"Sit, please." Melody, Lennard's mother, motioned her oldest daughter toward a lazy chair in the living room. Milena slumped down on it.

Melody took a seat on the couch just across from her. Before focusing on the chat with her eldest daughter, Melody was compelled to intervene with her other two daughters, who stood bickering in the kitchen.

Finally, Miley continued clearing the table with a sulking face. Julie dashed upstairs with a powerless Lennard clutched within her fist, and Melody could have full attention for her eldest daughter now.

They needed to have this talk. The future of their family depended on it. Especially since there is a good chance that Melody herself will fall prey to the shrinking part of the virus. If both parents would shrink down, the family's authority would automatically be transferred to the oldest family member still in original size – provided that the person concerned was at least 16-years of age.

It would be so much easier for Melody if she would have this conversation with Miley. She was such a cheery, sweet girl and easy to get along with. A stark contrast with the willful personality of Milena. The girl has always been better connected to her husband. At least, before he was shrunk down to the pitiful size of a speck, that is. It gave Melody plenty of moments of respite for not having to deal with her defiant daughter because her husband would do it for her instead. But that was all before this. When everything was all normal still.

Melody cast a slantwise glance at her left shoulder. There he was, Roland, Melody's husband. He looked so incredibly small, like a crumb, so helpless and frail in an enormous and frightful world.

It vexed Melody to see that Roland sat still bowing down to her. She wanted nothing less than to have an equal relationship with her husband – not based upon that of a so-called Goddess and her subject.

Roland was with her, and yet he wasn't. How could one uphold a healthy marriage with a speck-sized person with whom she could not communicate with?

Melody highly dreaded the prospect of shrinking down to nothingness. However, there was one bright side to it, it did allow her to speak to her husband again.

Would he be mad at her? Would he be the same person as before? Would he still worship her like a Goddess if she was only 2 inches tall? Or would he shift his adoration to the new head of the family?

Melody looked askance at her oldest daughter. Milena just sat there, all slumped in a lazy chair, legs crossed while reading a newspaper. The girl was totally unaware of the inquisitive gaze of her mother. She was so young still, more a child than a woman.

Melody saw images in her head of Roland and herself imprisoned in a city full of thousands upon thousands of shrunken souls bowing down to Milena, as they worshipped her teen daughter like a Goddess while thunderous laughter rained down upon them from the skies. At speck-size, there would be nothing left of their parental authority. Milena would be able to do anything she pleases. Would be able even to force them to do anything she pleases.

But not yet….

Melody quickly shook that off-putting thought aside and focused on the present moment. Milena was still her daughter, and she was still her mother. And they would converse with each other the same way a mother does with her teenage daughter as she strived to penetrate that obstinate head of hers.

"How are you, sweety? How are things at school?" Melody asked.

It took a long moment before Milena replied. The girl was all sunken in some headline in the newspaper. Just when Melody was about to say something, Milena shrugged, put the newspaper aside and looked at her mother with a pair of indifferent eyes. "Fine, I guess."

"How are you?" Milena added after a moment of silence.

"I'll manage, dear. Thank you." Melody gave a wry smile and tried to push away her fever. She needed to look strong and convincing right now. There was too much at stake.

"What were you reading?" Melody nodded in the direction of the newspaper lying on the side table.

Milena sighed. "Nothing of interest. Just some stupid story about a street full of shrinkees saved from the clutches of some megalomaniacal woman."

Melody chuckled faintly. "Pretty stupid indeed… Listen, Milena dear, can I ask you something?"

"Shoot," Milena said while looking intensely at her mother.

"What are your thoughts about the shrinkees?"

Milena shook her head and chuckled, averting her eyes. "I knew it," she mumbled, barely audible.

Melody furrowed her brows. "Did I say something funny?"

"Don't take me for a fool here, Mom!" Melody was surprised by the fierceness in her daughter's voice. "I know exactly why we are having this conversation."

"Is that so?"

"Yes, you do not think I'm ready."

"Well… are you?"

"Of course I am! If that fool of a Layla can run a household, then so can I."

Melody gave a peal of curt rueful laughter. "Layla, yes, of course…"

Layla was a girl of the same age as Milena and the only member of her household that appeared immune to the virus. After being shrunk down, all nine family members fell under the authority of the 16-year-old youth.

Rumor has it that the girl had a knack for torturing her family, who were now powerless against her wrath.

"Have faith in me, Mom. I can do this. I can take care of you. Of both you and Dad."

"Don't speak like me shrinking is a fact!" Now it was Melody's turn to flash her anger.

"But there's a great chance that you will shrink, Mom. The statistics do not lie. It is more likely that Julie will remain normal than you."

"Go to your room!" Melody aimed her finger at the staircase.

Milena scoffed. "Really, Mom? Just like that?"

"Go, please…" Melody turned her head away as tears welled up in her eyes. As Milena stood up to walk off, Melody thought she could hear her mumbling the words 'Enjoy while you still can, Mom.'

+++

Lennard paced back on forth on the bathtub's edge, unsettled, like a stock-dealer awaiting the day's new values on the share market. Shrouds of steam swirled upwards from the hot bathwater – filling his airways with drifting moisture.

"You're going in, or do I have to flick you again?"

"DON'T! Push me, please!" Lennard rose his tiny hand. He looked nervously at Julie's cinema-screen countenance hovering closely behind him. He felt her hot breath breezing along his partially clad body. "I will make the jump. Just… wait."

Julie sighed and stood up to her full height. She took a gander in the mirror and fiddled some at her bikini top before raising her leg to step in the bathtub.

"Hey! I'm supposed to go first!" Lennard whined while looking up at the breathtaking spectacle of his skyscraper fraternal sister stepping over the bathtub's edge.

"You take ages. I don't have ages."

Julie closed her eyes and moaned with delight as she let her body sink in the steaming hot bathwater. "Aaaaa…. This is… Just…. Heaven…" Her eyes shot open, aimed at her brother. "Come in. The water's fine!"

"Okay, I will." Lennard adjusted his swimming trunks and prepared himself to take a dive. "You will fish me out, right? After I'm all done and clean. I can't get out on my own."

Julie sighed. "Have I ever done not?"

Lennard rubbed his hands. "Okay, here I go. One. Two–"

SPLASH!

Lennard emerged and splashed his hands like a toddler who is unable to swim. "I said I would go, didn't I!"

"Oops." Julie dipped her hand back into the water after she used it to flick her brother in the water from behind.

"Solid! I need something solid!"

Julie tittered with delight while watching her tiny brother swimming about in the bathtub. Her hand emerged from the water and rose like a platform, picking her little brother up on the way. She held her open hand in front of her eyes. "There, that solid enough for you, brother? You know, I'm going to miss this." Julie gave a wry smile. "How on earth are we going to do this when you're crumb-sized?"

"I'm NOT going to shrink any further if that's what you think. And I definitely NOT enjoy this experience like you do."

Julie chuckled, delighted by her tiny brother's cute-looking fierceness.

"And you better worry about your own behavior towards Milena instead of worrying about bonding with me," Lennard said while gesturing to his enormous sister to pour a drop of liquid soap in her hand, so he could wash.

"What about my behavior?" Julie grabbed the bottle of soap and squeezed a tiny dot next to Lennard on her hand.

"You're getting in her hair, Julie. She doesn't like that."

Julie shrugged. "I'm her kid sister. I'm supposed to get in her hair."

"I guess," Lennard rubbed his body into foaming soap. "But it's not wise to do when chances are that you will shrink and she will not."

"I will not shrink!" Julie fumed.

"Yes, of course. That's what I thought, and Dad. And look at us now."

Julie scoffed. "You are both males. I'm a female."

"And still at an increased risk that you will shrink too."

Julie said nothing and leaned her head on the bathtub's edge while keeping her hand steady for Lennard. She kept staring at the ceiling.

"We'll see, Lennard. We'll see…" she pushed the words out in an exhale.