Miscalculation by Balore
Summary:

Sean Darnell, who had just constructed the world's first shrinking machine, is not having a good day. First, his invention makes him much smaller than he wanted to be. And then his assistant crushes it underfoot. Now it's up to him to survive at just 1/4" tall.


Categories: Adventure, Young Adult 20-29, Adult 30-39, Body Exploration, Entrapment, Feet, Footwear, Gentle, Instant Size Change, Unaware Characters: None
Growth: None
Shrink: Minikin (3 in. to 1 in.), Nano (1/2 in. to 2.5 nanometers)
Size Roles: FF/m
Warnings: The Following story is appropriate for all audiences
Challenges: None
Series: None
Chapters: 18 Completed: Yes Word count: 30808 Read: 101154 Published: January 03 2020 Updated: January 14 2020
Story Notes:

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

 

The following story is my take on 'Greatly Reduced' by Shrinkingman of theshrinkingman.com Think of it as a sort of retelling the story.

Chapter 1 by Balore

 


Professor Sean Darnell stood in the middle of his lab, looking at his newest invention with a mix of pride and relief. After a few long month filled with tiresome research, endless malfunctions and scrounging for parts, his Size Alteration Device was finally completed. And while he was proud of having realized this project, he was equally glad it was finally over, as the time spent working on it took its toll on his sleep routine and fatigue. Now however he could finally relax, knowing the only thing left to do was to test the machine. This time nothing could go wrong.


The only thing that worried him at that moment was the fact he would be doing so alone. Mandy, his faithful lab assistant with whom he worked on the device, was on sick leave till the end of the week. The last time they spoke on the phone, she pleaded with him to not run the tests before she was back. “What if something goes wrong?” Sean remembered her saying and had to admit she was right. The tests he had in mind would be much safer if there was someone more to oversee their effects. By all accounts waiting for Mandy to return and then testing the device seemed much more reasonable. But Sean, despite his academic background, never learned how to be patient. And thus he decided today was the day when he would put his magnum opus into use.


Perhaps calling it such was a bit of a stretch. The device was a seven feet tall and one foot wide, closable rectangular container made out of white composite, looking more like a futuristic photo booth than an invention Sean hoped would shake the scientific world. The inside was barren save for the console – the wide screen set on the wall and the keyboard to feed data into it. He stepped inside, closed the door behind him and began to eagerly press the keys, adjusting settings for his first test in accordance to his prior calculations. The first trial would be something simple; the device would shrink two feet in height and Sean with it, his height dropping to approximately three-foot-ten. When the machine processed the data, a low hum could be heard lasting for several seconds and stopping abruptly. He waited a moment more until the text on the screen said the test was concluded and that it was safe to step outside. Not willing nor needing to wait any longer, Sean opened the door and took a step forward.


He noticed something was wrong immediately. He was standing on a vast plain which seemed to stretch on for miles in each direction. It took him no time to realize he shrank smaller than he thought he would, the plain being nothing other than the floor of his laboratory. He walked back into the machine, pressing keys nervously to determine his current size and the time necessary for the device to cool down until he could use it to grow back. And then stared in disbelief at the screen as it showed he was now a quarter of an inch tall and would have to wait about half an hour before he could resize. ‘God damn it’ he muttered, shaking his head and once again stepping out.


With nothing better to do, Sean decided to stroll around and take a look at his new, gigantic surroundings. As he walked, he felt somewhat relieved he was alone. At this size someone could easily mistake him for an ant, even despite his bright clothes – his white shirt, blue jeans and green shoes. What would happen then, he dared not imagine too deeply, but he knew he would not live to celebrate his thirty-sixth birthday which was due in a month. As he walked, he gaped at the colossal furniture and lab equipment, the tiniest parts of each dwarfing him several times over. He wondered where he could’ve made a mistake and decided he would go through all the formulas and figures once more when he was back to normal size. He wasn’t wearing a watch and he left his phone on the desk before shrinking, so he could not tell the exact time, but he figured at least twenty minutes had passed already. He turned and began to walk back towards the machine. And then he heard a noise coming from the opposite direction and as he looked towards it he saw the door to his lab open and Mandy standing in it.


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If a normal-sized person was looking at the door, they would see a slightly chubby twenty two-year old with short auburn hair, blue eyes and perky nose. She was five-foot-seven and that day she was wearing a red t-shirt, knee length jean skirt and sandals on her bare feet. But an ordinary girl to a normal person was now a massive colossus to the diminished Sean and as he watched her enter the lab, he began waging his options. Trying to get her attention was risky and promised no reward. She could easily crush him underfoot the moment he got closer, either mistaking him for an insect or not seeing him down there at all. Crying out was no good either; he knew for sure she wouldn’t hear him from this far.


Mandy looked around, surprised to not see the professor working on anything, or at all. She was feeling a bit better today and decided to pay him a visit, maybe help out with the current experiment or at least to make sure he doesn’t perform it alone. But this was odd. As she wondered about it, walking around the deserted room, she took a phone out of her purse and dialled Sean’s number. To her surprise, she heard his phone ringing behind her, on the desk. ‘He left the phone? Why?’ she thought, perplexed.


Down below, Sean was screaming as he was running away from her, as fast as his tiny legs could carry him. He found himself in Mandy’s path in a matter of seconds. He was now trying to make it safely to the machine before he ended a wet stain beneath one of her sandals. But her single step was like a hundred of his and soon she not only reached him but passed him over as well. To his horror, Sean noticed she was walking directly towards the spot where the machine was standing. And although he forced himself to run even faster, it was no use and he saw his only way of growing back being pulverized under Mandy’s enormous foot. And then, as if the situation couldn’t get any worse, she turned and started walking back in Sean’s direction. He barely dodged her foot as it fell near him with a loud thud but, fortunately for him, the giantess seemed to have stopped, at least for now. Suddenly, he had an idea. He might’ve been too small to be seen or heard from the floor, but if he got a bit higher, if he could make contact with her skin… Thinking quickly he began to move once more, running towards her sandal, paying close attention to any sudden movements. As he reached the spot where her toes lied on the massive pedestal her shoe was to him, he looked for any indentures in the material, anything he could put his hands and feet into that would help him climb up. Luckily, he found some and managed to pull himself up. Realizing how easily it’d be for her to toss him off, he decided to find something to grab on to. He ran past her humongous digits, even the smallest of which being several times his size, and reached the strap between her big and second toes, wasting no time in grabbing it with both hands and holding on to it. The heat emanating from the proximity of her body and the leather of the sandal made him feel hot, unbearably so, with sweat soon running down his forehead and his back. Before he could come up with a way of getting her attention, the giantess began to move once more and Sean clutched to the strap as he was being carried away by the floating island of Mandy’s foot.


 

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