There was a noise like someone tearing a newspaper in two and light burst onto your eyelids. Next second something huge caught you in its grip, shading out your vision again, and the pressure was like someone lying on you in bed.

The face of a man peered in, impossibly big, like the face of a giant from a movie. It took you an extra instant to realize who you were looking at. His hairstyle was different, neater, and there were other little differences. But after a couple of seconds you knew for certain who it was.

It was your best friend, Jake.

He had picked you up out of the envelope and now you were safely crammed between his pointer and thumb, as he stared at you, apparently perplexed. You were barely able to notice he had a different haircut for some reason. His face was more filled out, too, in a way that couldn’t be weight gain. His face was more angled, less boyish.

Nothing made sense, and the pressure on you was so great, you couldn’t open your lungs so you could speak. Your chest and throat were basically flattened, making you mute. The pressure of his grasp made you so dense you felt like a wad of clay that had hardened.

When you tried to speak, your throat was compressed into practically paper and no sound came out.

In no hurry to put you down, Jake took his time surveying you with vague interest. Then you were whirled around so abruptly the world became a blur and you lost track of which way was up and down. Jake had just began to roll you back and forth. He rolled you one way, then steadied you with his thumb, and rolled you the other way. The firm pressure of his thumb kneaded its way into you, gradually smoothing you even rounder.

As he contemplated what kind of tiny object he was inspecting, Jake seemed determined to keep doing this until he’d contoured you perfectly spherical. With your arms and legs pressed into your body, you couldn’t move or squirm. He gave you an unthinking squeeze, flattening you out of shape, and then rolled you for several more minutes, until you were returned to being round.

Losing interest, Jake put you down on a tabletop surface. You radiated in warmth from the friction and contact of his thumb and fingerpad. Your skin was pink and tingled from all the rubbing and rolling.

Meanwhile, Jake’s gargantuan hand swept back over to the opened envelope on the table, and this time fished Will out, only to subject him to a round of puzzled scrutiny as well. Will was also squeezed and re-shaped into a ball.

Then a phone rang from across the room.

Jake quickly placed Will down next to you, and swept around as he jumped to his feet. His arm came crashing into you headlong, and like you weighed absolutely nothing, you were brushed clean off the table. Suddenly you were flying through the air. In freefall, you got a quick glimpse of an expanse living room, with a window showing the night sky. You guessed you had fallen asleep inside his mailbox, and now Jake had only just collected the mail at the end of the day. It had to be late, but the way the house was lit up inside, and the fact Jake was still in his day clothes, it probably wasn’t that late. Then you hit the carpet. Your soft, light form cushioned the impact, bouncing harmlessly on the carpet fibers.

While you flicked on the floor, Jake got to his feet and moved like a storm across the room, sweeping you with a flow of air and quaking you with his mighty footfalls. You wondered if he’d accidentally step on you, but his motion departed across the room, to the door. In a couple of long strides, he was gone. You felt relief deep in your chest.

Suddenly, Will dropped from the sky onto the carpet at your side. He must have rolled off the table after you. Only problem was, he didn’t look like Will anymore. He looked like a ball with a face. Staring at him, you realized with a strange feeling, you must look the same. As Jake’s thumb had patiently worked you, he had accidentally smoothed your features so much that you didn’t even look like a person, or doll anymore. Now you looked even more like a kid’s toy than before.

That was bad. If you didn’t look like you, no one would recognize you. Not Jake or Ash, or Courtney, or even your own parents. Will's voice jarred you:

“This way,” he said, waiting you to follow him.

You both were at ground level in a humungous living room, surrounded on all sides by a rug the size of a meadow that seemed to stretch away in all directions. Furniture rose up around you like cliff faces. You had no chance of climbing anything, so your only option was to move along the floor. Will was already rolling away, and called back to you. You worked to roll your body after him. It was like doing somersaults at first, before you got some momentum up and it became easier. Your body quickly adapted to rolling and it became almost as automatic as walking.

Slowly making a path across the living room rug, Will led you towards the closest wall. However, the rug fibers were like thick grass at your size, and slowed you down. Will was speedier than you, as always; it was like the charity run all over again. Any moment it felt like Jake would return, and you were placed to get stepped on. Many times your tiny hands and feet got tangled up in the fibers and you had to stop and free yourself. The whole time you looked around, worried that Jake was going to re-enter the room and and you were so exposed there was no way you could avoid meeting the underside of his shoe.

But the room stayed clear. From another room, indistinctly, you could hear Jake talking on the phone. Across the room you noticed something on the floor, near the doorway. A shoe rack against the wall. One pair of worn trainers that probably belonged to Jake, each shoe like a parked truck compared to you. There was also a light pair of feminine sandals, also worn; like they must have been there a while.

You paused to stare at the shoes. Did a woman live here, too? You hadn’t considered that Jake had a housemate. Sensing Jake could walk in any moment, you were drawn towards the shoes. Given that you and Will were the size of walnuts, each shoe was big enough for you to enter and hide inside. The only risk was, if you managed to climb inside, you might not be able to easily get out again.

“Will!” you called out to get your friend’s attention. But he had nearly made it to the other side of the room. He just shook his head and gestured impatiently for you to keep going.

After several minutes more of rolling you managed to fight your way over to the window-side wall, where you both slipped behind the curtain, which seemed to stretch unimaginably up into the sky. The ceiling was so high above it practically was as remote as the sky to you; you half expected to see birds circling up around the ceiling lights.

Will was waiting for you. You made an effort to look calm and feel grateful your friend would wait for you, but deep down you were becoming slightly unnerved. If someone saw you, would Will wait then? It was like that old joke: ‘If you and your friend are being chased by a bear, you don’t need to be faster than the bear. You just have to be faster than your friend.’

Will was faster than you.

“You see how huge Jake is?!” Will exclaimed. “What does he think we are? He grabbed us like we’re grapes or something.”

You pushed your discomfort away, and said:

“We need to tell him it’s us. I tried to say something, but I couldn’t.”

“That’s not going to work,” Will shook his head. “I already tried. Yelled out and he still didn’t hear me. We must have pipsqueak voices.”

Crestfallen, you thought hard to come up with a new idea. Since he’d had a chance to stop and think, Will was already a step ahead of you. He said:

“We need to send him a message.” In ball form, he shifted on the spot. A shrug. “It worked for that college guy.”

You scanned the room, which took an extended moment since it was so big. Other than the rug, shoe shelf, and a welcome mat, there was nothing lying on the ground within reach, no drawing tools.

And there was another problem. When you wrote the college guy a message, you had working arms to hold the pen. Now the two of you were basically smooth balls of putty, even if you found a pen, you couldn’t do much except roll around.

And something else had snagged in the back of your brain. In the grand scheme of things, it was a trivial observation, but damn it, it wouldn’t go away. You said slowly:

“Jake looks different.”

“You think so, Fuzz?” Will replied, deadpan. “I noticed that too. He seems a lot bigger now.”

“He has a different haircut,” you persisted. “And his face looks different. His jawline, I think. Like he’s lost some weight.”

Although Jake hadn’t been exactly fat before, but his overall face shape was undeniably different. Harder somehow.

“And gained a lot more weight on his body,” Will butted in. “A hundred tons.”

“I’m serious, Will,” you insisted. “Something’s really weird, and it’s not just Jake. Listen,” you went on, “has it only been a day since the race? Because, what if we were knocked for a while, and the race was actually a week ago?”

Will had a disinterested look, but there was a shadow of concern underneath as he weighed your words.

“We couldn’t be knocked out for that long. We’d be starving.”

“We haven’t eaten or drunk anything, but we don’t need to,” you reminded him. “You said so.”

Will looked genuinely startled now. You both realized something at the same time. If it was true that, in your new form, you didn’t need to eat or drink to stay alive, it raised a very concerning possibility. You had no reliable biological indicator for how much time had passed. If you didn’t get hungry or thirsty, how could you know how much time had passed since you last ate or drank? There had to be something you could use, other non-biological indicators of time. But the only ones you had noticed made no sense. There was a strange pattern going on, and it had something to do with when you woke up small.

For instance, the weather had been bright and mild during the race, but when you woke up it rained beneath an overcast sky. Then when you found Will’s pants and phone, they were damaged. Now Jake was different, too. You remembered when Jake moved away to the other side of the country for a couple of years, and you hadn’t seen him in ages. When he came back and you caught up, he looked slightly different, but not in a radical way. He had gained a little weight from drinking and an uneven tan from being a warmer climate. It was a little startling at first but you soon got used to it.

It was like that now; like you were seeing him again for the first time in a couple of years. But it wasn’t just weight. Jake’s face, his brow, jawline, was less boyish and more mature. His eyes were more serious and grounded. His hair was shorter and neater. His build was leaner and he even moved a little differently, with better posture. You saw Jake only a day ago and he didn’t look like this. He looked and acted, and was, 22. Apart from getting a new haircut, he couldn’t change into this man in 24 hours. A weird thought; but you had to keep reminding yourself Jake didn’t have an older brother.

Meanwhile, you didn’t notice the sound of Jake’s resonant voice getting louder and closer, until he re-appeared in the living room, first as trembling quakes through the carpet before his towering shape followed. His shadow was bigger than a blue whale. Loud, heavy footsteps rumbled over the floor as his enormous shape passed through the room like a tsunami. Will and you instinctively pressed yourselves against the wall, although you were both well out of Jake’s path. He was still on the phone and the low resonant timbre of his voice thrummed the air like a truck engine as he paced around the living room.

“—no need to rush, hon. This works out fine actually. I said I’m making something…Yes! …Guess you’ll have to see…Don’t bother…I promise… Okay. See you soon…”

Jake didn’t stop moving. Once he had left the room and his voice cleared the airways, Will turned to you.

“Is that his girlfriend?” He looked dubious. “Didn’t he split from Katelyn just yesterday?”

Katelyn was Jake’s ex-girlfriend. You weren’t half as surprised as Will at this since you’d already seen the female shoes across the room, and put two and two together.

Will scoffed: “I thought they drew a line and it stayed that way.”

You weren’t sure why he was so surprised since his own girlfriend Ash was pretty forgiving herself, having episodically split up with Will only so many times before.

“I think Katelyn lives here, too,” you said, peering out from the curtain to spy the shoe shelf. “Look over there.”

“I knew this place was too big for one person,” Will remarked.

You had to agree; it was big and homely. Jake didn’t just crash here each night, he lived here, was settled here, and with space enough for someone else. Which was impossible, because as far as you were aware, Jake had only just moved here, and he’d only been back with Katelyn for one day, or less.

Will’s gaze fell on the feminine sandals, and he got an odd look. His face blanched. But for a moment he said nothing.

You looked at him, puzzled. True, the shoes were all shockingly big, but they weren’t any bigger than anything else in the room. And if Jake was back with his girlfriend in whirlwind time, it wasn’t really that unbelievable, he was friendly and likeable enough.

“What?” you asked.

Will turned away.

“It’s nothing,” he said. “I guess a lot of girls must like that type of shoe.”

You glanced again at the shoes; a strappy, delicate, very exposing, slightly heeled pair of sandals that were not made for just any day at the beach or in the park.

“I don’t think those are ‘girls’ shoes,” you pointed out. “They're 'womens' shoes." Katelyn evidently had a mature, sexy preference for sophisticated female footwear, compared to a typical teenager's trendy love of keds, ballet style slip-ons, and ugg boots.

Now there were sounds coming from the kitchen. Jake was opening drawers and rummaging for things. It was close to dinner time, you realized.

Within a moment, light flashed past the living room window from an outside car that had swept in under the carport, and stopped. Jake’s other half had arrived home.

Slowly and indelibly your confusion was mounting. The sense that something was wrong with the scene was like a persistent thorn in your side. It was like you’d come back to the living room after a bathroom break and found the movie playing on your TV had accidentally unpaused itself. Somewhere, in a blink, a whole chapter had vanished. You could feel it. Jake had moved, resumed dating, lost weight, gained weight, changed shape, and settled. When had this all happened?

“This could work." Will 's voice had shifted to cautious optimism. “Another person around means we have an extra shot to tell someone we’re here.”

“Maybe,” you said, trying to sound hopeful.

Will’s voice: you never noticed it before, but he sounded…young. And so did you. You had the crackly unsmooth voices of kids just stepping into being adults. And Jake did not.

From down the hall, the front door opened and shut. Then footsteps growing down the hall, closer, and different to Jake’s. They didn’t pound, they clapped sharply but carefully. Feminine shoes. You felt each clap in your head. It gave you a headache.

You and Will remained at the wall, behind the curtain. You had a great view to watch the visitor without them seeing you, and hoped it was a friendly face. A female voice echoed through the hallway:

“Jake?”

She wasn’t yelling but her voice resonated through you like a steam train horn. Jake replied:

“In the kitchen.”

A pause.

“You didn’t go bowling?” the woman said. She was putting her things away.

“Not tonight.”

—and then she appeared.

At your height she was a pair of dark leather heels at first, and much higher, a woman, achingly beautiful, svelte and leggy, with luscious smooth skin.

Totally blank, you just stared. You’d seen beautiful women before, but never on titanic scale. Never so big she could squash you with one toe of her perfect feet. Suddenly you were more aware of your tiny size than ever before, your incredible fragility and softness, and puniness, like if she even brushed her finger on you, you would melt or burst like a bubble. The thought of just being touched by her made your heart race. In the back of your mind you wondered what it would be like if she picked you up and put you against her lips. Your brain reeled and your balls tightened just realizing the stark reality of her size, and yours. Her form was a geological event; a stunning hotel with space to fit you.

She took such large strides across the living room floor that you barely got a good look at her. But enough to know she was sublime. Beside you, Will had gone into silent shock as well. Only, you sensed it was a different kind of shock. Then he snapped out of it.

“Oh, shit,” he said, half amazed, half dismayed.

The woman paused, gazing around as if searching for something. She stopped. You held your breath.

“What is that?” she said.

There was a steamy aroma passing through the room now. Jake’s reply echoed from across the house.

“Bourguignon. Just a few more minutes.”

The woman stopped by the shoe shelf and began to slide her heels off, one by one, placing them alongside the feminine sandals.

“Really? When did you get it started? 'Cause if it's a chuck steak you need to keep it on 'til it's practically radioactive."

“I had plenty of time. Plenty of time. You just get in? –which way you come home?” he inquired conversationally.

She looked briefly distracted about something, then it passed.

“Oh, the regular way.”

“Traffic didn’t look so nice when I was passing through. And I got off early.”

Her reply bubbled up as if by accident:

“So weird.”

“What?”

“I'm in a mood. Nothing. Tell you later, maybe.” She gave a small sigh. “Huh. The regular way might become the 'never again' way in future. You know traffic sucks when your audiobook says ‘thank you for listening to this audiobook’ and the gridlock still hasn’t moved.”

He stopped humming and replied:

“Well, that sounds…terrible.”

“Gee, Jake. You’re supposed to say…oh, never mind.”

The woman looked like she was going to head into the kitchen, but at the doorway, looked in without entering.

“Can you keep it warm for me? I’m going to change.”

“Go ahead.”

Without another word, the woman went back out of the living room. Without the ‘serious business’ pumps, her footsteps were gentler, but still sent little shakes through your soft form, even across the room. You felt like a speck of dust being rattled by her sheer presence. These shakes died away as she carried on down the hall.

Will shifted on the spot at your side. You could almost sense his brain going back and forth, before he finally said, incredulous:

“Fuzz. It’s my sister.”