I woke to the sound of my cell phone going off from somewhere in the house, but before I could even crawl out of bed, it stopped. Annoyed that it had woken me, I sat upright and cleared my eyes.

      When my vision came around, I was absolutely astonished. Sure enough, I’d shrunk overnight. I had expected to lose a few inches, sure, but this was too much. I examined my arms and legs much to my dismay, and I learned that my rate of shrinking was obviously increasing. I turned to Evelyn.

      I was again shocked to find that overnight, my girlfriend had become a mountain. Her mass and girth dwarfed mine. She was still sleeping, with her back turned to me. I surveyed her body. Her hips and ass were like two swollen watermelons sitting on top of each other. Her feet, which were at the end of the bed when we fell asleep, were now hanging precariously off the bed, nearly touching the wall on the other side of the room. Her monstrous figure dominated our entire sleeping area. I honestly became a bit afraid of her at this size. What would have happened if she had merely decided to roll over last night?

      Frantically, I scrambled to find the tape measure. Horrified, I discovered I was barely 4 feet tall. I scampered into the bathroom and grabbed the scale. I weighed like 50 pounds. There were people on fad diets that lost more weight than what I weighed! I was honestly terrified, not necessarily because I was small, no, I was scared of the rate I was shrinking. I had been told it would slow significantly and stop. Losing a whole foot after 8 hours was not “slowing”.

      Nearly panic stricken, I ran back into the living room where Evelyn was. I climbed up onto the bed and started shaking her awake.

      “Evelyn! Evelyn, please wake up!” I pleaded. My pitiful attempts to budge her did little.

      Fuck it, I figured. I leapt off the bed and ran around to where her feet were. As I rounded the corner of the bed her lengthy feet came into view. I was awestruck at their sheer size compared to me. From my perspective her foot looked like it was well over two feet long!

      I grabbed a corner of one of the sheets and lightly tickled her foot with it. After several seconds I had successfully woke her up. I ran back around.

      She sat up and blinked before greeting me. “Hey, good morning Jack.”

      “Evy! Look at me.” I pleaded her.

       She examined me closely. “Say, you’re pretty short now. I wonder how tall I am?”

       She spun around and brought her feet down next to me. The room boomed softly as her feet met the floor. As she stood, she bonked her head on the ceiling.

      “OW!” She held her head and sat back down. Bits of sheetrock fell down onto the bed, and a crack formed in the ceiling.

      “Evelyn, honey, would you seriously focus!” I was getting rather impatient.

      Evelyn put her hands on her hips and frowned. “I don’t like that attitude you’ve got, shrimpy man.” Her hand shot out and grabbed my arm. She pulled me in close and gave me a big hug.

      “You need to calm down. Everything will be ok, I promise. You can trust me. I’ll call Valhalla, but first you’re going to need to measure me. I have to provide them some sort of data.”

      Since she was too tall to stand correctly, she had to lie down on the carpet. I ran the tape measure and discovered she was 10’2”. She had grown almost three feet overnight.

      She rolled over and sat up, cross legged. Even sitting, she was still taller than me. “How much?” she couldn’t mask her eager smile.

      “You’re huge.”

      “Oh c’mon!”

       I sighed, “Ten foot two.”

      “Yes!” she fist pumped in elation, “broke ten feet! I’m probably the tallest woman in the world, Jack.”

       The thought hadn’t occurred to me. I was likely dating the unofficial tallest woman in the world.

       “Screw that,” I replied, “you’re probably the tallest human ever, man or woman.”

       I could tell she was really enjoying this news, so I didn’t want to rain on her parade. As she moved into the kitchen to eat I began looking for my phone.

      I found it in our bedroom, in an old pair of pants. Flipping it open, I found I had 3 voice messages and many, many missed calls, all from a number I didn’t recognize. Thinking it may be Valhalla, I accessed my voice mail.

      Message 1: “Hey Jack, its Roxy. I’m standing outside your apartment right now, wondering where you are. If you’re there please answer, I’ve got your notes for class.”

      Message 2: “Jack, its Roxanne. I’m not sure why you’re not answering your phone, but this is sort of important. Please stop being a jerk and call me back.”

      Message 3: “Jack Bronson, you’re an asshole. I’ve been calling you for days, and this was REALLY important. However, you decided not to get a hold of me. You’ll regret this, you fucking prick… you’ll regret this.”

      Well if she wanted me to call her back, I certainly wasn’t going to now! I figured maybe it was for the best- at least she would stop hitting on me. I was a little pissed Valhalla hadn’t called.

      I went back to the living room. Evelyn was eating ravenously. Her appetite had grown proportionately with her, and it was nearly insatiable at this point. I watched her pop a bag of chips open, dump the entire contents of the bag into her mouth, and toss the empty bag aside before searching for more.

      “Evy, we should call Valhalla” I poked her in the side, trying to get her attention.

      “Not now Jack! You call them if you want to speak with them so bad,” she grumbled angrily. She reminded me of a hungry bear.

      Fine, be like that, I thought as I dialed the phone. I spoke quickly with a receptionist before I was forwarded to Dr. Yoshida.

      First, I explained the situation. Yoshida said my rapid height loss was actually pretty normal, and that it would slow somewhere around 3 or 3 ½ feet, where it would stop.

      Then, I asked how the cure was going. Dr. Yoshida said they were making some progress, but they had recently hit a bit of a roadblock that would delay them for another day or two at most. He told me not to worry, and to just stay home with the phone nearby. They would call if they needed me.

      Finally, I asked about Evelyn, and explained that she was eating unstoppably and growing rapidly. Again, the doctor explained that this was pretty normal, and she would likely stop at around 15-20 feet tall. He told me not to limit her diet and to keep her inside.

      I wasn’t totally satisfied, but I figured it was about as good an answer as I was going to get. I wished him luck on getting the cure before hanging up.
 Evelyn had finished off most of the available food in the kitchen, and insisted I go on another food run. I told her what the doctor had said and she nodded in response. She crashed on our makeshift bed as I left.

      I had difficulty driving, and had to adjust the car accordingly. I sped over to the grocery store- I had no desire to make this last any longer than it needed to.
 Working feverishly, I commandeered a cart and wheeled around the market, grabbing things left and right. Everything was even bigger than the other night, but I tried not to think about it. I attracted a few stares from the people at the store, but I didn’t care. My mission was to simply resupply and get out.

      I noticed that most of the stock was out in the Italian aisle, which was annoying. I was hoping to get a bunch of spaghetti noodles on the cheap to feed my girlfriend, but I had to settle for other things. I heaped my cart until I couldn’t fit anymore and headed to the checkout.

      When I made it through I noticed the cashier was the same cute girl as the night before. She had dirty blonde hair that was done up in a short ponytail and cute hoop earrings. The nametag on her smock read “Dana”.

     She recognized me. “Hey there you. Back for more?”

     “Oh, hey… Dana. Yeah I’m back.” I read her nametag, which was above eye level for me because I was barely taller than her bust line at this point.

       She smiled and started ringing me up. “All this stuff for you?” she asked. I could tell she had noticed I was rather small, and it seemed weird to her that I was getting all this food.

      “It’s not for me.” I tried bagging the food, but was running into the same problems I had the other night. The bags were just too heavy and high up.
 Dana noticed I was having trouble again and swooped in to assist. “I got those there fella. You just sit tight.” She quickly rang and bagged as she went. I appreciated it.

       “You guys are missing all your noodles- that’s pretty crazy. When are you getting restocked?”

       “Some big lady cleared us out last night. She must have had an appetite like you do.” Dana winked at me. “We should be getting a truck tomorrow, I think.”
 I smiled and paid as she finished bagging for me. She turned to me and grasped her hands in front of her smock, which pushed her breasts up a bit. “Thanks for stopping by. I’ll see you again sometime I’m sure.”

       “Most likely.” I quickly made an exit. Something about what Dana had said unnerved me. Life had taught me that my gut was usually right, so I examined her words closer. A big woman had cleared out the grocery store, and that sounded… a lot like Evelyn. I got chills thinking about it- living with a “big” woman had taught me a reasonable amount of fear.

      I played with the thought a bit more as I pulled into the parking lot for our apartment. Valhalla was still possibly looking for outbreaks, because people contracted the stimulant from personal contact. I figured it might be a good idea to call them and let them know what I’d heard. As I opened our mailbox to get our mail for the day, my thoughts jumped back to Dr. Yoshida’s words when he’d given me the neutralization shot. He’d asked if I had touched anyone. I had replied no because I’d stayed in the apartment the whole time.

       I flipped through the mail. Nothing but junk, just like yesterday. At least Roxanne wasn’t around to hit on me this time. 

       “Oh shit……………”