*ding dong* Steve rung the doorbell twice before making sure he didn't accidentally leave any of his things in his car. 

"Lets see..Toiletries, board games, snacks...."

As the eighteen year old finished double checking his inventory, the front door opened.

"Oh! Wonderful you're early!" A frazzled woman rushed past the teen carrying a load of bags. 

"Turns out the party we're attending was just moved up a whole hour!" The woman rattled off as she and her husband quickly ran over to their car and began to pack it with party goods.

"Josh is upstairs playing video games in his room. Also I left money for takeout on the kitchen counter. Oh and if anything goes wrong you can just call us! Oh and.....-"

"Honey, I'm sure he can handle it. We really gotta get going... " the husband quickly interrupted his anxiety ridden wife.

Realizing how crazy she must have sounded, the woman simply waved goodbye and closed the door behind her. 

As the car sped out of the driveway and zoomed down the street, the teen was left standing in front of the open door with a hanging jaw. 

"Almost as crazy as my parents... neat." the teen laughed to himself as he walked inside and closed the door behind him. 

Kicking off his shoes and pulling the bags off his shoulder Steve took a good look around and took a breath of the familiar scent. 

It wasn't the first time the teen had babysat for Josh, but the fourth in fact.

When he first met the ten year old, he seemed rather quiet and to himself, but it didn't take long before he came out of his shell and became strongly attached.  Though Josh was overall very friendly and sweet, it quickly became apparent that he was also a bit of a mischief maker; often hiding some of Steve's belongings and leaving things like legos in the teen's shoes. Regardless, Steve knew that his behavior was likely linked to the fact that he was an only child and his parents were always busy running around.

Dropping his keys on top of his bags, Steve made his way up the wooden staircase to the hall where the boy's room was only a few steps to the left.

There on the opposite side of the room was a familiar sight. Josh sitting cross-legged on the wooden floor, playing a video game on his ps3. He was wearing a yellow tee shirt with light brown shorts and socks.

"Yo Josh" Steve called

The boy swung his head around with delight.

"STEEEVE!!" Josh beamed as he tosses his controller to the side and ran over to the teen.

The two preformed their newly developed four-part handshake and laughed.

"So, how've you been bud?"

"REMEMBER THAT LEVEL I COULDN'T BEAT LAST TIME?"

"You beat it?"

"YEAH!! And now I'm on this new level with this crazy blue lava and there's this guy who-..."

The excited kid continued to go on and on about his adventures in the video game his parents recently bought him.

Steve had never actually had a younger sibling of his own, so the young boy's boundless enthusiasm was all still very novel to him.

Once Josh had finished his story, Steve took the opportunity to ask what he would want to have for dinner.

"PIZZA!" Josh was quick to declare.

Steve wasn't surprised. The last time he ordered pizza the kid scarfed down nearly half the pie by himself.

"You got it!, oh.. but wait...." Steve's tone changed as he playfully glared at the boy

"I'll get you pizza if you PROMISE me there won't be any funny business tonight... alright?

"Okay okay sure!!" The boy smiled as he crossed his fingers behind his back; clearly already having planned his next prank in advance.

The night seemed to continue on smoothly from there. The two played games together, watched a movie, and even made a fort in the living room.

As both boys sat on the couch watching late-night cartoons, the doorbell rung.

"ooo, sounds like the pizza is here!" Steve smiled as he got off the couch.

"Finallyyyy! I'm starving!" the boy shouted.

Opening the front door, the teen paid for the pizza, and carried the box back to the kitchen. As he began to walk over to the counter to get the plates ready....

DING DONG

The doorbell rang a couple of times consecutively, almost as if with a sense of urgency.

"Huh...? Did I not pay him properly..?" Steve slowly walked back and opened the door.

To the teen's confusion, there was no one there. The delivery car was gone and everything.

"Huh....that's odd..." The eighteen year old was about to turn back around when he noticed a cardboard box on the welcome mat.

"What the..." Steve reached down and lifted the average sized box. Giving it a small shake he turned back into the house, closing the door behind him.

Once in the light, he realized that the box had no labels or any indication of where it came from or who it was for.

"Weird..." He muttered to himself as he placed the box by the foot of the stairs. Stepping back into the kitchen, Steve found that Josh was already making quick work of the pizza they had ordered. The young boy finished chowing down a slice before leaning back and sighing with content.

"Hey, Josh, did your parents say they were expecting a package tonight?" The teen asked out of interest.

"Nope" 

"Awh well, whatever then"

——

Time passed after they finished their dinner, and It wasn't long before the boys began watching cartoons again.

"I'm booooored" Josh groaned as a rerun of the same cartoon they saw last week started to play.

"I brought board games" Steve suggested.

"Board games are laaaame" Josh began to slide off the couch backwards with his head touching the floor.

That was when Steve remembered the strange box that had arrived earlier.

"Hey, wanna open the package that arrived earlier...?"

"Package..?" Josh questioned with curiosity.

"Here I'll show you..." 

Steve and Josh left the couch and walked over to the box by the staircase.

"I don't think it's for your parents. It might have got sent here by mistake"

It only took a moment of pokes and prods before Josh excitedly exclaimed:

"LETS OPEN IT!!"

Steven couldn't deny that he was also about curious about the contents of the mysterious box.

"Alright, lets take it up to your room.." Steve advised

———

Steve plopped the box down on Josh's desk next to a clutter of trading cards and candy wrappers.

Grabbing a pair of scissors, the teen sliced open the top, revealing a layer of Styrofoam pellets with a notice n top.

"Congratulations! You've been randomly selected to be one the first to try Adventure Co 's first line of perspective enhancing adventure sets! In order to operate, please allow a minute for warm up. When ready to begin, please make physical contact with the set's stereoplasmic barrier. In case of operational failure or emergency, please contact 635-xxx-xxxx"

"Perspective enhancing.... Stereoplasmic barrier? What IS this...?" Steve began to wonder if this was all just one of Josh's pranks. However, the teen quickly dropped the suspicion after noticing the boy genuinely didn't look like he had anything to do with it.

"well... lets see here..." Steve reached into the Styrofoam pellets, until his hands made contact with something sturdy.

Pulling the object out, both boys stared with equal confusion.

It was a model house, roughly about the size of a large gingerbread house, or something you'd see as a part of a Christmas village set.

The house itself didn't look very festive; just an average two-story suburban home; The only difference being that it had an AC chord attached to the back.

After placing the tiny house on the desk , Josh examined it with disappointment.

"Laaaaame" Doll houses are for girls!

"Heh, yeah, sorry bud, I kinda expected something cooler too..." Steve exclaimed. 

Still curious about what the instructions had said, Steve decided he might as well plug it in.

Pulling the chord over the side of the desk, the teen found a nearby outlet and jammed it in.

Steve stared at the house for a moment, expecting the lights to turn on or something.

....

"Nothing..."

Josh had already lost all interest and was setting up his playstation on the other side of the room.

"pfft, talk about false advertising..., Kudos for the creative nonsense though..." The teen sighed; leaning over to unplug it from the wall.

Suddenly, just as he was about to pull the plug, a glowing green dome of light surrounded the house, causing the teen to fall over in shock.

The light quickly caught the attention of Josh who immediately ran over in awe.

"Woaaaah!, how did you do that?!" The boy peered closer to the strange transparent barrier that had formed around the house.

"Not sure... I guess we just needed to wait for it to warm up like the instructions said.."'

As Josh was about to poke the green screen of light, Steve grabbed his hand and pulled it away.

"Wait, I'm not sure it's safe...Here, lets test it first..."

The teen grabbed a pencil and poked the barrier to no effect. The pencil just seemed to pass right through as if it were merely a regular projection of light. 

Placing the pencil down, Steve scratched his head and reached out to poke the light with his other hand.

"Huh, I guess it's just a regula-..." 

The moment his finger made contact, everything that was once in front of him suddenly disappeared, almost as if he had been instantly been teleported to another place entirely. 

"W-w.....what..." Steve was frozen in place, still in the same pose with his finger extended forward.

To the teen's shock, what now stood looming a few yards in front of him was a life-sized version of the house he had just taken out of the box. 

"What a minute.. what... how?....?!" 

That was when he noticed something even stranger, the floor he was standing on was made of glossy  wood. Totally surrounding him and the house was a transparent green fog. Just beyond it, he could make out what looked like a giant indoor stadium ..or..

"No...there's no way.." Steven began to tremble as he felt a warm gust flow past him from behind, making his clothes flutter. The sudden scent of pizza filled his nostrils. 

The teen turned around to see that the green fog was actually the green barrier, and just beyond it was a massive face, Josh's face. 

Steve could do nothing but stand frozen as Josh's eyes focused in on him as his enormous face leaned in closer and closer, seemingly growing larger and more threatening.

"Wooooooooooooooow" The massive mouth in front of him released a hot gust of humid air that flowed right past the barrier. 

It was just too much to take in at once, the older teen jolted, only to trip over himself and fall face first into the wall. 

Just like that, everything returned to normal. Steven nearly fell on top of the boy who had been peering in off of the edge of the desk. 

"THAT WAS AWESOME!!!" Josh exclaimed as Steve began recovering from the sudden, frightening experience.

The teen patted himself, to make sure he was really okay and in one piece. 

"I WANNA TRY!" Josh turned around to poke the green light

"NO WAIT! STOP!" Steve yelled, causing Josh to pause. 

"Look, I don't think we should be messing around with this..., I'm not sure it's safe.." The teen  cautioned.

"Awww, but the letter said it was okay to play with!" 

"We don't even know where this thing came from Josh..."

"Pleaassee!! This is like the coolest thing ever! I want to get small and see what's inside!" 

Steve sighed for a moment and gave it some thought. He really couldn't wrap his mind around what had just happened to him, but he had to admit it was pretty amazing. 

Though his better judgment was telling him otherwise, he couldn't help but share Josh's curiosity. Perhaps there really WAS something special inside the house.

"PLEEEASSE" Josh pleaded on his knees.
.......
...

"O-okay, we can give it a try... but only after a quick look inside... alright? Then that's it, got it?"

"YEAH! Lets do it!" Josh cheered excitedly.

Both boys walked up to the desk and prepared to poke the light at the same moment. 

Ready?....Go!

With a flash, Steve had returned to the strange humongous world he was in before, only this time with Josh by his side.

"COOOOOOL!!" The excited ten year old's eyes lit up  as he ran around the surface of the desk in front of the house. 

Steve slowly walked up to the doorway of the house. He couldn't help but be fascinated by the incredible detail of everything from the door knob to the hinges. 

Pulling the door open, Steve hesitantly stepped inside. Josh quickly rushed passed him and began to explore. 

"Okay, Just be careful and don't touch anything weird looking.." The teen warned.

"This is insane...." Steve whispered to himself as he walked around the incredibly realistic home. He quickly noticed that pretty much all the furniture was fixed to the floor to avoid anything from falling over. 

After taking a good look at the living room, the Steve decided to see what it looked like upstairs. As he reached the upstairs hallway, he found himself almost forgetting that he was barely an inch or so in size. He 
stepped into a bedroom and shook his head in disbelief. It was all just so real looking. 

As Steve continued to explore the upstairs, Josh made his way around the downstairs rooms. The boy eventually found himself in a play-room with a chest filled with loose toys. 

("Cooool, I wonder if I can bring some of this stuff back with me...") He thought to himself as he picked up a small figureine.

As he began thinking about which toy he wanted take back with him, the boy noticed the sound of Steve walking around upstairs just above him. 

Josh was staring at a miniature fireman in the  toy chest when a 'funny' idea came to his mind. 

The ten year old thought about it for a moment before grinning playfully. Picking himself off the floor, the he quietly snuck out of the playroom and exited the front door of the house. 

Meanwhile, Steve was still in an upstairs bedroom examining all the little trinkets and furniture.

As he marveled at the small clock on the dresser, the teen remembered that he never intended to stay this long.

"Hey Josh, I think it's about time we got going!" Steve shouted as began to walk out of the bedroom. 

.....
...

"Josh?"

As Steve stood in the silent hallway, something strange caught his attention. 

The electronic humming noise that the house had been emitting ever since being plugging in suddenly faded;  as if powering down.

"What the...." Suddenly the teen noticed that he could no longer see the green light that had been surrounding the house through a nearby hallway window....

Before he could make sense of what was happening, the entire house began to suddenly shift. 

Steve screamed as he fell over onto the floor. 

"oww..." he rubbed his head as he tried to pick himself back up.

.....

"COOL IT REALLY WORKED!!!" A massive voice boomed outside the walls of the house followed by a childish giggle. 

Steve backed up against the wall in fear as he saw a massive hazel colored eye staring at him from the window. 

Before he could do anything, the entire house tilted, causing him to slide down the hallway and staircase. Luckily he wasn't injured, but it would likely leave some bruises.. 

Grabbing a hold of the railing, the teen watched as the front door across the room popped open. 

"Come on oooouuut~" The boyish voice boomed cheerfully, causing the walls to tremble. 

Beyond the door, Steve could see what looked like a massive open palm waiting for him. 

The house continued to shake up and down until Steve could no longer hold on. He screamed as he slid across the living room floor to the open door. 

Before sliding straight out the house, he managed to grab onto the door frame, leaving him dangling helplessly. 

"SOOOO COOOOOL~"
Steve turned his head fearfully to see Josh's young, god-like face grinning widely at him.

In the shock of the moment, the teen let go, free-falling until landing with a soft 'plop'.

Having successfully won his prize, Josh placed the house on the floor.

Steve was surrouneded by the soft, fleshy hills of Josh's massive palm. The warmth that radiated from beneath him almost felt surreal. 

"J-Josh, how did you... WHAT DID YOU DO!!?" Steve screamed up at the titanic youngster with anger and unease. 

"NEAT!!! I WASN'T SURE IF UNPLUGGING IT WOULD REALLY LEAVE YOU LIKE THIS" The boy giggled at Steve's tiny form struggling to stand in his hand.

"YOU WHAT?!?!" Steve let out a tiny scream.

" AT FIRST I WAS JUST GOING TO TAKE ONE OF THE TOYS FROM THE HOUSE BACK WITH ME...., BUT NOW I HAVE YOU!!! THIS IS AWESOME!!

 "JOSH, THIS ISN'T FUNNY! You have to fix this NOW!!" Steve yelled back in anger

 Unfortunately, Josh didn't seem to be taking the teen seriously at all.

The giant boy carried his tiny babysitter over to his bed where he tilted his palm over, causing him to tumble on to the comforter. 

"JOSH!!!" Steve yelled. 

"I ACTUALLY HAD ANOTHER PRANK PLANNED FOR TONIGHT, BUT THIS IS WAAAY BETTER!!" The giant boy laughed.

"I'M TELLING YOU, THIS ISN'T FUNNY JOSH!"

Josh just stood there staring down at the tiny teen on his bed for a moment before a childish thought came to his mind. 

The boy giggled as he turned around and began to sit. 

Steve watched in horror as the boy's tush swallowed him in it's shadow, looming overhead like a sky.

"NO! JOSH STOP!! WAIT JOSH!!!" 

"WATCH OUT STEVE, I DON'T WANT TO ACCIDENTALLY SIT ON YOOOOU~" Josh giggled playfully. 

Steve knew he had to run, or risk being crushed. He didn't know if Josh was being serious, or simply didn't understand the kind of danger that sitting on him could cause him at his size. 

The teen began to run desperately as the back of the light-brown shorts descended towards him. 

It quickly became obvious that he wasn't going to outrun it. Steve simply braced himself and screamed as the vast plump tush smothered him completely. 

Josh could only slightly make out his tiny babysitters struggles, but just enough to make him laugh hysterically. The kid couldn't believe he had a tiny person under his butt. 

After a few moments, Josh stood up and smiled down at Steve who was gasping for breath in the imprint of his backside, but still very much alive. 

"JOsh....please...enough..this isn't ..funny..."

Not able to make out Steve's feint begging, Josh slid his hand across the side of the bed, pushing him into his other palm. 

"LETS GO PLAY DOWNSTAIRS"

"NO JOSH!!! PLEASE!!" Steve cried as he watched the house fade away in the distance as the giant boy left his room, clasping his fingers over the unfortunate teen. 

Steve struggled in the dark, hot confines of the fist as the boy made his way down the stairs.

—

Before Josh could think of a fun game they could play, something distracted him. 

"OOO we still have pizza left!" Josh's stomach grumbled as he smelled the left-over pizza in the kitchen.

Quickly grabbing a slice, he took a seat on the couch in the living room so he could watch TV with his meal. It turned out a brand new episode of his favorite cartoon had just started.

"Here, you stay here so I can keep an eye on you!!" Josh placed Steve at crust end of his pizza. 

"UGGHH~" Steve almost immediately found himself getting stuck to the cheese.

As the show began, Josh took a big bite, smiling widely at the tiny teen on the other side of his pizza, knowing very well how scared he probably was.

Around five minutes later, Josh took another bite, smirking again as he made eye contact with Steve before lowering the slice back down to his lap. 

Another five minutes went by, and with it another bite. However, this bite was different. Unlike before, Josh didn't look down to play with Steve, his eyes remained focused on the tv, and his expression suggested that he was totally engrossed in his show. 

Not even a few second passed before he took another bite, this one threateningly large, chomping off a good portion of the pizza.

Steve was starting to become concerned for the boy's lack of caution as his bites became more continuous and absent-minded. 

(He couldn't really forget that I'm here.... right?) 

Josh always had a short attention span, but surely the cartoon wouldn't distract him from something so important. 

After the next bite, only the crust and a thin strip of cheese remained.

Swallowing the mouthful, Josh turned the remaining crust horizontally and chomped it in half ; a mere centimeters from  the tiny teen.

"J-JOSH!!! PLEASE!!! I'M STILL HERE!! JOSSH!!

At this point, there was only a bite-sized peice of pizza remaining. Little Steve continued struggling frantically in a small area of cheese. 

Just as the final scene of the cartoon began to take place, Josh lifted the final piece up to his vacant maw. 

Steve screamed for the Josh to look down as the giant's lips parted and his breath washed over him .

The final piece passed the soft cavernous lips,  instantly getting draped over by a tendril of saliva that had been dripping down from the center of the pallet to the tongue below.

Just as Josh was about to let go and casually polish off his post-dinner snack, the credits began to roll and he snapped back to reality.

He quickly pulled the piece out and sighed with relief. 

"SORRY ABOUT THAT, I TOTALLY FORGOT ABOUT YOU" The boy giggled innocently.

Steve couldn't believe how carefree he was being, especially after nearly consuming him. 

Josh let out a yawn, signaling that he was finally beginning to get tired.

"PLEASE JOSH! You gotta take me back to that house!!"

"Hmm, okay, but first I kinda wanna take a nap...."

"NAP!? WHAT ARE Y- MMFF!!" The teen was muffled as the boy close him within his fist again. 

On his way to the staircase, Josh grabbed one of Steve's sneakers,  giggling to himself while doing so. 

Upon reaching his bedroom, Josh opened his fist and smiled down at the exhausted teen.

"While I'm napping, you can stay in a special place!" The giant giggled as he lowered his hand over the entrance of the sneaker. 

"W-wAIT STOP! JOSH !!!" Steve screamed as he tumbled over the palm, into the dark abyss his own sneaker. 

The teen landed with a small thud on the spongy, worn surface of the sole. 

The sheer size of cavern was astonishing. Steve couldn't believe that his own feet were normally large enough to fit snuggly in such an immense place. He was just glad that his younger brother wasn't around, who would often borrow his sneakers on occasion. Just imagining his sixteen year old sibling stuffing his foot in while he was still trapped inside sent a shiver down his spine.

Josh placed the sneaker on the desk across from his bed.

"Hehe, see you when I wake up!" The ten year old smiled, clearly not yet finished playing his little game of giant. 

Crawling into bed, the boy yawned once more before drifting into a sound sleep. 

"I gotta get out of here....." the eighteen year old gulped as he stared at the darkness leading to the toe section. That was certainly the LAST place he wanted to go.

Steve's survival mode went into overdrive as he began to attempt scaling the inner lining of the adidas sneaker. 

As he made progress, he would occasionally stare up at the exit high above, involuntarily imagining a socked foot appearing out of no where and literally sealing his fate. 

Two minutes passed before he eventually reached the top, getting a good view of the room around him. 

There on the floor was the house, his only chance of fixing this. Sliding down tongue of his adidas, the teen carefully crawled over the side, landing on the desk surface. Fortunately, there was a lamp on the desk which was connected to a wire that the teen could travel on to safely reach the floor. He knew he didn't have much time before Josh awakened, so he had to work fast. 

Quickly after reaching the hardwood floor, he ran towards the outlet and began the near-impossible challenge of lifting the plug back into the outlet. At his size it was quite a daunting struggle, but with enough effort he actually managed to just barely slide it in snuggly. 

He could hear the house beginning to warm up a distance away, so he bolted across the floorboard before the barrier could arise. 

Stepping through the familiar doorway, the teen couldn't help but collapse on the living room couch; mostly from sheer exhaustion, but partly because it gave him a sense of the normalcy he had been yearning.

Steve wasn't sure how he was going to proceed after he got big again, but he knew that Josh was going to have to answer big time for what he had pulled. (no pun intended)

As he finally felt his energy coming back, the teen noticed that something wasn't right. For some reason the barrier hadn't risen yet. Something was wrong. 

He waited for another few moments before accepting that something was DEFINITELY wrong. 

"COMMON YOU STUPID HOUSE, WORK!!!" The teen screamed in futility. 

It was at that moment that he noticed a strange latch in the wall behind the couch that had likely been knocked open when Josh had been shaking the house earlier. Pulling it completely open, Steve found what looked like a green generator. Likely the source of the house's barrier. 

Frustrated and running out of time, Steve began to pound on it.

"WORK!! WORK YOU HUNK OF JUNK WOOOORK!" 

After a particularly forceful slam, the generator started to beep. 

"....Did that...work? Is it wor-..?." 

Before he could finish the thought, there was a huge flash that forced him to cover his face.

After opening his eyes, he noticed text flashing across the generator's console.

[ERROR. ERROR. GENERATOR MALFUNCTION, SYSTEM CORRUPTED. NOW BEGINNING FACTORY SETTINGS RE-INSTALLATION. SYSTEM FUNCTION WILL RETURN MOMENTARILY]

"Malfunction?! What's that supposed to mean....?!" The teen turned to see if the barrier outside had returned.

What he saw instead made his heart skip a beat. The area outside the house looked different, stranger, more alien. As he pressed his face up against the window, it became horrifyingly apparent what had occurred. 

The bedroom was even huger than before. Somehow the malfunction had caused the entire house to shrink, him included. Based on the size of a far away marble in the distance, he could only determine that the house had shrunken to roughly the size of a cereal puff. 

Matters only became worse as Josh began to stir in bed. 

The teen ran back over to the generator only to find that it was going to take a little bit longer before automatically re-sizing the house back to normal. 

*YAAAWWN* The sleepy eyed boy let his legs dangle over the side of the bed.

"Crap! Hurry hurry hurry....!"  Steve chanted, as he prayed for the warm up to go faster.

Josh hopped to his feet and began to walk towards the desk, not even noticing the newly shrunken house on the floor ahead of him. 

The oncoming tremors nearly knocked Steve off of his feet.

"J-JOSH NO!!! DOWN HERE!!! LOOK!!!!" The speck sized teen frantically waved at the oncoming giant from behind the other side of the window.

The boy's socked feet fell casually against the wooden floor as he stepped closer and closer to the tiny house on the wide bedroom floor.

Josh was so close that Steve could no longer see past his ankles as he continued to stare out the window helplessly. 

 Just as Josh began raising his right foot into the air directly over the house, the generator beeped, signalling that the installation and warm-up had finished.

The shadowed underside of the sock was stretched tautly against the smooth, bulbous surface of the boy's sole as it loomed over head. 

"JOSH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Steve banged desperately at the window as a final attempt to catch the giant's attention.

Steve could finally hear the barrier begin to generate as the outside of the house started to glow a dim green; just bright enough to cast faint glow against the massive shadowy sole. This was it, almost there! just another......

*CRUNCH*

The boy's foot totally flattened the house to the floor like it was nothing; instantly snuffing out the soft green light.  

"Hmm?" Josh seemed confused by the small crunch under his right foot. 

Lifting his foot from the floor he looked down innocently at the flattened mess. Not really sure whether it was something of importance or perhaps just a discarded cocopuff, the boy simply used his foot to spread the mess across the floor so it wouldn't have to bother cleaning it up.