“Wait, no,” she shook her head, running her hands through her short strawberry blonde hair and forcing herself back to her feet, “Zoe won't... she...”

Heather struggled to convince herself that her daughter wouldn't treat her like she was any other shrunken person. The longer she stood at her front door the more she became aware that she was unable to look to her left, where the stained sneaker sat.

Turning her back to the row of shoes, Heather marched into the living room and looked up at the family portrait that sat up on the mantle. The sight of the three of them together eased her thundering heart long enough that she was able to take a deep breath.

“It doesn't matter if Zoe's getting a little...” she struggled for the word, “Immune-crazy.”

She wandered over to the piano that sat near the bay window at the front of the house, the same piano that she had taught Zoe to play when she was little and where she still found her playing every so often. Heather told herself that it was normal for girls to have a 'mean' phase, she could certainly remember her own with a touch of embarrassment; the cruel things she had said to other girls, and that they said about her, and the fights that she would get into with her own mother over basically nothing. It was a normal, if incredibly horrible, part of growing up.

Leaning against the leg of the piano, Heather crossed her arms and suddenly wondered where she had failed in helping her daughter avoid that phase. It weighed on her as she stood there and she wanted to blame her sister-in-law or the girl's friends or letting her watch stupid teen movies that reinforced stereotypes but at the end of it, all she could think about was that it had been on her to do better.

She chuckled as she realized she would have a lot more time to spend with Zoe now and that only made the fear fill her once more. Standing up straight, Heather looked up to see that she could easily walk beneath the piano without her head even brushing against it.

There was no way that Zoe would listen to her now.

“Do I even sound the same?” She asked aloud, trying to gauge if her voice was higher pitched but she was barely able to notice any difference. “Oh God, what if I shrink again and sound like one of the Chipmunks?”

Her small frame shook and she stepped out from beneath the piano to gaze up at the alien structures that filled her cavernous home. Walking between the sofas that flanked the fireplace, she found herself turning slowly, suddenly remembering that past weekend when Zoe and her friends had been lounged across them, giggling and scrolling through stuff on their phones. She could picture them as they would look now, towering over her with the same haughty smirks while their eyes would rake over her shrunken body.

Heather remembered the look Zoe had given her over the summer when she bought a pair of tight jeans, like she was the most unfashionable woman to ever walk the earth.

Every imperfection on her own naked body suddenly jumped out to her as she looked down at it. Imperfections that wouldn't escape the notice of gigantic eyes, especially when those eyes belonged to girls who were starting to scrutinize themselves with a fine tooth comb.

She covered herself as her knees started to wobble.

Looking back up at the mantle, Heather whimpered as she realized how far she had to crane her neck back to see the family portrait but the sight of her husband strengthened her shuddering legs.

“Jason,” saying his name gave her a deep sense of calm.

He wouldn't let Zoe torture her, even inadvertently.

He would make sure that she was taken care of, like he always had, even when she didn't really need to be taken care of. The thought of her big husband coming through the door, now blown up to even larger proportions, made the tension ease out of her body.

She stared at the door and imagined him striding through it.

She wanted to believe that he'd be so strong that the floor would quake beneath his feet and his voice would boom out like a deep bell ringing in the distance. He'd pick her up in one hand with ease and the thought of his powerful fingers wrapping around her chest made her squirm excitedly against the couch beside her. Licking her lips, Heather found herself smiling for the first time since she had shrunk.

But it faltered almost just as quickly.

He had been coming home late a lot, she realized.

Sometimes he said it was work, sometimes he was out at the bar hanging with his old high school football buddies, sometimes he didn't give any kind of explanation, he just sent a text saying he'd be home late that night.

Heather walked toward the trophy case that sat in the corner of the living room, the one he had gotten from his parents not long after they had moved in. All of his football trophies still sat on the top shelf, perfectly polished. A few of Zoe's trophies had found their way into it, especially last year when the soccer team placed first in the league and she had gotten MVP in the championship game.

But they were still below his.

He had blown out his knee in their freshman year of college, long before they ever met. There was no coming back from the injury, not that he had ever seemed like he wanted to. She had honestly forgotten that he had been the kind of player people had once talked about until they moved into town and started running into so many of his old friends.

And his exes.

Most of them she didn't mind since they were all married too, some to out-of-towners like her who felt equally confused when people talked about the 'good old days' and a few who were married to guys they had all gone to school with.

The only one that ever bothered her was Julie Nicolby.

Not because they had been high school sweethearts or something, but because Jason had never been clear about what their relationship had been. He had mentioned her in passing over the years, he had been sure to tell Heather when Julie bought the local sports bar that he would hang out in with all his old football buddies, and she was also famously still unmarried.

'The Unbreakable Broncette' was what they called her.

Nothing about it had ever sat right with Heather but she had gotten over it a long time ago.

Or at least that's what she had thought until she found herself backing up to look at the photo that hung near the family trophy case. It was from the one game he had started in college, before he blew out his knee, and a bunch of his high school friends had come out to cheer him on. They had made a big road trip of it, and there with her arm wrapped around her husband's shoulder pads was Julie Nicolby.

She was tall for a woman, a hair below six feet, and it was hard to deny that she was attractive, especially when looking at a photo of her at eighteen. Of course, Heather knew that the years had been very kind to Julie; her honey blonde hair was still thick and shiny, there was only the barest hint of crow's feet around her eyes from years as a bartender, and she still looked just as athletic as she did in the photo hanging on their wall. Thinking about the woman's firm biceps, Heather suddenly wondered if Julie was somehow in better shape now than she had been as a teenager.

“No,” she shook her head and forced a laugh, “Jason would never, has never...”

Yet, she found herself pausing as she tried to turn away from the trophy case.

Heather had had to pick him up several times at Julie's bar after he had gotten a little too tipsy. She had always come in to find Jason hunched over on one end of the bar, babbling away to Julie who laughed and smiled like he was the funniest guy in the world. It had been easy to tell herself that that was literally the woman's livelihood, that every bartender made people feel like something might happen even though everyone knew that it never would.

But most people didn't have photos of their bartender hanging in their home.

Most people's wives didn't shrink down while their high school fuck-buddy or whatever Julie had been was still around and normal sized and maybe even Immune for all Heather knew. Her heart raced and she struggled to breathe as a horror show played out in her head.

Jason would take care of, he would stop Zoe and her friends from treating her like any other shrunken person, but she couldn't help but wonder how long he would do those things. She would want him to remain faithful but she knew there was no way that she would be able to make him. Then there was the simple fact that there was a lot she wouldn't be able to do at her current size, and if she kept shrinking the world would just become more and more dangerous.

Could she even be mad at her husband if he started dating again while she was sitting in a hamster cage in their bedroom?

Her lip trembled as she tried to imagine watching Julie fucking Nicolby strut into her house like she owned the place. She shut her eyes tight but it did nothing to stop the tears that flowed down her cheeks as she thought about how nice their family portrait would look; all three of them tall and athletic and never afraid that they'd end up like Jason's poor first wife who spent her days in Julie's closet, which used to be hers, so that her own daughter wouldn't crush her beneath her stupid overpriced chunky shoes while her friends recorded it for Tiktok.

“No, no, no,” she repeated over and over again, smacking her tiny fists against her thighs, “That won't happen! It...”

Heather took in slow shaky breaths but the more she tried to tell herself that it wouldn't happen, the more her eyes were drawn back to the front door.

The stain on Zoe's sneaker stared back at her like a grim warning.

She had never been tested before last year. When they had first gotten engaged she and Jason had agreed that they didn't want to know whether or not either of them could be asymptomatic. The idea that they could shrink would change too much and affect too many decisions and it had still been so new. They had figured that if it hadn't happened by then, it wasn't going to happen. Even after they had gotten pregnant and Zoe had been born, they agreed that ignorance was bliss.

Laws had been changing steadily since then though and beyond that there were lots of rules and suggestions about checking for the possibility that it could happen. No matter how often people suggested it though, they decided to keep their heads in the sand.

And then two years ago, after a horrible incident where a boy on the swim team had shrunk and drowned in the middle of a meet, the school instituted a new policy that athletes needed to be tested. Zoe had already been a rising star on the middle school soccer team and if she was going to get it then they figured that it was time.

Jason had been Immune.

And thank God, Zoe had been too.

Only Heather had been asymptomatic, meaning the possibility was there.

They had never told Zoe, largely because they didn't want her to worry, though as Heather stood there staring at the stain on her daughter's shoe, she suddenly wondered if Zoe would have worried at all or simply started acting like she had already shrunk.

She wanted to believe that when Zoe got home from school that day, she'd kneel down and wrap her up in a warm hug and they'd cry together until Zoe finally managed to call her father. They'd sit down and have a long talk about what it all meant and they'd come up with the plans they'd avoided making for over a year.

Yet, she kept imagining her daughter walking through the door and looking down at her like she was an offensive bug that had scurried into the house. The same tremors that she had imagined her husband making suddenly seemed far more intimidating when she thought of them coming from Zoe, and her knees went weak once more at the thought of Zoe towering above her. She shook her head, desperately trying to rid herself of the horrible thoughts that raced through her head but they simply kept coming.

Zoe and her friends laughing down at her, Jason holding her squirming body in his powerful fist, Julie Nicolby seamlessly taking her place and simply depositing her in a cage like she was some little pet.

Heather tried to tell herself that it wouldn't happen but when she opened her eyes once more, she saw the undeniable proof that her daughter was a murderer etched into the tread of her sneakers. The acknowledgment of what Zoe had actually done, that her sweet little girl was a killer, chilled her to her bones.

Pushing herself back to her feet, Heather knew that she needed to get out of her own house while she still could. The thought that she might shrink again and that the door knob would simply be out of reach made her rush toward the door with all her might.

With a shout, she jumped off of the floor and pushed off of the front door like she was doing parkour. The bounce pushed her higher and she caught herself on the knob before twisting it as hard as she could to the right.

Bracing her foot against the wall while holding the strange position necessary to open the door, Heather pushed as hard as she could and was rewarded with the chilly autumn air that seeped into her house. Her breathing came in slow gasps as she dangled then dropped down onto the floor, where she lay for a few moments to collect herself.

Then she heard the distant ringing of a bell.

It took her a moment to recognize the noise as the bell from the college's clock tower and she held her breath as she counted off the chimes. The first one echoed out, then came a second that made her heart leap into her throat, and when none followed it, her whole body started to shake.

The high school let out shortly after two and she knew that if she didn't find somewhere to go at that precise moment, being forced to take a front row seat to her husband's inevitable infidelity and being treated like some kind of overgrown bug by her daughter would be the best case scenario. Any of her daughter's classmates could scoop her up and to them she really would be nothing more than a potential plaything or slave.

“I need an adult,” she whispered as she stood at the threshold of her home, staring out across her lawn to the vast houses of her neighbors.

Each house brought its own imaginary hell as she thought about their occupants.

Every house with pets brought terrifying images to her head of being mauled by a gigantic cat or swallowed whole by a dumb slobbering dog. Her neighbors with kids each varied from no different than a house with a pet if the kid was young to humiliating or torturous the older the kid got. That left the handful of people without kids; which ranged from the married couple who was on the brink of divorce if their overheard shouting matches were to be believed, the nosy old woman who told her about said shouting matches and was definitely some kind of hoarder, and the newlyweds down the street who had moved in at the start of the summer.

The newlyweds were the obvious choice in her mind and she was off like a shot across her own lawn. She kept smiling as she thought about the attractive young couple, George and Mabel. George was a lean handsome young man with fair skin and dark hair who she always saw out on her morning runs while he was on his own jog. He was a doctor who had just started working at the college's student health center who had met Mabel, who was some kind of researcher, while he was a resident.

Mabel was a petite girl with rich brown skin who kept her dark hair cropped close on the sides but a little tall on the top. At a glance, she looked like a bubbly little sorority girl in her shiny flats and conservative dresses but every time she had spoken to Mabel, Heather had been intimidated by her intelligence.

The sidewalk raced beneath her bare feet as she ran toward their house, hoping that one of them would be home. As the little craftsman toward the end of the block loomed ahead of her, Heather felt a nagging sensation in the back of her head...

Mabel was a geneticist.

The thought made her stop dead in her tracks and a hazy memory of Mabel telling her how they met bubbled up. George was a resident who worked in the lab next to hers at the hospital. One of her specimens had escaped its cage and scurried under the door into his lab and she had chased after it. When she entered the room, she found George already stopping it. Mabel had described it as love at first sight and Heather remembered swooning in response.

She had had a few beers at that afternoon barbecue and she distinctly remembered saying to Mabel, “And at least you knew he wasn't squeamish if he would pick up a rat without even thinking!”

And Mabel had cocked her head, clearly confused, “A rat?”

Then she had burst out laughing, “Oh no, no, it was a shrinkee and he didn't pick it up.”

Mabel had smirked and slapped her sandal down on the deck when she said it.

“Oh no, no, no, no...” She stared at their house and pressed her lips together when she saw there was a car in the driveway.

The reality that she was naked and standing alone on a sidewalk where any of her neighbors, including the ones who experimented on people just like her, could see her made her whole body shake in fear once more. Her chest started to tighten and all she could hear was her own heartbeat pounding in her ears.

Heather's head spun about once more, struggling to find something to help snap her out of it.

Movement caught her eye and she let out a strangled scream through her teeth before she realized it was a flag caught in the breeze.

But it wasn't just any flag, it was the pride flag belonging to the two college girls at the end of the street. The girls who everyone grumbled about because of their tattoos and piercings and loud music and once you got a few beers in them they also added their liberal bumper stickers and pride flag to the list. Girls who definitely had no connections to anyone else on the block. Girls who, Heather hoped, were the kind of bleeding heart lefties who wouldn't see her as just a shrinkee.

She sprinted down the block and up onto their lawn.

The sight of a car in the driveway filled her with joy as she clambered up the steps to their porch on all fours. She shoved herself to her feet and threw herself bodily into the front door before pounding her little fists against it as hard as she could.

“Help!” She cried out, “Open up!”

She heard footsteps moving through the house and began to jump with joy.

Then she felt them.

The tremors were faint at first but they grew more powerful as the girl came closer to the door until Heather felt herself swaying back and forth. The door creaked as it opened and light spilled out from inside before it was blocked by a deep shadow.

The power of the girl's footfalls made Heather stumble and her eyes were drawn to the huge walls of leather in front of her. The boots had a platform that rose just above Heather's knees and then above those were towers of black leather covered in heavy straps and buckles. Her heart began to race as she took in the girl's pale skin that disappeared into a green-and-silver plaid skirt with a thick studded belt wrapped around it. She wore a t-shirt with what Heather assumed was a band logo on it that clung to her thin torso.

A pale hand adorned with rings and holding a vape passed over the girl's chest, drawing Heather's gaze even higher. Black painted lips pursed around the vape pen, which hummed to life as the girl sucked on it, her head bobbing back and forth as she did so that her wavy purple hair bounced on either side of her cheeks.

Finally, dark eyes rimmed with dark green eyeshadow settled on her.

A cloud of weed scented smoke rolled across her world and then the girl's deep smoky voice echoed out, “Well, hello...”