“Please follow me, gentlemen.” The prison guard hollered down the hallway. Bradley felt like he was walking on death row, what with his orange jumpsuit and the sullen silence of the rest of the inmates behind him, following in a neat line. Bradley looked up. The ceiling stretched well above him, at least 5 times as high as him, but to the security guard (a young hispanic woman who must have been in her late twenties), it was easily within touching distance. She stood at least double Bradley’s size, with his face only just being level with her enormous rear, which strained against the thin fabric of her dark blue guard’s uniform.

There were three of them in total. Bradley didn’t know any of their names, but he had seen them in and around the juvy he’d been staying at for the last two weeks. He hadn’t strictly been ‘imprisoned’’ as such, but he had certainly received a warning, and the two weeks juvy wasn’t even his sentencing. The real punishment was soon to come.

Bradley, like most men now, was truly afraid of women. They ran everything: the Police; the schools; the government. Every possible position of power was held by a woman, because men were seen to be violent, irrational and incapable.

“Come on, shrimps. Keep up.” The guard pressed, turning her head to watch as the little men, no taller than three feet, waddled behind her with their chains around their ankles. She gave a playful pull on the chain in hand, attached to the three of them, and laughed as Bradley fell to his knees. “I never said you could take a break, shortcake!” she cackled as he staggered back to his feet.

As the woman scanned her I.D. card on the security gate at the end of the hall, the metal door screeched open, and Bradley and the other prisoners followed her into what looked like an interview room. She closed the gate behind them, and the three of them were gestured to take a seat in a set of miniature chairs, facing a larger, normal sized one.

Bradley reluctantly dropped onto the chair, swinging his legs inches above the floor. These chairs were most likely made for children; as if Bradley needed to feel any more patronised than he already did.

“Hey man,” the young man next to Bradley whispered. “What have they got you in for?” He couldn’t have been any older than Bradley was: seventeen or so but before Bradley could respond the security guard reached over and grabbed the man by his hair, pulling him up slowly and lowering her lips to his ear.

“You’ll talk when I fucking tell you to, you little worm.” She hissed, before letting go and letting him drop back down heavily on his ass.

Bradley turned as he heard another door screech open behind him. An mature woman, maybe in her fifties, walked in and took a seat opposite the three young men. She towered over them like a mother over her young children.

She had a stern look about her, with a grey bob that framed her face and accompanied her seething, poisonous expression. This woman was business, and as such Bradley saw it fit to bite his tongue, for now at least.

“It never fails to disappoint me,” she began, “to see another batch of unteachable youths enter this facility.” She cast a judging eye over each of them, and settled her gaze on Bradley.

“Young men, who could be doing so much good with their lives, resorting to petty crime as a mean to get thrills, money or what they think is respect. You worms don’t know a fucking thing about respect. If you did, you wouldn’t be in this place…”

“Fuck you!” The boy next to Bradley hissed, and spat on the floor at the woman’s feet. She didn’t bat an eyelid, but simply clicked a finger and in a moment another guard was at her side with something in her hand.

“In case you weren’t already aware, young sir. I am the Governess of this establishment, and as such can do with you, whatever I please. So, with that in mind, was that an apology I heard?” She asked expectantly, burning into him with her gaze.

He spat on the floor again.

“Fuck. You.”

“So be it.” She sighed. “I do hate to see it go this way,” The governess sighed and took the item out of the guard’s hand. “But alas, I can’t stand rudeness.” The item in her clutches looked like a gun. She pointed it square at the boy’s chest and pulled the trigger. His expression went from confident to terrified in a second.

The gun didn’t fire anything, at least not that anyone could see, but instead began to click rapidly like a geiger counter.

“Hey!” He panicked. “What the hell are you d-”

It became obvious what was happening as soon as the trigger was pulled. The teen got smaller and smaller, slipping out of his cuffs, the size of a child, a baby, a bottle, before he could have been no more than three inches tall: a bug.

The governess looked at the clipboard on her lap.

“Mr. Peterson is it?” She asked as though she hadn’t just reduced him to a 12th of his size. He nodded, naked and afraid on the floor whilst the other two inmates, Bradley included, looked down at his tiny form like giants. The Governess began to scribble his name out on the clipboard.

“It was nice to meet you, Mr. Peterson, but I just feel like this programme isn’t for you.” She sighed, before clicking a the latina guard, who nodded in compliance.

The big bootied guard didn’t say a word as she stomped over to Mr. Peterson in her black leather combat boots. She just looked down at him with a smirk, before slowly raising her foot just long enough for his to start screaming, and then brought it down harshly on top of him. Bradley winced as he saw blood, bone and tissue ooze out from under the guard’s boot. She merely returned to her previous position, leaving the unrecognisable remains of Mr. Peterson on the floor, haunting Bradley’s field of vision.

Bradley stood by his earlier decision to keep his mouth shut.

“Now Gentlemen, I assume that you won’t be as troublesome as the late Mr. Peterson was?” The Governess asked nonchalantly as though she hadn’t just ordered his execution. Bradley and the other prisoner couldn’t shake their heads fast enough.

“Good.” She smiled. “That’s good news indeed.”

“Now, my job here today is to educate the three-.” She cleared her throat. “-two of you, on what rehabilitation is available to you and what exactly the foreseeable future will consist of for you. Does that sound good?”

Bradley and the other man nodded obediently.

“Good.” She said. “Then I have a film to show you.”

The second female guard wheeled in a computer screen which had started playing a video for the two prisoners.

“The final stretch of your incarceration stage is coming to a close, inmates. Welcome now, to the Rehabilitation Stage, where you will slowly be reintroduced back into the public with a new, can-do attitude and a willingness to contribute to society. This VT aims to educate you on the Do’s and Don’ts of the world, and how you can become a better you…” The narrator’s voice was cheesey and unbearable, but Bradley listened regardless.

“...the first stage of your rehabilitation will be to provide you with a mentor.” The camera panned to a young girl with a 3 foot man standing beside her. She patted him on the head whilst he looked up at her disdainfully. “Your mentor will be responsible for your safety, wellbeing and discipline.” The girl sat down and forced the man over her knee and started to spank him hard.

“The better you look after your mentor,” It cut to the man rubbing her feet as she laid in bed. “The better she will look after you.”

“As a male, you are naturally reduced to 50% of your height (an average of three feet) However you are a rehabilitating criminal, and as punishment you will be reduced to 30%, an average of 1.8 feet.” Bradley scoffed at this. As if he wasn’t small enough already.  

“Those who reoffend will suffer one of three fates. Minor re-offenders will be committed to menial, laborious tasks in the household, and will live as pets. They aren’t permitted to wear clothes and must obey their owner without questions. Their human rights are downgraded to animal rights. As well as this they are reduced to 20% height, about 1.2 feet tall.” The girl was now stood next to an even smaller, naked man, who she was dragging around the house on a leash. His head height was just below her knee.

“Those who reoffend with crimes of a more serious nature are sold at auction as either dolls for little girls, or toys of a different nature for adults.” The video showed the girl dressing a little man up as a princess, before her mother came over, stripped him off and went into the bedroom, shutting the door behind her with a sexy smirk on her face. “These re-offenders will be reduced to 10% of their size, about 7 inches tall.”

Bradley’s concern grew with each second he saw of this video.

“For those offenders who are not allowed to be released back into society, of which there are plenty, you will be shrunk down to 1% of your size, about ¾ of an inch, and you will be sold in bulk as snacks for wealthy women. You will be consumed at the leisure of the public, who not only get a tasty treat, but also get to help bring down prison populations.” The video cut to another man who was half the size of the young girl’s pinky as she dangled him between her fingers above her gaping mouth.

“Little Becky here will be full soon if she keeps this pace up!” The narrator laughed as Becky dropped the poor man into her mouth and devoured him with one crunch of her teeth, extinguishing his life with little to no effort.

“So with these tips in mind, gentlemen, have a good rehabilitation. We'll see you on the other side!” The narrator signed off cheerily before the video cut out. The guard wheeled the computer screen away again, leaving Bradley with the stony face of the Governess before him.

“So, you lucky boys, would you like to meet your mentors?”