, the droning pings of his mangled vehicle beeping away as he stumbled out, leaving his keys behind. He could still remember his aching hand finding his phone in his pocket as he stumbled in shock away from the dead metal, desperate to reach the side of the hill.

            The sounds had persisted so much that he had felt as if he were barely at his own trial. He felt as if he had slipped in and out of consciousness, subsisting on whatever he had managed to be alert for at any given time. That he had missed a large chunk of the proceedings would be an understatement - he was sure he had missed most of them.

            But he was also sure he had heard what mattered the most.

            Now a voice, soft and calming. Feminine. Asking for his location, if he was all right. He had answered as accurately as he could, to both questions, and the 911 operator  had told him that emergency workers were on their way. Truthfully, looking down the slope of the hill, he hadn't particularly cared. His gut had  told him all he needed to know, needed to understand, as he had stared blankly upon the husk of the other driver's car even as his knees had given out and sent him falling to the ground. It had told him what he had done, well before her had need to see it.

            Well before he had needed to hear it. That the girl was dead. That he had killed her. Repeated countless time over the last several days, and he had been alert for every mention. Exactly as he should have been.

            A soft clink sounded, and it was with a start Corey realized that his handcuffs had been removed. The bailiff was already on the move, leaving the shaken college student to come to terms with the fact that he had reached his destination, that he had stopped moving, without even realizing it. Leaving him, too, to thank God for that seeming lapse of consciousness. Because even as his eyes found his mother, sitting calmly in a chair that rested within the confines of the cell with them and looking at him with those pitying blue eyes, he knew that three more pairs rested on his back. Brown, green, and blue, all affixed upon him. Self-conscious, his eyes drifted to the floor.

            Because they had gone first, to wait for him. His family. His lawyer. His mother, his sister, his aunt, accompanied by a woman he had known most of his life who had done her best for him in the wake of his failure. Which was why what was about to happen was about to happen.

            "Corey," Abigail Lindon stated softly, and with no lack of affection, "I'm going to go ahead and do this. Get this started, get the initial part over and done with. Okay?"

            He didn't respond. There was no need to. He didn't have a choice, after all.

            A rustle, a familiar one, and his heavy eyes lifted to gaze upon his sentence as his mother casually removed it from her purse. That hunk of black metal that he had despised growing up, that had so embarrassed him as punishments for his slights.

            This time, he had truly earned the PMRD's justice.

            For his crime, he would be...lessened. Shrunken. No bigger than twelve inches tall, no smaller than an inch. Tiny and helpless. Small and harmless. For a year he would remain so, under the direct supervision of his parents. Of his little sister, who for the first time would be allowed to use the magical device when she wished, and however she wished. And he would be confined at home unless one of his three wardens deigned to take him elsewhere, a right and a choice they could exercise three days a week, for up to three hours at a time, for the year.

            That was what his mother had fought for, as well as his lawyer and his aunt. They had refused to allow him to go to prison for his crime, despite how strongly the prosecution had pushed for it. And they had won this for him, to spare him the trip to a place they did not wish to see him go to, regardless of the extent to which he deserved to do so. Because that was where people like him were supposed to go, wasn't it? People who had done what he had.

             And yet, it was so nice of them to want to do that for him. Because he was certain he could not be a bigger disappointment to them if he had tried..

            "Mom," Corey found himself croaking as his soon-to-be warden began fiddling with the tool she would be using for the duration of his incarceration. He didn't dare look behind him, past the bars of the holding cell. He didn't...didn't want to see them, everyone else. For as long long as possible, he didn't want to.

            "Hm?" the matron lightly sounded, apparently now deep in thought as to what pathetically small size would suit him best.

            "I'm," he breathed, an audible gulp ridding himself of the persistent lump in his throat that had followed him since that night, "I'm sorry."

            The movement of his mother's fingers against the PMRD's screen halted as she froze, albeit just for a moment. A sigh left her lips, and Corey was certain that awful green flash would be following it. Instead, though, his mother simply rose to her feet from the chair, her eyes lifting from the device to face him. One step, then two, and soon she was in front of him, her blue eyes looking up ever so slightly into his own. Soft. Pitying, and likely a mirror of the  three pairs behind him.

            He barely noticed as he felt her hands on his back, pulling him into a tight, loving hug that he didn't have the strength to return.

            "I know you are, sweetie," she stated softly with the slightest of wavers. "I know you are. And through your time with us...at home...everyone else will understand how sorry you are, too. How this isn't you, and what a wonderful young man you really are." Her arms momentarily tightened around him to punctuate her statement before she parted from him, taking several steps backward. Her attention returned to the PMRD, and two taps of her finger later adjustments were apparently finished. "Here we go, Corey. I'm doing one inch for now. There are reporters outside, and I think it's best you keep a low profile while we head to the car."

            Those words had more than a little heat behind them, setting off a flinch within Corey. He wasn't sure, precisely, what had been the cause. He knew what his first instinct was, but...

            There was no time to ponder it as the PMRD was aimed squarely at him. Soon, he was bathing in that familiar green light, the first time in two years. The chill that accompanied it was still as uncomfortable as ever, that feeling of plummeting downward. Usually, he closed his eyes. It made him uncomfortable, to watch the world rush upwards around him. Not this time, though. No, this time, he just...watched, as he dwindled into his new place in the world.

            The light soon subsided, a wave of nausea making Corey regret his decision to not close his eyes. The process had always been a bit disconcerting for him, now even more so after two years of freedom from it.  The sense only intensified as his eyes focused upon the heel-clad feet of his mother in the distance and traced up her nylon-coated calves to the sharp business ensemble she wore, with a pencil skirt that stretched to just above her knees and a smart matching business jacket. It had been so long since he had...seen someone, like this. His mother peered down upon him from what seemed like hundreds of feet above, eyes trained carefully upon him.

            It was almost overwhelming, taking it all in. So much so that he had barely noticed himself stumbling into a cold metal bar of the cell that towered behind him. The contact jarred him, accelerating his rising queasiness, and he stumbled forward in short order, shivering.

            "You okay?" a kind, mature voice asked from above and behind him. Reflexively, he spun around, to be immediately greeted by another three pairs of nylon-clad feet resting in black heels. He immediately locked onto the largest pair that rested to the far right of the three, the easiest way to pinpoint the source of the familiar voice that had spoken to him.

            His Aunt Kayla, smiling down at him with the same confidently assuring curl of her lips that she had treated him with since this whole thing had started, towered over most everyone even with normal size conventions intact. At a little over six feet tall, and with her already commanding presence, it was an easy thing to do. Now, though, with her emerald irises shining down upon him and his one-inch frame...she was beyond towering. Easily the largest living thing he had ever seen. The only thing that had ever come close was his sister's friend, Melody, who two years ago and at 15 years old had already gained an inch on him.

            His sister.

            His eyes traced to the left, and his stomach lurched as they found the kind face of his lawyer, Rebecca Reynolds, framed by her strawberry-blond locks. A longtime family friend, who had babysat him on numerous occasions when he had been littl...younger. Her pretty blue eyes picked up on the fact that his eyes had settled upon her, and her straightened lips curled in a muted, yet pleasant smile that made the twenty-year old blush a little. In addition to being a babysitter, she had also been his first, innocent little crush. A fact that served only to heighten his already considerable embarrassment and shame. He was all too eager to move on further to the left, to...

            Claire.

            His little sister, now 16, had her face pressed between the bars of the cell. Her brown eyes locked upon him, and there was definite frustration within them as he watched her bite on her lower lip. A frustration that was warranted, he thought. He was supposed to be an example to her, and yet...and yet now, he had failed at that in what must have been the most complete manner possible. He couldn't blame her, for the anger and frustration she must feel toward him, for letting her expectations down so utterly. For not being the big brother that she had adored and respected, for replacing him with the contemptuous little...thing at her feet.

            And for the first time that day, looking upon the three women that towered so enormously before him, he noted how...coordinated, they were. Matching nylons and heels, matching skirts and business jackets. All four women putting up a coordinated, united front. All four, he realized, exuding a certain power and strength. His mother, a respected professor of physics. His aunt, a circuit judge. Ms. Rebecca, one of the finest lawyers in the state. Even Claire, despite her status as a high school student, exuded it. As if it was her natural place, to be associated with these powerful figures.

            Which only made him feel even more pathetic as that lump returned to his throat, along with that wave of nausea. It probably was his sister's place, to be up there. With them. And it was his place, to be down here, with the dirt and the crud. That was where people like him belonged, after all.  Not people like her, no. She belonged, now, to a world which he had proven himself incapable of being a part of.

            Because he had killed someone. Through his negligence, through his arrogance, through his irresponsibility. He had killed an innocent girl who had had the misfortune of making one tiny little mistake at the worst possible moment. If he had just...if he had just being going slower, nothing would have happened. That girl would still be alive and well, instead of resting in a casket, leaving her parents behind to grieve.

            That lump moved upward, and it was with crinkled face that Corey discovered the object that tormented him was not a figurative one. He keeled over suddenly, a wave of sickness pulsing through him as his breakfast emptied out onto the cell floor at his feet.