John always had an active imagination. Whenever he was at school during a lesson or in a conversation with anyone, he mind would always wander off. His meandering thoughts were always of a grand adventure through dense, dangerous forests, fighting off beasts as he trekked his way through. He yearned to be able to travel to the rain forest, however as a young high schooler stuck in the middle of a large metropolitan area on the fourteenth floor of an apartment complex, he knew that such a day would never come anytime soon.
That is until one day he came up with a solution. A few months ago, his mother got brand new green shag carpeting installed in the living room. While lying prone on the couch one afternoon with his head hanging off the cushion, an idea struck him as he was running his fingers through the carpet. Knowing that both his mom and younger sister are out shopping and won't be back until late, he springs into action. Going through his mom's closet, he finds her old shrink ray that hasn't been used in ages. Blowing the dust off, he goes back to the living room and stands in the center.
Pointing the ray at himself, he pulls the trigger. A sudden sense of vertigo strikes John as he dwindles down rapidly in size. Everything begins exploding in size: the couch, the television, coffee table, and the carpet strands. It felt like he was falling as he kept his gaze downward. In his mind, he was skydiving deep into the jungle after abandoning his dying plane. As he continued to shrink, he shifted his feet around to fit between the "trees" so he'll be at the base. Before he knew it, the green strands grew well past his head, hiding the massive contents of the living room behind it all. The world began to darken as he continued to shrink and the gnarly carpet fibers acted as a thick canopy, blocking out most of the light from the ceiling light above.
John's excitement was ten-fold. When he finally finished shrinking, each column of fibers packed together to form a carpet strand were larger than any of the buildings in the city, piercing across the sky, entangled with others. Heck, they are larger than many city blocks! Looking around further, John began to notice how dirty it is down here. Globs of dust are scattered around, and there are big, dried looking flakes lying around everywhere as well. John went and picked one up that was the size of a big dinner plate. It dawned on him that what he's holding is a flake of fallen skin.
"Wow!" he said out loud, "I wonder who this belongs to?" (Writer's note: it's from his mother's heel.)
Dropping it down, it breaks apart and a light echo bounces throughout the forest. John goes back into his imagination, trekking through the uncharted jungle. There were so many boulders to navigate around as he weaved his way through the landscape. As he made his way around a strand of carpeting, his heart stopped. Up ahead, a dust mite five times larger than John was eating away at a clump of skin flakes. An audible gasp from John made the beast stop eating and turned its whole body towards John. The hulking beast mandibles were twitching as it stared at John. He began to scream as it began speeding at him, its legs pounding into the ground as it propelled forward. As it opened its mandibles wide to grab John, he instinctively pointed to shrinking ray at it and pulled the trigger, and it dwindled is size rapidly until is vanished from sight at John's feet.
There was a part of John that said he should stop the adventure, but in his core, this was absolutely amazing. The rush of adrenaline was out of this world. He made up his mind that his "missions" will be to eradicate dust mites in the house. Setting the shrink ray back to grow, John returns to his normal size. He runs to his bedroom that is adjacent to the living room. He pulls out a box from underneath his bed, and inside is a razor sharp sword that a friend gave to him in secret. Figuring it would make a great weapon, John returns to the living room and shrinks down again. With sword in hand he continues until he thinks more about his adventure. He needed more added it do.
After having regrown and shrunk down a few times, John felt he was ready to fully enjoy his adventure. He now only has an old worn pair of denim shorts on and a small backpack. Inside is the shrink ray, a flashlight, a steak knife, and a compass. Around the living room he moved the potted plants around more towards the center of the room and their just visible through the tiny gaps of the carpet strands. In front of the couch tucked nicely into the carpet is one of his sister's Barbie dolls sitting down, which is the end point of his journey.
Before he had tucked the shrink ray in his backpack, he noticed it felt hot. He assumed it just needs a short cool down period.
"Alright, let's reach the goddess at the end of this treacherous jungle!" John exclaimed, and he began running towards his goal from the center of the room. At normal lengths, it's just five feet, but at his size, it's over fourteen miles. But for John, that's nothing as he is one of the leading track stars at school. His active imagination made him believe if he didn't run fast enough, a tsunami would wash him away so he always pushed himself.
Looking at his compass, he made sure he was facing east and began running. Scattered everywhere was nothing but clumps of dust and flakes of skin. The air felt nice and cool, albeit a bit stuffy. Some fibers were loose and John took the opportunity to swing from them like vines. He was absolutely ecstatic. Then came along another giant dust mite.
It was facing the opposite direction, feasting open a flake of skin. John quietly crept up behind it, then slashed at its body. The beast let out a loud screech as it quickly turned itself around to face whatever attacked it. Before it finished turned, John hacked off its front leg, causing it to lose its balance. It tried to lunge forward to grab him with its mandibles, but John stabbed the sword straight through its mouth. It quickly backed away, continuing to screech out in pain. Taking advantage of its retreat, John quickly jumps on top of it and begins stabbing down, piercing through the body with ease. After several strikes, the dust mite collapses and goes dead silent. John hops down from his kill, hooting and hollering at his achievement. He couldn't believe what he just did. It was all so exhilarating.
As John continued his trek, he faced off with several more dust mites, but he slowly began to notice something. After killing his tenth beast, he finally knew what it was: he was smaller. Originally they were five times his size, now it's closer to seven. A voice in the back of his head said to stop and return to normal, but his heart wanted to continue. He saw this as an added challenge. So he continued on. As he ran, he saw the flakes of skin and dust globs were getting sizeable. He wondered what his current height is now. He assumed returning to normal size will remedy it, and dreamt up in his head he must make it to the goddess at the end of the jungle and wish for his size back.
After nearly two hours of traveling, John reaches the left bare foot of the Barbie doll. The carpet had unfortunately pushed the doll back up some, so John went to climb up the closest strand.
"Even these jungle trees are growing" he exclaimed as he continued to climb. After a nearly two thousand foot ascent, he made it to the top of the jungle canopy. The foot of the goddess still towers overhead, and due to his placement, he can see all the way down the leg and follow up to the chest and head with the unsettling smile painted on. John wasn't a macrophiliac, but seeing a plastic human doll that large was tugging something within him. Just as he was ready to move forward, there was a loud clanging noise: the front door!
From John's point of view, he could just view the door swinging open and the sight he saw blew his mind. Never mind the size of the Barbie doll, the size of his mother and sister walking through the doorway was completely unreal. The miles tall women walked in, each foot fall making a loud, audible thump that reverberates through the floor, something that goes unnoticed at a normal size. As they kick their sandals off, John's mom calls out for him.
"JOHN! WE'RE HOME!" her booming voice cracked like thunder through the expanse. John covered his ears as the echoes bounced around. After sitting the bags on the floor, she examined the living room to see the plants all rearranged towards the center of the room and a Barbie doll up against the couch. "WHAT THE HECK IS GOING IN HERE? JOHN?"
Despite covering his ears, his mother's commanding voice rattled his entire body. Each step she took towards the living room, the more intense the thumping got and cause the carpet strands to sway. She walks to the center of the room with her hands on her hips. "UGH, I TOLD HIM TO CLEAN UP AND RUN THE VACUUM WHILE WE WERE OUT."
Now that he thought about it, his mother did say something to him before she left, but he was too lost in his thoughts. At this point, the journey is over. He quickly removes the shrink ray from his back pack and sets it to Grow. Wasting no more time, he points and pulls the trigger, but it makes a crackling sound. John stares at it wide-eyed as it sputters and catches fire. It was an old shrink ray that hasn't been used in years, and he used it many times in only a few short hours.
In a panic, John tosses away his prized sword and leaps onto the Barbie's foot. He quickly climbs to the toes, just in time to see his sister enter the living room, and she's heading right for him. He jumps, waves, and shouts for her attention, but at roughly 0.001 of an inch tall at this point, there is no hope to be seen by the naked eye, especially from a distance. The thumps for her foot falls rocked the surface underneath John that caused him to fall to his hands and knees. Looking up, his sister's face disappears behind her encroaching hand as she goes to pick up her Barbie doll at its torso. He grips on tight to the plastic at he and the Barbie are raised at break neck speeds.
As his sister stands back up and walks to her room, John loses his grip and is launched from the plastic toes. He screamed as he flew off and expected to fall to his death, but he noticed something immediately: he was floating. He was so diminutive in size that he is practically dust at this point. Granted he was still lowering to the ground, he was going at the safe pace. Everything seemed so far away, the couch, the TV, the floor. It was hard to comprehend.
Hearing more foot falls from behind after several moments, John spun himself around to see his sister walking in his direction. He flailed his arms and legs trying to direct himself at her, but her leg speeds past him as she passed. The air displacement she caused whipped John into a wind vortex, violently spinning him around. And just before he made it back to the dense carpeting, he could see in the distance his mom setting up the vacuum cleaner.
Landing on the very top of the fibers, he watches his mother grab the vacuum's handle to switches it on. To a normal sized person, the vacuum is relatively quiet. However to someone who is barely pushing a .001 of an inch tall, the sound was like Doomsday was upon them. He watched in horror as the sweeper was making its way deeper into the room. He was so entranced by the sucking monstrosity of doom that he didn't notice his sister walking by again. He barefoot slammed dangerously close, launch him off the strand of carpeting and down below at the base.
The sound of the vacuum became slightly muffled within the depths of the carpet, but it grew louder as it got closer. The only thing John could do was run the opposite direction as fast as he could. His heart raced faster and faster as the sound grew louder and louder. As he was running out of the breath, everything went dark and the world around him came crashing down. Once again, directly above him, his sister was walking through again but stepped directly on his location. The carpet protected John from being squished like a bug, but his way forward is now blocked by a crushed down strand of carpet.
Getting back onto his feet, he went to climb the fibers. He didn't get far when the vacuum reached him. He felt the air pressure change and a sucking force trying to pull him from behind. The sky above went dark again as the head of the vacuumed rolled overhead. John held on tight at he and the fiber he latched onto began to rise up towards the sweeper. The roaring sounds from the machine were so loud that not eve he could hear his screams for his mommy. The spinning cylinder above him spun violently as the brushed brutally crashed through the carpet to remove dirt.
The strand that he is holding onto that was previously crushed down by his sister's foot is now back at full height. While he is holding on closer at the base of the strand, the pounding the top of the strand took from the sweeping brushed thrashed around of pillar of fibers. John held on for all he was worth, but a boulder sized flake of dead skin smashed into him, causing him to lose his grip. Just like the rest of his dust brethren, he was easily sucked in. The brush unapologetically smashed into John's body, doing all but killing him. His body twisted and contorted as he was sucked deeper inside into the chamber. The wind tunnel inside whipped him around with everything else the vacuum picked up. Big chunks of dust and dirt plowed into John, practically breaking every bone in his body. The only thing keeping him alive and awake is adrenaline.
After what felt like an eternity, the sweeper comes to a stop and everything crashes down, burying John alive underneath all the dirt. All he can do is moan as he tries to move, but his body is beyond repair. Everything around him jerks around as from the outside, John's mother removes the canister and proceeds to walk over to the trash can. Pressing down on the switch, the underside of the canister drops, allowing all the debris to fall down. John can't even scream as he is falling, completely engulfed in filth. He and along with everything else crashes into the horrendously smelly trash can.
After all the dust settles, John found himself on top of the heap, looking upwards at his mother's face, miles away. As she steps away, the lid closes, encasing John in darkness. A single tear rolls down his bloodied cheek as he lets out his final breath.