- Text Size +

" Today is the day." Maddison enthusiastically told herself as means of encouragement. As a 16 year old junior in high school she was faced with every ailment that these roller coaster teen years provided. Fitting in, hormones, defining herself, fitting in, her future, fitting in, and most importantly fitting in. Social scientists theorize that your perception of yourself comes from how others perceive you, that's something Maddison was far too familiar with. From the first day of Freshmen year it was difficult for her to find her place, although many described her as attractive, having long dark brown hair with her bangs kept out her face with a hairpin, and a preppy manner of dress sporting various kinds of plaid skirts, leggings, and solid colored tops. Things go awry for her in regards to her utter lack of social experience.

 

Her parents had to relocate frequently doing working in labs, doing field-work, etc. thus rarely had time to spend with her. Because she had to move so frequently in between school years or mid-semesters occasionally, Maddison never was able to form any long-lasting friendships.

 

What Maddison did have in place of social skills was an uncanny knowledge of science from biology, physics, engineering, chemistry, etc. Having the parents of such science workaholics they made sure to start educating Maddison from an early age and the rare times that they were home, it was mainly spent drilling her on the periodic table, definitions of words, and other monotonous tasks to improve her knowledge. When her parents were away, while assuring she was well-cared for by Nanny's until she could take care of herself they gave her plenty of busy work to train her mind. The closest things to friends Maddison ever had was a set of barbie dolls she received for Christmas one year when she was 10, at the time it was the most amazing thing she's ever experienced. She acted out all sorts of scenarios with them, dressed them up in different clothes, she loved giving them their own back stories pretending like they were real people. Unfortunately, at the end of the day Maddison always remembered just that, they weren't real and she would never have the opportunity to play with actual people. As the years progressed in school her lack of social ability began showing more, and people simply wrote her off as a weirdo, geek, or science freak at how well she performed.

 

Ironically enough the class she was in now, was Chemistry and the class was in the middle of a test. Whereas every other student had faces of mental strain and others ready to give up, Maddison disinterestedly finished her test within the first few minutes, finding the questions and chemical equations mediocre at best. Instead she was doodling away on a spare piece of paper provided, of all the things she would like to do with other people. One in particular.

 

Speaking of the devil, Maddison's eyes lit up as there she was, Erin Young sauntering in late to class. " You're late again." The teacher said in an unimpressed tone given that he's had this conversation many times with Erin.

 

" Detention, yeah, yeah." Erin completed for him, already aware of what he was going to say. She grabbed the chemistry test and sat in the back alone. Maddison saw her as the opposite of herself, Erin was known to be fierce, confident (bitchy to some), and a stone cold loner. She possessed a striking look from her steely gray eyes, accentuated by her black eyeliner and bleach blonde hair, left some people calling her a witch as joke. While Maddison hated that she came off as so awkward and eccentric, she admired Erin's "I don't give a fuck vibe" that she gave off, and wondered if she could just maybe befriend her. It's not like she hadn't tried . ..several times, it's just that every attempt Maddison made to speak to her was met with a "fuck off ". Every attempt to sit by her was met by Erin simply leaving and sitting somewhere else alone.

 

Maddison was confident though that today would change all that. What made today different from all other days? Sheer luck! A week ago the teacher assigned the students a project which required them to form some kind of demonstration of any of the principles or laws that they've learned in class so far. While initially appearing like busy work to someone like Maddison, the eye catching part was that the assignment was to be done in pairs, and like today Erin showed up late. As punishment the teacher hand picked her partner, and it was none other than Maddison herself! Needless to say Erin was not happy about this, knowing that it gave Maddison a legitimate reason to talk to her.

 

This was the last class of the day, so Maddison knew that after it was done Erin would have to stay behind and complete her detention sentence. Knowing that Maddison finished turned in her test and waited outside of the classroom. Eventually all the other students left leaving Erin by her lonesome, save for the teacher and now it was time to play the waiting game.

 

Maddison was checking her phone constantly for the time, each time thinking a half hour went by, only turning out to be around 5-10 minutes. Erin was the only one in there too, which made it even better since Maddison wouldn't have to worry about losing her in a crowd which Erin has done if it meant avoiding Maddison's never ending quest to chat with her. At last it was 4:00 pm. and the door opened. Erin walked out and was immediately disheartened to see the bright and lively eyes of Maddison staring at her.

 

" You've got to be shitting me, what are you a stalker!?" Erin was already irritable and seeing Maddison is doing nothing to remedy it.

 

" I figured we should go and work on our project!" Maddison suggested before Erin became incoherently angry.

 

" I'd rather take the F then work with you, now get out of my way." Erin made her stance clear and bumped her way past Maddison preparing to leave, but the latter wasn't about to give up so easily.

 

" W-wait, you don't have to do anything it's already done!" She explained while running to catch up with Erin.

 

" Then I fail to see what the problem is! I hope you don't expect me to like you for doing a project for me!"

 

" No (yes)! Look I only want you t-" Maddison began explaining and put a hand on Erin's shoulder to stop her, but immediately felt an impact strike her face.

 

" Don't fucking touch me, bitch!" Erin shook the hand she had just used to slap Maddison and stared at the shocked girl with a gaze that could freeze hell over. Maddison simply stared wide-eyed, she was expecting resistance from Erin, but nothing like that and over the mere act of touching her on the shoulder no less.

 

Erin sucked her teeth and turned around. " Now if you don't mind, I'll be going."

 

Even after being struck Maddison still wasn't ready to relent. " You know the teacher is going to want a demonstration of our project, all I need is for you to come over to my place to show you how it works so he doesn't expect I did all the work. That's it, and I won't bother you anymore."

 

Erin wanted to keep walking and ignore the nuisance, however the chance to finally satiate Maddison and be done with it was very tempting. A half an hour headache in exchange for being left alone for good was a small price to pay. " You promise you won't ever try to sneak up on me, follow me, or any of that other crap you do?" Erin asked for confirmation.

 

" I promise." Maddison affirmed.

 

Erin took an audible exhale, letting her know that she still didn't want to do this but was willing to endure the pain. " Fine, where are we going."

 

" To my place follow me." Maddison meekly said using everything in her mental restraints to not leap for joy and hug Erin, who knows how she'd react to that if only touching the girl's shoulder earned her a slap.

 

Maddison didn't live too far from the school so the girls walked home, she knew it was far too soon to act buddy-buddy with Erin already so she decided to keep quiet and give Erin her space. What Maddison was more concerned with was what she was going to show Erin, it would be great. From all the years she spent playing with her dolls, there was something so interesting about playing among them, given that the dolls were only about a foot tall, Maddison felt like she was an un-ignoreable presence whenever she did act out whatever fantasy with them. The awkward part of it though always came back that they were abiotic, unable to move unless she made them, what would it be like to actually have someone doll sized capable of moving on their own, thinking for themselves, and playing along side them? Maddison thought it would be nothing short of amazing and strangely appealing of all the things that would be possible and the prospect of playing with an actual little person that wasn't a lifeless doll consumed her thoughts for years. So at the age of 13 she finally found application for all the things she's learned, making a device that could reduce matter. It took ages for her to work out how to make it, the proper equations, trial and error to get the results she wanted. Most importantly who she wanted to use it on. It was making Maddison giddy at the thought of how awesome it would be for her to play with Erin and she was sure Erin would be thrilled at the possible things they could do together.

 

The girls entered Maddison's house, Erin noticed how empty it looked, certain rooms like the living room which were bare, save for cardboard boxes where some were open and others were sealed shut. Like the other students she knew how often Maddison moved, so she supposed her folks didn't see much point in decorating or personalizing the house. If it was herself, she'd probably find it creepy to live in this big house alone, all the open space making it feel noticeably desolate. If she didn't find Maddison as annoying as she did, she'd ask for her thoughts on it, but she wanted to keep conversation at a bear minimum.

 

Erin followed Maddison upstairs and, the latter let Erin walk into her room first. It was a polar contrast to the majority of the house. Erin looked down and saw small articles of clothing that look like belonged to dolls and her suspicions were confirmed when she saw a few toys strolled on the ground. On a far end across from the bed, was a dresser with a mirror attached and several cosmetic products lying on top. What seemed most out of place from everything was a desk that was a few on another side of the room, there were several pieces of balled up paper, screws, a hammer, stray pens, like a little workshop right in her bedroom. " She really is a geek". She thought.

 

" Well hurry up and show me what you need to show me." Erin asked impatiently.

 

" Alright, so all I need you to do is stand right there." Maddison said, she opened a drawer at her desk, and there was her pride and work of the last 3 years. It was complete and she knew exactly who she wanted to use it on, to be honest she had only used it on random bugs outside during test runs, however this is the first time she'd used it on a person.

 

Erin watched Maddison who had her back turned who seemed to be fumbling with something and wanted to put an end to this already. " Show me what the hell you need to show m- . . !!" She began to shout, but mid-way Maddison turned around and had what appeared to be some kind of gun pointed at her!? Erin backed up a few paces, was she about to be killed?! " What the hell are you doing . ." She asked apprehensively, Maddison didn't answer and instead just pulled the trigger.

 

A bright flash occurred that blinded Erin who covered her eyes and stumbling about trying to keep her balance. " WHAT THE FUCK!" She screamed, while feeling her equilimbrium getting worse by the second. Maddison watched with wonder her mouth nearly agape as she saw it happening, Erin was gradually getting smaller and smaller. It was unbelievable when in seconds someone who was only a few inches north of 5 feet tall ended up as a mere 2 feet.

You must login (register) to review.