A Short Story from the Shrinking and Giantess Anthology

Shower Gone Wrong

Chapter 1 – Shrunken Shower Horror

By Richard C.H. Davies

Warning this story contains: Shrunken Man, giantess, shrinking

Jeremy Walker pressed his shoulder against the front door until the latch clicked shut, then allowed himself to sag. The wood was cool under his palm, the hallway was dim, there was silence except for the faint patter of rain against the frosted pane above.

The long day at the office had clung to him like the drizzle still dampening his coat. All those hours of stifling meetings that spiralled into petty disputes, the spreadsheets that glared back blankly no matter how long he stared at them, the London Underground journey home jostling shoulder-to-shoulder with sweaty and grumpy commuters, each face was drawn and focused on a phone or screen of some sort.  

Yet here, at last, he had reached the safe boundary of his home.

Except… Abi, his wife, didn’t appear to be home. 

Jeremy glanced down the hallway, past the familiar banister, the shoes neatly aligned beneath the table, the faint gleam of lilies placed on the console in a glass vase. He paused, exhaled, then smiled despite himself. He bent to inhale their perfume, sweet and heady, she always left something nostalgic for them to enjoy. 

Lillies were the first gift of flowers he had ever given her, it held a special memory for them. 

Still, the house felt strange without her. 

He shrugged off his rain-speckled coat, draped it across the stand, and placed his work satchel carefully by the umbrella. He placed his shoes down carefully and neatly. 

Then he straightened up, rolling his shoulders as though to shed the last remnants of the day, he eased his neck to either side resulting in a satisfying click. 

His thoughts slid naturally to Abi. She was probably still at work. She would sweep in soon enough with her usual lightness. He might as well make a start on the evening and get refreshed, they were supposed to be going out tonight.

Jeremy headed upstairs, each step echoing faintly. He turned into the bathroom, flicked the light switch, and was met with his own weary reflection.

The mirror was not kind today. 

His face looked pale, drawn, the beginnings of creases at his eyes harsher under the stark ceiling light; the expression of a man who had been staring at a computer all day.  His hair was dark. It was usually neat, but now it was damp and ruffled by the rain. He pulled a face at himself. 

“I need a shower,” he murmured aloud, his voice hoarse, it always was after being in the dirty Underground.  

He began to strip, shirt first, then trousers, each piece tucked into the wicker basket in a semblance of order. His socks clung, damp at the toes, and he peeled them free with faint disgust. Now bare, he looked at himself again. He was not unfit, he was in reasonably good shape. His mind flicked briefly to Abi, she was slightly younger, more vibrant, always moving with a kind of unselfconscious grace. The comparison stung faintly, though he snuffed it out. 

Instead he turned to the cubicle.

The shower stall was a familiar space, chrome fixtures, tiles gleaming faintly in their regimented grid. On the narrow shelf, the small army of bottles Abi had gathered stood to attention, pastel blues, creams, greens, labels boasting about rejuvenation, hydration and repair. She had the advantage, she had all these lotions and potions to help keep her skin fresh and rejuvinated. 

Jeremy stepped inside. The ceramic shower tiles were cold beneath his feet, the air chilled against his bare skin. Then he twisted the handle.

Water burst forth.

It took a few moments to heat up, he stood there waiting and then he felt the heat. 

It cascaded down with a hiss, steam rising around him. He leaned into it with a sigh, head bowed, his shoulders loosening further. The sensation was enjoyable, the day’s grit, tension, and tiredness sluicing away under its relentless warmth. His scalp prickled as he massaged shampoo into his hair, suds building thick and foamy. He shut his eyes, and let the torrent fall across his skin and body. 

The hiss of water filled everything. The world beyond dissolved.

In that blindness, his hand moved outwards, instinctively seeking his body wash. 

His fingers grazed one bottle, then another. The ridges and curves of shampoo and body wash bottles. His eyes were closed to shut out the soap so they didn’t sting. 

His fingers closed around a bottle. Without further thought, he flipped the lid and squeezed.

A viscous substance slid into his palm. It felt thicker than soap, with a faintly herbal aroma tinged with sweetness. He raised it to his nose, frowned. Odd, it wasn’t his usual body wash. He must have picked up one of Abi’s lotions or shampoos. 

They were surely all the same anyway, it was all just a load of marketing that separated them out in his mind. 

With a shrug he rubbed it across his chest.

It spread differently, it was slicker, more silky, almost clinging to his skin like some kind of viscous cloak. 

It felt quite nice actually. There was a faint buzzing feeling, like the feeling of peppermint shampoo, revitalising. 

He smoothed it over his shoulders, down his arms, across his stomach, his thighs, his crotch. His entire body became coated in a sheen that gleamed under the falling water.

And for a moment he felt… radiant and energised.

He chuckled, imagining Abi rolling her eyes at him helping himself to her “posh potions.”

Then he shivered, it wasn’t from a chill. The shower was hot. The shiver was caused by something deeper inside. It ran through his entire body as though his very bones quivered. His skin prickled and his vision swam.

He opened his eyes, and froze.

The tiles around him seemed… taller. The grout lines deeper. The shelf above, with its bottles, oddly distant, like the ledge of a mantelpiece.

He blinked rapidly, shook his head, rubbed water from his eyes. Heat, he thought. It was just a bit of dizziness. Nothing more than from a hard day of office work. 

He reached instinctively for the door handle, but somehow missed.

His fingers swiped air. The handle was higher than expected. He stretched, chest tight, and only grazed it with the tips of his fingers before slipping back.

Jeremy’s heart fluttered with a spike of panic.

The world was… somehow larger. No… he was smaller.

He looked down at his body, and the sight made his stomach plummet. The floor seemed closer than it should be. 

“What…” His voice cracked.

The water struck him harder. Drops that moments ago were pleasant now slapped against his skin with bruising force. One smashed against his shoulder, sending him sprawling against the slick ceramic floor. He gasped, tried to stand, only to be battered down by another.

He stared upward. The showerhead loomed like a great iron flower, water gushing endlessly down. What had been gentle spray now descended like artillery. He was still shrinking and he couldn’t turn it off. The handle was impossibly high above him now. The glass and ceramic walls stretched like cliffs around him. 

It seemed impossible but he was shrinking.

*

Jeremy staggered backwards, pressing himself against the glass as though the cold might steady him. His eyes darted about the cubicle, hunting for something, anything, that would explain this.

The bottles loomed above him. 

The shampoo, once a modest cylinder, was now a column of opaque plastic, rivulets of water streaking down its face like rain on a tower block. The conditioner beside it stood as a paler obelisk. Beyond them, Abi’s exfoliant and oils, always lined up with her curious neatness, had become monuments, one of those must have been the perpetrator of his shrinking. But how? Also why would Abi have a bottle of that stuff in their home? 

The glass panels enclosing him soared like sheer cliff faces. Their edges gleamed silver where metal joined tile. He craned his neck and saw only mist, light refracted in watery halos.

The drops fell heavier than before. 

Jeremy flinched as one smashed into his shoulder, sending him sprawling to the slick floor again. He skidded across the ceramic until his ribs jarred against the grout ridge. Groaning, he tried to stand, but another droplet cannoned into his thigh. The pain was real, sharp, not some hallucination.

The grout lines themselves had widened into trenches. Tiny tufts of mould, that he would normally have scrubbed away with casual irritation, now stood as mossy outcrops, like mini grass tufts on sand dunes. A fragment of soap that had broken off earlier in the week was a boulder, its edges foamed with froth, rolling sluggishly in the current.

He was shrinking.

It was undeniable now.

Panic ignited, sparking down his nerves. He lurched upright, wading into the shallow stream rushing past his calves, no, his thighs now. Each step was a struggle, water tugging greedily at him. His feet slipped on the glazed tile, and he went sprawling face-first into a torrent. The impact winded him.

When he forced himself up, coughing and sputtering, the drain yawned ahead.

It was no longer a simple circle of metal. It was a terrifying maw. A great sieve of holes gurgled and slurped, drawing every rivulet inexorably towards its throat. The sound of it filled his head, that glugging suction, the greedy churn; he felt cold hard fear. He imagined himself tumbling through one of those black mouths, spun into darkness, twisted in pipes, lost forever in the labyrinth beneath their home and into the public sewer where he would surely perish. 

“No,” he rasped aloud, voice high and thin. “No, I won’t, I can’t let that happen…”

Another drop hit him square on the back. He was slammed flat against the ceramic, pinned there by the weight of liquid. He flailed, pounding fists against the surface tension that clung like rubber film. He rolled, twisted, and finally burst free, gasping for air.

His lungs burned. His limbs ached.

All around him the water continued to fall like the projectiles from a battle.

Drops the size of his chest cratered into the puddles, sending up plumes that drenched him anew. Every impact resounded like artillery. He staggered from one grout trench to another, seeking whatever shelter he could find.

At one point a vast lump of foam tumbled down from the shelf above, perhaps dislodged by the spray. It landed with a wet slap directly onto his shoulders, engulfing him in suds. He shrieked, muffled and blinded. The froth swallowed him whole. The weight of it pressed him down, rolled him over and dragged him into the current.

For a moment he was entirely entombed, suffocating, the air was full of soap. He beat his fists against it, kicked wildly, lungs burning. The foam rolled inexorably towards the drain, carrying him with it like flotsam. He thought absurdly of avalanches, of those survival documentaries where men were buried alive in snow and never dug out.

At the last instant, he thrust a hand through, fingers clawing at a jagged ridge of grout. With a desperate roar he heaved himself free, leaving trails of foam behind him. He slumped there, sobbing, chest wracked, suds still clinging to his hair and face.

He had nearly been lost.

The truth sliced through him. He would die here, in his own shower, in his own home, naked and unseen. Abi would never even know. She would come home to find nothing but steam, perhaps his discarded clothes by the basket, and assume he had gone out again. How could anyone ever guess the truth? That her husband had become an insect, washed away by his own carelessness?

The thought broke something inside him.

His mind leapt, unbidden, to Abi’s face. Her quick smile, the playful tilt of her head, the way she hummed under her breath when she cooked. He saw her lips, the precise colour of her painted nails, the way she had laughed when he once slipped on soap suds years ago and emerged from the bathroom cursing.

Would she laugh now, if she saw him? Or would she scream?

The water roared around him.

His size dwindled further still. The grout wall now towered above his head; he clung to it like a climber hugging a cliff. The water lapped at his waist, rushing and swirling. Every droplet now was as wide as his chest, and when one struck near his foot it knocked him into the current. He tumbled, spinning, scraping his arms against the tiles until pain seared through him. He clawed madly, caught a fragment of soap, and clung to it. The lump bobbed and spun, ferrying him dangerously close to the drain.

“No, no, ahhhh…”

He kicked, angled the soap with his weight, and veered away, finally beaching against another grout line. He collapsed there, arms wrapped around himself, teeth chattering though the water was still hot.

He dared a look up.

The world was unrecognisable. The cubicle had become a canyon of mist, the showerhead a distant black disk raining death. Bottles rose as monoliths. The steam swirled like storm-clouds. It was alien, immense and utterly hostile.

He realised with cold horror that he must be barely an inch tall now.

And still shrinking? God, he couldn’t bear the thought.

Jeremy pressed his forehead to the wall, panting heavily.

“Abi…” he whispered. “Please… come home.”

And then, as if she had been summoned he heard her voice. 

“Jeremy? I’m home!”

Her voice, muffled but distinct, drifted up through the closed door.

Jeremy’s head snapped up. Hope flared, fierce and desperate. She was here. She was back. Salvation had come.

He staggered upright, flailing his arms. “Abi! I’m here! Help me! I’m shrunken down!”

His voice squeaked, lost in the roar of water. He tried again, louder, until his throat rasped raw. It achieved nothing. 

But she would come upstairs. She would see the mist spilling from under the door. She would wonder why the shower was running. She would open it.

He only had to hold on.

Another drop smashed near him, spraying him violently. He slipped, fell, rolled almost to the drain before he clawed back again, trembling. His body was bruised, battered, exhausted beyond measure.

Yet he clung on. He had to survive only another minute or two. 

The roar of water, the gurgle of the drain, the battering of drops, it all pressed on him. But above it, in his heart, was the echo of Abi’s voice.

“Jeremy? I’m home!”

He sobbed, clung tighter, and prayed she would come before the storm of water finished him once and for all, he was starting to get tired and didn’t know how long he could hold on…